Wine and Rain
The next few days were spent in the pursuit of the perfect cycle touring schedule. One day we rode all of nine kilometres, and visited as many wineries. One rainy day, we visited the most beautiful winery location I have ever seen. High in the foothills, Bethany winery provided the perfect spot to watch curtains of gray rain, descending from blue black clouds, sweeping across endless rows of bright wet green grape vines disappearing into the valley mists. We bought a bottle of sweet Riesling and rode to the town oval (sports field), where we picnicked on crusty bread and brie. We rugged up and sat in the covered grandstands, let the Riesling warm the afternoon away in talk and snuggles.

 Lunch of scones, cheese, wine and pears in the Claire Valley.

We have notes of most of the wineries visited, but I promise not to bore you with such detail. Any wine lovers would be well served to give some of the Australian wines a go, they are quite good, and have a character of their own. Some wine regions are better for the whites and others better for the hearty reds

Just before Murray Bridge, on the lower Murray river, I discovered that our back rim was breaking, in the same manner as the first failure, in Western Australia. Another spoke was beginning to pull a section of rim away, neat as you please. Bugger. The problem was well beyond the capabilities of the local bike shop, so we boxed the wheel and sent it off to Adelaide to a bike shop where we’d had a bit of work done, and trusted. Paul Keen, in typical Paul fashion, jumped in to help out. He picked up the rim at the bus station, delivered it to Adrian at the bike shop. Adrian built us up a new wheel, using the tried and true Rhino rim this time, and had it ready for Paul next morning. Paul picked it us and delivered it to us, a 160 kilometre trip. That’s the Aussie way. Well and truly a mate, that Paul Keen!. We’ll  really miss Paul.