In January, hubby and I decided to get away on a mini adventure… that mini adventure turned into a 9+ hour road trip to Adelaide!

The night before our trip, we dropped the cats and dogs off at his parents house to pet-sit their grand-puppies and cats while we were away. Then, it was an early night for us before our alarms went off at 5am to get ready and on the road by 6.
In the middle of the night (3:50am) I was woken up… hubby couldn’t get back to sleep, so we were getting up super early to begin our trip!

We were ready and on the road before 5am, having packed all our bags and other items the night before (pillows, clothes, towels… you never know what you’ll need) and it was also our first time using Air BnB so we weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived. It was still pitch black when we left home and stayed that way for quite some time.
After a while, the sky started to (very slowly) lighten, and we waited in anticipation for the sunrise as it looked like an amazing day ahead. Not long after the sun rose, we stopped off at Stawell for petrol and breakfast at mighty Maccas. This McDonald’s would have to be the cleanest and nicest one I have ever been in – so if you’re planning a road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide, make this your stop, as every other stop we had was disgusting!

After about 20 minutes on the road, we stumbled across the Giant Koala. This thing was huge and quite scary with its red eyes staring at you. On the road again… 

As we had left so early, we were hoping to make a tour at the Naracoorte Caves, but as we kept driving, it slowly crept closer and closer to the start time… Then all of a sudden, Our phones were half an hour behind… we had crossed in to South Australia without knowing and now we were definitely going to make the tour (silly us forgot South Australia is half an hour behind us). As we raced through the backroads to Naracoorte Caves, we almost got lost as the signage was so small.

Soon we arrived to the site, and again, got lost as to where to go. The only visible signage was “CAUTION SNAKE SIGHTING” on a few cave entrances which made us a bit worried, but we ventured on and signed up to tour the Alexandra Cave Tour which goes for half an hour and is $22 per adult. It was a great and quick little tour which explored three different chambers where you could view stalactites, stalagmites and columns and they explain how they are formed.

For myself, I was enthralled by this little tour, and it felt very Tomb Raider-y being underground and seeing these caves and how nature has formed them. Would highly recommend especially for families.

From there, it was a (almost) straight run to Adelaide. We did stop over at the silo artwork at Coonalpyn before trying to get to Adelaide in a reasonable amount of time.

We soon arrived in Adelaide mid-afternoon and pulled up out the front of our Air BnB which was located in Glenelg North. From the front, it honestly didn’t look too desirable, it was a light brick apartment complex which looked a bit dated with a bunch of wheelie bins out the front on the street overfilling. 
We began to unload a few items from the car to make our first trip up to the second level and located the keys and opened up the door….

WOW! This place was awesome! It was a cute one bedroom self-contained unit which looked like it was (very) recently renovated. We were impressed. Air con – check. TV – check. Comfy bed – check. Kitchen – check. We were off to a good start. After a quick shower to freshen up, we then hopped in to the car again and took a drive around the area, and throughout Adelaide. We drove all along Glenelg waterfront, down to Port Adelaide, then past Adelaide Oval and through the centre of Adelaide City. By this stage, it was knock off time on a Friday so we were expecting to be stuck in the middle of peak hour traffic, but thankfully only stopped for about five minutes in a bit of congestion and we were all good again – I could really see myself living in Adelaide, this place was perfect.
The other major thing we noticed, is that Adelaide is EXTREMELY clean. We couldn’t find any rubbish anywhere! Another big tick for this trip.

Once we got back to the apartment, it was time for dinner. As I am a vegetarian, we had to plan out where to eat before we left – and we did – until halfway to walking to the strip where we would be eating, my husband turns around and decided he no longer feels like eating at said venue, he wants something else… This then turned into a 90 minute multi lap throughout the Glenelg restaurant strip to find something suitable for both of us. We finally settled on a pub which has a live band, as they had pizzas aswell as parmas and the like for my husband. I decided to go with the vegetarian pizza which sounded mouthwatering, and he went with a roast meal… Legit vom-trom central arrived on our plates! The pizza was a frozen pizza base, with salad tomatoes sliced on to the pizza, and all of it undercooked, it was disgusting. Hubby’s roast was also undesirable, which he left virtually untouched.

After our horrible dinner, we went back to the apartment, to watch the BBL, and another early night in bed before our big day the next day.

We woke up early the next day to begin our next big driving day. Our first stop – Barossa Valley. We first went to Seppeltsfield Winery off the recommendation of my younger sister, who took some beautiful photos while there on a previous trip. We had a walk around the grounds and the shop, before heading to a quick lunch break then on to another winery in the Adelaide Hills.

We drove for an hour down to Lofty Summit where we had a great view of Adelaide and the bay, before heading in to the restaurant to enjoy a beautiful lunch. The food was great, and was fairly priced, overall we were very happy with this stop along the way.

Shaw + Smith. Yum! We did a wine tasting here at Shaw + Smith and can safely say, I have finally found a wine I can actually drink and enjoy. The wine tasting was great, $20 for five wines and a cheese platter, which my hubby and I shared between us (I ate mostly cheese, he surprisingly drank most of the wine!)

Next, we went all the way down to Victor Harbour which was an hour and fifteen drive from Shaw + Smith, and to be honest, didn’t have much besides a massive pier to walk to an island across the water way. So we soon left and headed to (my now favourite beach in the world) Port Willunga.

Forty minutes from Victor Harbour, is Port Willunga, and it is a MUST visit on any trip to South Australia. The ocean looks like something straight out of Greece, it is stunning.

That night, we were meant to go to the BBL to watch Adelaide v Melbourne Stars, but after our exhausting day, we did not have the energy to sit in 42 degree weather and be surrounded by other people – so we ordered Uber Eats to our Air BnB. The food we had from ‘The Front Page’ was quick to arrive, and tasted delicious! We ordered a burger and chips each (The Garden Gnome and Grilled Chicken), and shared a margherita pizza between us. 5/5 for taste and delivery.

It was once again an early night for us as we were itching to get back to our puppies, I honestly don’t know how we are going to survive three weeks in Europe without them, as this was only two nights away!!!!