Weekend of Indulgence Part I

I am going to post this in a series, one post for each day of our stay in the McLaren Vale. We tried to take lots of photos of each place we visited.



The very first stop we made was The Olive Grove where we made a few purchases and had a great time looking at the alpaca's and beautiful peacocks they had.

The day started a bit on the cloudy and chilly side, but we were blessed as it never fully rained, a few droplets fell while we were talking to the birds, but we weren't miffed.





I bought my new favorite snack called duckah which is an aussie blend of bush spices and nuts that you eat with a bread and olive oil. I have to say it is sooo yummy, and we bought some olive oil based foot cream and some almond nugget for mr. ralph's mum as an Easter present.





The next stop was The Woodstock Winery. It was beautiful, but I can't say we visited a place that wasn't. At this winery they have a contraption that was used to hold prisoners by the feet of course the main crime was public drunkenness. and the sign noted that one visit to "the stocks" for public humiliation cured the person from repeated offences. I can see why.



We decided to stay at Woodstock and enjoy a hot drink in the lovely setting. As you can tell, the leaves were gorgeous and the colors of fall were coming out. I had a low-fat cappachino and mr. ralph enjoyed what looked like the most yummy hot chocolate. They put a tiny mint choccie on our saucers and I ate it and enjoyed it. This would be my first indulgence of the weekend.





Now meet Rodney, a very docile curly-haired Labrador who the workers somewhat lovingly referred to as "the village idiot". He was the first of the sweetest pleasures we found at Hugh Hamilton. This place was my favorite winery for it's views. I could have stood at the windows and stared for hours. The unique round cellar door located at the top of a hill provided the best views of the surrounding area. I can't tell you how breathtaking it was.





Our final stop before going to the Aldinga beach for our picnic lunch was the Fox Creek Winery. We have some more photos of this one to share in part 3 of this series because we went back there on Sunday. This place by far had the best wine (in my opinion) and I also bought one of their funky t-shirts.



The picnic I packed was seafood salad and a small pasta salad. It was pretty boring but still low-fat and yummy. We didn't spend too long at the beach because after a few tasting throughout the day I was ready to see our room and relax, plus the sun was in and out of the clouds.





Here I am looking very skinny (if I do say so myself) in my size 12 dress by Events. When I bought this dress it was too tight in the thigh area, and now it looks just amazing on me. Well, I feel like I'm tooting my own horn now, but seriously, look at that! I hope this isn't too much information, but I didn't even have to wear a bra! Unbelievable.



Of course one of the best parts of the day was the ending. We had a gorgeous and very filling dinner. We both had sweet potato soup and a prawn and scallops dish served with rice and a cream sauce. It was evil I tell ya, and we were so full after sharing a bottle of wine to boot that we decided to save having a dessert for Saturday night.