Rumblings

Nate put me in touch with one of the guys he'd worked with a few years back, and who actually did a harvest at Bird in Hand.  Bryan sez:




        "BnH is definitely in a gorgeous spot, the Adelaide hills are great. Good brewpub in Lobethal.

Definitely pack a couple pairs of Carhartts, some boots one won't mind leaving there (unless they have fixed their drain problem, they will be destroyed without much doubt) especially if in the crush pit much. No idea who is running the cellar at this point, but it looks like Kym Milne is there as the full time winemaker. When I was there he was still the consulting and rarely present. Seemed like a really good guy though, knows his stuff.  They do get some really good fruit and can make some good wine. The heat exchanger is a bit of a bear to work (seriously, it was dangerous when I was there as the hot steam hose would pop off and burn you). There are kangaroos on the roads around the winery, so careful driving. They fed us when I was there, which was good solid food and plenty of it. I hope they have updated the catwalks, as there was some...uhh...fancy ropework required to get on top of some tanks. Working the night shift was always good, as we were kind of left to ourselves mostly, and the nights up in the hills are gorgeous. Must be careful with the sulfitometer if they are still using that crazy thing, especially when filling it up (for real, facemask and stuff). When I was there they had something like 10 vintage staff split into three 8-hour shifts and hopefully they've switched to two 12's. They tended to use a ton of tub of water, tub of caustic, tub of water, tub of citric, tub of water cleaning regime, so potential for caustic burns is high.

If you're fellow is living up in the hills, Mt Barker has all the services, the other towns are all pretty small, but often quaint in a good way. The Adelaide market is awesome and is a must do for a food person. There are some seriously cool old pubs around, especially the one in Macclesfield called the Three Brothers Arms, the one in Lobethal (brewpub already mentioned), one in Handorf for good German heffes, and the Stanley Bride in Verdun. Low grade goon wine and port is the way to go, as beer is ludicrously expensive. If there is a spinny clothes line, goon of fortune must be played with the other interns. Oh, and if staying in Adelaide, avoid the Blue Galah backpackers like the plague....in fact they might have plague there.... Oh, in the hills, check out BK wines, cool guys, great wine.

Should be fairly straightforward to sort out a car, get together with the other interns if possible to split costs. Hopefully they still hook up interns with accommodation.

Hope that helps! Any other questions feel free to fire away."

Kangaroos, sulfitometer, caustic burns.  Good food, and lots of it.  No beer, but lots of "goon wine."  Pretty exciting stuff!  Really looking forward to the night shift, although I am a bit disappointed to hear about the beer scarcity...

And, yesterday, I got this email from Peter, the winemaker at BnH:

"Hello Daniel, we have housing for you but it is approx 6 Km from the winery at Charleston, you will need to look at some form of transport to get to work and back. No public transport.

          Kind Regards"

Scouting around, trying to find some deets on the township of Charleston...  And man, is it tiny.  Population: 909.  But, there is at least a book store/post office/general store/internet cafe, called The Bookpost, which seems to be the town's main landmark.  So, at the very least I'll be able to mail letters, ship wine home, drink coffee and get internet access.  And read in my off hours.  I was considering hauling Infinite Jest to Australia, to get through both my flight and the harvest season.  But, now I might take a little lighter reading material (literally and figuratively) and supplement my reading at The Bookpost.

Also, 6km is not so far, and hopefully I can avoid having to come up with a car, and just get a bicycle or plain out run to work.

As far as logistics go, I've broken the bank, but officially purchased my ticket!  Eleven hundred bucks.  Denver to San Fran.  San Fran to Singapore.  Singapore to Adelaide.  Thirty-seven hours of flying.  That's quite a lot of time on a plane.  I'm sure I'll be real cranky by the time I get off.

Why am I flying out of Denver?  Well, that's top secret for now, although I'll be spilling beans next post.  Stay tuned, kiddies...