For the last two days John and I have been in Adelaide and elsewhere. I needed to go down to Adelaide to get some work done on the car. I could have had the parts sent up here by freight and asked my mechanic to do the work, but in this instance even my mechanic advised me to go to Adelaide since the cost of transporting the parts up here was be more than the parts were worth. So to Adelaide I went. John wanted to come with me in the hope that if the alterations were done in time we could head out to Lobethal. He wanted to visit the Lobethal Bierhaus to get beer – yes you read right – it is a microbrewery and the boys, John and Andrew, really like the beer, so when they are in the vicinity ( or even just in Adelaide) they head to Lobethal and the brewery.
We didn’t get away from home until after 1pm. – Wednesday is Coffee Ladies morning and I take and collect Annabell. This meant that it was after 6pm before we got to the hotel
and booked in. The reason for the Wednesday departure is simply that the car was due at the workshop at 8am. With the temperature at 34c we drove with the A/C on for most of the way, stopping at the Tin Man and – briefly – at Port Wakefield. We arrived at the hotel at just after 6:16 pm and booked in. We also discovered that Bunnings (Mile End) was open until 9pm, so after getting the bags out of the car and into the room, we headed to Bunnings. I had a few things I needed to get as did John. We got what we wanted then headed back to the hotel for dinner. John had a beer with his dinner, which he suggested was only marginally better than water with food colouring. The food was very good and I enjoyed my Shiraz. My reason for staying here is simply that the garage where I am taking the car is just along the road.
Thursday morning and after a good sleep in a very comfortable bed I got washed and dressed and took the car to the workshop at 7:45. At 8am the mechanic came out and we had an inspection of the car exterior. That done I went back to the hotel for a coffee. The alterations didn’t take long at I had a call just after 9:40 to tell me the car was ready for collection. We collected and paid for the car and with John driving we set off. The temperature being 39c, we drove with the A/C on. I was very thankful John was driving because Lobethal is up in the Adelaide hills, narrow, climb hills, descend hills, twists and turns the whole way and from where we started to arrival in Lobethal it was a good hour of concentrated driving.
As it turned out the Brewery was closed, but we met a man and talked to him and told him where we had come from, so he went and spoke to the boss, who came out and invited us inside. They were closed and only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but he said that they always look after their faithful customers so he was quite happy to get
John what he wanted. I telephoned Andrew and asked is he wanted anything so we bought two bottles for him. The bottles, by the way, are 2 litres each. Before we left we were taken for a brief tour of the distillery, which was really interesting. Storing the big bottles in the car and packing them with towels and clothes to keep them safe, we had a wander around the town for a little while. I found an interesting church – Lobethal Uniting Church – with a foundation stone dated 1922, so with that date it means that it started out as something else as the Uniting Church did not exist then. My thought was for a Congregational Church but I decided to research when I came home.
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