After some slight excitement at the aforementioned key intersection the journey north was uneventful except for a slight incident involving alternative routes through and around Gawler and road-works around the place where the alternatives reunited.
But, thanks to the fact that we were just inside the geographic limits of the street directory we were able to backtrack without too much trouble.
Auburn is located at the southern end of the Clare Valley, and we arrived there about eleven-thirty and found our base for the next three nights without much trouble. We found the proprietress on site, which led to a guided tour of the facilities along and handy advice about the neighbourhood.
Working on the principle that it was Melbourne Cup Day and that places that would normally open 363 days a year (Christmas and Good Friday being the exceptions) may well have decided to go to some race-related function we started off with a stroll around Auburn, passing a Cup function which I suspected might have attracted a number of the local proprietors.
Of the two wineries located in the town, Grosset (listed in my iPod notes as Australia’s foremost Riesling maker) opens for approximately six weeks from early September until stocks are sold out, so it was hardly surprising to find the sign at the entrance suggesting that we’d better come back in ten months if we wanted a taste. Still, it was worth going for a look, and I was hoping that somewhere along the road we’d run across one of the wines at an eatery somewhere and, hopefully, it’d be available by the glass.
I already knew that the other winery in town (Mount Horrocks) was only open on weekends, but there’s a cafe located in the old Auburn railway station which I thought might just be open on Cup Day (wrong!) Anyway, it lay on our way back to the centre of town, where we expected to find lunch.
Back in downtown Auburn we found that the cafe (Cygnets at Auburn) had gone racing so it was a case of lunch in the pub. Insufficient perusal of the menu options resulted in disappointment for ‘Er Indoors, who had obviously forgotten advice to ignore anything described as schnitzel unless you’re absolutely sure that it’s freshly made, but my trio of sausages on a bed of mash with a red onion jelly filled the void nicely and provided a bed of blotting paper that would become important once tasting started.