South Australia
Better off red: Grape escapes in the Barossa Valley




David Whitley strikes gold when he veers away from the big names in Australia’s most famous wine region.


Outside the church, I am greeted by a man pushing a lawnmower and bearing the hallmarks of having spent the last hour or so lugging firewood around. He is clad in wellies and sports a splendid moustache – making him look a little like Timothy Dalton in Flash Gordon, albeit having retired and moved to the country.


It would reasonable to assume that this redoubtable chap is the groundsman but, as I am soon to discover, he makes the best rosé wine I have ever tasted.
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Going underground in Coober Pedy, South Australia



David Whitley meets the cave-dwelling opal miners in Hollywood’s favourite piece of post-apocalyptic Outback real estate.


The walls of my hotel room look like they’ve been splattered in blood, and there are no windows to allow natural light in. It would appear as though I am the unsuspecting star of the latest film in the Saw series. In Coober Pedy, this is all perfectly normal. My hotel room is underground, having been dug out into the side of a hill, and the deep red streaks are part of the remarkable natural sandstone in the area.
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The Tomb of Kaddi-Kra - on Wilpena Pound




First-light is referred to in the picturesque Outback slang as ‘sparrow’s fart.’ It was not this, however, that greeted us as we stepped out of our cabin, but the cackling call of the kookaburra that is known as ‘the bushman’s clock.’ We’d cracked a few stubbies the night before and, as we started out towards a ridge that was just beginning to rear up against the paling sky, my usually tireless sidekick Crocodile Dougee was sporting eyes like the slits in Ned Kelly’s tin helmet.

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