Yes I had to go in to Adelaide again today. So just some more photoes.

Well today one of the things on my to do list is to head into the city and collect a couple of things from the Fire Station. A friend from work (Stephanie) decided that she should come with me. I said that I was only going to the front desk and as the rest of the station is authorised access only, we might not see anything. Stephanie goes weak at the knees when it comes to firemen and brought her camera 'just in case'.

Standing at the front desk, Stephanie's neck was breaking trying to see if she could spot a fireman through the window. I spoke to the girl behind the desk and she got a fireman to come out. He was a lovely young man. He asked if we would like a tour of the firestation and although I had been there before, I knew Stephanie would be thrilled.

I introduced myself, then the fireman said his name is Angus, we waited for Stephanie to introduce herself but I had to introduce her. Not often that she is speechless.

Once we got inside I started to take a few photoes of the appliances and Stephanie was asking Angus all sorts of questions. She was a happy girl. Poor Angus, he offered to take a photo of us lady's in front of one of the appliances, to which Stephanie said, "no! I don't want a photo with her, I want one with you"  I laughed but I don't no what Angus thought.

It was good, I got the photoes I wanted and Stephanie got some photoes with the fireman.

I then had a couple of other things to do while in that area. Stephanie is still floating on air.

Well today we took Andrew's daughter Michelle out to lunch and then it was off to check out more snakes!

After lunch and snakes we went for a cuppa in the city and Michelle wanted to have a look at the sculptures in Hindmarsh Square.

Not an exciting day but nice.

The drive to Mount Gambier took us out of Adelaide and toward the South Australia and Victoria Border. We stopped just outside Adelaide at a place called Hahndorf, which was the first German settlement in the area, and amazingly they have done pretty good at maintaining a German feel to the town by using the original buildings. We visited a lolly shop and a café, both of which were in the old style of building, and quite interesting. Next we crossed over the mighty Murray River, which for those of you not familiar is the longest river in Australia and actually runs almost 3000 kilometres. We didn’t stop at this point as we have already arranged to stay upstream in a few days at a place called Albury Wodonga, which is on the border of South Australia and New South Wales. In fact the Murray River serves as the border line of the two states for most of it’s length.

Along the way we also passed the glorious Big Lobster, a tourist attraction about lobsters. For those of you not familiar with ‘Big’ things, it is a very American thing but Australia has its fair share. In Queensland there is the Big Mango, which we passed earlier in this trip on the way to Townsville, there is also a Big Pineapple. These attractions are usually working farms at which you can take a tour, eat or sample the product etc and of course climb the big thing and have your photo taken with the big thing. And did I mention they usually have a gift shop with all sorts of things, usually small versions of the big thing and t-shirts, postcards etc. Terrific tourist attractions!

We arrived at Mt Gambier and were greeted by the beauty of the Blue Lake at which we were staying near. It is actually a volcanic crater which has a natural spring and the water is literally ‘blue’ in colour. We went into town later in search of a replacement cord for Reagan’s portable DVD player so she can watch movies in the car (the old one had stopped working). Unfortunately we didn’t have any luck so we decided to charge the battery for the next day’s trip. The only catch is we had a 4 hour drive and the battery only lasts for two hours. For those of you that have travelled with kids in the car, let me just tell you that this DVD player has been a godsend on these travels as it manages to keep Reagan occupied for hours at a time. For an investment of around $300 it has kept our sanity.

We didn’t do much around Mt Gambier but it seemed like a nice place, a little cool, but with the lakes in the area it could well be worth another visit to explore more of what is in the area. From what I could tell the area has a lot of sheep, cows and many pine trees. Although we didn’t see much of the area at least we know we want to come back and see more.

Tomorrow we head toward Victoria and the start of the Great Ocean Road.

After our trip to the Doctor we started our trip to Adelaide, capital of South Australia and the city of churches. Luckily we didn’t have a long trip, only about 300 kilometres and once we were about 100 k’s out it was all motorway. Navigating our way to our accommodation wasn’t too bad, I’m never really good driving in traffic of a place I don’t know, but we managed. Once here we got to our room and realised it was barely big enough to swing a kitten let alone a cat, so we asked about other rooms. The one we got was slightly bigger, mainly in the main living areas, which can make a lot of difference.

After we settled in we headed out to do some shopping and then plan our stay in Adelaide. The next day we drove to the city centre from where we could catch a free inner city bus to take us from one side of the city to the other, which was quite handy. The first stop was the Central Markets, which was quite interesting and Trish was in heaven. Shopping in a food market must be Trish’s second favourite thing, the first being just shopping. After the markets we made our way to the Mall, where we did some more shopping, this time I got something, an electronic language translator… exactly what I need for Holland.

That night we got a baby sitter and went out to dinner for our anniversary to a restaurant called “The Greedy Goose”, which for fans of reality TV was the winner of Australia’s second season of My Restaurant Rules this year. We had the same entrée, apparently it was lasagne, but not like any I’d ever had and I had a really nice beef dish for my main while Trish ate a cute little duck, well actually just it’s legs. Desert was a cheese platter for Trish and a very, very rich chocolate ravioli for me. The chocolate didn’t really mix too well with my beer though and it was too strong for my taste, but it was nice.

The next day we ventured into wine country, the Barossa Valley. We went there via a scenic route which followed the River Torrens up past two lakes and eventually onto the Barossa Valley. The drive was spectacular with lots to see and many places to stop, the only bad thing were the lack of road signs, which made things confusing at times. It seems that South Australians either 1. Only ever travel one way, therefore why sign post anything from the other way and 2. The sign everything 500 metres before you need to turn and have nothing on the turn??? Luckily we kept our sense of humour.

I had opted to drive for the day, the fact that I don’t like wine made that easy, which meant Trish could be free to sample some wines. The first place we stopped was great, Trish sampled wines while Jordan watched on and Reagan and I went for a scenic walk around the area. We did the tourist drive thing and went to a lookout etc, and after a few more bad road signs ended up at the second winery after 1pm. It supposedly had food available or so we were lead to believe, and we were hungry. After no food and some bad service we left hungry and empty handed and went in search of some food. About half an hour later we found a nice café and enjoyed some hotdogs for lunch.

We really enjoyed Adelaide and we will definitely be coming back here to explore more of the region at a later date. Tomorrow we travel to Mt Gambier, home of the Blue Lake.

This leg of our trip was to be the longest we have travelled in any single day, a total of 535 kilometres. Since we had crossed into South Australia yesterday the speed limits are now 110 Kilometres per hour in most areas, but this seems really slow after travelling without speed restrictions for the last week or so while in the Northern Territory. As we stepped out of the room today it suddenly seemed cold and there was a wind ripping through the air and us. This wind followed us the whole trip and just seemed to get colder.

The road started out very boring but the landscape changed slowly which saved us from extreme boredom. During this part of our trip we actually travel through the Woomera prohibited area which is where a lot of ‘testing’ of ‘bombs’ happened back in the 50’s and 60’s, now part of it is used as a detention centre for illegal immigrants and refugees, how appropriate. It is a dry and desolate countryside with barely any trees. We also managed to actually see some wild life on this part of the trip, which restored my faith in the Australian bush. At the beginning of the trip we saw a kangaroo and toward the middle we encountered six emus. Unfortunately we didn’t see any camels and we still don’t know what the elusive brolga looks like, maybe we’ll see him in a zoo, probably when we get to Holland.

As we arrived in Port Augusta the rain appeared and it stayed around the rest of the day and night. We went to do a bit of shopping and I cooked an easy meal for us. After dinner young Jordan wanted to show off and finally began to crawl, although it was slow, she found great delight in following us around the cabin and would sit up and giggle infectiously. There will be no stopping her now and I’m sure she’ll be walking just as early as Reagan did at 9 & ½ months.

The next morning we had to find a doctor and get a sore on Reagan’s leg seen too, it seemed to have become infected. What started out as a mosquito bite had been scratched so much it had become a sore and Reagan was in a bit of pain. We didn’t look forward to a long wait in a doctors office, but the staff were very responsive and had us in to see the doctor after about half an hour wait at 9 am which we didn’t expect. A trip to the chemist followed to fill a script for antibiotics and we were on our way to Adelaide.

We left Kulgera at about 7am and about 15 minutes into our trip we spotted our 3rd kangaroo in the whole 4350 kilometres we’ve travelled so far (but who’s counting). Today we also passed our half way mark of our trip which also sees the hard part almost done. Once we get to Adelaide in two days time we actually get to relax a bit more on the rest of the trip as we have more stays for longer and we’ll be back in civilisation which has mobile phone reception and have heard of the internet.

There wasn’t much to see on this part of the trip but after our first kangaroo spot for a while we were keen to see more. But we didn’t! The further south we got the less trees we saw and then when we got close to Coober Pedy all we could see was piles of white dirt. These piles are in fact old mine shafts where people have drilled looking for opals, for some reason they never get filled, which means there is over 250 000 mine shafts in the area, some up to 30 metres deep. The land itself is very arid country which appears dusty and dry, and with the daytime summer temperatures exceeding 50 degrees there are a lot of homes underground as it is cooler.

Our accommodation is in fact an underground motel, built into the side of a hill. The walls are literally rock which has been drilled out and then the inner walls and floor added, quite interesting. The town itself isn’t much, it looks like a ramshackle of a place with corrugated iron fences and dull streets. We had lunch in an underground café which was interesting and Trish went shopping for opals in the afternoon. We would of liked to see an underground mine but with the kids it wasn’t going to be easy, so we opted for a quiet night in our underground motel room.

I’m sure there is more to see here, but we didn’t find it in our time here, maybe tomorrow will be more interesting.

PS. I had my third brush with death for the trip this morning, while not quite in the category of the other two.
1. Was the brown snake I almost stood on at Cape Hillsborough.
2. Was a faulty jug blowing up as I touched it in Mt Isa
3. I felt a rock in my shoe, upon investigation it was actually a rusty nail which had gone through my shoe and almost into my foot. Whilst not quiet as life threatening, it could have been, one millimetre either way and it may have drawn blood!

Today we decided to go into Adelaide. - Hindmarsh Square to be exact.

On the way we called into a pet store as I needed to buy new cushions for the dogs beds. While we were there, Andrew got to fulfill another thing on his wishlist. Andrew got to hold a snake. It was only a very small one but fascinating. Andrew is now discussing buying one. The biggest problem is knowing some one willing to feed the snake when we are on holiday. Oh well, some thing for Andrew to think about.

Then we continued to Hindmarsh Square. After having a cuppa in a cafe, we had a look at a set of 5 sculptures that were there on a tempory council grant. Very strange.

On the other corner there are some more permanant sculptures. A flip/flop, a clothes peg, fish bones, a dog bone and a garden tap with hose.

On the other corner there was a pond, with no water, I presume because of water restrictions.  There were just a number of cubes. No explanation of what they were.  There were 3 aboriginal gentlemen sitting on the grass. It was there first trip to Adelaide, they were from Tenannt Creek which is in the Northern Territory.  I had been trying not to get them in the photos as I didn't want to upset them but I don't think they would have minded. I think one of the reasons they started talking to us was because they thought we were tourists too.

Well that is 3 of 4 corners. There was nothing on the 4th corner. All in all, we have had a lovely day.

Today we decided to go into Adelaide and into Rundle Mall. At the intersection of Rundle Mall & King William Street there is a building that has been redone on the outside. One of the features is that there is a bee on the top and the building has always been known as "Beehive Corner".  As a teenager it was a meeting place for friends. You know that "ok we'll meet at beehive corner". It was easy to do that.   Another feature/sculpture, is 2 silver balls. When this feature was originally placed in Rundle Mall we had a Premier of South Australia called Don Dunstan.  The sculpture became known as "Dons Balls".    More recently, there have been pigs placed in the Mall and a fountain. I took a few photos to share. Today there was a busker next to "Dons Balls"

Today there was also a promotion advertising Mt Buller. It is in Victoria and of course the snow/ski season has started. They made 'snow' and let the kids have a tobogan ride on it.

We just happened to call in here for a late lunch. Some of the items on the menu were a bit expensive for lunch but that is not uncommon. We opted for the soup of the day which was pumkin with smoked hock, served with a crusty roll. Not too bad a price and it was delicious. They had an open fireplace so it is very cosy on a cold day. The building was originally part of the old Woollen mills. Along with the restaurant side of the business they have a micro brewery. You can see how the beer is made. You can have meals themed to match their beers. They also sell a selection of local wines, tea, coffee etc. You can also buy 330ml bottles of their beers to take home. If you really like the beer, buy a 2 litre bottle of your favourite! T shirts etc are also available to purchase.

This park opened in 1965 and has about 50 species of animals and 160 types of birds. You can buy peanuts or arrowroot biscuits to feed the animals if you want to. A lot of animals and birds are in cages but there are also a lot that aren't, which means that you can pat a kangaroo or wallaby. There are 3 times a day when the keepers bring out the Koalas so you can even hold a Koala! There is food available too, so you can stay for lunch. There is even a BBQ area that can be used for free, and a great picnic area. Of course there are souveniers for sale too but all in all it's a great day.

We continued through the Adelaide Hills and thought we would go to the Mount Lofty summit. However it has changed quite a lot since last time we were there so I took a few photos and we continued on our way.  We finally stopped at a place called Waterfall Gully Restaurant. It was about 4.30pm by this time so we ordered Devonshire Tea and sat outside. I did take photos of the waterfall and the surrounding area but it was too late to go any further. There are many walking trails and another 5 waterfalls. Definately an area for the fit nature lovers. I love nature but am not fit. There was flooding in the area in 2005 so it changed the access a bit. It all links up with the walking trails around Mount Lofty Summit.  It has been a great day!  Time to go home. It is about an hour drive from Waterfall Gully to home.

After leaving the wildlife park we continued through the hills area and were trying to think of somewhere to go for lunch as it was almost 2pm.  While driving through Lobethal, Andrew spotted a restaurant that we had never seen before, so that is where we decided to stop for lunch. It is called the "Lobethal Bierhaus". It is a microbrewery and restaurant. They sell there own beer including one in a 2 litre bottle. Andrew bought an assorted pack of 4 different types (small bottles) so that when he knows which one he prefers, we will go back and buy the big bottle. Of course you can also see the brewing process through the window. It was a lovely lunch too! Time to move on and find somewhere else for tea and coffee.

It is almost winter, so when we found out what a nice day it was going to be today, we decided to go to Gorge wildlife park at Cudlee Creek. It is about a half hour drive from our house. We got there at 10.30a.m. so it wasn't too busy. We hadn't been there for a lot of years but it has really improved. As soon as we walked in we saw some really bright yellow birds. Then we saw many other birds, don't ask me to name them unless it is some thing simple like a Pelican. We then found the Koala enclosure. They are so gorgeous! Andrew then saw an owl sitting in the corner of one of the enclosures. So cute. Lots and lots of Wallabies. Then there was some Penguins and not too far away, 2 American Alligators were sunning themselves. We saw 2 Lace Monitor Lizards and then went into a small enclosure where there was goats, and Alpaca, sheep, rabbits, a deer, ducks & guinea pigs. There was also a rather large pig there which Andrew reached over to scratch and the pig rolled on its back to get its tummy rubbed. Then there was the Turkey! One of the goats got out and of course had to try to climb on something to reach the higher leaves of the tree. Then there was monkeys, the monkeys are so cute. Canada Goose as well. Meerkat, dingo and wombat. Even a Leopard! Lots more things, I could go on for ever. One of the reasons that we went to the park was to hold a Koala. Andrew had never held one and I hadn't for years. So we held a Koala. They are beautiful. We spent at least 3 hours at the park and loved it. It was getting a bit cool outside so we decided to move on.

At about 11.00 this morning Andrew suggested going out to lunch. I asked where he had in mind. Glacier Rock Restaurant/Cafe was where he had decided to go.  We live about a 35/40 minute drive north of Adelaide and the cafe is about and hour south of Adelaide. We left home at 11.30 am.  We sidetracked a bit so it was about 2pm when we got to the cafe. It is next to the Inman Valley golf course and I had never been in the cafe before although we had passed it a lot of times. It is about 15 minutes drive from Victor Harbour, which is a beachside tourist destination. This is where the memories come in. Andrew was born on a Dairy farm at Inman Valley and had not been in the cafe for about 35 years. Andrew lived on the dairy farm until he was 12 years old & went to school in Victor Harbour.  While sitting in the cafe he was reminising about riding his bike over the old wooden bridge that we could see as we looked out the window. He also remembers having a black and white photo of himself near that bridge, sitting on his mum's horse Anita. We had our lunch and I took some photos. We then walked along a path to the area known as Glacier Rock, which Andrew says has changed. The big rock has gone and the banks have eroded. I took more photos. As we drove away we went by the bridge which has now been closed off. Again photos for Andrew's history book. We drove through the back roads (as Andrew does) and looked at the farm from a distance and he found the back entrance gate to the property. From there we drove to Whalers Bluff which is only about 5 minutes drive from Victor Harbour. Whalers Bluff was an early whaling port and every year there are still whales that come through but thankfully no hunting of the whales.  We were going to go the Whalers Inn for a tea & coffee but decided to do a drive along the little dirt road and saw some seals sunbaking. They were in the water though and at times looked like driftwood. They only had a small part of their bodies out of the water and they were happy. We continued further around to where there were people fishing and they were getting annoyed that there was a seal taking their bait. However we still couldn't get any of the seals to come up out of the water. We went to have a cuppa and then thought that we would see if the seals were doing something different but they were still just sunbaking. Another seal had joined the first 2 but would not cooperate for photos. We had to go. A long drive home but we will come back one day to continue the story of the area when we have time to stop in Victor Harbour itself. It was 6.30  pm when we arrived home.