The week that was .....

David here , the errant blogger. I have been far too busy driving, having saunas within the tent whilst putting it up and re-hyrdrating with West End Draught, which I must say is a fine drop, to have any time to fritter away in front of a keyboard. But now I do so I better provide a brief history of the week so far since Monday, according to me.

Everyone knows what a smashing place Wagga Wagga is so I need not make any comment on it but it was great to see Geoff and Katie Burch at our first driver reviver stop. Not many people might know about Darlington Point though. What a top spot to stop at. As my mother might comment "Excellent lavatories, nice and clean." Finn did his best to sully them though. The picnic spot in the middle of town was an oasis of green with its own skate park which the kids loved. It was eerily quiet though and I only saw one very old lady teetering down the road in the 35 degree heat. Any way did not have time to linger as we had to make Mildura before nightfall.

Everything between Darlington Point and Mildura is flat and fuzzy. Fuzzy is Finn's description of what he saw. Lots of fuzzy bushes and a few emu bums. We were also amazed with the vastness of the land and the distance that could be seen especially when looking down the long straight road towards Hay. Approaching Mildura I was taken aback by the amount of sultanas people must eat in Australia. There's sultana and possibly raisin vines that go on until the horizon, nothing else. We were suppose to free camp amongst these vines but the only place to pitch a tent was in a tourist park by the river which was very nice. The next day after taking in some ducks and some of those large paddle boats on the Murray we decided it was time to head to Adelaide.

The road to Adelaide out of Mildura starts off with orchards of oranges and green fruit possibly limes which confused me a bit because I was wondering what had happened to the sultanas, there was no raisin for their disappearance. We stopped briefly at Monash at an adventure playground which was completely empty except for us. Apparently back in the mid sixties a local farmer decided the local kids deserved some exceptionally dangerous swings and stuff to play on. He got busy in his shed and knocked out bucking oil drum broncos, 10 metre swings, flying foxes and all sorts of great stuff. Some of it has been replaced by safer stuff but it is still great and deserves a visit by anyone. Got to admit I had a ride on the long rope and almost crapped myself.

Not sure what came next after that as we were all pretty pumped with adrenalin. I think it was the box of fruit we bought from the side of the road for $20 which I reckon would have cost $600 at Woolies at Charnwood. I bought 15 limes for two bucks just so I can look at them, last time I saw them for sale in Canberra they were $2.25 each. I did get to use one of them on some fish and oysters at Port Lincoln later but I will not give them easily.

The road out of the flat lands of western Vic into SA provide some stunning view back over the Murray and over the Mallee. It would be harder to have a view of more land without jumping in a plane. Driving into Adelaide through the hills is a little similar to coming towards Mildura as there are a lot of grapes grown in this part of the world, in case you did not already know. The roads into Adelaide are also very straight especially Sir Donald Bradman Drive which has to be a pun. It might be the city of churches but it also looks like a city of magnificent pubs, none of which I am ashamed to say I entered. Just one reason why I must return one day. We did however enter the South Australian Museum which is a magnificent place full of brilliant stuff including live snakes, ice walls, gems, boomerangs, spears and meteorites. Fact is there is a lot more stuff in there but I just mentioned the stuff that we wanted to take home with us.

March in Adelaide is pretty big with the Fringe Festival on as well as Womad and the Adelaide Cup. We missed all of that except for some great street acts which we were lucky enough to see. We did also march across town to the Central Markets to pick up some of the best T bone steaks and sausages ever created. Anyone who has ever eaten food would love this place, I did. But if water slides are your thing then Glenelg's Beach House is a must and the kids absolutely loved that place so much so that they stated they wanted to live there. We had a great stay at Adelaide Shores and managed to get a fleeting visit from our old friend Cerro who was over from Sale for some horse sales. Unfortunately the resultant intoxication meant I almost blew the roof of the tent and I had some serious words from my fellow campers the next day. I am on my first and final warning. And Marley also managed to save a kitten from under a cabin, read about it on her blog.

Well after a very brief visit to Adelaide we pushed on to Port Lincoln via the SEASA ferry from Wallaroo which saved us an 8 hour drive through Port Augusta. By the time we drove through Cowell there were severe weather warnings for the Eyre Pennisula and it was storming by the time we reached Port Lincoln. Amanda threatened divorce if I even thought about putting the tent up so after following the old maxim of "Improvise, adapt and move one" we jumped into a cabin for the night, it had a TV so the kids were in heaven. We are now in the tent, it is 12.17am and the drunk couple in a caravan next to us are arguing, falling over, getting smoochy, arguing, falling over etc and if they are not careful I might throw some sultanas that I picked up from Mildura at their caravan. Anyway the stars are bright and Im in a good mood so I'll just relieve myself on their camp chairs. Good night, sweet dreams.