I'm now sitting outside Kelly and Chris' pad as the temperature has finally dropped as what they laughingly call a cold front has moved in over Adelaide. Yesterday's 42 C temperature meant we hibernated/slept the afternoon away. Today we're driving down to Port Elliott to stay in rooms at McCracken Country Club (http://www.mccrackengolfclub.com/).
Forecast is to be a lot cooler today - maybe even as low as the low 20's down by where we're headed, with Christmas Day in the mid to high 20's - that's perfect.
Kelly and Chris have gone to their gym and Ross is now making smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for our breakfast - attempting to match Chris' fine fritatta yesterday.
The journey was not too bad, all things considered - although I wouldn't want to have to do it cattle class. The 12 hour flight from London to Kuala Lumpur was in the huge A 380 - how those monsters get off the ground, I'll never know. The space in our cabin was fantastic and the food and service were like a 5 star hotel. We had a 3 hour stopover in KL before boarding the slightly smaller A 330 for the 7 hours on to Adelaide.
Our only travel problem was in the UK. First of all, our flight to London was delayed, but we still had plenty of time to catch our connection. The main problem was getting from T5 to T4 - nightmare. Not at all well signposted and the advice we got from the local staff was contradictory and confusing. Tube or bus - which is best? It transpired that the Heathrow Express wasn't running, so bus had to be the option - but the local staff didn't seem to know anything about it. We made it in the end, but we were sweating for a while, not knowing how long check-in and security would take. Of course, flying Business Class means shorter queues all round, including Fast Track through security, so we had no real need to worry.
Staying awake all day Saturday was a problem, however. We lasted until about 7pm, I think, although I had played the nodding donkey routine for quite a while before this. We had a brief walk up to see the waterfalls on the trail up Mount Lofty in the afternoon, which kept us awake for a while. Here we are at the viewing platform at the top of the first waterfall:
On Sunday morning we drove up to the Adelaide Hills to Lobethal where we had booked lunch at the lovely Bierhaus. We made a short stop en route and visited Melba's Chocolate Factory - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0vpYaOxhZI
The Bierhaus was great, although we arrived a little early - before they were officially open at noon. We had allowed some time to go round the Lobethal market, but it was so small and quiet it took us no time at all.
The toilets in the Bierhaus are lined with jokes, like these ones:
The place soon filled up - just as well we had pre-booked.
So that's me up to date now. Have a great Christmas everyone - and watch this space.
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