End of first week

Leaving a sick baby behind, Jo and I took Chris' car on Friday and headed south to our timeshare in Normanville, stopping first of all at the Old Salopian Inn for lunch:

Our apartment is a ground floor one bedroom one, overlooking the pool and golf course, with a distant sea view:

On Saturday morning, we decided to go for a long beach walk:

Normanville Pier

 At the far end of the beach, there was a small steep hill, which I climbed up:

It was 4.6 miles to this point and we needed to get back to Normanville for lunch. We had a huge meal of 6 plates of various sizes of tapas at the Courthouse - very nice, but we still had another mile or so to walk back to our complex, taking our total walk up to over 9 miles. We knew already that dinner would be a light one again after such a heavy lunch, so we went out in the car to stock up with beer and buy some eggs. The Myponga Brewery was our first stop:

Today (Sunday), Chris' parents, David and Lorene are coming over to see us this afternoon. Otherwise no plans. Jo has had a bad cough for the last few days - it gets worse at night when she barks away. Jo reckons she now has mucus in her stomach which will affect her appetite - that might be a blessing in disguise.

First Thursday down Under

Kelly was at work yesterday and Miller, who had been a bit under the weather the evening before, seemed good enough to go to Day Care, which meant Chris could drive Jo and I out to Prancing Pony's (http://prancingponybrewery.com.au/) brand new brewery - so new, in fact, that the builders were still tidying up as we arrived.

Nice place - and a good lunch - but when we got back, Miller had taken a bit of a turn for the worse and poor Kelly and Chris had a bit of a night of it last night, dealing with projectile vomiting etc. All he wanted was his Mummy:

This morning, Miller seems a little brighter. Kelly's off to work and Chris has gone for a haircut, leaving Jo and I in charge for the first time. Jo took this photo of me out in the back garden with Miller earlier on:

Today is the start of our week long time-share down at Normanville - just an hour and a half south of here. We're taking Chris' car and he and Kelly might come down and join us for the weekend if Miller's up to it. Chris is working next week but he gets the train in to the city, so doesn't need his car, which is handy for us.

Oh - and Chris' Mum & Dad weren't able to come over yesterday as Lorene had an emergency tooth extraction, poor thing. We'll catch up with them another time.

Oz - days 3 & 4

On Tuesday, we wandered round Rundle Mall with Chris and had lunch at one of these quick-as-you-can-eat Malaysian restaurants in the Asian Food Mall. It was good, if a little heavy for lunchtime. Kelly, meanwhile, had left work and was heading for her Citizenship test, which we assumed would take 30-45 minutes. In fact, she finished it in less than 5 minutes and got 100%. Celebrations were held at the Curious Squire before heading back to Derby St., where Chris prepared Spag Bog.

No excuses on Wednesday morning - we had been idle for long enough, so Jo and I went for a long walk south along the coast. We had left fairly early in the morning and planned stopping for breakfast at the first cafe on the shore, but it didn't appear until after 5.6 miles of walking on concrete paths, grassland, beach and on paths in the dunes. Here's a few of the photos we took along the way:

Semaphore Pier at the start of the walk

Finally, the Grange Pier Cafe and breakfast - and a rest

As you can see, it was overcast and coolish - low 20's is as high as it's got so far. The locals are all complaining about the "cold snap".

As we were having our breakfast, at first just a trickle, but then a flood - if that's the correct collective noun - of local lifeguards walked past us. There must have been 30-40 of them, all of them in just their swimsuits and pretty ripped. It was like something out of Baywatch - except no babes. They all had tanned arms and legs, but white on the core body where their vests normally were.

Then it was back to Derby St. for us. the entire walk was 11.3 miles and it took us over 4 hours of walking, not including our stop for breakfast (BLT for Jo, pancakes, maple syrup & cream for me). Check out the stats and route here - http://www.mapmywalk.com/workout/842406403

Kelly still had a bit of admin to do on her Citizenship papers so we all headed back to the city with her and from there to fine local brewpub - the Wheatsheaf - where I even managed to get some cask conditioned beer - my first in Oz, I believe.

By now, the clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day, so Jo and I spent some time in the back garden, reading, snoozing and boozing, whilst Chris prepared salmon for dinner. Excellent.

Today (Thursday), Kelly is back to work, Miller is in Day Care and Chris is doing some work at home. Chris' Mum & Dad are coming over later on, and I think we're just going to chill until then.

Aussie Diary Day 2

My case duly arrived yesterday morning about 10 am, so it was nice to shower and change in to my own clothes.

Jo and I went for a walk and a spot of lunch - along the prom, up to the end of Semaphore Pier and then up - and down - Semaphore Road, looking for a cafe that Kelly recommended. We never saw it so ended up going back to the cafe where we'd all had coffee on Sunday.

There were little specks of rain, but it never came to anything. After lunch we all went to the movies to see Imitation Game - very good - then we picked up Miller at his nursery and went back to have dinner on the decking. Chris had prepared a huge chunk of corned beef - and really nice it was too. Here he is relaxing on the decking with Miller whilst the rain - which was pretty heavy by now - was giving the garden a good soaking:

This morning, the storm is moving east - it's quite windy, but dry and overcast. Today, Kelly has gone back to work and then has her test for citizenship and we're meeting her up town before we pick up Miller.

First day Down Under

The journey was pretty good, considering it's a mammoth 32 hour slog. We rate Cathay Pacific - excellent service, nice food - everything went well, but I'm not sure how it would have been had we been at the back of the bus. On the longer leg to Hong Kong, we both managed to get a decent few hours' sleep in our little pods. The section of cabin we were in only had 8 berths and we were in the middle but we hardly saw each other, the way they were angled.

I watched the James Brown biopic, but there weren't really any other movies I wanted to watch. When we got to HK, we only had about 40 minutes to catch our connection to Adelaide and it was quite a walk - I reckon over a mile! Going east meant we were losing time so this was our second night trip, but neither of us was ready for a long sleep, and we just dozed off and on.

On arrival in Adelaide, we were amongst the first off the plane and whisked through Immigration courtesy of the electronic system. Jo's bag and my golf clubs arrived quickly, but soon there was a call over the tannoy for Mr. Stewart. I knew what that meant - my bag didn't make the final leg from HK to Adelaide.

So here I am, sitting here on Monday morning, blogging away, awaiting a call from the airline, who are supposed to be delivering my bag this morning. Just now, I'm wearing a pair of Chris' shorts and one of his t-shirts - yes, I did get in to them! - but, having worn them all day Sunday, I'd quite like to shower and change in to my own gear now. This was yesterday's look:

Jo and I didn't crash until after 8 pm last night, having survived a long day, Kelly and Chris having picked us up early morning at the airport. It was overcast in the morning but the sun broke through in the afternoon and it got pretty warm later on. We went for a morning stroll, then back for a spot of lunch, then out again in the afternoon for a walk along the beach, followed by a beer, then more beer back at the house, where Kelly and Chris demonstrated how to relax in a hammock:

We don't look quite as relaxed:

Miller was having a great time playing in the paddling pool and the adjacent sand pit, although you could barely tell one from the other after he'd finished shipping sand in to the pool and water in to the pit:

We had G & T's and wine to follow to wash down the lovely meal Chris prepared, then it was off to bed.

This morning we spotted the large Huntsman spider that Kelly and Chris share their house with:

They tolerate its presence - high up near the ceiling - as it is apparently harmless to humans and it eats a lot of the other nastier beasts around.

To close, here's Kelly's typical breakfast - a huge bowl of 6 - yes six! - boiled eggs, pickles and salad: