End of penultimate week

Yes - summer is now officially over in the southern hemisphere and we are entering autumn, which should, of course, mean it's the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, but from what we've seen on the media, it's hardly spring-like back home just now. Still, they do say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb - let's hope.

We only now have one full week left in Australia this year. It's now Saturday morning and we're heading south again this weekend - to Deep Creek Conservation Park. Photos and report to follow, but it tends to be cooler down there generally and this weekend, they are forecasting the high there to be only in the high teens. Yikes - this'll be our coolest days yet then.

Jo, Kelly and I headed in to the city again last night (Friday), dropping the kids off with Chris first before heading to the Convention Centre for a Cellar Door Fest - i.e. wine tastings, just like we do every year back home. Good fun - and the cheese masterclass was excellent, including one with green ants added on top:

Yes - the ants are on the one on the left

 Kelly's not a great cheese fan, but she certainly enjoyed some of the wines:

Earlier in the day, Jo and I had walked down to the beach and had our first dips in the sea:

Heading backwards chronologically, Jo and I went Fringe-ing on Thursday, but first we thought we would take a walk along the beach front from Seacliff to Glenelg. We met an old friend on the way:

The Fringe was good fun - our first show - a freebie - was a Best Of show where several comedians do 7 or 8 minutes each of their acts to give you a flavour of what to expect and to promote their shows. I think we saw 7 of them and just 2 of them we could have taken more of. A couple of them were real cringe-worthy.

We walked down to the park and in to a field called Gluttony, where there are shows, food and drinks, but we couldn't decide what to go and see. Fortunately, we were approached by a man with a wad of tickets for a show by 3 comedians and we were given the tickets for nothing. This show was different class - all 3 of them were very good.

Going off at a slight tangent, here's our walking stats for February:

Some long walks there - plus some inactive travel days.

Back to Wednesday and our trip in to Adelaide to see the Dinosaur show. This was after the event - don't know why Miller looks so glum - in fact, almost confrontational:

The exhibition itself featured a few large animatronic dinosaurs who roared when least expected. We had never seen Asher act scared before, but here he is hanging on to Jo for dear life:

The boys were happier playing in the soft toy corner:

We didn't have the pram with us so Asher was transported on my shoulders:

I think that's me up to date again.

Midweek update

It's now Wednesday morning and we survived our hottest day yet yesterday - in the high 30's - but we still haven't had to suffer a 40 + day yet, thank goodness. Last night was another windy one and again I had to get up in the middle of the night and stuff some of the sash windows to stop them rattling. Today is looking like a coolish one again with temperatures only reaching the mid 20's.

We've seen the reports from the UK of the Beast from the East, so we're kind of glad we're not there right now. Hope all's well there with everyone.

On Monday, we had a fairly easy day. I wasn't feeling too great - slight tummy bug, a relic of the weekend in the outback - so we just jumped on the train and headed towards the huge Marion shopping mall, besides which there is the South Australian Aquatic Centre, a monster building that hosts a variety of pools. This is just one of them:

No wonder the Aussies excel in swimming competitions.

By Monday evening I was feeling a little better so we planned a day out on Tuesday, catching the train south to Seaford, then a bus to Willunga from where we would walk back to McLaren Vale through all the vineyards along the Shiraz Trail. First we had coffee at a lovely little place in Willunga called the Three Monkeys:

Now we were ready for the walk:

A fairly comfortable 8 kms (5 miles) by recent standards.

We picked up the boys and Kelly came over and collected us and took us over to theirs for dinner.

Today (Wednesday) Kelly is off work and she will bring the boys over this afternoon and we will all head in to the city for a dinosaur exhibition - Miller will be delighted!

Outback and more

Before we headed to the outback this weekend, on Wednesday we looked after the boys in the afternoon whilst Kelly went to her hairdresser. Thursday was when we had arranged to meet John and Lorna Anderson for lunch in Adelaide. We met them for pre-lunch drinks in Lady Burra's Brewhouse then walked round to Sean's Kitchen - the same place that we'd had lunch with the McDonalds a year ago - and it was again very good. We got back to Seacliff in good time to pick up the boys from Casa Bambini - it was Kelly's late night and Chris, too, would be a little later than usual as he had an appointment at the hospital re his sinus problems - pretty serious they must be too, as he's stopped drinking wine, as he found out this was bringing on the sinus reaction.

So to Friday and our long trip inland to the Flinders Ranges - specifically to Wilpena Pound, the site of what was reputed to be a long-extinct volcano. Kelly had pre-booked our accommodation, which she described to us as glamping. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but, when we arrived after what was virtually a whole day's drive, we were delighted with the exceptionally high quality of our accommodation, which turned out to be a tent only in name. Really, it was a villa that just happened to have 4 canvas walls - otherwise, everything was as you'd expect in a top resort or hotel - fully plumbed, wooden and tiled floors and proper porcelain:

Once settled in, we were all ready for a cooling dip in the camp pool, after which Chris cooked dinner on the BBQ. We sat on the patio and watched the stars appear.

Saturday was our one full day at the resort so we tried to make the most of it - although, as usual, the best-laid plans etc ....... Kelly and I planned to walk along the trails to the viewpoints whilst Chris, Jo and the boys would drive out and meet us nearby. The walking bit was easy enough but there was nowhere to take a car, so once Kelly and I had finished the walk and climb, we headed back and met up with the rest just leaving the camp, having tried unsuccessfully to drive anywhere nearer the action.

Jo was particularly keen to take a walk and at least see Hill's Homestead and we tried any number of combinations of adults to join her, but the boys wouldn't let their Mum or Dad leave them, so it was left to me to do the trail walk again. By lunchtime, I'd seen a variety of animals in the wild - some, like the kangaroos ventured right up to our tents:

Others had merely left their outer skins behind:

There were emus and mountain goats roaming wild and free and a random guana on our trail:

Not to mention the birds - especially the kookaburra and the magpies, who performed the dawn chorus as makeshift cockerel.

It was dry and dusty everywhere and we came across a trail advert for a feral menu. Fancy this?:

We were largely underwhelmed by our first views of the Pound, expecting to see a deep circular hole, only to find it was not as deep nor as round as expected and the scale of the area was way more than we had anticipated - and it was overgrown with vegetation:

Subsequent viewing on Google Earth gives a much better picture of the geology and, also subsequently checking Wikipedia reveals that it wasn't an ancient volcano after all!

Jo and I were very low on water supplies and had to eke it out, and as it was my second hike of the day out there, I felt pretty sore, tired, thirsty and hungry when we finally got back to our tent. Nonetheless, determined to make the most of the day, we decided - well Jo did - that a visit to the Sacred Canyon to view the ancient aboriginal drawings would be worthwhile, so Chris drove the 3 of us out, whilst Kelly looked after the boys.

Whenever anyone says that the road you are about to travel on is unsealed, you can interpret that as meaning a rough ride - and it was 13.5 km out and another 13.5 km back! We haven't had such a good massage for a long while. The walk from the end of the road to the rock drawings was only a few hundred metres up a dried river bed, which would be teeming with water in winter, fed by a couple of steep waterfalls:

By now, I'd done 22 kms of walking - a record 33,500 steps - and it was definitely time for another dip in the pool - for us all - when we got back, then we had dinner in the camp restaurant.

Sunday morning was when we would start the journey home, but first there was another beautiful sunrise as we walked down for breakfast:

We took a slightly different road back to Adelaide, stopping off at the pretty former mining town of Burra, which had a big Cornish influence:

Site of the old mine

Jo reads while the boys burn off some energy in the playpark

Former miners' cottages