Tuesday 16th Morning broke with some light cloud, but the sun soon gave us a bright day to enjoy. Before leaving Ardrossan, we dropped into the local bakery. This one is really good, so we left with yummy things for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. They have some special slices, the nut slice is really great apparently. We went with a cinnamon and apple lunch log, chocolate custard and cream bun (not unlike an éclair) and apricot slice. We headed south with first stop being Port Julia where we had a quick thought for our PM. This is just a small hamlet but in years gone by, coastal ships came here to collect grain. The current jetty wouldn't support trade these days. The location is popular with fishing people and an easy place to launch ... read more

Sat 13th A little research showed that we lucky senior citizens can have all day free travel on Adelaide busses and trams. Now, that was an offer we couldn't refuse. Marg and I wanted to look around the city at some of the historic buildings and Daviv and Mary thought they would start at the zoo. We stuck to our plan following a tourist mud map winding our way around town, down past the Railway Station, University, Royal Adelaide Hospital to the botanical gardens. We saw interesting parallels with Christchurch where their Hagley Park is not unlike to botanical gardens in relation to the central city, museums and hospitals. With Adelaide, the zoo is also in walking distance from the Botanical Gardens. Some interesting things stand out in this city, particularly the variety of statues. There ... read more

Wed 10th. The morning broke bright and clear, so Marg and I decided to leave David and Mary to watch the grass grow at Narrung, and also to solve a mystery that David and I observed on two occasions. When David was out on the jetty he saw a semi submerged something swimming at high speed across from the jetty and disappeared into nothing. Some time later I observed the same thing and managed to get a poor photo of the semi-submerged critter. Enough to know it wasn't a snake swimming. I had wondered if it was a coot due to the colour. More on this mystery later. Tom Tom advised that the destination we wanted was via a 93k loop road, whereas we knew that there was a free vehicular ferry, and the destination should ... read more

Sunday 7th Yesterday we had a quiet day during which I washed the truck and trailer, did general servicing of the truck making sure all was well, and repacked the trailer for convenience. Marg did a trip to the biggest Woolworths Supermarket she had seen. So, now that we are stocked up, we were ready for the next phase of our journey. We had a beautiful sunset last night to celebrate the end of daylight saving, and headed west today. The plan was to drive from Mt Gambier to Millicent and then along a highway with three coastal salt water lakes. Unfortunately, we missed the key intersection, and took the shorter rout to Kingston SE. The journey was through easy rolling country. Large forests, sheep and beef country, and at Cape Jaffa, some large wineries. We ... read more

April 4th. We travelled a relatively short distanced from Dartmore to the South Australian border and on to Mt Gambier. Our friend Tom Tom kept calling it Mt Gambler. This is a realistic appraisal of Australian Culture, but not the name of an interesting place. Having set up the rigs at the camping ground which is just off the main street, we went walk about, did a little shopping, arranged for 'flu shots tomorrow, booked hair cuts etc. After lunch Marg and I walked up to the Lady Nelson Centre. It is a combination of tourist info and a discovery centre that looks at the history of European settlement and its impact on the local aboriginal people. There is interesting history recorded by Christina Smith and recreated by hologram. The weird (and totally new) sounds of ... read more