April Fools Day

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DAY 144

1st April 2009

Well guys, we should own up now - we are not really in Australia, we have typed up all of this from our home office in Chandlers Ford, Southampton, Thank goodness for the internet allowing us to get all the images and Lonely Planet for providing the information we needed. The pictures of the Nissan were supplied by Nissan.com and our tans were courtesy of kiwi brown boot polish.

Tee hee - oh well it is April Fools Day, except that by the time you read this it won't be so the joke maybe lost somewhere in the ether.

I know some of you wish we were still back in England, well my Mum and Dad do anyway, but we are still in Australia and still blogging, it is not an elaborate hoax.

Another lovely warm night, it was 8:00 again before we both woke up, the sun was coming up nicely and the day was begging to be enjoyed. Still feeling that holiday spirit!

We could hear the clink of tent pegs outside, it sounds like Cliff and Sue are getting that early start on the day. Peering out of the window I could see that the tent was already in the process of coming down. They are heading off today and making their way to the Yorke Peninsula, but first they have a stop off to make in Wakefield.

On their journey out Cliff and Sue stopped at Wakefield for a night, however they inadvertently left their pillows, let me just explain though, these are no ordinary pillows these are the expensive memory foam type pillow. When they realised they telephoned the campsite to ask and the guy said, I don’t remember seeing anything. Cliff was not to be deterred by this and merely said to the chap, “I will be coming your way in a few weeks and we will stop by to pick them up”.

Andy and I were sitting outside the tent with a healthy breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, of course washed down with the obligatory first cup of tea of the day. I have not felt this relaxed in a long time it was just great. We watched while Cliff and Sue packed up the remainder of their tent and by 8.30 they were ready to hit the road.

We said our goodbyes again (I think we did this once before but bumped into them again), it is always sad to say goodbye to the people we meet on this trip and there have been a few! However we are lucky enough to keep in touch with some of them and with Cliff and Sue we hope to see them when we manage to swing by Perth sometime soon if our plans go accordingly.

Andy and I are off into Marion today, a suburb of Adelaide, which has this huge shopping centre (we have been told the largest in the world, but I am not sure about that), partly as there is a Dell shop there and we wanted to pop in and sort out something with connections on the laptop to make sure we have capability to charge the laptop from the car battery. Also giving us opportunity to see a little more of the surrounding area of this lovely city.

We did a few chores, housekeeping always needs doing it does not matter how far away you are from home! We hung the sleeping bags and blanket on the washing line for an airing. We were pretty well guaranteed that it was not going to rain while we were out so we would be ok to sleep in them tonight.

We were on our second cup of tea when we had a text message that said, “We got pillows… yahoo!” I think they were pleased to get their pillows back, I guess they will be sleeping at night again, they had been using blankets. I know what it is like to go without certain luxuries while travelling, ok so we do have pillows, not the best but they are pillows, but one thing that I do long for is a lovely soft mattress with clean crisp fresh bed linen, hmmm.

Off we set taking the coast road down to Glenelg, described in my Lonely Planet as “A cheerful good old fashioned seaside resort” Well we never stopped there so I cannot really comment entirely but as we were driving through we can see some brand new exceptionally modern and very expensive looking houses and apartments and building still going on so not quite sure about the old fashioned bit. Glenelg has been described to us as the upper class part of Adelaide.

We arrive at Marion, not more than 15 minutes drive from Adelaide Shores, parking is easy, we park underneath in the multi-storey to keep the truck cool in the shade. There seems to be plenty of parking around though.

We wander in this vast complex, which has the usual anchor stores such as David Jones, Big W etc. However in order to find what we are looking for we have to ask the concierge for a map and then ask her for the Dell shop.

We find out and off we set, we walk and walk and walk virtually the whole length and there it is a tiny tiny little Dell kiosk in the middle of the walkway, “Some Dell shop” I know from my first glance that they will not be able to help us, a kiosk like that only means one thing, they are there to sell the latest models and chatting to one of the two assistants there confirms that, he is also subcontracted by another company to do the selling so does not even work for Dell. He tells us what we already know and that is to phone up Dell (how frustrating) and ask them to send what we need.

We have lunch, a sandwich and coke then wander round some of the shops, Andy asks me for some cash as he wanted to wander off somewhere, I gave him $50 but he said that was too much, so I disappointingly gave him $20, I didn’t let on at the time, but I think he went to get me a birthday card as it is my birthday on Monday. I think it will be like any other day at the moment, I am sure I won’t get any cards, as nobody knows where to send them. Never mind things could be worse; I could be in England and sat in an office all day but instead here we are in the fresh air, this great climate, seeing great things, meeting great people and having a great experience, that is a good enough birthday present.

Andy lost his pocket knife a few campsites ago, we think at Princess Margaret Rose Caves, and there is one thing that is really handy when camping is a pocket knife. So we set about finding one, we went into a few shops, one guy was really knowledgeable but I found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying, i.e. I got bored and wandered off. Anyway eventually we found a shop with “the one”, Andy was happy again he is so fussy but he knows what he wants and there is no compromise, anyway we are happy little campers again.

Back to base camp, the day is still hot and beautiful, I check on the sleeping bags and blanket, they are still there, there is a nice breeze blowing through so I think they will get a good airing.

We are sat having a cup of tea, but I would like to go swimming, but quite frankly I cannot be bothered to shift, I mentioned that on my Facebook page, which seems to have set off a chain reaction of comments, sorry guys!

The campsite is a little busier today, I wonder if Easter holidays are starting, as there are a few more children around. The camp kitchen is a lot busier so we just cook at the tent, we are on our own tonight as our “camping buddies” Cliff and Sue are in another town.

After dinner we took the awning down in preparation for moving on tomorrow, also because if we left it until the morning then it would be covered in dew and would have to be packed away damp, which then causes a problem if we don’t want to use it for a few days.

Then we sat up late doing the blog; yes we have been late with the blog for a few days because we have been enjoying ourselves we will try not to let that happen again (I cannot promise though!)

Adelaide the Capital of South Australia is known to be the “city of churches” apparently having more than its fair share of churches, early inhabitants were religious refugees from Germany, their influence is still widely seen around the city in food and music also Adelaide never had any convicts sent here.

We are 1534km from Alice Springs, 2707km from Perth and Darwin at 3024km. There is one hell of a lot to cover of this huge country still but we are determined to do it.

Then we went to bed on this lovely warm evening, by the way we put the sleeping bags and the blanket back in, they felt so lovely and fresh, the screens were also down so that the sunshine could burst in to wake us.

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Comments

[Darryl and Sarah]

Stamford Grand Glenelg
That's where we spent the last night of our honeymoon in February 2000! We hadn't booked anywhere and just wandered into the foyer looking like tramps but wound up with a 2 night stay with special room & honeymoon dinner for about £100 all in - result! It's right next to the end of the tram line and alot of street entertainers hang around there, it's great fun and the view across the sea is tremendous! Happy memories! So glad that you two are having so much fun, we're picking up so many good ideas from your blogs. I've just been searching for a car charger for the laptop...also Dell!! We start our journey going anti-clockwise from Melbourne so you never know, we might cross paths which would be fab. Must go ... clock's ticking!!! Dar & Sar