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Published: December 31st 2012
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We were surprised by the absence of flies when we arrived at our B&B at the Spring Wood horse farm until I saw the silver thread of spider’s webs cast with the wind between two bushes. Yes I’m sure there were lots of happy fat spiders living in the foliage around our very comfortable flat. We stayed five days enjoying the peace interrupted by the occasional neighing of horse, quacking of geese, cock-a-doodle-doo of the roosters, screeching of parrots and the occasional noise of the trainers galloping their horses in the nearby field. The only problem was the Drake liked to herd his female gooses in front of our sliding glass door where they sat for most of the day leaving their goose poo. It wasn’t a problem if you were careful where you stepped.
The horses were beautiful, healthy beasts. I had no idea how friendly horses can be. We were told they remember everything and I believe it because Craig showed me where to get some clover hay as a treat for the beasts. After the first feeding whenever the horses saw me riding down the path on my bicycle they would thunder over, bare their teeth in
a big smile and ask for more hay. There was a never-ending activity, with chickens scratching, geese honking while they swam in the fountain and ate the goo they found there. Tom, the black cat, would wander over and demand a scratch between his ears and then head off to find some creature to torment while the trainers worked the race horses in the corral. Everyone was talking about the horse race the Friday before we arrived where one of the horses from Spring Wood had won the race.
The spirit of Christmas came from a summer Santa Parade with a plethora of displays including baby Jesus floats mixed in with Scottish pipers, fire engines, six white boomers pulling Santa’s sleigh, school district floats, camels lead by Santa, young men riding bicycles wearing red shorts, red t-shirts and white beards. We went to the town of Loethal just down the road from the German town of Hahndorf. This area, nestled in the hills behind Adelaide, is famous for the Christmas light decorations and caused an unending stream of traffic every evening from Adelaide. Craig, our host, had a polo-cross float in the parade and gave us good instructions on
where to park so we could leave and still see all the lights with out getting stuck in traffic. The temp hovered around 35C encouraging beer drinking which kept the police busy trying to maintain the alcohol free zone status. Australia is culturally similar to Canada and I couldn’t help comparing how similar this parade was to our summer parades.
We spent two days exploring Adelaide, one day riding our bicycles the eighteen kilometers of well groomed paths along the river to West Beach and the other taking the tram to Glenalg in Hold Fast Bay. We must look poor because everyone insisted we take advantage of all the less expensive options like a three-dollar return ticket on the tram rather than the all day pass at nine dollars. We spent hours in the no-charge museum. I couldn’t believe the extensive displays from all over the world along with a thorough study of Australian flora, fauna and Aboriginal culture and history. The science section was particularly interesting with a total history of the universe, a two thousand kilogram iron meteorites, recovered from the Nullarbor, and they even had a working cloud chamber where you could watch high energy gamma-rays,
which had managed to penetrate the earths atmosphere and the stone building we were standing in, make trails in the cloud chamber. We drove the twenty kilometers back to our B&B having spent a total of $12 fuel costs included.
We left the B&B, all rested up with a compliment to the owners for their extremely comfortable bed and entered into the world of holiday camping.
Dr Seuz eat your heart out. We stayed two days at Mannum on the Murray River in South Australia. It is Christmas week and the Murray River is full of water therefore everyone knows Christmas week and water means full caravan parks. We sort of knew that but when we arrived at 11AM things looked sort of quiet. Early in the afternoon families with lots of kids and then whole tribes of families with countless kids arrived. They spilled out of their giant utes pulling long trailers filled with what looked like everything except the kitchen sink. Standard sized refrigerators, electric kettles, toasters, lounge chairs, tables, bed frames with a proper mattress for granny and tents and more tents. The block behind Bogan St. was filled with what I’m sure
was a whole tribe driving in with various hoonmobiles towing trailers filled with everything they could dislodge from home. There was a whole spectrum of ages and every contrivance of transportation imaginable. There were scooters propelled with a rocking mechanism, silver razors, bicycles, motorbikes, wagons, kids electric cars, toddlers pushing plastic ride on toys and then there were the kids with the basket balls, the cricket bats, the soccer balls, a whole gamut of squirt guns. After the camp was set up the young men arrived in utes pulling empty boat trailers. I soon learned they had been pulling muscle boats, giant throaty V8 engines mounted in a kind of sled with a drivers seat and a gas tank. The boats were all lined up along the beach, half of them running while the well tattooed owners revved them up, I can only assume to tune the finicky 600 hp motors.
At first I was a little overwhelmed wondering if things would get out of hand but soon found the place wonderfully entertaining. The most amazing thing was there were no TV screens that I could see. The kids ran around in well-behaved groups with their Suez-like flugal horns,
their battle wattle batts, squirt guns, all riding some type of wheeled vehicle. No one argued, even the tiniest tot got their chance to get the basket ball through the hoop while the older kids rattled around on their dirt bikes or played with the engines in their cars or boats and the tattooed older men drank an amazing amount of beer from morning to night and then played cricket on the street with the kids until dark. Ten O’clock at night the camp became quiet and except for the occasional giggle from the girls who were occupying the tent three feet from our campervan the camp was still.
While being thoroughly entertained by all the human activity I noticed a remarkable number of parrots screeching in the gum trees around the camp. Flocks with hundreds of individuals of Pink and Gray Galahs mixed with the same number of Corrilas (white parrots) and dozens of Magpies competed with the noise of the human activity. Rolande and I went for a fifteen k bike ride down the river and the only birds I saw were water birds. It seems the screeching parrots are attracted by human made noise because no
one feeds them. There is a sign at the gate saying if you feed the birds you are killing them because they get aggressive and the camp staff will need to destroy them.
Day three we moved on to the little town of Coonalpyn, a hundred ks towards Melbourne. We have decided to spend New Years here. Today, so far, we are the only campers. We are on good terms with the caretaker, Rachide, an pleasant Dutch immigrant (here twelve years) who has three jobs, is training his second son to run a Belgium waffle stand on the highway, is building a twenty acre Care Farm for people with Alzheimer’s and is dreaming of sailing around Australia someday so is taking sailing lessons in Lake Albert. Energy plus! Yesterday we drove through the country filled with wheat farms to Lake Albert then took a cable ferry across the Murray River to Murray Bridge. Today on the last day of 2012 we will stay in the Coonalpyn caravan park and before the moon comes up I hope to see the Southern Cross while drinking a flute of cold Australian bubbly.
Happy New Year and All our best
wishes for a happy and prosperous 2013
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Mary Ellen
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Comox xheers
Good to hear such details of your travels. Enjoy every word so do continue to relate. Happy 2013...cu when u return