Blogs from South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 277

12-14 June 2002 I was in the same Kindergarten all week. On a couple of days I had to work into the afternoon, when I did, only a few children turned up; it hardly seemed worth the effort. When there was time to become a tourist the weather was so bad it wasn't worth venturing out of my motel room. Late on my last day, the weather was better. It was an hour before sunset when I make an effort to travel the few kilometres south of town to visit an extinct volcano. The light was failing fast when I started the walking track to the top of Mt Schank. I was breathing heavily when I reach the rim and looked down into the crater, which is the perfect cone shape of a volcano. I managed ... read more

Day One - November 30, 2002: Adelaide - Sydney - Bangkok I stayed up until 2:30am, packing my bags, on the Friday night before we left and only got four hours sleep. But I was so nervous about my first overseas trip that I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. On the way to the airport it seemed I was not the only nervous one as Dad was driving through red lights on the way there and didn’t realise until we said something. Mum, Dad and Tammie saw me off at the airport, although our first hitch came quickly with Tony being unexpectedly bumped to an earlier flight without me. At least the flight to Sydney was almost empty and was a pretty easy trip and I felt the need to knock back some beer ... read more

Adelaide to Darwin over 2 weeks... read more

I spent one day on another of those mini-bus based back-packer tours, this time round one of South Australia's wine growing regions, the Barossa Valley. This region was originally settled by Germans and the German influences are still very strong (the buses run on time, everyone is well organised and efficient etc. etc.). As well as seeing the area, visiting vine yards, seeing how wine is made etc., there was also the chance for some wine tasting. Oh, and some brandy tasting, and some port tasting, and some sherry tasting, and some champagne tasting. The Australians obviously didn't care that the Spanish and French tend to get a bit stroppy about those names being used elsewhere. Afterwards we also visited a Whispering Wall (although I assume that it's not the one in the bible) which will ... read more

There was a great crowd on the bus south, except for the fact that the Japanese guy beside me had a bit of a personal hygiene problem. Luckily, he got off the bus at 2.00am literally in the middle of nowhere, which had the added bonus that I had two seats and was able to lie down to sleep. After a while travelling on the buses, you learn that they tend to fill the bus from the front, so if you ask for a seat at the back, there is a good chance that you will get two seats and hence a more comfortable night's sleep. No matter how comfortable it may be, getting a good night's sleep on a single seat is not easy. Once the bus starts moving, people from the front will check ... read more