South Australia

Alan and I are enjoying a holiday in South Australia. We started off from Sydneynwhen all the flooding was happening, so had to get to Adelaide the long way to avoid Wagga, Forbes, and Shepparton in Victoria.
We have been talking about going to the Adelaide Festival for years and as he had some Canadians doing a non simultaneous exchange, it was the perfect time to go. We booked everything online and went to see some fantastic performance, including one at the Zoo!
The weather was hot and fair, except for a memorable downpour and electrical storm as we were having dinner in the caravan park.
Since leaving Adelaide, we have followed the coast and have been enjoying some isolated camping, which has been just so relaxing and refreshing. We spent two nights at the Coorong, which is looking pretty healthy again after the recent flows down the Murray. For those of you who have been there with us before, it is so much better, but yes, there are still lots of centerpedes which get into everything. We crossed to the ocean beach at Tea Tree Crossing, which involved a long water crossing and then up and over the dunes. Alan tried fishing off the beach with no luck.
We spent last night at Little Dip Conservation Park near Robe. The weather was wild with gale force winds and bucketing rain. Stronger winds were forecast for today, so we moved away from the coast to Naracoorte. The wind has dropped but so has the temperature.
We will probably head out of South Australia into Victoria and the Murray tomorrow and plan to be back in Sydney by next Tuesday.
I love being retired!

Heading to Sydney

We reluctantly left the beautiful Murray region after a detour to Wentworth to see the confluence of the Murray and Darling rivers. It was really wonderful to see the brown of the Darling meeting the blue green waters of the Murray. And such a healthy flow after all the rainfalls in northern NSW and Queensland. We drove from Mildura to Forbes ( with a night in Hay on the way). We enjoyed Gary and Judy's hospitality once again and Ray cooked us all a delicious curry dinner as our final meal together of the trip. As Forbes was rapidly becoming isolated by floodwaters, we left early the next morning and headed to Cootamundra, instead of the the blue mountains as planned, as the road to Orange was closed. This enabled us to visit Meg and Mick overnight, which was a pleasant diversion. Our final night before reaching Sydney was in Morton National Park at Bundanoon in the southern highlands - beautiful. We are currently camped in Lane Cove National Park while we wait for our apartment to become available, mid January. Its good to be home for Christmas.

The Murray River

The Murray River looks great at the moment as it is pretty full of water due to rain in the catchment areas, and it is flowing freely. The weirs are full and water is being released into the river from them, which is also increasing its flow. We camped on the banks at Renmark in South Australia and Buronga in NSW. Buronga is on the north bank from Mildura, Victoria. They are both very pleasant places and we enjoyed walking along the river banks and watching the river traffic. We did the Art Deco walk in Mildura and admired their splendid buildings. We also got caught in the most ferocious storm that Alan and I have encountered in the camper trailer ever! The wind blew us about and we had to secure the annex with two and sometimes three ropes on each pole! Then it started raining - over 70 mls overnight. We stayed dry inside though we had a river flowing under the wheels.

Eyre Peninsula South Australia

What a wonderful place this Eyre Peninsula is! The water is so clean and clear and the seafood is delicious. For the last week we have been enjoying fresh oysters, prawns, scallops and fish. We spent two nights at Streaky Bay on the West Coast, two nights at Coffin Bay on the South west coast and one night at Port Lincoln on the south east coast. The weather hasn't been brilliant but we got two really nice days in and were swimming and exploring the pristine coast. This picture is of me in Coffin Bay National Park on one of the good days. Its been very very windy and quite unpleasant and has rained practically all day today. Sadly, we are on the final week of our trip and will be in Sydney next Sunday 12th December. But it will be wonderful to see our family again.

Nullabor Links

We have played 18 holes of golf across the Nullabor. Its a fantastic idea. The golf course starts in Kalgoolie at the new Graham Marsh designed course there and ends 1365 kms away in Ceduna! ( You can play it the other way too). Some of the holes are very challenging and I am not going to tell you the scores we had! Its been quite a successful concept and when we collected our certificate today the lady told us that since its been operating, accidents on the Nullabor have decreased significantly as people are not driving as far each day. We actually spent 4 nights between Kalgoolie and Ceduna, which I am sure we would not have done otherwise. We had so much fun playing the holes and just getting out of the car and walking around. One of the par 5 holes took the 4 of us more than an hour to play. We only had one set of clubs and we had to really search for the balls.

The weather has been disappointingly cold and very windy. We are in Streaky Bay at the moment and it is definitely not swimming weather.

The W A Southern Coast

Its been a week since we left the house at Eagle Bay, and we have been driving along the South West coast of WA and through the giant karri, marri and tingle trees. The first stop was Quinninup, then through to Walpole on the South coast, across to Albany and now in Esperance via the Fitzgerald River National Park. The weather has been alternating cold and windy. We had a swim here today, but have been out of the water since we swam in Green's Pool - the prettiest beach in Western Australia, according to the guidebook. Its near Denmark. These photos are of the Valley of the Giants and Point Anne in Fitzgerald River NP. Fitzgerald River is a 'biosphere' which means it has an incredible diversity of plants and animals. The wildflowers were absolutely magnificent and we did a lovely bush walk where we saw the names of a great number of them.

Eagle Bay

Since last Monday, Alan and I have been staying in a house at Eagle Bay on the Southern coast of WA between Cape Naturaliste and Dunsborough. This is a home exchange agreement which Ray and Trish had organised, and they are here with us now. The owners are staying in Ray and Trish's place from next week.

Eagle Bay is just the most beautiful place and we have been walking along the coastline everyday. We are actually quite close to Cape Naturaliste and have walked around the lighthouse on the myriad of trails in the National Park. There are lots of whales to be seen from the shore - some quite close in.

The wild flowers are just magnificent. The photos are of Bunker Bay, the next beach around from Eagle Bay, and Trish in the wild flowers at Yallingup.