Adelaide -Melbourne.

So we were driving from Adelaide to Horsham....we'd had a late start to the day, a nice jog along the River Torrens for me and a slow start. Then a touch of shopping and coffee. As we headed into the Adelaide hills, one of the kids Emma I think spotted a sign that said Melbourne was only 723 km. That was a real tempter, after a brief family discussion we all decided we'd drive through and stay at Melbourne the night, this plan involved a night at Crown ( a little treat before we hit reality) and a trip to my hairdresser the next day. three months on the road, two bad hair colours and one bad haircut, I had a hair emergency! The kids all needed shoes , they seemed to have sprouted on this holiday- must be all the fresh air and the good life! the only down side of our plan was that it was already past mid-day!

We hit Melbourne at about 10 o'clock that night!After a very long and draining day and many discussions as to how it probably wasn't such a good plan after all!Lucky for us the door men at Crown were very obliging and let us park the van in the valet parking, it wasn't going to fit in the multideck! They must have been having an oversize night as there was a huge dump truck parked opposite.

It was a huge treat to be sleeping in a room that was about triple the van size, had an ensuite ( and you didn't even have to wear thongs in the shower) and to sleep in a Queen size bed with clean, crisp sheets.I still maintain our bed in the van wasn't much bigger than a King single.

We found this crazy wall in a back lane in Adelaide, it had
thousands of match box cars stuck up it - imagine Harry's delight!

A close up of the cars

Streaky Bay-Cowell-Adelaide

We spent a night in Streaky Bay and wished we had more time there. It was a pretty little town and a great caravan park right on the bay. Had a delicious  lunch at a fantastic cafe, Mocean , felt like we were in the Mornington Peninsula, probably 50 years ago. Pete finally took the kids fishing, unfortunately they had no luck!For some reason I didn't seem to take any photos of streaky Bay, so sorry no pictures!

Then off to Cowell , another nice little seaside town, on the Spencer Gulf where we needed to spend a night so we could take the ferry to Wallaroo the next day. The highlights here were the playground and the hot cinnamon doughnuts we got from the pub!

Ferry from Lucky Bay to Wallaroo

All went well on the ferry until we had to start our cars to drive off of the ferry- to our dismay our car wouldn't start- flat battery, we'd left the fridge connected to the battery and the ferry ride had drained it.You can imagine our feelings of discomfort- we were front row centre there were a lot of cars behind us and next to us- somehow they all seemed to manage to get off without us moving. the ferry guys seemed fairly used to this occurrence, and assured us it happens all the time, maybe thats why their jump start pack was flat....Any way luckily one of the passenger had some jumper leads and was happy to help us out , finally we got the car started and were able to leave the ferry , much to the relief of the passengers trying to get on and us of course!


We than had a one and a half hour drive to Adelaide or what should have been except for the traffic!Only to arrive at the caravan park to discover they didn't have a site large enough for our van. After much heated discussion, the fellow couldn't understand why we didn't want to stay on the road next to the mens toilets with no water, he grudgingly picked up the phone and booked us into a nearby caravan park.This was quite fortunate in the end as we ran into a nice family we'd met earlier in the trip.

Ceduna Oyster Festival

Yes we were lucky enough to be in town for the oyster festival!
After a slow start to the day, washing calling -again. We hit down town Ceduna to check out the festival. It was overall, fairly low key. There were the usual carni rides- but not many, the usual carni food but not enough(forcing us to queue for half an hour for a hot dog and yes that was the healthiest choice available). Except of course for the oysters! They were delicious, large, tasty, fresh and cheap , $8 for 6. Now we have sampled a lot of oysters on this trip and the ones at the Ceduna oyster festival were definitely the best we've had, washed down with a nice glass of sparkling and it made up for all of the other insufficiencies of the "festival".

Pete, very pleased with his 2 dozen oysters-they were just the beginning!

We were treated to a viewing of the Grand Final on the big screen, a screen that had been set up on the grass just outside the beer tent which was convenient. The crowd seemed fairly lukewarm about the footy overall, but I'd say the majority of people there were swan supporters , including the half plastered aboriginal guy leaning on Petes chair for the majority of the game.So we felt just a little self-conscious cheering when the Hawks did something worthy as we didn't want to upset the locals!

Luckily the result was what it was, for the few passionate Swan supporters there.

 The kids had a great day running around and returning to us at frequent intervals to have their money stocks replenished, to get some peace we were obliging, it was a win win situation!While we had a great day in the sunshine, I don't think I need to be rushing back to Ceduna in a hurry. We're off to Streaky Bay tomorrow which I'm looking forward to discovering as I've heard a lot about it.

Harry very pleased with his new rubber band gun

Yes, that's Emma in a big plastic ball..

and Maddy in another one- we did let them out ....at the end of the day!