Had a more relaxing day and stayed out of the heat as much as possible as after yesterday we are very tired. As Canada is built for the cold, Australia is built for the heat.
Leisurely start to the day and then we drove out to a little town called Lyndoch in the Barossa Valley. The Barossa of course being one of the major wine growing areas in Australia. The three main wine growing areas in Australia are The Margaret River in WA which we went around a couple of weeks ago; the Barossa Valley in SA where we were yesterday and the Hunter Valley where we use to live before we moved to Calgary. Di always gets a giggle when people ask her out to a wine and cheese evening as a) she doesn’t drink and b) she is lactose intolerant!
We went to catch up with some old family friends Jeanette and Barry who are very happily retired and doing a lot of tripping around Australia as well as overseas. In fact, they don’t have just one camper van but also a caravan. They gladly accept that they belong to the grey nomads who head north each winter to get away from the cold – let’s call them the snowbirds of Australia though having said that there is not a lot of snow involved.
Spent a lovely time catching up on family news and what each of us has been up to. They do a lot of travel to Asian countries which makes sense as it is on their back door, as we do Europe as it is on our back door.
Whilst driving out to Lyndoch we struck extremely strong winds and a bit of a dust storm which darkened the sky and buffetted us around in the car. This time of year tends to be bad for dust storms as it is the spring winds and the farmers have just all harvested. Hate to think how much top soil is lost each year. The fire department is also on high alert as this is real bush fire weather. There is a fire on Kangaroo Island which is just off the coast of Adelaide and which we are hoping we might be able to visit next week for a couple of days. We just have to keep an eye on how it progresses.
Quiet night with Leonie, David and Alaistair around the house and organising our Christmas plans in Melbourne.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 