Back over the state border into Victoria. Visited a fabulous town, Port Fairy. It is high on my list of places to live. The properties alongside the river are beautiful and the location is perfect. This part of Oz is full of planted pine plantations possibly covering millions of acres. the mature trees are cut down and transported in huge trucks to Portland, on the south coast of South Australia for processing and onward transportation by ship. The start of ...

Second day of the Adelaide Ashes test match today. David and Tony went to the first day and David and I went today. Started with a minute's silence as Nelson Mandela's death had just been announced. Aussies were batting and finally all out for 570. England went in to bat late afternoon to face record setting speed bowling by Aussies. Cook, England captain was bowled after scoring 3, and by the end of today England had scored less than 30. Great day, I hav...

Took the tram into Adelaide city centre to do the tourist bit with our local hosts. We went to the Oval so that David and Tony could pick up the tickets for the test match due to start tomorrow. The cricket ground is undergoing a complete makeover and one of the new stands is far from complete. We then took a walk around Adelaide centre and viewed all the main buildings, which conveniently are close together! Adelaide is a compact state capital, very differen...

Following some good coffee and breakfast at the motel we set off for the second half of our drive to Adelaide, passing through some fairly remote and spread out towns along the Dukes Highway. We passed a couple of signs telling us that no fresh fruit can be carried over the state border, which was news to us, and that bins were available at the 'border' to deposit anything that contravened this state law. (Apparently, South Australia does not have any fruit flie...

Set off early afternoon in Tom's car bound for Adelaide. We had booked a motel room for the night in little place called Nhill, some 230 miles from Melbourne. As temp hit 37 degrees we kept the roof on the car and enjoyed the air con. Our first taste of Aussie country driving, ensuring speed limits not exceeded as everyone tells us how easy it is to get fined. No indigenous animals seen but plenty of colourful birds. The Oasis motel (booked previously) was fine...