As previously mentioned, Adelaide was for recouperation - to spend time with family, to find a car, to babysit and to get ready for our 3rd, 4th and 5th months on the road.

We only intended to stay for about a week but, put it down to lethargicness, being more than content with our surroundings, or even pure laziness, we ended up enjoying 2 easyish weeks with Ryan, Abby, Ellie and, for a few days, Toby.

Spent the first week casually looking for an affordable vehicle that would get us around this huge island safely. We hadn't really ventured out until after about 6 days when we borrowed Ryan's car and went to a car auction. This turned out to be more depressing than enlightening as most of the cars we could afford were for dealers only and the few for the general public were really not great. But at least by now, we know what we must do and what we should be looking for. Back on the internet that evening to look for more cars from private or used car traders we compile a list for tomorrows hunt!

Meanwhile, Sam has lost her filling somewhere in Asia. I'm sure we searched everywhere for it - walking to every known location in the hope that somehow it was at an attraction!! So, luckily for us, Ryan's new house is situated immediately amongst many amenities including shopping, hairdresser's, a chippy, laundrette and, more importantly for this case, a dentist! Sam gets an appointment for Mon 9th Oct. Which meant we would be staying in Adelaide until at least the due date of Toby's arrival (10th).

The list we'd made for our car hunt was in full flow and, with the help of Ryans car again, we went searching used car dealers and actually found a couple of contenders but we were looking at prices around the $3,000 mark (£1,300). The last place on our list had a car that was advertised as 3,000 on the net but 5,000 on the forecourt so we enquired and he said it was yesterdays offer only but he would honour it for us. We took it for a drive and were sold. It's a Holden Commodore 3.8L, Auto, Sedan, Air-Con (just about!), and CD player. We picked it up the next day (saturday).

Within a day of driving it around, the Odometer (mileage counter - but in km!) had stopped working so that had to be fixed before leaving! Another delay, we thought - not that we needed an excuse to stay around because on Sunday, Abby went in to labour. 15 hours later, in the very early hours of Monday 9th October, the fragile Toby was born.

Sam's tooth was fixed up good and proper - no infection thankfully and one less thing to worry about.

We paid Toby a few visits, took lots of pictures and videos, looked after Ellie some of the time and finally got round to getting the car sorted on thursday. The mechanic had it overnight as the dash needed sending away for repair and it was ready lunchtime on friday - and so were we. We set off just after Abby & Toby came home (about 14:00) and arrived at our first destination 3.5 hours and 330km later..... Mt Remarkable.