The mandatory ‘re-visit’ to our favourite cafe at Quorn was our last activity in the Flinders Ranges before deciding to dramatically change our scenery.
We blasted south out of the Ranges through the Pitchi Ritchi pass and descended into the flat low lying port areas around Port Augusta. The surrounds changed from dry scrub lined scattered hills, until the colour started to re emerge into our senses as the lush rolling green pastures came into view, lined with thousands of wind turbines perched high on the surrounding hills. Elon Musk was currently in the process of building the worlds biggest Tesla battery bank to capture the power created from these machines.
The population hit us like a culture shock as we tried to pass through Adelaide in the middle of the evening peak, but we kept on moving south through the Adelaide Hills onto the Fleurieu Peninsular, and our new temporary home of Port Elliot.
We re-acclimatised ourselves to the wet, windy and humid environment that 95% of Australian’s call home. We ran the southern ocean paths, saw whales, went to Rock and Roll festivals, rode horse drawn trams, and generally enjoyed being able to order a flat white and get a flat white! Bern almost had a nervous breakdown going to the supermarket to sort out dinner, and trying to deal with the range and choice available. I think we ordered in that night!
A spectacular 14 km trail run along the Heyson Trail perched on the magnificent cliffs overlooking the Southern Ocean, was my Sunday long run reward for winning my first ever Parkrun! Bern even won the accolade of first female finisher!
A disastrous morning of high speed gusty winds saw us awake and up at 3am packing up and hoping the camper holds out. The violent slaps of the canvass, and crack as the roof swayed over our heads really cemented our decision to head home. Miraculously, the kids slept in until 7am, van was packed by 7.30am, and we had breakfast just before the extreme rain and winds picked back up. On a good driving day of wet horrible weather, we rounded Cape Jervis, found a quality coffee at Normanville and headed back into Adelaide to start our city stay. We dropped Swanny off for a well overdue service and booked into the Grand Chancellor on Currie.
We had a wonderful Adelaide experience exploring the city by foot and public transport and enjoyed not getting into the Prado for a few days. The kids (and Bern) enjoyed the free tram and city circle bus and we used these to visit the markets, museum, library, Rundle Mall and the beautiful parklands surrounding the city. Being in the city, we also treated ourselves to Japanese for the first time in 9 months... twice! One with the kids at the local Sushi Train, and one slightly more relaxed experience back at the hotel with two sleeping children and ordering in using the latest UberEats App.
We picked up Swanny and headed to West Beach for a few days before making the big leap back into NSW. A few beautiful sunny days at the local Big 4 allowed us to clean up a bit, and utilise the pools before the wind and weather yet again set in as we drove east away from another weather front packing damaging gale forces winds.