We had a relaxing morning with Chris and Irene on Monday then drove out with Chris to meet Sebastian for lunch in Adelaide. We went to the Grange Jetty, which we braved in the wind (see photo!) before driving back the scenic way with Chris showing us the sights of the Adelaide Hills.

On Tuesday we drove into Adelaide city centre to catch up on some admin tasks and have a brief look around. We also got lunch there - a HUGE pizza for $7! Yum! We then drove up into the Adelaide Hills to the Cleland Wildlife Park - South Australia is the first state we've been in where you can actually hold a Koala and Cleland is one of the wildlife parks that allows this, so first stop was the Koala enclosure and I should really hand over to Chelle for this...

So first, we were able to stroke a koala again as we had done in Sydney, but then as Alex says above, you could pay a little extra to hold a koala in this park!! Well of course I had to do this, when else would I get this opportunity!? I held a koala called Tommy. He was 4 years old, which is a young adult in koala terms. He was so soft and smelt really strongly of eucalyptus (unsurprisingly I guess!) He was not at all bothered about the fact that he was hanging on to a human, rather than a tree - he'd been orphaned when he was very young and raised by the park rangers as a result, so was very used to human contact. It was amazing!!

After that we had a good look around the park, got close to and had chats with various types of Kangaroo, Wallabies and the rather intimidating Emu's (their claws and beaks are massive, and they're obviously quite fast!). We also checked out loads of different snakes and some cute little mice all asleep together! Chris and Irene had gone out to a concert in the evening so we had a night in with the dogs and the TV, although we lost two thirds of the dogs just before we went to bed (whilst Rolly, the eldest of the dogs remained on the sofa giving me a "what have you done?!" look) and I spent the night worrying about my reputation in the family ("Alex? Oh yes I remember him - didn't he lose two of Chris's dogs?") only to find out in the morning that the dogs regularly went walkabout at night but always came back for breakfast! Phew!

The next day we decided to hit the coast looking for some good surfing conditions but unfortunately it was generally too flat or too rough! We visited Goolwa beach, Port Elliot and Port Vincent on the south coast before heading round to the west coast to Aldinga beach and Chelle finally decided to give the rather tame surf a go at a place called Port Willunga next to Aldinga. The water was really warm (great after the freezing cold south coast!) but Chelle only managed to catch a couple of waves as they weren't really big enough. What was good was how easily Chelle's now standing up (I'm still only making it up for a maximum of about a quarter of a second!). On our way back to Ashbourne we stopped in at a couple of the wineries in the McLaren Vale area then back to Chris and Irene's for chicken stew - yum!

Thursday was V8 Supercar day! Yay for me - not so many yays coming from Chelle, she spent the day worrying about the fact she's actually going to marry a massive geek! We went to the Clipsal 500, which is held in the centre of Adelaide. They used to hold the F1 Grand Prix here before it moved to Melbourne so it was great just to see the circuit. There were also Austalian GT cars there (lots of Lamborghini's and Porsche's) and some V8 Utes (very chavvy - or Bogeny as they call them over here!). I was like a child in a toy shop and Chelle was just glad it was a sunny day and there was a park in the middle of the circuit in which to sunbathe! In the evening we went to the Greenman Inn in Ashbourne with Chris and Irene - both Chelle and I couldn't resist the huge mixed grills and impressed Chris and Irene with our appetites!

Over to Chelle again to complete this blog (we've decided to share the burden this time)...

Before we left Adelaide on Friday, Chris treated us to bacon and fresh eggs from their chucks - we devoured it despite the mammoth meal we'd had the night before! We then headed north-west from Adelaide to the Yorke Peninsula. Rather than head down the peninsula, we headed across the top of it to a place called Kadina on the west coast. This is one of three towns that make up "Little Cornwall"! So-called because in the 1800s, copper was discovered here and miners from Cornwall flocked to the area. They have a festival every other year in May to celebrate their heritage called "Kernewek Lowender" - the Cornish for "Cornish Festival". The mines have all closed now and the miners have left behind little apart from their names and, of course, the Cornish Pasty! Oh and we spotted a Cornish flag flying outside one house too - see pics. We arrived late in the afternoon, so after a quick look around Kadina and Moonta (one of the other three towns - the third one being Wallaroo), we headed south a little to find our base for the evening - a bush camp called the Gap, just beside the sea. That evening, we got to see our first sunset whilst facing the west - it was amazing - and there'll be so many more to come over the next few weeks as we head to the west coast of Oz!

Of course the first stop on Saturday was the pasty shop, so that I could compare and contrast with ones from home! We headed to Port Hughes, just outside of Moonta, and to a beach called South Beach to relax for a couple of hours and to eat the pasties! It reminded me of being in Perranporth, where we'll often grab a pasty and head to the beach... but there were two main differences - it was about 30 degrees and the pasty had carrot in !!!!! (those of you from Cornwall will know what a sin this is, those of you from 'up-country' will probably wonder what's wrong with that!) In the afternoon we started the long drive up the Yorke Peninsula, via Port Augusta, to then cross over to the Eyre Peninsula. We made our way down towards Whyalla, to Fitzgerald Bay where we found our base for the night - another bush-camp just beside the sea. We realised that evening that the water for our sink in the van was getting very low and had to engineer a way of getting some water in without having all the facilities usually available to us in a campsite - and it was successful as you will see from the pic of Alex!

We awoke (or rather Alex woke me up!) yesterday to an amazing sunrise. We left early and after a brief stop in Whyalla for the usual supplies (info from visitor's centre, petrol and food), we then drove the long journey of over 400kms across the peninsula to Streaky Bay on the west coast. We'd heard about a free-camp here that was right beside the beach with good facilities (even a shower apparently!) but when we arrived, it was chocka with no room for our little camper! So we continued north along the coast and found another bush-camp. We've gotten quite accustomed to the routine of bush-camping now; we dither for a while about where to park, which direction to face and whether we're level. We then go and check out any facilities... if there's a long-drop then it's a bonus, if there's a flushing toilet and a sink then we feel very smug indeed!! This camp had the latter - result!!

This morning we left early and headed north to Ceduna, where we've checked into a campsite as a little treat before we hit the Nullarbor. The plan is to travel the 1600kms from Ceduna to Norseman over the period of about 3 days. There's little to see along the route and big long stretches of straight road to tackle (the longest being about 150 kms i.e. 90 miles!). Oh and Nullarbor means 'no trees' so it's pretty barren and it's very hot at the mo... what an adventure!