Sheila writes:

G'day from Southern Australia (Adelaide to be precise). We've had a wonderful camper van trip through the outback of Western Australia - visiting the Karijini National Park in the north, with its wonderful sandstone gorges - and even managing a refreshing dip in the pool at the bottom of the Fortesque waterfall after an early morning hike around the rim of the Dales Gorge, with fabulous birdsong. Camping overnight in Karijini was uncomfortably hot (probably over 40oC daytime) and infested by hoards of flies! Luckily we've both got head nets (drop down from your hat for mosquito protection) but they make supping tinnies a wee bit difficult!! Visited the largest open cast iron ore mine in the world at Newman - and one of the oldest goldmining towns in Western Australia at Cue - with its old Town Hall, Masonic Lodge and the numerous "hotels' (hostels for gold miners at the end of the 19th century) with their wooden balconies. Met a lady who had found a massive gold nugget (must have been about 50g) and wore it round her neck on a leather thong!

Managed to fit in a brief tour to the south of Perth to visit the famous tall karri (Eucalyptus) forests and to take in a few wineries in the Margaret River region. Wine tastings at the cellar door is a bit of an art if you don't like their wine or don't want to buy it at $50 a bottle! (We've developed some great phrases...."can you give us details of your (a) website so that we can look you up in the future; (b) outlets in the UK, and, (c) my particular favourite: "we're going to hesitate for the time being!"

Adelaide is a very beautiful city and very green. It is a bit of a cultural shock for us to be back in a city with hustle and bustle and Christmas shopping! A bit of a strange feeling for me to be hearing Christmas carols and seeing santa clauses in the hot sunshine and blue skies! Adelaide really is very civilised - I'm currently "doing research" on one of the numerous computers in the South Australia Library before wandering off to the Botanic Gardens and finally on to the South Australia Wine Visitors Centre for a spot of "tasting"!

We're off tomorrow to the famous Barossa valley (just east of Adelaide) for a couple of days visiting more vineyards. Here, the main wine types are full bodied reds - Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. We've hired a car to tour around so we can visit places that the tour buses don't go (I certainly want to visit the lookouts - overlooking the valley - just to get an idea of the overall spectacle).

We're off to Sydney at the weekend for Christmas and New Year - so are already getting abit excited about that.