Hi everyone,

you haven't had an update for a long time so I thought I better make the effort and update my blog. For the last week I have been in Adelaide and surroundings and have been enjoying my time with John, Claire, Emma and Thomas. In fact, I enjoyed my time here so much that I changed my plans and will only travel to Melbourne on Tuesday. The weather here is certainly not the same as in Darwin, although we had some beautiful sunshine when I first arrived in Adelaide Saturday a week ago. As John was unable to pick me up himself, he volunteered his graduate engineer Rob to pick me up from the airport at 6:35 in the morning. I am sure he couldn't think of anything better to do... Anyway, John asked him to rock up at the airport with a sign saying 'YA' but poor Rob thought I was Chinese or something... Anyway, everything worked out fine and I even got treated to breakfast. Although Rob nearly fell of his chair laughing as he hadn't heard the phrase 'fry up' in a long time. Apparently, it's called 'bacon and eggs' over here. Ah well.

Was allowed to check into the hostel at 10am and went for a wee sleep as I didn't manage to get much sleep the night before; flight at 3am, aircraft too hot and stuffy and then arriving at 6:30am. After a good 3 hours, I went to see my first Aussie rules footie match. A local one, but it was good as many people from the hostel tagged along. The hostel 'Backpack Oz' is a superb hostel by the way, very clean and the staff was very friendly. I really enjoyed staying there. Anyway, after the footie I just did some shopping for dinner and watched a movie. Early night for me. Well deserved me thinks. On Sunday, I went for a run first thing and then started to explore the city in the beautiful sunshine before being picked up by John, Claire and the kids. I had checked into the hostel for a few nights as I wasn't sure what was happening. But I was told to pack my bag to stay with John and Claire. I didn't stand a chance to argue against it! As the weather was sunny and warm I played with the kids in the garden and jumped on the trampoline. My god, has anyone tried this before? It is bloody exhausting. And I had such a good time!

On Monday, I went on a wine tasting tour and was drunk before lunch! It definitely has been a long, long time since that has happened. It was good and I bought some local wine as presents for people I will be visiting. The following morning I started my three day trip to KangarooIsland, a wonderful place in South Australia. We stopped after an hour's drive to take a surf lesson. Needless to say that I was absolutely useless at it and only made it up kneeing on the surf board! And the water was freezing, a mere 18 degrees!!!! We were really lucky with the weather on Kangaroo Island as we had a warm 2 days full of sunshine and only showers on the third day. All in all, we saw 30 different species of animals (admittedly, including sheep, cows and dogs) but also had very special moments when we saw wild dolphins jumping through the waves and walked amongst sea lions and fairy penguins. We saw hundreds of kangaroos and wallabies! Absolutely brilliant! And even though I am not normally a beach person, I have to admit that there were some beautiful beaches there.I got back to Adelaide late on Thursday night and unfortunately the weather had changed for the worse and we had persistent rain on Friday. Ah well, a good excuse for not doing anything and just spending the day with Claire and the kids, watching them at their swimming lesson and then coping with two grumpy little monsters in the afternoon. Today we tried to fly some kites that I bought for the kids (obviously for the kids, not for me or John, what did you think?!....) but there really wasn't enough wind around so that John and I ended up running up and down the oval, which obviously must have been a pretty sight for any innocent by passers...

On Tuesday, I will be starting my journey to Melbourne to see Erin and Dave, which should be good fun and I am really looking forward to. Hopefully the weather will have improved as well as travelling in the wet and cold really ain't no fun!

That's the news from me. What's yours? I will upload the photos tomorrow before heading of to the next trip so you can enjoy a bit of South Australia as well. Until then, keep smiling!

Yvonne
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