Road Trip

Shortly after my last post Patrick and I took off toward Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road.  We planned to do the whole trip in a week or slightly over that, playing it by ear.  Now almost two weeks later we are still not even starting our return trip.

The weather has been great and I've always dreamed of driving down the Great Ocean Road past the 12 Apostles in a convertible with the hood down.  We couldn't have picked a more perfect day to do that drive.  Patrick says his head is the brownest it has ever been.  First he looked like a lobster though - we forgot to put on sunscreen.

We did a few days in the Barossa Valley visiting quite a few wineries and tasting some of the best wines I have ever had.  We were mostly sensible tipping the wine into a spittoon after tasting it to avoid getting blotto.   Each day we had a different designated driver so one of us had to be even more responsible than the other.  Even so, I ended up buying a lot more wine than I intended.   There was so much nice wine that just wasn't available in the bottle shops back home so my mini is packed full - boot and back seat as well.  Our favourite winery is now Langmeil - every one of their wines was superb.

We stayed in a lovely little cottage there with a great view of the vineyards around Tanunda.  It had a spa that we filled and I put in a tiny amount of something aromatic for the bath which was provided but it caused so much foam that it almost filled the entire bathroom.  It was very comical indeed and I wish I had taken a photo.  

I'm also scared about what will await me back home regarding speeding fines.  Adelaide is absolutely littered with hidden speed cameras and it has ridiculous speed limits that aren't consistent.  We learned too late after I noticed the bright flash from the cameras twice, that the rule is ' 50 km/h unless otherwise stated'  It seems so slow and cars are just crawling around everywhere even thought there is hardly any traffic.  Luckily I have cruise control that is easy to adjust and reset so I learned to use that most of the time as it is so easy to forget while driving - and chatting away - to stick to the speed limit.

Today we are Victor Harbor and we have internet access so I have taken this opportunity to sit down and post on my blog.  I surprisingly haven't suffered from internet withdrawal after going cold turkey.  I thought I would.  I guess I had a lot of other things to keep my mind busy and so no cold sweats or shaking at all. 

Tomorrow we are going to Kangaroo Island.  We'll probably spend about 4 days there before going back to Adelaide - I found out my cousin Judy from New York is in Australia and I missed her in Melbourne so I'm going back to Adelaide to catch up with her and her husband Mark when they arrive there.  More chances to traffic violation points.  I'm scared that I might have already lost my license before I even knew about it the hidden cameras.  I think you have 12 points all up.  It will be very expensive if that is the case.  However if I did lose my license, it will only be for South Australia thank goodness - I think.

Just going out for dinner now...

We just got back tonight not long ago from looking at penguins on Granite Island off Victor Harbor and we've just booked the ferry trip to Kangaroo Island online.  We decided to take our car as well.  I've been advised by some people not to take the car because of the unsealed roads and other people say it is fine to take it.  Since taking the car will help us continue to play it by ear regarding our planning - which is how we have been doing it up until now and that has generally been working out well for us. 

We'll be taking the ferry tomorrow at 3pm.  Patrick was just about to book the 9am ferry which meant we would have had to head off to Cape Jervis to catch they ferry around 7am, getting up to pack up the car and get ready by 6am.  I would have stayed up all night worrying about not being able to get enough sleep as I do when I really want to sleep.  Luckily common sense prevailed and we booked the later ferry.

I have just a few minutes left on my internet card so I'm going to log on and post this.  I don't have enough time to upload photos so I'll do that when I get a chance.

Thanks everyone who commented and emailed me regarding my last post.  I hadn't had a chance to respond as we took off on this trip on a bit of a whim.