Together Again!

January 15 Last Day in Adelaide

Woke up feeling pretty good given that I hadn’t closed my eyes until 2am! The knowledge that things were sorted on the truck was a huge weight off.

We headed off across town to City Reach Baptist Church (Formerly Oakden Baptist, formerly Prospect Baptist) where we attended many years ago while Dad was at Bible College. It was great to see the church thriving and the Word being preached is still solid 🙂

After church we headed into the hills planning to have a wander through Hahndorf and pick strawberries at Beerenberg Farm. However, Hahndorf was a mass of people and we didn’t feel like pushing through the crowds so we drove slowly through in a procession of cars moving at 10kph and admired the Germanic buildings and shopfronts before heading straight to Beerenberg.

On arriving at Beerenberg we decided not to pick strawberries as by the time we paid entry and by weight for the strawberries, the first kilo (And we didn’t have room for more than a kilo) would have cost us $18! But we did have a great time in the Farm Shop picking up some of our favourite condiments as well as some new ones we hadn’t tried before.

We then headed out to Melbas Chocolate Factory and had some sweet treats before heading back to Uncle John and Auntie Lorraine’s to load up ready to head out in the morning. On the way through, we stoped at a roadside stall and picked up a kilo of incredibly sweet, juicy strawberries, 2 kilos of farm fresh apples a punnet of Raspberries and a punnet of Blackberries (Which Michelle had never tried) for $20!

Overall it was a great day just to be back doing stuff with Chelle and the kids again 🙂

January 16 Adelaide – Naracoorte

We had a fun, productive stay in Adelaide and it was great spending time with Uncle John and Auntie Lorraine but all things must come to an end.

An early start saw the last of our kit loaded into Big Blu in time to share a final breakfast together before we hit the road again.

I wanted to pass through Naracoorte as it was my birthplace and Auntie Lorraine had planned a route for us that avoided the steep inclines of the Adelaide hills (Big Blu doesn’t like hills in 100 zones :p ) but we had only travelled south for about 20mins when we realised that we had forgotten something we had been telling each other to make sure we remembered for the whole time we were in Adelaide… A visit to Patriti Wines to pick up some of their amazing sparkling grape juice. Doh! So it was half an hour back into the city centre to correct the oversight.

An hour and a half later and we were back at the point where we had turned around and continued our journey through the South Australian farmlands. The roads out here had stretches of double dotted lines, accompanied by signs saying “Overtake When Safe”… Now I thought you were only supposed to overtake when safe even on single dotted lines?? If you know the logic behind the double dotted lines, please fill me in in the comments!

We were back making good time until just before Strathalbyn, when a major accident a few minutes ahead of us caused the main and only road through an area of farmland to be closed completely… We saw 2 Ambulances, Fireys and an airlift chopper all heading in. Along with several dozen other vehicles, we were turned around to backtrack around the accident… This entailed about an hour of additional driving, most of it on dirt roads in a dusty convoy of trucks and other vehicles trying to get around also. As frustrating as it was, we were blessed not to have reached the site of the accident a few minutes earlier!

Eventually, we made it to the Murray River Ferry at Wellington and Big Blu got his first taste of being on a boat, even if it was for only a couple of hundred metres.

The remainder of the trip passed without incident and we made it into Naracoorte at just after 5pm after setting off at 9:30am… A very long day on the road for a relatively short distance covered.

However, when we sat down at the Naracoorte showgrounds and enjoyed a cheese and berry platter acompanied by Patriti sparkling grape juice… It was all worth it!

Finally, after waiting for the kids to fall asleep, it was time to set up for Clarissa’s birthday morning… Chelle did an amazing job, complete with hand sewn Bunting and a lit vintage letter C!