So far my favourite thing about Australia has been the temperate weather (if a little TOO grey at times), the Coorong Mullet, the birds and the sand dunes and we have really taken our time to enjoy it all. Driving from Victoria into South Australia has been so cruisy we are almost covering around 100 miles a day. We are so laid back we are horizontal most of the time, like literally…laid in bed soaking up the scenery.

From sand dunes in the baking sun to this deserted beach

The wild camping is abundant and in pretty awesome locations, the best so far has been at the foot of a lighthouse at Cape Jervis where we passed the time watching the cormorants gliding effortlessly above the wash and the masked lapwings dipping their bright yellow wattles into the thrashing water as the sun set…all from the comfort of our bed.

We woke up yesterday morning with pebbled beach to one side and bush to the other. The bush looked to be filled with enormous white flowers, until the flowers took flight in a huge white cloud, squawking and yelling and making a general commotion. The cockatoos arrive and leave in their hundreds and regardless of the racket I love to watch them…Alex is not so keen as they keep making rather a mess crapping all over the van.

Our week, although cruisy has been littered with the usual excitement. Trying to reach the beach along the stunning Coorong National park and getting lost in the sand dunes whilst being repeatedly attacked by horse flies was fun, as was rolling down said sand dunes and getting a quick shower on the remote road side afterwards.

street showers

Finding our favourite new fish to eat was pretty awesome, til we realised it is only available from the one lake we were next to at the time. Delcious, light, clean and simple little fillets washed down with some of the local wine was an enjoyable treat.

Staying in a campsite for the first time after 10 days to do the laundry was eventful too, more so than you can imagine. Of course, the usually calm campsite was over-run with children due to the long weekend (we have TERRIBLE timing) and the price ramped up 20%. The fun didn’t end there. Parked next to the (jam-packed with shrieking children) jumping pillow (thats payback for something let me tell you) we stripped the bed, prepared the laundry and grabbed the bag of laundry tablets…to find that the thieving sods that robbed the van had taken the laundry tabs but left the empty bag. This sent me into a fit of rage of course and I took it out on a box of wine…after I had paid over the odds for detergent from the over-priced campsite reception to do my three loads of washing!

I calmed down by cooking up some of our favourite fish that we had collected at the market that morning with some freshly dug carrots and chopped Kale and the entire day was restored when a knock on the door resulted in a gift of half a box of wine and some lovely company from our neigbouring (child free holidaying) campers.

As always the reminders of the good in people are rife and as we waved to our new friends this morning with our cupboard replensihed with their wine, food stuffs, pans and magazines (they were flying home…hence them giving away wine) and an offer of a bed when we visit Sydney we felt the laundry tablet anger disappear all together. It was however replaced with the hope that the thieves think that the laundry tablets are sweets and eat them and as a result fart bubbles for the rest of time!

I know I keep harping on about it but we are so blessed to meet so many great people and to have support, warm wishes and to be invited into homes all over the world and, aside from the bubble farting hopes, we are back to our happy go lucky selves!

From dunes, to salt flats to forest in one day. Australia is beautiful

Umpherston sinkhole

living the dream

We have a few decisions to make over the next few days about our direction, our feelings about Australia as a potential new home and we really need to focus on the build for the new website which is coming along nicely…so, in a nutshell, we probably need to get out of bed and on the road more over the next week but…we’ll see about that!