Exercise, The Parklands and happy eggs!

Firstly apologies to all of you who have tried to leave a comment on the blog and thought it was something you were doing when you weren't able to.  Hands up, I've discovered it was me... and I've now enabled the settings (which sounds rather grand) so hopefully if you would like to make comments you now can....

We've just had Australia Day here, officially the 26th, a day when 'new' Australians are acknowledge as citizens and most 'old' Australians get very relaxed and have lots of fun doing so.

It was a great excuse for communities (like villages) to get together.  We went to one gathering which was really well organised. 

There were people BBQing or you could take your own picnic.  Most community areas also have BBQ's c/w gas so anyone can roll up and cook their own food.

Local groups played a huge range of music, appealing to all age groups.  Most people were sitting under the shade of tree's on portable chairs. Unfortunately we sat on various ants nests cos we'd forgotten ours.  A lesson we have now learnt!

A space was left in front of the bands for anyone who wanted to dance, and some did.  It was great fun and free.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, having started the title with exercise perhaps that's what I should have started to tell you about first.

With embracing a new life it was a good time to embrace more exercise, I thought. So I purchased an exercise ball, they looked fairly friendly and as if they could be fun.  

Well it's taking more getting used to than I thought it would.....  One exercise which required me to roll onto the ball, face up and extend my arms to touch the floor behind me looked easy in the book.  Not so easy when I tried it.... I ended up with the ball trapping one arm under it, my legs over the chair beside me and my weight holding me firmly trapped!  After much laughter Rick eventually freed me.  

Then I was offered a bike from a friend, it's a fella's bike with a cross bar... which is fine until I try and stop when I'm wearing flat sandles instead of trainers, then I have a problem reaching the ground with my foot.  As I did very late on Sunday night and ended up in a heap in the road... luckily I bounce very well and there were no cars around.

Tree's along a typical South Parklands cycle path

Rick patiently waiting for me to catch up.

Anyway Rick and I tried the bikes out during the day and headed off into the South Parklands.  It was glorious.

The cycle paths are very easy to use.  The whole route is lined with native plants and trees, Tea Tree, a huge variety of Gums and Pines, the smell is wonderful.

It's very hard to get lost, as you could hopefully see from the map below everything is well labelled.  

The roads are named after some of the Big Wigs from the first settlers and the areas have now got their Aborginal names.

This Parkland is being renovated at the moment, new native tree's and shrubs are being planted and a 'workout' (which could also be called an assault course) is being added.

Adelaide takes looking after the environment and healthy 'green' areas very seriously.  It's very noticeable when you fly over Oz and see the other cities.  This may be one of the smallest but it is a very beautiful city.

Before I forget I need to tell you that we are (so far) very lucky here with the weather.  It always seems to be Queensland (furthest north east point in Oz) which gets the monsoon type weather and the cyclones and further down the coast Victoria is the place with the fires. As is Tasmania which is also quite a distance from here.  So please don't worry when you hear the new's, it is hard to imagine the vastness of this country and just how far away everything is.

To end on a happy note, I brought some eggs today and when putting them away noticed this. Even the eggs are happy......

Keeping cool

In the shade of a Gum in our front yard a Collared Dove is keeping her cool.  When these birds fly they sound like they need a good squirt of WD40.

It started off cloudy today so our early morning walk for the first time wasn't lit by the most amazing display of stars.  There was even a few drops of rain while we were outside eating breakfast.   

But that didn't last very long by about 10 am the sun had chased all the clouds away and the temps rose to 26c with a gentle breeze all day.  I still haven't got used to the novelty of being able to wash and dry clothes outside all in half a day!!  I don't think they will even get to the steaming stage here let alone stiff!

I spent the day researching transportable steel homes and passive houses etc.,  There is so much information it is easy to go into overload and forget what you read and where.  All good though and tomorrow we are visiting a Display Village of one of these companies.  

They will build a home to your specification in their workshops and transport it complete (all decorated too) to the site.  Amazing... just need to decide exactly what we want, luckily we both have similar ideas, likes and dislikes.

It's a long weekend as tomorrow is Australia Day Monday will be a bank holiday, so there will be plenty of time for more home research.

The weather.....

I've been avoiding commenting on the weather here but can't resist any longer, so with apologies .....

This week Rick went back to work and the temperatures have just got hotter and hotter!  It starts at a very comfortable 15c first thing in the morning, (about 5 am) when we go for a walk. Then steadily increases, today it's reached 38c here.  It is a lovely heat though as the humidity is so low it's easier to cope with. From tomorrow and all of next week it's forecast to cool down to a very pleasant 26c.

The streets around here are planted with large leafy trees, Gums, Indian Rain and Plane trees, giving much needed shade.  So if you're out walking when it starts warming up the smell is amazing.  

Some of the Gums 'throw off' branches which leave hollows, just around the corner from here in one of the gums a nest of native bees have made it home.  The native bees are totally sting-less,  don't make much honey but are great for pollinating plants.  As they are harmless you don't need a licence or special permission to keep them, so they are now on our list of 'wants' for the block.

On the same street in another hollow are some Lorikeets nesting, they don't get up very early but peer at you over the edge, of the hollow warbling their greetings quietly as you go past.  They look very comical.

I know I keep threatening to send over some warmth and sunshine and when I find a way to do so I will... promise :-)

Today I went into Adelaide City, taking the bus which is great going but works on it's own time table on the return trip.  No matter, the drivers are very pleasant and buses very comfortable and cool.

I'd forgotten it's the Tour Down Under here and there are a lot of people out and about on their bikes supporting the teams.  Very good to see such support but not quite so good to see so much lycra!  Luckily I didn't take my camera with me this time so I've no photo's to share.  

Onwards then.  

There is a really eclectic mixture of architecture in the CBD (Central Business District), which is the square mile of the city of Adelaide.  Old and new sit side by side and look pretty good together.

There is a free 'loop bus' taking you around the city and a free tram through the middle of it.  

The only slightly confusing bit is King William Street, the streets intersecting it change names on the other side of the street.  This we found was down to King William himself ruling that no street named after him may be crossed by another.

It's been beautifully thought out, set in a grid pattern it's very hard to get lost (thankfully) and is surrounded by The Parklands.  Each neatly labelled, North, South, East or West, very helpful.

These Parklands have all got different characters, the one to the South has a community garden area in it.

They are not very large but obviously well loved and looked after.  From the labels on the plants whole families share the labour, kids are given their own small plots and it's amazing how much they manage to grow in them.

They are very green and beautiful areas, plenty of gorgeous birds around.

These are two Rainbow Lorikeets, incredibly colourful birds which somehow disappear completely when they fly into the Eucalyptus trees which are just called Gums here.








While in the City I ventured into the Central Market, it is a Foodies paradise, something to suit everyone.  Cheese, Mushroom, Grain, Fruit, Veg, Meat and Health Food specialists   It's very easy to loose track of time in there.  I'm sure there will be more ramblings from me on the market in future blogs.

 To the north of the city lies The Royal Botanical Adelaide Gardens which are beautiful.  There are free tours of the garden everyday and the knowledge of the Tour Guides is incredible.  It is an amazing place to just be.  Lots of native birds play around in the fountains.  There are so many different parts to the garden it's easy to spend many happy hours there.  One of the most recent additions is the medical herbal garden, sited by the hospital there is a special green shady area for patients and staff to use.

Cheeky Noisy Indian Minor Bird feeding on one of the succulents.











So that's it from Adelaide for now more to follow soon.......

An amazing journey

It looks like we left dear old Blighty with perfect timing managing to miss the real cold and snow.

The flights over were very good and time went surprisingly fast.  We had just 30 mins at Singapore airport but luckily the luggage stayed on the plane and we just had to get off while they cleaned up and refuelled.  A chance to stretch our legs before getting back on the same plane, next stop Melbourne.

Never have either of us travelled with so many bags with so much to declare!  

Arriving at Melbourne, both of us whizzed through passport control and met at baggage reclaim.  We didn't have to wait long for the bags to arrive, next stop customs.  

I still can't quite believe the speed we went through customs, declaring everything we brought with us and they didn't even want check our bags.  Amazing and nothing like the scary customs programmes on the telly!

Onwards then to the next flight to Adelaide and home.

After a couple of days unpacking, sorting and trying to work out which way was up, we loaded up a couple of trailers to take down to The Fox Den to store.


Wednesday 16th January 2013

Setting off at 6 a.m. in convoy (me yawning my head off) we set off to Naracoorte. Rick leading the charge in Dora, large trailer attached with bikes aboard, roped down.

Me following in the Territory, smaller trailer attached with a more well behaved load to pull.

It was a slow old journey but a very beautiful one as we took the coast road along the Coorong.  We were greeted with a perfect sunrise.  Gorgeous golden sun lighting the land with an amazing light.  It was an incredible sight, the night sky slowly changed from dark blue, to the most beautiful blue you can imagine reminding me I was now in the land of big skies.

We stopped every 100km for refreshments and in between for one of us to pick up something which had fallen off one of the bikes or for Rick to redo the ropes on his trailer.

20km from Naracoorte and it was my turn.  One of the tyres on my trailer decided to shred! Luckily Rick was prepared and got the spare on, in no time we were on our way again.

We arrived with Deb at about lunchtime (perfect timing) and got a warm welcome from all, especially Fred.

We spent 3 days there, walking Fred, checking the block, unloading 'our stuff', resting, being spoilt.  Restoring the spinning wheel, with Deb's careful supervision it now looks like new.  And then we had a lesson in paving.

Lucky Deb's has a lot of patience......

It was good to be able to stop for a short time, we knew when we got back to Adelaide things would get hectic again....