At the risk of sounding like I'm having a whinge.....

Over the last few weeks we have discovered our new 'home' has a few quirky characteristics. I think I may have already mentioned we very quickly found we could get our feet washed at the same time as washing the dishes, quite a novelty at first but we soon got tired of having to hose down the floor every time we did the dishes! And the list, much like Topsy, grew from there.

Rick repaired the kitchen sink but it soon became obvious we needed to talk to our land agents to get the rest of the stuff fixed.  The gutters were choc full of debris so all the rain water (our drinking water) had turned brown and brackish, I knew it was bad as even Rick didn't want to drink it.  The taps in the laundry leaked very badly, I was very grateful that we have a floor drain in there or we have flooded the house every time I did the washing.  The TV aerial doesn't work, which on the plus side meant we've been enjoying the DVD collection.  One of the rings on the cooker doesn't work, the air con was buzzing and the tap in the bathroom drips.

These were duly reported and a week later we were told the works orders had been raised.  So when the workman still hadn't appeared some two weeks later and the air con unit had stopped buzzing and started pouring water into the house we decided perhaps it was time to talk face to face with the letting agents.

With a sudden flurry of activity a maintenance chap turned up, closely followed by a plumber and another air con chap.  So now all the plumbing has been sorted out but after an inspection in the roof space the air con pump it was declared busted.  It appears it had melted and burned out, it was so lucky a house fire wasn't started in the process.  The air con was caput!

That all happened on the day before another 43 c day!  Phew.... Deb and Robert to the rescue again they very kindly have lent us a portable cooler which helps enormously.  The temperatures are still high (a true blue Aussie summer) but at least we are getting a little respite at night when it drops to 7 c which means sleep is possible.

Hay ho... we are now patiently waiting to hear when it all might get fixed and sorted out.

Mean time we have had some fun.  Rick dusted off the bike and took it for a spin around the block and when it seemed to want to go further he came back and collected me.  We took the beautiful road through the Coonawara wine region.  The road sides are flanked with very green grape vines and signs offering wine tours and cellar sales, we wended our way to Penola a beautiful little town and then on over the border and to Casterton.

The character of the scenery changed on the road to Casterton. We rode past an amazing and very ancient Grass Tree forest.  Past a Eucalyptus plantation which smelt delicious in the heat as the tree oils warmed in the sun.  It was all very beautiful, there were signs of past bush fires and lots of bright new growth as the scrub land recovered.

Xanthorrhoea or to you and me a Yakka

This beautiful plant is stimulated to send out flower spikes after a fire, some growing to way over 1m in length and covered in tiny white flowers. Traditionally they have been very important to the native people of this land, the Aboriginal people have amongst other things used them as fishing spears.  It grows very slowly a rate of 2.5 cm a year so to establish and maintain such a large area of them must have taken hundreds of years.  It was an incredible sight.