![]() ![]() August 11th: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He drove us through the Presidio, past the National Cemetary, Bowling Center, West Coast Memorial and just about everywhere else that was worth a look. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge Visitor Info From there we headed off into town – up and down the streets of San Francisco we went, past fancy stores and restaurants and on to Chinatown. Just a slow drive through, not for a feed though… Then it was a turnaround to take us back to Fisherman’s Wharf. The two and a half hours sure did fly! Reluctantly we said goodbye to our wonderful bus driver (I think his name was Bob) and as a thank you gesture for such an entertaining and interesting tour, we gave him By this time both my MOTH and I would have gladly killed for a bed to sleep on for a few hours but We got to San Francisco International Airport just on dusk and wandered around studying the various menus at the food court there. I literally
After a delicious in-flight supper, we settled in for a bit of a shut-eye in between watching bits and pieces of the movies being screened… through our eyelids! We arrived at Sydney Airport at some ungodly hour of the morning. From there we enjoyed another smooth uneventful short flight home to Melbourne, sailed through customs and were warmly met by my daughter, her fiance and my granddaughter who raced up to me screaming out, “Nenek! Nenek!” (“nenek” is not a rude word, by the way, it is an Indonesian/Malay word for “grandma”) before throwing herself at me. What a great homecoming and what a fantastic holiday!!!The very next day, my MOTH began looking for a job so we could start paying off our Visa bills…
OzLadyM |
USA & Canada 2002 – Washington State Pt 2
![]() ![]() ![]() July 22nd – August 11th: ![]() ![]() ANGEL had been planning on taking us to see Mt St Helens [a volcano which erupted on May 18th 1980 when the top 1,314 ft (400.5 mt) disappeared within minutes – photos of before and after eruption – courtesy of Darrell Jennings], so a few days after our return from We wanted to check out the local fishing scene so after purchasing a consecutive 2 days licence, we first
11th August: Alarm set for 2.30am and after a wake up cup of freshly brewed coffee, we got changed and headed off to SeaTac Airport for the 6am flight to San Francisco. Between ANGEL and I, I am sure we used up a whole box of tissues to mop up our tears. I hate goodbyes so again we just said, “See ya later”. God Willing we will meet again, either here in Australia or in the U.S. – it doesn’t matter where, really. God Bless the day we met on the internet and long live our friendship!!!
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USA & Canada 2002 – Louisiana
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USA & Canada 2002 – British Columbia
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early 1980’s, to house the families and workers in the two local coal mines (Quintette and Bullmoose) (Click on Quintette Mountain for larger image). When the Quintette mine closed in 2000, the residents warmly welcomed new neighbours, (mainly from all over Canada and the U.S.) into their friendly community. People like my good friends who retired there from Calgary. I saw the attraction While there, our friends took us to Dawson Creek (click on “Mile 0” on the left for The whole township of Tumbler Ridge turned up at the high school grounds to watch the fireworks display on Canada Day (July 1st). I had forgotten what cold meant until that night – it was so cold my fingers couldn’t function properly
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USA & Canada 2002 – Washington State Pt 1
USA & Canada 2002
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INTRODUCTION : My MOTH (Man Of The House) and I began planning for this long awaited trip months in advance. We left Melbourne on June 17th and returned home on August 12th. We had a blast, visiting good friends in Washington State, British Columbia and Louisiana. We visited ANGEL and Jackie in Washington State, then traveled on a Greyhound bus to BC to spend 8 days with Eric and Prudence, my friends of over 30 years, dating back to the good old days in Singapore. After that we hopped on another Greyhound bus to get back to Seattle to meet up with Nell and her family, who were vacationing in Seattle (from Louisiana) while we were in BC. I know Nell and her family from when we were all living in Singapore some 30 years ago but somehow had lost contact with them. Through the magic of the Internet, I managed to track them down a few months before this planned holiday. I’m like the Asian ‘Flu actually, just when you think you’re rid of me, I’ll resurface and bug ya! This Asian ‘Flu then returned to Washington State for another “bout” that lasted a further 20 days! Our holiday finished off with a day in San Francisco before hopping on a plane back to Melbourne, Australia. What follows is an account of our holidays. I do hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing about it. OzLadyM ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Singapore – 2001
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FRI NOV 9
Here I am in humid, sunny Singapore aka the Lion City.
I had a great flight, thoroughly enjoyed the superb supper before attempting to watch the in-flight movie but my eyelids kept snapping shut so I gave up and assumed the fetal position (was lucky enough to have a vacant seat next to me) to catch forty winks. Some twenty winks later, the aroma of hot croissants and brewing coffee wafted to my still very much alert nostrils which sent a wake-up call to my brain. Stayed awake after breakfast of croissants, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash brown, OJ, fresh fruit salad and piping hot coffee. In all, I enjoyed a total of 2 hours’ sleep out of the past 32 hours. No qualms about wolfing down the airline food as Gulf Air only serve “Halal” food.
Arrived in Singapore at sparrow’s fart (6.20am local time) and sailed through customs because I looked innocent. I recognized my brother by his glorious head of silver hair and he recognized me by my excited waving routine.
Spent several minutes convincing him we should take a cab back to his place instead of getting on the local bus with my rather large suitcase to save S$9.80 (about US$5). He spent the rest of the morning (and the best part of my visit!) lamenting my extravagance. While he went to the money-changer for me (just so I wouldn’t get ripped off), I was given a generous loan, the key to his apartment and long detailed instructions on how to find my way back from the shopping centre after I’m done “looking around”.
So what did I do on my first day here? Well, I went and got a hair perm! After which, I wandered around the various food courts and sampled a few of the oft-remembered local fare.
Hunger and greed appeased, I sauntered back to the apartment blocks and realized I should have paid more attention to instructions given earlier on. We’re talking about cloned apartment blocks here with no great distinguishing features – a jungle of concrete apartment buildings interspaced with lovely tropical landscaped areas. I smugly patted myself on the back as clever me at least remembered the address…
Found the block ok… yes, I recognized the elevators, two of them, side by side. Woohoo!!! Went into elevator A, pushed button with “9” on it, elevator stopped, Oz waltzed out, skipped down two flight of stairs and, uh-oh! The numbers on the doors didn’t look at all familiar! Released frustration by growling to myself before trying plan B. I must have taken the wrong elevator! Yes, that was the problem. Easy-peasy – re-traced steps back to the ground floor, got into Elevator B this time and no problem. Up the elevator went, with Oz humming merrily to herself, got out of the 9th floor, raced down two flight of stairs and… Bloody hell! Same problem, same non-matching numbers on doors… By this stage, urgency had made friends with panic – time was ticking away and I was supposed to be already home to let my brother into his own house as he had given his keys to me!!! Visions of being thrown out of his house started to float across my mind, along with a touch of self-pity, too. Poor, poor pitiful me…
Back I went to the ground floor – maybe there are another couple of elevators that service the different flat numbers? Hurriedly walked the whole length of the block, no luck. So I was back in square one. Okay, steady on, old girl – Think! Think, you silly old cow! Up again I went, (elevator B) and then it came to me in a blinding flash – I remembered walking along a corridor with my brother earlier on BEFORE we went down a couple of flights of stairs! What a relief that was – that no one had gone around with a bunch of gold numbers and changed them all over the place as revenge for something I did or didn’t do! Whew! In answer to a couple of possible questions – yes, I made it back before my brother’s return and yes, I had visited at this same address but it was some six years or more ago. I think it’s due to sleep deficiency!
SAT NOV 10
By nine o’clock this morning, after a good night’s sleep, I was all dressed and ready to rock and roll… I headed off into the city via bus and the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) train. I thought I may as well do some more “touristy” stuff – shopping, eating and a bit of sightseeing before meeting my niece in town after work at lunchtime. You can bet your boots, I will most likely be doing an excellent job of getting hopelessly lost several times this morning, despite the fact that my niece had armed me with not only the map of the city and the local bus guide but also, written instructions on public transportation, stops and destinations, her contact number and so forth. I set off, confident that I would be strong enough to resist the temptation to shop extravagantly but alas I failed miserably. By the end of the day, I had myself convinced that my M.O.T.H. (Man Of The House, aka hubby) would probably tell me not to bother coming home to him after learning of the damage I had done to my credit card. Oh woe is me!
SUN NOV 11
I gathered up enough
courage to confess to my MOTH this morning and the sweet darling man actually forgave me for my insane spending spree. He had guessed my purchases as, “Diamonds? Lap-top? Gold?” and I could swear I heard an audible gasp over the Internet when I guiltily replied in the affirmative to all three! When I get home I will have to convince him that a diet of bread and water for the next six months will be good for both of us. After the arrival of my son and his lady (They had arrived from Melbourne on the Saturday morning flight and stayed in the city area.), we sat down to a delicious breakfast of Indonesian “lontong” (compressed rice cubes served in spicy coconut sauce with vegetables, boiled egg and sambal) and Indian roti served with lamb curry. We then jumped on a bus and headed off to Changi Village (my old haunt) and terrorized the shopkeepers there for the afternoon’s entertainment. One of the shop-owners must be psychic as he had only recently sold his store and gone into hiding for fear of my bargaining ability. The rest put on a pretty good act at being pleased to see me again and one of them even tried to get my son pissed on Anchor, the local beer!
Some goods and money exchanged hands and a hearty lunch was had at the food court before my son and his lady went sightseeing. I decided to go to Chinatown with my niece for a bit more shopping before heading back to my brother’s place armed with enough local fare to feed an entire army. By now, the heat and humidity have taken their toll on me – my legs look like a pair of elephants’ trunks (minus wrinkles, though) and my fingers would have delighted a lesbian partner if I am that way inclined!!!
MON NOV 12
Today started off quietly enough (quiet because I was `home alone’) until the phone call from the young `uns, namely my son and his lady. That brief conversation resulted in me getting changed in record time to get to town within the hour. After our rendezvous at the MRT Dhoby Ghaut Station, we sallied forth on foot to Chinatown (so I could have another ‘look around’), getting side-tracked only twice to duck briefly into the air-conditioned surrounds of a couple of boutiques to cool down. I must admit that S$50 is a hefty price to pay for 10 minutes of cooling time but we took turns doing so – in my case I was allowed to walk out of a store with a pair of knickerbockers! Bonus!!! We saw a fair bit during the walk, stopping briefly to watch the changing of the guards outside the President’s residence, Istana Negara (“Istana’ – a Malay word meaning ‘palace’;’Negara” meaning ‘nation’), gawking at the elaborate light-catchers strung out over the tree-lined avenues, and so on.
We then decided we had fart-arsed long enough and reached a unanimous decision to hail a cab for Chinatown – synonymous with food and all things Chinese. We did a quick lap of a couple of the shopping complexes, bought several knick-knacks (absolutely useless, of course) and soon after became fixated with the idea of lunch. By this time, I was practically salivating at the thought of enjoying a bowl of beef noodle soup as I remember it at an old favourite eating place of mine – Boat Quay… but first, we must take a few photos of the famous Sri Marianam Hindu Temple, right in the middle of Chinatown.
We hurriedly did the tourist thing before “hoofing it” to the excellent eating stalls at Boat Quay, along the Singapore River where the food was good and cheap (just the way I like it).
Getting there involved many, many intervals of “ducking into air-conditioned shops” to either admire the items that were exhibited, for icy-cold drinks or to use the toilets. In many cases, we were allowed to leave with clothing items, souvenirs and such. We eventually made it to Boat Quay – but to my utter dismay (and disappointment), the whole area had been transformed into cafes and restaurants with International themes – Italian, French and so forth, with menu prices that made my eyes bug out. Oh well, there goes lunch… “No cause for alarm, Mumzy!” my son sang out, “we’ll just go to where we eat most every night.” (We are a stone’s throw from where he and his love are staying). With renewed energy, we marched on, again stopping here and there to give money to total strangers in air-conditioned stores just to cool down our sweat-drenched bodies while they generously gave us stuff to take away with us.
To cut an already long story a few sentences shorter, we got to Robertson Quay (or was it Clarke Quay?) only to be told they don’t serve diners until after 5pm! With bellies growling angrily by now, we lashed out by taking a cab to our next stop – the Sun Tech Complex in the hopes of appeasing our angry belly worms there. At last, after satisfying our thirst and hunger, we did a quick lap of the stores there before checking out the Fountain of Wealth. Picture if you will, three shopping-bags-laden presumably sane human beings, sticking one hand out over the gushing fountain while walking around it three times. I just hope that our wet pants, hands, shoes and several equally drenched shopping bags mean that our wishes will come true some day soon. At least this exercise cooled us down somewhat… We then parted company with plans to meet tomorrow afternoon at the jewelery store. Yes, I am still doing my share in boosting this island’s economy… for a few more days anyway.
TUE NOV 13
Again, I was left to do my own thing so I found my way into town and window-shopped for the best part of the late morning until it was time to rendezvous with son & co. at the jeweller’s at 3pm. Even though I was one of many, many other Chinese women going about their business along busy Orchard Road, I stood out from the rest, as I was the only one wearing a bucket around my neck! This little trick served a dual purpose – for ease of recognition for those who may have known me from when I was here last and wish to renew the acquaintance, and also to catch the steady stream of drool, especially when gawking at the fabulously designed array of jewellery in the stores. Since my earlier “sins”, I have indeed strengthened my resolve and I managed to resist the temptation to purchase more baubles. I have no wish to invoke any ill feelings in my darling MOTH towards me. After all, he can only love me so much.
I arrived half an hour early at my jeweller’s (yes she’s now MY jeweller) and we passed some time away sipping tea, eating snacks and chatting like old friends – we Asians are a very friendly race. 🙂 My son and his lady arrived right on 3pm – with my son looking like death warmed up. He looked and felt dreadful – I think the shopping, walking, eating, more shopping, more walking, etc that we did the day before in the extreme heat had taken their toll on him. So obviously, hopes of doing more shopping together went out the window… We parted company in Orchard Road – they went back to their hotel room to rest while I went on shopping to at least buy SOMETHING. I hate coming `home’ empty-handed so I bought a printer for my niece! I only lost my way three times today, (that’s pretty darn good for me) – I think I am starting to get the hang of moving around on this island republic.
WED NOV 14
As today is a public holiday, we ‘kidnapped’ my niece and headed off to Sentosa Island and did the tourist bit. Between the four of us, we managed to find our way to the island ‘a la local’, i.e. via MRT train and bus. Got there in the nick of time to catch the pink dolphins at show time. The show was quite well organized with audience participation and all that jazz. My son’s lady was all excited at the prospect of petting the dolphins for the princely sum of S$5 but her ardor died a sudden death when she heard that she would have to get in the water past her waist! We then continued on our walk sharing the walkway with monkeys and peacocks, much to the delight of the camera-toting tourists. Like sheep going through the de-ticking dipping process, we joined the queue to get on the monorail. The scenery was okay, especially for those who were turned on by tropical jungle settings and a quick downpour of tropical rain as well. Hopped off that, picked our way in between the raindrops and cast a cursory glance at the orchids near the entrance of the garden and much to the relief of the young `uns, I decided against the complete walkabout around the garden. In gratitude, my son and heir captured a 360` video clip of the garden just so I can view it in my own time when I get back to Australia. When the worms started growling to be fed, we made a beeline to the food court where the prices far exceeded the quality of the food on offer.
Hunger and thirst appeased, we continued on our bumbling way to the underground oceanarium where we managed to provide some form of visual entertainment to the exotic marine life while we gazed in awe at their magnificence. After that, we did other tourist stuff while clicking our cameras like trigger-happy Rambos wherever we went. Merrily, we found our way by going down a couple of hundred stairs, to get a better view of the gigantic statue of the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore. Wouldn’t you know it? By the time we turned around to find our way back up, the bloody stairs had multiplied themselves into at least a thousand!!! By the time I made my way back to the top, I could hardly breathe. It made me feel kind-a smug though, that the young `uns were breathing pretty heavy too and not because they were feeling amorous either. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to get up close and personal when we were all sweating like pigs!
We decided to lash out and splurge on a cable car ride back to mainland Singapore – BIG MISTAKE! It was all fine and dandy until we got off at the Mt Faber terminal – not a single taxi to be seen and it would have been a mighty long walk down the mountain to get back to the main road. Luckily, we were not the only bozos around; a Canadian couple was in the same predicament. While we were considering our options, lo and behold – who should step out of the shadows but a Chinese Samaritan! He offered us all a ride in his air-conditioned Mercedes van back to town. We could have been wrong but we had a sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t the first time he had performed this service. We willingly parted company with S$10 just so we didn’t have to spend the night there. It turned out to be a most interesting ride to town indeed and I am pretty sure he is the principal of the Tourist Promotion School, moonlighting on his days off as a chauffeur-cum-food advisor-cum-tourist guide-cum-everyone’s favorite uncle. He certainly had the gift of the gab.
From the city we found our way to the famous Newton Circus where we met up with my brother and after a less than satisfying dinner, we unanimously agreed that the Food Centre had been glorified way too much. I guess if we had a feed of seafood in mind it may well have been a different rating but nonetheless, we were disappointed in the eating experience there. We couldn’t say that “Uncle Lee” hadn’t warn us about it all, though – we should have heeded his advice and eaten at the Old Market Place instead. We parted company at the MRT train station nearby, as Son and his lady were due to fly back to Australia the next evening. They were lamenting the fact that there weren’t enough days to eat all that they had wanted to in beautiful Singapore – the food-lovers’ paradise!
Road Trip: Ayers Rock/Uluru 2000
We gleefully left Melbourne on Thursday morning, 24th Aug. in the 4WD which had been expertly packed the previous day by my dear sweet partner/chauffeur/financier/travel organizer, my M.O.T.H. (Man Of The House) a.k.a. hubby.
I was in charge of the music, photographic equipment, food and drink breaks, karaoke sing-alongs and taking power-naps! FYI, there are many power-nap areas along our country roads but we did not use these areas, I just power-napped whenever it suited me while my MOTH drove along. [Thanks to Sam L and Darrin S – members of aussiehwys yahoo group for the Powernap jpgs] My silence in between soft gentle snores gave me away though!!! During my pensive moments, (silent but with eyes wide open) my dear MOTH would solicitously voice his concern and I would quietly reply I was merely trying to remember what it was like to experience the glorious sensation of fluid passing over my tonsils or that I was chewing some invisible food… Now am I not the perfect company on these long road-trips???
Before we left home, our son and elder daughter suggested that I may gather up enough courage to do some relief driving but I do not think they would like to see their dad return, a mere shadow of his former self. Imagine waving good-bye
to an able-bodied man only to welcome home a semi-bald completely grey-haired old man, his hands all gnarled and permanently clenched, right leg locked forever at an awkward angle, eyes glazed, stuttering incoherently and suffering badly from the shakes. And what about all the road train drivers who would be sharing the road with me? I rest my case.”..
We sure covered some territory – we did 6,224kms (3868mls), checked out several motel rooms, and spent a small fortune just to see rocks – many, many rocks! Got some great
photos of the famous rocks – Ayers Rock (named after South Australian Premier Sir Henry Ayers and now called Uluru – meaning ‘great pebble’ in the Aboriginal language), The Olgas (Kata Tjuta – meaning ‘many heads’ in traditional Aboriginal language), Standley Chasm, Kings Canyon, Breakaways… well, at least I HOPE they are good photos. We also managed to break the rock “routine” with photos taken at a date plantation, a salt lake, a pink lake, a couple of opal mines and Woomera Village. If interested in viewing more photos, please go to My Photos and select the appropriate directory.
I was equally fascinated by the wild melons that grew in profusion by the roadside in the Northern Territory. Deaf to his insistence that they are inedible, I persuaded my darling MOTH to stop so I could pick a couple (for a closer inspection). When we got to the motel that night, I broke both open (one looked exactly like a small cantelope and the other, a mini version of a watermelon) and sneaked a taste of each, the ‘cantelope’ had no taste and the ‘watermelon’ was bitter.
MOTH caught me in the act and to his, “I told you so!”, I retorted they were just a bit too ‘green’ and should taste pretty good if they had been ripe! I must confess that my interest in them kind-a died a natural death after that though…
Our road trip also opened my eyes to Nature’s random ‘gardens’ – fields of wild flowers, growing in abundance, unfertilised, unweeded and untended. I’m having second thoughts about lavishing too much attention to the plants in my garden now… The wild life department was a bit of a let down – we saw a couple of still kangaroos and a fox (also rather dead) by the roadside with eagles and crows feeding on the carcasses but no live kangaroos or dingoes on the whole trip. Birds… ahh, there were plenty of them, quite beautiful. We were busy admiring a couple of emus on one side of the road and almost ran into another which was trying to cross the road. Thankfully, we swerved, and it swerved – in the opposite direction!
Thought we’d stay at a little country motel on our way to Ayers Rock… we drove into the driveway and what did we spy with our tired little eyes? A couple of groups of Aborigines – my tentative smile was returned with vacant stares and I got a tad nervous when a car-load of men pulled up so MOTH did a quick U-turn and back-tracked to the last motel we had passed (about 50km) at Erldunda. We passed another car-load of men obviously heading for the same motel with not a didgeridoo (Aboriginal wind instrument) in sight, so, far be it for us to gatecrash their booze-up… MOTH said he didn’t fancy keeping me company while I stay up all night by the window keeping a look-out on our 4WD and all the goodies inside. No sense of adventure, that man! The next morning, I had my video camera ready as we drove past the same motel at Mt Ebernezer but not a single Aborigine was in sight!!!
We got to Ayers Rock and wouldn’t you know it, it rained!
– An unusual occurrence in the desert, as we all know. Undaunted, we went sight-seeing anyway and checked out The Olgas. We could almost hear the huge sigh of relief from fellow visitors when the sun decided to stop sulking and made its welcomed appearance that afternoon. We went to join many other tourists to watch the sunset over Ayers Rock – if you didn’t know any better you could have easily mistaken the lot of us for some rock-worshipping pagans! The cheapest accommodation we could get that night was two double bunk-beds at AU$145 a night, so we had to put any romantic inclination aside.
The prices of food in the restaurants were exhorbitant – we solved that problem by getting a couple of packs of frozen dinners each from the only supermarket in the resort and heated them in the microwave oven in our room. From Ayers Rock, we went on to Kings Canyon before going on to Alice Springs, so I could buy some fresh dates and check out Standley Chasm (another rocky landmark).
After this, we’d had enough of rocks so mutually decided to give other natural rocky wonders a miss, turned around and started heading south – to South Australia and rocks of a different kind – on to Coober Pedy and Andamooka opal mines. We enthusiastically set off with my MOTH eager to see Lake Torrens while I was excited by the mere thought of seeing opals in the raw (unpolished). We didn’t have to worry about snacks as I had plenty of fresh dates to munch on! By now, you must have noticed how my state of mind is strongly influenced by food…
Coober Pedy is probably best known for its unique style of underground living – there is even an Underground Backpackers Inn.
I guess it is an obvious solution to the prevailing hot and dry weather of the area. There are authentic underground homes, underground museums, potteries, an art gallery and, of course, opal mines. I couldn’t help but notice the many, many opal jewellery stores there, too… funny, that.
Much though I would have liked to, we didn’t go on a guided opal mine tour, due to the time factor. My MOTH was keen to get on the road to Lake Torrens before it got much hotter. So after a drive around, a few clicks of our cameras and a quick snack of a meat pie and drink each, we continued on our south-bound travel .
We were awe-struck by the salt lake near Andamooka – Lake Torrens. It was well worth every bump of the rather rugged 4WD track we took (15 kms each way). I am still trying to decide which track I prefer – the bumpy rocky ride or the Ernest Giles Road – 100km of red dirt, rather soft in many places (a bit like riding the waves in the ocean), that we went on a few days earlier. Anyway, back to Lake Torrens – there we were, just the two of us and this expanse of salt… simply awesome! After that
we turned around and headed back to Andamooka where we checked out an opal-miner’s “home store”. I was so captivated by a couple of polished pieces of opals for sale that the only way my MOTH could get me out of the place was to purchase the gems for me, so he did! I hope our next trip will include the Argyle Diamond Mine!!!
We made a slight detour to check out Woomera Village (the old rocket range), where my MOTH reminisced about his days in the RAAF while looking at some old aeroplanes, before returning to MacDonalds and KFC populated towns, and further south to golden canola fields and idyllic seaside townships. Our final night was spent at Victor Harbour, where it was so windy it would have blown a dog off its chain. That’s okay though, we celebrated our successful trip with a great 3 course dinner – soup, T-bone steaks with all the trimmings AND dessert… YUM!
We left Melbourne with plenty of health food like potato chips, corn chips, dips, lollies, cheese, biscuits, apples and mandarins (all fruit were confiscated at the fruit-fly checkpoint at the South Australian border near Renmark – grrr!), soft drinks, beer, some wine and plenty of water, many, many CDs, audio cassettes, a 2-man tent, sleeping bags and pillows (just in case…), and mostly winter clothes. Came home with some of the food, not much beer and wine, most of the water, unopened tent, sleeping bags, pillows, worn out CDs, unworn winter clothing, a few souvenirs, some rocks, lighter pockets and happy memories we will long recall… Woke up this morning to find my MOTH missing – he was re-loading the 4WD like he’d been doing for the past 11 mornings!
Must go fishing soon to recover from this road trip…