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Week 1 21/5/2011 Yesterday marked one week, our first week on the road. On Friday at two-thirty, we were walking out the door and driving up our street. Because we left later than planned we only reached Ballarat. On the first night we stayed in a caravan park in a cabin, a luxury that we would not have for a while. In the morning, we were off to Horsham. There we stayed at the Horsham caravan park overnight and yes, we camped out in the tents, Alistair and I in the small but tall tent, and Mum, Dad, and James in the bigger and longer tent. Albeit four degrees, we weren’t cold with our heaters set only to medium heat. The next morning, we started heading for Adelaide. On the way to Adelaide we came across the Big Koala and soon after, the South Australia border. We went to the Adelaide Beachfront caravan park, Military Road. Unfortunately for us we pulled up in the middle of a street, next to a house. After some map reading and phone calling we found that there were three Military Roads, all in the same suburb! This also happened as we were sightseeing. Another thing about Adelaide and South Australia in general is we are now half an hour behind because we’ve crossed time zones. Our first trip was to ‘Haighes Chocolate Factory.’ We were a bit disappointed when we saw a sign saying ‘bookings required,’ but we went in anyway. Thanks to a kind lady next to the counter, we could have a quick look through some glass screens and see how people made the chocolate. I was amazed when I saw how many people worked there. I thought that it was all done by machine, but no, these people were carefully but skillfully working away. They were looking out for ‘bad eggs’. There were people dipping things into the melted chocolate, lifting them out, and putting them into crates. From there they were carried to another bench where a couple of people were wrapping the chocolates. Then the chocolates were packed into their nicely presented parcels ready to be sold. They may be nice, but they cost a bit at $109 per kilogram. | Anyway, enough of our chocolate experience. Our next stop was to the Giant Rocking Horse. We had a bit of trouble getting there but finally, we drove up to a house. Yes, that’s right, there’s more than one Birdwood Road as well. The real Giant Rocking Horse was much further away than we thought when we had a really good at the map. So instead, we just went to the South Australia Museum. The Adelaide Museum was about half the size of the Melbourne Museum. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of it because I suddenly felt sick. I was sick with a headache, fever, weakened legs, hunger strike and a runny nose for the next three days, but I’m better now. All I’ve got now is that annoying nose. The nose always seems to be cured last of all. So the next day, Thursday, we basically had a nice quiet day, we decided to stay at the beach side caravan park until I felt better. I didn’t like that idea because usually I was sick for a week or two. Only two exciting things happened whilst sick, one, I noticed that the dark shapes that I’d seen around everywhere the previous night, suspecting to be rabbits, were in fact, rabbits. They were pets, and surprisingly tame, but, then again, it is a ‘pet friendly’ caravan park that does not allow dogs or cats. The second thing was a crested pigeon. It was pecking at some bread that my little brother James had dropped. It wasn’t very big, but comparatively to the bird. Then suddenly, another bird came in and tried to get some. It was smaller and a different breed (a Noisy Myna), but it had two friends up in a tree. That’s when the fight started. The three birds were swooping like crows (maybe they learnt that from the Adelaide Crows Football Team!). The bird who was there at the start barely seemed to notice. Eventually, the first bird that attacked came to the ground and started singing at the bird, well, to us it was singing, to them it was probably a war cry. In the end, the lone bird kept the bread and gobbled it up gratefully, and I was happy with that. The following day we all got into the car, James waving goodbye, and left the caravan park, only to come to another one in Port Augusta. It has a good view of the Flinders Ranges. Cameron |
