Adelaide

September - October

After getting back from Melbourne and into the Brownhill Creek park again, unfortunately we were just in time for my Dear Aunty Glad’s funeral, she was 97 years young and up until the last few months really with it, we will miss her!

After a while in the Caravan Park, we decided that we needed a bit of free camping, the house was going to auction on the 24^th so not much we could do until then.  Some friends told us about Burra Creek Gorge or Worlds End Gorge in the camps book so we headed up there for 4 nights and really enjoyed it!

Heaps of room and very quiet and peaceful, although we did see a brown snake one day while walking.  Barbara decided that any other direction than where the snake was would be a good way to walk ..FAST!

Burra Gorge camp spot

After that we took the long way, through Morgan, on the Murray, into Gawler, which is just out of Adelaide and booked in.  On the Sunday we went to Graham [John’s brother] and June’s house, for a BBQ for John’s birthday; very pleasant. 

On the 24^th of October Mum’s house sold at auction, which was a relief and saddening all at once.

We set up a time with Graham to do the final clear out of Mum’s house and then headed down to Clayton, to catch up with Neville, Keith and Carol, good friends of ours.  We were hoping Trevor, John’s cousin could make it too, but commitments kept him in Adelaide.  This was a great weekend. Neville brought his sailing boat and was kind enough to take us for a sail, great fun, also had lunch at the Milang pub one day.  While at Clayton, Neville told us about travel auctions web site so we bid on a houseboat on the river Murray for 4 nights at around half price.

 

Left there and spent a couple of nights at a free camp at Langhorne Creek and enjoyed a little tasting of red.  After this we headed into Strathalbyn caravan park and spent three nights there and went for a bit of a drive through the local countryside.

Off again, this time back into Brownhill Creek caravan park, we are getting to be locals here, and spent a couple of days doing the final clean out of Mum’s house.  While here we found we had won a spot on the houseboat with the next available spot on the 19^th November but then nothing until April 2013, so we accepted the November one.  We then decided that rather than stay in Adelaide we would go to the Riverland and stay there for a while, so we booked into the Riverview caravan park at Tailem Bend, it is way above the river and I guess we got glimpses of the river but not real views as such.

After a week at Tailem Bend and a bit of local site seeing, we headed off to Murray Bridge and put the van and car in storage for four days.  Had a 1 hour training session on how to operate a houseboat and off we went upstream towards Mannum, having a rough idea what to do.  First night we moored at the river bank about an hour upstream from Murray Bridge and relaxed for the night.

Next morning found we were stuck, so following all of the instructions given at the training and with John in the water pushing we managed to get off.
 

Various views of the boat

That day we had very strong head winds, we had planned to be in Mannum that night but gave up and moored again.

The next day was a copy of the first except we did make it to Mannum but the mooring was exposed, we were both starting to feel a little woosy, so after a walk around town we headed downstream to a more protected mooring.

The last day was beautifully calm, all in all it was interesting and very relaxing, but we found it a little boring, would be better with more people and in a place where there is more to do than just look at the view.

Various views on the Murray

After this we headed to Clare for the weekend and while there checked out the cheaper camp spots and caravan parks in the area, for somewhere to sit over the Christmas break. We plan to go back into Adelaide on the 2^nd along with other family members to throw Mum’s ashes off of Mt Barker to be with Dad’s, so we decided to check out Riverton which is about ¾ of an hour out of Adelaide.  Nice little park and fairly quiet so will probably camp here over the Christmas break too.
So, currently here at Riverton, will spend a few days on the Yorke Peninsula and then back to Riverton.

Cheers

John and Barbara

Keep on Smiling J