10 to 15 June 2016 - A visit to Ric & Ann in the Adelaide Hills

I had a very pleasant drive, albeit fairly "wetish" from Kapunda, back through Angaston and on down the Eden Valley, via Mount Pleasant, Mount Torrens, Woodside & Nairn to visit Ric & Ann, who live in the Adelaide Hills not too far away from Mount Barker.  Lots of beautiful cattle grazing and horse country.  Green & lush at this time of year.

A much nicer drive than coming from the West through the Adelaide suburbs and up the Motorway past Mount Lofty, which has been quite stressful in the past while towing a fairly large caravan.  Looks like my future journeys East & West may have to involve this diversion through the Barossa and perhaps Clare as well.

Great to see Ric & Ann again.  We first met in New Zealand in the 1970's when I was a Mud Man working for Baroid in Invercargill and offshore on the Penrod 74 semi-submersible in the Great South Basin.  Exciting times.  The friendship has continued over the years with periods in Perth & Aberdeen, where Ric & Ann were the other Witnesses (along with Gordon & Edith) to Jean & my Wedding.  There have been a few visits to the Adelaide Hills, the most recent in early 2015 during my first major exploration of South Australia in the Kedron.

On the first weekend Ric & Ann planned an outing, over the Hills and on to visit Mannum, yet another Historic town on the Murray for a quiet pub lunch.  It didn't quite turn out that way....

Part of our mission was to find some real local roadside farm eggs for sale.  We missed out on the first attempt but found a stocked cooler box at an isolated farm house near Reedy Creek.

Success with $3 home grown eggs.  Looked like a pretty comfortable chook yard to make us feel even better.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the car parks around Reedy Creek were overflowing with families taking kids of sizes for an adventure clambering over rocks and exploring (a bit like many of our experiences whilst growing up).

Once the sunscreen was on we had a very enjoyable walk with a bit of climbing over boulders as we worked our way back down the creek bed.  There was a little water, mainly in pools, but later in the Winter It can turn into a raging torrent.

A nice view from the hill looking upstream.

The photographer managed to find some interesting reflections in water (where there were some interesting algal colours).

On we went to Mannum, where we found a bit of a surprise.  Little did we know that each (SA) Queen's Birthday Weekend, Mannum hosts the South Australian Truck & Ute Show.  The main street was closed off and all the surrounding area was packed full of spectacular trucks, utes and a few 4WDs.  Great day for the Community with lots of local stalls and everywhere doing a good trade.  Appeared to be 3 different live bands playing and heaps of people everywhere.

So many shiny huge trucks lined up down the main street.

Many interesting photo opportunities.

Some amazing graphics and heaps of dazzling chrome.

There were even two Suzuki Mighty Boys on display.  My Mum used to have one of these outrageous vehicles.  Hers was a two speed automatic....

The more traditional side of Mannum includes the cable ferries that run in parallel across the Murray.

All told a very interesting day out.

During the next week I did a day trip to Adelaide.  Down in the morning with Ann and then met Ric & Lyrien at the University of Adelaide in the late afternoon before returning up the hill with Ric.  One of the main reasons for the trip was to be able to do an early (absent, interstate) vote which is only possible at a limited number of Divisional Australian Electoral Commission offices.  This was in fact the first day of early voting so there was considerable interest from the TV stations who were desperately trying to interview people leaving after having cast their vote.

For me, not so successful as it had not been made clear that early interstate voting did not start until a day later, I suspect because they didn't have all the ballot papers ready (to be continued later....).

I enjoy visiting Adelaide as a City.  It has many interesting things to see & do. On this trip, that included:

 Porkers on the loose in Rundle Mall.

 A beautiful Winter's day on North Terrace.

Interesting street sculpture.

New Adelaide - "The cheese grater" next to the new Hospital.

 Old Adelaide - The State Parliament building (on North Terrace).

The ever interesting Adelaide Central Markets.

The South Australian Museum - impressive mix of old and new.

On my last visit I spent time in the State Art Gallery, located next door and equally impressive for a visitor like me.

An impressive entry statement in the Museum.

The winner of the Natural Science Art Exhibition.

" A survey into the Cretaceous".  Another entry in the Art Exhibition that particularly caught my eye.

The exhibit showcasing the Mawson Antarctic Exhibition was another feature that pushed my buttons.  So many things to see......

The rest of the visit included much good conversation, many wonderful home cooked meals and a few good bottles of wine, purely to aid the digestion of course.

Time to move on again until the next time.....  More rain due and a decision to be made about whether I could do a preliminary trip to the Flinders or perhaps the Gawler Ranges in anticipation of yet another visit to South Australia.