It was nice to see some sunshine this morning at Mildura. Adelaide isn’t far from here at all, so we took our time and went to have a look at the Murray River. I encountered a group of tiny wood duck ducklings, all huddle together (except for one), These guys nest in hollows high in trees. The babies have to jump out at a very young age, but they’re not hurt because they’re like little puffs of fluff that float to the ground. Mum and Dad would be around somewhere. They were, gliding in from somewhere up river. Having established that all the kids were in one piece, they took them away to the water.
We ate breakfast at the Cullculleraine store, a small establishment with an amazing array of goods on sale. Everything from fishing tackle to cans of dog food to gnomes and other nick-nacks. Pete ordered bacon, eggs and tomatoes, while I asked for a bacon and egg roll. The food duly arrived – except I got a bacon roll. I called the lady back and pointed out no egg. She nearly melted into an embarrassed puddle. We thought it was hilarious. I was still laughing when she brought back the plate with a bacon AND egg roll.
Further along the Sturt Highway we crossed from Victoria into South Australia. Bio-protection is a Thing in Australia. It’s such a huge country that each state is anxious to make sure no nasties like fruit flies arrive in a car. We stopped at the border and Pete produced his home grown orange that he hadn’t gotten around to eating. It was confiscated, a cursory search was made of the car, and we were on our way.
We booked a room at the seaside suburb of Glenelg, near where our friends live. Dinner was at a very pleasant Italian restaurant in Glenelg High Street, where trams run. Pete had a wonderful bowl of fresh seafood (fish, mussels, prawns, Moreton Bay bugs, squid) cooked in a thick, tomatoey soup, with crusty bread on the side. He rated it delicious. We had a wonderful evening reminiscing about people we’d worked with – some nice, some not – and deploring the state of the workplace now. We hadn’t seen Phil and Robin for over nine years, so there was lots to talk about.
Next morning we went for a walk past the moorings where the rich people keep their yachts to the beachfront. Needless to say, anywhere there’s a puddle of water developers will call the land “lake view” or something and add another zero onto the cost of the land. South Australia may be an economic basket case, but that clearly doesn’t apply to everybody.
We headed off to visit Yorke Peninsula, the spit of land between Spencer’s Gulf and the Gulf of St Vincent. If you peered hard from Genelg Beach you could just see the land on the horizon.
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