19 - 20 September 2016 - Days 170 -171 - Adelaide

We packed up and said goodbye to Michael, Karen, Chelsea, Jack and Toby and left at 8.30am.

We drove into Adelaide, The City of Churches and stayed at the Big 4 Adelaide Shores.  The park was right on the beach and had great facilities including a heated pool.  We got a special deal on the price and it only cost us $43.20 per night which is really cheap for a Big 4 caravan park.

After unhooking the caravan we went straight to the Adelaide Zoo and arrived at 1.30pm.

We really enjoyed the Adelaide Zoo and seeing the Pandas.  A zoo keeper had told us to come back at 3.30pm to see the Pandas get fed and we did and it was well worth it.  There was only one Panda on display in the afternoon but he was really active and was walking around the enclosure looking for food.

Then we drove around the city and had a quick look at the Adelaide Oval before we drove down to Port Adelaide and Glenelg.

The kids really wanted to get back to the caravan park as there were lots of kids on holidays from Victoria so they could have a play.

The next day we drove thru The Barossa Valley which was lovely and visited the Kildalton Park which is the original Lindsay Park Stables.  Michael's horse trainer worked there many years ago and had arranged for us to have a tour.  Michael was like a kid in a candy store!!

Kildalton Park is run by Tony McEvoy and we were lucky enough to meet him and his son Calvin.  Calvin drove us around the park and showed us lots of horses as well as all the training facilities, it was very impressive.

Then we visited The Whispering Wall which was completed in 1902 and at the time was the only and first arch dam in South Australia and the highest in Australia.  When one person stands at each end of the wall and whispers onto the wall the person at the other end which is 140 metres away can hear very clearly.  It was alot of fun and had to be heard to be believed.

A day out wouldn't be complete without a visit to the local skatepark.  The boys were super lucky and went to one in the Barossa and then one back at Adelaide Shores.  Michael was happy to just watch as he is still in alot of pain!!

As we had driven thru Glenelg the day before we went and walked along Jetty Road and the beach front which is very similar to The Corso.  We had an ice cream and the kids had a play in the park before he headed back to the caravan park for Fajitas and a quiet night.

18 September 2016 - Day 169 - Port Augusta

We left Port Lincoln at 8.30am and had lunch in the car on the way before we arrived in Port Augusta just after lunchtime.

It was great to see my Cousin Michael and his family Karen, Chelsea, Jack and Toby again.  We had stayed with them at the beginning of our trip and our boys couldn't wait to go back for a visit.  As we arrived in Port Augusta it bought back so many great memories of the beginning of our adventure and of how we felt having six months ahead of us.

It didn't take long after we had arrived that the boys were back on the motorbikes.  Jack and Toby were kind enough to double Cooper and Mitchell and take them across the road into the bike track.

We had been fortunate enough to borrow a sat phone for our trip from Dale and Leonie who also live in Port Augusta.  So we drop into Dale's house and returned the phone and caught up.  We felt much safer having the phone with us just incase there was an emergency and thank god we didn't need to use it.  A huge Thank You to Dale for the phone.

Then we raced back to Michael and Karen's and had a lovely BBQ for dinner and had a great night catching up.

Thanks again Michael and Karen for having us, we had another fun night with you all and could have stayed alot longer if we didn't need to hit the road again.

16 - 17 September 2016 - Days 167 - 168 - Port Lincoln

After a long night and not much sleep we woke up at 5.30am to get ready for our great white shark dive.

We quickly had breakfast and Michael had his pain killers and was still in alot of pain before we drove to the Marina by 6.15am.  After a briefing we all boarded the boat and left at 7am.  We had 18 people in total on the boat and it took us 2.5 hours to reach The North Neptune Islands.  The sea was really rough on the way out and thank god we had bought sea sickness tablets with us.

As soon as we arrived and the shark cage was lowered into the water a great white over 4 metres turned up.  We all had our wetsuits on and couldn't wait to get into the cage.  6 people could be in the cage at any one time and another 6 could be in a glass submarine at the back of the boat that had a great view of the cage and under the boat.

Cooper didn't want to go into the water but instead took some great photos of the sharks from the sub and the upper deck.

Michael, Mitch and I were lucky enough to go into the cage on the first go and had a great view of the largest shark.   Mitch was amazing and wasn't scared at all, he even had a weights belt on and handled everything better than I did.  I only went in twice as I started to get cold but Michael and Mitch spent quite a bit of time in the cage.

Throughout the day we saw 4 different sharks ranging in size from 1.5 to over 4 meters long.

Adventure Bay tours that we went with don't bait the sharks but attract them by playing music underwater to attract them, mainly ACDC.

We also saw lots of seal colonies on the drive out and back.

The whole day was great and we all had heaps of fun. Micheal got to drive the boat on the way back and he survived the day with his injury.  We arrived back at the marina at 6.15pm and headed straight back. to the caravan for a quiet night.

Today we were meant to leave and got to Port Augusta to visit my Cousins again but Michael could do with an easy day and rest his leg.  So we extended and stayed for another day.  The boys watched a movie while I caught up on the washing and then we went for a drive out to Fisheries Bay to check the surf out as Michael was getting cabin fever staying in the caravan.  The kids had fun playing around the caravan park for the afternon between the rain.

14- 15 September 2016 - Days 165 - 166 - Port Lincoln

We all had a good night sleep even though we were camped right on the side of the road.  The rain had stopped and Cooper helped me do a little cleaning by sweeping the floor for me before we left.

Streaky Bay was the first stop for the day and the boys went squidding off the jetty while I sat in the caravan and caught up on the blog.

I had read somewhere that there was a replica shark in the back of the service station that had been caught at Streaky Bay.  So we went and got petrol and had a look.  The shark is massive and was caught on a fishing rod by a 21 year old man.  It weighed 1520 kgs and was more than 5 metres long.  He caught it 22kms out from Streaky Bay and took more than 5 hours for the shark to tire and be gaffed.  Unbelievable!!!

 

We then drove down the coast to Coffin Bay and went to the Pure Oyster Farm and got a few dozen oysters for lunch.  We drove back to the waterfront and had lunch in the van.  The oysters were so big that I had to cut them in half for Cooper to be able to eat them.  The oysters  were so fresh they had only been caught 3 hours earlier.

Then we headed for the Port Lincoln Tourist Park which is situated right on the water and set up before the boys went squiding off the jetty out the front and caught 5.

We had a quiet night and were happy to be staying in one place for more than one night.

The next morning I did a few loads of washing and Michael took the bikes off the van and gave them a service and a clean as they were covered in dirt.  We then road along the 2 km track into town and saw the Makybe Diva Statue and road along the harbour front.  It was looking like rain so we headed back to the caravan park and only got a little bit wet on the way back.

We had some lunch before Michael dropped me at the shops as the boys wanted to check out the skatepark.  Michael took his skateboard too.  I was shopping and got a phone call from Cooper to say that had fallen over and hurt himself really bad and he couldn't walk.  So I called a taxi and headed straight for the skatepark.  When I arrived Michael had made it to the car but was in a bad way and his vision was still blurry.  He had done the splits a little too far and had torn something in his groin.  The taxi driver told me to follow him and he would take us to the hospital, thank god I had no idea where to go.  Michael was in emergency for 3 hours and had an x ray which told us that he hadn't broken/chipped any bones but he still may have torn the muscle off the bone.  He was finally given some pain killers and sent home and told to rest and he may need an operation if it doesn't improve.

The kids got McDonald's for dinner that night for looking after Dad so well at the skatepark before I had arrived.  It was really scary for them seeing Michael lying in a hospital bed in so much pain.  We were so happy to have him coming back to the caravan with us, it could have been so much worse.

We had booked in to cage dive with the great white sharks the next day and were praying that Michael would wake up feeling abit better so we could still go.