Feb 8, 2005

Wow it has been a few days since I updated things....and as usual these days I don't have much time for this entry but needless to say we are still having a good time - trying to be good about watching our pennies as things cost a lot more here and the dollar weakness is not helping...but let's not linger on that. The Patriots have won another Super Bowl which is just amazing! Boston must be going crazy! It even made the local paper here in Stawell, Victoria.

Since the baking heat of Exmouth we travelled back to Perth and on to Adelaide. We have stayed with some great Servas hosts - first the Chalmers in Adelaide, then the Beatons in Mt. Gambier and now the Meumanns in Stawell near the Grampians. We have had some cooler weather and a bit of rain but still have managed to see some beautiful countryside and taste some great wines among other things. Our hosts have been wonderful offering up ideas on activities in their local areas as well as ideas for places we have yet to visit. We were lucky to catch the Beatons on a weekend and spent a great Saturday with them touring Mt. Gambier's sink holes and some near by wineries - a great combination - caves and wine!

We had a super 10K hike yesterday in the mountains and hope to do some shorter walks today. Tomorrow we are off for three days at Wilson's Promitory and then we will end our two week trip in this part of Australia with a visit to Peter Cory's mum in Melbourne. We are looking forward to that especially.

We hope all is well in the various corners of the world. If I have a chance this evening I will provide more details!

One thing is we are getting a pretty good look at some of the creatures of Oz...I mentioned the Emus and parrots in Exmouth. In Adelaide we were able to catch a glimpse of more parrots, kokaburras, black swans, pelicans and of course Heidi - the Chalmers wonderful dog! The next few days we did not see much except a few dead kangaroos and sheep and cows but we did get a glimpse of a disappearing kangaroo on our way back from the vineyards with the Beatons. In Halls Gap in the Grampians the live kangaroos were on parade at the caravan park - tons of them. We also saw a echnid (a porcupine sort of thing) on our hike yesterday which the Meumanns say is pretty rare. No Koalas yet but we are keeping our eyes on those gum trees.

Cheers for now.

Pam