Christmas Pageant and Surprise Weekend

One of the first floats of the Christmas Pageant! The Nativity Scene. I was thinking this is going be a nice parade with lots of Christmas related floats! I was wrong!

A nice candy themed float. Not too related to Christmas.

A giant clown. Not very Christmas like.

Okay, whoever thought ghosts and goblins should be in a Christmas parade are a little silly!

This is the Jolly Swagman in the song Waltzing Matilda.

At least we can be assured there is Christmas cricket!

This is Nellie, she is the oldest float in the parade and sometimes she breaks down and can't make it the whole length of the parade.

And finally, Santa! Bob (Justin's Boss) and his grandson Nathanial are in the foreground.

We were representing the West Side with our sideways Christmas hats!

On one of our hikes on our surprise weekend

This is where we stayed during surprise weekend. It is an old cottage built in the 1800's. It is now rented out by the Youth Hostel Association. We had the place to ourselves!

A grape field on the hike back to the bus stop!

This weekend was the famous Adelaide Christmas Pageant! As you can see from our pictures there were lots of floats (even though most of them had nothing to do with Christmas). The pageant is supposed to be one of the biggest in the world. There were about 350,000 people there! That is alot when Adelaide is only around 1 million. The weather was a bit cold and rainy, but we didn't mind because it made us feel like it was Christmas time. We have heard sometimes it can get really hot and it is miserable standing watching the parade. Anyway, we had a great time and now are getting in the Christmas spirit!

We also had a surprise weekend that Justin has planned for us! We ended up going into the Adelaide Hills and stayed in a little cabin. It was really nice! We were able to hike alot which is always a bonus! We had our own kitchen too, so we were able to cook our own dinner on Saturday night. It was quick weekend, since we only stayed one night, but it was great to get away from the city and just spend time with Justin! Next weekend is a bit more laid back. We are just hanging around Adelaide. We miss you all!!

Flinders Ranges National Park: Wilpena Pound

Welcome to Flinders Ranges National Park! Home of Wilpena Pound. Just five hours north of Adelaide!

Beautiful sunset with the mountains in the background. It was amazing!

Morning of our first hike! Justin is ready and gearing to go!


That peak to the left is St. Mary's Peak. That is the tallest peak in the pound. The pound is essentially a circle of mountains surrounding a plateau.

View from Tandera Saddle. You can see the walls of the pound and the mountains behind them.

Climbing to the top of the ridge. We had to use our rock climbing skills to get up there!

At the top of the ridge!

Behind us is St. Mary's Peak. We didn't climb it because it would have added another 2 hours or so to our already 6 hour hike!

View of one of the walls of the pound from the top of the ridge.

We are now on the pounds floor. It was very beautiful! I thought this looked a bit like Rocky Mountain National Park.

Our good friend Mr. Kangaroo. There were heaps of these guys everywhere! You couldn't go 5 feet without seeing another one! We saw way more roos than people!

Flies. They were every where and on every thing. As you can see they were all over Justin's backpack. The really annoying ones would hang out right by the edge of your lip. I won't miss these guys back home!

Another view of the pound. It was massive!

On Sunday morning we hiked Mt. Ohlssen Bagge. It was about a two hour hike. It was beautiful!


The start of the hike up the mountain!

Justin on the top of Mt. Ohlssen Bagge

View from the summit.

This was our nice little hire car. The Toyota Yaris. It served us well. We attempted to see these gorges that were on an unsealed road and we were told they were graded for 2 wheel drives. They weren't. They were the worst unsealed roads ever! We couldn't go faster than like 25 K an hour. We even came upon a little river that we were supposedly able to pass in a 2WD. No way! We had to turn around! Anyway, this little guy, we called the Blue Bullet, made it through the 4WD tracks and got us safely back to sealed roads!

On they way back home we stopped in a place called Burra which was an old mining town. Justin got out and took this picture of the old open mine. At one time it was the biggest in Australia. I really like this picture because of the sky. We were in the middle of a massive thunder storm!

So this weekend we headed off to Wilpena Pound in the Flinder's Ranges. It was beautiful! We left after work on Friday night and came back home on Sunday. It was a full trip, but way worth it! The weather couldn't have been more perfect either. We hope you enjoy all of the pictures. They don't do the pound justice. It was amazing!

This weekend is the famous Adelaide Christmas Pageant (we think). So Bob and Anne are going to take us to experience this famous event! It is usually really hot for the pageant so hopefully this weekend will be cool for us. And Justin has a surprise weekend planned for us and I am excited! I will report back next week to let you know what he did for me! We miss you all!!

10 Koalas and a Hike

Koala sign! Watch out there are Koalas in these parts!

Ah, and here a few koala just hanging out in a tree!

And here is another one just hanging out. We ended up seeing a total of 10 koalas! Our record is 11 at one time. We set that back when we first arrived!

Justin by a Yakka bush. He really likes them!

Me by a rock. Justin thought it would make for good scenery.

This weekend we thought we would go hiking on a trail called the Waterfall Gully Hike. We had Bob's car (Justin's boss) for the weekend, so we thought we would head for the hills, Adelaide Hills that is. We found the turn off for the Waterfall Gully hike, but we didn't drive far enough so we ended up doing what is called Chambers Gully hike. It turned out to be quite a bit long (around 5 miles compared to like 2 miles), but it was gorgeous and we saw 10 koalas!! We both still can't get over seeing koalas in the wild. You look up in a tree and there is a cute cuddly koala hanging out. That was our big event this past weekend. This weekend we are driving 5 hours north to go to Flinders Ranges National Park for weekend of hiking and camping. Justin has a before sunrise hike planned for us on Saturday morning! Can't wait! It should be beautiful though! That is about it for now! We miss you all!!

Riverlands Food and Wine Festival

This is the gang getting ready to walk to the festival.

The entrance to the festival

Justin enjoying a nice roo burger. It was delicious (he let me have a bite!).

It was really hot so Justin jumped in the Murray River to cool down!

Hanging out by the river (in the background you can see our friends Rob and Beth trying to throw each other in the river).

Everyone getting ready to go try some wine

Justin on our boat which took our whole group on an hour long cruise for only $40! One of the girls we were with was dared to ask the driver of this cruise boat to give us a ride and she did and he gave us a ride for a great deal! It was really fun!

Sunset on the boat. It was absolutely amazing!

Sunset

Sunset

So as you can tell we went to the Riverlands Food and Wine Festival this weekend! It was a blast! We headed down Friday after work and got back early Sunday night. We went with a group of people from church. The festival was right along the Murray River which is one the main water sources for South Australia. It was really hot to and I am not used to that hot weather yet! Overall it was a nice relaxing weekend! Oh, and the sunset on Saturday night was one of the most beautiful I had seen in a very long!

This weekend is a break from traveling. On Saturday I am hanging out with some girls from church and Justin will have to fend for himself! The last weekend in October we are headed about 4 and a half hours north to go to Flinders Ranges National Park for some hiking and camping. That is about it for now! We miss you all!

Some Underwater Pictures!

We went and dropped off our underwater film from the Great Barrier Reef this weekend and here are some of the pictures. They didn't come out very well, but what do you expect with a throw away camera under water! We were pretty bummed not to find out the picture of the sea turtle didn't turn out. I would have loved to share that picture with people because it was so amazing!

As for this past weekend, we just hung around Adelaide. It was wonderful to catch up on rest since we have been so busy lately. On Saturday night we went down to Glenelg Beach and walked around and had ice cream. It was packed! It was a really fun atmosphere walking around the beach at night on a beautiful spring night. It is so nice having a nice beach just a 30 minute tram ride away. On Sunday, we bought our plane tickets to Sydney and booked our hotel! We are excited! And we get to see our good friend Jess!! She is awesome and coming to visit us all the way from Colorado Springs! We head up there on January 21st. This weekend we are going to the Riverlands with a group of people from church for a weekend Food and Wine festival! We are heading up Friday night and getting back on Sunday. I hope I don't eat too much! I do like food! Other than that not much is going on around here. My birthday is Thursday and we are going out to eat to celebrate. That is about it! We miss everyone!!