Tuen's Blog

In early March (yes I’m way behind updating this blog) Mary, myself and Julian drove over 700kms to Adelaide. My parents had won 3 nights free accommodation in some kind of lucky draw, and we decided that it would be nice for us to drive up and join them, so that they can be more mobile with our car around. Of course, I also wanted to put the Prado through its paces and see how it handled over long distances. The drive was surprisingly pleasant, and we made a lunch stop and a few toilet stops each way. It took us about 11 hours to get to Adelaide from Melbourne.

On the 2nd day, we all drove to Cape Jervis and took the Sealink ferry to Penneshaw on Kangaroo island. We spent a day there, and saw the seals on Seal Bay. We also visited a bee farm and took a look at the inland sand dune on Kangaroo island. We weren’t able to do too much as we had to catch the ferry back to the mainland, and considering the cost of the ferry, we should really have stayed at least 3 days if we wanted to see everything on Kangaroo island and make the trip worthwhile. Well we plan to bring the rest of the family on a future trip and will definitely spend more days on this lovely island. The Prado was fully at home on the gravel and dirt tracks of the island.

On the third day, we did a bit of shopping and also visited an authentic German town called Hahndorf where we had a very nice lunch. And in the evening, we met up with Sr. Elizabeth and her mum, and we had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Citi Zen Chinese restaurant.

We drove back on the 4th day, and again, we made quite good time.

Photos can be found here.

My parents left Melbourne for Sydney on 17th April. They were heading to Sydney for their grand nephew’s wedding.

On Thursday night, the evening before they left, we had a very nice dinner at Sakata Japanese restaurant. The teppanyaki chef was throwing food all over the place!

Photos here.

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My parents were here on a two week visit, and we took the opportunity to drive up to Daylesford. We had originally looked at it as a potential camp site, but there weren’t any vacancies during the dates we were looking at. So instead, we took the opportunity to drive up for a day visit with my parents. Unfortunately, Melissa was not able to join us. The place was quite quaint and the drive took about 2 hours. We had lunch at a place called Bad Habits cafe, which used to be a convent. We then drove down to Hepburn Springs. Apart from the baths, we found it quite disappointing. There was hardly any water along the stream bed, and the only way to get the spring water was from various water pumps positioned along the flow of the underground spring. So if you were there to get the water, that’s fine, otherwise there wasn’t very much to see. I guess if we had bothered to pay up and go into the baths, that might have been interesting.

After the springs, we went to a chocolate mill. The place was interesting, and the two story factory had been built from bales of straw by the owners. But being lent, and with a number of us giving up chocolates for lent, it wasn’t as fun as it could have been.

On the way back, we got caught in traffic that bogged us down for about an hour!

Photos can be found here.