It's Raining...finally

Well the title speaks for itself - it has finally cooled down and we woke up to rain yesterday. It's not "sideways, driving, wet-to-the bone Victoria rain", but at least it's a little rain. I know, I know...there's no sympathy from the BC crowd who have started growing mushrooms between the toes and are sprouting gills, but trust me, extraordinary unrelenting heat and unrelenting rain are pretty close together on the continuum of miserable weather.

We had a nice Easter weekend. We even got a visit from the Easter Bilby - see http://www.easterbilby.com.au/. The bilby is a rabbit-sized endangered marsupial that has been adopted as part of the Easter tradition and many chocolates are in the shape of a bilby. Anyways, the girls were thrilled to find out that the Easter Bilby and Easter Bunny had both found their way to our house here and delivered a treasure of hidden chocolates.

We took a trip out to the Barossa Valley on Saturday with some friends. They took us to the Whispering Wall, which is a dam that has such incredible acoustics that if you whisper against the concrete on one side, your words can be heard perfectly on the other side...140m away! It was pretty neat. In this picture, you can barely see Dug and the girls on the other side talking to friends standing just underneath me.

Then on to the wineries!! We went to McGuigans, then carried on to one of our favourites - Torbrek (Malcolm - thanks for the introduction to this one). Absolutely fantastic!! It was hard to wipe the smile from Dug's face as we got to taste some of the best wine ever.

We continued our weekend with a trip into the Adelaide Hills - a beautiful countryside full of winding roads and charming little towns. Speaking of winding roads...we have come to the conclusion that this part of the world is host to some of the most dangerous and rudest drivers we have ever come across. I'm sure that many Australians are excellent, safe drivers, but you can be sure that 1 in 4 tailgate incessantly, speed, refuse to allow anyone in front and are generally nasty behind the wheel. My apologies to any Aussies who belong in the category of good drivers. But you have to admit that you take your life in your hands, especially on the country roads which are barely wide enough for 2 cars, no divider and have speed limits of 80km/hr! Dug is an excellent driver and he was visibly rattled by the flagrant display of machismo and arrogance by people thinking that they belong on a Formula 1 race course.

We carried on to another wildlife park and I have to again be negative about his experience. At many of the wildlife parks, visitors can purchase food for the animals - this is typically pellets that look very similar to rabbit food. At this place, visitors had the choice of peanuts or COOKIES!! Or if you didn't want to purchase food, I was told at the front desk that we could feed the animals whatever we wanted, with the exception of the otters - they were on a diet because they were getting too fat. I was shocked and absolutely appalled to see people feeding these poor animals cookies and Cheetos and whatever crappy junk food they had with them. It was heartbreaking to see people throwing cookies and potato chips at sad looking monkeys and droopy eyed dingos - it was kind of like charging admission to a dump so that people can watch once-majestic bears eat garbage. Anyways, we won't be going back there...

Our Easter weekend finished off on a high note at a brewery, for a fantastic plate of antipasto/ploughmans lunch and a cold beer. They sell their beer in 2l jugs with handles, that you can bring back for cheap refills. Brilliant!! You can't imagine how happy Dug was leaving the brewery with a belly full of meat and cheese and a jug of beer in hand!