The Pootang Clan

(I'll let LOF explain the title.)

Over the last week we have had some visitors from the U.K. come and spend some time with us. we have just dropped them off at the airport and waved them goodbye. We've had a busy week. It involved lots of adventures as well as the obligatory trip to the Marion to sample the red back grill that still remains LOF's favourite dish! They brought Bournville chocolate and PG tips which was brilliant. Just the smell of that chocolate makes me feel like i'm at home ... mmmmm...

For some mad reason these guys seemed to have experienced more rain on their trip than most Aussies do in a year! The good news being that the clouds seemed to disappear just before the weekend so we could have some time in the sun.

Whilst it was cloudy we managed to visit the Adelaide Car show where i spent at least 10 minutes scowling at an old lady who would not get out the VW Beetle (which by the way was yellow and convertible). I just wanted to sit in it and show it some appreciation! W and LOF spent a while drooling over various cars and motorbikes (which seems to be a new thing for LOF and is steadily catching up with his love of fast cars)

We took them down to Glenelg to discover the joys of WOK IN A BOX! W was very impressed with amount of food you can cram into one small little box but made it his mission to complete the whole thing (minus the peas) We also went to my favourite haunt Star bucks where we introduced W to the Java choc chip frappichino and V to the cool James Bond evil guy style spinning chairs.

Then we decided to get up and leave the house at 6:30 am on Saturday to take the long (5 hour) drive to the Wilpena pound. It's full of kangaroos and emus and has some beautiful landscapes. It's where we went as part of our tour with Dave. This time however i didn't take a plane and LOF wasn't feeling poorly so we walked up it to check out the views. There were kangaroos everywhere much to V's delight (she took 20 pictures and 5 videos of kangaroos!) There were also some cool parrots about.

We stayed Port Augusta over night and then made our way back on Sunday. Of course you have to go through the wine regions of the Care and Barossa Valleys on the way back ;) We bought ourselves a Cellar Door pass for $99 which gets you $120 dollars of wine and exclusive wine tours (as well as a cd to listen to in the car)
We sampled wine after wine. I discovered that I am definitely a Cab sav. girl and V confirmed what she had always known she love the Vino! We visited some truly beautiful places and learnt lots about wine. I will create a separate blog entry about our recommendations and then you can pop to Tesco and see if you can find them. :)

On their last night they decided that they wanted to visit the Beach House, a large and cool place of fun. It was there that they went on the water slides whilst LOF and I spent all our credits on arcade machines. Then we decided to have a go on the bumper boats. I didn't realise at the time that I was giving LOF access to an enormous water pistol that he could point in my direction at any time whilst I was still trying to get the hang of steering the darn thing! Infact, the cruel man who ran the ride chose to uncouple my boat last which meant that all three of them were able to get themselves in a great position to soak me whilst I was still tethered to the side of the pool! UNFAIR! but great fun! Needless to say we were all soaking wet by the end of our turn!
We attempted to dry off on the electronic, land lubbing bumper cars (and this time i did get to drive a yellow beetle! Yay!)

Needless to say the last week has been fun and we were very sad to drop them off at the airport (LOF did enjoy the discovery of the Mini Baby Bell they'd left in the fridge though - well they weren't going to eat it were they!)

(I've stuck the other pictures on Flickr!)