Water and Dust

After Adelaide it was off to the Murray River, the bit in South Australia that is. We were to stay on a houseboat for four days, think houseboat not canal boat. I was freaking out a bit at the thought of driving the boat or securing the ropes but Peter and Max were happy, so after a brief lesson about the boat we were off. Hmm perhaps that sounded like we sped off into the sunset, river life in a houseboat is way more sedate.

After about 3-4 hrs we found a mooring spot and put the kids to bed. Off in the distance we could see lightning and then the rain came, proper "know its raining" rain. Not indecisive English rain. We all headed off to bed and the lightning, thunder and rain continued on and off through the night. Neither child seemed to notice the thunder and certainly weren't afraid. We even had one about 4am that sounded like it was right above us. Later that day we discovered a fork of lightning had hit the ground about 10kms up stream.

The next few days were much of the same, leisurely breakfast and playtime, then middle of the day cruising up or down the river, finding a spot to stop and having dinner. One spot was right near a car ferry which James liked.

Friday came and it was time to say farewell to the river and head to Peter's parent house, the dust part!

I have always wanted to see more of Australia than the cities so it was nice to finally make a start. Peter had said that if you wanted to paint a landscape you would only need two colours, brown and blue. So that sums it up, brown land and blue sky, not a drop of rain in sight.

James loved it! He got to ride on two tractors and helped out with various jobs about the farm. We stayed on the farm for about a week in total. Then it was off to Adelaide to head to NZ...