melbourne-adelaide-melbourne

we decided rather late to take advantage of the victoria school holiday to visit my cousin and his family who live in adelaide. the fact that his parents are there made it doubly meaningful since i have close ties with them; having lived with them in singapore for a number of years when i was schooling there. it is a short trip as we are at the tail end of the school holiday and as i just got back from overseas prior. my cousin in adelaide helped with the planning bit and we were off on thursday at 6am sharp.

we relied on the gps for optimal time efficiency. point-to-point, from my place to my cousin's place in adelaide, the distance is a (daunting) 759km as i found out.

on the way to adelaide, my better half took control of the wheel with gusto. she has never driven interstate before. for some reason, i was a little jaded that day, and she covered a good 3/5 of the total journey.

the journey took about 10 hours with stops. we saw a fair bit of the spectacular view at dawn and also during the journey. seeing the countryside is a refreshing change from the usual brick and mortar we are used to.

halfway thru' when we reached border town (the town that literally borders victoria and south australia), shankly got carsick. we stopped by a pharmacy for some panadol; and after an unispiring chinese meal there, he took refuge at the public library for some rest before resuming.
meanwhile, the youngest one took the time to do some coloring at the bordertown public library as well.





we reached adelaide and our final destination (mawson lakes) at around 4.30pm. it was relief all around and we try not to think of the return journey so soon yet. we like mawson lakes alot and have we not settled in melbourne, we are pretty sure that this will be where we will lay our hats.
it rained pretty much the whole of friday, so we spent the morning browsing at the adelaide central market, checked out the adelaide public library before heading to hahndorf in the early afternoon for lunch. the rain put paid to our plan to visit the animal farm in hahndorf where we had a lot of fun during our last visit; and fagan got her fingers painfully pecked by an emu. fagan thus never has her chance to get even.

hahndorf is full of historical flavour. it is one of the earliest german settlement in australia. it should be a `must visit' place for those who visits adelaide. only 20 minutes away from adelaide, it has quite a few attractions that one can spend the day there. a walk along main street to check out the wide range of shops selling german pastries, sausages to curios is a great way to get acquainted with the smallish town. it has great cafes as well as a (surprisingly)fantastic chinese restaurant. there is also beerenberg, a strawberry jam factory and an animal farm nearby where the kids will have a great time with animals.

meeting with the relatives is the highlight of the trip. this is a rare occasion to catch my aunt and uncle from singapore. this is also the first time we met with our adelaide cousins after a couple of years. after a great home cook meal on thursday, we met for a fine dinner at a restaurant on friday.

just as it was a great occasion for us adult to catch up, it was also an opportunity for the kids to get to know each other better. it was a short but fun time for them

on saturday, we left early to get home in good time. by 7am, both the car and us fuel up at castrol and mcdonalds' respectively to get ready for the journey back.

we had a couple of stops, mainly toilet breaks. it rained pretty much on our whole journey back, so we did not have the opportunity to stop at some of the attractions along the way.

stats:
trip stops: (blackburn south) - horsham - border town - mawson lakes - adelaide - hahndorf - mawson lakes - coomandook - kaniva - horsham - syndenham - (blackburn south)
total distance traveled: 1676km
fuel consumption: 9.2l/100km for the entire trip (best recorded mileage 9.0l/100km) on a volvo xc70