1 - Christmas, a Wedding and Yorke Peninsula S.A.

BLOG 2019 – (Our retirement journal)

1 - Time Home with a bit of respite away in our caravan - Yorke Peninsula

We thoroughly enjoy our nomadic travelling adventures with its soul enriching qualities provided by the experience of many beautiful locations around Australia.

Stepping back into our home late 2018 we found our relaxed wellbeing bubble disappear rather quickly. Our two large trees were lying on the ground, one on the clothes line and the other on the shed.  There were a couple of damaged fence panels, as it transpired all complements from a damaging storm the week prior our arrival home. The lawn mower was broken, and the rear yard looked a bit like a jungle. Steve had a list for caravan maintenance needs, requiring immediate attention just in case he needed to order parts prior to the Christmas holiday shut down period. It was an intense period of activities for our first month back at home

Mary providing a protective cover over the tyres for repainting of the caravan rims

In between assisting Steve, Mary was busy with sewing projects for Christmas things, along with preparing for the arrival of our family for our younger son’s wedding adding to the mix for our  Christmas period activities.

Christmas gatherings were held at one of our local caravan parks over a four day period with Steve’s side of the family staying in three caravans and one cabin, with other family members coming and going each day.

Mary made some table runners

Mary, Great Grandma, Grand-daughter Isla with her parents for Christmas present unwrapping.

Christmas lunch mob

Moving on from Christmas we re-established some form to our rear yard with new plants to fill the gap from the two missing trees and assist with the current buzz word of providing carbon neutralising growth. We can but try to help minimize our impact on the world.

On 2^nd January our daughter arrived from Canada, followed a couple of days later with the arrival of our Canberra based children. It was terrific to have all our children together for a couple of weeks. Only one person missing, Judith's fiance'. We would have loved for Corey to have been with us. Hopefully next trip Corey can make it.

Mary and Pippa

Then it was a weekend of activities with our extended family members, pre-wedding night with a dozen gourmet pizza’s consumed and lots of chatter, followed by a longish wedding day busy with activities. The wedding with the ceremony held in a pine forest setting followed by the reception at a 93 year old stone built hall, finished with breakfast put on by our son’s new in-laws for about 40 attendees. We spent the Sunday afternoon soaking up time with our Canberra and Canada based family before farewelling them for their respective trips home.

After a couple of days spent recharging our personal batteries, (doing nothing) we got on with our required maintenance needs which include those medical checks / maintenance requirements. We had a window of about 12 days between appointments and decided it was time for a time out caravan fix. We always enjoy nearby Yorke Peninsula and it had been nearly three years since our last visit. With a phone call to fellow caravaners Rob & Glenda who live in the middle of Yorke Peninsula we found ourselves at their home for a couple of nights then the four of us set camp at Port Minlacowie with a beautiful ocean setting. We even managed to jiggle the caravans into a position where no sun was able to squeeze between the awnings on those hot sunny days.

We were about 20 kilometres from Rob & Glenda’s home making it an easy drive to collect Rob’s boat which was utilized even though it was a dodge tide period. We caught enough King George Whiting for a few of our evening meals.

We also fitted in a couple of drives exploring a few areas unvisited before.

We had an exceptionally good week on Yorke Peninsula enjoying the company with Glenda and Rob.

Heading north from Port Minlacowie we assessed a few low cost beach front bush camp locations, all looking very inviting except for the gale force wind blowing at that time, creating an uncomfortable sand blasting effect. We did stay one night at “The Gap,” (utilizing a large bush for wind protection) with a beautiful sandy beach where you could walk along the beach for kilometres. We propped at a free camp for a couple of nights near the main town centre of Moonta where we enjoyed walking around the main townships district and we also explored nearby townships of Kadina and Wallaroo. We did spend one evening catching up with Mary’s Aunty Eileen and Uncle Joe at their Moonta Bay home. There were quite a few historic buildings near the Moonta camp ground including some magnificent churches and we could hear a church bell ringing the arrival of each hour with the appropriate number of bells for that hour.

Kadina water tower art

It was a return trip of about 200 kilometres back to home for another month of required medical needs with further maintenance on our home and caravan keeping us occupied.