Van Morrison: Little Village

Our fourth Tuesday and we're in rAdelaide.
It's rad.

My obsession with Robe lasted another few days after the last post. We eventually managed to drag ourselves away from it. Either because it was overcast or because our new found van park friends, Greg and Kath were leaving as well. Or maybe we'd been there for six days so it was time to get moving.

In any case, the last few days were an adventure. Not only did we talk to people that were our van neighbours - we went places with them!

Greg and Kath from Wonthaggi are fabulous company and we decided we'd go on a little 4 wheel drive tour in the surrounds of Robe.
In Greg's 4WD.
With him driving.
We are not qualified for such driving. We barely qualify for towing a van.

Greg tells us that there is a place down the road, about 30kms that we'll spin wheels on sand dunes and drive with the car on it's side etc etc - as one does when being 'off-road'.
Perhaps we'll find a fishing spot along the way.

So after an hour or so of sand dunes and the discovery of a series of awful beaches - we end up driving toward an apparent beautiful bay area at a place called Nora Creina. I am thinking that the name of it works with my theory of picking destinations based on things sounding lovely and so husband man and I happily sit in the car and let Greg drive us to this.... village(I suppose it would be called).

We arrived at Nora Creina and were greeted with a big fat gate that says 'Private Property'.

This sign was ignored, and we unlocked the gate and drove down the 'main road'.

And it's here we entered creepyville.

All the houses were made of thin weatherboard and they are kind of scattered about, as though they're taking random bits of grass on someone's lawn.
We drive through and there is no sign of life at all - aside from a few curtains swinging where the freaks behind them were watching us (I am certain).

It's about now that I am thinking that our new friends Greg and Kath are actually some sort of axe-murdering hippies who have tricked us into going to a weird community camp and we're never going to see our normal folk again.

I soon realised that Kath and Greg (not that Greg will admit it) are equally as freaked out by this creepy village, so they haven't actually kidnapped us - we're just all accidenally stuck here together.

After driving for what seemed like a half hour (but was really a half minute) we get to the bay and it's beautiful.
But there's seaweed everywhere.
The men decide to do a spot of fishing and Kath and I stake out the surrounds, looking for any signs of freakish peeps in the sand dunes. We tire of this after about 10 minutes and read gossip magazines for the rest of the hour.

When we get back to the gate to leave, Husband man is put in charge of opening up the gate for us to get out. we collectively decide this because we're all too scared to get out of the car ourselves - husband man is obviously keen to redeem himself after the Seaspray incident.

But the gate is locked.

Locked.

And we're stuck inside the freak town.

And the panic starts to rise.

We're looking around and wondering which tree or house the freaks are going to descend upon us from  and Kath and I are madly locking the car doors.

Husband man has a little chuckle to himself and opens the gate.
April fools.

We chill out with Greg and Kath for the rest of the day, fishing at the wharf in Robe, having a few bevvies and enjoying a counter meal at the local public house.
We even paused to take a self-timed dorky photo of ourselves and our view:

But as I said, we did manage to leave Robe.

We left and headed north to Meningie - which clearly sounds like a disease. Like pimples or templates, you think you're going to be stuck with some sort of rash after encountering this place.

It was very overcast and we had a great camp spot, right on the river. But it was very cold.

We only stayed a night - but I got to continue with my two photographic obsessions - birds and sunrise/ sunsets over water.

We left Meningie's cold cold lakeside and headed to Victor Harbor, which is about an hour south of Adelaide.

Having never put up Van Morrison's Annexe before, we desided to give it a burl.

Husband man enlisted the help of a few unsuspecting casual campers nearby and they all had a man-off to put the bright orange canvas hoo haa together.

The result was beautiful, but i'm not convinced it's necessary for two people to struggle through. I'd have to trouble myself with all sorts of holding canvas up and nail-breaking and really - Morrie is quite big enough for the two of us anyway.
Something best left for when we have many a guest and are staying a long time at one place.

The rest of the time it can live folded up and under the couch in Morrie.

We hung out at Victor Harbor and visited the surrounds. We walked along the beach at Port Elliot and went to the markets at Goolwa.

This little pocket of of the world is fabulous and is really reinforcing the fact that South Australia is for the win.

If you've not been down here before (due to fear of alleged serial killers and general southern-ness) then you're missing out. The state is all about good wine and awesome beaches.
And the people are super friendly.
Aside from weird Nora Creina, the whole of South Australia has been a highlight (especially Robe, obviously).

And then we got to have our good friends Eddie and Sally - Adelaide dwellers and most fabulous friends come to stay with Van Morrison At Victor Harbor.
They even tested Morrie's bunk beds for us:

And now we find ourselves now in Adelaide, visiting the surrounds - Glenelg, Brighton and over the hill to the McLaren Vale wine region.

We'll be taking a short hiatus from Van Morrison to head north by plane - we've got a wedding to go to, so we'll be in sunny Woolgoolga on the NSW mid-north coast.

Here's to a week of not having to shower with flip-flops on!