We farewelled the Woods this
morning and headed on towards another friend’s home at Mannum. We met up with Debbie, Nikayla and Jacynta
for the first time at Cairns and then again at Kakadu and Darwin, so it has
been a while since we last saw them.
Upon leaving the town of Kapunda we left town farewelling MAP the Miner
(a large statue celebrating the Cornish mining history) dressed in Santa
clothes and went to Nuriootpa to do some grocery shopping. The kids had a lot of fun with both of them sitting
in the one trolley and having all the groceries piled high on top of them… they
were numb by the time we unloaded the trolley.
We passed Penfold Wines on the way out of town and drove on towards
Mannum. Upon pulling up to Debbie’s
place, her parents came out to meet and greet us. Leonie and Mick (and their dog Poppy) were
just as lovely as Deb and her kids and made us feel very welcome. Debbie wasn’t home from work for a few hours
yet and her girls had just ducked down the road to a neighbour’s house for a
swim (yes, hot weather). Leonie took the
girls and I down to the neighbour’s home so the kids could all catch up and go
for a swim together. I had the chance to
meet Debbie’s two sisters and a whole lot of other friends with their children
at the “local pool”. The kids had soon
all had enough and decided to walk back home and Leonie and I followed a little
while after them. When we returned we
found Mick and Josh sitting about outside enjoying lots of cold beers together
– who would have thought, hey? Deb
eventually arrived home and it was fantastic to catch up with her again and
learn about what life has been like for her since returning from the road. We all had a lovely dinner together, a few
drinks (ok, the boys had more than just a few) and great conversation before
hitting our cosy beds for the night.
This morning, the kids had
arranged to all go to school together – yes, Zoe and Samantha were going to
school with Jacynta, kind of like her show and tell. Debbie and I took them up to the school,
signed in the “visitors” and explained the situation to the stand in teacher
(poor guy looked a little confused but didn’t argue with us over it). We, Josh, Debbie and I, therefore had some
free time on our hands before going back to the school to pick up our two kids
so we made the most of this lovely sunny day by taking out the boat on the
Murray River. Josh had it all prepared
when we got back to the van and we headed to the water. A quick unhook off the top of the car and we
were off – gee it was hot! It was also
fairly quiet with few people out fishing, canoeing or skiing in this glorious
weather. We decided to head up the Murray to Debbie’s
in-laws place. Near to where we put the
boat in is a free ferry crossing for cars to cross the river as well as many big,
beautiful house boats – a lot more than what you would see on the Hawkesbury
River. There were also loads of pelicans
about, I’m not sure why they are so attracted to this area? We pulled into the marina and met some more
of Debbie’s family and they showed us around the property where they do their
house-boat maintenance, stopped for a chat a while, and then left them to get
back to their work. We made our way back
towards the car seeing as though we told our girls they could only stay until
about recess. After loading the boat
back onto the car we headed back to the van to drop off the motor and then went
to pick up the kids. Pretty peckish by
this stage, we headed into Mannum and had a great lunch at the local pub and
then went for a tour about town. We
called into the information centre where they also had a museum on Mannum. It was fantastic, there was a lot of history
of the town and some old paddle-steamers but, even better, upstairs there was a
make-shift paddle-steamer boat for the kids to try and steer along the Murray, ring
the bells, and pretend to create the steam to get the boat moving – hard
yakka! Next we went outside and aboard
the original P.S. Marion which has been restored. We made quick stop off at the marina before
finishing off the afternoon by picking up Nikayla and Jacynta and having 5 of
us squashing into the back seat of the car and heading home. We headed down the road to the “local pool”
again with the kids this afternoon and spent a lovely night hanging out with
all of Debbie’s family; it kind of made me miss my own family back home.
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