Tanunda (Barossa Valley)- arrival

 When we left Moorook this morning it was pouring with rain.

The drive to Tanunda was relaxing, both from the point of view of the quiet, uneventful scenery and the happy children in the back seat! When I asked Esther this evening what her favourite part of the day had been, she said "Singing in the car, especially 'I am, you are, we are Australian'."
Most of the way we drove through (seemingly) flat mallee country with red soil and low growing scrub. It was amazing to see the sudden complete change in landscape as the road wound down into the Barossa Valley. This is a place with undulating green hills, tall gums and, of course, vineyards! In places there are rows and rows of grapevines stretching to the horizon, and everywhere are signs with familiar names:  Penfolds, Yalumba, Seppelts, Wolf Blass...


We are staying at the Tanunda Caravan and Tourist Park. Once the rain stopped, the children had a wonderful time playing on the playground and splashing in all the puddles.The well-kept lawns mean that even with the wet weather it is not as muddy here as the last two places we stayed.  (It's been fun trying to keep the caravan clean! As for socks... I can't keep up!)  The lawns also attracts dozens of rabbits, who happily nibble the grass metres away from where the children are playing unless Arthur suddenly decides to chase them!

We've managed to fit in a little school work each day. Esther always enjoys sitting down and doing things with pencils and paper. and both of the children think it's fun to "play schools" with Mum as their teacher.

We visited a hardware store to get some bits and pieces Philip needed to make a few adjustments. Among other things, he wanted to take the jerry cans off the roof of the car and attach them to the back of the caravan to help ditribute the weight a bit more evenly. Esther chose to stay and "help", while Arthur and I took a walk into the township of Tanunda to buy milk. It was a much longer walk than we'd thought and after twenty minutes we had passed at least twelve different places where we could have bought a bottle of wine if we'd wanted to, but not a single milk bar! Finally we asked at a coffee shop and found we'd have to walk as far again, so we bought an ice-cream instead and went back. We'll take the car and do some grocery shopping tomorrow.  We did discover that Tanunda is a charming little town.  We'll be staying here for a few days, so we'll have time to explore. I'll take the camera next time!