Cat Patrols and Fireman's Poles

Cat Patrols and Fireman’s Poles
Adelaide, Australia

Adelaide, Australia

With just a few days left in Oz, we managed to secure one last house sit looking after some cats for the weekend. We met Dave and Vicky and were blown away to find that we would be staying in a beautiful house with the most awesome sea views and even a swimming pool. We had three cats to look after and I was pretty much in heaven. We had Dharma the 2 year old male Bengal Cat, his sister Indy and their older much wiser and more mature step sister Clover a Norwegian Forest cat. The bengals are too much of a danger to the local wildlife to be allowed out unattended so our job was to feed them, water them, play with them and walk them in the garden. Yup, just like little dogs we had them on leads and took them out for some sun, fresh air, grass and time to sniff the garden shed (which is how Indy spent almost all of her time outside). Clover was much more responsible so she was allowed out on her own which upset Dharma massively and he made it his mission to make Clover as uncomfortable as possible whenever she was around him; from chasing the poor old girl around the house, to just scowling at her when she was having her dinner, relaxing outside or actually just being anywhere in his presence. In order to give Clover a bit of respite I took it upon myself to try to play with him to wear him and Indy out. Vicky had bought a whole selection of new toys and I was more than happy to spend hours flinging the mouse around, making them chase me round the house and to get them to chase each other through their rather lavish tunnel toys. The thing with bengals is that they just don’t seem to ever wear out. There was very rarely a day when I didn’t end up collapsed on the sofa before Dharma finally gave in and headed to one of his nests.

We had a great time with the cats, fitting in some time to play blog catch up, have a bit of a sunbathe in the garden and even a swim in the pool before watching the most stunning sunsets from the garden whilst taking the cats for the evening stroll. With the cats providing a morning wake up call at 6am the days were long so we had no problem fitting everything in, ha ha!!

Before we knew it Dave and Vicky were back and with sad goodbyes to our new furry friends we headed along the coast for a night in the seaside town of Glenelg. I was pretty chuffed when we booked into our motel and realised that I had struck gold with this adorable this place which was walking distance from town, was right on the beach, had the same beautiful sunset view that we had just enjoyed from Merino and the cherry on the top, it had a Jacuzzi bath!!

Glenelg was absolutely fabulous, so peaceful and tranquil, lovely bars and restaurants and a beautiful beach to get our last few rays of sun in Oz.

Before we knew it our last night was upon us, we headed into Adelaide to return our lovely Heidi and checked into for our last night in Australia.

We figured we needed to go out in style and where better to stay than an old fire station that had been converted into a hotel and even had the old fire engine parked at the end of the bed with a fireman’s pole and of course a uniform. We could not have been any happier. This was by far the most we have paid for any room anywhere on our travels, but when else are we ever going to be able to take a photo of our feet with a fire engine at the end of the bed.

With a heavy heart we packed our bags and were set for our next journey. A trip home to Jersey to see our friends and family. We were booked on Airasia to fly from Adelaide to KL and amazingly having signed up for a potential upgrade to flat beds we got an email to tell us that we had been successful. What a way to end our trip. The comfort of a bed on a plane is something else, pure bliss, if only Airasia flew all the way to Jersey.

So to round up this entry Tim and I put our heads together to make a list of a few of the things we learnt about Australia on this trip, so here goes:

It is much bigger than we thought.

It gets cold in winter and even has snow. Neighbours lies to us and the actors must be freezing filming the pool scenes in winter.

The people are some of the kindest most sincere people we have ever met.

When you breakdown at the side of the road, no one stops because of the Wolf Creek stories.

Marsupials are very bad at crossing roads.

Bogan’s shop in the supermarket bare foot and shirtless.

You get carrier bags in supermarkets in Western Australia , Queensland and NSW, but not in Victoria, Tassie and South Australia.

You can’t buy booze in the supermarket; you have to go to the Bottlo (bottleshop).

Most towns have a drive through Bottlo, oh the irony.

Booze is expensive; the cheapest booze you can buy is Goon (a box of wine)

Every Australian camps and owns a tent, trainer tent or campervan. If an Aussie is going ‘Bush’ or going to ‘Woop Woop’ it means they are going camping in the middle of nowhere.

Every Australian knows how to fish.

The Prime Minister (Tony Abbott) is a useless prat who is slowly selling off and destroying every beautiful feature and creature across Australia.

Not one person we met admitted to voting for said Prime Minister.

A Pokie is a fruit machine, a Galah is a noisy parrot, a Smoko is a tea break, Lollies are sweets, a Jaffle is a toastie, an Esky is an ice box and a Ute is a pick up truck.

Every state in Australia has crazy natural disasters every year with cyclones, bush fires, droughts and floods.

Australia is the home to many animals that can kill you, with deadly crocodiles, spiders, snakes, sharks and jellyfish.

Aforementioned Prime Minister is killing aforementioned sharks for swimming exactly where they are supposed to be.

Free hotplate BBQ’s are everywhere in parks, campsites and beaches and we never saw a single one dirty, broken or vandalised. We also never heard a single Aussie say “Throw a shrimp on the barbie”.

Rabbits are illegal in Queensland but not NSW. Taking one over the state border can incur a $40,000 fine.

It is illegal to cuddle a koala in NSW but it is legal in Queensland.

So there you go, that is the education that you get from spending 6 months driving around Australia; now throw a shrimp on the barbie and put Neighbours on.

Australia, Done!