Our Vacation
Posted at 1:30 PM, Wednesday, January 21, 2009
On the first day of the Obama administration, it seems somewhat self-serving to write about our summer vacation. I'm sorry to have missed the thrill of watching Barack Obama take the presidential oath and deliver his address live, but it was 3:30 a.m. local time. I went to bed in the Bush administration and awoke, I hope, to a whole new world.
We did have a lovely, uneventful holiday in Goolwa, which is about 1 1/4 hours from Adelaide. For the second time, we rented a house from Dodd and Page, the venerable real estate agency in the Fleurieu Peninsula. The contract requires that the house be thoroughly cleaned before departure, which makes for a somewhat frantic final morning. But in exchange, it's possible to rent a lovely home at a far lower rate than we'd pay to stay in a caravan park or motel. We loved the little two bedroom cottage where we spent a very happy week. In fact, it had a number of details (working microwave, heater in the bathroom, oven that doesn't need to be locked shut) that we wouldn't mind having in our house in Adelaide. The only thing it didn't have that we really would have appreciated was insulation. On our first full day, the outside temperature hit 106 degrees, and the house itself heated up astonishingly in a fairly short period. When a gusty change blew through that night at about 2:30 a.m., the house temperature plummetted, and I ran around throwing blankets over everyone. Aside from that, it was wonderful.
I felt like I'd died and landed in a bird sanctuary. A number of native trees in our front yard attracted huge numbers of native birds. Clouds of rainbow lorikeets flew in late in the afternoon, to be replaced by very noisy and much bigger galahs at twilight. Here is a rather dim photo I shot of the birds from our front porch:
The cottage was priced extremely competitively presumably because it wasn't within walking distance the beach. However, it was a pleasant five minute walk to the shockingly shallow Murray River, whose fate is argued over just about daily on the pages of our local newspapers. The jetties are currently all on dry land, as are a number of house boats. If the country of Australia can make some painful decisions, hopefully the day will come soon when the river flows again. In the meantime, Goolwa itself has fallen on hard times. We saw a lot of homes for sale, and a number of shops in Goolwa's business district are for sale. That is too bad, because in general Goolwa is a lovely place to visit. Its beach is magnificent--miles and miles of smooth sand and gorgeous surf. Its prices are not inflated, it has a very nice public library, and a most excellent microbrewery. We contrasted it with Victor Harbor, which is the far better-known tourist destination. We spent just a few hours there, but were put off by the huge crowds of people and the high prices. I did take this photo there, shortly after the boys enjoyed their first bumper car ride ($7 each!).
After our 106 degree day, the temperatures fell abrubtly, and it was another three days before it was warm enough to even consider swimming. Yonatan discovered the thrill of body boarding and became keen to attack waves considerably taller than him.
Elements may conspire to prevent us from taking a beach holiday next year, but for sure we'll be back when we have the chance!