Day 2 - Adelaide, Fleurieu Peninsula, Langhorne Creek

Jet-lag had hit Mark worse than most, and so after falling asleep over a glass of wine in the bar, he retired for a 13-hour kip.  He was still a bit blearly in the morning and had no idea what he had done with the digi-camera, hence this page being less than replete with images.

This day also saw Mark's first attemt to drive a car with automatic transmission.  Aproaches to junctions were made more exciting as he unneccessarily grasped the gear selector, shifting it into random positions while his left foot wandered around looking for the clutch.  Usually he found the brake instead, causing the rest of the party to pitch forward in their seats and curse him roundly.  His attempts to make up for these deficiencies by parking superbly in a narrow space were merely decried as not providing enough room for the assembled fat bastards to get out.  Some people just criticise everything....

The intention had been to visit Kangaroo Island.  There were a couple of probles with this - first, there were no ferries at sensible times, and second, the island was on fire.  Plan B - looking wistfully at the island from afar while trying to swat flies in 38-degree heat - was deemed too dull.  So a general tour of the Fleurieu peninsula followed.

It was during this part of the tour that Rupert spotted the fisrt kangaroo of the trip.  Well, he thought it was a kangaroo.  It actually turned out to be a sheep.  Easy mistake to make.

Victor Harbor turned out to be the main stop.  It's a largeish resort with a substantial elderly population, and was about 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding area.  A bit like the south coast of England, except you can't get camel rides on the beach at Bournemouth.  A horse-drawn tram takes you across a causeway to Granite Island, where, for reasons best known to himself, David eschewed the many benches provided, instead using the eponymous igneous rock as a perch.

Strange are the ways of the Humble:
they get stranger as Humble gets older.
He won't sit on a bench,
preferring to clench
his buttocks and sit on a boulder.

Thence to Goolwa, where a docking bridge was under construction.  There was also a railway station, but no train in sight, in spite of the timetable promising the arrival of a steam puffer.  Mark indignantly denied that his personal contribution to railway chaos extended as far as the antipodes.

The remainder of the afternoon consisted of Mark navigating us past a number of closed wineries in and around Langhorne Creek. Apparently something terrible happens to the wine at around 5pm every day, and all cellar door sales stop at that time. This increased the total thirst of the party quite considerably.

It being David's birthday, and having been made thirsty by the sight of the various closed vineyards, we drank a bottle of wine and headed out for a Thai dinner, where we drank more wine (to accompany a very good meal). Then we returned to the hotel and drank a bottle of gin, plus appropriate amounts of tonic, ice and lemon. 

We now felt emboldened [i.e. plastered enough] to try a few rounds of  Mornington Crescent. David surprised everyone by making two good moves in a row in the third game, neatly winning it, and the match, for he and his partner, Rupert. Mark won the Barry Cryer award for playing Goodge Street in two separate games. 
 
 

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