Day 24 Barossa

Another very hot night - did not get below 30 degrees! It took ages to get Gem to sleep and Zac woke at 12.30am all hot and bothered so we moved him down from the top bunk and put him on the couch. Ethan did really well.

As today was going to be well above 40 again we had already decided to get in the car early and drive to escape the heat. First stop was Angaston where we were to go gemstone fossicking....we bought a bucket of dirt (how weird does that sound!) and set to work. We were told that the bucket would contain primarily garnets. So after tipping some of the dirt into a sieve, shaking it and then washing it - it was tipped out on to the table and the sorting began! Zac quickly proved quite eagle eyed and was quite good at picking out the shiny red rocks.....Ethan and Gemma tired of it quickly and played cars and read books on the verandah (Gemma at times trying to escape of course!) In the end the kids had three small bags of un-cuttable garnets and Darrin and Jeanette got four quite good sized ones that could be cut and set.

Then it was off to the 'The Club' in Tanunda for lunch - which in all the brochures boasts a playroom - it was not the best equipped playroom but the kids had fun and it was air conditioned. Had a good sized lunch so we would not need to do much for dinner. Back to the car in the hope that all three would fall asleep - it did not take long....

As we were not too far from Freeling - (home of McLeod's Daughters) we set off on a look about tour for Jeanette - found the truck stop and the pub however the rather lovely old home that was used is now private property and has double locked gates and a big keep out sign. You can not even see the homestead from the road...would have been nice but we were not about to start trespassing.

After this we set off on a church crawl. This area still has a very strong Lutheran base and there are many magnificent old churches so off we set to photograph some of them. Mission accomplished and we found a couple of old farmhouses to photograph along the way as well. Back to the van via the supermarket where aside from a few groceries we bought a squirty bottle. Darrin and Jeanette had fun squirting the kids and each other to keep cool. A bit of a picky kind of dinner - the kids just ate bits from the fridge. Too warm to worry to much - walk into town to find an icy pole seeing as the fridge freezer can not manage to freeze the tube poles - back for showers and bed. Will be another hot night - the cool change is meant to arrive around 5am.