Three flights and half a day in Singapore airport brings us to Adelaide, doyenne of the south, Montpellier of the antipodes, birthplace of Tim.

We calculate that it’s been ten years since we were last here. It seems like a lifetime ago: Sascha was a tiny ten month old toddler while Samuel and Elliot have never been! For the boys this is the most anticipated destination of our trip. They don’t really want to visit any far off exotic lands – they just want to see their grandparents. And here they are plus a good selection of other family members.

Ten years later, Adelaide remains much the same. Sure the city has grown a little, upwards and outwards, and a few of the benches and rubbish bins have been updated but the same pleasant small town feel and easy going atmosphere is still all there.

What is shocking is just how clean it is! Coming from India or Thailand that is to be expected but also next to France or the UK, Adelaide is a shining pearl. It took us week before we spotted out first piece of litter. Even after a few weeks we are still counting using the fingers of our first hand. Indeed perhaps the best comparison would be to Switzerland, but even Switzerland has a few shabby moments in comparison. Enter a supermarket though and you can see the similarity carried though with carefully stacked shiny vegetables all at Swiss prices. With the plummeting pound, Australia is starting to look hors de prix.

After a brief sojourn in Adelaide, we headed across to dad’s beach house on Yorke Peninsula, about three hours drive away. This rural paradise is set on 100 acres of scrubby land with over a kilometer of beach frontage, lending itself to all sorts of pastoral activities: quad-biking, fishing, dolphin watching, burning stuff, tractor driving, kangaroo spotting, messing around in boats, and so on.

On the last day, we went down to have a last look at the beach before we left and saw six dolphins just there, a stone’s throw from the land, frolicking in the small waves, rolling over and tumbling over each other. We watched them for a long while and followed them as the pod slowly moved down the beach. What a finale!

A word to regular readers: there is something about the air here that relaxes the mind and lowers the body into a well of inactivity. You will note that this blog entry is very late in arriving. Perhaps it is the ease of living in a home for a while. Blog updates as well as the home schooling are obvious victims of the malaise. Hopefully we can get a few more updates posted before we move on.