A Beach Vacation in Adelaide

Really, it’s been a blog vacation this past month. Somehow, we still haven’t written about our second week in central Australia, nor anything that’s happened since. Just to get things moving, I think I’ll write about what’s happened since, and then come back later to post about the second week in central Australia. I want to write that one with Dave, and he’s just left this morning on another geology field trip to the Fleurieu Peninsula. It’s raining outside, however, and I am sitting on the couch, having a quiet morning – just perfect for blogging.

Immediately after we returned to Adelaide from central (as we started referring to it), we began house and pet-sitting for some friends who live in Henley Beach. They are from Canada, and were visiting friends and family back there for three weeks. They have one big, energetic black lab named Dawson, and one strange black cat named Jiggs. Living at their house felt like a vacation, and was just what we needed after the intense two weeks in central.

Jiggs would probably be a normal cat if he got to spend some time hunting and roaming outside. But, he is an inside cat, and so finds strange ways to spend his energy. The best game to play with Jiggs was to get in bed, and then move around some part of your body, like your foot, and watch Jiggs pounce on it. It was important to be in bed and protected by the covers, because Jiggs has some pretty sharp claws and can get aggressive. The other excellent game to play with Jiggs was to put Dawson’s leash on, and then walk around the house. Dawson would follow you, with his leash dragging behind. The cat follows behind, attacking the leash as it moves through the house. Who needs to pay for entertainment when you have pets?!

We took Dawson to the beach every single day, and he loved it. I’ve never seen a dog more focused on his ball – or really, on whatever you threw into the ocean for him to fetch. Other dogs would come and chase him, bark at him, try to steal his ball, but for Dawson, it was as if they didn’t exist. For Dawson, there is nothing else besides fetching his ball from the ocean. He never tires, and I mean never. (You can see how eager he is in these photos.) To slow him down and give ourselves a break from throwing the ball every 5 seconds, we sometimes left the ball at home and would throw small rocks into the water. Because the rocks sink, he had a much harder time finding them. But, he was so intent on finding them, that he would often spend several minutes looking around in the surf for the rock. And, amazingly, he sometimes brought back the rock that we had thrown. Other times, he would spend an especially long time digging around in the sand, making strange backward lunges, taking sand with him, and finally unearthing huge rocks. I have no idea how he found these, but it was so funny, and he was so happy. So were we.

Although it was winter, the beach was usually very peaceful, not very cold, and perfect for walks and runs. I love living in the hills, but part of me felt like we should take advantage of the beach while we’re here since I’ve never lived so close to the ocean before. These three weeks were perfect—we got to experience some beach living, getting a sense for the changing tides, spotting dolphins (some very close to shore), and recovering from central Australia.

After three weeks of ball throwing and beach walking, our friends returned home, and so did we. At least to our home away from home – our little granny flat up in the hills. It was actually wonderful to come back. We were happy to see Ryan and Liz again, and to have a cozy spot of our own. Ryan and Liz had us over for a curry dinner to celebrate our recent engagement and to catch up on all of our activities since we left back in mid-June. We got to share our DVD from the Great Barrier Reef, which we love and would be happy to watch with anyone who wants to see it when we’re back in the States.

Things at the granny flat are mostly the same, except for now three chooks are producing eggs, instead of just one. That’s good news for us, since it means we are occasionally the lucky recipients of fresh eggs! And, koalas still make regular visits to the backyard trees, though I recently realized how boring their lives must be. They pretty much sit in the same spot in a tree all day long (and sometimes even longer) eating eucalyptus leaves. Every once in awhile, they switch trees, and in the summer, come down to find water, but that’s about it. Perhaps things will get exciting soon, as I imagine mating season must be coming up. We’ve heard about the deep grunts the males make during mating season, but we haven’t heard these sounds yet. Hopefully that means mating season (and spring!) is on its way. We’ll see.