oude wijn en nieuwe dieren/old wine and new animal

"au-stalia!" is what mette says when you just say "au...". she still doesn't pronounce the r.
when they were still in new zealand, tom remembered that his father had given him the contact details of a couple they met on the boat from turkey to greece. the guy made supposedly the greatest wines and being of italian descent, he invited allard and hella and all their children to visit. after a phonecall, it turned out that ross and robyne tromboli lived a half hour from adelaide and that everyone was invited on wednesday for a real aussie barbecue and winetasting.
at 4:30pm that wednesday - hardly out of the camper van - tom and laurian were treated by ross on a bottle of terrific pinot gris. laurian would drive home and tom would be the connoisseur and happy consumer in general, so the bottle went down quickly as did a bottle of rose.
"oh, besides what religion are you?", ross asked. it turned out that ross was catholic but not practicing but that this particular wednesday was ashwednesday on which you couldn't eat meat so no barbecue. instead, robyne would order chinese food with lots of seafood.
now ross showed the family around while insisting that every area (kangaroo island, adelaide hills), grape (merlot, shiraz, pinot noir) and year (2005 through 2008) got tasted. this makes 2x3x4=24 wines. this type of tasting was all about swallowing and no spitting but no worries: the wines were again yummy.
mette and allard were very good kids during the chinese seafood dinner with more wines and at 9:30pm they fell asleep as soon as laurian drove the campervan out of www.hazyblur.com.au in the little town called virginia, south australia.
the next day tom had a slight headache and laurian thought one of her shoes was dropped but even that one was found by the camper van. only laurians sunglasses had to get forwarded to melbourne.

the next day the voute van drove out of adelaide in the direction of melbourne. this van, just like the new zealand one, can accomodate 6 people. 2 above the drivers seat, 2 in the back and two in the middle. since mette sleeps above the driver seatand all ard with this parents, the third double bed space is used as breakfast table with two benches on each side with allard and mette strapped on each bench in a babyseat so that they stare at each other during the entire trip. just today mette was - not litterally - rolling over the floor laughing because she saw allard pulling his baby jacket over his face and then taking it off every now and then. mette thought he was playing peek-a-boo with her and found that hilarious. so did laurian and tom. the other way around happens too: mette throwing a toy to allard and allard laughing his ass off.
this camper van is more convenient than the previous one and that's good, because 3 months australia is longer that 2 months new zealand.
better:
* wider walking space
* less deep but wider kitchen
* storage under the bed accessible from the side
* sun shield
* air conditioning
* best of all: you can walk to the back of the van from between the drivers seats rather than climb over the drivers truckersbench. laurian had turned a real turnster climbing over the bench in new zealand.

less good compared to the previous one:
* no tinted windows - less privacy
* no oven and no grill
* no shoe rack
* smaller fridge

first stop: cleland wildlife park. mette has always been fond of koala's (she calls them kolala's after coca cola) ever since she got a guidebook with animals with mother and baby kolala on the front. now it was time to see them in real life. she absolutely loved them. laurian decided there to get her a stuffed toy kolala for when she'd succeed on the potty. even though she has seen the kolala in the bag and she knows when she can get it, there's no immediate results after another two days yet...
you could also buy food to feed the animals in cleland wildlife park. tom and mette fed a kangaroo with a joey (baby kangaroo). it was absolutely cute.

the first kangaroo in the wild was seen today (saturday) on the unsealed road to the campsite. he was on the side of the road and laurian told tom to stop the van, not only for safety, but also to just watch.

the campsite is between cape jaffa and robe by the ocean. just follow the signs for vineyard and camping. the vineyard turned out not to be by the ocean, closed and not to allow camping. the campsite however, is next to the ocean and the 80+ year old owner charges aud 2.50 per person and children under 16 are for free. enough reason to come back in the next 14 years!

ps1. an oddity in south australia is that it has a half hour timezone. the difference in time with holland is 9.5 hours and with hong kong 2.5 hours. going over the border with victoria (melbourne's state) will make the clock move 30 minutes forward. that should mean the kids will sleep a half hour longer!

ps2. mettes quotes in australia
* kangaroe vindt frietjes lekker/kangaroo likes french fries
* als allard tanden heeft, dan krijgt hij een boterham met marmite/when allard has grown teeth, he'll get a vegemite sandwich (he just smiled...)

ps3. mettes quotes from the maori article have fallen off:
* allard, jij hebt peer gegeten. bofferd!/allard, you've just eaten pear, you lucky skunk
* ik ga sneuken/i go sno (mette can't pronounce the r and intends to say snurken/snore)
* daddy, zou je willen komen?/daddy, would you be so kind to come? (just woke up and wants her tent to be unlocked)
* doe je broekje maar uit, mama, dan kun je beter zwemmen/you can take off your knickers, mommy, you can swim better like that (naked mette in the sea)
* (walked around on the campground in northland, new zealand) ik ben met baby naar nieuw zeeland geweest. ik ben klaar met nieuw zeeland/i've been with baby (her doll) to new zealand. i'm done with (i've had it with) new zealand