Monday 23 January 2012 - Fairies, bike rides and libraries

Today I met up with Stu and Paulie for a ride around the Adelaide Hills. We met at the old tollgate just south of the city and headed for the hills, literally. The first 10km of road is all uphill. Fortunately there are no cars on the road as the way out of town is on the old,  pretty much disused, freeway. A lane of the old road has been dedicated entirely to cyclists and the traffic is limited mainly to locals.

We did a 60km loop with a stop in Handorf for coffee. Stu and Paulie were the stronger riders today and I struggled on the hills. Fortunately being a loop, the last 10km was all downhill back to the tollgate.

Clare dropped me off at the tollgate and headed out to a place called 'Fairyland' in the town of Lobenthal with Em and Lachie. Unfortunately Em suffered her first bout of car sickness on the winding roads of the Adelaide Hills. Fairyland is an old tourist attraction with scenes and models about the classic fairy tales. Both kiddies loved pushing the buttons to make the characters move, but did not have the attention spans to listen to the stories.

We met back at the old tollgate where we farewelled Stu and Paulie and headed up to Stirling for lunch. After lunch we headed to the Bridgewater Mill, which is still operating although only as a tourist attraction and not in a productive sense. More tasting of Crozers sparkling and Petaluma wines followed.

During lunch at Stirling we had spotted the new town library which we thought would be worth visiting if nothing else than respite from the heat in the air conditioning. This was a good move and the library had a great selection of kids books, magazines, newspapers and games. This kept us all entertained for nearly 2 hours before we headed back to Adelaide.

Dinner and a swim preceded beds for the kiddies. Early start tomorrow as it is time to pack up again and head off. With TDU finished, our itinerary has become much more flexible and we can start to become even better creatures of leisure.