Girls' weekend!

Two blogs today.   When I wrote the first blog about caravanning I saw this one in the drafts section, with photos but no words.   So I realised I must finish it.

At the beginning of August we had a girls' weekend, with Donna, Emma, Andreena and me.  Donna and Andreena stayed at our house, and Emma only lives a 15 minute walk away.

A miserable weekend, weather wise, with a bitterly cold wind, and rain plus our heating system stopped working, so we had to huddle around a small heater, with rugs over us.   But we were not deterred by weather or cold.

Friday night was movie night at Marion, where we did a little shopping, had dinner and then went to see 'Yesterday'.   Good listening to Beatle songs with a sweet little story added to it.  Nothing too taxing.   We nearly got blown off the carpark at Marion.   Well not really, but it was very blustery.

Saturday dawned cold and miserable, weather wise.   Then the heating packed in, always at the wrong moment.   Luckily it was still under guarantee, but we had to wait until Monday to get it fixed.

Anyway the four of us were undeterred, with Emma and Donna going for a run, and Andreena and I went for a sheltered walk along the reserve in front of the scrub.   We threw the ball to Piper so she was very happy.   It was too blustery on the shore front to go on the ParkRun, but I believe many people still turned up.

After lunch, which we ate huddled around the heater, we headed off by car to Port Willunga.   Time for our coastal walk.   Hardy people I know.

Smiles before we left the car park.

It is a beautiful walk, around the coast from Port Willunga, past the second Port Willunga beach car park, and three Maslin beach car parks, to the start of Moana Beach.  One of the Maslin beaches is a nudist beach, with a very dodgy car park.   No one on the beach on the day we walked. 

I think it took us under two hours to complete the walk.  Most of the time we were on very good paths, but at one point the path was badly eroded, as was the land around it.   An old quarry area, I think.

Posing on the cliff tops.

Those clouds in the photograph below look very threatening.   The wind was coming from the south west, straight from Antartica I think.  Luckily it was behind us the whole way.

The rain clouds were getting closer at this point.

A very wet foursome here.   We did try to shelter behind some trees at one point.

And then a beautiful rainbow.

We managed to avoid crossing one creek by walking further inland.   However the last creek at Moana was impossible to get around, due to the volume of water coming along it.   So there was nothing for it but to take our shoes off, and paddle across the sand and stones.   Our feet were numb by the time we got across, and sore from the stones. 

All in all, it was a great walk, very companionable, and in beautiful scenery.  Walter collected us at the end, and we were very pleased to get into a warm car.

That evening, after we warmed up, we went out to dinner at Oscars in McLaren Vale. 

Great company and a super meal.   A great end to a lovely weekend.

While Donna was staying with us, we drove to Myponga Beach.   Aaron and Kylie have a painting which was done not far from Myponga Beach.   And amazingly we found the exact spot with the same tree that is in the painting.   The tree had been battered a bit on one side, and the painter must have climbed a fence on the left to get the picture, as only part of the road was in the painting.   The grass was also yellow in the painting, which was part of the artist's imagination I think, because in summer the area would be brown.   Still it was very exciting to find this spot.

We also drove down to Myponga Beach, which was a beautiful little hideaway spot.   We were told there were shacks there, so we were expecting small battered places.  Instead every 'shack' was large and quite luxurious.   Everyone calls their holiday home 'a shack' here regardless of the size.

Altogether it was a really lovely weekend, spent with Donna, Emma and Andreena initially and then out for a drive to Myponga Beach with Donna.