Christmas in Australia

Apparently we have just had Xmas!

I say apparently because it is nothing like we have ever experienced before. At work there was home baking and morning teas (not a lot of work was done!!) and although there were cards around the place and a tree with lights it still all felt a bit surreal. Added to the fact it was so light you never noticed the lights on the tree were actually switched on!

However Christmas eve came and all were wished a merry Christmas but to me it felt as though everyone was just going on their summer holidays! The temperature outside was around 30 degrees and the sun was shinning and Xmas day itself was forecasted to be even higher.

As the shops were to be closed for the next couple of days I attempted to get the usual stock of milk etc.... forget that the car parks were full and the shelves were empty - thank goodness for petrol stations!!

We were invited to an Aussie friends house for Xmas - it wasn't until she phoned and confirmed details that we realised we were going to be up at the crack of dawn and on the road - it was for Xmas breakfast at 8am!!!

We wrapped our son's presents and decided to let him open just a couple before heading off for breakfast and the rest would be left for later in the day when we returned. He opened his present to reveal a digital camera (Fisher Price Kid's tough) and was absolutely delighted and photographed everything in sight - didn't really need to get him anything else but we had!

Off we set for the breakfast in two cars - my husband was on call and was determined he would get a call out - the roads at 7.45am were reasonably quite with just the odd car going about so we were quite surprised to go through a speed trap - think we were okay but will have to wait til the new year to find out.... When we arrived at our friends house we could actually see the trap and he never moved for about 4hrs.

We had a lovely breakfast and then went for a walk through a working orchard which had miles and miles of netting over it at a cost of thousands and thousands of dollars but we were warned to watch for snakes and at this point I started to freak a little when said son kept disappearing into the distance and out of sight - couldn't get out because of all the netting though but 400 hectares is a lot of area to go searching for him!!

The new camera was well used and lots of quite interesting photos were taken - I would download them when I got home.

As I sat down at the computer to download the photos from the new camera all I could find were pictures of my son's feet and the back of the front seats in my husbands car - he had deleted all the photographs of the morning some of which were actually really good for a three year old.............sorry none survived you will just have to imagine blue skies and hot weather and views up valleys (not green but brown as the grass is all burnt!!) and a lone car trapping all the speeders.

The afternoon was spent cooking the turkey roast on the BBQ.

On Boxing day the shopping centres had all had the Xmas decorations down but the sales were in full force.

The TV was even worse than that in the UK.

Evil Knevil eat your heart out!!

Getting into practice early!!

Motorbike mayhem or not!!

An annual event. - 15000 motorbikes leave from the seaside suburb of Glenelg lead by santa and travel into the Adelaide Hills town of Handorf.

It is a charity event which sees the bikers hand a toy in at the Handorf oval to St Vincent de Paul charity lorries where they are collected and redistributed along with food (at a later date). The toys are strapped to the bikes by any means and the presents range from the small to the extremley large for a motorbike!!

Whilst travelling through Adelaide the bikers pass out (throw!!) sweets etc to the many children that line the roads some who have gone prepared with their camp chairs and large bags for collecting their wares!

Whilst in Handorf we had never seen so many bikes parked at one time - there is everything from the modern day to the first days of motorbikes and then some! - every biker is supported - moto cross, day riders, trike, hells angels etc etc........ No trouble was to be found and none has been reported - a great day out!