Left Feeling A Little Silly

Sunday 27th May, 2012

Surprisingly the weekend weather hasn't been too bad.  We're not having a heat wave nor has it been freezing.  Both days have been quite pleasant, some sunshine, little or no wind and a few showers.  I'd prefer the temperatures to be another 10 degrees or so warmer.

On Saturday we didn't have much planned.  I needed to go and pick up a few supplies and Tony had to go to the bank.  During the week he received a new ATM bank card and on Thursday night thought he would try it out before destroying his old one.  It got declined.  We went across the road and tried it in a teller machine, also denied as it said he had the wrong pin number.

On Friday he didn't have any time to go to the bank and so we went yesterday morning.   Apparently the card is linked to an account that we have not used for several years.  We assumed the account had been closed as we had transferred whatever balance was in the account into another account.  Even when this account had been opened they never issued an ATM card for it. 

So, when this card comes in the mail we thought it was to replace his everyday ATM card.  We felt like complete dummies.....lol.  The two cards had completely different numbers which we didn't even notice.  Thank god he didn't destroy his other ATM card.

After we went and did some shopping we decided to take a drive into the country.  This time we headed for the Clare Valley.  It has been ages since we were last up there.  Clare is around a 2 hour drive from Adelaide in what they call the Mid North of South Australia.  You can go this way if you are planning on going to the Flinders Ranges.  It is predominantly farming land but also a very well known wine region.

We went to Mintaro, an historic town near Clare.  Mintaro is well known for its slate.  We went and tried to lose ourselves in the Mintaro Maze.  I didn't even know it existed but back in 1995 the Morris family planted up over 800 gold conifer plants which now form the maze.  It is trimmed twice a year and takes around 50 hours each time to do it.  We did get a  bit 'lost' a couple of times and had to back track, but it was fun.  I think we'll take Katie up there to see if she likes it.

An old converted barn/warehouse

From there we went to Martindale Hall.  A beautiful old house, but unfortunately it was closed.  They close at 4.00pm and we were there just after that.  I think this is the house that they used for the movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock".  I have been there before, many years ago, when I went with a former neighbour and her Crafts' Club.  Tony has never been there.  That is one place we will definitely be going back to see.

Clare was only a short drive up the road, we didn't stop but continued further north.  We really had no idea where we were, Tony was going to head for Quorn until he saw on the signpost that it was nearly 200 kms away.  It was getting on for 5.00pm by now.  We could've gone onto Jamestown, but instead we headed for Brinkworth, Snowtown (well known for the bodies in the barrels murders), Port Wakefield and Adelaide.

Main street of Clare

We stopped at Port Wakefiled for a bite to eat (dejavu, we're only there last weekend) and headed back to Adelaide and home.  We got home around 8.30pm.  

Today Tony cleaned the car, I did some more washing (it seems to be never ending) and made a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup for dinner tonight and tomorow night and the next night,  because I made so much.  Other than that it was a nice relaxing day.