Out And About

Monday 6th August, 2012

Saturday ended up being a nice day weather wise.  The morning started off foggy, but once the sun came out it was rather nice.  Sunday, on the other hand was back to normal, showers and cold.

As I hadn't heard anything about some cleaning products I ordered back in June, we decided to go to Hahndorf and see whether they had come in.  Firstly, Tony had a doctor's appointment, a blood test for cholesterol.  The doctor decided not to do one, instead told him to get one done in October, but rather than come to the surgery and pay for it he told him just to go to the Pathology Lab.

As Tony had fasted we decided to go out and have breakfast.  With that done we went off to Hahndorf.   On the way we called into "The Cedars", the house where the famous South Australian, Hans Heysen, a painter and artist lived until his death in 1968.  He was born in Germany and came to Australia when he was 6 years old.  The house tour wasn't going to be held until 2.00pm and as we didn't want to hang around for another 2 or so hours we had a walk through the gardens instead.

Heysen's Studio 

The Heysen Tunnels on the South Eastern Freeway are named after him.  Also there is a walking trail that takes in a good part of South Australia going from the Fleurieu Peninsula in the south through to the Flinders Ranges in the North.  This trail is some 1500 kilometres long and is known as the Heysen Trail.

Hans Heysens' paintings

While walking through the garden we came across these beautifully coloured parrots and a brightly coloured little blue bird.  They were hard to photograph as I only had my point and shoot camera, the Nikon camera was left home.  Also to our delight there were kookaburras in the trees near us.  Yes, and the kookaburras were laughing, most probably at us trying to get a photo of the parrots.

one of the birds looking for nectar

Kookaburras

Lucky for me the cleaning products had come in.  After getting them we went onto Mt Barker and did some grocery shopping.  I also picked up some foam off cuts to use in the foot stool and we had a browse in the kitchen shop.

As I had also got Robyn some cleaning product we decided to take it out to her Sunday afternoon.  When we got there they weren't home and so we decided to go off to Lyndoch and to the Craft shop.  Since we had the new toilet installed I can no longer use my toilet roll holder.  

I am looking for one that can go on the wall and will hold around 3 toilet rolls.  I know they were around years ago and thought maybe a craft shop would be a place where I may be able to get one.  The shop at Lyndoch didn't have any but the lady referred me to the craft shop in Tanunda.

The shop in Tanunda has sold them in the past but the person who made them was sick and wasn't making any until she was well enough.  The lady there said to keep checking whenever we were passing through.

To kill some time before going back to Robyn's we went and had a browse in Wohler's furniture shop.   As we are looking at buying a couple of recliners we got some information while there.

I rang Robyn and they were at home and so we headed back there.  Along the way we saw plenty of golden wattle that was starting to bloom.  This is Australia's national flower.  When it starts to bloom we know that spring is just around the corner.