14th January 2010

Bit of a damp day today so we decided to hoof it off to the Hunter Valley Gardens - didn't realise until we sat in the car and programmed in the Tom Tom that it was a full hour's drive away - things do look so very deceptively near on maps of Australia, it's a known phenomenon. However, not to worry, we now have our trusty Camrey so off we go. As we neared the destination we started to pass a hell of a lot of the famed Hunter Valley vinyards (hadn't seen hide nor hair of them so far, to my intense dissappointment). I already have several score brochures of wine valley tours which will bus you off and bring you back sozzled and safe stashed away for when we can abscond at leisure without Child. However, that's all for another day and meanwhile it was mainly botany and reptiles in store for us, not alcohol. 

I'll try and post a few pics on here - might as well, thousand words and all that stuff - but in short we toured gardens and were entertained - albeit midly (some of the planting was a bit unimaginative for my taste - but all very nice, expansive and well kept), the Non went and bounced very happily on a bouncy castle for probably nearly half an hour (after which the shockwaves must have finally made it up to her brain because she started to loose it a bit and had to be hauled off), participated in some kiddy-activity painting and so on, and then went to a reptile show - personally I thought this was quite the highlight. The presenter brought out a (I think) blue-tongued lizard (local), some shingleback skink (I think), a snake-neck turtle, a young Saltie and finally a diamond-back python, all of which were taken round the audience and every single person was invited to stroke. Including the corocodile. Now, all the others had a certain charm of their own, in a rather scaly way but nevertheless, I could see the attraction of keeping them as pets. However, the Saltie.... no **cking way. What on EARTH would you want to have a salt water crocodile in your home for?? Fortunately it's apparently completely illegal in NSW unless you're keeping them for exhibiting purposes, so I think if Ian comes up with his plea of 'I want a puppy' again he might get it granted a bit more easily if he juxtaposes it with 'If I can't have a puppy can I have a Saltie please?' ... but don't tell him that. Anyway, the Non ended up being very happy to have her picture taken with the python hanging round her neck and I think would have liked to pet him for much longer than was allowed, so I guess the general acclimatisation to local fauna Episode 3 (I guess you'd have to count Blackbutt Reserve and the Rockpools stuff as 1 and 2) can be counted as a success. 

All in all the trip was quite full-on, so it's quite a miracle that I'm still here jaberring on after dinner and bevvies. Not sure what'll be on tomorrow, but Non is certainly hoping for Better Weather and Beach so perhaps we'll just go down that old route. Hope you're all having fun, lots of love from Snakey Snakey Land. xxxxx