High Flying and Four Wheel Driving

What a Saturday, I must say it was quite something. This past Saturday we had the opportunity to drive down to Kapunda in the Barossa Valley to have a day full of food, fellowship, and fun. Saturday, which was originally supposed to be 19 degrees and cloudy, turned out to be a beautiful day for flying. We were hosted by the Jaeschke family who's daughter, Hannah, has been involved with YWAM in the past. Hannah's boyfriend happens to have his pilot's license as well as his aerobatics license, and it just so happened that he had an available airplane kickin' around. I'll cut to the chase, it was Awesome!! Experiencing crazy G forces, or lack there of, doing nose dives, steep climbs, and flying right over the heads of the other enthusiastic YWAMers was really neat. The Jaeschke's were kind enough to have us over for a bbq at lunch and opened up their house to us. Hannah's parents shared some neat stories with us about raising orphaned roo's; I had almost started to doubt the existence of kangaroos since I haven't even seen one since being here. This now brings me to the second part of the day.

Just prior to leaving Kapunda to head back into Adelaide Mr. Jaeschke asked us if we were in a hurry to get back. We all figured we weren't in too much of a hurry and so he suggested we take the scenic back roads instead of the main highway. What a suggestion. The back roads weren't in real bad condition but they didn't look like they got a lot of use either. We were in Matt's four wheel drive Pajero with six people, and we were on a mission. The plan was mainly to have fun exploring back country roads at top speeds, but we encountered so much more. After driving up a few country roads, down a small hill with a 60 degree angle, and through some fairly big pot holes we came across our first bit of wildlife. Matt noticed the lizard just in time and we skidded to a halt, they're pretty serious about preserving wildlife out here actually. I can't remember the exact name of the lizard but it's a fairly stubby lizard that's a cousin of the blue-tongued lizard. It has incredibly sharp teeth but seemed quite docile at the time. We pointed him on his way and not five minutes later we came across his friend, the blue-tongued lizard. These guys really have never heard of a cross-walk. Anyhow, we narrowly missed this guy and had to slam it in to reverse before he could get back off the road. Matt and his younger brother Sabastian hopped out and grabbed and we all had a close up look. The blue-tongued lizard is even more dangerous than his cousin and has a surprisingly strong grip with his tail. Alright, enough is enough, I'd seen lizards before. Where are all the kangaroos?

Probably the most fun part of our four wheel drive adventure happened when we came across and old set of railway tracks that ran perpendicular to the back road we were driving down. We decided to drive down the tracks to see where we'd end up. Not even a few minutes off the road we saw two roo's bounding through the tall grass between the tracks and the nearest field. So, as you do, we parted ways with the tracks and took off through the grass and around the trees to try and catch the roo's. Let me tell you something about kangaroos, they can be darn sneaky if they try. One second we saw them and the next second they were over the fence and lost in the vastness of the field; I guess you can't say we didn't try. Well, that would about sum up the exciting part of Saturday. Sunday we went wine tasting right next door and took it easy for most of the day, which was good, because it was Sunday. I reckon that's about all I have to say, so goodbye. If you haven't stopped reading at this point you probably should, go, do something that's a lot more fun. Get outside, ride a bike, rake some leaves. Blessings.