God Jul

Merry Christmas

Christmas was a lovely time spent with Spaz's family. We all come together at the family house to help decorate the tree, cook, eat and share some good old fashioned quality time together. There were games played and Swedish classics such as Kalle Anka watched.

Half of the food options available, mmmm sooo good!

There was a lovely 10cm of snowfall overnight which resulted in us spending Julafton morning out on the pulka or toboggans.

Deer footprints

Ice fishing

Sunset :-)

Tomten was very very generous. We were all very good during the last year

Mr Woodpecker

Return to Winter

All good things must come to an end and so did our holiday and mini reunion with family and friends. It was a harsh reality when we landed in Brussels to find that we had a ‘retarde or cancelled’ plane and couldn’t get to Copenhagen thus were NOT going to be able to get the train to Sweden. It may snow every winter in Europe but the first real snow falls still shock them and things come to a halt.   

Never a good thing at an airport - retarde plane

We realized quickly that we weren’t in Australia anymore when we looked out the train window, pretty but cool, good-bye to warm sun and hello to chilly snow.

Winter wonderland

Signs only seen in Australia

Single lane each way ... 130km

An important reminder

Shorter than they used to be

Have a new highest rating ... catastrophic

Thankfully we had no suicidal cyclists as roadkill

Seriously?? we are 400km from the nearest red light

Roadtrip - The conclusion

4200+ kilometers in 12 days 
Saw and experienced some amazing things along the way

The death toll consisted of:

Lizard (size 20cm)

White cockatoo

Hodded robin x2

Willie wagtail
Dove (unsure of what kind)
Crow

'All were suicidal or they would have got out of the way'

 - a quote from The other Spaz

R.I.P

R.I.P

Animals seen along the roadside included: 

Kangaroo (several different types)

Emu

Brumbies (wild horses)

Wild dogs

Cows

Camels

Birds (some with a death wish ... according to The other Spaz)

Lizards

Roadtrip - Roadkill

How many of these roadkill can you identify?

The answers are -
Cow
Camel
Kangaroo
Kangaroo
Kangaroo
Kangaroo

Roadtrip - Birthday Bliss

Nothing beats the fresh smell of eucalyptus

The drive back to Alice
The other Spaz got to celebrate her birthday by waking up at Uluru, collecting some newly sprouted eucalyptus leaves and then traveling back the 445km to Alice Springs. Spaz played chauffer and it was a fun drive (who would have thought that after 3800km ((with 445km to go)) and 12 days of together travelling around in a car that we could still be having fun?!?!, but we were). It may have been the case that madness had taken over :-) 

The mad driver

Getting all arty :-/

We got to stop and see Dinky the singing dingo at Stuarts Well Roadhouse :-) Unfortunately Dinky is now 12 years old and a little arthritic so he doesn’t sing anymore but we still managed to see him (and avoid the 4 min dvd presentation that his owner was keen to show us). We picked up our last on the road Chocolate milk and Iced Coffee and hit the road to the next rest stop for lunch. Lunch was a grand meal of pasta with mushroom sauce; lovingly prepared by Spaz in the presence of a hundred zebra finches, win!

Dinky

The milk addiction (so good!)
20% of your daily caloric intake :-)

Lunch

 When we got back to Alice Springs the Todd River was flooded (another fairly rare event). A swim in the pool, a few beers and dinner on the terrace made for a truly great birthday :-) When we got back to Melbourne I got to do it all again and with chocolate ripple cake :-) win!

The flooded Todd River

Chocolate ripple cake! Yum!