"As Our Trekcart Goes Rolling Along"*

One of the chief blessings of the holidays is the opportunity to catch up with my Mum and Dad more often. Given the glorious autumn weather, we have managed quite a few 'outings' this last week. Here are some of them.Firstly, Good Friday walking on Noarlunga Beach. That's Mum powering on ahead in her little hat. Having been off school with nasty cold/flu things the week before, we were both having our first venture out into the world of physical activity. Typically, she threw herself into it and was laid low again the following day! As you can tell, I was following behind at a much more measured pace :-)This one is at Belair National Park. It is the infamous Easter Picnic with A Free Man and family. Take note of the delightful location Himself selected for us and then abandoned us to enjoy!!! I think you can just see Boy Z disappearing off into the wide blue yonder after yet another ball (that child is obsessed). Do note complete lack of CARS in the background chizz chizz chizz. Still, we were able to have a good old chat and share some of the Baby Angel's apple tarte tatins with cream and crumbled easter egg on top. :-)The next outing was to Reedy Creek, somewhere between Murray Bridge and Mannum in the South Australian Riverland....hem hem. Here are Mum and the BA at the top of the hill carrying the esky down the trail. I do not think they had seen the path which they must tread, at this point.Here is my father explaining to my mother (just out of frame) that we are about to descend into that valley below. I had to leave her out of frame because her reaction was not pretty.

"But," he protests,"Look at the wonderful rocks you will see at the bottom...."Seriously though, my Mum is a good sport and once I had taken charge of the esky and she could concentrate on her descent she was fine.

"My, my,"she enthused,"look at these beautiful rocks......they're so........BIG!"

Well done Mum. Fifty years as the wife of a geologist and all you can come up with is 'they're so big'? To be fair, as she explained, in the years when she was doing a lot of following my dad around on field trips, her prime concern was two small, adventurous, athletic girls. Who had time to take in information about the rocks?This is the 'path we must tread'. We followed a trail down to the trees on the right and after that it was clamber time. We were headed up this valley to the source of the creek.

Reedy Creek is of geological importance due to the 100% outcrop exposure. These massive granites were formed under the pressure of two plates colliding; sedimentary rocks melted, flowed and reformed creating the material you see here. In less arid times, water flowed rapidly down this creek carving out the valley and creating amazing potholes as smaller boulders ground against larger ones.The floor of the creek bed was carved out of the massive outcrop and was quite hard going for some of us. Dad was on a mission to re-shoot pictures for a field guide which needed bringing up to date so he ploughed on ahead. Apparently when the creek is flowing there is a waterfall at the head and this was his goal. The rest of us just had a bit of fun on the way.I'm scrunching my face up here because there was a particularly persistent fly which was determined to sit on my nose just as the shot was taken. A scrunched face is so much better than a fly on the nose, don't you think? Yup, they were some BIG rocks alright Mum.Finally, here's the dried up waterfall. There was still (pretty disgusting looking) water in the pool at the foot of the fall but other than that the smooth rocks and telltale tide marks were the only signs of the torrent that flows here from time to time.

By the time we made the waterfall, the sun was high and our overcast windy autumn day had transformed into a corker. Photo shoot completed we headed back to where we'd stashed the esky and back up the hill for the drive home. We had to drive through Woodside however because there is another item of interest to Dad there.

It was a lovely day all round and as we kept reminding Mum, it was the first time we'd seen any of it 'from that side'. Family joke. You had to be there.

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* Mum was regaling us with Girl Guide walking songs, except they were Scout ones because in those days you had to borrow everything from the blokes....

"In and Out
Hear them shout
Gee I'm glad that I'm a Scout
As our trekcart keeps rolling along."

What were they on about?