Aussie 3 August

The last half of the journey to Adelaide across big big countryside between Mt Gambier and South Australia (SA): a moment of panic seeing threatening signs up wanting us to get rid of all fruit into quarantine bins before we hit the state. We dutifully disposed of an orange, feeling rather silly and ‘surely it can’t mean an orange’-ish. But as, when I later reported the incident during one of my talks, it got a resounding cheer, we obviously did the right thing. Apparently some pestilential fruit fly has been kept out of SA up to now, where it could wreak havoc in the orchards and vineyards if it gets here. We were very glad not to have been harbingers of doom via our orange.
Straight on from Adelaide to Taparoo and Lefevre Uniting Church where we lent a hand with the inspiring team at Jenny Walker’s Messy Church. I had a happy hour folding concertina frogs for Moses’ plague and meeting families who would have been very much at home in Cowplain: Paul commented that we had walked into a Messy Church that could easily have been one back at home: we felt very comfy there.
And we got back to the apartment to find a huge and beautiful Breakfast Hamper waiting for us – a present from the team who had invited us and very welcome too (and wacky). We felt very cherished.