Trouble in Paradise?

The title for this blog entry isn’t really relevant until let’s say, 3am on Sunday morning… Up until that point we had a glorious weekend! Get prepared for a long read… it’s a long story!

A couple of months ago were delighted to receive an invitation to Taryn and Marks wedding in Venus Bay. Venus Bay is on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula – an 8 hour drive from Adelaide – so of course we jumped at the opportunity of a road trip to see some great people tie the knot!

On the run up to the big trip Charlene, our dearly beloved 1984 Toyota Corona prepared for the 16 hours of driving planned for the weekend by visiting the mechanic for a full service and TLC. Being 24 years old of course meant that Charlene had more requirements than a simple service! She had a couple of trips to the garage but just before the big weekend she started overheating and it was at that point we decided to hire a car!

We picked up the hire car on Thursday and I loaded it up at home before going to meet Dan from work. We left Charlene parked on the road by Dan’s work and set off on our adventure.

Leaving Adelaide was chaotic as it was the long Anzac Day weekend. We arrived at our stop over destination, Port Augusta, at about 10pm and checked into our motel.

The motel was exactly as I’d imagined – like something out of an American movie where people get shot! The room was unintentionally retro but it was a good enough base to rest our heads for the night. We treated ourselves to a chicken wrap from KFC and chuckled at the following moment:

At the drive through window –

Dan: Hi, could I have one chicken honey wrap, and one chicken chilli wrap please?
KFC staff: I’m sorry, we don’t have any chill wraps available.
Dan: Ok, no worries. Make that two chicken honey wraps then.
KFC staff: That’s $9.95 please. And thanks for being so polite… I’m going to give you a discount as you’re the first person who has been polite this evening. And a free drink… oh, there’s two of you… here’s two free drinks!

We didn’t think that Dan had been that polite but the standards are obviously easy to meet in Port Augusta! We went back to the motel and enjoyed our wraps!

Unfortunately a couple of hours into sleep I discovered the motel had very thin walls and the couple next door kept me awake for a good hour. They were obviously enjoying the retro surroundings as they continued to yelp quite loudly and jump up and down on the bed with excitement…

We set off on the second half of our trip at 7am on Friday morning and really enjoyed the drive across the top of the Eyre Peninsula. The sun was shining and the open road ahead of us made it an extremely pleasant journey and it was hard to imagine covering the same sort of distance in the UK with such ease. We passed through some comical places – Iron Knob and the giant Galah at Kimba being our favourites.

We arrived at Venus Bay for about 11am and checked in at the Caravan Park. We had the best tent site EVER, right on the water front with lovely views of the jetty, pelicans and fishing boats.



We soon saw people we knew. I think there were almost 200 people going to the wedding and Venus Bay is a tiny place so most of the holiday shacks were filled with Taryn & Mark’s family and friends. It turned out their friends Jen, Tom and Matt were in the neighbouring tents and we all set off to the jetty to do the Venus Bay thing… fishing!

Everyone had told us that we were sure to catch some good fish in Venus Bay and this concerned us a little as we’ve never caught one before and are a little apprehensive about the killing part… As it turns out, we had no need to worry as all we managed to catch was a crab, a starfish and lots of seaweed! A good arvo never the less!



Later that afternoon Dan enjoyed a game of cricket - first in the marquee, then on the beach...



Friday evening was great fun. We cooked ourselves some pasta on our little camping stove and were pleased to have brought a tin of tuna in substitute for the fresh fish we never caught. We then met up with Taryn and Marks big group of friends who were all congregated at a shack just 200 metres from our tent. We then embarked on a “mothing” expedition – according to the locals it is a relatively simple Venus Bay concept - ‘if the light is on, go in’. There were about 15 of us going from house to house – a great giggle and good way to get to know the fellow wedding goers!

Saturday saw a day of rain showers and grey skies and I spent most of it saying the Lords Prayer in the hope that someone ‘up there’ would sort out some sunshine for the 4pm ceremony. It was a funny experience getting ready for a wedding in a caravan site toilet block – the warm shower felt luxurious, but dodgy the spiders and moths whilst getting dry didn’t!

I think it was a matter of luck that at 4pm the rain stopped and the wedding went ahead by the jetty without a glitch. Taryn looked absolutely stunning in a really lovely 40’s inspired dress that I think her Auntie had made. I knew Taryn wouldn’t go for a conventional wedding dress but still got choked when I saw her appear looking soooo fab!

The ceremony was brilliant and I couldn’t help but notice how relaxed they both looked and how well they said their vows – either a lot of rehearsing, or true professionals given both their careers in communication type roles!



The rest of the celebrations took place in a big marquee by the jetty and was great. Yummy food was served up – my favourite of which was copious amounts of fresh oysters. The kiddies had their own fun tables and were even provided with buckets and spades which made for hours of fun digging the sand floor of the marquee! The beer drinkers were provided with stubby holders and we were delighted to drink wine from the winemaker we’d spent time with just a couple of weeks ago. An awesome event!



Leaving the marquee was probably the point that our luck changed…

As soon as we got back to the tent the heavens reopened (the Lords Prayer from earlier had obviously expired) and we settled in under the mountains of duvet to keep warm. Unfortunately it was at this point the wind picked up too and didn’t stop. Our little $40 two-man tent was blown and blown and blown. At one point during the night the roof of the tent was right in front of our faces and I held on to the door zip so that if it collapsed fully I’d be able to escape! The cold rain started seeping in so we had to curl up so not to get wet! By 4am I resorted to the passenger seat of the car and Dan stayed in the tent to weigh it down!

I woke up at about 7am on Sunday morning to see Dan out of the tent packing it up. We had a 3 hour drive to catch the ferry back and Dan had seen huge black clouds coming so was speedily getting everything into the car before we got drenched! We got it all in and set off, noticing that Jen and Tom in the next door tent had obviously abandoned ship in the night and gone to sleep in a friends cabin!

Sunday morning turned out sunny and we had a lovely drive to the ferry, stopping for bacon and egg rolls in a tiny town en-route. Dan drove and practically ordered a kangaroo to dart out in front of the car by saying ‘I haven’t seen any Kangaroos yet’ (never fails) and only managed to kill one bird as a whole flock of them went on a suicide mission in front of us.

We decided to treat ourselves to the ferry on the return trip as whilst it doesn’t save any time it means a couple of hours driving are saved meaning we could just relax and enjoy the experience. Of course, the way the day was going that just wasn’t going to happen. We set sail and with the wind and rain I reckon we were amongst 30% of the passengers who didn’t get sea sick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sick and green faces.



We finally got home on Sunday evening and unpacked the wet things from the car, hoping our landlord wouldn’t pop round and see all the duvets hanging from the doors and banisters!

On Monday morning we drove into the city with the hire car to drop it off. The heavens opened yet again and I treated myself to a taxi to work whilst Dan walked to the office. We hoped Charlene would start ok after such a wet weekend of just sitting there…

9am phone call from Dan to Becky:

Dan: I think Charlene has been stolen.
Becky: Call the police.

It turned out that Charlene had been having a little adventure of her own whilst we were away. I can’t help but blame myself for opting to take a hire car – she must have felt so lonely and rejected and obviously got caught up in something she shouldn’t have…

The police told us that she had been reported as abandoned and after realising it wasn’t us who had abandoned her outside Dan’s work, but that she had been abandoned in Fellixstow (a suburb to the North East of Adelaide) that we reported her as stolen. After a couple of calls back and forth to the police we were given the location and told we needed to collect her.

Dan managed to borrow a car from work and picked me up. I felt surprisingly calm and we were taking everything in our stride but as we turned the corner and saw her abandoned on a random street it was really sad. She looked like she had been raped and pillaged – parked at an angle, two flat front tyres, smashed back indicator light, wouldn’t start, stereo and surrounding dashboard ripped out…






So we’ve now called a tow truck and she is being picked up as I type and taken to car hospital to get looked at. We’re really hoping that we don’t get a huge bill (time for the Lords Prayer again?) as she is only insured as Third Party, without the fire and theft bit. Our words at the time of buying insurance was ‘who would want to steal a 24 year old heap of junk?’ – they obviously don’t have high standards in Adelaide! Something that Dan’s mum said has stuck in my mind – they have gained so little where as we have lost such a lot – very true!

So… that was our weekend! Awesome, great, fabulous, windy, wet and a little sad just at the end! Well done if you’ve got this far!