Myth busted!

Perhaps like you, I suspected much of my misfortune with my car was karma. When I sold my van, I gave in to the sin of vanity and bought a Porsche. There. I've said it.

In fairness, it was second hand and for the same price I could have had a brand spanking new VW Tiguan (which is pretty much the same as the Cayenne) but I work in advertising and goddamit, I'd been driving a van with sliding doors for four years - I wanted the Porsche!

Since then, as you know, I've copped more parking fines than most people would believe humanly possible. It's been rear ended and Eleanor might have mounted a curb and smacked a pole in her attempt to drive - in fact, while we were in Alaska, my car was enjoying an extended break at the panel beaters. I've replaced the windscreen and the tyres (we could have had a holiday in Bali for the same cost of the latter). The keys got locked in it in remote South Australia (that was also an expensive exercise), we had to have it towed recently after a lovely Sunday lunch in the Yarra Valley (turned out that may not have been absolutely necessary but guaranteed had we not, it would have been something major) and of course, most recently, it was towed from a clearway.

Yes, I too thought it was this car that brought be bad motoring karma and was cursed.

Until I got this in the post last week.....

Yes, that's right - I was in Sydney -  in a HIRE car. Not fancy. In fact, I can't even remember what it was - it was just the cheapest mid-size car available. And yes, that is a fine of $319!!! Outrageous. We all know Sydney's expensive - and hard to drive around - so this was just the icing on the cake. Next time I'll just hire a limo and a driver. It'll be cheaper.

So maybe it's me and not my car after all.

Anyway, no doubt you've also heard VW have had a little bit of an issue with emissions testing, fraud and what have you, plus a big class action brewing so perhaps the Cayenne wasn't the wrong choice after all.

Welcome to Adelaide

The train arrived in Adelaide at 7am, ahead of schedule so the Fremantle fans travelling up the back could catch their connecting buses and trains to Melbourne for the AFL Grand Final. I can only imagine that it was a journey filled with unprecedented excitement and anticipation surpassed only by the degree disappointment and heartache on the excruciatingly long journey home.

Kids, I said, I'll go get the hire car. I grabbed a cab and headed in to town. Three minutes later I was there but the office didn't open until 8am. I sat on the concrete stairs and waited while Geoff and the kids sat at the station and waited. Finally I got the car, plugged the station into my phone GPS and was off. Now I love GPS - when it's on the money, but I could see from the map it wasn't quite right. After an 8 kilometre lap of Adelaide, taking in the same sights I saw first time round, I finally pulled over and asked a cab driver. I'd missed the road into the station by about 10 metres - ahhhhh!!! So 2 hours after setting off, we were finally reunited. First stop, the zoo.

Adelaide has a great zoo and the only pandas in Australia that they pay a million bucks a year for the privilege, so they'd want to be bloody cute!!! And they were.

On arrival, we were met by a zoo rep who was selling animal encounters. It as $30 each to get up close to the giant tortoises - so $120 for all of us. Outrageous - but I guess they need to pay for those pandas. We passed. But when we got around to the tortoises, one was so close to the fence that I got the shot we would have paid $120 for and the girls (and all the other people there) could just reach over and give him (or her?) a little scratch. I think they need to rethink that deal. Or train the tortoise not give away what they can get people to pay for!!

It's a really lovely zoo, beautiful gardens, happy looking residents so if you're there, it's worth a visit, even though it probably takes a good three minutes to get there from the centre of town (yes, three minutes).

Mum and Dad had come to Adelaide and met us at the zoo. Geoff popped back to put more money in the meter but too late - we got a parking fine. But only $45 which is cheap compared to Melbourne.

The next morning, Geoff trotted out of our hotel early to top up the parking metre - he was 20 minutes late and yes, another $45 parking fine. Welcome to Adelaide!

It was the day of the AFL grand final so we headed down to Glenelg on the tram (such a novelty when you're from Melbourne - not!). We took a family selfie on the pier and then Mum suggested we find the Oyster Bar. Good plan, Mum. It wasn't quite lunch time but hey, we were on holiday!

Then back to the folks' fancy hotel to drink red wine and order a cheese platter and watch the footy. I'm not really into footy but I really did feel for all those Fremantle fans who'd been in the less luxurious Red Class of the train and then an eight hour bus ride - all at great expense to witness THAT.

Anyway....there was a baby Spiegel tent in the park over from said fancy hotel that had free 15 minute shows. We queued up for the first and it was so good we rushed around twice more and saw three before dinner. Adelaide does arts so well! So a quick dinner in the closest pub and another great day in Adelaide was over.

Daphne, a performer in Adelaide pouring a wine while hoola hooping.