Oh my goodness! Nearly four months of visitors, and what a crazy four months it was! We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family , who are willing to travel all this way to see us and share our adventure! It definitely made our summer the best summer ever! (Poppy’s words not Mine but I totally agree). 

   
I remember people saying ” once you’ve done a summer in Australia, there’s no going back!”. Oh yes I understand now!  Summer is officially over, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next!  The temperature has dropped slightly, and the evenings are dark! Shocker! 

We had endless sunshine! We ate every meal outside, swam in the pool every day, ate ice creams, got through about 8 bottles of sun cream, and thanked our lucky stars that we had made the enormous leap to Oz!  There really is nothing quite like Christmas in the sun with your buddies! And we were so lucky that we had ours to share our prawns with!

    
   

In between games of  “cards against humanity”, BBQ’s and gin fuelled giggles, we managed to trek out West to the Parkes Elvis Festival! (www.parkeselvisfestival.com.au) What a treat!  There was not enough gasp in my body for the sights I was going to see! And that was just our husbands in Hawaiian shirts.

  

  

 As if being “out west” isn’t enough of an eye opener, everyone and their dog was dressed in some kind of Elvis outfit! Even the towns mayor was kitted out, in an open top Cadillac with an Elvis wig and the mayoral chain for good measure! “Elvis” was everywhere! Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones, some incredibly talented ones, some not so much! 

The highlight had to be the Elvis show! Donny Edwards was “Elvis”. He had come all the way from Vegas, (vegas big shot) to this small country town, and the way the ladies screamed when he sang, you would have thought Elvis was alive and well in Parkes!  

 To be fair, he was pretty convincing! I’m (obviously) too young to have ever seen Elvis live, but the Parkes Social Club (exactly like an old British Legion) was alive with screaming Nanas, hollering grandmas, and excessively sweaty 50 somethings! They were clawing at the stage, queuing for a sweat soaked scarf, hundreds of which were being swept across Donnys face and draped round the necks of swooning  Ednas! 

Secretly I wanted to join them but was worried I might get stamped on in the rush! I did however accost the winning “Pricilla” and get a photo! I am convinced she had a welsh accent! And bloody lovely too!  

 
Once the fun had died down, we packed our very sweaty kids into the car, tired, emotional, and now  avid Elvis fans! We drove out a little bit further west to see “The Dish” (read that again in a deep Hollywood movie voice please). This is the 64 meter radio telescope that received the first contact from the moon landings! Pretty awesome stuff.  

http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au 
 
I would have liked to have spent more time here but it was 46 degrees and the only shade we could find was under the four sombreros bought from the Elvis merchandise store! In fact it was so hot that there was no sign my darling son had peed in the car park! Evaporated within seconds! I “whooped” with delight, as we had run out of sandwich bags on the way ! #whoneedspublicloos 

So after a glorious summer we eagerly await the next! We have become utter pansies and find 25 degrees chilly enough for bed socks and a cashmere jumper! Maybe we need to move a little further North! 

I’ll be blogging you all from Kuala Lumpur and Cambodia next month, fingers crossed the kids don’t mind eating tarantula donuts or deep fried crickets! 

Onward on our adventure…..