Road trip to Adelaide.

A week ago Aradhna and I were at the Adelaide home of my sister- and brother-in-law for their son's first birthday party. As neither of us had seen western Victoria or South Australia, we took a 9-hour inland route going there and a 13-hour coastal route coming back. We kept our sporty Holden Astra on main roads, as most others resembled the one shown above, which runs along the Victoria/South Australia border. An entire album of road trip photos may be found here.

Adelaide itself is Australia's fifth largest city. It's also where Boredom goes to relax, Dullness takes a holiday, Ennui gets away from it all ... you get the idea.
Stopped for breakfast in Victoria's Ballarat, center of Australia's mid-19th-century gold rush and, apparently, home to a NJ-based candy company.
Along the inland route, looking towards Grampians National Park and near the Big Koala.
Australia's wheat belt stretches for hundreds of bone-dry kilometres, making this sign more ironic than informative.
Birthday-boy Jay, his mum Upa, and Aradhna mausi.
Late afternoon in downtown Adelaide, 5 weeks before Christmas. In two words: Sleep-inducing.
A giant Santa looks with disappointment on Adelaide's shopper-scarce retail district (below).

Leaving Adelaide along the South Australian coast put us in the heart of Australian wine country.
Salt pans and dunes of Coorong National Park.
South Australia's flat & shimmering Limestone Coast was once the bottom of an inland sea.
Another 'big' Aussie roadside attraction, this one in Kingston SE.
Located within a volcanic crater, Mt Gambier's amazing Blue Lake turns a vivid, uh, blue between November & February.
A magnificent male blue wren at the edge of Blue Lake.
Just over the Victorian border is this isolated beach at the mouth of the Glenelg River, south of a tiny town called Nelson.
Australia is ripe with natural wonders unspoilt & unseen by most tourists.
Over the West Gate Bridge and back into Melbourne.