Easter Holiday

This year, Australians had a very long Easter weekend. This year, Easter Monday fell on the same day as ANZAC Day, so as a bonus, the Government also declared Tuesday, 26 April 2011 as a public holiday! So in total, we had 5 days off. ^_^


Since our honeymoon, David and I planned to visit David and Karyn in Casterton for the Easter holiday weekend. To avoid all the long weekend traffic, we started our trip on the Thursday. On the way, we stopped at Mt. Lofty to see the beautiful the Botanical Gardens and the summit. From there, we continued on to Murray Bridge where we had lunch and then onto David & Karen's place just in time for dinner. ^_^. 


This was the third time we've visited D&K's place. We enjoy the atmosphere where we can just relax and have a great time with our very good friends. 


On Good Friday we had lunch at the pub with D&K and their daughter's family, followed by both Davids playing lawn bowls at the local bowling club. Lawn bowls is a sport which usually played outdoors. Each player will roll a slightly asymmetric bowl in an attempt to get it closest to a smaller, normally white ball called the kitty, or Jack. This sport is well known in the Commonwealth countries as well as in Malaysia.      

A couple of times, we visited Cheryl and her partner, Matt's small farm where we caught some yabbies in the dam on their property. Yabbies look similar to prawns, but they live in fresh water and have claws. We threw back all the female ones which left us with 44 which we barbecued on skewers with capsicum, onion and pineapple.     

On Easter Saturday, David and I traveled to nearby Hamilton to do some shopping at our favourite store, ALDI (which, unfortunately we don't have in Adelaide). On the way, we stopped at the Glenelg Chocolate factory in Coleraine and bought some Easter gifts. That night, we went to Mt. Gambier,  located around 1 hour drive from Casterton for dinner. We decided to eat asian at the Malaysian House restaurant. For this occasion, everyone except me wore batik...I didn't bring mine for fear of being too cold. 

On ANZAC day, 25 April 2011, we gathered with about 200 of Casterton's residents at the War Memorial monument to remember all those who have died in battle since World War I. The ceremony was followed by a parade that included surviving veterans, the CFS (where Karen is a member), the marching band and others heading to the Town Hall to attend a commemorative ceremony. 

Unfortunately, Tuesday came around and we had to leave, but we will look forward to D&K visiting us here in Adelaide in August.