We travelled to our 24th home exchange in Adelaide at the end of a very long, extremely hot and dry summer of horrendous bush-fires in large areas of south east NSW, Victoria and Queensland and a summer of heart-breaking news of loss of lives, livelihoods, homes, farms and animals both stock and Australia's precious native animals. It was also a summer of the bravery of thousands of firefighters, of community spirit, volunteers of all kinds and the challenge of dealing with loss, devastation, stranded families and truck loads of hay, food and supplies for those affected.

As we left on our trip across the unscathed country in the west of the state to Adelaide there was, thankfully, news of heavy rains finally falling on those sadly burned areas.

Although this trip between cities can be done in one day, we took two nights out along the journey in order to de-stress in the countryside. First stop, Clunes, central historic gold mining area of Victoria, with added visits to Talbot and Maryborough. Onward west into South Australia and eventually to Adelaide.

Our return to Melbourne took us down to Wellington where we crossed the mighty Murray River, through Langhorne Creek in order to revisit the Bleasdale Winery, a night's stopover at Bordertown SA, then into Victoria and through Ararat and the edge of The Grampians NP and home.