Day 27 : 30/9/2014 Adelaide, SA
Mario has been to Adelaide many
times but this is my first time, so I am writing this today to give my first
impressions.
The past couple days we have
stuck mainly to the North Adelaide area where we are staying, and of course,
our trip up into the Barossa. Today was
our chance to look around in the CBD area.
We started by taking a bus from near our hotel, into the city. At the bus stop we struck up a conversation
with a mother and daughter that were here from Mount Gambier. They own a hotel there and were here in the
city both to see a medical specialist and also for the daughter to attend a
year 12 revision course (prep for whatever the SA equivalent is to the HSC). It was really nice talking to them.
We took the free bus into the
city to get to Rundle Mall. Along the
way I was really impressed by the wide streets, lots of green space and all the
University buildings – both USA and U of A, along with the Library and Museum
buildings. The architecture is really
interesting – showing the strong influence from the early German and English settlers.
We got some breakfast and did a
bit of shopping. At one point we were standing on a corner
looking at a map, just deciding where we wanted to go next, and had a couple
people stop to ask us if we needed help or directions. It really made you feel
very welcome. In one shop we heard
another customer talking to the shopkeeper, with a very definite American
accent, so we struck up a conversation with her as well, and found that she is
an ex-schoolteacher from Texas who had actually lived here in Adelaide on an
exchange program several years ago, and was now back and housesitting for a friend. We heard a lot about her experiences both
while she was living here, and now while she was back and taking advantage of
the trip to play tourist and visit some of the places that she hadn’t managed
to see when she was living here. She even
showed us some of the photos from her trip.
We found all the locals to be
quite friendly and helpful, and it is certainly an easy city to find your way
around.
Then, just to see a bit more of
the city, we took the other free bus loop route and just stayed on for the full
circuit. We got to see Victoria Square
and Whitmore Square, and the Adelaide Central Market – a large fresh food
market with dozens of stalls selling every type of produce. After that, Mario went back to the hotel to
chill out, and I went to the Botanic Gardens.
The Adelaide Botanic Gardens are
fantastic, I would definitely recommend a few hour visit there! There are great displays both of Native
Australian plants, and also plants from around the world, grouped in a number
of different themed gardens. There are a
few different places that you can get something to eat, I saw a number of picnics
and some children’s activities (it is school holidays), but also plenty of quiet
corners where you can just sit on a bench and enjoy the view. It was starting to rain, so I thought I
better start the walk back to the hotel, but just as I was leaving the Gardens,
the rain was coming down heavier so I decided to duck into conveniently nearby
Australian Wine Centre. Really, I was
just thinking they might have a gift shop where I could buy an umbrella! They did not have umbrellas, so I just had
to stay a while until the rain stopped.
I resisted the temptation to try some wine, but did check out some of the
exhibits that were really interesting too – especially after our tour
yesterday.
I have really enjoyed my first
visit to Adelaide, and hope to be back again on future trips.
For dinner we revisited a restaurant called Cucina. We had been there on our first night in Adelaide. We got in the car and noticed a horizontal crack on the right hand side of our windscreen. The crack is around 15cm long. We just need to roll the dice and continue with our trip. How it happened, who knows. Somewhere along the way we must have had a piece of gravel it us and now that the temp as dramatically gone down (14 degrees) I hope it can last until Sydney.
Cheers, Pat
King Edward VII of england 1901 - 1910
No comments:
Post a Comment