Follow up still in Adelaide

We took a drive to Semaphore last Friday. This is quite a pretty little coast suburb just down from North Adelaide. We just did a bit of a walk around and took some photographs. There is a little steam train that runs along the coast to Glenelg which I believe the kids love. It only operates on a Sunday so this was not on our agenda. It was obviously a day for the school kids to have their annual beach outing because there were hundreds of the brats everywhere.


We didn't stay too long. Our next stop was Henley Beach. There was not much to see here so we just took a coupe of photos of a sculpture of an eagle which was quite impressive and then drove on to Glenelg.


Glenelg is quite a big place and appears to be Adelaide's major coastal resort. There is a tramway out to Glenelg. We had a bit of a walk around the town but Foxy didn't like all the people so we decided that we need to take the tram and have a day there. We drove over to the beach and found what looked like a cafe strip. We parked the car and coughed up the $3.00 for the parking. Got Foxy on the lead and headed off to get a coffee. First we discovered it was a private area and no dogs were allowed. This upset Barry enough that he would have been happy to go home straight away but we took Foxy back to the car and walked around the rather large area past a yacht harbour. There was no where to have coffee. They were all proper restaurants. So other than a couple of photos (one above) we did nothing here and wasted our $3.00. We then took a leisurely drive home.


Sunday we spent the morning looking for a fish market. We had been given some directions which turned out to be wrong and apart from visiting a rather nice general market which had no fish and a trip into Adelaide to discover that the Adelaide Central Market does not open on weekends we used rather a lot of fuel for nothing.


Monday we didn't do much during the day but we did have a lovely walk along the river banks in Adelaide along the River Torrens.

I rather liked this view of the fountain in the middle of the River Torrens with the sun behind it. It is quite dark but I think rather effective. We walked for over an hour but I don't think a great deal of this was exercise because we took heaps of photographs.

Tuesday morning found us once again tackling the 9 hole par 3 golf course by the caravan park. We played about as badly as we had the week before but again we enjoyed it. Barry was pleased that he was able to hit a ball at all with his locked wrist. As we were leaving the course I asked Barry how he would feel about us using some of the christmas present money Garon and Sue gave us, to buy some second hand golf clubs so that we wouldn't have to keep hiring clubs and we could play more often. We did not bring ours with us as we did not think we would play with Barry's wrist being pretty useless. Anyway Barry thought it was a good idea so we visited the local Cash Converters and they had hundreds of clubs from Pings for $1,600 to single bits and pieces. We found a set for $85.00 and added a couple of putters. The whole lot for $100.00. We decided that we could split them when we needed to have a set each. We had to go to a golf pro shop to get a couple of skinny bags that wouldn't take up too much room. There were dozens of bags at Cash Converters but they were all great big things which would take up too much room in the van. So we paid the same price for two skinny bags as we did for the clubs. Now we are ready to tackle anything. I have printed off a list of public courses and so long as they aren't too expensive we will give some of them a try.

Yesterday we spent the day at Marion shopping centre. This is Adelaide's largest shopping centre. We did a great deal of walking and very little shopping. It is a very big place. I enjoyed the day but I am not sure that Barry did. Foxy's walk in the evening was quite abbreviated as we were both walked out.

Today is cloudy and quite humid so we are just sitting around. We have some really lovely neighbours who kindly look after Foxy whenever we want to go somewhere without her so we went for a chat with them. I think there is just the slightest possibility that Aelaide might get some rain soon. It keeps threatening but nothing much happens. It is really sad to see the lovely parklands around Adelaide looking brown and dried up.

Still in Adelaide

Beside the River Torrens near the Entertainment Centre.

Victoria Square in Adelaide CBD

I think this is a Protea bush growing in the Adelaide Hills.

The River Torrens near the caravan park where we are staying.

This is the suberb of Windsor Gardens .

This is the O Bahn which takes express buses from Tea Tree Gully to near the Adelaide CBD we found it quite fascinating as we had not seen anything like it before. It was also quite fun to travel on one of the buses.

Lovely little house in the beautiful village of Hahndorf. A must visit if you are in Adelaide.

We haven't done a great deal whilst in Adelaide as we have mainly been recouping some money and dealing with my colonoscopy, which was all clear and I have been told I don't need another one for 2 to 3 years and after that 5 years.

We did manage one afternoon at the cricket to watch South Australia play Western Australia but as WA lost 3 wickets in about an hour we decided it might be our fault, so we left. The game ended up a draw so all was not lost. Our main reason for going into Adelaide CBD that day was to try out the O Bahn which is a bus route that looks like a train track and to get some info from the Visitor Centre. The bus goes quite fast until it joins the regular traffic just outside Adelaide CBD and I think it is a brilliant way to move buses without interfering with the regular traffic.

We also went to watch a limited overs game between WA and SA on the following Sunday, not sure whether this was the 16th or 23rd not that it matters. WA won that game and as Barry and I were probably the only WA people in the crowd, our cheering at the end didn't appear to go down to well.

We have spent about an hour every evening walking along different sections of the River Torrens and taking photographs. Sometimes we drive for a bit so that we can walk a bit that we haven't done before and sometimes we walk in a different direction from the caravan park where we are staying. There is a new building site just across the river from the caravan park which we are checking on every week or so. The buildings are quite upmarket but the landscaping is waterwise and very interesting to watch.

We went into Adelaide CBD one evening to take photographs. There are some nice buildings that are lit up. Not as many as the Adelaide brochures show but that would be due to energy saving these days. There was a guitar festival event on by the river Torrens so a fair chunk of the forshore was closed off and very noisy. We still managed to get a few photos, one shown above and we walked for quite a way around the city. We took Foxy with us and she was scared to death of the traffic and people all round her.

On Barry's birthday we drove up into the Adelaide Hills to get some cherries among other things. Our first stop was a farm near Cherryville where we bought some superb cherries for very little money. After leaving there we continued on up a very steep windy hill and came across 6 Asian women trying to push their car up the hill. They had run out of petrol and as we carry some for the generator we were able to help them out. Unfortunately this did not help and after some messing about we had to leave them to pay to join the RAA (RAC equivalent) to get themselves out of trouble. As they do not live in Australia this was going to be an expensive exercise, but less than paying a tow truck to tow them back to Adelaide we thought.

We drove on to Norton Summit where we did not stop because it didn't look over special. We continued to Hahndorf a small German village which has been preserved with all the old German houses and shops. Some of the buildings were lovely and the shops were amazing. All little places selling quaint things. One I found just sold tassels, of every size and colour available. The shop was beautifully laid out with each colour set in a display leaving the whole thing looking like an Aladin's cave. I would have liked to buy the whole lot but I do not have a lot of use for tassels. There were cake and pastry shops and all kinds of German smallgoods. We were told at the visitor centre that the town was established by German people escaping persecution in there own country in the 19 century. We discovered later that there are quite a few small towns in the hills which have the same background some retaining there name and others changing to an English sounding name during the Great War because of anti German sentiment at the time.

We carried on to Woodside, where we had lunch and then visited the Melba Chocolate factory and of course bought chocolate and to the cheese factory next door. I am not a lover of cheese but I discovered that I really like goats cheese and bouht myself one. Which I later gave to the people in the next caravan to us who are really lovely people who look after Foxy everytime we want to go somewhere where we can't take her. I think she likes them as much as she does us because everytime she hears Arley's voice she dives off to see him.

After Woodside we carried on to Lobethal and stopped at the local market that we had been told about. Very nice but nothing we needed to buy.

We drove home via Gorge Road a very spectacular twisty road that travels down the side of the River Torrens and past a couple of reservoirs. There weren't too many places to stop but I managed a couple of pictures.

Yesterday we managed a game of golf for the first time in about 5 years. There is a course just across the river from the caravan park. It is only 9 holes and all par 3s which suited us beautifully. We played badly but better than we had expected and enjoyed ourselves immensely and the cost was small into the bargain. We discovered that they only charge $6.00 for 18 holes on a Tuesday so we took advantage and did the course twice. Unfortunately we went backwards instead of improving probably because we were tired by this time.