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Published: February 11th 2018
HMAS Hobart
The beach at the site of the HMAS Hobart memorial....In the last Episode, you may recall that I mentioned my prowess as a sailor! Well, as we readied ourselves to leave Kangaroo Island, it was a really beautiful morning, but the howling gale of the last couple of days, had now reached hurricane force, at least it had in my head! As we looked out over the Backstairs Passage and the White Horses playing across the sea, the 45 minute or so ferry crossing was starting to take on the proportions of an epic round the world yacht race to me! To cap it all, our ferry wasn't until 10.30, and the waiting around didn't really help.
While we waited, we decided to go for breakfast at a cafe we had seen in the town called The Fat Beagle, a name with special meaning to Tim & Sue and a lovely little place it was too. While Mandy & Sue had raisin bread toast, Tim and I decided on a bacon roll - Tim had a fried egg with his as well, but I felt that bacon alone was going to be challenge enough for me to avoid 'seeing again later'! Sue asked where the cafe name had come
HMAS Hobart
.....the anchor points out to where the ship now lies! from and it turns out that when they were building the place, a fat beagle happened to walk by outside and they thought it would make a great name for the cafe.
Breakfast done and a few snaps of the beach taken in the lovely sunshine, we boarded our vessel and I prepared myself for what lay ahead! Being the experienced one amongst us, I drove the car onboard again, but just as I was thinking how easy it was when I boarded at Cape Jervis, the crew threw in a curve ball, which took my mind off the impending journey for a few minutes at least! 'Would you reverse on please sir?'. Oh, joy of joys, a real chance to make a complete pratt of myself! But no as it happens, I managed it pretty well and without any major scares!
As for the journey, well to cut a long story short...........it was horrible; Sue kept pretty quiet, but was in control, Mandy was very quiet and definitely didn't enjoy it and I endured an hour (as it turned out) of pure torture, BUT I did, at least, manage to hold it together, with, I'm pleased to
Mount Lofty 1
To prove we were there! say, no revisiting of the bacon roll! The fact that all I could hear in the background during the journey, was some programme on the TV about an idiot chef cooking up all manner of exotic dishes, didn't really help at all! And as for Tim 'Captain Pugwash' Horan.........well he was fine of course, happy as Larry, prancing around the boat like a crew member on something like the HMS Bounty!!
As I wasn't feeling top drawer after the 'voyage' and needed a bit of time to fully recover from the 'ordeal', Tim took over driving, with the simple initial task of driving off the ferry 'forwards', after I had done all the hard work for him, of course! Today, we were off to Adelaide, a relatively short hop of about 70 miles back up the Fleurieu Peninsula and as we journeyed north, the further we went, the more mountainous the landscape became, as we entered the Adelaide Hills area, south of the city. We stopped at one lovely lookout point over the sea, at the spot of a memorial to HMAS Hobart, the most decorated Australian warship of all time which, amongst many other things, did three successful
Mount Lofty 2
The city centre zoomed in from the summit.....difficult to get a shot on a hazy day and into the sun... tours of duty to Vietnam in the 60s and 70s. At the end of it's useful life, the ship was scuttled off this part of the coastline, to become an artificial diving reef for ever more and the anchor memorial in the picture, points to the spot in the sea where the ship now rests.
We had intended to go straight on in to Adelaide, but looking at the map, we came up with a change of plan and decided to drive to the high point over the whole Adelaide conurbation, the summit of Mount Lofty, at about 2,500 feet. On arrival, there was a cafe, a visitor shop and a super viewing area AND what's more......no entrance fee! There was a car parking charge of $4, but lucky us, after struggling for a while to come up with the correct change for the machine, a kindly chap took pity on us and gave us his ticket as he was leaving.
When Colonel William Light originally planned the City of Adelaide in 1836, his design was for a city based on straight lines and broad boulevards, a city of simplicity and elegance. Today, Adelaide is a beautiful, sophisticated
Mount Lofty 3
...another view from the summit. Glenelg beach is in the distance at about 12 o'clock. city, set in a sprawling valley plain between the Mount Lofty range and the ocean. As we looked out from the summit, it was clear that Colonel Light's 'lofty' ambitions for his city, had been well and truly realised.
We left Mount Lofty and headed to our hotel, the Oaks Embassy Apartments on North Terrace, right in the heart of the city. We did have one false start however, going to the 'Oaks Horizon' first of all, a few doors up from our place. Once redirected, the girls checked in to the correct property, while Tim and I went to park the car. After we had eventually found a parking space, we got up to the 14th floor and to our two bedroomed apartment, but then hit a snag and thought we had got the wrong room, because we couldn't make the girls hear us knocking on the door. So, thinking I had got the wrong room number, I trolled back down to reception, to check.
As it turns out, I did have the correct room number and so, when I got back to Tim, we assumed that Mandy and Sue were already on the balcony sunning themselves
Glenelg Beach 1
....a closer view of the beach in this one... and that was the reason they couldn't hear us. But no, that wasn't it. I had been given another keycard, so we let ourselves in and, far from being on the balcony, the girls were inside the apartment having a bit of a meltdown about the condition of the room. The apartment itself was lovely, with a decent view from the balcony and the bedrooms were absolutely fine. However, the kitchen and bathroom worktops and floors weren't clean, the carpets certainly hadn't been hoovered properly and the tap on the bathroom basin was hanging by a thread! In addition, the extractor fan in the bathroom sounded more like an air raid siren when switched on and that was probably why they couldn't hear us!
We didn't really want to move rooms, as it was on a good floor and the apartment itself was very nice, so we got someone up from reception to check it out. She was very apologetic and promised to sort it out, while we were out in the afternoon. To be fair, before we went out, a maintenance man had arrived to fix the tap! In the end, whilst not perfect, the room was sorted
Glenelg Beach 2
......deserted, again! to an acceptable degree, especially as we were barely there. However, before leaving the saga of the room, there was one other lirritating issue and that was in connection with Wifi. In every other place in this trip, wifi was either completely free or there might be a limit on daily usage, usually at a more than sufficient 2GB. Here, only the first 30 minutes were free and that's 30 minutes from the time you start using it, not 30 minutes of actual usage! Every 100mb of usage thereafter cost $5, not a fortune, but annoying! When we got back to the apartment late that evening, I did ask the man on night reception to explain and he did say, with a straight face, that 'we GIVE you the first 30 minutes free' and when I responded by saying 'Jolly generous', he didn't seem to pick up on the irony in my reply! We left it at that, but in the morning a young lady was on reception and after explaining what we had had at previous hotels, she took pity on us and gave us wifi free for the rest of our stay! Clearly, us chaps haven't totally lost
Glenelg Beach 3
The sunset at Glenelg.... the charm!
We still had our rental car until first thing the next morning, so after a quick freshen up with a wonky tap, we drove out to Glenelg, about 20 minutes away on the coast, to have a look around and catch the sunset on the beach. Once again, the beach was enormous and, yet again, almost deserted, with perfect sand. We had dinner on the beachfront at a Greek restaurant called Zucca and the food was excellent. We also had a great view of the sunset, but to be honest, with it setting into a flat and featureless sea, the pictures weren't the best.
Time to go home, after a quick stop to top up the fuel tank, before returning the car in the morning at our cheapest price yet of $1.16 per litre for unleaded or about 68p per litre!! When we got back to the city, Adelaide Royal Hospital was just down the road from our hotel and Sue had succumbed to all the nagging and agreed to get her knee looked at in the hospital. We dropped her off at 9pm and the rest of us went back to the hotel so Tim
Glenelg Beach 4
.....nearly there! could pick up Sue's passport and other bits of paperwork. Unfortunately, it took us a good 45 minutes to do a 5 minute journey, mainly because Mandy and I guessed wrong with the fork in the road we needed to take out of the hospital and consequently, we had to go round the block to get to the hotel. That really shouldn't have been a problem, until we ran into road detours that were just being set up as a result of the Big Bash Cricket Final taking place, along with a bunch of roadworks taking place on the tram line - the traffic was a nightmare!
Sue was looked after very well at the hospital by a Geordie lady who had been in OZ for 20 years. She had an X-Ray and then an MRI scan on the knee, which showed no major damage and whilst there was nothing more they could do, they did give her a longer knee brace (from the thigh to the calf) to keep the knee protected while walking. This should help through the rest of the holiday, but she needs to see her GP when we get home. Tim and Sue were
Adelaide 1
Old Max, strutting his stuff! back at the apartment by 1.00am AND there was no charge!!
The beach area at Glenelg was so lovely yesterday, that we decided to spend the first few hours today looking round the main part of the city and then catch the tram out to the beach for a couple of hours or so this afternoon. Like Melbourne, the trams in Adelaide are free around the city centre, but to get out to the beach, we needed a day ticket costing $10, which turned out to be really good value. The tram system is excellent here and, once again, is free around the city centre, but no old style trams in Adelaide, this is a very modern system.
We walked to Rundle Mall, a famous pedestrianised shopping area, which, when we went on a Saturday morning, was busy, with shoppers, tourists and a wide range of street performers, including Max, the 82 year old, who loved dancing. And, while Tim and I sat and had a coffee, we watched old Max dance away in the heat, pretty much non stop AND collect a stack of donations from passers by for his efforts! Good for him! Tim saw our
Adelaide 2
The pig statues.... first snake, although it was wrapped around a lady's neck as part of some wildlife promotion and we came across some lovely pigs (statues!), encouraging people to bin their rubbish.
Adelaide is a really beautiful city and although, like any city, it has a mix of old and new buildings, in my opinion, it has a greater proportion of colonial style properties, compared to Melbourne where there is much higher volume of modern structures. The streets are laid out in a simple grid structure and it is really easy to get around. Also, it is very clean and well looked after; even the tram lines passing through the main square, Victoria Square, are laid in well manicured grass, so that they blend in with the rest of the square!
As planned, we had a snack lunch back at the apartment, before picking up the tram just down the road for our trip to the beach. This is a terrific service, which took about 40 minutes, with the final stop literally being on the prom! A quick drink and then it was on to the beach for the afternoon. This was a Saturday and although it was busier, the
Adelaide 3
.....and again... beach hardly looked as though it was being used at all. The sea was fresh, but fab and there was also plenty of shade under the jetty for us less hardy souls - it was 40 degrees plus, in the sun!!
One bit of excitement occurred when we noticed that was a commotion going on close to the water's edge, directly in front of us. Something had been found and the lifeguards had been called across. Tim, our team sleuth, was down there like a shot and it turns out that the creature concerned was a Blue Ringed Octopus; small, but absolutely deadly, being one of the most venomous creatures on earth!! Although small, this charming little beast apparently carries enough poison to kill 26 adult humans in minutes!! And I was more concerned about the possibility of sharks!!?
A terrific afternoon in a stunning location and we capped it off with a great meal at the Little Hunter Steak and Ale House that evening. We all loved Adelaide and would be very happy to spend more time here, but tomorrow we catch The Ghan train to Alice Springs; another exciting adventure ahead!
The quiz questions for
Adelaide 4
....whether it works in getting people to dispose of litter properly or not, it's still pretty neat! this Episode include a little teaser sent in by one of our readers, a certain Steve Forbes of Lymm in Cheshire. Steve's poser is this:
* How did the city of Adelaide get its name?
Thanks for that entry Steve and for those of you who know Steve well, you will be aware that he is an ardent Bristol Rovers fan. So, for our second question for this entry:
* What letter can you add to part of Steve's fave team, to make a group of Aussies who herd cattle and sheep on horseback?
That's all folks!
TTFN
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