Final day in Adelaide

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So, here I am on my final day in Adelaide. I had a fairly lazy start to the day, getting up a tad later than usual to catch up on sleep, and the rest of the morning catching up on writing the previous two blog entries.

Feeling hungry I wandered off to find some food (a burrito) and then on to the South Australian Museum. In many ways this was quite similar to the West Australian Museum, with various displays of Aboriginal artifacts (a whole load of spears, boomerangs, shields, digging sticks and other items), stuffed animals from around the world and a minerals section (although malachite is quite an awesome mineral).

However there were some displays that were more specific to the South Australian Museum. Amongst the minerals section was a small glass cabinet, the 'cloud chamber' filled with black gas with various white streaks in the form of vapour trails. which apparently are caused by alpha and beta radiation from cosmic radiation and radioactive substances within the chamber. The link to South Australia (SA) is that the state has lots of uranium.

I was interested (and this may just be me) in the displays about the 'Ediacaran' fauna which I bet you haven't heard of, but I have (even before visiting the museum)! Back in the early 20th Century (I think) a number of fossils of what proved to be the oldest animals known were found in the Flinders Range, some mountains in SA. These mountains are definitely one of the things I regret that I won't be seeing on this trip. Not enough time! And anyway, quite a few of these fossils were on display (go Anomalocaris!).

There was also a section about the South Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson who was exploring Antarctica at about the same time as Shackleton, and incidentally about the same time as WW1. Given the privations suffered by Antarctic explorers at the time, it probably wasn't such a great dodge to keep out of the trenches.

The small display about ancient Egypt was all well and good, but perhaps a bit misplaced, and there was also a seemingly random section about the deep sea, particularly giant squid. This did have quite a nice diorama four stories tall with a model of a giant squid running the length of it and surrounded by various deep sea critters. There were also some jars including some deep sea corals which looked quite like some of the ones my ship was pulling out of the sea on my last work trip. Seems work won't leave me alone!

Weirdly one of the best things about the museum was it's cafe, called the Balena Cafe. Not because of the food and drink (not that there was anything wrong with that) but next to it was a display of skeletons of various species of whale, dominated by that of a huge Sperm Whale.

As an aside to the main museum I also visited a short term gallery of wildlife and landscape photography displaying the results of a competition to photograph wildlife from Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Antarctica. It was all better than I could ever manage. Oh well, I'm just a point and click man myself.

Right enough of this.

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Photos

Sperm whale head
This was just next to the museum's cafe

Random man, covered in pigeons
But of course

Comments

[Bungy]

Agnes wseen off
Agnes has set off todaqy (Sat 15/11) to join you on the 21.00 plane from Heathrow, although hopefully the high winds ( 50+ mph) will not stop them takung off! Loved your blogs so fsrl and look forward to ypur observations on Ayrs Rock in about a week's time.

[Aus Right]

Yer Right
Yep : Balena Cafe is great place to be. Also museum has plenty space for children to run around on well-manicured lawn. Many school groups of children visit on weekdays. This is a prime indoor tourist spot for Adelaide and indeed Australia. Give it at least three stars.