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Published: March 13th 2007
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The lighthouse at Kingston SE
A lunch stop on the long drive to Adelaide. As we drove into the Murray river area, compared to the barren, very dry and often isolated long stretchs we'd covered between Mt. Gambier and the Murray River, the area appeared like a green oasis. Despite having been driving most of the day, we chose to take a slight detour on our way into Adelaide by taking in the Adelaide Hills. At it's peak is Mt. Lofty, with a scenic view point looking over the whole of Adelaide and beyond. The view was great, but sadly for us not only was the sun shining brightly straight at us (making a photo a waste of time) it was also quite hazy. We didn't have time for a walk here, but it's heavily wooded in Eucalyptus trees and very scenic (with plenty of wild Koala spotting potential, I suspect). A place that deserved much more time than we had.
We drove down the scenic drive from Mt. Lofty towards Adelaide. Imagine steep, zig zagging roads, with scenic green views. Perhaps it was seeing others do likewise, but I suddenly had an urge for my bike...this would be a beautiful cycling route - it was pretty impressive by car, but as I was
the allocated driver, I had to concentrate on the windy road. For one thing, as I heeded the roadside warning signs, there's no way I was going to make a Koala road kill, I'd never forgive myself (particularly after the response from many people on the Rainforest Habitat blog with the Koala photo, I'd have to go into hiding - my sister has even set that as her wallpaper!).
So we drove down into green and leafy Adelaide. It must be the greenest city I've ever been to - very pleasing on the eye! Arriving late in the day for our first night after much driving, we stayed 2 nights on Melbourne Street in North Adelaide, which itself was a pretty street with many good restaurants, cafes and a handful of unusual shops (there was no way I was going to let Sally in). The street had a mediterrean feel to it, with a few Italian looking buildings. Initial impressions of Adelaide were very good. On our first morning we discovered the delightful deli called Gouter. The breakfast menu here was a bit different to the norm, and I really enjoyed some Mettwurst (German Sausage containing venison), olive tapenade
and eggs on toast. We also found another deli to have breakfast the next day called The Store, which was also very nice but a bit expensive.
The next day we were keen to make as much of the only day we'd have in Adelaide, before setting off early to Barossa the following day. Again, we loosely followed the indispensible Lonely Planet guide book walking tour of Adelaide taking in another pretty Botanic Gardens and some of the historical buildings and sights. We thought we'd skip actually spending anytime in the Art Galleries and Museums for now. However, we quickly discovered that beyond this very attractive city there wasn't a lot to get excited about under the surface...we were actually running out of things to see/do! So we caught the very reasonably priced (at off-peak anyway) tram from Victoria Sq. down to Glenelg, where the nearest beach is. Not a bad beach. It was fairly quiet too, so plenty of space for everyone. But again, nothing to get very excited about here either. In fact, I got most excited about the Indian food we had at Monsoon that night - in memory of our month-end late meals, Sarah! Superb
At the Arts/festival centre
Parliament House in the background food, amongst the best Indian food I've ever had - not drowning in oil! Reasonably priced too.
Combined with the short stay, this is also why there's not many photos of Adelaide!
To be fair to Adelaide, South Australia isn't called the festival state for nothing. If we'd arrived but a day earlier we could have taken in the food and wine festival. If we'd arrived but a few days later we might have been able to take in the first round of the Clipsal 500 motor racing which was taking to the old Formula 1 street circuit the following weekend. Also, we made a few last minute changes to our itinerary : we were going to visit Kangaroo Island, but found we just could not stretch the budget to it on this occasion (however, we will be back to Oz sometime in the future and hopefully cover some of the islands we have missed so far). So our spectacular failure to make it to any of the islands continues : Great Keppel, Magnetic Island, Phillip Island - not enough time, Fraser Island - flooded in at Airlie so missed it.
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