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Rundle Mall, Adelaide
interesting bronze sculpturesSunday 27 April - arrived in Adelaide and felt right at home - such a nice graceful city, with the feel of a large country town rather than a capital city. You can drive into the city in 20 minutes and find a park 5 minutes walk from the centre of the city! Not many capital cities left in the world where you can still do this!
We also felt some emotional attachment to Adelaide, as most of Blu’s ancestors came from here including his mother Joyce. We spent 10 days here - several days spent doing family history stuff - we visited the church where Blu’s parents got married, the place where his mother grew up, various ancestral graves including grandparents and g-grandparents, and spent 2 days doing research in the South Australian Genealogical and Historical Society (SAGHS) Library. (A busman’s holiday for Kate!) This place is a fantastic genealogy resource, and we pieced together quite a lot of the various family tree branches, although still some way to go on grandfather Thomas Sydney Lang, who is a bit of an enigma!
Must tell you about an amazing coincidence that happened at the SAGHS Library - we were
sitting at one of the computers doing some searching when the man sitting at the next computer turned around to us and said - did I hear you say “Thomas Sydney Lang” - I have been looking for him for 20 years!! Turns out his g-grandfather and TS were business partners in the 1880’s and involved in mineral exploration in the area, and TS mysteriously disappeared from Adelaide around 1883 - John has letters written by TS to his ancestor and has written about him in a book! This was such a neat coincidence and John, who is a great genealogist, was also able to help us with our searches for other family members.
There are some wonderful drives around the Adelaide Hills - we took a trip up the Torrens River valley to Birdwood one day, and visited the National Motor Museum there, highly recommend this place to any car enthusiast, even me! Stopped at Jacob’s Creek winery up the road - an iconic place really, and Seppelt’s vineyard in Seppeltsfield. The Seppelt family built their own family mausoleum on a hill overlooking the valley - interesting! Had to do a return trip to the Barossa later in
the week as we got sidetracked by the motor museum and didn’t get to all the places we wanted to visit! Also we had a tip from one of our neighbours at the caravan park about the $5 bottles of wine at Cockatoo Ridge so we stocked up on our return trip! Not a bad drop. Many of the wineries out in the Barossa are old family ones, and have lovely old wine cellars, including Chateau Tanunda and Yalumba. While in the area, we were also able to check out some more of the family graves at Gawler cemetery.
What else did we like about Adelaide? The architecture! It's chock full of lovely old buildings, the stone work of the houses churches and public buildings is quite stunning and seems unique to the area, and the city has loads of green parks and gardens. Adelaide also has lots of free (or cheap) and excellent museums - the National Art Gallery has a very good collection of paintings and the Don Bradman collection is worth a visit even if you aren’t a cricket fan.
We loved the caravan park at Brownhill Creek, with loads of native birds, big gums
a koala climbing the tree
next to our caravan in Adelaide and oak trees, and resident koalas. Met two different couples there who live in other parts of Adelaide, one only a few ks away, but come there quite regularly for a break!
And the Adelaide Hills - there are so many different roads you can take through the hills and all pass through scenic valleys and nice historic villages. We did the customary trip to the German town of Hahndorf, quite touristy but very pretty, especially with the autumn leaves. It was home to Hans Heysen the well known Australian artist, who took inspiration from the scenery in the hills.
We did a day trip to the Fleurieu Peninsula - we especially liked Goolwa, which is a small sleepy town near the mouth of the river Murray. There was a nice country market on the Sunday we visited and it is a historic port town. Much nicer we thought than the more touristy Victor Harbour, which does however have a rather cute horse drawn tram that takes you over to Granite Island. We bought some fresh Murray River mullet which we cooked up for tea that night - yum!
Took the tram out to Glenelg, mostly just
Don Bradman statue
near the Adelaide Oval for the ride, on arrival at the beachfront we were rather surprised to be greeted by one of the Glenelg Discovery Centre volunteers who took us on a (free) tour of the displays and provided us with a history of the suburb!
Our last day in Adelaide was a long one - up at 5.30am to get the caravan over the other side of town by 8am to get some minor repairs done - we filled in the day at Port Adelaide which has a great Maritime Museum and a pub that serves very good $5 meals! So sadly, we left Adelaide on 7 May, heading out to Mannum on the mighty Murray river. To be continued.....
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