Adelaide - Christmas paegent and a great welcome for us

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Friday 13 November continued

Late afternoon Pat went along to see Debbie and purchased some opal earrings.

We arranged that we would get a lift to the bus station at 7 pm and then go across to the Opal inn to grab something to eat.

Time passed and we took the cases to reception and were then driven to the bus station. On arrival the Greyhound office wasn't open, so again to help us Debbie said she would keep the bags and return with them at 8 pm.

The bus was due to leave at 8.25 and we had to be there 20 minutes before departure, so we had about an hour to get something to eat.

The Opal inn was ok, but like a lot of these places seem to have no character. We ordered food, A ceaser salad and bacon & wedges. The food was good, and large portions, in fact too much for both of us.

Just before 8 pm we went back over the road and the bus was in by this time as it has about a 45 minute layover here.

General disorder surrounded the bus and there was talk of being over booked, the office was still not open and people were trying to buy tickets from the driver, which he wasn't allowing.

Debbie returned with our luggage and of course our thanks.

A very sincere recommendation if you are planning on visiting Coober Pedy, to stay at the Comfort Inn, Coober Pedy experience. We had a fantastic welcome and nothing was too much trouble.

Another general note in and around the town was the low level of any hard sell of the Opals. Nobody seemed concerned about an actual purchase and browsing was happily accepted.

About 8.20 the driver reappeared and started getting people on board, we got on and nobody seemed left behind of those booked, so all was well. The bus was almost full and lots of those were children, so we shall see how the night goes. The bus departed at after 8.30 pm.

A passing comment from the previous driver was that the bus only did 95 kmh and this was backed up by my GPS along the way. So no chance of an early arrival.

Initially babies were crying and children making a noise but things did settle down and the journey progressed. Along the way we saw many kangeroos - live ones for a change. Cattle were on the road a couple of times and rabbits a plenty, even a fox, not sure if that one made it.

The night passed with a stop sort of every 2 hours ish, one we were not allowed for the driver to make up time. He wasn't a happy bunny and mentioned at one stage that he had 51 people on board.

Saturday 14 November

We both got some sleep and probably more than we would have hoped for. I didn't see a sunrise, so must have slept. The wifi worked on this coach occasionally near towns, but the USB charger never did.

Adelaide arrived and we got off the bus at 07.40 am. We have a hotel booked but the check in time was 2 pm. We were obviously going to try and get the room before then, but we had time to kill certainly.

We grabbed our luggage and found a small cafe in the depot and had a coffee. Life started returning and the fatigue shakes subsided.

Over the last three and a half days we have spent 35 hours on coaches and travelled over 3000 kilometres.

We started to get our bearings and there were maps of our location on the wall, we sort of knew that we weren't to far from the hotel, so the initial plan was to walk to the hotel slowly and grab a breakfast or similar on the way. This would kill several birds at once including wasting time. A thought we also had was to find the city tour bus or equivalent which would also kill time and give us a better picture of Adelaide.

Well the first thing we bumped into was that today was the City's Christmas Pageant. The streets were blocked off and Police and various emergency services were all over the place. People were about in their many hundreds even at this early hour to get their place to see the floats.

We found the hotel before any suitable restaurant, at 8.15 am, so went along to reception to ask what time they might let us check in and if we could leave our luggage until then.

They were more than accommodating and said that we were welcome to leave our luggage and that housekeeping were just starting to clear rooms, but we could probably have our room at 10 ish.

This was great news for us and also noticed that they offered a breakfast menu in the restaurant which we elected to try.

The breakfast was great and probably the nicest meal we have had in Australia.

After, there was still some time to kill so we went for a quick walk.

The city was now buzzing with people and we ended up watching the whole parade and spent several hours in the crowds.

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