South Australia

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I really liked Adelaide - a modest sized city of approximately 1 million people, surrounded by hills and beach - a great combination (although the grass was too brown for Joe’s liking!) We had a great time with Kenton & Seleah and also met up with lots of other lovely people.

Our first trip was a quick tour of the Christadelphian school and from there we spent a couple of hours driving through the beautiful Barossa Valley wine growing region, stopping for a quick tasting (I particularly liked a sparkling red). We even drove over Jacob’s Creek and stopped to take photos although there wasn’t much to see. We carried on to Gumeracha, home of the Big Rocking Horse (Australia is obsessed with Big Things and this was voted the national favourite so we had high hopes!) The views from the top of the horse probably weren’t worth the 18m climb but it was fun. As was the neighbouring Wildlife Park where we were totally stampeded by alpacas, goats, kangaroos, ducks, chickens, peacocks etc!

The next day was also animal centred with a trip to Adelaide Zoo, and its main new attraction, two giant pandas - very active and cute. Plus tigers, lions, leopards, flamingos... and a nocturnal house with three baby bilbys who were only just out of their mother’s pouch. We never knew how many different marsupials there are in Australia before.

Unfortunately Joe was up that night with bad chest pains so most of the following morning was spent at the Medical Centre finding out that it wasn’t a heart attack but a case of bad reflux. In the afternoon we met up with Pat and Kathy Peronace (parents of Liz, someone else we know from our church at home) who are second generation Italians and have recreated their own patch of Tuscany in the Adelaide suburbs with a stunning villa and olives, grapes, figs etc growing in the garden. They took us out to the reservoir where the wall is curved in such a way that the sound waves bounce off it and create an unusual acoustic effect whereby one person can “whisper” to someone at the other end - cool!

Thursday was a day to explore Adelaide itself - Governor House, Parliament Buildings, Rundle Mall with all its sculptures and Adelaide Arcade which included a shop called Monetarium where Joe was overjoyed to find a copy of the old Australian banknote designed by his uncle Harry! We had lunch at Central Market and then drove to the Haigh Chocolate Factory where we got to see chocolates being made and taste quite a few too. Final stop was Glenelg Beach which was surprisingly clean and empty for a city beach.

Friday I was up very early to go for a swim with the local dolphins, something I have wanted to do for years. Unfortunately it was a pretty disappointing experience: there was no free swimming, we had to hold onto a flotation line which really hurt my arms; we had 5 sessions in the water but the dolphins only came close for 2 of those - on the first my snorkel broke so I couldn’t get a good look and the second time we were just starting to get into it when they announced that our time was up and we had to go! In the afternoon we shifted to another “guest house” - that of Nathan and Carolyn Luke who have a gorgeous place in the Adelaide Hills complete with cows, tennis court...

We spent a leisurely morning chez Luke the next day before heading up Mount Lofty for some amazing views of the city. Later we went strawberry picking at Beerhagen and also stopped in the pretty German town of Hahndorf for an icecream. On Sunday after church we left Adelaide for a 4 hour drive to Penola near the border with Victoria where we were kindly invited to stay by yet another lovely family, who showed us their vineyard and lambs and put up with our ignorant “townie” questions!

Our last stop before the border was Mount Gambier with its lovely blue lake which was so blue the photos really don’t do it justice.

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