Tuesday, March 8 - Adelaide

We left Nicolle and Richard’s place this morning and drove the 45 minutes into the city of Adelaide. 

We managed to check into the Adelaide Central YHA early and dropped our bags, and then returned the rental car. We spent a couple of hours walking around the centre of Adelaide looking at some of the shopping centres (I had lost my lens cover and needed to buy a replacement) and the shops on Rundle including walking through the pedestrian mall. There was an arts festival this weekend but there is still a fringe so we saw a number of artists in the mall which was fun. We asked a couple of people and found our way to a big camera store, something like Henry’s in Toronto where I successfully bought the replacement for about $9/$10.

After that we wandered down King William Road and saw the Oval, Parliament House, The Houses of Parliament for South Australia, and St. Peter’s. We saw the River Torrens and the beautiful parkland surrounding it. We passed the University of South Australia and in particular the law school, in fact it is not far from the YHA. We really like Adelaide. It is a much smaller town than Sydney or Melbourne with a population around 1.2 million, seems much cleaner, much more sane, much quieter, and quite cosmopolitan.

After our tripping we headed back to the hostel to do some “administrative” stuff: re-packing our backpacks for the camping trip, sorting out money, following up on over-payments, and paying our debts.

The temperature today was over 90F….hot!! But this evening was beautiful. We asked for some recommendations and went across a lovely square to eat at the Edinburgh Castle Hotel.….how could I pass that opportunity up? I had the best beer I have tasted in Australia and told the barmen that. As I left he snuck me a beer to take with me (still capped) and promised to pass my comments on to the microbrewery that made it!! So I walked home hiding it in my wrap and hoping no-one would see me walking through the lobby of the hostel with it!!

We set off on our 10 day camping trip to Perth at 6:45 a.m. tomorrow. I will not have my computer accessible, and I doubt we will have internet  since we will be camping “under the stars” and in some cases “bush camping” with no facilities! We will have our Aussie cell phones which will give us access to email, so please don’t stop writing. I love getting your emails.

So…we arrive in Perth on March 18 and I will do my best to get my blog updated as soon as possible after that. I am sorry about the lack of pictures for some of the earlier posts, but will work on those from Perth.

Hope you have a great time in the meantime, and I know we will!