Adelaide 2

Wednesday 9^th November

We had read that Adelaide Zoo was home to the only Giant Panda Bears in the Southern Hemisphere, and naturally we were keen to pay them a visit.  So after the School work was completed, we packed up a lunch and headed for the zoo, which is close to the centre of Adelaide City.

It took us half an hour to drive from our motorcamp into the central city.  We drove along the main street past lots of buildings all connected with the University of South Australia.  In fact half of Adelaide’s central city area seemed to be taken up with University Buildings.  We also went past the Adelaide Town Hall, Parliament buildings and the Adelaide Casino.

We spent a whole afternoon at the zoo, including two visits to the panda enclosure.  On our first visit they were both sleeping, so there wasn’t much to see.  We decided to tour the rest of the zoo and call back again to the pandas again as we were leaving.  The zoo was good, but we felt some of the enclosures were a bit small, not a patch on Auckland Zoo.

When we got back to the panda enclosure they had just been fed, so there was plenty of activity.  Cameron got some brilliant video footage on his camera, of them walking around and then sitting down to eat their bamboo.  We also got some good still shots of them.  There was something very special about seeing these highly endangered species quietly going about their business.  They were a lot bigger than what we had expected.

Thursday 10^th November

I mentioned earlier that Port Adelaide was host to the National Railway Museum, the South Australian Aviation Museum, and a Maritime Museum.  We had done the Railway and Aviation Museums, so now it was time to check out the Maritime Museum.  It was housed in a huge old 3 storied, stone warehouse. Again a brilliant display of South Australia’s Maritime History.

Part of the Museum included a reconstruction of the living accommodation used by the early settlers coming from England to Australia. The particular accommodation they had reconstructed was from a boat that sailed to Australia in 1840, which is about the same time as the first Broadmore’s emigrated to New Zealand, so we were able to get an idea of the sort of conditions they had to endure during their voyage.  A far cry from today’s cruise liners.

Another part of the museum was an old lighthouse, which we climbed to great some great views over Port Adelaide.

After the Maritime Museum we headed back into Adelaide City to visit the Adelaide Oval, one of the great cricketing grounds of the world, and home of the Museum dedicated to Australia’s most famous Australian Cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman. 

We didn’t get to have a look around the museum, but walked down to the edge of the grounds, and went up into the grandstand.  One of the grandstands is called the Sir Donald Bradman Stand, and two other smaller stands are named, would you believe it, the Chappell Stands.  Shame on you Aussie.  All us Kiwis know that the only cricket the Chappell Brothers could play was underarm bowling.

From the Oval we walked across the Torrens River which flows through the centre of the city, and into the centre of town for a look around.

We walked along the main central shopping complex, called The Rundle Mall, with its hundreds of fancy shops selling tons of overpriced useless rubbish.  Much more interesting were the buskers doing their thing in the street.  Of all the bigger cities we’ve visited in Aussie, Adelaide would be our favourite by far.

Friday 11^th November.

Interesting date for today, 11/11/11.  After the usual morning’s school work, we decided to have a look at some of Adelaide’s beachside suburbs and beaches.  Adelaide City and its suburbs stretch along some 50 km of beautiful sandy beaches.  One of the best known beachside suburbs is called Glenelg and this is where we headed for first. We sat on the seawall in front of the huge Stamford Hotel watching the locals and had our lunch.

From there we continued south, ending up at Maslin Beach at the very southern end where we spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun. Then we made the long drive back through the city to our motorcamp.

Tomorrow we head up towards the Barossa Valley area where we will stay for a few days while we make further arrangements about selling the car and caravan.  We have now got 3 different people interested in the van, including 1 from Queensland.  If the Queensland buyers come through, we may deliver the van up to them.  On the other hand, if we sell it here in Adelaide, we will continue on to Melbourne with just the Pajero.  We’ll just have to wait and see.