Thursday, May 21, 2009

Last few days before the Outback




As I said in the last post, we decided to fly to Adelaide rather than drive. Saved some time and flights are so cheap on their discount airlines. We rented a car and headed off the the Barasso Valley, a large wine area east of Adelaide. We stayed in a small German town called Hahndorf. We had a couple of nice meals here and walked around the town looking at some of the arts and crafts from the area. We visited some small museums and galleries. The people here were very friendly and loved to talk about their town and area. We had a very nice time here but it was very quick.



This was the highway into Hahndorf.




The German Arms Hotel where we had our evening meal.





We went up a mountain outside of Adelaide close to Hahndorf and
had views of Adelaide and a resort town called Glenelg. You can take
a train from Adelaide to get here. It is a very happening place
during the summer. There are some very large hotels/resorts
with a lot of restaurants along the beach.


We headed to the east and visited Victor Harbour and Granite
Island. We walked along this causeway out to the island
and then did a circle walk around the island. Penguins roost
here and come up at night from fishing all day. We weren't able to
stay for that event, but, from the picture below, you can see that
they are the stars of the event.


We spent the night in Glenelg and went down to the beach to
take a sunset picture on the southwest coast of Australia. This
was probably the best of the 12 pictures that we took.




The next day, we headed off to Adelaide. Marilyn had told us about this castle/home built in Adelaide. It is called Carrick Hill. The very rich owner of the home had it built for him and his wife from the bricks and interior panels and wood staircases, etc. from a castle that was being demolished in England. They visited the castle while on their year-long honeymoon and loved it so much that they had them take most of the items from the castle and ship everything to Adelaide. It took most of two years to build it. We had a personal tour of the castle. Unfortunately, pictures cannot be taken inside. We had to be content with pictures of the grounds.



So, now, we're in Adelaide. We had to check in to our hotel and then return the rental car. We picked a hotel close to downtown because our Outback Tour pickup needed to be from downtown. Did I say that I hated driving in big cities? What a crazy time!!!



Once we got rid of the car, we went walking. A small shopping
centre in downtown Adelaide.


We went for a long walk and came upon a pedestrian mall near our
hotel. Had to take a picture of this sculpture and Jannose's
favourite animal.


We visited the University downtown and went into the Public Library.
The three levels here are filled with little nooks and crannies with
old and new volumes on shelves all the way to the ceiling.
Pictures with my camera don't do it justice.


We took this picture just before the Fringe Parade. You can see people sitting
by the side of the road, waiting. Notice the walking billboard in the crosswalk.
We stayed for the parade and saw some quite interesting characters.
Then, it was off to our hotel for a relatively early evening as
we were then off to the Outback.

No comments: