Adventures in Adelaide

  Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Saturday, August 9, 2008

So, having stayed for a little while in Melbourne and getting all our visa documents together, we got on a bus to Adelaide to visit Tom's other Aussie-residing family, his Aunty Elaine and Uncle Bob...  We arrived to a very warm welcome and an even warmer breakfast!!

Elaine, Bob, Melanie, Jasper, Daniel & Tom :)

We decided to take a look around the town on the first day and went for a walk and explore... we found a Scientology Centre, and as Tom was taking pictures outside a lady came and asked is if we were from 'Anonymous' - which obviously we're not... Apparently they're some group who have been hacking Scientology offices around the world... random!  We didn't do much that day, but went back to Bob and Elaine's to be greeted by a monster curry with dahl, which was obviously flipping fantastic!!

Tom and his Aunty Elaine - aaaww!!

We got to spend some really good time with Bob, Elaine, Melanie (their daughter, Tom's cousin), Daniel (her husband) and Jasper (their 6 month old son)... mostly eating and drinking!!  We had a great BBQ at Melanie and Daniel's place and then visited Warrawong the next day, although Daniel and Jasper had to stay at home for that one...

A wallaby with a joey in it's pouch.. see?

Warrawong is an animal reserve where they have lots of indigneous animals roaming around waiting for you to give them a bit of feed ;)  It was absolutely brilliant!  We got to see kangaroos (red and grey), wallabies (a couple of varities), ring tailed possums (peeping out of their nesting boxes), emus and lots of other birds... I thought it was a shame that some of them were in cages, but then you never know why they're there... probably for their own good!

Tom, Elaine, Melanie and Bob on Mount Lofty

On the way back the weather had improved a bit, so we went into the Adelaide Hills - the oldest in the world dontchyaknow - and up to Mount Lofty, which has a wonderful view over Adelaide... and it was fantastic.  We were pretty lucky because the weather had been terrible, but cleared up just for five minutes for us!!

On our last night in Adelaide, Melanie invited us to a wine tasting... she's a graphic designer and designs labels for some of the local wineries and a new one was being launched in an art gallery.  It was a really great to wonder around and look at the art and have a little sip of the wine at the same time... It was really good wine too... slightly out of my usual price range (but that's not saying much!), but I'll look out for it anyway!! - S.C. Pannell if you're interested!!

After that we went for a pasta dinner with Bob and Elaine and then headed back for bed, because our bus was really early in the morning.  So everyone talks about how boring Adelaide is, but we had a great time... lots of wildlife and some very accommodating hosts, who made us feel right at home!  Thanks very much!!

Chinese visa update - we sent our passports back to the UK and are now crossing our fingers as hard as we possibly can, hoping that they'll a) grant us the visa, and b) get the passport back to Cairns before we're due to fly to Japan... here's hoping!!!