It wouldn't be me if I didn't have a list of things I wanted to do while I was visiting Adelaide. Fortunately Suzanne is as easy going as her brother so my wishes were willingly met. While we are here we are keen to help Suzanne establish her new garden so we decided to visit some markets and try to buy some cheap, suitable plants. Meadows had an Easter market which was quite good and we spent some time there before moving on to McLaren Vale, where we enjoyed a delicious almond slice, Port Willungra and finally Hallet Cove. We had read that Hallet Cove Conservation Park was very good for fossils but, whilst we enjoyed the walk, we didn't see any fossils! However, the coastal scenery was exceptional and we fully enjoyed the drive.
The countryside around Adelaide is amazing. We were surprised by the extent of the vineyards, but there are also lots of olives, alpacas and various fruit / dairy / beef farms. It is also a beautiful city. This morning we went for a long walk around Cumberland Park and every street was lined with trees and the houses were so interesting, many of them being quite old but well looked after with lovely gardens. It seems that Adelaide is full of trees and that must become a bit of a problem in Autumn.
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| Port Noarlunga |
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| The Murray mouth |
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| A unique "shell" plant |
Easter Sunday and another wonderful day of touring the Fleurieu Peninsula. Fortunately today we had sunshine and blue sky, and it was a bit warmer. We headed off to Goolwa first thing and ... much to Garry's pleasure!!! there we found another market. It was a good one too and Suzanne got some great plants for her garden. Goolwa is also a beautiful old town and we had a coffee looking out over the Murray which had sailboats and other watercraft zipping about. Then we drove across to Hindmarsh Island to see the actual Murray mouth which is surprisingly small. The river is so full and healthy looking that I am sure there will be a huge bird resurgence come spring. We stopped at the Flying Fish Restaurant in Port Elliot for lunch and already we know we will have to come back and spend some time there. We then drove on to Victor Harbour and it was another surprising place ... very English, very old, very quaint. There is still a steam train that runs between Port Elliot and Victor Harbour, and there is a old tram that is pulled by clydesdales from the mainland across to Granite Island along a connecting jetty. By now it was getting cool so we decided to postpone the tram experience until our next visit and we headed home.
Monday, Anzac Day ... and we managed to avoid any of the fuss. After a late start we headed to Glenelg for a great lunch at the Surf Club and a walk along the beach esplanade. It is an older suburb and reminded me a lot of Manly except the beach is not as nice.Again the weather was excellent but we were surprised to see so many people swimming ... it was only about 21 degrees and there was a cool breeze! That night, Garry's second cousin Derry joined us for dinner and we had a very pleasant evening.
Tuesday was "garden" day and, unfortunately, Adelaide soil contains quite a bit of clay so it was not as easy as Garry was hoping. After some hours of pretty good exercise we had all the plants in and the trellis up ready for the passionfruit. Our contribution was a lemon tree aptly named "Lots of Lemons" and we hope it is also an accurate one. The rest of the day was spent in generally getting ready to move on tomorrow. It has been a wonderful few days and we will have to plan to get back this way soon as there is so much we still want to see. We have seen lots of lovely places and enjoyed many delicious meals, plus we will need to check up on this garden!
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| The horse drawn tram at Victor Harbour |
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| Lunch at Glenelg Surf Club |
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