|
What a
beautiful city Adelaide is! This was the first place in Australia where
we wished that we had stayed longer. Very spacious and clean, beautiful
architecture and the people were extremely welcoming and friendly. Also,
the restaurants and cafes claim to be the best that Australia has to offer
and from what we have experienced, which has been very good all over Oz,
they might just be right!
We only
had a couple of nights, giving us one full day, which we spent wandering
around the city, trying to avoid yet another huge thunderstorm! We have
seen a couple of storms, one with over 17,000 recorded lightning strikes
in Queensland and one with 25,000 in South Australia which were was
spectacular. They were, accompanied by thunder so loud you would think
you were actually in the rain cloud with it! It has been very hot in
Australia, but we had much more rain than we were expecting to!
Adelaide Central Market is an incredible place to spend a few hours just
wandering around. If you live in Adelaide it must be the place to come
and do your weekly shopping as the amount of choice for fresh food, of
just about every description, is overwhelming. They claim that if for
some reason what you want is not available fresh in the market they will
have it for you within a couple of days.
On 16
December 2006 we picked up a hire car and I sat behind the wheel of a car
for the first time in well over three and a half months! Which was quite
strange given how much driving my job involved back home! We then checked
out of our hostel located opposite an old Methodist church, where the
Belly Dancing School now resides, heading in the general direction of
Melbourne, with not much more of a plan than that!
We took
the scenic route through Coorong National Park where we stopped for lunch
at a small town called Robe. When I say small, it has a population of 800
people and the post-lady told us that twenty years ago she was in some way
related to everyone who lived there! Can you hear a banjo, or is it just
us? Seriously though, this place is gorgeous, a coastal town with a
beautiful national park around it and clean, soft sandy beaches along its
shoreline. For two months, in summer, the population rises to 15,000 as
all the city dwellers holiday at the houses they have built on the
outskirts!
Why did
we stop at Robe? We were told that it had some of the best fish and chips
we could find and we were not disappointed! Basically they had everything
from enormous Crayfish to numerous types of "white" fish! The lady who
appeared like a genie when we opened the door, recommended "Flake" as that
was what she had with her chips! For a moment I thought I was back in
Hull and the land of deep-fried Mars Bars! It luckily turned out to be a
type of boneless fish, from which our two pieces were cut fresh, the
batter made up in front of us and then cooked to perfection. We then sat
by the harbour and devoured the piping hot food from the paper, like we
hadn't eaten in days!
After
our brief stop at the Post Office, where we met the lovely post-lady, we
headed to Mount Gambier. On the way we saw wild Emus, Kangaroos, an
incredible pink lake and we had our first encounter with a little fella
called an Echidna. These timid creatures are meant to be hard to spot
apparently! We also forgot to mention that whilst we were in Alice
Springs we also saw a couple of wild Camels!
Upon
arrival at Mount Gambier, we checked into a motel and asked about a good
local pub. We were given directions to the pub that our host drank at.
When we found the pub we didn't realise that it had two very different
parts to it, a family side and a working mens side!
A large
majority of the pubs in Oz have a lethal combination within them and
goodness only knows what would happen in the UK if they did the same!
They have this thing called "Tab" and what you can do is bet on all the
racing, play Keno, play on casino style fruit machines and whilst you are
gambling your money away, get drunk at the same time! The bar-staff are
also, croupiers and turf accountants all rolled into one! Very dangerous!
Anyway,
guess which side of the pub we walked in! Not wishing to turn tail and
look like a pair of dumb Poms, we casually strolled up to the open
"Cheers" style bar, sat on two available bar stools and ordered a couple
of Schooners! The barman almost cackled at us and asked if we liked our
grog dark, because that's how they like it in this pub!
Luckily, I had been educated by a lovely barmaid in Adelaide! Who
explained to us that Coopers Pale Ale is a barrel fermented beer and the
longer the barrel stands the darker and murkier the beer gets. It starts
off looking like what I describe as a lager, but the last few gallons look
like a cloudy pint of dark bitter. The taste changes quite a lot, but
whether it is a new, or old barrel, it tastes great.
So
there we are, awaiting our drinks, we look up and the owner of the motel
we stopped in is stood the other side of the bar with his mates, laughing
and shaking his head at us! Our beers arrived and as we took our first
gulps almost everyone sat round the bar was staring at us to see how we
liked the "dark" beer! No banjos this time, but they definitely needed
more sawdust around the spittoons! In fairness, they were a friendly
bunch of locals and we had a great evening in there. They have just made
it illegal to smoke within one metre of the bar in South Australia and
they have signs on the bar telling you this. We couldn't help notice that
in front of almost every sign in this pub someone was sat smoking and
chatting away to the bar-staff!
The
following morning we went to see the mysterious "Blue Lake" of Mount
Gambier. From late November to early May the water in this volcanic lake
changes colour from a plain gray to a beautiful deep blue. It really was
quite spectacular.
From
Mount Gambier we headed to The Great Ocean Road. Our journey to the start
of the Great Ocean Road took ages, mainly because we kept seeing Koalas in
the trees! Did we mention we love Koalas? Please don't try and touch
them as although they look cute and cuddly they have extremely sharp claws
and teeth! We also drove through a time zone! We were sat at Port Fairy
and noticed that the clock said 12:30pm but the clock in our car said it
was midday.
Incidentally, Australia really don't make life easy for themselves as in
summer they have five different time zones. Actually, make that nine
zones, if you include the island territories and the towns just west of
the South Australian border that, believe it or not, have their own
year-round time zone, forty-five minutes ahead of Perth! Queensland
became a laughing stock because the only apparent arguments left against
introducing daylight saving was that it fades the curtains and puts cows
off their milk! There is a town called Mungindi that is on the border of
New South Wales and Queensland where the state divide is literally the
middle of the main street through the town! This means that there is a
time difference from one side of the street to the other! Only in
Australia! It really confirms what we have suspected since we got here!
The 650 people who live there say the biggest benefit is that they can
genuinely celebrate two New Year's Eves, simply by crossing the road!
Awesome!
The
Great Ocean Road was spectacular and although it is probably best known
for a rock formation called "The Twelve Apostles" if you are driving from
west to east you pass some equally spectacular scenery along the way.
Notably, the Bay of Islands, the Bay of Martyrs, the Grotto, London
Bridge, the Arch, Thunder Cave and the Blowhole.
We spent that evening in
Geelong, before driving to Phillip Island the following day, in search of
Penguins. Phillip Island is a beautiful place with rugged coastlines, it
is now a protected national park because of the wildlife found there.
It's famous for two very different reasons, the penguins which come ashore
in droves every evening to nest, the seagull colonies and the seals, but
also because of its motorbike racetrack. Unfortunately we missed the
racing by a week! |