2016 - Western Australia and Back Again: May 2016

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Day 22: Wed 1 Jun - Adelaide, 10-19deg, fine & mainly sunny

A 5:15am start this morning to take Wendy to the airport for her 8am flight to Sydney for a work conference.

With the sun shining and the temp at 11deg Greg headed out on the bike to take in the City of Churches. It soon warmed up nicely. Adelaide is one of Greg's favourite cities in the world as there's so much packed into a relatively small package. They also do everything so well. You can just about throw a handkerchief over the Botanic Gardens, Wine Centre, Art Gallery, Museum, Central Markets, Adelaide Oval, Zoo, Chinatown, etc; everything is so handy and easy to get around to see.

First Greg headed for Nth Adelaide which is a Mecca for architecture nuts like he is. There are also some very nice cafes there for his coffee fix before he really got started. Some of the nicest 19th century private houses and public buildings in Oz are in the inner-Nth. There's a lot of history around here too.

By the time Greg had finished around the Nth it was on to Rundle Mall for lunch. This place has been absolutely transformed over the many year we have been visiting Adelaide. It is now first class, wide clean open spaces and immaculately maintained.

Off to the Botanic Gardens after lunch. They are not looking their best this time of the year, however it's still a lovely quiet space to have a wander. Again a world class attraction.

It was then back to the van for some domestic duties. 31km round trip. A quiet arvo catching up on washing and grocery shopping. Greg misses his traveling companion already!!

The Torrens on the way into the city this morning

Sir Don outside the Adelaide Oval

St Peters, North Adelaide

Terrace house North Adelaide

St Dominic's North Adelaide

Early 19th Century house North Adelaide

Old mansion North Adelaide

Colonel Light - surveyed and laid out Adelaide

What a pig! Rundle Mall

Scotts Church Adelaide

Stag Hotel

Amazon lillies, Botanic Garden

Botanic Garden

Glass Wave, Botanic Garden

Glass Wave and Rainforest House, Botanic Garden

Rainforest House, Botanic Garden

Monday, May 30, 2016

Day 21: Tue 31 May - Adelaide, 10-18 deg, fine in the morning, afternoon shower

It was not so cold for the early morning walk in the dark this morning. Saw some fine examples of the Federation homes around this suburb and many very flash and expensive new ones too. Have only seen a few for sale signs up and every one of them had "sold" pasted across them.

We had a leisurely breakfast and then hit the bikes for a ride to Port Adelaide. The ride to the city was on one of our favourite off-road paths along the Torrens but the next 10km was on an on-road bike path down the side of a fairly busy road so not as pleasant. The Port itself has a great heritage area with many old fine buildings and a couple of ships. The oldest surviving Clipper Ship in the world is there awaiting funding for restoration; a huge undertaking. Had a coffee and headed home as the weather seemed to be getting a bit ordinary. Just made it home before the showers started again. A 43km round trip so we could afford to take it a little easy in the afternoon doing admin. Wendy is off to Sydney early in the morning so she had some work to do online and iron uniforms etc.

Anglican Church Walkerville

A nice federation style house at Walkerville

The Adelaide O-Bahn

The O-Bahn rail system

Adelaide Botanic Garden HQ

Port Adelaide

Port Adeladie wharf area

City of Adelaide clipper undergoing restoration

New footbridge from the city to Adelaide Oval

Waterfall off the footbridge

The City of Adelaide in her hay-day

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Day 20: Mon 30 May - Adelaide, 13-18 deg, morning showers followed by a mainly fine day

A quick early morning walk with the brollies kicked off the day. It was nice to see the rain has followed us; and we really don't begrudge them the rain as it's usually so dry here. After breakfast we decided to hit the shops whilst it was still raining, so we drove to Gepps Cross about 5km away where there's a stack of home stores. We needed to replace our electric frypan, which is only 26 years old; (one of Wendy's 21st birthday gifts) things don't last these days!! It was still going well although the non-stick surface had become very .. well sticky. Ended up at Harris Scarfe and picked up a stoneware Smith & Noble electric pan for $39.95 (down from $80). An amazing price given the one that it replaced would have cost over $100 at least, 26 years ago! We weren't through with shopping centres so we had a wander and tasty coffee, and a very nice vanilla slice at Westfield Tea Tree.

The rain finally cleared just after lunch and some sun patches started to appear so it was time to break out the bikes and lycra.We followed the bike path along the River Torrens out on one side (going away from the city) and back on the other side. Great path, good facilities, parks and playgrounds etc, and feels good to be back on the bikes in relatively warm (18deg) weather.

Dinner was a lovely lamb casserole done in the flash new frypan, it was good and not sticky. Life is good ja!!

What a great bike path

It had dried off for the afternoon ride

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Day 19: Sun 29 May - Clare to Adelaide, 150 km, 3 (in Clare)-17 (Adelaide) deg, high cloud with occasional sunshine

As Wendy has to fly to Sydney for a few days on Wednesday for Army business, we are taking the opportunity to spend a bit of time in Adelaide. So we booked into the Levi Caravan Park at Walkerville (where else) for a week. We've been to Adelaide before, mainly for the Tour Down Under, and really enjoyed it. It will be a bit cooler this time as the TDU is in January and stinking hot, top 30s and into the 40s.

We had breakfast, packed up and were underway by 9am. A good run down to the big smoke on pretty good roads. Hit a bit of Sunday market traffic in Adelaide but still made it to Walkerville about 11am. We've used this van park previously (we stayed in a cabin for the TDU) as it is only 7km from the city centre on a separate bike path. It's a nice ride too, follows the River Torrens; if you could call it that, it's more like a trickle most of the time.

After setup and lunch Wendy got into the clothes washing as the weather hasn't been good for that recently and Greg got the bikes ready for our ride tomorrow. Then had a walk up to the shops at Walkerville (it has a Woolies, cafe, bakery, chemist, etc) to pick up a few groceries. Only 2.4km round trip so another reason the van park is very nicely located.
Get your own dinner tonight (Sunday tradition) so it was leftovers for Greg and chicken noodles for Wendy.

Bike path long the Torrens

Levi Park Caravan Park

#55 Levi Park Caravan Park

Friday, May 27, 2016

Day 18: Sat 28 May – Clare, 4-14 deg, early rain and fog clearing to a mainly sunny day

Although the BOM said it was going to be "mainly sunny" today there was no sign of that initially; just fog and drizzle. So the bike ride was looking less likely. However upon finishing our hot breakfast the sun came out and it warmed up to 10deg!! So we gave the chains an oiling and jumped on our trusty steeds and off we went. With our noses pointing south we headed for Auburn on the Riesling Trail. The Trail guided us past a whole mob of cellar doors and other attractions in the Clare Valley. The trail is an told railway line so not as undulating as the road. The surface is gravel but smooth as, and very well maintained. There was a little food market in Seven Hill so we called in for a look. We eventually made it to Auburn around lunchtime so we found a little cafe and ordered a burger each. This was none of your pissy little McBurger, this was huge; everything homemade and just what we needed on a cold day's ride. The herb damper the burger ingredients were contained in was fantastic.

On the way home we called into Seven Hill Winery (only 3km from home) and checked out their wine. A few were good enough to drink so we went back with the car later and picked up a few bottles. Seven Hills was established by the Jesuits in 1851 (oldest in Clare Valley) and still supplies 80% of the alter wine used in Oz.
Got back to the van just as the sun disappeared so the temperature was dropping fast. 55km - it was a good ride and nice that the sun stayed out for us.