Marion Caravan Park proved to be a handy base from which to check out a few of Adelaide's delights. We'd been told about a very good park near the coast a little further out of town. But Marion proved to be a quality spot near good shopping and public transport, a well appointed if somewhat higher-priced stay. You pay for the near city convenience. Incidentally, we found Adelaide's buses ride rough as guts.. and its trains smooth as silk. So we took the train when we could. We also jumped onto a tram (our first tram trip since 1950s Perth) to rumble out to Glenelg for a day trip. Good thing too, as we didn't get to ride on the two heritage tram runs we were to pass by later, in Portland and Bendigo. Next time!
A very important location this.. where Governor Hindmarsh and the crew landed and announced the founding of the South Australian colonial government back in 1836. The Guv'd be in for a shock if he were able to see Glenelg today.
Glenelg's jetty and town were buzzing when we visited. It's not often an old angler like me can pass a jetty without checking what's happening out there.
The beach wash at Glenelg had a chilly springtime look to its greenish tinge, and a sort of muddy colour offshore. We had to get our heads around the fact that we were looking west out into Gulf St Vincent, not into the Southern Ocean - or in this case looking south along the Gulf coast.
I was mightily impressed with the very fine art-deco style Stamford Grand Adelaide Hotel overlooking the beach at Glenelg. Imagine the view from the upper stories! Their website reveals a top quality interior with all the fruit.. way out of our league! We downed a good Chinese lunch at a busy laneway eatery in Glenelg's bowels after checking out the very interesting historical museum opposite the jetty. Then carried out a raid on a bookshop trying to find a volume on the bombing of Darwin that was recently out of print and unavailable for love nor money in the West. Yep, a copy was available in their main central Adelaide branch. Beeoody!! We'd grab it on the way back to base.
Into downtown Adelaide for the rare book, and we were tickled by the lifelike porkers enthralling the kids and others in this mall. After the rush to beat closing time in the city, we were later to find a couple of copies of the book at the War Memorial bookshop in Canberra. Ah well, you grab 'em when you can.
Adelaide is known as the City of Churches. Here's one, St Francis Xavier's Roman Catholic Cathedral.
Next day we would visit Port Adelaide, and two of the city's fine museums.
-- Edited by JocknNik on Wednesday 4th of October 2017 04:04:14 AM
-- Edited by JocknNik on Wednesday 4th of October 2017 04:30:19 AM
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-- Edited by JocknNik on Wednesday 4th of October 2017 04:43:00 AM
Jock, great photos as usual. You seem to be following me around. That bench seat behind the pigs in the mall; I sat on that last week, and I watched the AFL grand final in the Stamford Grand hotel last weekend. That St Francis church is pretty impressive on the inside as well. I would take a punt on saying the chinese place in the laneway you ate at was called Yum Sing. Small but popular place.
Happy travels.
Cheers, John.
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"My mind is made up. Please don't confuse me with facts."
Thanks folks. We would have liked to see inside the cathedral but it was closed. Adelaide seemed to us a bit crowded with tight streets and continuously heavy traffic a lot of the time, but we still enjoyed it. Would we go back? Mmm.. probably. There's always more to see and do. Taking public transport solves a lot of problems for the visitor. Yep, John, Yum Sing it was.
Continuous heavy traffic is right, and it is getting worse. Streets are more and more losing lanes to bus only lanes, Also narrowing of streets to put in more and more bike lanes, it is believed to facilitate keeping the tour down under here. Many streets, Hindley st, to name one has gone from 2 lanes to one to make way for wide footpaths. Also, losing lanes to more tram tracks that go nowhere, to get some politicians name in the history books. Adelaide is also getting more jammed up to closing off streets and making others one way. The powers to be have totally lost the plot. On top of that most every hi rise building built in the last 10 years, of which there is many, with many more currently being constructed (including Adelaide's tallest building) are apartment buildings, cramming more and more people into the city. This week, the news tells us that the city has gotten so busy that they are possibly about to start implementing a congestion tax on anyone driving into the city. Was going to say, that at least we have the pie carts, but sadly they have been taken away.
Makes me feel a bit sad for all those people in there that don't know of the other life that we here all know and love.
Cheers, John.
__________________
"My mind is made up. Please don't confuse me with facts."
One thing that really irritated us was that cars were allowed to park in the bicycle lanes causing sudden ructions in traffic flow. Seems to us that Adelaide roads were designed for the 19th century but have to cope with today's traffic. Maybe they can't afford the radical changes necessary. Still, we'd go back armed with the smarts to get by.
