Adelaide, Australia

Rainbow Lorikeet Bird eating from a Fruit Tree in the Botanical Gardens of Adelaide.

We had five nights and 4 days in Adelaide and there are many things to do so we had to kind of narrow it down. 

Our first day we were very tired from a day of flying and no sleep so we slept in and got up and had our buffet breakfast at the Adelaide Marriott Penny Lane Restaurant.  We ventured out and walked approximately 15 minutes in the downtown core area where the hotel is located in the CBD or the Central Business District.  We arrived at the Art Gallery of Southern Australia.

This is a building with a very interesting past. It was built in 1881 to be an art gallery which I found highly progressive for any city in the world.  One of the volunteers at the front pointed out that Adelaide was not a city built on Convict Labour like most of Australian cities.  It was never a Penal Colony City, which I assumed it was. 

Typical stone and brick work done in the 1800s.

Adelaide was settled with people that wanted a better life and a new start immigrating from Europe beginning in 1836.  Many of the Europeans came from England and Germany, and later Italy after WWII etc.  The city is actually masterfully laid out unlike Sydney and other Australian cities which are haphazardly laid out. 

Adelaide has walk through streets where cars are not allowed.  I love this idea it fosters walking.

Rundle Mall area also with no traffic.

Love this Bronzed Pig and Garbage Can statue.

In the Rundle Mall street.

Australia has many Arcade streets where you can walk through to the next street and this avenue is lined with stores.

Many beautiful old buildings.

Strange squat Palm Trees

Beautiful old stone and brick church

The art gallery was free which I also thought highly progressive. Normally we do not frequent art galleries because they're usually quite expensive.  I am so glad that this one was free because it was very much worth seeing and highly eclectic. 

Large, glassed mirror Art.

A 1600 Turner's Chair.

1600-1700s lace.  How does this not disintegrate?

A handmade boat full of Konkel Shells

If this was a photograph I would say that someone's finger was in the way.

Leg Cramp?

Moroccan Wood Facade.

My favorite painting in the entire Art Gallery called Motherhood.

Moroccan Wood Screen Door

This painting is called The Four Seasons

The Art Gallery was built with Religious Stained Glass Windows.

A very typical painting of a forest in SA or South Australia.

Beautiful Antique Chest.

 

Modern Art - Screws in Mannequins.

The gallery had a Renaissance area which are usually my favorite because I do like viewing Old Masters.  Many of the paintings at AGSA have such an incredible history. 

Undoubetedly the most interesting history to this Petro Negri painting, finished in 1650 and in a Czech Family by the name of Korner.  It was in their possession until it was stolen in 1939 by the hated Nazis.  The Korners escaped to Austali and more than 80 years later the painting was returned to the Korner heirs. This is truly a remarkable story.

This is a Renoir completed in 1905 of his son Coco.  It is a tiny unremarkable painting.  Aristocratic males had long hair back then so that they would be mistaken for a girl and not get kidnapped for a hefty ransom.

This Thomas Gotch painting from 1885 was so life-like that I thought that it was a photograph.

This painting done in 1620 of Lady Aston was so bright untypical of Old Masters therefore I think it had just been cleaned.

We walked next door to the South Australian Museum which was also free. Each of these two buildings had exhibits which you could pay money to see. The art gallery had an exhibit of textiles for $25 and the Museum had an exhibit of Vikings for $25 which actually did interest me. But we said it was going to be our free day and everything we did was going to be free.  I did however find a Macaw Acai Bowl food truck just outside the art gallery so that's what I had for lunch and it was so delicious, but not free.  The museum was good but we have been in so many museums that we normally just blitz them. Probably the two most interesting areas in this Museum was the whole floor on Pacific Cultures

The Museum was built with its own set of Stained Glass.

Bird of Paradise.

Decorative Cassowary Bone Dagger.  These South Pacific people were 'No Joke' warriors.  Cassowarys can be very deadly.

Double rattle with coconut shells to attract sharks.  What the hell these South Pacific people were lunatics if they wanted to attract sharks so that they could hunt them.

This was a drum.

Another floor of meteorites and rocks was very interesting. 

For those who know Darren, he finally found his Meteorite.

The Fire of Australia is widely regarded as the finest known piece of uncut high-grade opal in existence which is almost 35 ounces in weight.

Gypsum, who knew?

Opals are stunning!!

Every gem/rock under the sun.

I was schooled on Opals.  I had no idea that fossils can Opalise.  Australia is the only continent that contains Opals.  The rugged Outback provided unique conditions for silica-rich water to seep deep into the earth's cracks initiating the epically long process of opal formation.  This fossilized Marine creature's bones have Opalised.  This was super interesting that these are the finest known Opalised skeleton on earth.  He or she swam and hunted in the icy seas of inland Australia 110 million years ago.  Fascinating.

This was an incredibly stunning Opal.

We continued on and moved next door down to the Adelaide Public or State library.  All of these three buildings are in beautiful 1800s buildings with great architecture.  Darren needed to try and download the Australia driving map onto our navigation system and he needed a basic computer and we have a Chromebook with us and he's tried on multiple computers but he has not been able to get that job done.  But I had a nice time reading a magazine on the Italians of Australia and how they left Italy after WWII to find a new land to welcome them home. 

Taken from inside the Public Library where the front is solid glass.

We went to a Thai Restaurant the first night in Adelaide and I loved the way they weaved the cooked egg into the Pad Thai.

A WWII Memorial.  Australia is very proud of their soldiers who fought for Freedom.

Beautiful buildings everywhere in downtown Adelaide.

We made it back to the Marriott Adelaide for 5:30 for cocktails and appetizers and something to fill me up. Once again I didn't need to buy supper.  They found out that Darren was allergic to garlic so the chef cooked him up a big piece of chicken with broccoli and so he had supper too which was nice for him.

The next day we left for the Botanical Gardens which were approximately a 15-minute walk from our hotel, and I have to add in that the botanical gardens were free. I have never ever been to botanical gardens that were free. I thought this was the coolest thing because everybody can afford to go and visit.  We spent approximately 2 hours walking around. It's very hot in Adelaide so we were trying to seek as much shade as we possibly could.  There are lots of things to see and not just flowers and plants which I really appreciate. But for once I appreciated the art installations more than the plants.  There is a famous American Glass Artist-Dale Chihuly that has had his glass installations in over 200 exhibits around the world and they were quite stunning to see.  

Floating Glass Balls

A sculpted Glass Wave fountain.  I don't think this was a Dale Chihuly?.

All of the sculptures are quite large.  This would have been about 12 feet tall.

This is a 20 foot Glass Tree not a real tree.

The second most exciting thing in the botanical gardens for me personally was the four Rainbow Lorikeets that were feeding in a fruit tree and they allowed me to be very close to them and take their photos.

A Lorikeet looking at the another Lorikeets bum.

They are the most fake looking bird I have ever seen.

They were the brightest colored birds that I've ever seen in my entire life. They were so bright that they looked fake.  They are a large bird, probably double the size of a Blue Jay and they look like they're from the parrot family.  They were on a feeding quest and they didn't really let me get in their way. They're very acrobatic birds and they eat upside down if they want to and they are loud and squawky but holy cow are they beautiful to look at. 

Lorikeet Bum

I finally got a shot in of the full body.  These little guys are so active and flitting around, it was almost impossible.

This was the fruit that they were joyfully eating.

They are highly acrobatic birds.

I honestly would faint if one of these flew into my back yard.

In all honesty, the plants were the least interesting in these botanical gardens. I've been to many botanical gardens around the world and even though it's nice and their gardens were very pretty, they were not even closest to the nicest I have seen but hell they were free.  Other than this one hibiscus tree which undoubtedly had the most impressive colored hibiscus I've ever seen, there was some nice trees that I've never seen before and a couple cacti that I've never seen before. It was still definitely very much worth the visit. 

Hibiscus

This was a cool tree but apparently it is considered a Weed Tree.

I love this type of tree.

I need this yellow coniferous type tree to grow in my corner of my back yard to block out sound.

Cool Cactus Plant

A cool 20 foot Cactus Plant.

Beautiful Canopy of Welcomed Tree Shade.

Water Lily Flowers are always so cheerful.

Elkhorn Fern

We stopped at the Macaw food truck again which had the Acai Bowls/Cups and I indulged in that. I think I may be addicted to Acai.  I ordered the exact same one again with layered Acai with chunks of almonds, granola, passion fruit and peanut butter crumbs. It was delicious and highly addictive. 

Next on the agenda was the Jam Factory which is an old establishment in Adelaide and much to my dismay, it had free tours at 11:00 am Monday to Wednesday and when I looked at my watch it was 12:00 on Wednesday so we missed out just because I didn't do enough research. I think it would have been cool to watch and tour a jam factory.

Darren wanted to buy some buns, sliced meat and cheese so he could make himself a sandwich back at the room just in case there was a bunch of garlic laden food in the Elite Lounge again.  But they definitely took care of him at the Adelaide Marriott Hotel Lounge because they had fried up a delicious filet of fish for him that night and I tasted it and it was quite good.  I liked the wine choices that night and there was a cauliflower in cheese sauce that was delicious.

Australia which is technically younger than Canada has so many more pretty buildings.

The next day we walked to the car parkade to grab our car and we drove to Harbour Town Premium Outlets which contains 110 stores and it is close to the Beach.  Darren needed new walking runners and I needed a couple of T-Shirts.  Darren got his runners right away, extra wide is very hard to find and after 17 stores, I finally bought two T-Shirts.  Every shirt on sale today seems to be crew neck which I think are unflattering. I finally found these T-Shirts at the last store that I was going to go to before I gave up.  I don't recognize many of the clothing stores here in Australia so you never know what you are walking into.

We were too late to drive to Mclaren Vale Wine Region because it was another 45 minute drive away the last tasting at any Vineyard is 3:00 pm.  Instead we drove the 6 minutes to Glenelg Beach which has semi-white sand and fairly clear waters.  It was a nice beach and we walked to the end of the Pier and looked around a bit.  There was zero shade so we did not stick around because it was too hot. 

Taken from the end of the Pier.

More WWII Memorials.

I found an Acai Bowl place to have my lunch and we were off back to the Car Park and to enjoy another offering of the M Club Elite night.

Our last full day in Adelaide we decided to do a hike Waterfall Gully to Mount Lofty in the Cleland National Park.  There were supposed to be great views overlooking Adelaide.  This hike was 8 kms return total. 

It was either this hike or drive to Mclaren Vale Winery area and do a tasting at Bec Hardy Wines for sure and what ever else looked interesting on the way.  I was an Opimium Wine member for years and many of the wines I drank came from Bec Hardy's vineyard, so that intrigued me.  I love wine but I love to hike even more so we chose the hike.  Maybe next time Bec?

We started off on the hike and it was hot over 30 degrees which does not bode well for me, I don't hike well with extreme heat.  Darren does not seem phased by it, but I don't do well.  We knew that this was going to be a strenuous hike which we can handle but not so much in extreme heat.  We started off and it was a very pretty hike and the trail was asphalted which we are not use to, so it was flat and easy in that regard. 

Not going to lie this was an intense first kilometer.  You know when you are walking up hill and you have to lean forward or you will start to fall back, well that was how steep the incline was in many areas.  We passed our first waterfall

This was taken from the top of the impressively tall First Waterfall.

We kept walking and then we passed our second waterfall

On this hike there are 7 Waterfalls in total.  The whole time you are hiking you can hear water running downhill in a creek beside the trail.  At about 1 km, I could start to feel my fingers swell which they do when I hike if it is too hot.  I am not a quitter and we hiked up the mountain another kilometer and we made it to the 2 kilometer marker.  It was another 2 kilometers uphill from that point and that was when I looked at Darren and then looked at my fingers and 'called it'.  I begrudgingly turned around and headed back down the mountain.  On a 20-25 degree day I could have done this hike but it was just too hot!

I was unhappy with myself but what is a girl to do?

The only good thing about turning around was that we spotted a very large Male Kangaroo in the bush just beside the trail.  He was not remotely interested in us but we were interested in him.  He was merrily eating and would not look up.

I would not want to get thumped by that tail.

The surrounding area was very pretty and we were looking the entire time for Koalas which you can see in the Eucalyptus Trees either sleeping, resting or eating the leaves.  We did not spot one but maybe next time? 

Darren trying to spot a Koala looking up at the Eucalyptus Trees.

We made it down which it was 'stupid steep'.  Going down was not as easy as you would think.  We made it down the mountain with NO casualties.  

I did get a chance to see Eucalyptus Leaves up close as I realized that they were draped over the car. 

These are the leaves that the Koalas much on all day.  Contrary to popular belief these leaves do not get the Koalas high.

This photo shows the front section of the mountain that we had walked up.

My poor Homer Simpson fingers did not go down in size for hours afterwards.  We stopped and had a drink and some dessert in an outdoor cafe called Ballaboosta.  Then we made our way back to the Hotel and I had a long hot bath with the Bath Salts that the Adelaide Marriott provided for me.  It was still a good day even though we did not get to see Adelaide from the Mount Lofty Lookout.