Thursday 30th March 2023
Travel since the relaxing of Covid restrictions has presented different challenges, as we collectively move towards a new normal. The drive from Mentone to the airport was slow going, as those not working from home still seem to avoid using public transport in favour of crawling along heavily clogged streets that move slower than ever before. Light showers of rain didn’t help matters as we moved, ever so slowly, towards the airport and our 10:30am flight to Adelaide.
The long term (‘Value’) parking at the airport is a true barometer of how many people have returned to flying interstate and overseas. If this car park gets any bigger we will soon be catching a short flight from Essendon to Tullamarine after parking our car. Fortunately the free bus that continuously circles the terminal buildings and the car park runs frequently, and we were spared a lengthy wait in cool, misty conditions.
Our arrival time at the terminal meant we were outside the early morning peak period and, as a result, we moved quickly through security screening and into yet another iteration of the Qantas Club lounge (after what appeared to be a Covid makeover). Chris was concerned he might bump into former business associates there that he would prefer to avoid. Steve Monaghetti was ahead of Wendy in the queue for coffees, but he is yet to make Chris’ ‘people to avoid’ list.
Post Covid has been a time of adjustment for airlines as they:
- try to ramp up services to satisfy rapidly increasing demand, and
- look to gouge as much profit as they can from a public eager to travel again.
As a consequence, an Adelaide flight later in the day had been cancelled and passengers on that flight were shoe-horned onto flights either side of its departure. The result of this was delays, and a very full aircraft when we eventually boarded and departed. It was interesting to note that one passenger with a full backpack, a pull-along bag and large handbag was taken aside as part of the boarding process and asked politely to check in one piece of luggage, as she was over the 2 piece limit. We have rarely seen this rule actually being applied, and it was reassuring that it was.
Signs of a heavy downpour greeted us on arrival in Adelaide, with lots of standing water alongside the runway as we taxied in to the terminal. A cool blast of air welcomed us to South Australia as we stepped into the aerobridge and followed the signs to the taxi rank. The drive from the airport to our hotel in the city took about twenty minutes, with further evidence of recent heavy rains in the gutters along the way. Our taxi driver used the brakes like a boxer uses jab punches to test out an opponent in the initial rounds. Needless to say, each traffic light was approached with a series of jerking manoeuvres that eventually brought us to a stop.
The Stamford Plaza hotel was our destination; one where Chris has stayed previously while in the city on business. Little had changed since his previous visits – standard (if not a little dated) rooms, but clean and functional. Our room looks north-west towards the Adelaide cricket and football ground, with glimpses of the Adelaide Hills to the east and Spencer’s Gulf to the west.
We were ahead of the usual check-in time, but our room was already made up and available so we checked in, changed, and hit the streets – to stretch our legs, find somewhere for lunch, and reacquaint ourselves with the CBD. Chris was keen to check out the Adelaide Markets, as their operating hours meant they were closed whenever he had free time on a business trip. They were a short walk across town and bustling with foot traffic during the lunch period. We were both impressed with the way the market blended produce stalls with small cafes, restaurants and bars throughout. It reminded us of the main market in Barcelona, just off La Ramblas.
Lunch was had in one of the many Asian food outlets within the markets, just off Gouger Street. A bowl of roast duck and noodle soup was more than enough for us to share. With appetites under control, we set off to explore the shops along Rundle Mall in the centre of town. Time was not an issue, so we were able to wander in and out of shops, malls and arcades at our leisure. A stop at a Coco Black cafe for afternoon tea also had us pondering what we might do for dinner. It took Wendy little time to find a highly rated Japanese restaurant, Shobosho, not far from our hotel. A booking was made online for an available 6:30pm time slot at the kitchen bar.
On our return to the hotel we caught up with family online before freshening up and heading out to dinner. The restaurant was styled along the lines of many we had eaten in while in Japan, and sitting at the bar allows you to watch ‘service’ as it progresses before your eyes. To make things easy for us we opted for the Chef’s Choice menu (Omakase). We were not disappointed! We watched most of our dishes being prepared right in front of us by well-drilled kitchen staff and left very satisfied by the choice of venue.
Friday 31st March 2023
There was no hurry getting up this morning, with no commitments to spur us into action. Chris had suggested a tram ride to Glenelg Beach, where he had lived for nearly a year when on a client project some years ago. Enquiries were made with the hotel concierge about using public transport, and further enquiries at the nearby tourist information bureau had us climbing aboard a Glenelg-bound tram with newly issued, free seniors’ tickets for off-peak use during the entirety of our visit. We passed a statue celebrating the efforts of John McDouall Stuart, one of Australia’s most accomplished explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north (and return), through the centre of the continent. Unlike many other explorers he never lost a man, despite the harshness of the country he encountered.
Glenelg is a popular beachside destination that has grown considerably overs the years, and a plethora of multistorey apartment blocks now occupy the beach frontage north of the Glenelg jetty. The cafes and bars located off the ground floor of these buildings have signs asking patrons to be considerate of the residents and to keep the noise down. This must always be a challenge for mixed zone developments. The shops along the main drag cater more for visitors, with a disproportionate number of fast food outlets, bars and cafes close to the waterfront. Further away the retail outlets appear to cater more for the locals, with pharmacies, newsagents, clothing and supermarkets available.
On returning to the CBD, we completed a crossing of the Torrens River that lies between our hotel and the Adelaide Oval. This part of the CBD has undergone a massive makeover and changed the skyline forever. It was easy to see how the amenity of having the major sports and entertainment district together in one place, with good public transport access, would bring people in to the area. The views back towards the city were also worth the walk.
Dinner had been booked well in advance . Wendy had read about a family of Afghan refugees who had started up a restaurant in the Adelaide suburbs, serving up traditional family-cooked meals which had grown in popularity since they escaped their home country for a life in Australia. A book documenting their story (that also includes many of the family recipes) has been published; this has increased their popularity and made getting a table at the restaurant all the more difficult. Parwana was just under 3 kms from our hotel, so we decided to head off on foot – following city streets and winding through parkland before arriving at our destination prior to its opening at 6:00pm.
On the dot of 6:00pm the doors were opened and we joined the first few couples filing in and taking a seat. By 7:00pm it was full and the place was buzzing with patrons and wait staff going about their business. The food was basic but tasty, with an eggplant dish (cooked in tomato and yoghurt) being the standout – and filling! We shared a serve of ginger and walnut ice cream to finish off our meal. The walk back in darkness had us exploring the west end of the CBD as it came to life. Bars and nightclubs were accepting patrons, and the fast food outlets were being kept busy. We retired to our hotel room and slept well after a day of walking around Glenelg and the CBD.
Saturday 1st April 2023
Today has been a day spent exploring Adelaide by foot. Wendy found an app on her phone that contains ‘adventures’ – half self-guided walking tour, half quiz; with a series of questions to answer based on information that could be gathered along the walk. We also had a series of self-guided walks that we picked up at a tourist information centre in the city. There were some walks that took in places of architectural interest, some in places where famous people once resided or worked, and some in gardens of significance.
Our initial challenge was to start the 5-bridge walk along the Torrens River – with a break in the middle to explore the back streets of North Adelaide and buildings of significance before returning the complete the 5-bridge walk. The weather forecast was for a cloudy day with little chance of rain and a top of 19C. We set off, rugged up with our down vests to keep out the morning chill. We crossed over North Terrace and made our way to the riverside parking path, following it downstream to Montefiore Road and the first of the 5 bridges. With our first question successfully answered, we then set off across the new footbridge that connects the CBD with the Adelaide Oval. The second question was successfully logged and we headed to the King William Road bridge (with a detour around the Adelaide Oval).
It was after successfully logging the King William Road bridge that we set off uphill to North Adelaide and the first of 2 walks that took us around the back streets, passing buildings of historical and architectural significance. Working class cottages and expansive mansions were sighted, along with bakeries, fire stations, churches and kindergartens – all of differing styles, but almost all constructed of stone and brickwork.
We stopped at a back street bakery where locals were queuing for bread rolls, pies, loaves of bread, hot cross buns and coffees. A freshly brewed coffee recharged the batteries and had us back on our walking tour in next to no time. More palatial residences were sighted, all originally built by people of wealth during the late 1800s through to the middle of the 1900s. As this phase of our walking tour of Adelaide was by now coming to an end, we returned to the 5 bridges walk to successfully inspect and answer questions related to their construction / engineers.
A seat in the gardens near the last of these bridges was well placed for us to sit and enjoy a light lunch (made up of fruit, bread rolls and pastries acquired from the buffet breakfast we had enjoyed earlier in the day). With plenty of time on our hands, Wendy found another self-guided walk within the Botanic Gardens. We set off in search of the gardens, passing the Adelaide Zoo along the way and deciding it might be worth a visit tomorrow before returning to Melbourne.
The Botanic Gardens were stunningly green (as have all of the gardens we have seen during this visit). Clearly Adelaide has had ample rain this summer, as we would normally expects the lawns in particular to be dry, brown and crunchy underfoot. They are quite the opposite, and maintained beautifully with hardly a weed in sight. The walk around the gardens took us to various statues, specialist gardens and features within the grounds. A significant population of flying foxes were roosting in the taller of the trees around the zoo. Their distinctive sounds and smells left little doubt what was overhead – this was not a place to look up with your mouth open (just in case). We had observed the migration of the bats from their roosting trees to destinations in the south-west in the fading light of the day as we walked back to our hotel after dinner last night. Flying foxes seem to be larger cousins of fruit bats that we occasionally find in our fig tree in Melbourne.
It was with weary legs that we made our way back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner with friends who were flying into Adelaide this afternoon. A restaurant had been booked, and a night at the Sky City Casino across from our hotel planned.
Dinner was a fine dining affair at Seans Kitchen attached to the casino complex. We laughed our way through dinner with Andrew and Francis, before heading upstairs to one of the exclusive areas of the casino that, as regular players, they have access to. It was still full of poker machines and gaming tables and we got a bit of a guided tour and some basic instructions on the ins and outs of gambling on poker machines. It didn’t help much – we are still unclear on the difference between 3 and 5 lines on the poker machine display, and also struggle with the maths associated with 1c bets that can quickly snowball into many dollars when multi lines are selected. The icons whizzing around on the display were unfamiliar; what was good and what was not remains an unknown.
Wendy sat down next to Andrew while he played a number of hands of baccarat. Andrew is a much better hairdresser than he is an educator of card games, and having observed for some time Wendy could still not explain the fundamentals of the game this morning. It was a glimpse into a world we know nothing of – and are unlikely to expand our knowledge of any time soon. We joined in the throngs heading away from Adelaide Oval at the conclusion of the AFL’s Adelaide ‘derby’ (Adelaide vs Port Adelaide) which the Adelaide Crows won. It was the end of daylight savings tonight, giving us the opportunity to sleep in as the clocks were rolled back an hour.
Sunday 2nd April 2023
Sleeping in wasn’t really an option, as our body clocks had us up just as the sun was rising. A beautiful day was dawning, with neither a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind in the trees. A top temperature of 22C was forecast, and our plans for a day at the Adelaide Zoo were easily confirmed before we ventured downstairs for breakfast.
It was decided that we would check out of our room after breakfast, then check our luggage in with the concierge while we set off for the zoo, a short walk away. Our timing was pretty good so we joined the entry queue at the zoo about 15 minutes after opening time. We speculated that others had woken and seen what a nice day it was going to be and also decided to spend it at the zoo.
Our main reason for visiting the Adelaide Zoo was to see first hand the giant pandas they have nurtured for a number of years. We stopped on the way there to watch the antics of a red panda as it navigated an interconnected network of wire tubes that joined their enclosure with other enclosures nearby – with a very large fig tree central to one of the enclosures. We subsequently found that access to the fig tree enclosure was blocked, as the red panda was being treated for diabetes and gorging itself on ripe figs was not appropriate in such circumstances.
The main panda enclosure was purpose-built, with two temperature-controlled areas indoors; both had access to outside areas that were landscaped in a style that replicated the terrain pandas prefer. Both pandas were happy enough to sit inside, while the chill of the morning slowly subsided as they devoured freshly cut bamboo. Their distinctive black and white coats appeared in great condition and we were surprised at how big they were. Their dexterity with bamboo was something we needed to see for ourselves, although we guessed they had plenty of practice shredding bamboo as they seem to do little else but eat.
Paths through the zoo twisted and turned through lush gardens. The founders of the zoo were particularly interested in bird life and there is a strong representation of birds throughout the enclosures.
On leaving the zoo we set off in the direction of our hotel, passing through the University of South Australia precinct with its blend of old and new buildings in manicured grounds. Being Sunday the place was devoid of students, with only a few people passing through the grounds using well worn short-cuts between the city and the River Torrens.
We, along with many others on such a nice day, were drawn to the South Australian Art Gallery. There was an Andy Warhol photographic exhibition underway but we were there more to look through their collection of Hans Heysen works (we assumed his work would be well represented, as he lived in the Adelaide Hills for much of his life). We were not disappointed with 2 of his more notable works on display. The galley also had a significant collection of indigenous art by well known artists from central Australia.
When our time at the galley was up we returned to our hotel, collected our luggage, and headed to the airport for our flight back to Melbourne. Dinner tonight will be courtesy of the Qantas Club before we depart. We have managed to easily fill in the days we have had in Adelaide. We have enjoyed dining out at interesting restaurants, exploring the streets in and around the CBD, North Adelaide and Glenelg, walking many kilometres along the River Torrens and having a change of scenery for a couple of days.
