And so to Adelaide again
It was a quiet birthday weekend. I had already planned to leave Melbourne on the Saturday night and take the overnight Greyhound to Adelaide for a couple of days before the intrepid trip across to Perth.
An enjoyable evening in the Northcote Social Club for chicken parma and a couple of beers was the sum total of birthday celebrations. Then it was off to Southern Cross station for the bus.
Leaving Melbourne and heading through Footscray gave one of the most wonderful images as the sun set behind the docks. Cranes and containers where perfectly silhouetted in front of the bright orange sunset. Later, passing through Ballarat, I fell asleep for a while before the bus arrived on an early Sunday morning in Adelaide.
Finding the hostel wasn’t hard. Adelaide hasn’t changed much in the years since I was last there. The hostel hadn’t changed either. Despite claims of being under new ownership and a cleaner and brighter place all that had changed was the TV and, as I discovered later, that meant one of the shower heads downstairs still only gave out a dribble of water.
Sunday morning in Adelaide was very quiet. The tram wasn’t running so I didn’t get to enjoy the new extension up to the railway station or go down to Glenelg. Instead I took a walk around the city.
Monday morning and it was time to take a walk up to the Adelaide Oval.
The Oval is under a big rebuilding plan to enable the ground to host the footy but that didn’t spoil the day despite one area having been demolished. The West Indies had looked like they were going to make a game of it but then spent most of the day trying to bat out a draw.
It was a good day and I managed to spend the morning session in the shade before taking a wander around the grass slopes in the afternoon. A few wickets fell after tea which meant most of the Aussies went away happy although the match would ultimately end in a draw.
One final day gave me a chance to relax. It rained early on in the morning which is never a bad thing in this country but once that cleared it became another beautiful day. A little time for shopping and preparing for the next big trip across Australia.
