Temporary Tourist – Last Day

What do you do before someone heads home after a lovely holiday? We went for a meal at the Duke of Brunswick Hotel in the city, the staff are friendly and we can choose anything from the menu because it’s 100% GF! Having a train station only a few minutes walk from home meant we didn’t have to bother with car parking. For a capital city, Adelaide’s CBD is small and easy to get around. Colonel Light designed it on a grid pattern with a central square, each side is 1 mile long so it’s relatively simple to work out how far you have to walk from place to place.

The Adelaide Train Station is very close to the Festival Theatre.

Our first stop was Rundle Mall for some last minute souvenir purchases.

The Beehive Corner was always a popular place to meet a friend.

Now that’s a stylish rainhead!

The bee at the Beehive Corner.

Two helmets? Safety is a big concern!

Rundle Mall

We went by tram from Rundle Mall to South Terrace.

The trams run down the centre of King William Street.

Beside the four terraces are parklands, it’s a very relaxing place to be.

View from the Tram Stop

Wonderful old Gum Tree

Just relax and breathe.

A Rose Garden

One of the sculptures near South Terrace.

Veale Gardens – I didn’t know that they were also called, Walyu Yarta.

A marvellous scent enveloped us, then we found the Lilac Bush.

Lungs of the city.

The Duke of Brunswick is the next street over from South Terrace,

Old terrace houses on Gilbert Street.

A modern home is behind this wall.

After our delicious meal we walked back to the Tram Stop but the tram was unable to continue along the track because of emergency services vehicles ahead so we decided to walk instead.

Victoria Square was alive with press, support crews and the few contestants who had reached the end of the 3020 kms World Solar Challenge car race from Darwin to Adelaide. The winning team was, “Agoria” from Belgium, they’ve been working towards a win for 16 years.

Fountain achnowledging the original inhabitants of the area.

Team Tokai came second in the race.

The end of a very long race.

Looking north along King Willam Street.

We enjoyed our walk back to the station and the relaxing ride to our house, I’m glad I’m not the one heading off on a 26 1/2 hour journey to reach home.

Temporary Tourist – Wittunga Botanic Garden

With only one more day to go before our visitor flies back home we decided to go to Wittunga Gardens, they’re only 5 mins from home and despite the weather forecast for rain it turned out a nice day. Before we went to Wittunga though we detoured to Coromandel Valley Bakery for some of their nice GF offerings.

Nothing like a Dinky-Di Pie.

The land for Wittunga Gardens was donated by a local family, the Ashbys, descendents still live in the area.

Where ever you walk in the gardens there are delightful views.

There are areas with gorgeous flowers including many varieties of Correa.

In the South African section there were some amazing Hakeas and Proteas.

Although there weren’t many cockatoos and Parrots about today we did see plenty of wildlife.

Australian Coot

Australasian Grebes

Straw-necked Ibis

Female Wood-Duck

Long-necked Tortoise

Family of Wood-ducks

Rainbow Lorikeet

A Chump on a stump!

As we were leaving the Gardens we were treated to a lovely surprise..

 

Temporary Tourist – Warriparinga

From the name you might imagine we travelled a long way today, in reality it’s about 10 mins from home if the traffic lights are with us.

Warriparinga is a very interesting place and you can find infromation about it here.

We started our walk at the Tjilbruki Gateway.

The Kaurna people were the original inhabitants of this area.

Tjilbruki Narna arra The Tjilbruki Gateway was officially opened in October 1997

The wings represent the spirit of Tjilbruki leaving earth.

From there we walked near the Kaurna Cultural Centre.

Entrance to the Kaurna Cultural Centre.

This area is used for educational sessions.

Very special ancient Gum Tree.

Maybe a Coolamon was made from the bark of this tree.

Closely connected to the Kaurna Centre is one of the last intact examples of an early European settlement surviving within metropolitan Adelaide.

The vines were planted in 1859.

Old stone tank near Fairford House.

Fairford House, home to the Laffers Family for 112 years.

The old coach house.

Side of the old Coach House, restoration is being carried out.

New touches, pizza oven and raised garden beds.

Because there’s always water in the area it’s home to a variety of birds. Pest plants like Convolvulus or Morning Glory are thick along the creek.

Eastern Rosella

Young Wood Duck

Black Ducks and Wood Ducks at the Sturt River outlet.

Very pretty but I suspect they’re a pest plant.

Morning Glory

Moorhens.

It was enjoyable revisiting another lovely setting close to home.