16.3.11 Kiwis, Adelaide and Dress(s) 75

Last Evening in Sydney

The last evening in Sydney we met 4 celebrating sisters and sisters-in-law up for a holiday in the City,

During the day had received the wonderful news that one of them had become a grandmother.

So wetting the baby’s head was called for, the new grandmother is tee-total so the others took the task over. The net result was four very cheerful ladies Carol, Cathy, Nell and Steph, who should have known better deciding to swing round lampposts on Circular Quays.

Hope the rest of the holiday goes well for them.

Adelaide

The capital of South Australia no convicts history here the land was sold off in parcels in London around 1836. Its wealth came from the discovery of Copper and the largest copper mine in the World Burra Burra made some of the early settlers very wealthy. Henry Ayres whose name was given to Ayres rock.

The city has a population of about 1million, it’s very pretty and surrounded by parks and gardens, the Murray/Torrens river runs through. The pace here seems laid back and relaxed. Example of this was the guy in the Map shop who told me “I work gentlemen’s hours, there’s a million people and one map shop so I figure they’ll come when I open”.

It was 29C and humid when we arrived and it’s officially autumn; summer can be 40/46C and winter 3C. Most of the central streets, shops banks etc. have wide covered canopies protecting from the weather extremes all very civilized.

People said it’s like England I’m not sure about that but it certainly seems a very pleasant city. You can see the surrounding hills from the city centre and we’ll be exploring those over the next few days.

We seem to have crammed a lot into the past day and a half, Cricket Oval, Botanical Gardens, Henry Ayes house,

..........and the promo for Clipsal500.co.au which starts today 17^th for 4 days. We had not heard of this car racing event but it’s a real big deal here: a combination of racing in the day and concerts in the evening, in this compact city we can walk to the circuit so may check it out.

Dress(s) 75 is just about worn by the lovely girls who were helping kick the event off. The queue for autographs from the drivers was round the block and music blasted out.

Dress 75 Front and Back

Adelaide Cricket oval

great ground absolutely immaculate, we were allowed to just wonder round,

the Don’s museum was interesting. Although there was no game it is easy to imagine how lovely it would be to spend an afternoon watching play here.

Botanical Gardens

I had never heard of a Museum of Economic Botany

And we didn’t go in but apparently the one in Adelaide is the last of the colonial Botany museums. This is where across the British Empire records of all the economic plants in a specific area were recorded. Interesting the things you learn.

These are amongst the very best gardens I have ever visited, not sure why they appeal so much, they just do, relaxed, beautifully kept, many different themes: Excellent plant name plaques and information.

Henry Ayers house,