Fun fact/myth: The word kangaroo does not mean what you think it means. When Captain Cook was exploring the newfound land he asked a native what that weird hopping creature was. The native answered in his own dialect, “kangaroo” – “I don’t understand you” :)
Well, on February 3rd we got up later than usual (maybe 7 am) and went to the airport for our flight to Adelaide. I’m starting to feel at ease with the whole flying thing and all the little details involved – does this make me an experienced traveler now? Probable not quite yet.
The room we got at the hotel had an airconditioner where the fan didn’t work. This, it turned out, was because it was frozen solid (!), so we got another room. This also allowed me to bag another elastic band for my hair from the little plate of toiletries left in the bathroom as an offering to the Hotel Gods by the cleaning staff. I had left my supply of bands in Sydney, and lost my main one during diving, so I was down to my backup :)
We went to one of the main shopping areas in Adelaide, Rundle Street, to look for a restaurant recommended by my Lonely Planet Australia. The place didn’t really look like a place my parents would frequent, so we chose one of the many cafés in the area in stead, which proved more than adequate.
We spent the entire next day in Adelaide, so we went exploring. First we went to the National Wine Centre run by the University of Adelaide, to hear more about all the wine being produced in the area (some of you may know e.g. Coonawarra). We didn’t have a car yet, so going to the vinyards themselves wasn’t practical, but just hearing about the area and it’s history was interesting all the same.
After eating lunch in a café at the wine centre, we strolled around the botanic gardens next door. The area was lush, but the draught that is plagueing many areas of Australia was evident even here – what we first mistook for walkways turned out to be dried up streams. Whereas we in Denmark view global warming as a scientific discussion that only recently gained broad acceptance, in Australia it is very much a part of everyday life. For example, water restrictions means that in some places you be fined if you are caught watering your garden, and fire restrictions means no campfires in many areas, so as to not ignite the dried up bush. The climate issue also played a part in the recent regime change, as the former right wing government refused to acknowledge global warming as the cause of the extreme weather and take appropriate measures.
We also visited the Rain Forest Conservation Centre in the botanic gardens. After having gotten used to the dry heat of Alice Springs and cooler climate of Adelaide, the humidity inside the conservatory felt like being transported back to Cairns. Indeed, I had seen many of the same trees from the Skyrail and on my tour to the rain forest.
We had thought to go to the nearby harbour town of Glenelg to watch the sunset, but the sun was already setting when we left the hotel, so we ended up just buying groceries and eating at home – sometimes you have to slow down a little.
