Adelaide and Barossa

Adelaide Botanical Garden - note people seated on left

       

Right out of your living room - a schefflera

    I actually typed up a long entry yesterday but it got lost somewhere out in the ethernet (connection crashed) so who knows who is reading it now. Hope they find it interesting!!
    In the last 2 days, we "did" Adelaide and the surrounding wine country to the east. We are now sitting in our room in Horsham, along the eventual route leading to Melbourne. But in Adelaide, I found my mecca. It's called Central Market and it is heaven. It's bigger than a square city block and has food from everywhere. There are counters of all kinds of cheeses, meats, fish, and veggies. Then there are shoe stores, jewelry stores, souvenirs, and wine. You could spend days in there. I kept trying to think where we could have one of these in Flag! There were tons of people there because there were also cafes and coffee shops all over the place. We went for breakfast but I had found a yogurt place first. . .  where you mixed your own yogurt and what you wanted in it. So I was devouring that while we walked around trying to find the eating place called the "Big Table". It's apparently a landmark in Adelaide and all the locals go early to get the few seats around the counter. We were late enough that the first lot had left and we squeezed in (it's a breakfast bar with about 10 stools). Jay ordered French toast and I've never had French toast taste so good. There were 2 "fat" pieces of bread and the toast was cooked with cinnamon, sugar and butter and served with syrup and rhubarb conserve, plus sliced strawberries. I had several bites because he could never have eaten it all by himself! School kids were among the crowd, usually accompanied by parents, who stopped by the counter to order coffee for the kids before school. Considering that all the coffee you order here, whether in a restaurant, cafe, or sidewalk shop, has to be made specially, it sometimes takes quite awhile to get your order. Kids were not able to finish theirs before it was time to leave so they would often leave whole cups sitting on the counter. I would have lapped them up given half the chance but the waitresses kept things pretty neat!

An aisle in Central Market

   Then we checked out an antique/book shop we heard about from the book seller the previous day. I found a book there that had been recommended to me and it was fun just browsing among all the "junk". When we were checking out, the proprietor and Jay got to talking and they found they had cars as a similar interest. He had just bought a Corvette and was so proud. It was left hand drive so he hasn't driven it yet but the pic he showed was beautiful. He also has a Jaguar!
   We tried the zoo but found that Wang Wang and Feni (giant pandas from China) were not available for viewing because it's spring and we all know that love blooms in the spring so they were, apparently, giving it a go. They apparently also needed privacy to get to know each other as they've only been allowed to "talk" through the fence so far. Since that was the main exhibit we wanted to see, we decided to forego the $33 entry fee (per person) and headed to the Adelaide Art Museum. The guide book recommends it because it has such famous painters as Margaret Preston and Charles Conder. . .  or is it Margaret Conder and Charles Preston? You get my meaning. Not too impressive but we checked it out anyway.
   Then we caught the Free Bus (great idea. . .  there are free buses all around downtown Adelaide and their schedules are listed just like the regular ticketed buses. Wonderful idea for tourists and older folks on set incomes). You can get off and on at your leisure. (unfortunately stops are about 5-6 blocks apart so we walked quite a bit too).We rode it for quite a way so we could see the buildings in North Adelaide, the Victorian residential area.. These residential areas are really nice with consistent Victorian architecture that is appealing. The city developers - as a group - must have all had differing ideas about what they wanted the downtown to look like as they have wonderful old buildings next to crammed-in monstrosities that are 15 stories high. The worst case we saw was a beautiful old building with a sky-scraper addition ON TOP OF IT!!!! A criminal offense!!

Victoria Square Fountain - note mixture of buildings behind

Houses in North Adelaide

The River Torrens in Adelaide's Elder Park, near the zoo

   For dinner (I know. . . . food AGAIN), Jay found us an Indian restaurant that won "best Indian restaurant" in South Australia for 2 years. We both had tandoori dishes. It was great but our lips were burning a bit afterward! I have to work at getting my papadoms flatter. Don't know how they did that.
   Yesterday (since we're catching up), we picked up our rental car and toured the Barossa wine area. I drove while Jay picked out where he wanted to go because you don't want to be caught drinking by the booze buses (police patrols). The shirazes and cabs are supposed to be really good in this area but Jay was not impressed with the cabs -- and he did try hard to be. He bought several bottles of the shirazes that we will take with us along the driving portion of the trip now that we don't have to fly anymore and watch what we carry. We'll then share these with our friends in Sydney once we get there (if there is any left!!). Jay can elaborate on the wines he tried but I won't even try. I can assure you, though, none of them were Yellow Tail!!
   (More on Barossa: beautiful rolling hills with gum trees, prettier than Napa. We hit about 8 wineries and bought a bottle at 6.   I really liked the shirazes and even some of the Grenaches and Rhone blends (GSM), but didn't find any cabernets that really excited me.Even tried the top-tier flight of Shirazes at Wolf Blass - 6 wines - but they were very closed so I couldn't fairly judge them. Should have called them 2 hours before to let them breathe! Penfold's was closed for renovations; the other wineries were mostly smaller. Very impressed with Grant Burge, especially the 2012 Shiraz. Photos to come.)
   Tomorrow we're off to Port Campbell (via the Grampians). . . .