At the end of the day I tried to work out how we ended up arriving here so late yesterday. Part of the answer was not leaving St Kilda until about 11:00 am. We felt quite relaxed knowing we only planned to drive 200kms so took our time getting ready to leave. We looked out over the mud towards the ocean (tide out) and wished we could stay to go to look at the bird life.

I had a plan to stop at Lochiel for lunch, and then it happened. We had a call from Matt’s house about paying an invoice for some medical treatment at St John of God Medical Centre in Midland. Turns out he has a little cut above one eye and quite a lot of bruising in the eye socket. Two things, we still don’t know how the injury happened as we rang to speak with him and take a look last night. There doesn’t appear to be anything written up, not even a compulsory Critical Incident Report. The house supervisor is on leave, so will need to contact her deputy. And why was Medicare not billed for the treatment as it has been in the past. I’ll need to contact the clinic I guess.

I pulled over to speak to the staff member, but was still distracted and accidentally took the route to the Yorke Peninsula. We ended up doing a sort of round trip before we could get back on the main highway. Just before we arrived back on the highway we saw the sign to Lochiel Lookout and decided to go there for lunch. We were about an hour later than my plan.

The lookout was well worth a visit especially as the sun was out. The alternative route we had taken was actually very scenic as well. We stayed at the lookout for I think about 1.5 hours, then went down the hill to look at the lake more closely. There is a path and lookout for seeing the Eel. People were also walking out on the mud.

We pulled into the first park up in Port Pirie only to find it was closed. If I’d checked the comments in WikiCamps I would have known. However, there is also a CMCA camp in another part of town. For $15 per night for non members it is a place to sleep with a dump point and potable water taps.

We had stopped to do some shopping before going there and still had some light, but we were glad to settle. Turns out it’s next to a large shopping area so we could have come straight here and then done the shopping. However, by going to Woolies on the way we did get to see the setting sun light up the Flinders Ranges. By the time I could take photos most of the sunlight had gone, but it was still beautiful.

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And that is the story of yesterday. It started so well and we ended up so tired and arriving so late in the day. I’m waiting for Stephen to say that we must get moving earlier, say by 9:30 am, so that we don’t end up arriving so late. Especially if we want to be home in two weeks time.

The plan on the way home is to NOT stay where we have stayed before, so we drove past Crystal Brook, which would have been the best place to stay last night. Hopefully this will mostly work out well.

It’s been raining a fair bit over the last couple of days and we’ve just been going out for our G&S shows. Friday night was Trial by Jury held in an actual courtroom in the district court building. There was a security check as we went in and G&S staff made us line up so they could check us off their lists and control us going in.

We enjoyed it including the parts where the players interact with us, the audience. We even had to sing a bit.

Afterwards we went to the ‘food street’ and chose a different Chinese restaurant to the last one we went to last time. It turned out to be not the best choice. They had already seated us before we checked out the menu and it was expensive. We went for cheaper items and our meal was a bit stodgy. Stephen had indigestion in the night.

Then we went to St Louis for ice creams. They did not disappoint.

Yesterday was a matinee performance of HMS Pinafore, which was really wonderful. The singers were miked, which meant the sound was excellent and even softer voices were easy to hear. This breaks with tradition, but it seems a good idea and none of the singers had to force their voices to create a bigger sound. I think it makes for a more pleasing tone.

Afterwards we went for a bit of a walk to see the Catholic Cathedral on the other side of Victoria Square.

We chose a small restaurant at the markets near the theatre for our evening meal. We checked the menu first, of course. We settled ourselves in a nice spot outside and staff put the heating on for us. Shortly afterwards it started raining heavily and later became windy. We were preparing ourselves to sit it out as we knew the restaurant, which is tiny, was fully booked. However, the staff very kindly took charge and moved us indoors, saying not to worry about bookings and they would sort it out. The service and food were excellent and enjoyed chatting with our neighbours who were seated very close to us.

As we had bought Portuguese tarts before the show we didn’t need an ice cream. We had one tart each at intermission and the others when we got home.

We spent Tuesday in the State Library, Museum and Art Gallery area, apart from when I made a bolt for the Rundel Street Mall to buy yet another black top for the choir performance on Sunday. I wasn’t that happy with the first one, but this one should fit the bill. Hopefully there will be times in the future when both blouses will come in handy.

We found the State Library Cafe a comfortable place for morning tea and later, some lunch. I fell in love with the beautiful and historic Mortlock Wing of the library.

Adelaide Town Hall

We were trying to avoid coming home in peak hour as the tram on Monday evening was very tightly packed. The last two nights have been a bit better, we still left it until peak time, paying with our Metro cards, but in each second we caught the second tram. Last night was so funny, people could see the second tram waiting to get into place alongside the platform but still stuffed themselves into the first tram. The second tram did get quite full by the time we left the city, but nothing like the crowding in the first tram. Why did they do it?

I read a message from Averil about visiting the Town Hall, so we did that on our way home Tuesday. There was to be a talk later but we felt to tired to wait around for it. The Town Hall is lovely, there is a marble staircase that was worth seeing, plus the public hall, which is spectacular. We mooched around until they checked that we weren’t there for the talk, at which point we got up and explored around some more.

On Tuesday we arrived back before dark and picked up shopping bags and went and did a fairly large shop at Drakes. I made us a sort of mince and vegetable curry with portabello mushrooms as a second source of protein. Buying ready chopped soup veggies saves time. We had lots of leftovers and will have a third meal from that one cookup for tea tonight.

The gallery shows some of the autumn colours near the Japanese Garden yesterday.

Yesterday was our last fine day and it seemed a good idea to visit the two parks on our list, the Adelaide Himeji Garden and the Botanic Garden on North Terrace. Both were well worth visiting. The Japanese park is quite small and located in the green zone which surrounds the city. Afterwards we went to the first cafe on Hutt Street for hot drinks and toilets. Both were excellent.

We walked up to the next park, mostly along Hutt Street. We decided that if we were to move to Adelaide we would live on one of the small sidestreets as we really liked this part of the city. Our next cafe was in the Botanic Gardens where we shared a paninini. We didn’t explore everything but enjoyed the overall aspect of the park and went into the water lily pavilion.

Afterwards, Stephen wanted to go back to the museum and I gave in to the wish to go back to Rundle Mall, in fact, back to the the store I went to yesterday for some black pants to go with the black top. I didn’t know if I could get away with wearing blue jeans for the choir. The shop is UNIQLO and why this was my choice is that as I’m short and plump I always need to have the hems of jeans taken up. I can do it myself at home, but this store does small alterations for free. Stephen and I met up at our third cafe of the day to wait for the hemming to be done. It only took an hour. Fantastic service from my point of view.

Afterwards we trammed home and were glad that we could enjoy a lovely hot meal without having to shop for it.

Today is something of a rest day with home chores and going through our scores. Even Stephen hasn’t done much prep for tonight’s rehearsal. I’ve done none.

We enjoyed the matinee performance of Pirates. We are very familiar with this opera as Stephen was in a production in Perth last year. Although this was a professional cast I think both versions were very good. It was interesting to see Her Majesties Theatre, somewhat modest in comparison to His Majesties Theatre in Perth, but with a very good auditorium with good line of sight from all of the seats, unlike in Perth.

Afterwards we walked to one of the nearby squares, then went back towards Chinatown to find a restaurant for an evening meal. We quickly realised that our mistake last time was thinking that the mall of Chinatown was the place to look for restaurants. In fact, it is a street or two south, and we had a great choice of places. We chose the one offering Hot Pot and were given a menue to make our choices of base dish and ingredients and chilli level. This is a very good system and ensures they know exactly what you want.

We were able to sit outside due to it being a lovely mild evening. After the main course we wandered further along and were seduced by an icecream shop where we had little tubs and sat at a sort of bar outside the cafe.

And then home again.

On Sunday morning we went to the local Farmers’ Market held every week here in the Showgrounds. We bought some apples, but also had coffee, soup and bread, and some Honeycake.

After a rest and chat with Matt we headed back to the city for the Evensong at St Peter’s Cathedral. Although we enjoyed the service we felt that most of Arthur Sullivan’s sacred music is ‘meh’. They have a wonderful choir and the music was well performed, but apart from Onward Christian Soldiers, rarely sung these days due to it’s war like messages the rest of the music was forgetable. Sadly, as there is a lot of really beautiful music in the operas.

We were able to catch a tram nearby after about a half hour wait. We are finding the tram travel very convenient compared with buses.

Today, for our visit to Mount Barker our only choice was a bus. It’s about an hour from the city centre and our outward journey was enlivened by a long conversation with a local resident who lives near Hahndorf. He and Stephen discovered many connections and similarities in their backgrounds and he was also able to give us quite a lot of the history of Adelaide. We were delighted enough that Stephen asked for his phone number to keep in touch.

We met with Glenys, an old friend, who has moved to Mount Barker in the last few months. She is very happy with her move. She has a small villa and her husband, who has become less independent, has gained a place in a nursing home about 20 minutes walk away. She found the locals know when someone is new and she was invited to join a women’s informal club within a few days. She also attends the local church.

As well as having a large shopping centre in the town she has a lovely village style street with little shops and cafes. She took us to her favourite, and we were able to get a table outside, with the manager putting up a blind and moving furniture around to make us comfortable. We had tasty food and a kind waitress took our photo.

We spent hours talking and catching up. Glenys has children, grandchildren and a great grandchild. She is also an interesting person to talk with. She is a little older than Stephen and has given up driving, but her new location allows for her to walk or catch local transport to cover all of her needs. As well, one of her daughters lives close by.

We feel very happy that this has worked out so well for her. She has never lived in the city and find the Adelaide Hills is her ‘home’ even though it can get very cold and damp in winter.

We were able to catch an express bus back to the city. It took the steep highway/freeway down and I was very glad to not be driving. It was a different route to the morning.

We’ve settled for a quiet night at home, with a supper of eggs and toast planned.

His negative RAT from yesterday morning. He has had a headache and slight cold symptoms. He is feeling much better today with no headache and no cold symptoms. On Thursday I scurried around getting washing done. Although it was much easier than the last time we decided to do the towels and bedding, so that took more time. The bedding we put on the line and it dried well as we are having mostly fine, partly sunny days. Most of the rest went into the dryer.

Have I mentioned that we have inherited a small clothes airer? Someone was camped behind us and when she left she forgot her airer. So, we started using it, but kept in mind that she might want it if she returned to the caravan park. Apparently she comes here often. But, when she arrived and set up last night I noticed that she has a new dryer at the back of her Avan. We therefore think she won’t want this one back. It’s a little wonky anyway. But for our purposes it saves us having to dig our bigger one out of the storage box. We may take this little one with us when we go as I think we can fit it behind the seats in the front.

We found that we are going through our Telstra data quite fast, more than a quarter in less than a week. The service itself has fantastic speeds, over 700mbs on 5g for my iphone and pretty fast 4g on our wireless hotspot. So, we have put out the Dishy to use at least part of the time when we are at the caravan park. We are already paying for the service anyway and it has unlimited data, even after Starlink just updated all of it’s plans. You can pay for a priority service, but we are getting about 170mbs, which is fast enough to watch streaming TV and other programs, as well as uploading stuff for this blog. We had a mostly clear line of sight to the satellites in the south even though there was a large motorhome parked close in that direction.

Yesterday I had quite a lazy day, though each day I take a walk over to Drakes, the upmarket supermarket, for food. I haven’t cooked since we’ve been here as it’s so easy to buy a variety of precooked food. On Thursday night we had roast lamb and gravy and last night had tuna with salads. Stephen picked up our free bottle of wine from the caravan park office (due to us staying 3 nights or more), but we haven’t opened it yet, relying on the very low alcohol beer we can get from the supermarket as our special drink. This was our lunch yesterday, cheese and tomato sandwiches done in the tiny electric frying pan.

We had contact with family yesterday. Our neighbour contacted us to say that our mandarin tree is loaded with fruit. They’ve taken as many as they need, so suggested that we contact family to see if they’ve like some. We rang Marie and caught up with her news, some good, some not so good, and she said they will try to get there this weekend. They have keys to our house and yard.

Later, Matt rang us. I’d heard from his therapist that they will have a therapy assistant with him when he starts swimming, as well as Nicholas, his normal support worker for Tuesday afternoons. They are just a bit worried about how safe he will feel. I think he would be fine, but as it won’t cost very much, have agreed to the extra person. Matt was very engaged in the conversation at first, then lost interest and was keen to hang up.

In our G&S schedule we have only missed one item. It was a talk yesterday afternoon. Today we have a matinee of Pirates of Penzance and thankfully he is well enough to go.

Next time there might be more interesting photos.