We woke at 3 & 4 AM, but had good sleeps otherwise. We got up at seven to overcast skies, but it cleared during the day and got up to the high 60s. We walked a short ways along North Terrace to a little Italian café where we had a delicious breakfast of great cappuccinos, thick raisin bread for me, a huge mound of scrambled eggs, tomatoes and Italian sausage for Bob. Our plan was to figure out the bus system, as Bob has a very sore foot (pulled tendon in his heel?) and doesn’t want to walk very far, so we walked to the public transportation office which was closed for another 30 minutes.
When it opened we purchased two day passes and then inquired for a city bus map…well it turns out that there is no map to this very complicated bus system except on-line! We got back to our room with the thought of downloading the maps and carrying our little computer with us, but that seemed ridiculous so we went down to N Terrace again and there appeared the free bus that runs a circular route around the downtown. We hopped aboard and got an idea of the layout of the area and managed to get off at the Botanic Garden.
The Garden is part of the figure eight of parkland surrounding the city and N. Adelaide. We saw Australian Wood Ducks and Pacific Ducks in ponds while Rainbow Lorikeets whirled overhead. The Garden is very lovely with lots of old trees, a glass house with giant lily pads floating in a pool, a section of Mediterranean plant areas from around the world. We were hoping to buy a flower guide from the Garden shop but it was strictly oriented to growing home veggies. Next door was the fabulous Santos Museum of Economic Botany which consisted of one lovely large room filled with cases sorted by plant family and containing everything of economic value in that particular family: food, fiber, wood, poison, dyes, medicine, etc. Just amazing and reminded us of the former wonderful birds’ egg room at the SB Natural History Museum. The Santos collections are quite old, but have been recently refurbished, so I guess they aren’t going to get rid of their treasures!!
We finally tore ourselves away and walked back to N Terrace, where we got on a bus we thought would take us in the direction of N. Adelaide, but it turned south. A helpful passenger told us where to get off so we could go to the bus info center again. We wanted to go to the Greenhill Gallery in N. Adelaide that has a show of Peter Coad’s new paintings. He is the artist whose work appeared at dramatic points in the wonderful 2002 Aussie movie, “The Tracker”. Now that we had a specific destination, they could give us the correct pamphlet out of the hundreds they stock! We waited at a bus stop for 20 min and finally the correct bus came along. We hopped on and it tore off north. We were told to get off at stop seven, but should have been told to get off at six, so poor Bob had to hike a ways back until we got to the studio located in an attractive old stone former hotel. There were about 30 of Peter’s paintings of the outback near here and further north: lots of red stone, birds and rivers during the drought-breaking wet season. Really nice stuff!
We walked to nearby bus stop six and waited on a shady bench. Fortunately Bob saw a notice that you have to flag down the bus, or it will breeze right by you...that would have been a shock! We hopped on and got off a mile later near our hotel.
Back in our room we rested a bit and checked TripAdvisor for a restaurant nearby, and it recommended our hotel’s! Well, Bob’ foot could handle that, so we made an early reservation for six. We put on our simple, but fanciest, duds and went downstairs and got a great table overlooking the street and the Sebel’s bar. We started with a mini loaf of olive bread with a pot of goat’s cheese and a bottle of Cariole Sangiovese 2009 from the McLaren Vale wine district - excellent! Bob was facing the window and admiring a steady stream of people in very fancy evening dress parade by to the convention center and I watched an equally snazzy crowd in the bar! I got a small plate of chicken terrine with corn on a smear of aubergine puree with greens and baby carrots, and Bob had braised venison with mashed hazelnut kohlrabi and parsnip crisps which he said was very good. For dessert we enjoyed an orange-almond cake filled with mascarpone and orange sauce. To bed early.
Katy - The blog looks terrific. Too bad about not getting a bus map, though. They can be hard to find in some cities but to not have any at all is ridiculous. Maybe your hotel can download and print one. No worries!
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