Four o'clock in the dark morning, I wait for the shuttle bus to the airport. I've never stood in such a cold weather without wearing my coat because I think the weather in Adelaide may be warm as Sydney.
Before landing, I find a big lake located inside the city. I check for the google map and this lake should be in the Hope Valley Reservoir which is located in the north-eastern of Adelaide.
The baggages are delivered very quickly. I ask the information center for the transportation to the city and get on Skylink that send me directly to Adelaide YHA. I almost forget that I've done my travel homework and actually, Skylink is not the cheapest way for the transportation.
Anyway, I don't care so much because the weather in Adeliade is quite good now. Maybe I just experience the cold morning in Hobart, it makes me feel that it's a little hot here.
The blue sky is clear. I'm looking forward my walking in Adelaide city today.
The check-in time of Adelaide YHA is after one o'clock in the afternoon. Therefore, I have to store my baggages in the luggage room which could be only opened by the staff and should be very safe for there is a camara inside the room.
This YHA looks good and you coould find any facilities you need. The kitchen and the dining room are quite big, and so are the kitchenware and utensils.
There are a TV room at the 3rd floor and a reading room at the 4th floor. Excellent!
According to my plan, I wish to walk around the attractions in Adelaide city. Though the trams and buses are common, walking is much proper for photographing.
First, I will walk to Adelaide University and Ayers House at the east, and then go back to the museum and gallery at the west of the University.
After the museum, I will walk northward to St. Peter's Cathedral and Light's Vision at the west of the Cathedral. Finally, I will return to the Train Station where I could take the tram.
The total distance is about 6 km, and in my expectation, I could finish the walking in 2 to 4 hours included the time for visiting. This plan would be good for a dat trip.
Walking along Waymouth street, you may see the glasses of some buildings reflect the cloud and blue sky. Everything seems to be good in the sunny day.
At the intersection of King William street, the trams are running along the street and there are some restaurants around here.
The square at the intersection of Pirie street and Pulteney Street is a green park where you could find most of the bus stops along the Pulteney street and Grenfell street.
Continuing northward, Adelaide University is near. It takes about thirty minutes since I leaved the YHA.
Before visiting the museum, I go to Ayers House as my first attraction.
Ayers House is also a museum nowaday which was the house of Henry Ayers in the late 19 century. Henry Ayers was the Premier of S.A five times and the famous big rock Uluru is called Ayers Rock after his name.
As for this house, it was built by William Paxton as a 9-block brick house and then constructed of bluestone by the designer George Strickland Kingston.
Unfortunately, the museum is closed when I arrived. In the period between June and Spetember, the museum is closed on Friday and re-opened after one o'clock in the Saturday afternoon. It's sad that I didn't study the information in advance and it seems that I have to skip this place.
Returning to Adelaide University, I take a quick look around the library which is under constrcution now. The building nearby should be also built by bluestone and I see an Australian Magpie in the yard.
According to the information, Australian Maqpie is a singing bird, and in most of the time, they are used to walk on the ground. I really think that Australia is a kingdom of birds. Even in Adelaide, such a modern city, I could also find many kinds of wild birds.
The area of Adelaide University is wide, inclueded the education buildings, library, gallery and museum. It looks nice to be the student of this school.
Art Gallery of South Austraia is not in my pocket, and therefore I only take some pictures of the building.
By the way, there is a special exhibition but the admission is 20 AUD.
Anyway, I'm not so interested in Arts.
I spent some time visiting the South Australian Museum which is a big museum I've visited in Australia.
In front of the museum, there is a chair-like fountain.
When entering the museum, you could see the sample of a dinosour bones. There is also a sample of the whale over the coffee shop at the left.
The admission for the museum is free but you could make a donation if you think this museum is good and you would like to support it.
Photographing is also allowed and that is quite good for me to take some photos of what I'm interesting in.
In the animal zone at the first floor, the samples of lions, tigers, deers or polar bears are also common in other museums, but the huge Red kangaroo which is tall as the human is rare for me. In Australia, I've never met such a big kangaroo in the wild. It's said that the Red Kangaroo could be 135 kg in weight and could demage the car if he runs in the speed over 50m/h.
Going into the culture zone, I'm very interested in the paintings of the aboriginal. You could also learn the history of the aboriginal and see old tools, clothes, and many old stuffs once used by them.
I don't understand a lot about the meaning of the patterns on the drawing, but I guess the footprints should represent the people and non-human footprints may represent the animaals. The spears means that they are hunting. As for other patterns, I could not image what they could be.
A the 3rd floor, they also display the collections of other aboriginal people in other countries, such as totems, houses, boats and tools. It seems that the cultures of these aboriginals, included Australian aboriginal, are a little similar to each other.
I'm not so surprised by the marine animals and birds at the second floor, but the minerals in different colors are arranged like a beautiful picture. Besides, the exhibitions of an early Australian Explorer in Antarctica, inclueded the stuffs he used before, his life and the photos that show you the environment of Antarctica. This exhibition is under the cooperation with Adelaide University.
In the last zone at the top floor, the fossils exhibition is also organized by the team of the museum and Adelaiade university. According to their description, one of the fossils they found looks like the compound eyes, such as the fly, and they think that these ancient animals may have developed an excellent vision ability.
If you are interested in differnt type of eyes, there is a reference from the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#Types_of_eye
And the museum S.A also releases the paper about this fossil research: http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/about/media/releases and the PDF.
Except for the eye fossil, you could also watch other fossils that may be the ancient animals, plants and shells.
Leaving the museum, I continue walking along King William street.
Before St. Peter's Cathedral, you will pass the Elder Park and River Torrents. There are also some Australian Maqpies on the grass and Rainbow Lorikeets on the tree.
Rainbow Lorikeet is distributed in the eastern and northern Australia. I'm surprised that I could see the lovely parrot in the city. It would be great if I could also see such beautiful wild birds nearby my home.
The Rainbow Lorikeet cojuld sing and they used to fly in a group. It's not so easy to catch a clear photo of their face. When I try to take one, the bird may fly to another place very quickly.
St. Peter’s Cathedral is the landmark and also the herritage of Adelaide city.
The cathedral was first built in 1869 but the restoration was continued until the last section, the front steps, was finished in 1911.
I seems to be the only one guest in the cathedral. The slience inside makes me very peaceful.
If you look at the mosaics on the windows, half the mosaics on one side are the works in mid 19 century and another half are early 21 century works. It's rare among the churches and cathedrals I have visited.
They also provided the 45-minute guided tours every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m and every Sunday at 12:30 p.m. I just wonder if it's possible to climb to the top of the tower.
Light's Vision is not far away from St.Peter's Cathedral. I think the Chinese translation of its name makes me misunderstand that Light's Vision is an observatory or some place in the high position that I could get a great view of Adelaide city.
However, Light's Vision is just a statue who points his finger forward and this place is not so high to be a good observatory. Most of the trees block my view in the front.
Actually, Light's Vision should be realized according the history. Vision is not what we think as a place to watch something.
The statue is commemorated for Colonel William Light who designed the layout and development for the city of Adelaide. This program is called Light's Vision, and it's said that he has stood on the Montefiore Hill where the statue is located now and point at what would be the city center of Adelaide in the future.
Going southward to the bridge on Montefiore road, you could watch the train running in a nice view, and it also means that I've finish the planned route today.
By the stairs down to North Tce, the train station is near.
Since I still have plenty of time and the tram stop to Glenelg Beach is just in the front of the train station, I decide to go to Glenelg Beach as my last destination today.
The tram during the specific zones is free and the ticket could be bought on the tram when entering the charge section. Day ticket is 8.8 AUD. Though the tram is not so convenient as the bus, the day ticket is still worth when you take the tram twice or more.
Glenelg Beach is located in the west of Adelaide city. The final stop is Moseley Sqaure, and it takes about forty minutes to arrive there.
The scenery of this beach is very beautiful and quite popular to the tourists. There are many hotels and restaurants around this place.
Because the weather is pretty good today, it's no doubt that the scene is excellent.
Remember to take photos with your wide-angle lens, or you will regret that you could not catch the whole scenery with your camara.
I think the water is not very cold for some children are playing there.
There is a long embankment in the middle. At the end, you would get great views around here and it seems to be good for fishinng because I see some tourists doing that.
The cloud on the sky is special in its shape that makes my photos very artistsic.
If I have lots of money and time, I also would like to find a hotel beside the beach and stay at this nice place for a few days.
Returning to Adelaide city, I get off the tram at Victoria Square and buy some ingredients at Coles supermarket.
After three-day poor dinners in Tasmania, I really want to prepare a rich dinner. So, I buy the mince, a cauliflower and a cheese-flavor spagetti can.
When I check out, the girl staff maybe thinks that a man may not be good at cooking and asks me whether I know how to deal with the cauliflower or not.
Oh, don't think little of the man. Cooking some basic food is not so hard for me.
Besides, she speaks some English that I don't understand very much. Maybe she speaks too quickly, or maybe my English is limited. I don' know how to asnwer it and I could only go away after the payment with my confused mind.
When I start to walk back to YHA, I find that China Twon is also nearby the Coles.
Unfortunately, the ingredients are quite heavy and it's not a good idea to take a walk with these stuffs.
At the YHA, there is already a France roommate in the room. I encourage myself to talk to him and know that he has been in Perth for eight months.
Oh, it's so great. Although I also want to do the same thing like him, my age is over the limitation for applying the working holiday.
I talk what I know about France to him. I'm quite enthusiastic about studing the travel information in the countries I'm interested in, and Nice and Provence are my favorite places I will go someday. It's really lucky that the roomate comes from Marseile where is located in the area of Provence and is famous for its fish soup "Bouillabaisse".
Because he talks to me that he will go to Sydney, I recommend him my favorite attraction, the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and show some lovely pictures of Koalas and Kangaroos to him.
After the short chat, I prepare my dinner (and the breakfast tomorrow) in the kitchen. Oops, I think I cook too much and the mince is also more than the spagetti.
The cheap spagetti can is not as what I think. It's not the pure spagetti source but the can with noodle and few source that is not very heavy. I would rather buy the tomato source than it, because the noodle is not tasty at all. It's really a hard job to deal with than can, and I don't want to walk to Coles one more time. Therefore, the only way I think of is to use the cup soup and black pepper, but the source should be the most strange one I've ever made.
As for why the mince is so much, that is because I could not find the mince for only two meals. I really wish the supermarket could sell the mince in a smaller portion. That would be very friendly to the bcackpacker who travels alone.
Though the mince is too much and the source is still too light, this spagetti I prepared is fine in my standard.
Anyway, it's already better than the tasteless spagetti can.
When dining on the table, I talk to the traveler who also comes from Taiwan. He also stayed at Perth for eight months and travel around Australia now.
It's interesting and pleasant to know more about the travelling in Australia, especially the place is not in my itinerary, such as Perth. He says that the scenery around Perth is special and you could meet the big kangaroo in the wild. It's true that someone got a car accident because of hit by the running kangaroo. If I have another time travelling in Australia again, Perth would be a good choice.
Before the coming of this day, I have to visit all the countires I want at first. It would be a long time for waiting that day.
References:
http://www.ayershousemuseum.org.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home
http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Lorikeet
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