Lake Eyre Trip, Days 7-9: Relaxing in Adelaide

OK folk, a quick post to wrap up the last couple of days of our little Lake Eyre interlude.

Saturday morning in Glenelg

We breakfasted on Saturday morning with a few members of the group, and then had a little wander around Glenelg on a gorgeously fine Saturday morning. The cafes were abuzz with cyclists in lycra. The cafe scene here is so popular with cyclists that there are painted signs on the footpath exhorting “walk your bike”! There were also people out with dogs. We saw one lovely golden retriever trotting purposefully along, tail wagging and rolled newspaper in his mouth, followed a few paces behind by his owner carrying a take-away coffee. 

Saturday afternoon at the Gardens

Len was easy about our plans which was just as well as I had a couple of things I really wanted to do on this trip in Adelaide! One was to visit the Santos Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, so that’s where we headed after checking into our hotel. It’s a bit of a walk along North Terrace to the Gardens but it was a lovely day and I enjoyed looking at the terrace in a different light (from last year’s quick visit there) because of the book I’ve just read, Jane Jose’s Places women make, in which she talks about her role in the plans for rejuvenating North Terrace.

We enjoyed the Museum – it is a small museum with just one exhibition hall, containing a fascinating if old-fashioned-looking permanent exhibition of plant families showing how they are used, and a changing exhibition, which, this weekend, was a small display of whimsical glass works by Adelaide glass artist Tom Moore. (Thanks to Hobart Helen for the heads up on this little museum!)

We walked around the actual gardens a little too – of course – including checking out the Amazon Waterlily house, and the Rainforest house, which was surprisingly not steamy so was pleasant to explore. Usually I’m in and out of tropical enclosures in a flash!

Day’s end

The rest of the day we prepared our Lake Eyre blog posts, read, and went to dinner at George’s on Waymouth. Although we booked late, so had to take an early sitting, we were pleased with our table. It was at the back of the restaurant but was the last in a line of tables and so was really pretty quiet. We enjoyed our meal and could hear each other talk. Always a plus. And the food was interesting – duck with quince, mmm – and well cooked.

A busy Sunday

Next morning we wandered around to a nearby cafe and just had coffee and toast because we planned to lunch at Jolley’s Boathouse Restaurant. It was great. The food was delicious – especially the entree we shared of Kingfish Sashimi with Coconut, Thai Basil, Chilli and Finger lime. The flavours were wonderful. We had an interesting chat with our American (from Seattle) server who has been travelling the world with her partner who wants a career in wine. They’d been to New Zealand, France and now Australia, and her partner was just finishing an oenology course.

After eating three courses – lamb with quince, mmm – albeit sharing the first, it was time for a walk, so next stop was another place I wanted to visit, partly because Jane Jose had also mentioned it in her book, the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden. It was not far from the restaurant, and on the way back to North Terrace. It was actually very small, but lovely. We then wandered through more memorials including the Anzac Centenary Memorial Walk, and through the middle of the University of Adelaide’s North Terrace campus where we passed a building labelled with a word we didn’t know, Proteomics. Google told us it means the study of proteins.

Anyhow, we still had time, so next stop was the Art Gallery of South Australia. We went there last year and really enjoyed it, but the main reason we decided to go again was because it was “last days” of their latest exhibition, Magic Object, comprising works from the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (and including glass by Tom Moore whom we’d seen at the Museum of Economic Botany). It was a wonderfully varied exhibition with works of all sorts, including paintings by 105-year-old indigenous artist Loongkoonan, ceramics, videos, and of course Tom Moore’s glass. The Biennial curator, Lisa Slade, describes the exhibition this way “Much of the work presented in Magic Object looks like one thing but is really another, begging the question – are artists the last magicians?’ Good question. And I guess the next one is, if they are, what do they conjure?

By the time we’d finished here, we’d walked enough and it was the end of the day, so it was back to the hotel where we treated ourselves to a light meal from Room Service. 

Last day…

On our last day we made a quick visit to an Adelaide-based independent publisher Wakefield Press, which specialises in literary fiction, biographies and South Australian History. (They published the aforementioned Places women make by Jane Jose, for example). Loved the tour of their charming premises. After that it was out to the airport, and eventually home sweet home after a very enjoyable time away.

Our last holiday pics …

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The action at the Glenelg Pier …