Adelaide – Mitchell News

Leaving New Zealand, we flew to Adelaide (via Melbourne). The flight from Auckland to Melbourne was ‘entertaining’. The food and beverage service process was ‘unique’. Rather than the usual process of one pair of crew serving drinks followed by a pair serving food – on this trip they decided to tag team. The crew serving food would ask what we wanted to drink, write it on a napkin and pass it to the drinks team. The drinks team then passed the drinks back to them. This process took inordinately long, they often forgot to get the drinks and had to ask again repeating the process. Confused – not surprising, so were they!

The trip to Adelaide was to visit Theo (Walter’s brother), his wife Natalie and son Connor. We visited them last year when they were living in Darwin before moving to South Australia in October. We both love Adelaide, having spent time traveling to Adelaide for work on numerous occasions.

They live south of Adelaide close to Belair National Park where the guys love to spend time mountain biking. Walter went out with Theo one morning for a mountain bike ride. As a ‘roadie’ my skills down the trails was lacking but going uphill was easy enough. The gearing on these mountain bikes means you can go up some very steep hills. The gearing on my road bike means I’m in trouble if the gradient gets much above 10 degrees – the price to pay for having gearing for 60kph on the flats.

One of the highlights of our time in Adelaide was a visit to Hahndorf – a ‘German’ village just out of Adelaide. We shared a meat platter of four sausages, kassler chops, eisbein pork hock and sauerkraut. And of course, you can’t beat a German wheat beer. The village itself was interesting with various small shops – loved the leather and wood workshops.

On another day we did a big drive out along the Fleurieu Peninsula ending up in Victor Harbour for lunch. This is south of Adelaide where the St Vincent Gulf meets the Great Australian Bight. It was very scenic country side but quite remote in parts. It also goes through some of the McLaren Vale wine country. We did not stop for any wine tasting.

Mount Lofty is a well-known hill in Adelaide and provides a very panoramic outlook over the greater city and coast. On the day we visited it was a little hazy but we still enjoyed the view. Another of the great attractions is the Botanic Gardens. It would be easy to spend a few days just walking through them. We particularly enjoyed seeing so many succulents. A stroll along the Brighton pier after dinner one evening was also very pleasant.

After Adelaide it was back to Sydney for a few days to get a few of our chores done (doctor etc.) and to catch up with friends from our old church. We had to take the car in to get the window washer motor replaced. For some reason this car has had more than its share of trouble – what with accidents, air con replacement and now the window washer. Luckily it has all been covered by insurance or still under warranty.