Day 6 – Port Elliot to Adelaide Return

Overnight the sound of the ocean is louder than normal, not a bad thing, but unlike last night hardly any wind.   We’ve had some heavy rain overnight, but we wake to a nice sunrise and an bright morning.

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While not part of the original plan, we’re doing a day trip into Adelaide.   While we’re all looking forward to it, it is a specific request from Liam, he’s been to most capital cities and doesn’t want to miss out on going to Adelaide, I think more so as we missed it towards the end of the big OZ trip.    Whilst Adelaide must have 1000’s of things to do, I haven’t been about to find much that is suitable and can be done in such a short amount of time.

So at about 9 we head off for the hour drive into Adelaide,  the drive is pretty easy and the traffic is not too bad.  We take a quick detour into one of my favourite camping stores,  Snowy’s they have a shop in Adelaide and Brisbane, but I’ve bought a bit off them online.   

We then head into the centre of Adelaide and visit the Museum of Discovery or MOD, it’s attached to the Adelaide University, it sounds like it will be a bit like our Powerhouse museum.   It’s might sound that way, but it wasn’t.   In fairness it is aimed at kids 15 and over, but it wasn’t very big and the layout was confusing, so we didn’t spend nearly as long here as I expected.

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After the visit we realise the Rundle Mall is not far away so we take a walk up, what could me more Adelaide than the Rundle?   I’s a nice walk up North Terrace, past the railway station and the Parliament House.  In the Mall we grab some lunch and as we’re walking back down North Terrace towards the car we see the Museum of South Australia,  We’ve got time so why not.  It’s entertaining, way better than the MOD and we spend a hour or so here.   Only trouble is while we’ve been inside it has started pouring outside and we left our jackets and umbrellas back in the car over 1km away, Bugger.   We’ve noticed the tram line, it’s stops just outside the Museum and should stop near the Uni, better still, trips in the CBD are free.   So I make the dash, get the tram, collect the car and drive back to pickup everyone outside the Museum.   Wet, but at least not drowned.

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Back over the Adelaide Hills, though Hahndorf and via Mt Barker. It pours pretty much the whole way.   We arrive at the van park and many of the roads are covered in water, including the road in front of our site.   Not only that, much of the site under the awning is a swamp.    On the drive back we’ve been umming and arhhing about staying an extra day given tomorrow is meant to be wet too.  But I don’t fancy staying in this water.   We do have a couple of spare days in the schedule, but I didn’t think we’d use them here where we’ve had 4 nights.  So odds are we’ll look at moving on tomorrow and take our chances.   Packing up tomorrow might be interesting…..

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Back in the van we start the diesel heater up again.  We’ve got an electric fan heater, but it makes the place too hot and is noisy.  We can have the Diesel on it’s lowest setting and have it just ticking over to keep the van toasty.