Adelaide, The Capital of Food and Wine

Day 1, 26th December 2006
My trip to The Food and Wine Capital, Adelaide, started in wee hour. 8am in the morning and we started travelling. Totally knackered; basically I’ve dragged myself up the car and was asleep halfway through. We reached the Twelve Apostles to see the rocks again. Looking at the rocks for the second time, yet I still liked that. After that we started heading to the Shipwreck Coast. Along the coast of Victoria, between Twelve Apostles and Warrnambool, there were massive shipwrecks over the centuries and rocks formation from those massive waves. Those were beautiful, especially the Grotto and Blow Hole. We spent the whole day going from one spot to another. You will not know how many was there. Thought of calling Jonie and wish her happy birthday, her birthday is tomorrow and better remember that. When we reached Mount Gambier, it was already 7pm. We quickly had our dinner over the pub and all of us went to sleep super duper early.

Blue Lake, Mt Gambier

Day 2, 27th December 2006
The day began with having brunch in a brekkie place. Then we began touring around the Blue Lake. That lake was so blue that you may think there was a layer of blue sheet at the bottom; it doesn’t get it name from nothing. This dark blue will actually changes colour to greyish in March. Amazing huh!

After the amazing Blue Lake we went to the Tower, which was the highest point around that area. Although it looked very low, it was the highest point because surrounding that area were plains. Right after the tiring hill climbing, we went to visit all the sinkholes. In Mt Gambier, not only it has magnificent lake, it has underground caves and sinkholes from those caves. We started with Cave Garden which was the beautiful sinkhole situated right in the town; a sinkhole with beautiful plants surrounding it. Then we went Engelbrecht Cave which introduced us about the Cave Diving. No way I m going to dive into such small place that might collapse anytime (so I thought). That Engelbrecht Cave is situated right below the town as well, (the town might collapse anytime?)

At night, we went to another sinkhole, a bigger one with name of Umpherston Sinkhole, in the night the possums which are the sinkhole tenants will come out and feed. That is my first time looking at a possum. Although there were heaps of those in my aunt house, I could only hear them running around on our roof, not insight. When I m feeding the possums with bread, this China guy was feeding them with banana. BANANAs! How expensive is banana, even up until today. Last few month banana can go up to AUD19 per kg. Now even though it has gone down, it was AUD6 per kg. After all the sinkholes and caves, it was time for me to sleep. Totally forgotten about calling Jonie until today (1st of January 2007)

Day 3, 28th December 2006
This was another travelling day. We started off with travelling from Mt Gambier to Naracoorte (pronounced as Na-ra-cot). In Naracoorte, there were heaps of caves again. This time we went for a cave which has heap of fossils. Fossils of extinct species; I wondered was there any human fossils? After the Fossils Cave, we continued our travelling to Adelaide. Finally reached Adelaide at around 5pm and we spend most of our time hunting for parking space. Adelaide’s Central Business District (CBD) was 3 times bigger than Melbourne’s and the roads were bigger as well. This might due to them need more space for buses in Adelaide, whereas in Melbourne they have tram as public transport. Dinner in Adelaide Chinatown, roasted duck, roasted pork and fried pork rice; missed them so much.

Mt Gambier

Fossils Caves

Day 4, 29th December 2006
We were supposed to go to Kangaroo Island, but uncle did not book it earlier and the tours for that place were fully booked. So we took our day off by travelling around Adelaide. We went for free bus around the CBD tour before going to Haigh’s Chocolate Factory. Haigh’s Chocolate is the first selling chocolate in Australia (not even Cadbury can beat that). I brought some chocolate truffles with different alcohol concentrations. Then we went to have our lunch in a china restaurant, the spicy Dan Dan Noodle, was so spicy I could not finish it. Then we went for siesta and headed to Garden Island. That place was bloodly wrack up. Garden Island has no garden at all.

Day 5, 30th December 2006
Today was another relaxing day for us. We start our day with going to Glenelg which was something like (Gurney Drive). However that place was more beautiful than Gurney Drive which was covered with mud. We were planning to travel back to city using the only tram Adelaide got (Adelaide to and fro Glenelg), but we had no idea whether was that free or not.
Anyway we started going to the Adelaide Hills and have had the whole Adelaide lookout. Then we went to Hahndorf (a German town 1 hour away from Adelaide). Over there we had the best pork lock with mustard and the biggest beer ever! Walked about the cowboy town and went back to our hotel because the weather was too hot. Then before going for dinner, I went for spa Jacuzzi. The spa was totally relaxing!

Glenelg beach, Adelaide

Me with this German accordion player

Day 6, 31st December 2006
The day began with waking up super early again, because it takes 9 hours to travel from Adelaide to Melbourne by car. I m rushing back to celebrate my New Year with my friend!