Day 3 - Adelaide, Mount Lofty, Brighton, One Tree Hill
Day 3 began with hangovers. Big, steaming ones. Even
for David, who had been taking it easy so as to be able to fly us around
in a light plane. His (relative) abstinence was to no avail, however,
as a few calculations established that we would have collectively to lose
about ten stone if the plane was to get off the ground for more than fifteen
minutes.
So
we decided to head upwards in a more conventional way, driving up to the
top of Mount Lofty. This peak occupies a eucalypt forest devastated
by fire in the early 1980s, and is topped by a the fire observation tower
pictured here.
It
also has a rather older tower (not for spotting fires). It claims
to have a series of forest walks, but the one advertised as taking 20 minutes
merely took us round to the other side of the tower, lasting about 90 seconds.
Either people are supposed to walk very slowly, or we had failed to follow
the instructions somehow.
Because
of the low resolution, you won't be able to tell, but this is a view of
Adelaide from the hill.
Finally,
Mt Lofty boasts a monastery. Or a former monastery, one assumes,
unless monks these days have taken to surrounding themselves with barbed
wire and putting bloody great signs warning you that if you go any further
you will be eaten by Rottweilers (though presumably, peaceful, contemplative
Rottweilers).
A
leisurely drive around the outskirts of Adelaide took us to Brighton, which
has a beach (a slightly warmer one than the one in Britain), and the traditional
complement of teenagers jumping off the end of the jetty to try to impress
their girlfriends. And also one fully-grown adult who, for reasons
best known to himself, decided to join in. Sadly (or hilariously, depedning
on your point of view), he caught his foot on the fence as he jumped over
and landed in the water five metres below with a belly flop audible in
Perth.
Lunch was at a Greek-Italian Restaurant with quite incredibly slow service, but a friendly waitress with whom Mark flirted in a rather ineffective way (he claims he was merely trying to negotiate a discount on the meal).
In
the afternoon, we went off to One Tree Hill, to count the trees.
There was more than one. Most of them were looking rather livelier
than this one, as well. In the background, there is the Barossa valley,
another quite wonderful wine-growing region, which reminded us that, for
the second day running, we had got to the wineries just as cellar door
sales stopped for the day. We consoled ourselves with a couple of
bottles from the drive-in offie (a Great Australian Invention).
A
curry was had at a subterranean restaurant with a series of entertainingly
erotic (though not very anatomically convincing) pictures on the wall..
Finally, back to the Adelaide Centra hotel for the last time, where Mark
spent a lot of time failing to get the Digicamera to talk to the computer,
and Patrick spent a similar period failing to get the computer to talk
to the internet. (This had been tried earlier in the evening, until
Rupert's wife rang us from America to tell us to be slightly less sad....)
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