Saturday 21st February 2015 – A day in very sunny Adelaide.

Saturday 21st February 2015

Up this morning for a day sampling the delights that Adelaide has to offer. Sue had chatted with the hotel people last night, as we had considered getting a bus into town, but she was told we would be fine driving as there is plenty of on street parking. We had the usual breakfast of Weetbix and coffee, we also he a nice FaceTime chat with Christopher, now that he has finished as a Duties Manager. He seemed quite touched that they had given him chocolates and a £30 iTunes voucher as leaving presents. He starts as an Analyst on Monday morning at Radford Road. Before we set off I checked in for our up coming Jetstar and Air Asia flights. Jetstar check in opens 48 hours before flight but Air Asia is 14 days!

The nice lady on reception offered to print the boarding passes if we emailed them to her. This was a nice touch. We did that, then hit the road. It was very hot, but the roads were fairly quiet as we made our way to the city centre. We parked up on Frome Street at 10.30am. On a Saturday on street parking is only charged till 12 noon and the payment is a flat rate of $2.

Walking into the city past the city beach, which looks a lot more appealing than Mansfield’s or Nottingham’s, we realised just how hot the sun is. The forecast is for it to get over 40 today and it can’t be far off that already. It was so hot that we were soon glad to dive into the aircon in a city mall called Rundle Place. It is a very nice mall with a good food court, and a big sports shop. Lots of world cup souvenirs – the England shirts haven’t been consigned to the clearance section yet.

Back out into the sun, we continued our wander onto the main shopping street of Adelaide – Rundle Street. Our destination is the Adelaide Oval and it was soon apparent we were going i the right direction as it is huge and dominates the skyline. We walked through a nice park at the side of the river pausing for a photo op with the black swans and the fountains, as well as a very nice church. Adelaide is in the throes of its Fringe and there are lots of stages being set up in the park. We saw a poster for Michael Palin doing a one man show. Unfortunately it was on Thursday – we have missed it by two days.

At the Oval we did a complete circuit before we got to the main entrance – we went past the tennis club that is part of the complex – there is a pro tournament starting next week and there were several players out practicing in the searing heat – it was good to watch for a bit. We saw that there was a security guy on one of the doors so we went to see if we could blag our way in to get photos – he invited us in, as this is where the stadium tours start.

Inside it was lovely and cool so we took a couple of photos then signed up for the 1pm tour. We had some time to kill and asked if there was anywhere to get a drink – the girl was very apologetic and said because the ground had been taken over by the ICC for the world cup, all the Coke and other drinks machines had to be covered up because Pepsi are a major sponsor. She said there was chilled water in the mother and baby room, which was more than welcome.

Before the tour started we spent some time in the Sir Donald Bradman Museum – he is a local hero and the museum is very well set up. It has quite a lot about the Bodyline series. At 1pm our tour guide Katrina took a group of about 20 of us on the tour. It was very well done – Katrina was very knowledgeable, both about cricket and Aussie Rules Football, which is clearly her main interest. We went up to the fifth level and had a bird’s eye view of both the ground and the city behind us, then we visited all parts of the ground. There are lots of AFL trophies and shirts on display as both the Power and the Crows play the games here but obviously they didn’t mean much to us.

In the press box, there were notices posted with the log in and password for the stadium wi-fi, so I was able to do a Facebook check in. We sat where the players sit before going into bat, then went to the old scoreboard. Three sides of the ground have huge modern stands, but one end still has the old scoreboard and lawns backed by huge trees for standing room – apparently both the scoreboard and the tress are heritage sites, so cannot be knocked down. The scoreboard is a fascinating old relic of the old days – all mechanical needing about 8 or 9 people to operate it. When we went inside, it is like a sweat box because of its metal roof. Some of the controls are driven by hand cranked bike chains, and the only nod to technology is a light switch at the side of some of the player’s names to show who is bowling and who is in strike

Another World Cup quirk was revealed during the tour of the corporate hospitality area, which is sponsored by Audi and normally features one of their top of the range cars on display – this has been covered up, as Hyundai are one of the ICC sponsors and have one of their cars, a Sonata on display near the scoreboard.

Other nice bits of the tour were the changing rooms, which I have to say are a bit basic – we went into the room that had just been used by the Pakistan team in their recent game with India and still had the players name cards in it. One of the last stops was the South Australia Crocket Museum which features the actual Sheffield Shield, trophy – this stays here despite the fact that SA don’t win it very often. It also features memorabilia of their famous players including Ian Chappel, Sir Garfield Sobers, Jason Gillespie and Barry Richards, who set all sorts of records in his brief tenure here.

At the end of the tour, we watched the tennis players a bit more, there is also a massive TV screen over the main entrance – it should be showing the Australia V Bangladesh game from Brisbane but it has been rained off thanks to Cyclone Marcia. It did show some highlights of the West Indies / Pakistan game where the Pakistanis were 1-4 at one stage. It looks like the Windies re bouncing back from the thumping Ireland gave them

Leaving the stadium we walked back over the river in search of food, as it was after 2.30pm. We walked over a new $52 million dollar footbridge and thought he very impressive old railway station. We made our way back to Rundle Street and went into the Rundle Mall where we found a food court – I had a couple of slices of pizza for $2 each – with hindsight, maybe one would have been sufficient – Sue had a chicken sandwich

Back out on Rundle Street, we called in the Apple Store for the wi-fi and a Facebook check in , we didn’t go in Kmart, but we did go into Target for another much needed drink and Sue got a top. Our destination now is the East End, which is the arty section of the city and features lots of the Fringe shows. We were fascinated by the number of coins that had been planted into the pavement in several areas – I am sure that if that was the UK someone would have been along with a chisel during the night, as there are loads of them.

At a park by the river there were lots of small tents and food stalls – the tents were for the shows, none of which really appealed to us. We had a sit and people watched for a time, taking advantage of the free water tanks, before making our way back to the car.

The plan had been to get sandwich stuff from one of the Woolworth’s / Coles / Foodland stores we had passed on the way into town. What we didn’t realise was that nearly all supermarkets here – particularly the main ones all shut at 5pm on a Saturday and it was 5.30pm when we were looking!

Back at the hotel, our boarding passes were done and waiting for us, and we were told of a supermarket called Drakes near the hotel that opens till 10pm so we had a walk there. It was only relatively small but it was clean and well stocked. We both got a veggie Frittata to heat in the microwave, some salad and some drink – a cheap and cheerful room picnic, like the old days.

Back in the room we chilled, ate our salad and caught upon the internet, We also packed our bags ready for the bags ready for the ridiculously early start tomorrow. The motel is very, very busy they told us they had turned away loads of people and even manager’s room is being used being used.
In fact, they are booked solid for the next few weeks.

Trip 1390km

I got chance to sort through the photos on my computer – we have already taken about 2570!