AUSTRALIA - DAY EIGHTEEN - Adelaide

Previous Blogs: Day 1 Portland & Honolulu | Day 2 Oahu | Day 3+4 Melbourne | Day 5 Williamstown | Day 6 Launceston | Day 7 Cradle Mountain | Day 8 Road to Hobart | Day 9 Port Arthur | Day 10 Apollo Beach | Day 11 Port Fairy | Day12+13 Southern Ports | Day 14 Kangaroo Island | Day 15 Kangaroo Island | Day 16 Kangaroo Island | Day 17 Adelaide | Day 18 Adelaide

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We are still not feeling the vibe with Adelaide. The city does not seem to have character, like Melbourne and Sydney.

There is no feeling of energy you get from other cities, no excitement of being here or anticipation of things to see.

It is not a small city, it has a population of $1.3 million, but continues to disappoint.

Basically there are only four attractions in the city itself, everything else is outside the city a couple hours drive away:

1. The Fisherman's Wharf

2. The Beach

3. The Botanical Gardens (not for us, we can see gardens anywhere)

4. The Casino (we are not really gamblers)

There are a multitude of galleries and museums, but we tend to be more hands on than passively looking at a painting on the wall.

A cool lighthouse, but the rest of the wharf was boring.

The harbor walk - absolutely nothing at all to see. They offered a harbor cruise for $5 for 2 hours.  There's a reason it is that cheap. NOTHING TO SEE. Even the pictures they had on the sign of what you could see from the boat were boring.  Grain Elevators, Ship Container Yards, Oil Refineries and the like.  Basically, on giant industrial cruise. 

The market was just used books, clothes and basically a giant yard sale of junk. At least the Flea Market in Hudson has new stuff and a Beer Garden!!  And really awesome pizza!!

So we headed to the beach. It was nothing like I was expecting! I was expecting a vibrant beach lined with surf shops, cafes, bars, boutiques and ice-cream shops (Like Miami, Lauderdale, Clearwater, Los Angeles, even Durban the city I am from in South Africa).

Nope, you can't even see the beach, you have to walk through bush to get there. This is the beach for a city of over a million people! Very few restaurants on the beach road, mostly houses with zero sea view. That would piss me right off if I lived on "the beach" and couldn't even see the sea!

We then went to an advertised picnic park over looking the harbor entrance, supposedly a great spot to dolphin watch.

This is the pier that runs out to the beach - the only place you can see the ocean  - just!

Hmmm... my back yard has a better view than this picnic spot.

So in desperation of something interesting to see, we drove 20 miles out of the city to St. Kilda.  They have these amazing salt crystallization pans. Finally something worth while seeing! The salt turns pink as it finishes it's drying period in summer. These pans are no longer in production, will be covered and a housing development built on them.  It's quite the bustling little area that they plunked over $3.5 million into interpretative mangrove trails, adventure playground for kids and marina. 

We did find a local neighborhood bar to stop off at for lunch. Toasted sandwiches for $3 and the beers were only $3 each!

And this lovely local gentleman was having a birthday party and came around offering us his home made cookies!

We love local bars - they are cheap and colorful with friendly people!

While groceries are very inexpensive in Australia, restaurants are NOT cheap at all. Most restaurants the meals start at $20. Couple that with beers in restaurants starting at $8-10 it adds up pretty quick for a simple lunch, that's why we look for the local places.

However, what does save is that there is NO TIPPING in Australia. In restaurants you only tip if the service was above and beyond. Even then no more than 10%, or round the bill up to the next $5. NO porters, hairdressers or cab drivers expect tips.

This is because of the very high minimum wage in Australia. It is AUS$17.70/hour (US$14) compared to $8.05/hour in Florida.

Despite this, as well as the dole system they have for unemployed people, we saw a lot of homeless people in Adelaide. Way more than we saw anywhere else in Australia, even Sydney.

So we decided to go back to the city and do some shopping before the damn stores close at 5 PM.

Here's the mall behind our hotel. What are you people doing here? It's a Sunday almost everything is closed, and if it isn't, IT WILL BE SOON!

There's a lot of arcades like this with boutiques and coffee shops.

Here's our favorite grocery store chain in Oz - Coles!

And finally..

This sign is NOT misspelled. In Queen's English a "curb" is spelled "kerb". So that HGTV show would be called "Kerb Appeal" over here!

Love the sign on the back of Police cars:

"Think first, then dial".

In other words:

Don't waste our time with bullshit!!!

Tomorrow we're off to the hills.  The Napa Valley of Australia!