Day 136 - Turbo Tour of Adelaide

My friends picked me up from the house to go on a whirlwind tour of Adelaide. Adelaide is so small its quite funny. There's not much to do here.

Our first stop was Adelaide hills. From this place, you cold see all of Adelaide. This city is super spread out and looks like it goes on forever. Unfortunately there were a lot of trees in the area and a highway blocking the scenic view.

We continued to drive down to Goola where we saw the mouth of the Murray river. There has been a lot of controversy over the water from the river because it keeps getting drained for irrigation and to grow things like rice in Queensland. Over the last 5 years, the water has receded to a really low level and about 75% of it has disappeared. We were able to walk out onto the river bed and there were flies everywhere. There were newly dead oysters and coral like stuff. You could see where the boats used to be anchored. All the land in the area that used to be at the edge of the river were all up for sale. It was a pretty sad sight.

Next we headed to a little German town village called Hahndorff on the way to the winery. This was a cute little place. Totally touristy though with great hot dogs. The guy running the little cafe where we bought our hot dogs was about 100 years old and it took forever for him to prepare 3 hotdogs. And I mean forever, like 15 minutes. It really wasn't rocket science but I think he was overwhelmed by his 3 customers today.

The winery we went to was called Nepenthe and their wine was exceptionally good. Unfortunately I was unable to buy any to bring home as I'll be travelling for a couple of more months. Interestingly enough, there were no rosebushes here in front of the grapevines like back in North America that show disease. I think it's because the diseases here for grapes are much different and possible rare enough to not need an indicator.

Next stop was the Victor Harbour where I actually saw people surfing despite the ridiculous amount of rock jutting out of the ocean. One guy was wearing helmet. Not sure that would do any good if a wave slammed his body up against rocks.

To top off and crazy day of touring around we went to Warrawong wildlife sanctuary for a night safari. It was the first feline free sanctuary with a specialized fence to keep cats out. I ended up seeing my first white kangaroo with blue eyes. It was pretty amazing. During the walk we were hoping to spot some platypus but instead just saw their bubbles in the pond. Quite unfortunate really. I still haven't seen one! Ended up spotting a bunch of possums and other little nocturnal creatures scurrying about the place. For $25 for 1 1/2 hours it was totally worth it for this unique experience.