Adelaide

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After a very short and easy flight from Sydney I arrived in Adelaide in the late afternoon and after finding the local bus that went to the city centre I found my way to the place I would be staying which was the YHA in the heart of the city. I was lucky with the hostel as was a really nice one as tonnes of space in the rooms as well as cool communal areas like tv lounge etc...I was based in Adelaide for a bout a week or so but the time I had in the city itself was spilt up by shorter trips, as did a two day trip to Kangaroo Island and a day trip to the Barossa Valley for some wine tasting.

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I think I was a bit unusual in the fact that I really enjoyed my time in Adelaide, as most people I spoke to seemed to find Adelaide pretty boring. It's true that there isn't heaps for visitors to do there as it more geared up for the people living and working there. Despite that though I thought Adelaide was a really nice city and I liked the fact that wasn't as huge as somewhere like Sydney as it was very easy to find your way round the city and everything is close at hand being a compact city. The main tourist areas of the city are based around North Terrace, where you have things such as the State Parliament, State Library, Museum of South Australia, Art Gallery, Migration Museum etc and past the University and the Hospital there is the Botanical gardens. I enjoyed a few hours sitting in the gardens as the trees gave good shade from the blaring sun which was especially hot the day I was walking around so was nice to have a bit of a break from it for a while!! I enjoyed looking around the Museums and found the Migration Museum particularly interesting from the history side of things.I also walked down to where the Adelaide Oval is, it is in really pretty location near the river and the day I went South Australia were playing a game so was bit of activity around the area although probably not that high attendance being in the week, although saying that the Aussies do love their cricket! Near the river there is nice park area which is also nice to sit in and relax so did that too as all the walking around the city was bit knackering!

One of the days I was in Adelaide I decided to get the tram down to Glenelg, which is the main beachside suburb of Adelaide. It's a nice town with a few tourist attractions as well as nice shops, restaurants and beach! I decided to treat myself to few clothes and things so did bit of shopping down there but mainly just spent the day relaxing by the beach as well as having a walk down by the sea front! Really enjoyed walking down there and treated myself to a nice ice cream too as was a really boiling day!

While I was in Adelaide I also did a day trip out to the wine region of barossa valley. My tour was with a company called Groovy Grape and had a nice tour guide who made it a fun day. We went to 4 different wineries during the course of the day ranging from the mighty Jacob's creek to small family run boutique wineries. We tasted a huge range of wines there, alll of which were very good but I must say I was very grateful for the big barbeque lunch provided as otherwise would defintelty have been on my way to being fairly tipsy after all the wine! All in all I had a really nice stay in the Adelaide area and was pleased I made the decision to come and visit it for a while