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When we arrived on Thursday, our taxi driver had told us about the Adelaide Christmas Pageant that was happening this morning. It's a massive event in South Australia, with over 300,000 people lining the streets each year to watch the floats and catch a glimpse of Santa. We headed down to the parade route just before 9:30am and the streets were already crowded - people must have been arriving since the crack of dawn to set up their deckchairs! Lots of kids were given chalk and were drawing on the roads when we arrived, covering the streets in colour. We ended up standing next to an ex-pat who explained the whole thing to us and told us the best place to stand - a nice guy!
We saw hundreds of floats representing lots of different countries, parts of Australia, fairy tales, shops - you name it! It was a real spectacle to watch and it ended with Santa on a float with his reindeer, although we felt a bit sorry for him in his suit in the 30-degree heat; it definitely doesn't feel like a normal Christmas!
After the parade, we walked to the fountain in the centre of town and Dave headed to the Central Market again to get us some strawberries dipped in liquid chocolate that we'd spotted yesterday. We sat and ate them (and our lunch) by the fountain, which was filled with kids splashing about and cooling off after the parade.
We had another wander through the shops in Rundle Mall in the afternoon, before heading back to the hostel. We were expecting the arrival of T and Laura and they eventually made it to our hostel at about 6pm and booked a room for the night. We met up with about an hour later and headed out on the town…
Our first stop was a pub on Hindley Street, near the hostel, for dinner - chicken jungle curry, although even the barmaid couldn't explain the 'jungle' part of it and after eating it I still wasn't any the wiser! We moved onto a pub called the Woolshed and watched a few people fall off the mechanical bull they had, as well as some people who couldn't even climb on it!
After a few drinks there, our last stop was the Little Pub on Hindley Street, below our hostel, for a few cheap drinks. During the night we also arranged a lift to Melbourne with T and Laura in the car that they've bought - a road trip sounds like fun! HelpX with Chris and Paul starts tomorrow…
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