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My body couldn't adjust to the fact I was allowed a lie-in if I wanted but saying that, 8:30 was a lie-in after that trip! I didn't want to miss the free breakfast either and that finished at nine, so I made my way downstairs and had some toast and tea before making plans for the rest for the day.
I wanted to explore the city so I met up one of the German girls I had become friendly with on the tour. We walked all the way around Central market - a covered market place that seemed to be the hub of all activity. We picked up some food there and then got the free tram to the shopping mall on the other side of town. I say other side, but Adelaide is a rather small city and it would have probably been just as quick to walk there. But we did not know and wanted the comfort of tram travel as well as the fact it was raining! We did, however, walk to the State Library from our stop and explored the exhibition detailing the history of South Australia. It was so interesting to learn about how Adelaide came to be, the reason for the many churches in the city and how Adelaide has changed over time. Apart from this, the library itself was just beautiful and we wandered up to the balcony and peered down into the grand room below.
From here we moved on to the South Australian Museum which sits right next door. All for free, we walked around the mammals of the world exhibition as well as seeing some amazing photographs of the night sky that had one various prizes in a particular competition. There was a massive display of both South Pacific and Aboriginal culture and history with all sorts of artefacts and details about the various distinct groups of people.
We then made our way back to the mall and after a good walk sat down for a hot chocolate in a café. We then walked the loop past her hostel and then I made my way back to mine passing through the supermarket to get a few bits for my dinner. I warmed myself back up in no time as my hostels lounge and chill area was so well heated I wouldn't even have to wear a jumper. There was free wifi so I could skype my parents. I cooked, ate and made some plans for the next day before making my way back to bed.
With a day to myself I decided I'd ht the beach. The weather forecast wasn't much cheerier, but being British, I thought it was perfect weather for the seaside. I explored the eastern edges of the city in the morning waiting around for he shops to open at 11 to buy some new shoes. Unfortunately mine had come to their last steps and with them in a permanent state of dampness and my toes peeping out of holes in the front I knew they had had better days.
With new shoes on I headed to visitor information to get a better idea of the public transport system and was advised that instead of the popular tourist Glenelg beach, I should visit Port Adelaide… This involved a train rather than a tram which I caught no problem and within half an hour I was stopping at Port Adelaide and making sense of where to go. It was a Sunday and the place seemed a little bit too quiet so I walked and walked, following a tiny tourist map in a leaflet and then decided to head for Semaphore - a magical sounding place that was off the map, but had a paragraph in my guide leaflet that made I sound rather lovely. It took me about 45 minutes to walk to Semaphore from the train station and hoped the excitement I had about actually seeing the sea and being able to buy a cup of tea would not be dashed. To my surprise it was just as I had imagined and I strolled along the beachfront to a kiosk where I purchased my cup of tea and proceeded to sit on a sand dune, drink it and eat some chocolate! With a breeze blowing and a bit of cloud covering the sun, I felt right at home.
Once I had rested my legs, I walked in the opposite direction to the Jetty, walked up and back and then walked down Semaphore road; here you can find all sorts of lovely shops and cafés. It was rather a long way down and the shops petered out into housing but right at the end I found a train station so I caught the next train back into the city and made my way back to my hostel.
On my last day in the city, I planned to meet my tour friends again and go for a tour of the botanical gardens. There is a free tour that runs daily from 10:30am and the penniless backpackers we were, we thought we would do as many free things as we could! The tour was lovely though, run by a volunteer who decided that with so many of the group being foreign (there were a few Americans and Spanish that also went along) she would design the tour around the native Australian plants. She also explained, where she could, the aboriginal uses for the plant and interesting stories about the different plants place in history.
The tour finished and I ate my packed lunch on one of the benches in the garden before we split so that only one girl and I would go on the little jaunt I had planned. I had decided I would take the bus out of town to Mount Lofty, only half an hour away, here I was going to catch another bus up to the top and work my way back down via the botanical gardens they had there. So we caught the bus out only to find that the bus up to the top only ran twice a day and we had missed the second one! So we started walking up but it was going to be a 3km climb and we realised pretty quickly that we would not have time to go up and back, so we decided to hitchhike instead. We stuck are thumbs out and, much to our amazement, a car pulled over and we were given a lift up to the summit. Here we found a tower, lookout and café. Unfortunately the view back to the city was completely fogged over and so we thought we would have a hot chocolate and then make our way down.
Following a different walking path that took us a bit out of the way, we got down much easier. Without a map, but following the numbers written on the bus stops we passed, we did a 2km loop back to the bus. Although it wasn't quite what we had thought and the gardens were shut by the time we got there the autumn air and beautiful landscapes we passed we were worth the extra walk. We got back to our hostels and crashed before our tour would start the next day…
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