Day 27 ~ Adelaide, Australia

People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the people they ignore at home. ~ Dagobert D. Runes

I do love to people watch, and we had opportunities to indulge in it today. But first we made port in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. Shortly after the Pacific Princess tied up, this sub slid in past us.

Adelaide is a shipbuilding port.

We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the dining room because we had a later than usual departure time (9:30AM) for our excursion for a city tour, a drive to the top of Mt. Lofty  (elevation 2100 ft.), and then a visit the German settlement of Handorf.

Adelaide is a city of over a million souls. The lion’s share of the people who live in the state of South Australia live here. It’s a charming mix of old and new construction and there seems to be a concerted effort to retain any structure with a bit of history to it. The town was founded in the 1800’s by a group of 600-some people who traveled from England in 9 small ships. The voyage took 8 months and the party was led by their future governor who wouldn’t allow the main sails to be let out for fear the “wind would disturb his livestock.”

Ah! There's my favorite view!

Sounds about right for a politician.

The views from Mt. Lofty were pretty good, but I have to confess discovering a koala asleep in a treetop was the high point for me. It’s one thing to see the little fuzzballs in cages, another to encounter them in their natural habitat.

It's early fall here, as you can see from the one tree whose leaves are starting to turn.

The village of Handorf was established in 1839 when a town full of German Lutherans sold everything and relocated down under to escape religious persecution. (However, 1839 was a long time after the Inquisition and many years before the Nazis, so I’m trying to imagine what persecution a German Lutheran might have faced at that time…) Anyway, the village was more a retail exercise than a history lesson, so we took the opportunity to people watch and have lunch at a place called The Haus.

My burger wasn’t dressed with the usual condiments of ketchup and mustard. Instead I discovered this slightly sweet, shiny and dark substance between the bun and the lettuce. For 50 points, can you guess what it is? (I’ll post the answer tomorrow and I promise to remember this time.)

Before the PP left port, we were visited by some local talent—an aboriginal, who rattled his boomerangs together and invited all our ancestors to join us, a little girl who played the banjo and yodeled (I kid you not!) and a group called the Adelaide Empire Band. The band fully embraced the fact that there might be a convict or two in their pasts and sang and played about the glories of being an outlaw.

There does seem to be a “play the hand you’ve been given” sort of attitude in Australia. We finished the evening by having supper with Cathy and Vaughan, our new Aussie table mates. I like the country and its people immensely, even if I have to decode the language a bit now and then.

More tomorrow…