Adelaide

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When we started planning this trip months ago, we did not realize that today is Good Friday and we'd be in Adelaide over the Easter Weekend. We also had no idea that all the children in Australia would be out of school for the past 2 weeks on their Fall/Easter break. We've been up to our eyeballs in kids. When we usually travel to avoid school holidays, this has been a bit overwhelming and poor planning on our part. We tried several times to book a tour out of Adelaide for the day but they were all either all booked up already or not running due to the holiday. Finally we decided to just stay in town and do something we hadn't done here before. Choosing from what was open today, I opted for a day at the zoo since they have pandas. You can imagine. There was little open anyway and it was packed with kids running amok. We also had a problem getting there. There are 3 modes of free public transit in central Adelaide. We are in the free tram zone but it doesn't go to the zoo. There are 2 different bus loop routes and one stop away on 98A anticlockwise is the zoo. Perfect! It was supposed to run at 9:11am and 9:41am, like that 20 minutes apart all day seven days a week. The fly in the ointment was that the website had a small disclaimer at the bottom of the evening's timetable that said "no service on Christmas Day and Good Friday." Why they didn't put those 8 words on the bus sign or at the top of the timetable, I don't know but no one saw them. We weren't the only people waiting there for that bus. I even got on a bus after the 9:11am didn't arrive and asked him when we could expect it. He very kindly got out his cellphone and checked the website timetable and pointed out that I needed to look at the Sat., Sun. & public holidays timetable since it was Good Friday and told me the first bus today would not arrive until 10:11am and to just wait here. Clay did the same thing with his phone but we scrolled all the way down and found the tiny bottom notice about 2 days a year without service. We started walking. Later at the panda exhibit the other couple who'd been there waiting walked up to Clay and asked us about the free circle bus not running. We had gotten to the zoo before them walking and when they figured out why we'd left and how we figured it out (since we didn't leave right after the bus driver told us to sit down and wait). I told them the bus driver didn't know the free circles weren't running. We found it at the bottom of the timetable. He said they called a cab when they figured it out. After yesterday, we wouldn't call a cab. But, if we'd known there was a cab line outside the Stamford Plaza this morning and we might have taken one directly from here. We also would have slept later or not rushed out. Anyway. I think we saw almost all of the zoo. We had an excellent panda view. The boy Wang Wang walked up to the glass of his enclosure right in front of us and peed and pooed. Some boy jumped in front of us with his cellphone and started photographing it and everyone gathered in there laughed uproariously. But we had a great view of both of the pandas eating. We had a close encounter with a quokka. It is a very small breed of wallaby. We learned that by definition anything that looks like a kangaroo but weighs under 20kg at full size is a wallaby. Now you know. We finally had a good view of a bilby. The Australians have Easter Bilbys so we have been hearing bilby a lot. We had seen one before behind glass in a nocturnal house and didn't have a great view. Today we saw one very clearly under a heat lamp in a nocturnal house without glass. Man, the Aussies are nuts! Who would make that a chocolate thing. They are the ugliest of the kangaroo/wallaby family we have seen. It looks like a wallaby and a Vulcan had a love child. Pink pointy snout, long pointy pink ears, a rusty spot on the head and a grey body with a white-tipped tail. Too ugly! We made it to almost all the animal feedings so that was crowded but we had pretty good views at each one. Even with the crowds of kids, I enjoyed it. When we walked out we went through a corner of the Botanic Garden and got to see hundreds of fruit bats roosting. Bat bonus!

We walked to Rundle Street Mall to look for dinner. It had changed a lot from what we remember but some of what we remembered was still there. The restaurants were not there and what was there was mostly closed for Good Friday. All the chains like McDonalds, Target, Kmart, Coles, Woolworths, Apple were closed. So it was kind of a ghost town. We found a rotisserie chicken place open and had that. It was okay and wasn't very expensive. It was right near Haigh's Chocolates. We will go back there tomorrow for Clay. He was very hopeful to get there today but it closed at 4pm and we didn't leave the zoo in time.

So, I have finished all the hand washing I hope will have to be done. It will all be dry and ready to pack again by Sunday. We have only 2 things planned for tomorrow so hopefully it will be an easier day than today. Clay says he is 3 inches shorter than he was yesterday from compression of being on his feet all day long. I am pretty tired and achy too. Hopefully a good night's sleep and an easy day tomorrow and we'll be recovered and ready to train it on Sunday.

Happy Birthday, Mom/Margie! We bought you a gift today for Christmas! No, not a lizard. Coulda, but didn't.

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