{"id":5734,"date":"2025-03-03T23:43:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T23:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5734"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:52:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:52:44","slug":"4-adelaide-and-river-murray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5734","title":{"rendered":"4. ADELAIDE AND RIVER MURRAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leaning sadly against a pillar as we exited Parklands Station in Adelaide, we found our luggage.\u00a0 So it hadn’t got lost.\u00a0 But the reason it was leaning was that one of the wheels of one of the cases had been broken and it wouldn’t stand up on its own!\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 Luckily, Esther, part of the expedition management, was on hand.\u00a0 Her boss approved for us to get a replacement.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s tomorrow morning tied up then.\u00a0 Shopping!\u00a0 My favourite!<\/p>\n

Replacement case purchased, Robin and family arrived from Queensland.<\/p>\n

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We nearly lost two boys in the crack of a piece of artwork …<\/p>\n

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… not a million miles from a interestingly named street.<\/p>\n

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We walked through the city to the Botanic Gardens and hit an Indian restaurant for lunch.\u00a0 Our residence in Adelaide was the Miller Apartments.\u00a0 On Hindley Street.\u00a0 Near the dodgy end.\u00a0 With the night clubs, strip joints and brothels.\u00a0 To be fair they were quite a way to the west of us – I’ve just been out to check!<\/p>\n

We had been moved rooms once on arrival because the cleaner had apparently forgotten to clean the room.\u00a0 When water started pouring out of the ceiling over Jack’s bed in the second room, we got another transfer to a higher floor.\u00a0 Hopefully above the source of the leaking water!\u00a0 Lots of drama.\u00a0 They let us keep the key to the leaky apartment so we could finish the 1000 piece jigsaw we had started!<\/p>\n

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In the Botanic Gardens there was a fenced off section where part of the Adelaide Fringe seems to be taking place.\u00a0 Or at least will be in the evening.\u00a0 We’ve never been to the Edinburgh Fringe and here we are sniffing round the edge of the antipodian equivalent!\u00a0 The RAA (Royal Automobile Association) were hosting taster sessions trying to encourage folk to buy tickets for the evening shows.\u00a0 The one we chanced upon had a mixture of singers, magicians, acrobats, comedians and a juggler.\u00a0 It was really fun to see Fringe events “in summary”.<\/p>\n

Monday is boat-day.<\/p>\n

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We rented Dreamweaver for a five day self-drive cruise from Mannum to Bow Hill and back.\u00a0 A ten minute practice at mooring – basically ramming the bank and whipping out four mooring lines – and Robin was signed off as skipper.\u00a0 We were away.\u00a0 Actually,\u00a0 Robin was already familiar with the boat.\u00a0 We had rented it with my cousin about 20 years ago.\u00a0 He was employed as driver then as well!<\/p>\n

The boat has four bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms down the port side.\u00a0 The “wheelhouse” (Robin-land), a dining zone, a large kitchen area (basically Linda’s domain!) and a lounge fill the starboard side.\u00a0 BBQ on the rear deck with two massive outboard engines, two canoes and a swimming\/fishing deck.\u00a0 Upstairs there was a large dining table, sun-chairs (for use in the shade!) and a hot tub.\u00a0 All mod cons!<\/p>\n

We shared the River with hundreds of cormorants and pelicans …<\/p>\n

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… lots of hunting harriers – probably marsh harriers – and smaller kites.\u00a0 There were swarms of swifts and martin’s and a few black swans.<\/p>\n

Jack and Phroggy pulled a couple of carp and lots of freshwater shrimps out of the water.<\/p>\n

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We got as far as Bow Hill – a city of some 120 souls – located 30 km upstream of Mannum.\u00a0 The general store sells a wide range of goods to the populace.\u00a0 Indeed the store itself is for sale.\u00a0 We just wanted icecream.\u00a0 For the price of two and a half Magnums, we bought four litres of vanilla.\u00a0 Now the challenge was to consume this before we disembarked!<\/p>\n

Being in an area with almost no light pollution, the night sky was absolutely spectacular.\u00a0 \u00a0Millions of stars, the milky way, several satellites courtesy of Elon Musk (the president of the USA?), numerous planets (all seven were visible at the same time this week – if you knew when and where to look.)\u00a0 (And if maybe you had a telescope!)<\/p>\n

Finally, we can report that the requirement to eat four litres of icecream in two days defeated us – but only just.\u00a0 And that was despite the best efforts of (mainly) Ben, Jack and me!<\/p>\n

Anyway, that was last week – always behind!\u00a0 Today, as I write this, we fly to Queensland.\u00a0 You may have heard that the weather in southern Qld is rather “interesting” at the minute!\u00a0 Alfred is about to arrive.\u00a0 And he’s a bit of a cyclone!<\/p>\n

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Where we are going is close to the “a” in “Sunshine CoAst”!\u00a0 Could be a bit damp and breezy!<\/p>\n

How bad it will be remains to be seen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaning sadly against a pillar as we exited Parklands Station in Adelaide, we found our luggage.\u00a0 So it hadn’t got lost.\u00a0 But the reason it was leaning was that one of the wheels of one of the cases had been… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand-and-australia-travels-in-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5734"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5761,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5734\/revisions\/5761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}