Adelaide - Rundell Mall

Every great city should have a pedestrian mall. Adelaide’s is called Rundell Mall, named after the street it occupies. It’s a lively place currently done up for Christmas as the photos below attest. Deborah felt in need of a haircut and, after much searching was unable to find any salon that looked sufficiently fashionable (expensive) until finding a place in Rundell Mall. She is very happy with the results.

Rundell Pedestrian Mall

Interior shopping arcade


Yes, it's 80 degrees F, but it's Christmas

Inventive public art. Clever swine!

Adelaide - A Box of Antibiotics

We had an unplanned experience with the Australian Health Care System Saturday night. I took off my shirt in preparation for bed when we realized the two bug bites on my side had become infected and were the source of some scary looking red streaks spreading outward. About three years ago something very similar happened on two different occasions. Both times required visits to the emergency room and large quantities of antibiotics. We thought, “Oh no, here we go again…” We were going to take a taxi to the nearest hospital but our kind neighbor Delia offered to drive us.

After meeting with the triage nurse we waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile, a parade of strange characters entered and occasionally exited the emergency room including a young man with a bloody gash over his eyebrow who couldn’t stop talking about pizza, a rowdy pack of punks, one of whom had a hand cut up from punching out a window, and a overweight woman on a gurney who was so dying for a smoke that pizza boy was seriously contemplating giving her one of his cigarettes and wheeling her gurney outside so she could smoke it. All I’m thinking at this time is, “Please, just give me some antibiotics so I can get the hell out of here!”

On this busy Saturday night four and a half very long hours passed before we were taken back to see the doctor. Given my past history it didn’t take long for the doctor to figure out what was needed. We spent more time discussing what a bad area we were living in and how this particular hospital was in an even worse one. We described our waiting room experience. He said, “Yeah, it’s scary out there isn’t it?” But even with my box of antibiotics in hand, we then had to call three different times and wait an entire hour for a taxi to show up. By the time we got home it was 5:30 in the morning, seven hours after the ordeal began. The dogs were very glad to see us.

We slept until 11:30 and were relieved to see my wound looked better already. Happily, I continue to improve. Since I seem to be susceptible to this the next trip I’m going to keep a supply of antibiotics with me just in case. In the meantime I have to keep my bug bites clean and resist the urge to scratch. That emergency room experience provides plenty of motivation to keep me in line.

Adelaide - Botanical Garden

We love botanical gardens and Adelaide has one of the best we’ve seen. It’s right on the edge of the CBD. It has made a great picnic spot for us twice now, and I’m sure we’ll be back.

Botanical Gardens Entrance.

Jacaranda Tree

Conservatory with cactii and other prickly, thorny, painful-to-grasp plants

Amazonian lilies - these are not small

Adelaide - The City and the Drought

The city of Adelaide is proving to be much nicer than the unappealing suburban neighborhood we are staying in might have suggested. The central business district is fairly compact and completely surrounded by parklands. We walked all around the northern section of the CBD including where the Torrens River winds through the city. This is a beautiful area that, perhaps due to the proximity of the river or the prevalence of shade trees, is actually green rather than brown.

Australia as a whole has been suffering from a drought for several years now. This was evident back in Queensland even though we saw a fair bit of rain while we were staying there. The toilets are flushed not by a lever as we are used to but by one of two buttons on the top of the tank: the left button for “number one” (less water) or the right button for “number two” (more water). When shopping for new appliances you can base your purchasing decision not just on energy star ratings but also on water consumption ratings. Also, the government is offering rebates to owners of homes that install rainwater tanks. Greywater is recycled for some uses, and desalinization plants are now being constructed. At one time in Queensland they actually sent everyone a little hourglass-type timer so that you could more easily limit yourself to a 4 minute shower. Thankfully, such severe restrictions were not in place when we were there, or I would be one smelly bloke.

South Australia, the state for which Adelaide is the capital, is famously referred to as the driest state in the driest continent (actually Antarctica is drier but I guess it doesn’t count). We are told that this is a particularly bad year here, and severe watering restrictions are firmly in place; thus the brown lawns and wilted plants. And you can just forget about washing your car.

Pavilion in the fairgrounds (South Australia is "The Festival State"). The water fountain is one of the few actually operating around here given the drought conditions.

Sculpture well-suited to its building plaza location.

Another plaza featuring indiginous art.


View of the distant cathedral from the river parklands.

Pelicans, I believe.

The Torrens River with pedestrian/cycle paths on each side.

Adelaide - Martha Stewart Comes to Australia

Deborah has made our current space habitable with the judicious use of cleaning products and elbow grease. It needs so much more but we are only here a few days and we still have two slobbering (but lovable) dogs running in and out all day. Back in Brisbane we had it easy because Diane’s house was clean, although that didn’t stop Deborah from reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and pantry. She even drew out a little diagram for Di showing the new locations of various items.

The problem is that when I am painting all day Deborah sometimes doesn’t know what to do with herself and so falls back on her domestic and interior design skills. Deborah even spent a day at Lorraine’s reorganizing her pantry and linen closet. Lorraine was thrilled with the result. As our current location in this dumpy neighborhood outside of Adelaide isn’t very inspiring, I don’t expect to paint again until we settle down in our next location, whether that is in central Adelaide, which is very nice, or in a suitable outlying area. In the meantime we will be going into the city or taking tours pretty much every day. More on that to come.

Andrew's rental house in Brahma Lodge

" Are you going to eat that?"

Bear

Muttley

Play time in the back yard.

Landscaping design by Muttley and Bear

Adelaide - Brahma Lodge

Andrew has been the perfect host, researching public transportation info for us, taking us out to a very nice dinner last night, and then today out to the grocery store, the art supply store and an outrageous display of Christmas lights (see below). His house is orderly but his housekeeping skills are about what you’d expect from a bachelor living in a rental home with two large dogs, i.e., not up to Deborah’s standards. She will be spending a lot of time cleaning.

The house is of an indeterminate age with a layout that is, well, interesting. There are three bedrooms, none of which have a closet. There is one bathroom which is literally that – a bath and a sink. The lone toilet is in a little room by itself at the exact opposite end of the house. I hesitate to call it a powder room because it has no sink (not the first house here where we’ve seen that), but it is near the laundry room which does have one. It is also worth mentioning that this toilet room has no door, only a curtain which must be carefully drawn to afford any privacy. As this room is within close proximity of the kitchen, this arrangement will take some getting used to, especially for Deborah who is doing the cooking.

The Griswolds come to Australia

Disco meets the Jestsons. Not your typical Santa in his sleigh.

Fun with rope lighting.

Flight to Adelaide

Diane’s parents Bill and Rita were kind enough to drive us to the airport Monday morning since they were going there anyway to pick up Di. The 2-1/2 hour flight to Adelaide went quickly and our new host Andrew was waiting there for us to take us to his home. He lives north of the city in a suburb of Salisbury called Brahma Lodge. It’s not the most picturesque neighborhood, frankly, especially with the drought (more on that later) which has left everything looking dry and brown. Still it’s conveniently located near bus stops and a train station which can zip us into the city in about 20-25 minutes.

We met Andrew’s dogs Bear and Muttley, a Staffordshire Terrier and a Staffy Cross. They are VERY friendly and require a great deal of affection, which we will be happy to provide. We will be looking after the dogs while Andrew is off in Sydney acting as a flag marshall for a V8 Supercars race, the Australian equivalent of NASCAR. It’s a similar enterprise except the shape of the race tracks are more interesting than just ovals and the drivers must occasionally swerve to avoid hopping kangaroos that have wandered onto the track (seriously).

(left to right) Muttley, Andrew, Bear