Adelaide

On our first night in Adelaide most of us were staying in Canon Street Backpackers. After weeks traveling from Cairns to Adelaide this was a really nice hostel. Large with lots of rooms, internet access and nearby bars. It was like being back on the East Coast again. Our first night we ate in the hostel “restaurant”. Most hostels have restaurants but they are really just canteens serving mass produced food. Still it was nice to be able to eat food and not have to help prepare, tidy up or wash up afterwards. Plus Canon gives free apple pie, it's amazing how easy it is to bribe backpackers into thinking a hostel is the greatest place on earth :-) We spent the night playing pool and drinking in the bar.

The next day I headed into town with several of the others. Adelaide is Australia's 5th largest city with a population similar to Dublin so there is plenty to see and do. Several people described it as a mini version of Melbourne. I had not been to Melbourne at the time but having now seen both I'd have to agree. It seemed small and friendly, like a more laid back version of Brisbane. I only had one full day in the city so I didn't get to see a lot of it outside the city center area but it did seem nice, I'd like to have spent more time there.

One thing I did have on my to-do list was to go get myself an iPod. At this stage I had almost filled my 5 GB of memory cards for my camera and that was after burning 4 GB of photographs to DVD and sending copies home. I had close to 9 GB of photographs and a serious risk of loosing them. Lots of other backpackers had iPods which they used to store all their photographs with the pictbridge cables. I had decided to buy one but when I got to the shops I found that the 30 GB Toshiba S30 gigabeat cost the same, but came with all the necessary accessories like power cable, radio and photography cable, which would cost another Aus$150. This was really handy as it allowed me to save copies of my photos in a small unit that I could keep with me at all times. Perfect. Apart from a poor battery life I have to say I like the gigabeat.

That night was my second and last in Adelaide. I went over to China Town and got noodles in a fast food restaurant called Dumpling King. I mention it because for $6.80 I got a huge plate of noodles and a flask of green tea which was easily one of the cheapest meals I had in Australia and far far nicer than the usual stuff served up in hostels as free meals or $5 dollar meals..

Later I sat with my German friends who introduced me to other Germans as Elton, the German comedian. Yes, apparently I am the double for a television comedian called Elton. In fact some of them just nicknamed me Elton and I took to answering to the name. They meant it in a nice friendly way but it must have confused the hell out of some other Germans who wondered why “Elton” couldn't speak German and had a funny Irish accent. I've got to find out who this guy is, one of the group said he would send my photograph to the comedians show, last year they held an Elton look a like competition and they might do something similar this year. God help me, but at least I'd get a free trip to Germany and I promised to invite the Germans. I want to look into learning German, after all it is embarrassing that I can only speak English. My friends would apologize to me when they spoke to each other in German in front of me, but as I pointed out I'm the rude one who hasn't bothered to learn a second language, at least not properly.

I was getting on the Oz bus again the next morning to do the Great Ocean Road and was disappointed that I had not planned on spending more time in Adelaide. That said I would not have has the option to stay longer since the Ashes were coming to town the next day and every hostel in town was now booked up in advance as hordes or English cricket fans descended on the town. It might have been cool to see the Ashes, but since each game goes on for 5 days (apart from when Australia really kick England off the field) I wasn't keen to waste that much time and certainly wasn't keen to spend the guts of a week with the barmy army.

Adelaide: 27-29 November
More photos on Flickr