Off to the big city

We had a few appointments to keep in Adelaide and decided to make a long weekend of it catching up with friends and family.  It was great fun to see everyone but also a bit of a surprise just how crowded everything seemed to be, lots of traffic and people everywhere!  Funny now that I used to think Adelaide as a very laid back place compared to Horsham (UK)!

A visit to Port Adelaide gave us a good excuse to seek out the oldest clipper ship in the world. The City of Adelaide finally arrived in Port Adelaide in February this year. Some of her history in brief; in her time she carried 889 passengers to South Australia each trip taking a month;  between 1864 and 1886 this clipper made 23 trips to South Australia carrying both passengers and cargo; 1/4 of a million Australians are direct descendants of the first settlers who arrived on her and there are only two wooden clippers left in the world the other being the Cutty Sark. There that should help in future versions of Trivial Pursuits!

In 2000 the Scottish Maritime Museum applied for permission to have the clipper demolished, somehow a dedicated group of South Australians heard about it and started making plans to have her shipped to Australia. There is a lot of work still to do to make her stable and safe but it seems she is now home and here to stay.

Standing beside her gives you some idea of how tough the journey would have been.  There is not a lot of room for people let alone all the food and water needed for a month at sea.

There are very few windows and these are on the tiny side.  I can't imagine what it would have been like to travel 2nd class.

She must have been an amazing sight at full sail.

A trip to Adelaide wouldn't have been complete without visiting the Botanic Gardens.  For the past year they have been creating a wetlands area and it's finally been finished, it is a beautiful space to be in and gives a sense of peace and calm, exactly what any busy city needs.

A series of filter beds planted up with native aquatic plants clean the water from first creek before it goes into the storage area ready for watering the gardens.

Rusty reeds 'planted' on an island in the middle of native reeds and grasses.  There are some beautiful huge rocks making a stepping stone path through.

A beautiful dry garden bed by the blue stone pump house.  Succulents are so varied and can look amazing especially when in flower.

We were able to catch up with most of the people we had wanted to making a mental note to plan to see those we missed when we next go back to Adelaide.  With car laden with tree's and plants, very kind donations from Brian and Vicki, we headed off to the State Flora Nursery to collect more trees for our ever growing 'forest' on the block.

Cool cloudy damp weather made it perfect conditions to get everything planted on the block.  With the threat of a thunder storm we Fred sat (he really hates thunder storms but copes much better with a human or two around).  He was so excited about the tree planting... well I suppose more about the digging holes bit.  He finally couldn't resist any longer and with tail wagging like it was about to fall off he set too.  I've never seen anyone/thing dig with such enthusiasm.  It was so funny to watch and once given the ok he didn't need any encouraging more from us. We are now wondering if he is really part wombat?

Happiness is.......