By the numbers
Too many times distracted
3 museums
25,903 steps
19.64 kms
I had the aircon running all night and I felt really great this morning although I did get up a little later than I had been in Perth. I was ready to roll out and my goal at that particular time was to get the train out past Port Adelaide to the pier at Largs on the beach before any of the museums opened and return as soon as they are. The plan did not turn out to be so straight forward as that. The plan bent and broke, spinning off into the far distance before returning with a scream.
The all intent was until I got distracted after finding a coffee and sandwich. The lady laughed after calling my coffee right as I was trying to take a bite from my sandwich. It was funny, you had to be there. I took off walking following my map to Adelaide Railway Station that was around 10 mins from where I am staying. I stumbled across a plaque on a building on King William Street that was about Charles Sturt leaving from around that spot to explore central Australia. Then came a wander through Rundle Mall as I seen some buildings that caught my interest. While distracted I nearly bumped into a random guy who got upset with me. I don’t know exactly what was said as I had music going, but he was yelling at me as he walked off. I remembered reading something online about an Adelaide mall that had a Beadle. That random thought turned into a location after Googling, and was nearby in Rundle Mall. I came across street art like big shiny balls, an elephant on stilts that was a Salvador Dali design and a giant pigeon. Adelaide Arcade appeared and it had been built in the 1800s and included tea rooms. They still exist, but are now closed off to the public with a viewing platform. There was also a museum with the original flag mast, items like shoes found under the floorboards. The whole Arcade was full of things I couldn’t possibly afford from underwear that were silk and handmade to books that were pretty rare, and expensive.
I had actually forgotten part of my sandwich that was still in my bag and I was wandering past Nike and wondering what the crowd was doing standing out front with some that had shoes. No idea what this was about, but I didn’t actually care apart from happy guys with shoes and security hanging around. One of the random escalators I took looking for a loo took me straight into the heart of a Coles store, and I had to ask the fateful question and I got an answer. I found the fateful place before I wandered off. I found the South African memorial outside Government House. Government House is where the governor of the state is and not sure if you can just wander into the grounds at any time. The railway station was actually nearby as it was beside Parliament House. I walked into the Railways station and explored that before doing anything else. It also has a casino in parts of it, but I thought there was so much space it wasn’t funny. I scanned my card to go through the turnstiles and I was refused entry. I wondered why until I looked at my card, and I had tried scanning on with my hostel door key. Explains why and everything. The correct pocket this time and the card worked and I was through.
The train didn’t take long to get to Port Adelaide and I knew going to Largs wouldn’t help as I wanted the museums especially since I was going to be distracted once again. I started walking towards the Maritime museum and ended up finding the wharf area as Port Adelaide is a historic heritage area and I was looking at some of the older buildings like the Town Hall. There was also a lighthouse that had been standing nearby, but they had moved it. I soon founds my way to the maritime museum, where I paid for entry, but I got a card where I can get a discount on entry to the other three museums in the area, which were the Railway, aircraft museum and the Clipper ‘City of Adelaide’. The maritime museum had kids everywhere as part of some school type group and it was funny when every now and then they had to say things like Yo ho ho when their guide requested it of them. The museum itself was interesting as it had figureheads from a few ships and how they came to be in the museum collection. They had a big collection, although there were some about the local shipwrecks and the impact on South Australians like the wreck of ‘Star of Greece’ that had even spawned views from local artists in the present time. They did have artifacts from the wreck, although the ship hadn’t been underwater for a long time as most of it had been salvaged. There was the history of the navy and a ship called Protector that had been ordered by South Australia, which had been sent to the Boxer Rebellion in China, I think it even provided escort work during WW1. There are still things from the ship that survived like the bell. There was a display about the vessels known as the Windjammers that would basically go from the Baltic sea to Australia and back with South Australians learning skills on the ships. They picked up cargos of grain in the southern summer and returned again. I did find the museum of interest.
Soon I decided that I wanted to visit the railway museum for the trains and it wasn’t that far from the Maritime museum. I had two of my bars that I basically had for lunch on my walk there. As soon as I had entered, I somehow ended up on one of the little trains that go around the museum. That was actually fun as we went around twice. I ended up sitting next to a lady with her son, who I think was autistic who kind of wanted out once the train stopped and he knew how to unlatch the door. Somehow I don’t think he liked having a stranger sitting near him, I had made sure to sit next to his mum. I had just wanted a seat as I had walked around the maritime museum and not really sat down. There were plenty of trains and they had been built in South Australia. They were bigger than I had expected and you could walk beside them. I found a model of one that looked like a shark as it was sleek, and I found the same train later. The good thing is you can Google the number on the train and say where it is located, and you may get more information. Thats what I did and came across some information on the train’s history and where it was located before the museum got it. It didn’t have an info sheet on it like the ones inside. They had a few carriages too and some of them had been used as overlanders that went between Adelaide and Melbourne. I will say I enjoyed the museum more than I did the Maritime museum, but maybe that is just me. I came across a safety / infomercial about trains like getting the tickets punched and a kid waiting for the train to pass before crossing the line. There were all sorts to do with trains in South Australia and beyond including the railways through the centre of Australia being used by The Ghan or even the Indian Pacific. At one stage there were many towns after Kalgoorlie that were before Forrest that serviced the railway until it ended up being only Cook that did that. They had uniforms of the different people who worked on the railways like the guards and even the tea ladies.
It wasn’t long before the museum closed for the day when I left and decided to walk past the aviation museum on my way to check out the clipper ‘City of Adelaide’ that was in a dock area. Turns out there was no short cut along the river to get there and it was in an actual dock area that had fences and everything. The City of Adelaide had been bought to Australia after being purchased from overseas before it had been scrapped. It had been built in 1864, and had made voyages between the UK and Adelaide. It was basically on a dry dock and a hulk with nothing to it. You could do tours on it, but only if the temperature wasn’t over 36C. Nearby was one of the Mosquito fleet otherwise known as Ketches that were used for cargo. There are only two of the Ketch left and the museum has one of them with the Clipper ship remains. It does look like they are trying to make the whole area into something about the vessels, but I would say that would be a few years off. I had to walk back when I realised there were no shortcuts to return to the Port Adelaide.
I headed back to the train station, where along the way I had something to eat as by that time I was starving and didn’t want to wait until I was back in the city. It didn’t take long to get back to the city, which was good and I still had a 10 min walk back to the hostel. I found a subway under the main road that I could use to get across and head towards where I was staying. I was still feeling pretty good and it was actually pretty easy walking to get to the hostel. I would say that Adelaide must have been made for walking.
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