By the numbers
1 museum
1 Pier
21,533 steps
16.32 kms
I allowed myself to sleep in just a touch this morning before venturing out into the wide world. Being a public holiday, I was half expecting every single shop to be closed. Most were and it looked like shopping centres too. The roads were really quiet with few cars The same shop I frequented the morning before was open, so I went in and got a coffee, curried egg sangas and a chilli kransky. That was when my plan to head back to Port Adelaide fell apart.
Adelaide seems to cover its history well as I found the Town Hall and went for a walk. It wasn’t open for the obvious reason, but looking up at the balcony, were pictures of The Beatles waving back. Wandering further on, I ended up being next to the General Post Office, which was built in the 1870s and had not long ago been vacated by Australia Post, who basically moved next door. I soon found statues of Charles Sturt and Queen Elizabeth in a park. I wondered what the three other buildings were, so I walked to them and found one was the District court and the other building was the Supreme Court, and the nearby Sir Samuel Way building, which was at one stage a department store build around 1916. It is now law courts so that would have been a huge change. I think it was around an hour I was exploring Adelaide inner city, although I was not that far from my destination as I then headed back towards the train station.
I didn’t have long to wait for the train as I had around 20 mins and the train was happily waiting at the platform for people to board. A guy behind me was making weird phone calls asking if the borders were still shut and if there were restrictions for interstate travel. Whoever he was talking to on the phone was a government type person and he had to give his details to them. I have no idea where he ended up as I got off at Port Adelaide and it wasn’t the last train encounter I had. I was this time heading to the South Australia Aviation Museum as a third strike in the four museum in the port area. I was given a map of the hangers and shown which planes I could enter like the Douglas Dakota and the Orion. They did have a huge amount of aircraft in the two hangers and there were even stories about when they received them too. I don’t know what I was expecting when I was looking at the F-111, but I had at first thought the FA-18 was that plane. It was the first plane you seen when entering the building. There was a guy signing books that he had written about the Australian aircraft history and he tried tempting me into getting a copy and said I would order online as I am flying out on the weekend. The displays covered little bits about World War 1 and II including war in the Pacific, and there was a little about well known pilots like Kingsford Smith.
I came across an oddity as there was a little about space travel and made mention of an Adelaide Space Discovery centre. Out of curiosity I Googled it and ended up finding out there were tickets available for Friday as it was still school holidays. It was near the Adelaide train station, so I was lucky. The tickets are the best price too, free. Its all about the technology they use with exploring space so could be interesting. They even had missiles they had tested at Woomera as it is restricted area in South Australia. The aircraft like the Fokker Friendship and Wessex Helo were machines you could look inside, but could only go so far as they had blocked off the cockpits. Though some like the helicopter I just had enough room to stand. Though it said to watch your head, but not your feet when you step inside. Aircraft were not the only things they had as there were also displays on ANSETT like what was required of their hostesses and what food came with your seat. One of the planes even had the vehicle that drove the stairs once owned by Qantas. I had actually been in the museum for several hours before I left. The museum wasn’t really very busy unless everyone assumed that it had been closed for the day.
Once I left, I got distracted again and went looking for some of the artworks that were around Port Adelaide. I doubt I would ever see them all, but one was called Wonderwall and was several stories high and pretty obvious. I was wondering about the brewery with the name Pirate Life and it was pumping music. I ended up finding the little roundals that gave the history to some of the buildings along the waterfront like the old banks that were either now a random business, or residential. I ended up heading to the train station to visit a place up the line called Largs. The maps said it had a pier and I was thinking it was like St Kilda or something from Melbourne. The entertainment started once I walked to a platform with a 20 minute wait and a twitchy guy with his bike. He was stretching, which included lying down on the seat beside me. He then tried selling a guy he seemed to know Raybans sunnies for $50. “You can google them and it will tell you they are $200”.
I kept my music going ignoring him and then his mate said something about drugs of sorts. I look up any my mate had appeared on the other platform. Last I had seen he was sitting on the edge with his legs hanging down. Next minute on the other side. It was impossible to get to the other side as it was an above ground platform with zigzag ramps. The guy then attempted to cross over again until a voice on the station speaker told him to go around. It would have been someone watching from control and they knew what was happening. Twitchy had to walk all the way around down and then back up the ramps. He then admitted to his friend his prosthetic needed to be worn in as it was new. He had lost it when he tried to jump onto a freight train when he was 5. Not learning really and I wanted to be far, far away from him.
The train arrived and it was something like a 10 minute journey to Largs. To even call it a station was an understatement. It was a platform and that was it, nothing to say when the next train was. It was around a 5 min walk to Largs beach and there were people everywhere. The hotel was pumping music out and I found it had been a fixture in the area since the 1880s. It was a huge building with several floors and nothing like the simple little rooms you get today. Across the road was the pier and I crossed the road to look at getting an ice cream or something and there was a line inside and outside. I thought better so wandered to the oldish pier. According to a nearby history thing it had opened in 1882 and was used for anchorage for deep water boats, where ferries would take them to the pier. It had likely changed since then. I walked part of it and was blown away by the wind. I had expected something like in St Kilda or anywhere in Melbourne. I basically did a loop before heading back to the station. Largs didn’t interest me that much and I did see there was another pier several kms down the road, but didn’t want to walk there.
Once the train arrived and I took it all the way into Adelaide, I thought that I wasn’t going to explore any more of the city and walk back to the hostel after getting something to eat. While there were events going nearby, I just wanted to spend the afternoon relaxing as it was just after 5pm. I found my local IGA and got a meal out of them, which I was really happy to see they were open. I did some washing too as I thought my clothes might be a little bit stinky in my bag and maybe heavy with sweat. Just a job that needed to be done again.
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