Week 70 - Adelaide (Australia)

It was our last week in Adelaide before we were due to fly back to Asia and therefore our last week living in a house with a garden and a kitchen before going back to hostels and hotels. We spent most of the week cooking, baking cupcakes, watching films and chilling in the garden and the pool. 

On Thursday we wandered down to the beach with Slater to test the sea temperature ahead of Australia Day and on Friday we headed into the city to meet Alan from work for a few drinks on the roof terrace of the hostel bar, popping into the Santos Tour festival that had taken over the newly developed Victoria Square in the city centre on the way.

Rhys BBQ'ing in the park, Adelaide.

Sunday was Australia day and we’d reserved a giant Haviana flip flop to take part in a world record attempt at Glenelg beach. It’s an Australia wide event with thousands of people taking to the sea on inflatable flip flops across the country. Glenelg is a pretty small beach compared to the others, Adelaide being only a tiny city, and there were only 379 of us floating about compared to the 2,099 at Cottesloe (who now hold the record). We spent a couple of hours chilling on the beach and playing in the sea before we decided it was time to head home and get out of the sun. On the way back we spotted a big screen showing the cricket and after Rhys and Al had their bowling speed measured, we grabbed a drink and settled at a table. Slater left us after a while to get ready for work and after we realised there was a competition being drawn at 6:30pm with a chance to win $2,500 we thought we should stick around and try our luck. 

Australia Day Haviana Thong Challenge, Adelaide.

Me and Rhys floating on our inflatable flip flops, Adelaide.

It was a sponsored area and every time we went to the bar we came back with freebies, baseball caps, bottle openers, spanners, playing cards, stubbie holders, cool bags and god only knows what else. When it finally came to the draw we were already more than happy with our hoard of freebies including signed caps from Merv Hughes, then Alan’s name got called (twice), followed by Rhys’s. The competition involved throwing a ball at stumps from various distances. The pressure got to Rhys and he was out early on but Al pulled it out of the bag and walked away with a giant cheque for $500. We were pretty happy on our walk back to the house and spent the rest of the night celebrating and painting Al’s face to look like a tiger (having not washed off the orange paint he looked like a giant baked bean in the morning).

Alan and his GIANT cheque with Merv Hughes.

Our only other adventure for the week was on Tuesday, our last day in Australia. Me and Rhys had walked past the local lawn bowls club earlier in the week and noticed they did night bowls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Rather than just sit in a pub we thought it would be a great way to end our stay and when Alan arrived home from work we headed out. When we got there it was packed and it turned out it was a competition - we’d just wanted to have a go by ourselves. We got coaxed in to taking part (for free) and matched up with some other people our age who had been playing for 3 years. One of the guys came out with us to give us a few tips and that combined with the coaching we’d had from Nettie and Dave in Wollongong set us ahead and by the 10th end we were drawing. I think the local team were a little embarrassed and extended the game to 12 ends and finally beat us by 1, we were pretty chuffed with ourselves. Then after the game we were shooed inside to a table with our lane number on and were fed free sandwiches while the organiser gave a speech giving us a shout out as the ‘new team’ and some abuse about the cricket. Alan bought some raffle tickets and came away with a tray of meat and I got a random $5 cash price for no reason at all. All up, a great night, if we lived there we’d be regulars and I think Al is going to join. We were too wired to sleep when we got home and opened a bottle of wine, finally turning in around 11pm with the alarm set to wake us at 3:45am. 

Me bowling like a pro, Adelaide.

All up we’ve had the best time in Australia, Adelaide started to feel like home after spending a month there and Al and Slater went out of their way to help us out, they’re both stars and we’ll really miss them. Australian people (and Kiwi’s in Aus!) are among the friendliest and most generous we’ve come across anywhere in our travels, from people we met for a week a year ago putting us up to strangers in the street or on the bus stopping for a chat. I’m sure we’ll be back for a visit at some point but right now it’s time to get on the road again.