AUSTRALIA - DAY SEVENTEEN - Adelaide

Previous Blogs: Day 1 Portland & Honolulu | Day 2 Oahu | Day 3+4 Melbourne | Day 5 Williamstown | Day 6 Launceston | Day 7 Cradle Mountain | Day 8 Road to Hobart | Day 9 Port Arthur | Day 10 Apollo Beach | Day 11 Port Fairy | Day12+13 Southern Ports | Day 14 Kangaroo Island | Day 15 Kangaroo Island | Day 16 Kangaroo Island | Day 17 Adelaide | Day 18 Adelaide | Day 19 Adelaide Hills | Day 20+21 Uluru | Day 22+23 Alice Springs | Day 24 Darwin | Day 25 Darwin | Day 26+27 Port Douglas | Day 28 Daintree | Day 29+30 Gold Coast | Day 31+32 Brisbane | Day 33 Brisbane | Day 34-36 Hawaii

Click photos for a larger image...

It's time to leave Kangaroo Island and head for Adelaide. Earliest car ferry we could get was 1PM so we had a relaxing, lazy morning at the hotel with late checkout.

KI Boat Launch

One of many thousand beaches on the island

Approaching the port, note the wind farm on the tip of the peninsula.

How the hell am I gonna get the car door open so I can get in??

The drive to Adelaide is only a little over an hour, so we decided to take the coast back roads to get there.

Mountains and beaches, beautiful.

We even saw a Buddhist temple with a view!

The entire 60 mile coastline is beaches, perfect for surfers (although at 67 F too cold for my butt to go surfing!)

We even got to drive our car on the beach - which reminded me of Daytona.

This is the view from our hotel room, which is the ONLY good thing about it!  Hotel Ibis Adelaide SUCKS!

It is a corporate type hotel which I detest. NO balconies or open green space to get fresh air. Small room with no comfortable chair or couch. You have to PAY for parking at $15/day! And still walk two blocks to the car park.

You have to PAY for the internet! $7.50/day. WHAT? This is the only hotel so far in Australia we have had to PAY for the internet. "Oh, we give you 2 free hours  in the lobby", he said on check in. You can take that 2 free hours and... never mind, you know.

NO room service. Oh, you can order food from their in house restaurant, and COME PICK IT UP YOURSELF! WTF is that? A 4 star hotel now has take out?

Every hotel in my life I have stayed in that has its own restaurant has room service. Charge extra for goodness sake, I feel like an idiot standing in front of other guests dining while I wait for my "fast food". Really??!!

Wendy's Note: I did try to change hotels, but the change fee wasn't worth it based on the package I got.  We're tough!  We can put our big girl panties on and persevere!!!!

So instead we decided to eat out. We chose a chain restaurant for two reasons. I'll get into the first reason later. The second reason is that it is NANDO'S!

My dear American friends and family do not know what Nando's is. You SA people know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Succulent Peri Peri chicken, grilled on open flame with famous Portuguese/African sauce.

Nando's was started in South Africa in 1987 and became so popular it spread throughout the British Commonwealth and even Middle East. There is one on every corner in Australia. They have just opened in the USA but only in a couple states up North. Virginia and Maryland.

I generally don't like chains, but this was a comfort taste from my past.  I have not had Nando's chicken in nearly 20 years and it is unique.

But lets talk about Adelaide... Adelaide SUCKS. And by that, I mean SUCKS ASS!!

We arrive on a Saturday afternoon a little after 5 PM, check into our hotel right downtown in the hub of the city... and discover... EVERYTHING IS CLOSED!

I mean everything! There is an open air walk through huge mall right next to our hotel. It is CLOSED. There is a grocery store a block away from us. It is CLOSED. There is a convenience store next to the hotel. IT IS CLOSED!

We would like to get some booze, y'know, a couple beers, bottle of wine & scotch and get some dinner from a grocery store. So we get back in the car (pay extra $5 to get out of the car park because we are leaving BEFORE our $20 day is up), set the GPS for the suburbs and find a grocery store 5 miles out of downtown. IT IS CLOSED!!

While we are there staring stupidly at the closed sign, TWO other Australians arrive also looking for a grocery store. The one guy says to us in disgust, "This is ridiculous, if we were in Victoria (the next State over) the store would be open until midnight!"

We finally find a drive through liquor store that was open and got some drinks, but a grocery store was clearly not in our future.

Which is the FIRST reason why we went to Nando's for dinner. And the funniest thing  - one of the tourists we had met at the grocery store in the 'Burbs was at Nando's!!!  Here's the other interesting tidbit... as we are walking around the open air mall, there are literally HUNDRED's of people there. Milling around, walking aimlessly. WHY? NOTHING IS OPEN PEOPLE, GO HOME!

Either that, or they were all tourists trying to find food like us!

Even the check in guy at the hotel asked about our plans.  He suggested the beach or botanical gardens.  Really?  That's all this city has to offer?? 

Wendy has a tradition that wherever we go in the world, she likes to have her picture taken with the local police so she can post it on New Port Richey Police Department's FaceBook page.  She knows the Chief and likes to prove to him she's not in jail (I'm sure he thinks she's a bit of a trouble maker!!)

 We were walking back from dinner... BINGO! She found her local police for the photo!  

Wendy's Note:  They were the first police EVER to think "requests" of putting me in handcuffs or in the paddy wagon was funny and came back with even more comical retorts.  While they didn't succumb to my odd wishes, Aussie cops do have a fabulous sense of humour!