Day 7

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14:00
right... Lots to write about. We rose early this morning to scavenge breakfast... I was sent out for coffee/tea and pastries, which we ate whilst waiting for our ride to port adelaide. We were picked up by a man called phil, a teacher by trade whose hobby was kayaking. His small 7 seater mini-van was towing a number of 2 seater kayaks. The bumpy ride was passed by some idle chat.. The usual, 'where ya from' 'whats the weather'... The sort of stuff that, being a week into our holiday, is just rolling off the tongue. Port adelaide itself is an industrial port area... Rundown at that. It was hard to believe there was a dolphin sanctuary amid the power stations and numerous 'brown sites' and land fill sites we passed.
We arrived at a jetty just off 'garden island', and told to go for a little walk along the water to take in the view... We walked down a short boardwalk and were surprised to see dolphins straight away, just arching their bodies out of the water.

We also saw an unexpected sight... jelly fish.

We walked back to the jetty where 4 others had arrived including our guide, brian. We were kited out with the essentials, and were soon on our way. Just before getting in the kayak, 4 dolphins swam past just 15m away. We followed them down river, watching them ark out of the water then flap their tails. Quite a sight. We paddled back along the water and down some mangroves, looking at the intricut network of ..... Well.. Mangroves.... Then further around we saw the odd dolphin as we visited port adelaides ship graveyard. We paddled around ships which were dumped over 50-60 yrs ago, and have pretty much rotted and rusted away. Our guide filled us in on the stories behind the wrecks, which was actually quite interesting. We then splashed our way back to the jetty where we helped our guide lift the kayaks out of the water in exchange for a lift into port adelaide.
Pictures of the Dolphin Sanctuary and Ship Graveyard
Port adelaide was a dive.... In fact it was, aprt from 100m of road... A total hole. We decided to head tail straight away back for a shower and some lunch. We then decided, and in hindsight i don't know what we were thinking, to get the train back to the city center (port adelaide is a 15min drive north of adelaide). Now we thought hindley street was full of nutters.... I forgot that train stations attract the weirdest of people. You can take that theory and supersize it for the 'variety of life' we had on the train. I've put it down to experience.... But i'll be muttering the word 'taxi' if theres a next time... As u only have to put up with one nutjob then.
anyways... You pay for your ride on the train using a machine... Then u vlaidate ur ticket in another machine.. Found on the train. Now, the ticket machine was broken, which was a big pain in the ass when we got to adelaide central. However, we walked back to the hotel showered and went out for some tapas at a nearby restaurant.

further note; i've spent alot of time complaining about the number of weirdo's in adelaide the past week... And, i was questioning why i was noticing.... Possibly putting it down to being hyper sensitive to the city... Putting it under the microscope too much maybe? I usually noted the number of weirdo's i've met in the blog... But.. In all honesty, today, i've lost count.... In fact, there were weirdo's everywhere.... So i started counting the normal people..... I checked the paper... And i can't understand.. Theres no full moon..... Maybe its festival time again.
Normals; 75

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18:00
around 14:00 we took the car for a drive. Headed north east out of the city and into the hills. The roads wind up and down through adelaide hills and out to a giant rocking horse. Australia has quite a few of these sites around its country. Bill bryson visited a huge lobster (can't remember where), and this is just another one of these type of attractions. Its next to a toy 'museum' come shop... Which sells all manner of hand made wooden toys.

We took the pictures, looked in the shop (rest assured we bought nothing) and then got in the car and took a scenic road back into the city, where we ended up back in the bar sipping gin and tonics.... We are going out for some drinks tonight... I think we'll need a few of them before we venture out.

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