The last day in Sydney was a little stressful for Kyle as he ended up spending 3 hours in the doctors to correct their mistake. Even though they had entered the correct insulin for his diabetes on the system the original doctor printed the wrong prescription, he must of got distracted with all the tanning talk, and rather than just swap it in the chemist he had to wait, see a new doctor and finally get a new prescription. He also had to pay a further $38 for his insulin, I personally thought this was a little unfair seen as it wasn’t his mistake in the first place! Anyway, whilst all this was going on me and Lisa chilled out at home and watched some Friends reruns, it was far too cold for us to step outside. To say goodbye, once he’d finished work, Luke took us out for tea at his favourite restaurant, Del Punto. We overindulged on food once again, but somehow managed to inhale a full TimTam ice cream cake between us…I can slowly feel my stomach growing and jeans shrinking.
It was back to our normal routine of an early rise and a morning flight the next day as we prepared to head to Adelaide. Luke and Lisa waved us off as we successfully caught an Uber to the airport, turns out it actually works in Australia. Our flight was 30 minutes late, and once we were seated on board we discovered that we had been placed in the kiddy zone…it was a fucking nightmare, and one of the worst flights we’ve had so far (and we’ve been on a lot of shitty flights). When the children weren’t screaming, they were kicking the back of our chairs and the parents did nothing to stop them! Thank the lord for the brilliant air hostesses who did a great job of rounding up the kids and giving them a tour of the aeroplane, if it wasn’t for them I’d be deaf right now. A 2 hour flight should of felt short, but this one felt like it took forever, but we were happy to see a smiling face waiting for us at the airport when we were greeted by our friend Kyle G.
We haven’t seen Kyle G in forever but as soon as we got chatting it was like we’d never been apart. He kindly drove us to our hostel, The Guesthouse, to drop off our bags before we headed to Glenelg Beach. Adelaide has less traffic and people than Sydney, and there are many hidden pieces of street art down at the beach, so I was already starting to like it within the first 15 minutes of driving around. Once we’d parked up, had a Vietnamese iced coffee and settled on the beach I liked it even more. It was a lovely sunny day so we made the most of it walking around the pier, beach and harbour, catching up and exchanging old stories about the “Freespirit days”, I even managed to get in a cheeky half hour of sunbathing (Freespirit was a shop in York where we all met way back when).
Kyle G dropped us back at the hostel, but returned for us a few hours later, after a nap and a shower, for some food and drinks at his apartment. Once we arrived we met his girlfriend, Yoshie, and as the drinks flowed we chatted more about the old days, York and Japan (Kyle G and Yoshie will soon head to Europe and Japan). The plan was to head into town but we totally lost track of time and the next thing we knew it was 1.30am, so all plans of visiting some bars had gone out the window. But me and Kyle had a great time, it was nice to relax in good company and exchange different travel stories and chat about home towns.
Free breakfast at the hostel ends at 10.30am, and we didn’t get in until 3.30am so waking up to eat was a real struggle the next morning…we were bloody knackered! However, we’d made exciting plans the night before so the thought of visiting a wildlife sanctuary soon had us motivated. The drive out to the sanctuary was great, it took us out of the city and on to winding roads that lead us through hills, mountains, rocks and rivers, it was nice to see a bit of the countryside again. We stopped for lunch and I finally got my chicken nuggets and chips, I’ve only been craving them for 4 months, they came in the shape of dinosaurs complete with blood (tomato sauce). Once we were fully fuelled we dressed in our windbreaker jackets and headed into the sanctuary, part of me wished that we had gloves and a scarf too, I just can’t get used to this colder weather! Kyle G and Yoshie were great leading us around the park and showing us all the animals, everyone fed a kangaroo and a wallaby but I was too scared to stick my hand out for fear of loosing my fingers. We saw pelicans only they were 100 times the size of the ones on Finding Nemo, so I’m not too sure how Nigel got through the window of the dentist, and cheeky monkeys who snatched our bags of food. The ultimate highlight of the day though was Violet, the 9 year old koala, we were lucky enough to hold her and she actually smelt amazing, like eucalyptus, Violet was a little heavier than I expected at 7kg but so soft, I just wanted to bring her home. I’m still not sure if it’s the right thing to do holding a koala, but everyone assured me that they were well looked after, and it is totally up there with one of my best experiences on our trip.
On the way home we stopped at a little old pub, it looked like an old barn conversion with wooden beams on the ceiling and brick walls, they even had beers on draft which were served in pint glasses, none of this stupid schooner stuff. It was like being back at home, cosying up with our pints round a little wooden table and telling Yoshie all the good things about York. It did make me miss little old York a little bit, but the more we chatted about Japan, the more determined it made me to move there. Good luck changing my mind Kyle. Again time flew and it was 7.30pm before we knew it, so the guys kindly took us to a store to collect food for tea before dropping us back at the hostel, which for us meant a quick bite and an early night….after all the excitement of the last 2 days I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!
The next morning we took a walk into the centre of Adelaide and ended up doing one of our favourite things, window shopping. We were actually looking for wooly hats, but as they reckon it’s summer here non of the shops had any stock, don’t know why like, even the staff had their big winter coats on.The centre of Adelaide is nice and peaceful, and ridiculously clean, it reminds me more of a town than a city as it’s so quiet and the people move at a more leisurely pace. We picked up a can of Heinz soup for lunch, it’s way too expensive to eat out all the time, and prepared it back at the hostel. Tomato soup used to be a solid staple in my diet, I’d have at least one can a week in the winter for lunch at work and I swore I hated noodle soup….turns out I now love noodle soup and fucking hate tomato. It was minging, I couldn’t even eat half a bowl so had to settle for chocolate raisins instead.
Later that evening Kyle G and Yoshie came to collect us for an evening of fishing at Noarlunga beach. Lucky for me, Yoshie had brought extra jackets so that we could keep warm, I bundled myself up in my windbreaker and an extra coat before we all headed towards the beach. Noarlunga was nice and quiet with only us guys there, so the boys took to fishing whilst me and Yoshie took pictures of the beautiful sunset. I’d love to say that the boys caught us 3 big salmon, but that would be a lie, we were left with a pile of seaweed and rumbling stomachs after half an hour of waiting patiently. This meant a trip to the dreaded McDonalds and a shameful burger for us all. It was a funny evening though, and we had too much fun trying to catch a good picture of the four of us before the timer ran out on the camera which resulted in some great polaroid snaps.
Today we headed back to Glenelg as the weather looked a little better, but the blue skies were misleading and it was still too cold for another day of sunbathing but it was warm enough for a nice coastal stroll, and a hunt for the graffiti art. For lunch we opted for a noodle house, hoping for a taste of Asia, we should of known better, it was vile! I was left even more pissed off by this fact after we visited the Central Market and China Town and saw all the food options we could of chosen from! They all looked and smelt delicious, that’ll teach me for being impatient and hangry.
This evening was spent in a British pub with Kyle G and Yoshie where we said our goodbyes, we can’t thank them enough for the past few days. We’ve had the best time and had the opportunity to visit places that we probably wouldn’t have without them, I was actually pretty sad to say cya later.
Tomorrow we wake early once again for the final part of our Australian adventure in Melbourne, I’m just hoping for better weather, fingers crossed.
Love Carrie xxx
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