Karen & David's travel

We got up bright and early to pack and pick up the car at 8. Then we stopped at a mall to get the rest of the groceries for our 3 days stay in the Rawnsley Park Station. By the time we headed out of the city, it was 10:30. The highway close to Adelaide is a 3 lanes divided one, it then turns into a 2 lanes divided and finally into an undivided 1 lane. But all the way, the speed limit is 110km/hr, with the exceptions when it goes through towns. It was not a bad drive overall. You can appreciate how big and dry South Australia is during the drive. When it is close to the coast, both sides are farmlands. But since this is summer and very hot and dry, all the fields are brown. As we moved inland, both sides are pastures for sheep or cattle. There are miles and miles of brown, dead grass or arid land. Also, you can go for miles without seeing any buildings or signs of life all around. Though there are mountains far away, the flat land in between is huge.  And the scenery is different f...

Even though we got up at 7, we didn't leave the hotel until 10 or so.  It took us a while to sort out the change in the car rental pick up (from airport to downtown) and then the mobile data connection ... but they were all happy endings in the end! We rushed over to the Adelaide Botanical Garden to catch the guided tour at 10:30.  It was a small group and the guide was very knowledgeable.  We learned that they are pushing for the Mediterranean plants in Adelaide as they require little water and are very hardy under the harsh sun.  A lot of these plants have waxy leaves to minimize the loss of moisture, silver grey in color to reflect the sunlight and offer UV protection, leaves are positioned and shaped in such a way to collect water and direct them to the main stem ... maybe we can learn a thing or two from these plants!  Another interesting tidbit is the Bunya Pine, whose pine cone is the size of a football and weighs about 5 kg - you definitely don't want...

We left our house in Toronto at 10:30 on Monday night and checked in at the hotel in Adelaide, Australia, shortly after 10 on Thursday morning.  Discounting the 15 1/2 hours time difference, that's still 45 hours worth of flying, waiting at the airports, going to and from the airports, a little side trip in HK to have lunch with family and dozing off in between all these activities.  Despite the long hours, Karen and I both agreed that flying at night and taking a few hours of rest after you arrive at the next stop, is a good way to get your body adjusted quickly ... whatever quickly means!  We slept at 11PM on Thursday night and woke up around 5AM (which is very good for us) and we didn't get up until 7. Adelaide is a relatively "small" town with 1.3 million people and people we've run into thus far are very friendly and helpful.  After a power nap in the morning, we spent a few hours wandering around Rundle Mall and grabbing lunch.  The Mall is made up of ...