Our LSD trip to Adelaide and Melbourne

[starfish]

I thought I’d share some of our experiences and impressions from our recent LSD trip to Adelaide and Melbourne.

Flights

Got off to a teeny bit of a bad start with a self-appointed “porter” at Cape Town airport insisting on helping us with our luggage (ok, there were a lot of bags – we were 3 adults and one toddler). What concerned me a little was that he started asking us questions about where we were going and how long we’d be away for. This with our names and addresses in full view on our luggage tags. Luckily we were all savvy enough to only give very guarded answers, but I did entertain a few worries about my house while we were away.

We transported our two year old daughter (Kate) to the plane in the stroller but had to leave it on the tarmac as we boarded the plane. It was waiting for us when we got off at Joburg airport.

We were a little apprehensive about flying long-haul with a toddler, but all went pretty well from that point of view. The Cape Town to Joburg leg on SAA was a cinch. The new international departures section at Joburg airport is huge, and of course our departure gate was one of the furthest to get to (you really need that stroller!). We had booked all our flights through SAA, but the Joburg - Sydney legs were on Qantas. Our takeoff from Joburg was delayed due to a thunderstorm, so we ended up taking off at 20h30 instead of 19h00. We “entertained” Kate for a while, gave her some supper and a bottle, and she actually settled quite well and slept for 6 hours – not bad for a 13 hour flight. That meant that my wife, mom-in-law and I could get a little shut-eye too. We used one of the supplied blankets to make a little “tent” over Kate in order to block out light and sound, and that seemed to help. The Qantas staff were generally very friendly and helpful. When we landed in Sydney there was some or other medical emergency on board which kept us on the plane for another hour – by now we had well and truly missed our connecting flight to Adelaide, but when we finally got off the plane at Sydney airport, the ground staff there were ready and waiting to inform us of our new flight numbers and where to go. Very impressive! (when we were again delayed coming back from Sydney to Joburg, no-one at Joburg airport told us anything about re-bookings – we had to ask).

Getting through passport control and customs in Sydney airport was easier than it looked – at first the queues look terribly long, but they do move pretty quickly. And with having a toddler, they showed us to a shorter queue. After our 3rd and final flight, we finally arrived in Adelaide at 21h00 where we were met by waiting family.

Adelaide

The jet lag was not too bad. We spent the next 19 days in Adelaide, half of that time with my wife’s sister, and the remainder with her brother. Both stay south of the Adelaide CBD in the suburbs of Woodcroft and Flagstaff Hill respectively. We had arranged a good mix of researching suburbs (houses, schools, location etc), sight-seeing (doing the tourist thing) and just relaxing with family. We hired a little runaround from Aussie Cars for this part of our trip. The weather in Adelaide was unusual for that time of year according to the locals – a lot of cloud and rain, which wasn’t great for our purposes, although we did have two or three days where it reached 35 degrees – and boy did that feel hot! We looked in some detail at some of the southern suburbs of Adelaide - Woodcroft, Mt Hurtle, Aberfoyle Park, Flagstaff Hill, Blackwood, Coromandel Valley, O’Halloran Hill etc, and also looked at some of the seaside suburbs like Noarlunga, Hallet Cove, Brighton and Marino. Something which immediately struck both my wife and I was how we missed seeing mountains. Adelaide is relatively flat when compared to Cape Town. I guess one yearns for a similar environment to what one currently has. We did see some areas that we felt we could live in.

We looked at both show houses in established suburbs and display houses in new developments. Show houses are on show on Saturdays and Sunday, and usually only for 30 or 45 minutes at a time. Display houses are new houses and are open for longer, and sometimes for more days during the week (e.g. Monday, Wednesday, Friday as well as weekend). When buying a house, transfer goes through in 3 weeks, not 3 months as is currently the case here in Cape Town. The houses in Adelaide are built differently to here in Cape Town (although I’m sure there are exceptions) – generally only the exterior wall is brick and cement – the rest is “dry wall” (i.e. partition wall). They don’t dig foundations, rather they clear the site and then cast a thick concrete slab. The house frame is predominantly wood, and the ceilings are lower than here.

As part of our sight-seeing we visited Hahndorf and Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills. We also met up with Bob and Ginnie, and spent a nice afternoon having tea with them (tea as in afternoon tea and not supper!). Bob has a lovely spot out in the country, with great views.

We also spent a day at Victor Harbor, stopping at Urrimbira reserve en route to see kangaroos, koalas, possums and dingos up close. My daughter really enjoyed feeding the kangaroos.

We also spent a day in the Adelaide CBD, taking the train in from Noarlunga. The train ride was nice, the train arrived on time and the carriages clean. In town we took a ride on the free City Loop bus which goes around part of the CBD, and spent the rest of the day walking the city and alongside the Torrens river. I had also arranged an interview with an employment agency to check out my job prospects. The CBD was quite easy to navigate on foot, and looked nice and clean.

We did our share of grocery shopping at our local Woolworths (which reminded us of Pick ‘n Pay) and Coles (which reminded us of Checkers). Those trolleys do take a bit of getting used to. We didn’t see any supermarket quite like the South African Woolworths though. They also have a supermarket chain called Foodland, which is quite like our Spar.

We absolutely loved the fish-and-chips in South Australia – especially the butterfish. I don’t know if it’s the quality of the oil they use or what, but they are absolutely delicious. I also particularly enjoyed the Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee, which is sold in cardboard cartons. Filter coffee there is called “flat white” or “long black”, depending on how you like it. McDonalds are everywhere (its almost like being in the USA) but we didn’t use them so I can’t comment. We did once stop for lunch at a Hungry Jacks, which looks very much like the American Burger King.

When I first asked to buy some more “airtime” to top up my Telstra Prepaid cellphone I got a very strange look from the lady behind the counter at our local Woolworths, until I realised my error and asked for a “recharge”. Generally we found the service good at most places.

We didn’t see a single burglar bar, high boundary fence or wall in Adelaide. There was also very little litter. We found finding our way around quite easy by car, as the city is designed on a grid system so sooner or later you cross a major road from which you can get your bearings.

The public parks are wonderful – especially if you have kids. The equipment is in excellent condition, and the parks are well maintained. Kate really enjoyed them, so we spent a fair amount of time visiting them, which was nice as we also got to meet and chat to some Aussies.

Even with spending just under 3 weeks in Adelaide, we only scratched the surface. There is a lot to see and take in.

Great Ocean Road

We hired a bigger, more spacious car for the remainder of our trip, from Hertz. We had planned to take 3 days to drive from Adelaide to Melbourne, but underestimated the length of this trip, due to the winding road and the scenic stops along the way. We ended up taking an extra day – and we still didn’t get to see everything. It is a lengthy drive, and our little one didn’t enjoy the long stretches in the car each day, even though we limited ourselves to a maximum of 4 hours driving per day, and stopped several times along the way. We spent our first night in Robe, in a motel which overlooks the lake. South Australia has some lovely seaside towns, and we really liked the look of Robe and Beachport. Day two was mostly inland driving, and we stopped in Mount Gambier to see the Blue Lake. Our second night was at a B&B on a dairy farm outside Port Fairy in Victoria - another lovely spot. We wished we could have spent more time there. The 3rd (and unplanned!) night was spent at a hotel in the delightful seaside town of Lorne. This gave us an easy 3 hour trip to Melbourne on the 4th day.

Melbourne

We had 7 days in which to see Melbourne – considerably less time than for Adelaide, but then Adelaide was, and remains, is our first choice. We rented a lovely self-catering townhouse in the eastern suburb of Bayswater (near Wantirna) which was spacious, comfortable and very reasonably priced. It also proved to be convenient for exploring Melbourne, and is very close to the Knox City Shopping Centre, where we did our grocery shopping.

We briefly explored the suburbs of Bayswater, Wantirna, Doncaster, Mitcham, Eaglemont, The Basin. We also spent a day with Mara in Sunbury (north-west of Melbourne), and she very kindly showed us around there. We also met another S.A. couple who had just arrived in Melbourne, and who were staying with Mara until they got a place of their own.

We saw some lovely housing developments in Sunbury, and it is quite handily placed from the Melbourne CBD – some 36 km by road, and a 35 minute train trip.

We visited friends in Somerville on the Mornington Peninsula (south of Melbourne), and also saw a little of Dromana, Safety Beach and Mount Martha. The peninsula was, to my wife and I, the most beautiful part of Australia that we saw on our entire trip. Very tree-lined, and close to the sea. If we do settle in Melbourne at any stage this is probably where we’d like to stay, although commuting to the CBD from there is currently a bit of a problem. There is a new freeway scheduled to open next year linking the peninsula to the CBD which will go some way to alleviating this.

We took a train from Bayswater to the CBD (Flinders Street station). This was a 50 minute trip each way, and we travelled outside of rush-hour. We spent the day exploring part of the CBD, and did a short cruise on the Yarra River. We bought some sandwiches and picnicked on the south bank side of the Yarra. We thought that the Melbourne CBD was very attractive.

We spent our final night in Melbourne in the Holiday Inn at the airport – we had an early flight the next morning and didn’t want to be driving in across Melbourne in rush hour traffic. The Holiday Inn was actually very nice – better than we had anticipated.

Melbourne airport was very busy even at 06h30 in the morning, and at one stage our queue was so long that we feared missing our flight, until one of the airport staff pulled us out of the long queue into a new, shorter one.

Flights again

We flew Melbourne to Sydney, then Sydney to Joburg, then Joburg to Cape Town. The flight from Sydney was delayed due to their automatic baggage handling system failing. Our daughter only slept for 2 hours on this flight, as it was a daytime flight – i.e. her body was not ready for sleep. At Joburg airport there was chaos – only one runway was operational, and there was another thunderstorm, causing a huge backlog of flights. To top it all, only half our luggage emerged at Joburg, so I had to submit a lost baggage claim. Our final flight to Cape Town was four-and-a-half hours late. THe jet lag was far worse for us in this directions, and we were all pretty knackered for about 3 days. Our missing bagage was delivered to our home 4 days later.

And now

Having been home for 6 weeks now, and doing lots of thinking, we decided that it will be Adelaide – having some family there is a huge factor for us. So we’re start the process of relocating.

Below are some pictures from our trip.

Regards,

Scott

Brighton Beach, Adelaide

A public reserve (greenbelt) in Flagstaff Hill, Adelaide

House building, Adelaide-style

Beachside park in Robe, South Australia

Twelve Apostles (two of them anyway), Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Melbourne CBD

Mornington Peninsula, Melbourne

[Guest mrs mupersan]

Brilliant! Thanks Scott - what a great write-up. Damn, you certainly packed in a helluva lot into your time there. I'm not surprised it took you 3 days to recover!

Good luck with your move!

Mandy

[Mupersan]

Hey Scotti, nice name... looks like an awesome trip. Best of luck for your apps, I hope that it doesnt take long. Thanks for the pics..

Regards

Scott

Edited January 2, 2008 by Mupersan

[Annette]

Dis nou baie nice van jou Scott om al die moeite te doen en selfs jou foto's op te sit. Baie dankie!

[Nicki G]

Hi Scott that was great information.

We have a toddler as well so we are not looking forward to the long flight so thanks for the ideas

Good luck

Nicki

[gisi]

Hi Starfish

Your article was really so full of quality info! Sounds as if you guys really got a good feel. My husband and I am visiting Melbourne early in Feb this year and your info will serve as a good starting point. We are also in the process of going over. If you have any additional info I wouldlove to hear from you guys.

gisi

[Navigator]

Nice report there Scott, and some very nice photo's too.

[sa2oz]

Every time I read through postings on this forum, I am reminded of the 'big-heartedness' of people! Thanks Scott! We are validating our visas in a trip to Melbourne for the month of Feb (having never ever set foot in Aus but now the proud holders of PR visas!) Your info is invaluable and the photo's are stunning. Thanks for taking the time and effort to share that with us. Mara seems to be an absolute gem and is pops up in so many postings as she lends a helping hand to ex-Saffers. It's a stirling example to follow.

I am greatly encouraged by your comments on the Mornington Peninsula as its one of the places we plan to LSD on our trip. thanks a mill!

[moegeploeg]

Very nice pics, specially the Mornington Peninsula. Will certainly make it one of our 1st weekend visits. Next French and Phillip Islands... so many places, so little time

[Retha_hhr]

Thank you very much Scott for this info. I loved the description of the neighborhoods and the time it took with the train to get to the CBD. Adelaide is our first choice too, but will see where we will end up in the end.

Regards,

Retha

[starfish]

Hi all

Thanks for all your kind comments. If anyone wants any more (or more specific) information (obviously I didn't cover everything in my summary) then please feel free to PM me.

Regards,

Scott

[Navigator]

We're also off to Adelaide, flying the 11th of Feb. We might see you there sometime in the near future...

[Gizmo]

Thanks so much for that update! From your piccies, both places look simply amazing! Aderlaid has a more Melkbos strand feel whereas Melbourn looks a bit like Germany/Europe to me. Wow - I would battle to choose between the two - just from the piccies, both look fabulous for different reasons.

And, I have to say it - Gosh it is so clean there!

[Bob]

Great photos, Scott.

I'm especially glad that you've made minds up to quit South Africa and head for Australia sooner rather than later in a few years' time.

Melbourne or Adelaide are both good spots to bring kids up in too.

See you guys in South Australia again some time.