There's a nice pergola nearby us which has BBQ and picnic tables located on a little rise just behind the sand dune of the beach. From there you have a pleasant view over the water of the Gulf. I cooked bacon and egg bagels on the BBQ while A drank tea and read her e-book and C fed bits of bread to the ducks and seagulls. We spent the day in Glenelg. It's about 3km away so we got ourselves ready and rode the bikes over. Jetty rd is a long street of fashi...

Our first day in Adelaide started with a jog along the beach path towards Glenelg. We drove to the end of this section of the beach to park in a nook formed by a creek with very expensive posh houses and walked the rest of the way over the bridge past the marina into Glenelg and Jetty Road to catch the tram. The famous tram ride to Glenelg - only we did it in reverse! Adelaide city is very pretty indeed. The city proper is like the middle of a doughnut ...

We had enough time this morning to spend a while in the Australian Arid Lands Botanical Garden which was, a bit surprisingly, very nice. They have a series of lovely courtyard style gardens, all based on local drought tolerant plants. They call the philosophy Aridsmart. A lot of the desert plants are in bloom at the moment and there is an amazing array of colour. The local specialty is eremophila (check spelling) which means 'desert loving' and includes 200...

We packed up and pulled out of the Stuart Range Caravan Park this morning around 9am but instead of heading straight out onto the road, we went back into town for a while. The Umoona opal mine museum deserved a longer visit that we were able to give it last night. They have lots of fossils found in the area (from all the mining I guess you'd expect them to dig some up) including opalised shell fossils from when this was an inland sea. Andy made a wild misc...

We went off prospecting this morning, or 'noodling' as the locals call it when you fossick through the mullock heap looking for opal. We all found a few small bits of potch which is white opal that is worthless. C was so excited at the start but was positively depressed after an hour or so. The ugly side of disappointed youthful enthusiasm. We walked about the town a bit to have a look. Went into several opal places, but then again, every store in town...