Thursday 5 April 2012: Still in Adelaide

Dave and I rode 2-up on the Honda today through Adelaide city surrounds, to save us getting separated on 2 bikes on a busy day in peak hour traffic just before the Easter weekend. We went to the Port Adelaide Maritime Museum, expecting this to be a short visit, as the old stone building seemed small, but surprise! it was much bigger inside, with 3 levels. Fascinating too, as we enjoyed seeing lots of exhibits and learned more early colonial Australian history. We enjoyed the ship figurehead collection; an old man used to buy them whenever he could and now the museum has them on display. The biggest lot in the southern hemisphere.

I also enjoyed seeing the set ups of the immigration ships; the sailing ships that had brought my Irish potato famine ancestors from County Clare were cramped and it must have been terribly hard for the people on board. They must have needed courage and strength. And the next level was the steam ship that brought out my Dad's father from London. The next level was the big ships that brought out the post-World War 2 immigrants.

After the maritime museum visit, Dave and I did a very special thing that we had been asked to do as Ulysses members. We formally identified a body for cremation: of our dear friend Doug. He and his lovely partner Jean had tragically been killed in a motorbike crash at Orroroo SA on the 20th March. Now Doug's ashes can be sent back home to WA to be with his family. As Dave and I were staying right in Adelaide, we felt honoured that we could help Doug and his family. (Dear Jean had her funeral back in Toodyay WA.) The Simplicity Funeral parlour was on a very busy road, lucky Dave had the GPS on to guide us there. We had an appointment to view Doug's body at 2pm, and we were able to spend some time with his coffin after Dave signed the papers formally saying it was Doug. (He had also been formally identified by another Ulysses member just after the crash, so our ID was for the cremation to go ahead.)

I've seen a few bodies of loved people in the past and they have been like empty shells, but seeing Doug's was like a feeling of his spirit still being there, wondering where he was and what was going on. Doug used to always tell us that the Armadale Ulysses branch was like his family, and so while I stroked his hair in the coffin, Dave told him that his Ulysses family was with him now to make sure everything would be ok for him, and his ashes could now go back to home. This strangely seemed to help, and a good feeling was around Doug's body then. Or, at least we felt better and relieved; I had been worrying until we finally saw it really was "our Doug" lying there, ready now to pass over.

After leaving the funeral parlour, we rode on to the central city and had a browse through some antique markets, but they were mostly filled with what I consider is junky bling….even the so called old jewellery was not old. I have a dream of finding a real alexandrite jewel setting one day in a junky little shop….if you're a rock hound you know that is a very special rare beryl that changes colour from green in daylight to red under lamp light. I keep on looking in case I find this treasure!

Later, back at our caravan park it was busy as hek with lots of Easter travellers coming in. Time to move on to Mt Gambier tomorrow!