"At Easter, we went to Adelaide"

Our Easter Adelaide Holiday

So for the Easter weekend (Thurs-Mon) we went to Adelaide. We decided to drive which given it is 740km from Melbourne could have been viewed as foolhardy with our 3-yr-old and 1-yr-old passengers…
We even declined the offers of loans of in-car DVD players, preferring to keep Maddie of the belief that it is impossible to watch TV inside a car.

I did wonder if this was a big mistake especially when the first “Daddy, when will we be there?” came from Maddie after 1hr 10mins. And the second after 1hr 11mins.

However the journey went very well, although a touch boring at times with scenery a little limited apart from the local wildlife:

















All up the journey there took a shade over 10 hours, including stops for breakfast, lunch and fuel. On the way back we also had a good journey but we stopped for lunch, long run around in a park and dinner, making it an 11-hour trip! It was fine, but if we drove again I think we’d take the more scenic 930km coastal route and stop overnight halfway in Mt Gambier.

Maddie did get a bit confused about how far we had gone though and kept talking about home as “when we get back to Australia”!

We stayed in a 2-bedroom cabin in a campsite on the river right in the centre of Adelaide – the city centre was walkable and best of all the zoo was only maybe 10 minutes’ walk along the river too.

So, Good Friday saw us heading to the zoo (about the only thing open!) for opening time to beat the queues to see Adelaide’s most famous residents – Wang Wang and Funi the Giant Pandas!



These are both Wang Wang as he was getting out and about more.

Maddie really enjoyed the Pandas and had to have her photo taken on the way out of their section:
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She made up a little “Wang Wang and Funi” jingle/song and must have sang it about 30 times a day over Easter, it was very cute.
After the Zoo we walked through the centre of Adelaide where Maddie “appreciated” some sculptures
…and Sam despaired of his crazy sister!

















To finish the day we made our way to Glenelg (the only palindromic beachside suburb in the world?) which was great due to two firsts: Maddie having a go on this ;
and running along with Maddie watching a dolphin swimming right along the beach in the shallows for the whole length of the beach! Fantastic.













On Saturday we stopped off at Maddie’s “treehouse” (on the edge of the botanic gardens) which she wants to go and visit every time she goes to Adelaide!

















We then went for a little bike ride along the river and bumped into a huge Concours event for the Australian MG Owners Club. As you can see Sam was particularly interested in having some full-size cars to play with!














Saturday afternoon we went to Semaphore which has this carousel, which was unexpectedly fast – so that the only decent photo I got was this one after it stopped!
. Maddie and Toni then had a run around in the park which she loved – can you tell?

















For Easter the kids had a Bilby (the Aussie version of the Easter bunny) from Haigh’s, South Australia’s biggest/oldest chocolatier.


The two little Bilby chocolates were very popular!!


Yum












It’s twice as big as my mouth! But I’ll manage


Don’t take my chocolate away from me…















And then we went up into the Barossa Valley for some adult holidaying (wineries and ‘foodie’ places like Grant Burge and Maggie Beer)…mmmm!

Til next time which will probably have all the happenings of Maddie’s “Princesses and Pirates” 4th birthday party next weekend!

Dom