March 30, 2018

We are in Adelaide today and have a private tour booked. It is Good Friday and a lot of places are closed so it was challenging to find a tour. Our tour guide, David, said he would find some places and show us around.

David had a wonderful VW van to travel in. It was so comfortable. Too bad we can’t get them in the states.

The first stop of the day was Gorge Wildlife. We were some of the first there so it wasn’t crowded. David had arranged a private holding of a koala. We each got to hold it for about 5 minutes. Her name was Claire and will be retiring soon. I think they said she was about 9 years old. She was bulky and kind of heavy. They told me to stand there like a tree.

We then walked through the park and looked at the other animals. A goose chased Mary P and pecked her on the back of her knee. It was quite comical.

We had requested to do a chocolate tasting so he took us to a chocolate factory with 100’s of kids there getting their Easter candy. The only tasting was samples around the store. I did purchase a dark chocolate candy bar for later. We weren’t in there long as this wasn’t really what we were interested in.

He then drove us to Hahndorf, a German town. There were lots of shops and restaurants there. He dropped us off at one end of town and said he would pick us up at the other end and for us to find a place to eat along the way. He had recommended Haus so we located it and ate there it was good but a lot of food.

After lunch he took us to Mount Lofty for a view of the area. Absolutely gorgeous. We continued back into Adelaide for an overview of the town. He took us to a really pretty church. They were getting ready to have a Good Friday Meditation Service. We traipsed through there with our cameras. I felt kind of strange but he said we were ok. I don’t know if that was his church or not but I kind of felt like it might have been. Beth wanted to hear the organ so Mary P, Beth and I went back inside for the first few minutes to listen but they never really played it. We did get to hear the choir sing though.

There are parks surrounding Adelaide and they are so pretty and peaceful. The town is also very clean. He showed us some fig trees which were enormous in size. I’ve never seen one that big. It kind of reminded me of our redwood trees.

We returned back to the ship a little before 5:00. All aboard time was 5:30 so we stayed in the cruise terminal to check our email on free WiFi. When we got back on the ship they were having lifeboat drill for the few people that got on the cruise in Adelaide.

We didn’t rush down to dinner and when we got there all the window seats were gone. Lesson learned — rush to dinner or wait a little longer. Dinner was good but by the time we got out we couldn’t get a seat to the show. We were there 30 minutes early but all the good seats were taken. We went back to the cabin and then went to trivia at 9:00. It was famous faces. We knew some of them but missed some obvious ones. After that it was back to the cabin.

I forgot to mention that the captain had made an annnouncement that we may have a rough night.