Day 35: Parks and other things, AVID RIP

Well, I did NOT sleep well last night! The wind was blowing a gale and it kept disturbing. Consequently, I also had a number of nightmares. One of them, illogically, was the idea of a large, pointy branch blowing at our caravan and impaling me through the tent. (Maybe this was not so illogical after all.)

This morning we had a look at St Peter's Cathedral, which is situated in the city in amongst some lovely park areas. We debated as to whether the Church of Apostles was similar in size, but did eventually conclude that St Peter's is bigger. It was certainly higher, anyway, with some impressive towers on top.

St Peter's Cathedral, with pointy tower on top

Much of the day was taken up in directed meandering through the extensive parks that surround the city centre. [We were going to take our bikes and do the ride around the city, but it was so darn windy that we imagined trying to peddle while being vaguely parallel to the ground. The gale was certainly reminiscent of Cape Town's South Easter winds.] We did this for about 5 hours, checking out stuff on the way.

Our first stop - of course - was to eat. A picnic on the banks of the Torrens River in Elder Park. Just as Duncan was about to say 'Hold onto your hats', a little gust came and whooshed my little AVID bucket hat off my head and straight into the water. It didn't even bounce on the sidewalk. Just, 'plop'. It certainly excited the ducks and swans, who came over to look. I did have a moment where I thought some bright avian creature might collect it up in it's beak and bring it over, but, well perhaps head and brain size correlate after all. I am so very sad to lose my hat. I got that one at the Music Technology conference last year and I feel automatically intelligent when I wear it. Bye bye hat. RIP. : (

Having gotten over my loss, we moved on to the SA Art Gallery. However, as we rounded the corner at the Governor's Residence, we discovered that today was an open day for the public. So, in we went of course and had a good old sticky-beak. There was lots of hub-bub going on; a band playing, people dressed up in historical garb, etc. We shuffled around the rooms with the crowds and checked out the HUGE paintings of royal people in each room. It is very convenient to have HUGE paintings because they do take up a lot of wall space. And, when you have a lot of wall space to cover, this is ideal.

The Governor's Residence

The War Memorial - on the way to the SA Art Gallery

We next came upon the SA Art Gallery, which was an eye-opening experience for the boys and full of interesting things to see, as you can imagine. Rather a lot of naked bodies too - too many for Andrew's liking, I think (he did blush a few times), but Callum took it all in his stride. You could spend hours here, preferably over a number of visits, as there is just so much to take in.

Feeling rather fatigued after all of this, we strolled back to the car and headed off for another park were you can hire row boats. The boats turned out to be suitable for two, so Duncan took the boys off for a row, while I took photos from the banks. The lake, being rather shallow in places, gave Duncan a good workout, and Callum nearly got his bum wet a few times from the back of the boat sitting so low in the water.

Row, row, row your boat...

Tomorrow we will hear confirmation of when and how the caravan change-over is going to happen. Hopefully Tuesday is the day, because I would really like to move on now...