The Manna House: Adelaide to McLaren Vale

Greetings for 2010, not 2101 as the last blog had it. I am a bit dyslectic with numbers at times. All the numbers were there, just in the wrong place!! and while I am at it, my spelling goes awry at time also.
Adelaide turned on it's best weather for us, mild and sunny and perfect for cycling. SA has the most incredible number of cycle tracks. They seem to criss cross the entire state,making cycling a very popular passtime. SA is also doing a great job in banning the plastic bag. Most supermarkets no longer supply you with them and other shops encourage you to bring your own bags. And while I am singing the states praises, Adelaide has free public transport for seniors,excluding peak times, and the whole city is surrounded by parklands.
Back to cycling....We used the cycle path that goes just behind the caravan park, into the CBD and got there in no time. North Terrace has the Art gallery, Museum, War memorial etc all lined up in a row for easy viewing. We inspected the Art Gallery and were a little disappointed that there were currently no Hans Heyson paintings on display. Their collection is on exhibition around the country at present.We will be able to view it in Newcastle in November.They did, however, have a rather large display of other Australian artists. We left our bikes at the gallery and caught a tram to Glenelg, the beachside suburb which was surprisingly like Manly with a corso, lots of eateries, Norfolk pines and of course, a beach (dare I say, not a patch on Manly)
The next day we took in another movie that has been on our must see list, "Julie and Julia" (really good) then did some post Christmas sales shopping in the Rundle Mall,which was packed with bargain hunters.
While I was on a tour of Africa and Asia 2 years ago, I met a couple from Adelaide whose address I just happened to have with me, so I contacted them the next day and spent the afternoon at their house (just 2 kms from our van park) catching up on their last 2 years.Marnie took the opportunity to have another shopping frenzy in Runlde Mall. We have been bereft of shopping for quite some time. It does'nt take long to get back in the swing of it though!
Adelaide has a bus system called the O'Bahn which has its own dedicated track, allowing some specific buses to travel along this special track at reasonalbly high speeds.They just look like any bus accept they have a horizontal wheel on each side of the vehicle that guides the bus along the track. We were curious to try it out, so we took one of the buses to Tea Tree Gully, about 12km away. It feels a little like being on a train and it only took about 12 minutes to get there. The bus seamlessly leaves the track and back on to the road without you even noticing. Very clever system. I'm not sure why other states dont follow suit. Adelaide has been running these buses since the eighties.
Our last day in Adelaide was spent trying to organise the replacement of our bent awning. After going from one place to another, we were directed to a caravan business in St Marys and eventually we were able to get a quote, have them send the awning to Melbourne and we will have it installed there. Most factories are closed until 11th Jan so it was out of the question, getting it done quickly.
Thankfully, St Marys was in the south of Adelaide, so we were heading in the right direction for our next destination, McLaren Vale in the Fleurieu Peninsula, just 40 km from Adelaide. I know it gets really boring talking about the weather, so I wont mention the fact that we are heading into a 4 day heat wave of 41C and rumour has it that Victor Harbour is generally 8 degrees cooler than elsewhere, so we have booked into a van park there for the next 3 days in the hope that the rumour is true. Meanwhile, this van park in McLaren Vale that we are in for 2 nights, is really delightful. It has a super abundance of shade trees and sits between 2 vineyards. The sites are large and the layout ambles rather than having rigid lines.And best of all, given the heat today, it seems fairly cool. I dont think we have seen one drop of rain for at least 6 weeks, but we no complain!
Vicki