May 8th, 2011
Adelaide
Distance: 33km
Total distance: 2503km
My supposedly 5 rest days becomes 6 when I found out yesterday that there’s gonna be showers later today. Although the sky was cloudy, there was no shower at all today. Sigh. Well, I miss my weekend to exit Adelaide, this means tomorrow I must ride earlier and faster in the morning to beat the morning rush hour.
Anyway, Adelaide’s a great place to live in. Before I arrive, I expected this place to look a lot like Brisbane, but turns out I see more of Melbourne than Brisbane in Adelaide. I especially like how the city is completely surrounded by parks (with one odd cemetery there) and it’s squarish just like Melbourne. Their roads are bicycle friendly too, more so than Brisbane in fact. Their public transport however, was quite a disappointment – trains were not regular and buses don’t come on time. I wish I had more time (and money) as I didn’t get to visit many places, including the Barossa valley, Mt Lofty lookout, and Harndorf. They are all hilly places so that’s why I didn’t want to ride there, haha. Another place I wanted to visit but didn’t get a chance to was Fleurieu Peninsula, which was quite out of my touring route. So far I’ve only seen the city itself, Chinatown, Glenelg Beach, and Harbour Town. Something else I liked about Adelaide is that they tend to have more varieties and better quality Asian food compared to Brisbane! I tend to compare Adelaide to Brisbane a lot since Melbourne and Sydney are much bigger cities.
Apart from being a tourist, I managed to fix the rear derailleur problem by adjusting the limit screws (never fiddled with this in the past) and cleaned all my camping gears. Also had some awesome catch-ups with some of MK’s friends and Jonathan, my undergrad uni-mate whom I haven’t seen for nearly 5 years.
Many thanks to MK who showed great hospitality while I’m here! Tomorrow I will begin Leg 3, the shortest one among all but I see it as a preparation for the big Nullarbor leg.
