Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 170]
In the Bight the weather was quite calm, we have had a splendid trip hardly a rough day. On the evening of the 6th of February we passed between Kangaroo Island, and the mainland, and then we steamed up St Vincents Gulf towards Adelaide.The day was hot and it was difficult to tell where sea earth and sky met. The water was as calm as a lake and remarkably clear, so much so that we could see the bottom, as we sailed along. We passed the town of Glenelg on the right bank, then up the Torrens. The Torrens is only a saltwater estuary here from which the lowlying land stretched far away covered with saltwater fig scrub. I should say the Torrens had been a bigger river in ages past but now it is only a small stream opening out into its old estuary. We had to wait for the tide to enable us to get up to Port Adelaide. We drew up alongside the wharf at Birkenhead and were allowed to get off. Birkenhead and Port Adelaide are not at all nice places. Near them are a number of beaches, the principal one being Semaphore beach not as good as Manly. Next Morning we went into Adelaide City from Port Adelaide a distance of some 7 miles or so. In the city the Cheerio club gave us a sumptuous meal, and then the two of us set out to explore the city. Firstly, we went to the zoo, being desirous of seeing our long lost ancestors. The zoo wasn't very large but what was there was excellent. From the zoo we went to the Museum which has one of the finest Australian collections it has ever been my lot to see. The bones and skeletons of animals from Lake Callabona being very good, skeletons of the Diprotodon being the most noticeable along with the bones of an Australian Moa bird. Lots of Australians unhappily know nothing of their own country and won't learn. We took a tram ride out to Burnside at the foot of the hills and climbed them.