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The Coorong and Adelaide
I woke up early in Kingston S.E., anxious to get on the road again. I had spent the night in a pub hotel, which was very cheap, but very bare-bones. I had a tiny little room, no TV, a shared bathroom down the hall, and a noisy generator outside my window running until about 4:00 in the morning. I decided I couldn't take it anymore and got on the highway while it was still dark. Now I was headed northwest up the coast, through the Coorong National Park. Sunrise came as I approached the Pelican Sanctuary, a small island off the coast that provides a safe nesting ground for Australian Pelicans. A short trail leads down to an overlook, where binoculars are posted for viewing the birds from the mainland. I sat out on a sand dune and watched the pelicans flying around and landing on the island as the rising sun began to warm me up.
Continuing on up the coast, the highway turned inland and I began to come into the Adelaide Hills, beautiful in May with the fall colors in the forests. I stopped for an early lunch in the picturesque village of Hahndorf, a German settlement that still retains the flavor of a small Bavarian town. I did a little souvenir shopping in the many shops along the main street, trying to find some hidden gems among the T-shirts, stuffed koala bears, wind-up kangaroos, and kitschy postcards that seemed to proliferate here.
Adelaide was just a short drive from Hahndorf, continuing through the Adelaide Hills and back down to the coast. Adelaide is a big city, although not as big as Melbourne or Sydney. It has a very pleasant city center, laid out in grids around Victoria Square, with the entire central city surrounded by hills and parklands. I didn't plan to spend much time here, because the desert to the north was beckoning, but it was a nice place to take a break from driving.
I reached Victoria Square and found a place to park the car for a while. I then hopped on the old trolley car that runs from central Adelaide all the way out to Glenelg Beach. It was about a half-hour ride to the beach, out of the business district through suburban neighborhoods lush with rhododendron, and finally arriving at the beach resort of Glenelg. I got off the trolley and wandered down to the beach, for a relaxing afternoon of sitting in the sand, picking up sea shells, and listening to the waves.
I returned back to the city center and found a supermarket so I could do some shopping. It was time to get ready for my first long hikes, which I would be undertaking in the upcoming days. With my backpack full of food and water, the car gassed up and checked for oil and coolant, it was time for me to head into the great red deserts of central Australia. From Adelaide I drove north toward Port Augusta, then took a turnoff on a smaller highway to Quorn and on to Hawker. By the time I left Quorn, I was in a spectacular desert landscape, dotted with abandoned homesteads from early in the century, a land that I now had all to myself.
Next up: Wilpena Pound and the Flinders Ranges.
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