It was sad to be leaving Adelaide because, although we still have three weeks of our trip, this marked the turning point in terms of us making our way home.
Today we made our way back through the Adelaide Hills, past Hahndorf and Murray Bridge, making a quick stop at Tailem Bend for petrol, and to wonder at the pelicans fighting against the wind to land in the Murray. They reminded me of the Flying Nun, and if you know what I am talking about, then you have dated yourself as much as I have. Mark took some photos, but the wind was blowing so hard I could hardly keep the camera still, and it was cold! Truly, we had been so lucky with the weather to this point, but the wind today was awful. Windy, cold, cloudy and showery. It meant that Mark really had to concentrate with the drive, with gusts making the van sway at times (the first real sway we have experienced). The drive took us through the Coorong National Park, with its lagoons separated from the ocean by a this stretch of hilly sand, but the weather didn’t give us the opportunity to enjoy the scenery as much. Even the couple of pink salt lakes were dull, but Mark was patient enough to wait for the sun to peep out from a cloud momentarily so that he could try to capture the colour.
Mid-afternoon (or actually early afternoon real time) we pulled into Kingston SE, SA. The SE part has to be used as a qualifier, because some bozzo in the naming department chose a name that was in use already elsewhere in the state. I didn’t know a whole lot about Kingston SE – I chose it because it was on the Limestone Coast, and because it filled our criteria of three to four hours drive on travelling days. It was also recommended as a place to taste South Australian lobster, something which Mark had on his ‘To Do” list. In fact, Kingston SE prides itself on its lobsters so much that the entry to the town is dominated by a 15-metre tall one called Larry. He was built circa 1979 to try to attract tourists and promote local food and wines.
I can not attest to how successful this has been over the years, but I can say that at the time of our visit, late November, Kingston SE was QUIET. The town was quiet, the caravan park had heaps of room, and the beautiful Marine Parade, with car parking spaces running its entire length, did not have a single car parked along it. (Of course, the wind may have been a factor!)
The lady at the caravan park told me that the place to get rock lobster was Lacepede Seafoods. With us arriving at 2:00 pm and them closing at 3:00 pm, we high-tailed it down the road (actually, it was only about 150 metres away, but I am trying to create a sense of urgency). Now we were expecting lobster to be expensive, but even so I think we were both taken aback when we looked in the cabinet and the two fattest lobsters in there were $225 each! Luckily, ahead of us in the queue was a gentleman who was ordering lunch for his family. He wanted not one, but both of the big lobsters, and half of one of the small ones (“for the kids”). The lady behind the counter was reluctant to halve the small one because it was so close to the end of their day, but then we jumped in and said we would take the other half of the small one and everyone was happy. We parted with $50 to taste our crayfish, and the guy ahead of us spent $500 on lobsters – as well as some whiting and chips – for lunch.
We took our meagre portion and decided that we would at least eat it in the park across from our van – close to the ocean. Kevvie the cray fish was delicious – what there was of him – but wish list ticked, we high-tailed it back to the warmth of the van.
I had picked up a “Walking Guide to Kingston’s Heritage” brochure at reception at the caravan park, but given the wind and the cold, we decided to drive it instead. After all there were thirty-five things on the list! One of the things that we discovered was that there were originally two townships, one on either side of Maria Creek Eventually the two towns merged to become Kingston. Now the other town was called Roseville, and I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t opt for that name, thus avoiding that SE business. Maybe the rough and rugged lobster fishermen of the late 1800s couldn’t cope with the femininity of it.
Kingston has a heap of beautiful old buildings, as well as few vacant lots where historical buildings used to be – you had to use your imagination on those. One of the buildings still in existence (and actually for sale) is the RAOB Hall, once the meeting place for the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, and all I could think of was those meetings that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble used to go to wearing those blue furry hats with horns on them. But apparently they would have looked a little more like this:
As the day we were in Kingston almost coincided with the teachers’ strike in Queensland, I couldn’t help but think about the advancements in teaching conditions thanks to unions. The Kingston School opened in 1880 with an enrolment of 130 students, housed in two rooms! You might think that at least they were big rooms. Not judging by this:
But perhaps my favourite little piece of heritage was the statue for Walter “Tiny” Toop. His claim to fame? He was one of seven servicemen chosen to ring the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral to mark the end of World War One. I am not sure what Tiny had to do to earn this privilege, But I am sure people have been given statues for less.
The other landmark of note is the Cape Jaffa Lighthouse, which stands tall (albeit on a bit of a slant) over the caravan park. Originally an offshore lighthouse, it was dismantled and re-assembled on shore and is now a museum – which was closed for renovations and that kind of added to the quietness of the town.
By sunset the wind had died down a bit and the rain had cleared to produce a lovely sunset.
For one of those towns where we really only had half a day because we were using it as a stopover, I think Kingston SE had a lot to offer.
Now one day I will have to get to the other Kingston to see how it measures up.
We have just finished our week in Adelaide. It was the first time here for both of us, and one thing I have learnt is that a week is not enough time in Adelaide, especially when two of them are dedicated to the Supercars final (more about that later).
We didn’t even have time to visit Elizabeth to see how bad of a shit hole it is. Now, to be fair to this satellite suburb of Adelaide, named for our late Queen, I only hold this image of Elizabeth because I read Jimmy Barnes’ autobiography, Working Class Boy, and he did not paint a pretty picture of it. I recall him saying in the book that he was lucky to survive his teens for fear of being killed by rivals hanging around the shopping centre. And I’m sure that the town has changed since it first ‘welcomed’ all the ten-pound-poms in the 1960’s, but on the third day we were in Adelaide the Elizabeth shopping centre was locked down when two teenagers were stabbed in broad daylight…so there you go.
Anyway, we arrived on Monday and checked onto our caravan park, the Discovery at Semaphore Beach. It is a tidy little park, close to everything you would need, with gate access directly to the beach. We promptly set up the awning, complete with our whizz-bang ant-flap kit and set off to explore Semaphore. What I found incongruous for a beachside suburb was that all the houses directly opposite the beach are these amazing 19th century, sandstone mansions, complete with fireplaces, and I love that this history has been preserved. The beach heritage of the Sunshine Coast is ore about fibro beach shacks, and scarcely any of them remain. Whenever I drive long the Maroochy River I feel sad that not one of these has been heritage-listed. I know, there’s the asbestos issue, but… you know…history.
The beach front is also dominated by some larger buildings like the lighthouse, now in a park, which you can go into for $29. Sorry, we have been spoilt by Hay, so we just looked at it from the outside, and then promptly forgot to go back and take a picture of it. There is also the very grand Largs Hotel, and the Pavilion. The latter was opened in 1922 and is the only “building” on the beach side of the road. Originally it housed a swimming pavilion that could cater for 500 swimmers, and a ballroom (which I think is still there as a less grand function room) but now boasts a café, bar and bistro looking straight out to Antarctica.
Once we got our bearings about where the sun was going to set, we went back down to the beach in the evening to attempt photos of the sun setting over the Semaphore Jetty. Now of course, early evening means about 7:45 pm, with the sun not actually going down until an hour later, because Adelaide engages in daylight saving, which totally threw my body clock out because I could never figure out when to eat my evening meal, because the sun wasn’t going down early enough. And yes, I am one of those Queenslanders who will always vote no to any poll about it, because unless you have been living in far western Queensland with summer days that reach into the mid-forties and where the sun already sets later than in the south-east corner, I don’t think you should even be entitled to a say.
Anyway, I digress.
While we were down at the beach the wind started to pick up, and by about 10:00 pm the anti-flap kit was struggling, so we pulled the awning down rather than risk damage, and that was the last time we used the awning for the rest of the week, because the wind did not let up. We met a lady who had been staying there for a month, and she said the wind had been relentless the whole time, so although the park was quite lovely, if we ever go back to Adelaide, we won’t be staying there again.
On our second day we drove into the city. Again we were greeted by magnificently preserved sandstone buildings dating back a century-and-a-half, including the beautiful University of South Australia, some commercial buildings, a lot of pubs, and of course, since it is known as the city of them – the churches. According to Google, there are 529 churches in Adelaide, and I reckon during the course of our week we drove past all 863 of them. They are everywhere, and for the most part they are beautiful. What is incredibly impressive about all of these heritage buildings is remembering that South Australia did not have convicts, therefore no free labour. I think South Australians are very proud of their city, and they have every right to be. Not only are there the buildings, but the entire city centre is surrounded (literally – take a look at a satellite pic) by parkland, which not only contains the spread of the CBD, but also led to the development of satellite town/suburbs, beyond the gardens, and each of those has an identity of its own. Yes, there are more than a million people in greater Adelaide, so there are still issues like busy, congested roads, but for the most part, I say, “Well done, Adelaide!”
No visit to the CBD would be complete without a visit to Rundle Mall and a quick snap in front of its iconic balls – so tick – but after a quick coffee catch-up with our mate, Pete, who is halfway through a work contract down here, we had to head back to Semaphore as we had booked lunch at the Palais – because there was something alluring about having lunch and looking out over the Great Southern Ocean. Unfortunately, while the lunch was delicious, the Palais was undergoing renovations, so we couldn’t sit out on the deck, and the bistro is in what was once the downstairs bathing pavilion, so even though we could see the ocean, it did feel a little sub-terranean.
On Wednesday, we headed off to the German town in the Adelaide Hills – Hahndorf. For Sunshine Coasters, I guess Hahndorf is like Montville or Flaxton – on steroids. Like, Montville has a cuckoo clock shop. Hahndorf has a cuckoo clock shop where you think they might actually sell the odd cuckoo clock. Because we were there mid-week, it was a little bit quieter than it apparently gets on the weekends. It would have been even quieter if not for the couple of busloads of school kids who were there on a German excursion. Yeah, right. They were likely to use about as much German in Hahndorf as your average middle-aged English tourist does on a trip to Ibiza. I mean, we ordered apple strudel from the German Inn, and both the guy behind the bar and the waitress were Sri Lankan. But hey…the kids had a worksheet in their hands, and a very minimal teacher presence, so I guess they were having a blast.
We had lunch at the German Arms – Mark tried the German sausage combo. I had a smoked pork chop, and also impressed Mark by drawing on some old high-school maths to figure out that it was much better economy to by two small wines rather than one big one (more mls, less money), and even better economy than buying a bottle!
After lunch we made our way back down the hill. The freeway here has not one, but two, ‘ramps’ leading off the road in case trucks go out of control – lose the breaks and can’t stop. Of course, this just makes me wonder how many rogue trucks necessitated to construction of these, how many times they have been used since construction, and which of the trucks surrounding us were likely to need them that day (or worse – I have seen Stephen Spielberg’s early classic, Duel starring Dennis Weaver, a truck and a pair of hands). I also notice that the motor way also had a detection system for over-height vehicles. One wonders why the Queensland government hasn’t managed to install something like that at that notorious bridge in Rocklea. Having said that, we were on our way to the Port Adelaide shopping centre and passed a truck being attended to by a tow truck. The truck’s roof was peeled and collapsed, and there were tell-tale scars on the nearby railway bridge and associated rubble on the road. I guess you just can’t always account for people’s stupidity.
On Thursday, we back-tracked to Nuriootpa which we had planned to visit the Sunday before, but I had been tardy in booking our accommodation there and did the wine tour out of Gawler instead. We picked up our friend, Velvet, and headed off to Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop and Eatery. I love Maggie – she is such an icon and always seems so warm and lovely, that I knew I couldn’t go to the Barossa and not go there. Of course, I knew she wouldn’t be there herself, but it’s like a culinary pilgrimage in this country.
This was one of the signature things that we had planned for this trip, and we indulged on the five course feast lunch accompanied by a bottle of Barossa rose for Velvet and I and some fancy-schmancy juices for Mark. Every morsel of that meal was DIVINE, from the bread to the chutney and crisps to finish. Even the goat’s cheese in the mushroom pasta was delectable, even though this is the top of my overrated food lists (or things that people say they like just to be pretentious twats) I now want to try to perfect my own grapefruit semi-freddo, knowing that whatever I manage will never be a patch on our Maggie’s! Even better, because this meal was smaller portions, spaced out, I managed to eat five courses and simply feel happily sated, and not just one course from a German pub that made we want to nap for the rest of the arvo.
There was just one unexpected thing about the whole eatery experience:
I guess we’re only supposed to concentration on what’s on top of the plate!
Upon our return from Nuri (as the locals call it – apparently because they struggle to pronounce it too), we met up with Pete at ONE of his local pubs, the Sussex at Walkerville. We got a bit lost, courtesy of our dodgy GPS, but at least now Velvet knows where to find the headquarters of transport company Linfox, and she returned the favour by pointing out the block of flats where a guy had been murdered earlier in the year. Did I mention that Adelaide has more churches per capita than any other capital city, but also the most serial killers? Actually, all over the Adelaide news this week was the story about the only bloke convicted in connection with the so-called “Family” murders in the 1980s. He’s on his deathbed and the police are hoping that he will give up all his secrets before he falls off his mortal coil.
Anyway, back to the Sussex, a recently renovated old pub, which was super busy for a Thursday with couples in the lounge bar, and families having dinner in the beer garden (which has a section with a fire pit). But the thing that most impressed me is that on Mondays, the Sussex does a fondue special! The most disappointing thing – it was Thursday.
Then it was back to Pete and Velvet’s Adelaide digs for a a night cap, before making the drive back to Semaphore Beach. An awesome day.
Friday greeted us with cold weather and rain. Our plan had been to go to the Adelaide Oval to watch the WBBL game between the Brisbane Heat and the Sydney Sixes as one of Connor’s teammates from their junior soccer days is contracted to the Heat. But Micky had messaged us on the Thursday night that at that stage she would be carrying the drinks, so when the rain greeted us in the morning, we decided to pull the pin. As it turned out the game was abandoned without a ball being bowled.
And then sometimes, when you have been on the road for almost three weeks, a cold rainy day is not a bad thing. We caught up on our washing – I discovered that our little caravan washing machine can cope with a queen bed sheet, two pillow cases and a couple of T shirts in one hit, so I did a couple of loads and then just chucked it all in the caravan park’s Maybig, and we watched Brodie Kostecki win $50 000 in the sprint race of the Supercars. We gave the van a good sweep and a general tidy, and just generally recharged the batteries.
Saturday loomed large because it was Supercars day! There had already been two days of action down at the track, but our intention had only ever been to go for the final two days. Getting from way out at Semaphore Beach to the track was super easy. We parked the car at the Glanville train station, about five-minute drive from the caravan park. Then we hopped on a train to Adelaide Station, then walked straight out the door onto a free shuttle bus, walked 50 metres to the gate, probably another 50 to our seats in the Brabham Stand and we were set for the day – in under an hour. Pete and Velvet joined us, and although their seats were technically a few rows back, they decided to sit with us until the real owners of those seats turned up, but they never did (neither day).
On Sunday, it was the same thing, but the Sunday at the Supercars was a little bit special. Firstly, three drivers – Nick Percat, Will Davison and Snowy River Caravan sponsored James Courtney (who we still ‘blame’ for our van) – were retiring after long careers, not only here, but overseas. Secondly, this year there was change to the way that the Driver’s Championship was decided, I don’t want to bore any non-Supercar fans who have managed to stay with this blog this long, but there were only four drivers in the field of 25 who could win the title, and realistically, it came back to only two. Now while some people follow a brand, I follow drivers. While my favourite driver was out of contention, two of my other favourites were battling it out. I wanted Chaz Mostert to win because he had never one after 12 seasons, and I wanted Broc Feeney to win, because at 21 years of age, he is a driving talent and a lovely young man – and had won more races and pole positions than anyone else in the 2025 season.
On the first lap, Chaz’s driving partner Ryan Wood got tangled up with Broc Feeney, spinning Broc around and pushing him to the back of the field. This caused great controversy as many of Broc’s fans believed that Ryan had done this deliberately to help Chaz. I thought it was just a racing incident. Broc started to charge back through the field, but then his engine started failing, and he ended up losing all the gain he had made, even being lapped by most of the field. Chaz finished second in the race behind Matt Payne, but this was enough for him to win the Championship. I have never been so elated, and so deflated at the same time, and I think a lot of people felt the same way.
After the race we bid our farewells to Peter and Velvet, having had a great time with our friends of almost forty years. We returned to Semaphore Beach, sad that we were leaving Adelaide, but also sad in realising this was the turning point, because although we still have three weeks on the road, now we are heading home, and although we have missed everyone there, we have really loved our little taste of life on the road.
Also, we have to go back to Adelaide, because although seeing 1892 churches, we didn’t take a photo of a single one.
The Tent, The Trailer, The Caravan 