March 27, 2026

ADELAIDE the capital of South Australia is known as the "City of Churches " and is a hub for festivals, food and wine, situated  between the Gulf of St. Vincent and the Mount Lofty Ranges. It was founded in 1836 and named for Queen Adelaide.  They used excellent city master planning, that still holds today, and makes it so welcoming. The City is completely surrounded by protected park lands and contains four large parks within it's boundaries. The City streets form a perfect grid, running from the mountains to the sea and extend out through the park lands, to allow easy flow inand out of the suburbs. 


Above is the view of the City of Adelaide and the surrounding park lands from atop Mount Lofty Summit.

We wanted to cover a lot of the out lying areas around Adelaide today, so we signed up for a Viator tour for the best of South Australia. Surprisingly we were the only ones from the Ship on the tour and it was nice to spend the day with 2 other couples, who were Australians from other States, here on vacation exploring. Our guide Peter was super knowledgable and chatty. The tour loop took about 4 hours driving time, but it was spaced out over 9 hours, with plenty of time at 4 different stops to explore. Our first stop was at the summit of Mount Lofty, where there is a historic obelisk or column erected to celebrate Matthew Flinders discovery of the summit.

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Love Sea Days ! I got a much needed haircut and color. Think I'll be going shorter, but giving this a whirl! Can you see the back in the mirror? The bangs and side volume, is what drives me nuts in the heat and humidity!
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Wat Bang Kung Temple was a quick stop along the way to the Train Markets . What makes this unique is the Temple is completely enclosed by roots of four giant trees (a banyan, bodhi and others). From the outside, it looks like nature has swallowed the building. Inside the chapel is a golden Buddha image, that locals still visit to pray. It was quite active during our short visit there. The Temple dates back over 250 years and survived the Burmese invasion.