Adelaide via Great Ocean Road

This post is one month late...

I followed Johanna to visit her University in Adelaide for the first time on 15th December (last month). We've decided to drive all the way from Melbourne, via the famous Great Ocean Road. And what a drive that was - greeted by great sceneries of the ocean, beaches and magnificent cliffs. The outbound journey was more than 1,000km. We stopped over at Port Fairy to break the journey into two. We took a shorter way back to Melbourne (around 700km). We were very lucky to be given a brand new Subaru Spectra Impreza by Europcar.

Great Ocean Road

12 Apostles



Adelaide is a great city, a lot better than my expectations. Not only there is the great Glenelg beach for those who love the sea, there are also hills and valleys. We visited Barossa Valley, the home to many South Australian wineries. The city itself is very well planned, with a grid-like CBD (Central Business District) like any other Australian capital cities. For the whole week, we stayed in YHA Adelaide, which is very new, neat and clean.

YHA Adelaide

We were quite surprised to see the common room filled with IKEA furniture, complete with brand new wooden flooring.



Glenelg Beach

Along the beach are luxurious villas, restaurants and apartments.













Barossa Valley

Gawler, Tanunda, Nuriootpa, Angaston, etc. are homes to many early European settlers, mainly Lutherians. Wine making has been the main activity since the early days of Barossa Valley. Barossa was supposed to be spelt as Barrosa. The mistake was not rectified since.


Borossa Villa, house to 30,000 roses


Penfolds winery


A popular cafe in Angaston


Working in the vineyards

Adelaide City

The city has a nice botanical garden, a great shopping street, an average-sized zoo and a few museums. The summer is hot, very dry and very glaring - very high UV index.


A view of the Nothern Terrace


3 little pigs along Rundle Mall, the shopping street of Adelaide

Adelaide Zoo

I took a 2-hour tour of the zoo while Johanna was visiting her PhD Supervisor. Disappointingly, most animals were sleeping or hiding in the shades due to the hot weather.


Penguins swimming in the heat

UniSA


Johanna's university's Mawson Lake campus. The main campus is at the Northern Terrace of the CBD.