Adelaide

It seems that the bad weather is following me around. It poured down on my drive up to Adelaide from Cape Jervis and by lunchtime Friday it was raining after what looked to be a fine start to the day. I haven't been here since 1985, things have changed. There's traffic to begin with. Adelaide used to be a big country town now its clearly a city. Many of the people are impossibly well groomed and dressed. It has lots of imposing old buildings scattered around the place and of course it's home to the Giant Pandas. 

I knew I was in the city when I paid for my parking, 3.5 hours = $28.40. I spent that time wandering up and down Hindley Street / Rundle Mall. The city obviously takes great pride in itself. There were tourist information volunteers walking the streets helping out. The place was spotless with street sweepers everywhere. The city has a great vibe, helped greatly by having both the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia campuses so close to it's centre. Adelaide Oval (famous cricket and AFL ground), the zoo, festival centre, museums, art galleries and the botanic gardens were all an easy stroll away. 

I am staying in an apartment about 2 kilometres out of the city just behind Melbourne Street in North Adelaide. This is a pretty funky part of town with plenty of boutiques, bars, restaurants and as you always find in these types of places a plethora of hairdressers (?).  The apartment itself is cheaper than a hotel room yet has all the convenience of being able to wash, dry and cook. It has the twin virtues of letting me save a few bucks while sticking to my somewhat broken diet.

Anyway I did the whole museum and art gallery thing and then I went to the Adelaide Zoo to see the Giant Pandas. As some of you would know I'm not a great fan of caged animals so I was compromising my values somewhat to do this. Having just seen so much natural beauty on Kangaroo Island it was a little disconcerting to see the same animals confined here. 

On Kangaroo Island I had one of their Kangaroos hop along next to my car for a good 500 metres. These are a little different from your standard kangaroo in that they have quite thick fur and they are almost chocolate brown. I had slowed to let an echidna safely cross the road, there were the sea lions and fur seals all in their natural habitat along with the little tammar wallabies. Nearly all of these animals were exhibited in the zoo and none of them looked the better for it. Having said all that its not like I am likely to see the Pandas in the wild and they were pretty special.

I got to see both "Wang Wang" and "Funi" although not together. The photos you are seeing above are of Funi (the female), Wang Wang was being kept in a sheltered glass enclosure for publicity purposes from what I could see. Matt Moran was shooting some stuff, for Masterchef I assume,  and Wang Wang was going to add background colour.

Wang Wang clearly wasn't too happy with the arrangement. The glass door that you can see in the background leads to his enclosure that was being cleared of bamboo as he watched. He was clearly agitated and trying to get to it through the normally open but now closed glass. This was one unhappy Panda. I may have to watch that episode of Masterchef and find out how they play it. I get that Adelaide Zoo have to "sell the product" but why would you want to unnecessarily stress the animal for a cooking show? Hopefully Wang Wang calmed down and got out to his enclosure and got to eat some bamboo.

I walked back to the apartment and gave myself a serious hit of protein. I had noticed that "Yes Prime Minister" was playing at the Her Majesty's Theatre in town that night. On the off chance I might get a ticket I lobbed at the theatre about 20 minutes before it started and secured a ticket for the performance. 

The theatre holds just over 1,000 people, it was Friday night and I think maybe 200 - 300 seats were empty. The show was ok, not up to the scintillating standards of the TV series though. Three things held it back. Firstly you are so familiar with the original cast it is hard to watch someone else performing the role and not compare it with the original. Secondly each episode of the TV show went for 30 minutes and this new format meant that the jokes were dragged along a bit without the punchiness and sharpness that the TV show so excelled at. Thirdly there was the addition of an extra cast member who played the special advisor. While I am sure this reflects the new paradigm in politics it did however mean that group dynamic changed and that Sir Humphrey was no longer the omnipotent civil servant he was normally portrayed as.

All in all it was a diverting way to spend an evening. I have tracked down an old friend of mine who I haven't seen for ten years and he, his wife and I are doing the lunch and some wineries tomorrow. It looks like we will try and roll back the years once again, good times.