A Test Free Day

There has been no improvement in the weather today, but fortunately we have been spared huddling on a hard seat trying to keep warm!
Luckily, our second set of tickets are for tomorrow, so we can only hope for a small improvement in the weather and England's performance.
The emphasis today has been cultural and Adelaide can deliver this in spades. On our way out of the hotel we bumped into Glen McGrath lingering in the foyer. 'Good Morning, how are you?'says he. PL -“He clearly recognised me! Charming chap”.
As I mentioned in an earlier report, this is a charming and very liveable city. There is a good mix of architecture, old colonial style cleverly interspersed with the modern. We walked down North Terrace this morning, which is a perfect example of the aforementioned, passing the classical Government building of South Australia, the Library, University of Adelaide, Governer Ayre's mansion house and the Art Gallery of South Australia. We lingered at them all, but made our first serious stop at the Art Gallery. It is beautifully curated and a thoughtful composition of 'old masters' and the modern. There are good collections of Hans Hysen and Sydney Nolan and a fascinating exhibition of Aboriginal cultural art called 'Tarnanthi'. We loved it. Our next stop,was the Botanic Gardens which we loved. Obviously, the Australian Genii were in the ascendancy, but the rose garden was again marvellous. There was a superb rainforest atrium and Amazonian hot house and a pleasant couple of hours drifted away. We had a spot of lunch and then wandered back along the beautiful River Torrens towards our hotel. The news of the cricket was not great from an England point of view, but the cricket chat in the bar tonight was lively. Jason Gillespie, Phil Tufnell, Damien Fleming and Tim Rice were all in attendance. This is certainly the place to be for people spotting. Let's see what tomorrow brings!Read more