Old Friends and New Friends

One of the highlights of our trip so far was the opportunity to see some Aussies that we met during a tour of central Europe in 2010. We departed Christchurch and headed to Adelaide in South Australia. Adelaide is Australia’s 5^th largest city (who knew?) with a population of 1.35 million. Our friends, Dave and Liz Mann, hosted us at their lovely home for 4 days. After 5 weeks, it was really nice to see some familiar faces. We had a lot of laughs during our stay and enjoyed Liz and Dave’s good home cooking. We even had our first (and perhaps last) taste of Vegemite! We also attended our first cricket game. Thanks to our friends and the guy sitting behind us who we peppered with questions, we finally understand the game, well mostly. And it is NOT like baseball. This was an exhibition fundraiser for the bush fire relief and we were happy to attend and contribute to the effort. The event raised over US$700,000.

We toured Cleland Wildlife Park (more on this in the Unusual Wildlife Down Under post), the Adelaide Market and the central city. Liz also took us to the d’Arenberg winery in McLaren Vale, a prominent wine producing area in South Australia. The winery is owned by an eccentric guy that built “The Cube”, an odd 4-story structure.

The Cube is part winetasting room and part restaurant, with the rest finished out as a really unusual art gallery. Even the urinals in the men’s room were something to see.

And yes, they were functional.

Thanks Liz and Dave for your hospitality! Onward to Melbourne.

We met Liz’s sister and brother-in-law, Louise and Peter, on the same 2010 tour. They live in Howlong, which is 3+ hours from Melbourne. They traveled to Melbourne to visit with us for the day, which was really special. We strolled along the streets and laneways, stopping occasionally for food and drinks.

We had lots to talk about and enjoyed the time we had with our old friends.

The Aussie hospitality continued. Our long-time friend, JT Flood, met a Melbourne couple during a 2019 trip to Canada. When he learned of our travel plans, he reached out to them. By email, Gary and Suzanne provided some recommendations of things to do in Melbourne and offered to get together during our stay. We accepted their offer. They picked us up and took us to a great restaurant along the beach in the St. Kilda area of Melbourne. The meal was excellent, as was the conversation. It was a beautiful evening for a walk after dinner. The surrounding neighborhood was eclectic and vibrant (think Brady Street). We stopped for gelato as we wandered back to the car.

We had a delightful evening with Gary and Suzanne, a very gracious couple. Maybe we can return the favor someday, or pay it forward.  

From now on, we don’t expect to see anyone we know until we return to Milwaukee. That is, unless any of you check our itinerary and want to join us at one of our destinations…..