March 6 – Adelaide

March 6, 2016 – Adelaide
We started the day with a talk by an aboriginal. Lindsay is the oldest male in his tribe. The white gene is dominant when aboriginals have children. As time goes on successive generations are whiter and have less of the original features. He showed us a picture of his grandfather who was very dark, Lindsay is more of a light mulatto color while his son looks white. Despite the differences in color, the families work hard to keep the history and traditions going. Australia was as bad to the aboriginals as we, Americans, we’re to the Native American tribes. Many are dying now of heart disease, diabetes, or renal failure due to eating processed foods. The aboriginals life expectancy is 19 years less than whites.
After his talk some went to the museum to see the exhibit on aboriginals and others headed out to the Botanical Garden. I started out in the garden but it was so hot that I turned around and went to the museum. As i exited the garden, the Royal Australian Air Force Roylettes, 4 stunt planes started there show overhead. They were great.
I met up with some of our group and we had a quick lunch. After dropping off some things at the hotel we met Troy to go meet our wine tour. There were 19 of us on the tour. There were Brits, Scots, Kiwis, and Aussies in addition to 8 of us from the U.S. We went to 3 wineries: Rosemount, Hardy’s Tintara, and Lloyd Bros. I thought the best was Rosemount. They said they don’t export their best wines. The wines we tasted at Rosemount were very good. I purchased one to try in Alice Springs. It is legal to carry on liquids of a plane within Australia which makes it easy to get from one place to another.
After the wineries we headed to the coast and Glenelg Beach. The driverb drove us through a drive-thru liquor store. What surprised me was that they had Sierra Nevada beer from California. We could see Adelaide ahead and it was raining there. We had an option to get off at the beach and take the tram back but when we stopped it started raining so we all stayed on the van. When we got back the driver dropped us off at our hotel at 5:30pm.
Several of us stopped for a drink at happy hour. The rest said they’d come down at 6:30 and we’d go to dinner. At 6:30pm it started pouring, thundering, and lightening outside. Some us decided to go to the hotel restaurant to eat. I ordered Nasi Goreng which is Indonesian fried rice with a fried egg on it. Australian style it also came with 2 chicken skewers and prawn chips. It was spicy but I really enjoyed it.
Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs. We’ll get there at noon and after lunch visit the Royal Flying Doctors and the Old Telegraph Station. For dinner we will be having a “bush tucker” meal which has is a complete unknown to us. We won’t get to our hotel until 8pm. More info tomorrow.