Capital cities, We were quite excited to experience our journeys first big dot on the map. After months of wilderness a bit of a change for a while sounded like a good idea. After all 60% of Australians live in a capital city, there has to be a reason to live there, maybe it’s time we find out why and what better place to start than with little old Adelaide, the city of churches. I will start off with our absolute favourite thing about big cities, Vegan food! Since choosing an animal product free diet a few years back we haven’t had any problems whatsoever cooking delicious meals for ourselves, in fact I would say we eat much nicer food now than we ever have. Dining out at restaurants and cafes however has become much harder, it’s just too hard to find anything that hasn’t been crammed full of animals in one way or another and if they happen to have a vegan friendly option, it’s often just one thing on the menu with the cheese or mayo taken out. In the big cities however we are spoilt for choice! Anything our little hearts desired could be found. A few of our favourites include: The amazing pizzas we had at Godzilla Pizza. These guys made just about every pizza you could ever want in a vegan version and no need to miss out on cheese! They have delicious, melting vegan cheese so you don’t have to skimp on taste. They even did a vegan meat lovers one for crying out loud! The mouth-wateringly fatty fast food we had at Two Bit Villains. The hand crafted sodas, burgers, BLTs, onion rings and thick milk shakes these guys have are to die for. And then there were vegan only places like Bliss Organic Café where it’s just like stepping into a world where animal products do not exist. Here it was nice to be able to drop your guard and order absolutely anything off the menu without the need to scan every product for eggs, milk or cheese. Pretty sure we spent more money on dining out in Adelaide then we did on anything else and it was worth every penny. Another highlight of visiting the big smoke was the live entertainment; nothing beats the experience of watching some of your favourite bands play from a sweaty, cramped mosh pit. We saw a total of twelve bands play over four shows and by the end of each show we were soaked in sweat and smelt rather bad but it was the most fun I have had in ages. You don’t get to do that too often in country WA. Then there was what I would call the most dangerous part of the city, the shops. When you’re trying to watch your spending and only make purchases when they are absolutely necessary the last thing you need is thousands of shops stocked with really cool stuff to lead you astray. Luckily we had each other to make sure we didn’t buy anything too outrageous but we did end up walking away a few things we didn’t really need to buy. But after the excitement of the bands wore off, the taste of vegan delights left our mouths and the constant allure of retail shops began to get tiring all the crappy things about a big city began to wear us down. First off there was the constant frustration of driving in the city traffic. Measuring almost six metres long, two and a half metres high and combined with a huge turning circle dealing with city traffic certainly wasn’t the Defenders strong point. The height of the Defender made parking in the city a nightmare as we couldn’t fit into any of the high rise parking facilities severely limiting where we could park and then there was the constant hassle of having to pay just to park somewhere. As for getting around the city all I can say is ‘praise who ever invented sat nav!’ Without it I’m sure we would have truly lost our minds. But even with the little man in a box guiding us everywhere often a quick drive somewhere ended up taking us twice as long as expected and we somehow still got lost a few times. Consequently almost none of our trips into the city were relaxed and we always seemed to be rushed in one way or another. Then there was the general unfriendliness that comes with big cites. No one waves as they drive past or says hello on the street, even driving few people let you in if you happen to need to change lanes and I often found myself using the size of the Defender as leverage to make lane changes when no one would let us in. Then after getting parking ticket for being three minutes late, he was literally still writing it out when we got back, the shine of the big city lights was all but gone. It was after this we found a great feature of Adelaide, the hills. These stunning land formations sit a mere thirty minutes’ drive east of the city and offer an escape from the rat-race. It was up here we discovered Cleland Wildlife Park. We usually prefer to see animals in their natural environment out in the wild but as this place is government run for education and not really to earn money, we thought it would be a good chance to see some of those little critters you sadly don’t see in the bush anymore. We were like little kids in a playground and spent a whole day running around with huge grins on our faces. It was just so great to be able to get up so close to these beautiful creatures and watch them as they happily scurried, hopped, slithered or waddled around the place. Highlights would have to be the cheeky potoroo and bandicoots who seemed to have free roam of the entire park, the charismatic ducks and water fowl that call the pond home and of course, seeing koalas up close and personal. A few of the other great things we found in the hills included the cute little towns dotted all over the place, the breathtaking views through the valleys and over the city, and the simple pleasure that comes from finding some untouched bush away from the crowds and just sit and listen to the beautiful tweets of birds and breath the sweet air of the bush. So all up Adelaide has brought us some of the best times of the trip so far along with some of the most frustrating times as well which kind of leaves me in two states of mind about the city. Guess we will just have to see what the next one has to offer and try to make our minds up then, but for now, we are getting the hell outta here! There is only so much of the big smoke a couple of country kids can handle… Cheers Ben & Ashlyn
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 23:45:53 +0000
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