While Not Working

 This morning I walked the dog for the last time.  He did not appreciate the significance of the occasion, being much more interested in sniffing things. He sniffed and I took photos: we make a great partnership. The dog stood in the middle of the house and barked as we tidied up and packed the car, but was (as always) bought off with a treat when we left.  We came back later in the day to hand back the keys but left quickly because he was suffering from a division of loyalty and let all of us know by barking very loudly. Now we're on the move again but we didn't go very far, just down the road to Outer Harbour to slum it in an Airbnb for the night. It's a tough life, but someone's got to live it. Mind you, we're lucky that today was warm and sunny with little wind... ... perfect weather for playing sailors. We ate our takeaway dinner on the boat, watching the sun set through a forest of masts and trying to find the most glamourous angles for skite photos to send to...

Our time in Port Adelaide is nearly over: the dog's owner comes home on Sunday and we will be homeless on the move again.  In the mean time we have to make the most of our last days in Port, so back to Glenelg we went, for lunch with family. Lots of other people went to Glenelg for lunch as well, and they grabbed all the picnic tables before we got there.  We were forced to sit in the shade and eat our lunch looking out over the beach and the bright blue sea.  It was a hardship to be sure.   And then I got on my bike. Now it was tempting to allow the stiff southerly to escort me up the foreshore beside the bright blue sea, but I'd already done that a couple of times so I went inland instead: Past the slums where the other half ekes out a living, and past the airport which was very busy with planes coming and going because the borders opened two days ago and Adelaideans are busy either importing Covid or flying to places where they can catch it. My kind of urban ridi...

Monday evening was forecast warm and balmy with a light wind, perfect for the seaside. We packed our swimming togs (just kidding! Not a chance!) and off we went to complete the last segment of TRAIN: the tram to Glenelg. We caught the tram just on 5pm, and it was jam packed. Here we were with our expectations set by the empty Outer Harbour line and all of a sudden we had to stand up, crammed in with other people, with barely enough room to gently cradle a kitten let alone swing a fully grown cat.  All I can say is I'm glad the borders didn't open until the next day so we could be fairly sure that no one was breathing nasty disease germs all over us. This dire situation lasted all 12km to Glenelg, comprising 16 tiresome stops. We took a cursory look at the beach and walked out on the jetty, but that wasn't the real reason that we were there. We chilled in the deck chairs beside the sea, but that wasn't the real reason we were there.   Ticking the tram ride off our list w...

In our attempts to ride the entire Adelaide Metro network we sadly overlooked the line from Woodville to Grange. Once this omission was pointed out to us Roger also realised, oh calamity! that he had not ridden the train from Port Adelaide to Outer Harbour. As a matter of urgency we set out to finish this unfinished business. We rode our bikes down to Woodville station to catch the train to Grange.   Off we go!  Well, once the train gets here.   We could have caught a train from Alberton to Woodville but, given the 20 minute wait to change trains at Woodville, it was quicker to ride.  The ride to Grange was short - we were tempted to ride our bikes and race the train there but that would have missed the point of riding the entire Metro network wouldn't it?  So we caught the train. Back at the Steamtown Museum in Melrose, they told us lots of stories involving trains overshooting the end of the line due to a lack of application of the brakes. Grange Station had a...

Roger places a touching and persistent faith in the BoM weather forecast and is often disappointed when the weather does not comply with the forecast.  To further complicate things, he brings Queensland expectations to South Australian weather. "Rain is forecast!" he said.  "We can't possibly ride our bikes today!  There might be as much as 10mm - a deluge!" We pored over the weather forecast: today was the only day that we could get out to ride the eastern end of the Torrens Linear Trail so we packed our wet weather gear, caught the train in to town, and off we went. It wasn't long before the deluge started.  Raindrops splattered heavily on the trail.  Sometimes, two of them fell in the same five square centimetres. We could always shelter under a bridge if it got too bad. The Linear Trail meandered along beside the 'River' Torrens, with a surprising number of sharp little ups and downs not helped by the fact that we were traveling upstream and ther...