27/02/2022 Sunset by the Sea: Belair and Brighton

Belair is on the edge of Adelaide, in the fringes of the Adelaide Hills. As the name implies, it's on the top of the hill: a pretty, leafy suburb with lots of trees and torturously winding roads that have limited visibility, lots of blind corners, and no shoulders to accommodate bicycles.

Fortunately we live a very short walk from a railway station, which means that we don't have to ride our bicycles along the terrible roads or, indeed, up the hill.  From Belair we can use bike trails and back roads down the hill to the delightful flatness of Adelaide, and when we get tired of riding we can catch the train all the way up the hill and home again.

Roger is still recovering from his tussle with the pool deck.  His leg shows an astonishing array of bruising colours and he is reluctant to get on his bicycle just yet.  

Off I went on my own then.

Down the hill with the city below and far away the sea.

 

Through Centennial Park, Adelaide, which had quite a different vibe from Centennial Park, Sydney.  It was the neatest cemetery I've ever seen.

All the denominations neatly in their own sections, and uniform headstones in orderly rows in every section.

I followed the Stuart River linear pathway toward the coast,

...until I came to the sea.

Summer is drawing to an end in South Australia and the beaches were full of people making the most of the still-warm(ish) days.  I allowed the breeze to blow me north to Brighton, where I promenaded out along the jetty to check what everyone was catching.

Mainly crabs, if you're interested.  Here in South Australia it seems to be mainly Blue Swimmers, and that is the extent of my South Australian crabbing knowledge.

Last time I was here I saw seals robbing the crab pots under the noses of the crabbers.  Today four stingrays swam lazily in toward shore, causing two teenage girls to revise their plans to jump off the jetty into the sea. 

In an unprecedented stroke of luck I managed to nab a vacant picnic table and Roger (who arrived in sedate fashion via car) and I settled in to watch the sunset over a picnic tea.

I didn't have to catch a train home either.  I just popped the bike on top of the car and home we went, to be greeted by a cat that demanded to know where we had been and what we had been doing, and did not at all demonstrate the stand-offishness of which we were warned.