6/05/2022 What Constitutes Wild Weather?

Our home owners contacted us from the other side of the world.

"How's the cat?  We heard you had wild weather in Adelaide!  Is he freaked out?"

Nope.

 Intrigued by the wild weather reports, we checked out the SA news.  Breathless reporting accompanied a picture of a puddle of pea-sized hail in a gutter.  Obviously we have to recalibrate our view of what constitutes a wild hail storm now that we're way down south, which was not to say that the weather didn't make a good attempt at being miserable with a cold southerly wind and intermittent pesky showers of just enough rain to be annoying.

"I'm not going out in that," said Roger.  "It's freezing!"  Which it would be, if water froze at 15C.

Freezing or not, the house was much to small to stay cooped up all day so off I went.  I started off along the Port River, which could be mistaken for a creek.

Not an auspicious start for a river.

Along the way I crossed the railway line, which was my escape route should the hail and sleet become too much for me while riding.

A busy suburban line.

The Port River morphed into the Grange Lakes, and then the West Lakes.  At West Lakes some hardy souls were out on the water in kayaks, and even hardier souls were standing around in wetsuits in the cold breeze, learning how to sail.

West Lakes also has all the infrastructure for rowing regattas.  No rowing was happening here.

No, I didn't take photos of the people being instructed on what the boom was and how to turn the boat.  That would be creepy.  I did take photos of the sailboats, because the white sails were so pretty against the dark clouds.

Port River took me all the way to (surprise!) Port Adelaide.  This was familiar as our first Adelaide house sit was at Port Adelaide.  That was only seven months ago but in the mean time new buildings have popped up and old buildings have been torn down and the path was redirected around construction sites, such that I got quite discombobulated at times. 

The view across the water to the old Mill.  I'm familiar with riding over there on the other side.  This side, not so much.

Thankfully all I had to do was follow the bike path, and that brought me back to familiar territory at Semaphore. I've only seen Semaphore in the summer with hordes of tourists and locals picnicking, cavorting, eating ice cream, riding the carousel, and fishing for crabs from the jetty.  Semaphore was a lot quieter in the cold, showery weather; although the clouds and the clock tower made for some dramatic pictures.

The Semaphore Jetty was deserted.

As was the beach.

I rode north along the sea to the Outer Harbour, which was also deserted apart from two fishermen who weren't having much luck.

Once at the Outer Harbour I ran out of land on which to cycle, so I turned around and started riding back south beside the railway.  This was better than riding beside the sea because a) I had already seen the sea on my way up and b) the buildings offered more shelter from the wind.

While I was riding along a very rude car came slowly up behind me and started tooting the horn.  I turned around to see what was happening and discovered that Roger had finished his errands and braved the inclement weather to find me.  Now I'm not a bicycle purist so without a qualm I popped my bicycle on top of the car and headed home in chauffeured comfort.

We were treated to a spectacular rainbow on the way home.

And that was my day of wild weather in Adelaide.