10/06/22 O-Bahn Excitement

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The quest to ride all the exciting parts of Adelaide's public transport took a giant leap forward today as we took the chance to travel on the Adelaide O-Bahn, the only one of its kind in Australia.   All the other capital cities offer a plethora of boring everyday buses, but Adelaide has diversified the bus experience and offers the O-Bahn as a bonus thrill.

The O-Bahn allows buses to travel much faster than they could do without the guidance of the track, and does so along a bushland corridor following the Torrens Linear Path.  This translates to zooming along through sun-dappled forest feeling quite superior to all those plebs stuck in cars and conventional buses on the road.

In order to get the full end to end O-Bahn experience we drove to the suburban end and, with great excitement, hopped on the bus.

Don't be fooled.  It may look like an ordinary bus terminal, but we're waiting to catch the O-Bahn!

 And we were off!

In no time at all we were in the city, where the rain showers considerately stopped and allowed bright sunshine to paint the buildings. Mind you, we were only there to catch the O-Bahn back again but in the meantime we squeezed in a wander around the West End and a quick cup of coffee,

A lemon tart just bullied its way onto Roger's plate and begged to be eaten.  He complied.

and found a wall of cars...

I am impressed by the person who looked at a 3-storey brick wall and thought "I will cover this with matchbox cars, one per brick, all on the same angle."  And then had the persistence and dedication to motor on with their own personal Bright Idea.
 

Back on the bus, it took exactly 12 minutes of unadulterated O-Bahn excitement (tunnels! bumps! bridges!) to return us to Modbury where we had to calm ourselves down enough to drive home safely.

The day was all a bit of an anticlimax after that. Clouds rolled in to quash my hopes of a great sunset, but I walked up the hill and took photos anyway. From half way up Black Hill I could see all the way to Port Adelaide and the rather underwhelming but atmospheric sunset over the Le Fevre peninsula.

Industry at Port Adelaide.

Sunset light changes quickly.

The mouth of the Port River and Torrens Island.  I think.

Cloud play.

I walked down the hill as last light bled into night. After such an exciting day we had a quiet night in, watched a movie, and played with the cat.  The cat was dignified and aloof apart from when playing with ribbons and pom-poms, at which point it abandoned all dignity and allowed its inner kitten to reign.


We went to bed to dream of... O-Bahns, of course.

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