25th of August, Adelaide
My first day in the “city of churches” started with a tram ride and a visit at the beach. Adelaide got it’s second name because it was the first city where everyone had free choice of religion. In the evening I met Gerry (I met him first in Bangkok) again, who showed me around the city.

26th and 27th of August, Adelaide
Adelaide has a lot to offer, if you have enough time... For me, being short on time, it was my first break after travelling almost 5000 kilometre in 10 days (It's about 3000 kilometres from Darwin to Adelaide, and about 1000 kilometres per trip I did) . I originally planed to stay just two nights there, but, plans change frequently... I visited the beach a few times, which is a nice trip by tram and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Adelaide during the night as I explored some pub's and bars with fellow traveler’s I met in the youth hostel.

28th of August, Barossa Valley
If you like wine as I do, there is no way to skip Barossa Valley if you have a day or two in Adelaide. The Barossa Valley is about 55 km north east of Adelaide. Many agencies’ offer day-tours leaving Adelaide in the early morning, I booked a tour with Groovy Grape, but I guess they are all pretty similar. Our first stop was the “Whispering Wall”, a concrete dam wall with an unbelievable acoustics, normal conversations held at one end can be heard clearly at the other end, more then 140 Meters away. Our next stop was Orlando, one of the oldest wineries in the valley, established 1847. Next was a lunch break and we continued with two more wineries and a distillery. I ended up with 26 different wines and 3 cocktails. My favourite was a Port Wine named “Choc a Bloc”, (or something like that), but I unfortunately forgot the name of the wineries. I wonder why… Later that day I found out that being “tipsy” doesn’t mean to be able to sleep on a bus, as I travelled from Adelaide to Melbourne.

29th and 30th of August, Melbourne
The second largest city of Australia is on the one hand a very modern city but on the other hand still keeps a very special European flair. In the year 1835, John Bartman bought the area from Aboriginal people. He died soon after his deal, and John Pascoe Fawkner was the driving force behind the new settlement, nowadays well know as Melbourne.

Australian city’s have such a short history, for example my home village in Austria (Ulrichsberg) - It was founded in 1325, more then 675 years ago by a priest named Ulrich and it’s current population is about 4000 people. Melbourne was founded about 175 years ago, now it’s a city three time’s bigger then Vienna (capitol of Austria), which has a history that goes back to the Roman Empire.

But back to my short visit in Melbourne… Of course I spend some time at the Crown Casino, the biggest of it’s kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Altogether I lost a whole dollar at a slot machine, shame on me… If you are on a short budget (or lost all your money at the casino) and don’t want to walk, there is a free tram operating from 10:00 am to 03:00 p.m. It operates around downtown and you get an explanation of the most important sights.

A visit at St Kilda beach was also on my list of “Must Do’s” and I ended up as an photo model for a bunch of girls, (they where working on a school project). I was on a pier when one of the girls walked over to me and asked if they can do pictures of me… Nothing else to do I agreed so the girl hugged me and the other girls made a bunch of photos. I wonder what this school project was about…

The Royal Botanical Gardens were my last major sight of Melbourne. I enjoyed a cup of tea in the cafeteria and explored the huge park, which took me nearly three hours.