Port Adelaide

Port Adelaide was small, but I enjoyed my trip out there anyway. The maritime museum was excellent, especially the section on immigrants to Australia – I particularly liked the reconstruction of steerage cabins through the ages and the ketch they have in the main lobby. Not a large museum, but a nice one. The rest of the town is very, very sleepy with old port buildings dotted about; the port itself is somewhat industrial and ugly. There's a community of bottlenose dolphins living in the estuary but I didn't see any. Anyway I had a nice wander.

Got back to the hotel early enough to make a trip to the aquatic centre worthwhile. I do love the fact that in Australia you can guarantee a 50m pool – Adelaide's was busy with the local swim squad but there were three public lanes and they weren't too busy. (The centre also had two leisure pools and a diving pool.) A bonus was the white parrots or cockatoos I saw in the surrounding park en route and on the way back from swimming. You wouldn't find those in the UK, or indeed NZ!