Adelaide

Arriving in Adelaide we strolled up to the hostel, thinking about the week that lay ahead of us.

Greg had received a phone call and found out some fantastic news. Originally his reasons for coming to Australia had been due to having been turned down for a PGCE course. But his parents rang telling him that they had received news that the course had changed their decision and wanted Greg to attend the course.

Unfortunately this meant he had to be back in England by July. Our plans were originally to spend a week in Adelaide and then look for farm work to qualify for our second year visas as well as replenish our funds. This news however meant that Greg and Matt simply didn’t have the time to do so.

We decided that Greg and Matt would go on to Sydney whereas we would head to Barossa Valley to look for work in the famous vineyards there.

We were all happy for Greg but were very sad that this meant our group would unfortunately be split up due to this good news. So we knew we had to make this week a good one to say farewell.

The hostel was nice enough. We shared a rather cosy family room between the five of us. Martin and George were rather miffed that they had to share a double bed but due to low funds they had to make do.

We ventured from the hostel to one of the local parks, armed with our faithful volleyball and mini Aussie Rules ball for a kick about/throw about. We realised that Adelaide is absolutely covered in pitches of just about every sport imaginable. There were hockey fields, football pitches, Aussie rules, cricket, rugby and I could go on.

We decided to take one of the empty football pitches and play a bit of two on two with one goalkeeper. We had been playing for no more than ten minutes when a group of locals came up and asked if we fancied playing a bit of five a side. Challenge accepted.

The Pomms vs. The Locals kicked off to a bad start for us as we found ourselves two goals down. We managed to fight our way back to two goals each. The Locals nearly forced their way into another goal, but a timely foot stopping the ball on the goal line by yours truly saved the day.

Returning on the counter attack Matt managed to do the Pomms proud and walloped the ball past the defence putting the score at The Pomms three, The Locals two. Unfortunately our defence couldn’t hold up against their next assault putting the score at three goals each.

This went on for about an hour until the score was five goals each. We had not expected such an intense match and were all covered in sweat. Another group of guys came along and asked us all if we wanted to turn the game into a full eleven a side match. We were tempted but pure exhaustion and the fading sunlight forced us to decline and we made our way home.

We treated ourselves to a pizza and headed back to hostel to ready ourselves for a night out on the town. Toohey’s Superdry was the drink of choice that night a tasty beverage.

We headed to a bar around the corner from the hostel named Havelock. The drink started flowing. Originally we were going to just stay in the bar, but we met some girls, few more drinks were had, and before we knew what was happening we were in a taxi heading to the centre of Adelaide.

Unfortunately I foolishly decided to go and get something to eat and told the rest of them I would meet them inside the club. Upon my return the bouncer decided I wasn’t allowed in. Now I was by no means sober but I was definitely not that bad. I decided to wait outside and texted and rang the guys but couldn’t get in contact with them. Eventually I called it a night and headed home in a huff. Not a good experience of nightlife in Adelaide.

The next day I decided to sweat off my hangover by going for a run. I thought having been around quite a bit of Adelaide I knew my way around. I was very wrong. What was meant to be only half an hour turned into two and a half hours. I can safely say I saw a lot of Adelaide in that time, and it is a beautiful place. The sun was beaming down; the parks were beautiful (as were the women), so what could’ve been quite a frustrating ordeal turned out to be incredibly pleasant.

The next day we decided to head out for more drinks and stay up to watch the FA Cup final live. We met up with the girls from the previous night and headed out on the town. We ended up at a sports bar where surprisingly there was a huge amount of people waiting to watch the match.

Now I know English people are guilty of taking football a tad too seriously at times and there is a lot of pride when it come to your football teams, but I didn’t realise the Aussies were that bothered about it. But it turns out they’re just as crazy about it as we are.

I saw glasses smashed, pitchers thrown around, people screaming and shouting, football chants and just about anything else you can think of. I was standing outside getting some fresh air during half time when I saw a Liverpool fan taking the mick out of a Chelsea fan with a walking stick. The Chelsea fan calmly handed his cane to someone else and chased after the culprit and gave him a sound hiding. Didn’t seem like he really needed the walking stick, but I like my teeth the way they are so I decided not to ask about it.

Greg, being a Liverpool fan, was sorely disappointed at the result. I, being a Newcastle fan, thought it was a good match but was just happy when the final whistle blew that I still had the full use of my legs and could use them to return to the hostel.

The next day we returned to looking for farm work. We found a hostel in the famous Barossa Valley that was going to be looking for people to prune in the vineyards, so Martin, George and I decided that’s where we would head next.

It came to our last night together as a group of five in Adelaide and so we decided to head out and treat ourselves to big fancy meal. After searching around the restaurants for a while we decided to go into an Italian looking restaurant.

The rest of the lads ordered the veal, chicken schnitzel, lamb chops and chicken. I went all out and ordered a 450g steak covered in cream sauce and king prawns. It was a fantastic meal. All the lads gave it a big thumbs up and we struggled to make our way home with such full stomachs.

The next morning we woke up and headed for a final coffee together. We hugged each other goodbye and headed our separate ways. Martin, George and I headed to the coach station and headed further into the mainland on our way to Barossa Valley, the home of Australian wine.