Adelaide 2016, August 13 (CHVRCHES)

It's a bit sad this is my first and only planned 'holiday' for the year so far, but that's how it goes. I left home at 8:00am Saturday morning for the big trip to Adelaide. The most I'd driven the Lancer in one trip before was either to Echuca, Halls Gap or Wangaratta - all pretty similar and about half the distance. Traffic through the city wasn't too bad for Saturday morning, getting through to Ballarat by about 9:45am and then changing drivers somewhere around Beaufort, I forget exactly.

An hour later at Ararat and my back was already wrecked for the day. Coming into Horsham right about 12:00pm was a good time to stop for lunch and to get out of the car and move around for a while. We stopped for about half an hour to get some food at Subway before moving on. I got back into the driver seat and my back was feeling good again, but it only lasted about an hour. I stopped in for fuel at some service station that had huge potholes at the entrance and exit, I think I almost broke the car going through one of them as there was no way to avoid it.

We got to Bordertown at 2:00pm, it seems like false advertising as it doesn't actually appear to be right on the border. Since the day of driving was starting to take it's toll we had to stop a bit more often to stretch out, probably about once an hour through to Murray Bridge at about 4:30pm (SA time), at least there was a bridge over the Murray River this time. I only remembered about the half hour time difference just near the border, a good surprise as it meant a bit more time in the evening than I originally planned for.

Finally we made it into Adelaide about 5:30pm (SA time), the big downhill into the city was probably the highlight of the drive - as well as being able to get out of the car for good. After navigating a few one way streets in North Adelaide we got to the hotel just in time to grab the second last space in the hotel parking lot.

After dropping off the luggage we walked down to the city centre, about two kilometres, past the zoo and university on the way. I picked Fancy Burger's for dinner, lucky one of the three vegetarian burgers wasn't mushroom based, it was alright but not the best I've had.

Rundle Mall.

We made it back out to Adelaide Oval just north of the city in time for the first quarter of Melbourne vs. Port Adelaide. The seats were alright in the top deck, but I soon found out I had some crazy kids sitting right behind me, screaming like mad whenever a Port Adelaide player touched the ball and continually kicking the seat. Thankfully they ran out of energy after about ten minutes, then they left or moved somewhere because I never heard from them again. I was also sitting next to some negative Port Adelaide supporter, at first it was funny but then it just became depressing. I don't even know why he would attend since he was just miserable the whole time, complaining about everything from the worst forward line, being the most frustrating team in the league, they can't win if they start from behind etc.

Adelaide Oval.

Melbourne were always leading the match, but Port Adelaide looked like they might catch up for a while after half time before Melbourne got going again and won quite easily.

Game time.

Only saw one church.