We had one more day to spend in Adelaide. Because of Hendrik we visited Parliament. It was in secession so there weren’t any tours but we were able to sit in. There were hardly any people attending the meeting and those who were there were either talking amongst themselves or on their cell phones and no one was paying any attention to the man speaking on the mic. We got bored very fast too and left.

Sculpture in Adelaide

Then we went to visit Ayer’s house since we had come after hours the day before. We had a nice guided tour of the house which was interesting especially how fondly the old woman giving the tour talked of Sir Henry Ayers and was very proud that Australia’s icon the Ayers Rock was named after him. It was a complete 360 from what we recalled Captain Kirk saying at Fraser Island that he was happy that Ayers Rock is finally once again being called by its aboriginal name Uluru. I guess the differing in opinion is the reason for the rock’s double name. In 1993, it was renamed “Ayers Rock/Uluru” and became the first officially dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the dual names was officially reversed to “Uluru/Ayers Rock” in 2002. Since we were flying there the next day we were interested in learning about the rock.

The first thing after breakfast was getting to the Airport. We took a taxi and got ripped off. In no way should a taxi ride cost $60 to the Airport, but it wasn’t up to me to argue since it wasn’t my trip.  Taxi drivers will rip you off if you’re going to an airport in Australia from a hotel or vise-versa. We got ripped off when we arrived in Sydney too.

Adelaide Botanical Gardens

We arrived safely in Adelaide and toured the city. There really wasn’t too much to see but a Natural History museum with a nice dead zoo, Ayer’s House, and a botanical garden. We walked around the Garden which is very nice, but the city itself is nothing special.