Hello, I dont know if you remember but in April last year I wrote telling you how sad my husband and I were when our Daughter, Son-in-law, and grandson emigrated to Adelaide....your advice was to visit as soon as we could... and that's exactly what we did by the end of April we had booked our trip to OZ.

On the 12th of December we boarded a plane at Heathrow to start our journey to adelaide, we were going to spend Christmas and the New Year with them...I cant begin to explain how excited we both were, it had been 9months since we had seen them all, so to see them in the "flesh"... was our dream.
Firstly I must confess we didn't enjoy the the flight, we could not sleep and found the journey very long, but the excitment of knowing we'll soon be with them helped us cope with the journey.
The family were there at the airport to meet us and as you can imagine it was a tearful reunion but a very happy one.
My daughter lives in West Lake Shores, and what a beautiful location, the house overlooks the lake, it was really wonderful watching the Pelicans and other birds on the water, also they have canoes and the pleasure boat "Princess" passing by, as you can imagine we spent a lot of time just sitting outside the house soaking up the lovely warm sun and scenery.

We travelled up into the hills and visited the little German village of "Handorf" that was really quaint, also a wild life park where we saw wallabies, koala's kangaroos and many other wonderful animals and birds.....on the journey back down from the hills we had a panoramic view of the city below, we also found the hills very similar to our own scenery in South Wales.
The beaches were lovely...The Grange, Henley, Glenelg, Semaphore, the furthest being only 20mins away from where my daughter lives.... we sat ouside a hotel at the Grange one evening and watched the sun set... That was awesome.
We also went to Victor Harbour where we walked across to the little island it was a very hot day so we decided to have a ride back with a horse pulled tram, we felt very sorry for the horse...lol...we also went to Hallet Cove where we were invited to a BBQ by a working colleague of my daughters, a really enjoyable afternoon...we thought Hallet Cove was a very nice area.
Then of course we had to visit the city...my view of the city??? Busy busy busy...Traffic lights on nearly every corner aghhh...lol.
The first two weeks of our stay was nice and warm not too hot with a few cloudy days, but the last two weeks were really hotting up, we had one day at 42-5degrees, much too hot for my liking, we spent that afternoon in the cinema at West Lakes watching King Kong....!!!!
Of course there are no pubs as such... they are called Hotels... what amazed us was the games room... full of Pokies, where ever you went there were Pokies, cant understand the fascination myself, husband, daughter and son-in-law loved them, I was really amused to find notices in the toilet asking if you wanted help with your gambling addiction....Yes Please...!!!
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Adelaide and most important of all was seeing our family, must admit though it was hard leaving them behind, but they are settled and we're more contented knowing where they live and to know they are happy. We'll visit again in the future as long as our health and finances are in good shape...

Hope this post hasn't been too long, thought I'd share our first visit to Adelaide with you all....

Pam...

Nice post.

Different perspective.

You sound like a happy, openminded and flexible person.

They can never be too long, Pat! I love reading of other people's impressions of Adelaide.

It's good to know that you feel happier now having seen that your loved ones have settled in, become a little familiar with their surroundings, where they are living and that they are happy themselves.

My mum has been very suportive to us but I know she will also benefit from visiting us but to do that we've got to get there first!

How long 'til your next visit?

Sara

Really lovely post,,but my heart goes out to you having to say goodbye all over again :unsure:

hope you can get there again very soon.

DEBBIE :D

Hi Sara, My grandson Kyle will be 21 in feb 2008, so our minds are set on that, dont know if I can last out that long though, it seems forever.... I chat to my daughter often on the pc so we are in contact all the time.... still its not the same is it??

Pam

Hi Pam,

So glad to hear that you got out there and found your family happy and settled.

Even though it's hard leaving them - it's great to see how they are getting on with life. We're off again soon and I know it's going to be hard saying goodbye but they're coming back here for a holiday in June so we'll be seeing lots of them this year.

This emigration thing is a difficult process to go through so they deserve to be happy for whatever their reasons are. Amongst other things, I know they wanted the best for our two little Grandsons and they absolutely love their school. I made a point of being in touch with the school before we went to Adelaide for our first trip and was made very welcome when visiting the school whilst I was there.

I agree about the journey Pam, it's very tedious isn't it? I don't seem to be able to sleep with the drone of the plane. Ah well, it's a small price to pay for the joy on their faces when we get there.

Anne XX

Great post.

Pleased to hear you enjoyed your trip down under.

Mandy :bouncy:

Ahhh lovely post ! My Mum is coming out in two weeks (havent seen her since Dec 04 !) I hope she enjoys it as much as you obviously have, and that she can understand why we are here.

Julie x

Barry's sister visited over Christmas period and has gone out of her way to visit my Mum with a copy of her video and some photos. Mum's saving hard but on her own with just her pension. Think she'll find it hard to be stuck in Scotland when Barry's parents come over in June.
A year since we left and i still struggle with my concience for depriving the boys of fantastic grandparents.
Gils