Day 2 - Saturday 1 March - Adelaide - Kazza's Australian Holidays

Slept like crap. The bed was very soft, and I had thermoregulation issues. After discussing an allowable wakeup time of 6:30 the night before, Mum turned the light on at 6:03. Sigh. So I was super tired. And hungry. And we had no food.

Got ready and headed out to the nearest IGA to pick up some supplies.

Tram on King William Street. We never did get to go on a tram - too busy!

Took them back to the hotel. The ham, cheese and tomato sandwich I got had been made yesterday and was both soggy and stale in different places, which made it super unpleasant.

Snackages we got for two breakfasts and a lunch while we were there

Finished getting ready and had some time to kill before hospital visiting hours so we headed up Mt Lofty. They charge a flat-rate $5.40 parking which was super annoying because we weren't going to be there long. Tried to pay but the machine just looked at me stoopid. Like I clicked to get started but nothing else happened. So I thought screw it, and we just went to quickly go take some photos.

$5.40 flat rate parking #grunt. But nothing happened when I tried to pay, so clearly I was doing it wrong. So didn't pay and just went and took a few very quick photos then left again :(

There was a group of people standing around at the fence of the lookout, right in the best spot for taking photos. They weren't even looking, they were all just standing around talking. And then one of them had the nerve to say something to me about trying to get past them to see the fricken view and I was like wtf you're fricken IN THE WAY. Hate people. HATE HATE HATE. So that and the parking situation left me pretty grunty. Just wanted to get out of there.

Flinders Column on Mt Lofty

Mum at Flinders Column

View from Mt Lofty

Adelaide city from Mt Lofty

Mt Lofty Summit and Fire Tower

So then down to the hospital. Found some 2 hour free parking on the street so grabbed that to give us a chance to see how everyone was tracking for the day. Of course the next challenge was actually finding Graham's room. I'd aimed for the wrong car park, so it was a long walk back and we weren't where Pam was expecting us to be so all the instructions were backwards. And hospitals are hard to navigate at the best of times. Anyway we got there in the end.

Turns out Graham is actually doing really well at the moment. But mainly because chemo really hasn't starting going yet. He's going to be in hospital for a couple of months, but they're hopeful they'll be able to treat it and with any luck "cure" it. So that was super good news. Moved the car into the north car park after sussing everything out. Went out at one point to see the Duckpond, and we had lunch with Pam and Robyn. So we ended up staying most of the day which was nice (we did say they could kick us out if they needed to rest hehe).

Uncle Graham in hospital

The Duckpond in Flinders Medical Centre

Graham and Pam near the Duckpond

Duck in the Duckpond

Tortoise in the Duckpond

Late in the afternoon we followed Pam back to the lodge. At one point we were just driving along and the car slammed on the brakes and popped up a big red alert in the console. WTF??? a) WHY?? I'm guessing because a car coming up to a T-intersection just in front of us was coming too fast for the car's liking and it thought there might be an accident so it took matters into its own hands. b) Why flash up a big red error alert right in front of me MAKING ME TAKE MY EYES OFF THE ROAD???? How dumb is that?!? Never even saw what it said because it went away quickly, but seriously that's dangerous in itself. c) I'm sure I probably pissed off whoever was behind me by SLAMMING THE BRAKES ON and I couldn't tell them IT WASN'T EVEN MY FAULT! #grunt. Also pretty much everywhere in Adelaide is 60km/h, even on big four lane divided roads that you'd do 80 on anywhere else in the country. Weird.

The Cancer Council Greenhills Lodge is a lovely hotel-style building just south of the parks around the CBD. Pam was able to stay there while Graham was staying there, but will have to leave soon now that Graham is staying in the hospital longer term.

View across Carriageway Park to Adelaide from the Cancer Council Greenhill Lodge

We headed back to our hotel to freshen up then headed out again for dinner.

We wandered up Hutt Street until we found something that Mum would be happy with - Social Street S2 Thai restaurant. I may have had a beer for Graham. I had satay chicken because Mum ordered the pork belly, but had I known she wanted it all for herself I would have ordered it too haha. There was too much chicken for me to get through so I got half of it as leftovers. It was lovely catch up with Pam who's been having a tough time of it all.