After visiting a few states in Australia, we realised that each state feels like a different country. It has been more than a year that we haven’t stepped out of our state (NSW) due to Covid restrictions and Easter felt like a perfect holiday time to visit a different state.

South Australia was the first one on our bucket list, mainly because it is usually not very busy during holiday season like some of the other places. Though we booked our flights and hotels in advance, we were completely prepared that the trip can get cancelled in the last minute due to whatever restrictions that might be put in place.

Just like we assumed things might change, Brisbane was made a hotspot three days before Easter and other states placed restrictions on travellers from Brisbane. We were worried that those cases might come up to Sydney or NSW as well, but luckily there were none before the day we had our flight. Hoping that things might be settled by the time we are back, we finally boarded our flight to Adelaide with masks on! 😀 I am sure that most of the travels during Covid time turn out to be suspense thrillers. Well, ours was a happy ending, so all happy to start the trip 🙂

We witnessed a beautiful sunset over Sydney waters and reached Adelaide by the time it was just about to get dark. I was a bit sad that I missed watching Adelaide landing in daylight, but we didn’t have much choice with the available flight timings. The city looked beautiful under lights and it felt like an organised city.

We got our rental car from the airport and drove to our hotel in a busy street of Adelaide CBD. We wanted to experience living in CBD and chose the hotel accordingly. The view from our hotel room on the 14th floor looked amazing with a view of Adelaide Oval, Railway Station and other buildings around.

Day 1: Lake Bumbunga (Pink Lake)

We missed visiting a pink lake when we visited Perth, as it was very far from the main city. When checking for other pink lakes in Australia, we found that the most reachable pink lake is around 1hr 30min drive from Adelaide. That was one of the main catalysts for planning this trip too. We purchased a drone recently and wanted to experiment it at the lake.

We started our journey a little late in the morning and reached Lake Bumbunga by noon. The drive to the lake felt like a proper outback road trip with almost no greenery on the way.

It felt hotter than usual, mostly due to the lack of any trees or shade throughout. We parked our car as soon as we could spot the pink lake entrance and took a quick glance of the lake.

As we read from articles and blogs earlier, the lake is known to change colour from pink, to white, to blue, depending on the salinity of the water throughout the year. The lake looked completely dried up with its pink salt bed exposed and we could happily walk on it. The lake bed was glowing in light pink colour under the bright Sunand it was tough to view it directly without goggles.

It felt like a perfect playground to experiment our drone and we tried various shots and videos of the lake for some time.

We were tired due to the heat and took a lunch break and then decided to drive till the end of the lake and checkout other good view points. We found a beautiful spot at the end of the lake with a road in between. The lake bed looked so beautiful that it felt tough to stop clicking pictures.

If not for the heat outside in the middle of the day, we could have spent an hour or more at this place just walking all along the lake. We absolutely fell in love with that place, it was simply stunning 🙂

Anyone planning a trip to this lake, I would suggest you to reach a little early in the morning to avoid sun exposure.

Unwilling to leave the place, we had to drive back to Adelaide by evening. We strolled by city streets in the night and had our dinner in one of the restaurants nearby. The CBD looked busy in the night too with many people outside on the streets in bars and restaurants.

Today was a great start to our trip which gave us all the energy required for the next few days and transported us into a holiday mode.

Day 2: Fleurieu peninsula

We started our trip early in the morning after yesterday’s lesson :D. We drove south of Adelaide to explore the coastline and the famous Fleurieu peninsula.

Port Noarlunga

Our first stop was at Port Noarlunga, 30mins away from the city. It was a beautiful beach with a Jetty and a popular site for snorkelling.

As we drove further south, there was a beautiful spot where the Onkaparinga River meets the sea, forming a spectacular natural beach. We found many locals kayaking, fishing, stand-up paddle boarding in that quieter area.

Port Willunga

Port Willunga Beach is one of Fleurieu Peninsula’s most photographed beaches featuring the remains of the Port Willunga Jetty. It has a perfect combination of the golden cliff faces, crystal clear waters and soft white sands.

The best part of the beach was the beautiful caves inside the cliffs. These unique caves have been carved into rock, were once used by fishermen to store their boats and fishing rods. Today, locals and families come to relax along the beach and use the caves to hide from the Sun or set up a picnic. It just added more beauty to the beach.

We played in the water for sometime at this beach, relaxed for a while and moved further. Although we expected today to be a shorter journey, we soon realised it is going to get longer as each place was equally interesting and had its own beauty, and we wanted to spend time in all places. Luckily, the breeze was cooler near the beaches and we couldn’t feel the Sun’s effect today, giving us more time to explore 🙂

Sellicks Beach

As we drove further on the Peninsula, we stopped by Sellicks beach on our way for a lunch break. It was yet another beautiful clear beach where the vehicles are allowed to drive in to the beach.

The drive got even more interesting as we drove though the scenic route along the coast to reach Victor Harbor.

Victor Harbor

We reached Victor Harbor, a famous coastal town – it was quite lively with markets, eateries and other family activities.

There is a bridge connecting Victor Harbor with Granite Island, which is developed as a good family entertainment destination with horse-drawn trams, aquarium, other activities etc.

Horseshoe Bay

It was a part of Victor Harbor town. We were recommended this place by one of our friends who visited this place earlier, it’s a great place to relax and chill out 🙂

We drove back directly to Adelaide from Victor Harbor on the return trip on a highway, which is a quicker and straight forward route. Fleurieu peninsula is a must-do drive for anyone on Adelaide trip. There are ferries from Cape Jervis of the peninsula to Kangaroo Island, which itself is a good day trip. We avoided going to the island as we wanted to completely explore the peninsula on a day and wanted to plan a trip to Kangaroo island separately next time. There are too many things to do on the island, one full day would turn out to be hectic with most of the time spent on travel.

By the time we reached Adelaide CBD, we found many people walking to Adelaide Oval with colourful jerseys, caps and scarfs. We realised that there was a Footy match happening that day between Adelaide and Gold Coast teams and the locals started flooding to the stadium to cheer their team, Adelaide Crows 🙂 I knew nothing about the game, but it felt nice to see so many enthusiastic people attending the match. I wished good luck to Adelaide Crows and was hoping they win!

Day 3: Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley

The first thing I checked in the morning was the news about the prior night’s match. Yay!! Adelaide Crows won the match 🙂

Adelaide is a famous place for wineries and we found some of them on our way back from Victor Harbor and they looked beautiful. Though we weren’t very interested in wine tasting, we wanted to explore the drive along the wineries and cute villages on the way.

Adelaide Hills is famous for its wineries and historic, beautiful villages. It is around an hour’s drive from Adelaide.

Mount Lofty Summit, Crafers

The summit, located around 710m above sea level, provides a picturesque panoramic view of Adelaide city skyline and its surrounds. This is one of the best lookouts I have seen so far in Australia, with almost 360 degrees views of the place.

Bridgewater Mill

Bridgewater Mill is a beautiful sandstone three-storey mill, built in 1860 famous for its multi-cultural restaurant. The restaurant inside looks even more attractive. We didn’t go inside but just looked at the building from the outside.

Hahndorf

Hahndorf is a famous village in Adelaide Hills with Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement. The main street is lined with trees with German-style restaurants, pubs, shops etc giving us a heritage feel.

It was quite a busy time when we reached Hahndorf that the main street was full of traffic. We took a good glance of village from the car and soon realised we will not be able to get parking too and had to drive off. The town looked very charming and we would love to visit this and take a stroll next time.

Wine Region

We found vineyards as soon as we crossed Hahndorf and we could clearly see grapes hanging all around!

It was a great place to play with our drone navigating across the vineyards!

Melba’s chocolate factory

We stopped by at Melba’s chocolate factory on the way to Barossa Valley just to take a quick glance of the chocolate factory. We could see the equipment and workers working on the chocolates. It was also full with families and kids buying Easter chocolates. The factory felt a little underwhelming, maybe because I expected a chocolate making tour. We just grabbed some chocolates and left the place to reach a park nearby for lunch.

Barossa Valley

We continued our journey to Adelaide through Baroosa Valley. We didn’t stop anywhere, but just drove through the vineyards. The drive was very beautiful with wineries all along. We realized the wineries were also busy, looks like the long weekend effect. We found more people on this wine route than anywhere else in Adelaide 🙂

It was a quick trip and we reached Adelaide by afternoon. We took rest for a couple of hours and walked around the city centre along the waterfront in the evening.

Adelaide City Waterfront

Though we have been staying in this area, we didn’t realize there was a water body quite close to our place. As we started walking, we observed there is River Torrens flowing in between the city and all the major buildings and entertainment centres are planned around this riverfront.

It was a great place for cycling, running and relaxing. I appreciated the fact that most of the Australian cities are planned in such a way that they have a waterfront in the middle of the city and beach in a reach. I observed this waterfront concept in many towns and cities of Europe as well. Just one street parallel to this one is a busy street with railway station and other office buildings etc and the riverfront felt like a perfect contrast to that street with a relaxing atmosphere. We had a pleasant stroll along the water and parks around and enjoyed our evening 🙂

Day 4: McLaren Vale, Glenelg Beach

We had our flight in the evening so we had time in the morning after checking-out from our hotel. We decided to go to drive through McLaren Vale, another popular wine region around Adelaide, which is around 30mins from the city. There was a popular Rubix cube shaped restaurant there (d’Arenberg Cube), and we wanted to visit that.

Though we wanted to go to the top of the restaurant to have view of the surrounding area, the place was busy and completely booked till afternoon. So, we had no choice but to leave the place and find a different place for lunch.

Glenelg Beach

We drove to Glenelg beach, another famous beach of the city, where we had our lunch and walked across. It was the best suburb in Adelaide that we visited and it was extremely vibrant with a culture of its own. There is a train till the beach which felt perfect.

It is a beautiful beach and there are positive vibes to that area. Sometimes, its tough to give reasons on why we like a place and this is one such kind. This felt like a perfect suburb to stay and settle down. The moment we walked across, we realized its a fantastic place and we just aimlessly wandered on the beachfront observing people around.

We found many young kids jumping from the jetty into the water and swimming in the beach. It was great fun just looking at people around and their activities. We fell in love with this place that we wondered why we missed staying in this place instead of CBD. Whenever we come to Adelaide next time, I am sure we are going to stay in Glenelg.

It was an amazing trip which went beyond our expectations. I knew almost nothing about Adelaide apart from the pink lake when we planned our trip. It was our attempt to explore a new state that left us with these wonderful memories. Bye Bye Adelaide for now and thanks for hosting us safely 🙂