Monday 4 June 2007

Port Adelaide

Yesterday we paid a visit to 'Port Adelaide'.


Port Adelaide is located about 14km north east of the city of Adelaide and is the main port for the city of Adelaide. It had been first proclaimed as a harbour in the 1830's and it has also been the first port of call for migrants into South Australia.



The light house
The port is located further inland from the outer harbour. The difference between a Harbour and a Port is that a harbour shelters and stores ships, whereas a Port is a coastline facility built so that boats and ships can load and unload goods. Therefore ports are generally accompanied with transport systems, cranes and ramps. Ports can also be seaports, riverports, fishports etc.

I was quite eager to see the bottle nosed dolphins who are living in the waters. There are special cruises for dolphin observation 'up close' (as they say), so we boarded a 2 hour cruise journey onto one of these 'dolphin cruisers'. After about an hour in the calm waters we arrived at the Dolphin habitat, only to see a couple of dorsal fins of the dolphins, they never came close to the boat and the boat didn't spend more than a couple of minutes trying to catch a glimpse of the big fish. Very disappointing!! The journey back was very slow and uneventful.



A Dolphin!

Next we climbed up into the old lighthouse, walked around in the "Fisherman's Wharf Market", no it's not a fish market but full of local produce and souveniers and stuff. Then went to see the 'Sea Horse Farm'. It was pretty interesting, they had an educational video and some sea horses, funny creatures they are! Did you know that it's the male seahorse that gets pregnant and carries children? yup....interesting!
And I got to touch a living shark! Well.....no it's probably not what you would imagine, it was a really small one like a well grown Carp. And boy was his skin rough!!


Up in the light house overlooking the port



Up in the light house overlooking the Wharf and the Wharf market

There were quite a number of museums around but we didn't get the time to visit all of them.

3 comments:

Mahasen said...

You are always good at writing in great detail. Thanks!

Ineshka said...

Hey hey! :) Sounds like an interesting trip! :) So sorry about the dolphins :( I was watching Survivor Palau and as a reward for the winning team they were taken to this place where dolphins are and they were swimming and the dolphins were kissing their cheeks..!! Man, I just thought, if only I would get a chance like that !!! :)

Yup, I had heard that its the male sea horse that actually gets pregnant (I think from Discovery channel)! :) They seem so.... what's the word... they seem such an exception of nature, dont they? :) A wonderful exception! Not only are they weird but the man gives birth!! :)

GG said...

Thanks Mahasen for the compliment!

And Ineshka, yeah the sea horses are quite exceptional, it was really amusing watching them swim around in the tanks. Their tails try to hold on to whatever comes close to them; sea weed, air tubes, and even each other. They even wrap their tails around other seahorse's throats. The guide there said that "it's nothing personal, they just think it's a good place to hold on to for the time, but when the other seahorse feels grumpy, they shake'em off!"