To continue a thread aka rabbit hole: time zones. These can be traced back to the standardisation of train times from 1840 onwards. Great Western kicked it off, using GMT as the standard instead of the local station time which was based on solar time. It took until 1880 for a unified time system in the UK to be legally adopted. 1884 saw a Washington conference adopting 24 times zones for the world. A few places resist – such as this Australian State. Now you know, an even briefer history of time.
We spent today learning the buses, admiring the Adelaide grid pattern and some fancy glassware in the Botanic Gardens. Rundle Street just happens to like a t.
Buses: frequent and cheap. 50p for 2 hours travel on all city routes. A free bus around the perimeter of the central city district. A bus driver who forgot to remind us to get off. He then told us he’d called the bus on the other side of the street who was waiting for us.
A city developing from around 1832 on a specific design of wide avenues, a grid system and parks. Which persists until today. Relatively quiet roads, indeed the traffic is light generally. The Central Market is a proper working one – lots of colour and noise. The Portuguese tarts maybe a new addition, long may they last.
The main destination was the Botanic Gardens and its new exhibition of glasswork by Chihuly. Which opens tomorrow. Primarily a “lit” experience, we did see the bulk of the work throughout the park in the daytime. Colourful bobbles. Before I got my eye in, I thought I was looking at plastic bags covering something until I realised it was a genuine “hooly”. They were impressive, especially for blown glass – he must have long arms and large lungs.
Getting to grips with the wildlife too. Ibis are akin to our seagulls. Magpies are magpies except white and black. Ducks are ducks and chicks are cute. Parakeets look more natural here than London and blend in better. Not too many dogs.
Bike inspection prompted by Barbara’s badly damaged transport box has, thankfully, shown no visible damage. My inspection, prompted by the simple 10 minute it takes to add an eSim for data to Barbara’s phone turning into 100 with messages from BT saying your phone is about to self destruct, has shown no visible damage. Just internal bruising. Thanks for asking……
Travelling reflections 