Friday, 15 May, 2015. 12:12
We got up early this morning, just before 07:00, so we could drive up to Adelaide and get breakfast at the Adelaide Central Market before catching our flight home to Sydney. We packed our bags and left the motel room, then joined the procession of cars in the weekday morning commute into the city.
The weather has finally fined up here, on our last day. The sun had barely risen as we set out and McLaren Vale was shrouded in morning fog. The main road north to Adelaide was pretty light on traffic, especially compared to Sydney. On the freeway we witnessed an accident happening right in front of us. A car in the innermost lane clipped the concrete barrier and came to a crunching stop. Several other cars stopped to assist by the time we had pulled level, so we drove on.
The traffic intensified a bit closer in to the city, but was still not a problem. We navigated on to King William Street and from there turned into Grote Street and the car park for the market, arriving a bit after 08:00.
 Poached eggs and salmon at Adelaide Central Market. |
We had a brief look around and M. got a cup of coffee before we found a cafe bar where we could order some breakfast. M. got some banana bread with ricotta and rhubarb compote, while I had poached eggs with smoked salmon on some very thick slices of toast. The eggs were good, though could have been just a touch softer in the middle.
 Adelaide Central Market. |
After eating, we did a full circuit of the market, walking up and down each aisle and admiring all of the fresh produce and other delicious looking goods for sale. Several places were giving away sample tastes of things. I tried a fig sauce from Kangaroo Island, which was syrupy like honey but tasted of figs. I liked it so much I bought a bottle, saying I could fit it into my luggage for the flight home. M. got an orange muffin from a vegan place; it had seeds and nuts and things in it. I got a Greek vanilla slice from a bakery place; they also had regular vanilla slices which looked similar to those elsewhere, with white icing with brown stripes, but the Greek ones had an extra layer of pastry and were dusted with icing sugar and looked more intriguing. The slice was indeed truly excellent.
 Cakes at Adelaide Central Market. |
After this snack we browsed around a bit more. We bought a half baguette and a pear for snacks at the airport and then headed back to the car to drive out there. The drive to the airport was a little tricky, as we left the city and figured we could just follow the airport signs, only to find no airport signs anywhere. Eventually we got onto Sir Donald Bradman Drive heading west, which would take us right to the airport. At some point there would be a turn left into the airport. We were driving for a while, and looking for airport signs, and then as we passed straight through one intersection I looked left and saw that it was the airport, and we’d just driven straight past it! There was no sign whatsoever that you had to turn left to enter the airport! If I hadn’t actually looked left as we drove through the intersection and seen it there, we would have just kept driving, blissfully unaware that we’d passed it.
We turned around and headed back so we could drive into the airport and found the rental car drop off area easily enough. There was a bit of a queue there, and by the time I had dropped the key off we had only about 50 minutes to our flight departure time. We went into the terminal and checked in, getting boarding passes for seats 11E and 12E, in separate rows. Everything else on the plane was full, so we had to take those.
We just had time to get through security, sit for a minute and eat some of our final snacks, and then it was almost time to board. We’ve now just taken off, and M. is sitting in the row behind me, and the seat next to her is empty!