Woo-woo! It was a mostly sunny day and we decided to drive up to Port Adelaide so that we could find the tall ship before tomorrow morning. It helped that the Railway and Maritime Museums were close by. The drive took us through the small suburbs south of Adelaide proper – it was crowded and we didn't get the neighborhood feel that we had for the NZ towns and villages. We found our way up to the wharf where the tall ship was tied up and walked around the shops. We saw the red lighthouse and small boat that were part of the Maritime Museum. After lunch, we visited the Railway Museum (http://www.natrailmuseum.org.au/). We could tell the staff were enthusiastic about their workplace as Robert (the gift shop attendant) talked with us for about 10 minutes on railroad and vintage American car memorbilia. Later, Kent ran into David (who helps maintain the exhibits) and had a fact-filled 20-minute session with him, which included entry into the cab of locomotive 900 (a.k.a. Lady Norrie, http://www.natrailmuseum.org.au/rollingstockexhibit.php?exhibitID=41). There were numerous displays of rolling stock, both locomotives (steam and diesel) and carriages (sleepers, Pullmans, mail, baggage, etc.). There were serveral exhibits, the most interesting of which were The Long Journey: Women and the Railways and the model railway. The second builing was used to display several of the train routes used throughout Australia, including the Ghan (Adelaide to Darwin, http://www.greatsouthernrail.com.au/site/the_ghan/history.jsp). However, one of the highlights of our visit was our first stop: a tour around the museum on their minature railway (457 mm guage, similar to trains used to carry kids around amusement parks). After standing and walking for a couple of hours, we decided to head back to our holiday house in Christies Beach and relax for the remainder of the day.
