Adelaide, Fleurieu Peninsula.

Posted March 24th 2024

This is certainly a blog for boys and girls who like classic cars. In between car museum reports, there are some lovely discoveries, highlights and delights. 

We chose to camp at Gawler due to its proximity to Adelaide. I wonder if we are a bit desensitised to traffic, people etc and prefer the quiet, noise free, light free, clean air of the “country”. On our entire journey, we’ve visited just two capital cities that were new to us. The other city was Darwin. Both of us have driven around Adelaide a few times but never got to the heart centre to see what made it tick. 

So on our first day in Gawler, we decided to cycle the paths, before breakfast, around some lovely bushland near our van park, near the Para river. Gawler wasn’t too bad, but parched dry like all of SA, only the inner gardens near the town were afforded a bit of water to keep them green. 

We took a trip to Birdswood Motor Museum, a planned destination we’d made months ago. And what a treat it was, even I was thoroughly impressed. The displays were excellent, it provided a feast of memories of times past, motoring with my parents, with boyfriends and even a mini like my first car.

My dad changed cars every two years, so the full gamut of Holdens I remember as a kid were there. I used to date fellas in the MG car club, some of those lovely cars were there, and of course being with Nick, there were always old cars he’s either restored or driven or ridden in as a child that he waxed lyrical about. 

Nick: Birdswood is a very nice place to visit and being owned by the State it is well funded and maintained. Holden have donated part of their production line to the museum, so if you look up you can see parts of Holdens being carried along to the next assembly stage, all now static but you get the idea.

Of particular interest was Tom Kruse’s truck. Tom was the Birdsville mailman for many years running from Maree to Birdsville over very harsh country. In the late 90’s he retrieved his truck from a station outback and helped with the restoration and after one last drive to Birdsville he donated it to the museum where it takes pride of place along with much film footage of his exploits.

Holden donated or loaned many of their concept cars to the museum as well, cars that you will never see on the road. There is a convertible Commodore called ‘Marilyn’ and a beautiful retro FJ concept made in the factory. There are many ordinary cars in the museum that you don’t see on the road anymore much the same as the Haynes museum in the UK. The Leyland Brothers Series 3 Station Wagon is there that they crossed Oz from west to east in. A very good collection of Motorbikes as well.

The next day we drove to Adelaide to get a feel for the city. We went out towards the coast and passed through the suburb of Port Adelaide. Knowing the footy team based here, we expected a pretty rough town, but it was beautiful, with a long street of heritage buildings, cafes and boutique stores, reminded us of Port Melbourne. We continued down the coast aiming for Glenelg, only because that’s the town you often hear people talk about. It certainly was worth the visit for a nice walk, lunch and a beer in the pub.

Each of Adelaide’s coastal suburbs that we stopped at were charming and trendy and probably expensive to buy into. Later that afternoon we met up with Alistair & Loren and kiddies and Grandad John, a chance for the blokes to talk Land Rovers. We had “stored” Alistair’s 1973 Landy on our nature strip at Lennox for at least 3 years, it was nice to see it garaged and used weekly by Alistair.

Next day we chose to take the local train to Adelaide for the day. Train travel is a great way to experience the locals as well as the scenery. Passing through Elizabeth which was formerly the home of the Holden factory, there was a sense of going through Geelong, former home of the Ford factory. 

Once we’d had the mandatory coffee in Rundle Place, we caught the free bus looping around the city. North Adelaide was like driving through Toorak, such amazingly beautiful heritage mansions, streets lined with deciduous trees, cafes heaving with trendy people and dogs.

We eventually got off the bus at the Botanic Gardens. We always free-range on a day like this without any plans, but I was wanting to go into a museum or gallery of some kind to get a feel for Adelaide. Nick was a bit reluctant I could tell. Low and behold, there in the middle of the Botanic gardens was the Museum of Economic Botany. Walking in the door was a wow moment for both of us. The building was completed in 1881 and is the last museum of its kind in the world. I thought the large glass Palm House was fabulous, as was the Amazon waterlily Pavilion, but this Botany museum was on another level. I’ll include some pictures which don’t do it justice… you need to smell the musty cavernous room, feel the polished timbers and gaze into the collections to truely understand this place. Eventually the volunteers asked us to leave, they had no replacement volunteers for the afternoon session so had to close.

I certainly have a better understanding of Adelaide now, but feel a longer stay is in order sometime in the future.

Nick felt the need to change the donut under our Landy on our last evening in Gawler. Seems we almost shattered this one, better changed now than on the road in the middle of nowhere.

The next day we packed up early and drove south to meet Alistair and John at the All British Car Day, an annual event which attracts hundreds of cars and thousands of spectators. Located in a sports ground at Euchunga with plenty of space to properly display the wonderful vehicles, the day was warm and sunny, a success for all concerned. Alistair took Shorty (his 1973 Landy). It’s hard to pick a favourite from this show, but I did like the Jaguar MK5 drop head like ours, sad that we still don’t have it. 

Nick: Fabulous, heaps of cars 200 – 300 on display. There were lines of Minis, Sunbeams, Jaguars, Morris’, Bristol, MG, Land Rover, Vauxhall, Singer, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Trucks and tractors etc etc. Good weather and good organisation. A recommended day if you are in Adelaide.

Victor Harbour, Fleurieu Peninsula.

Great town, shops, ambience and history. Being part of the extensive Shipwreck coast, the National Trust museum featured many treasures salvaged off wrecks nearby. However, the feature attraction of Victor Harbour is the horse drawn carriage that crosses regularly across the causeway, linking to Granite island where once the ships docked with goods and passengers. 

The town of Goolwa is about 30km from Victor Harbour along the coast. We drove around to the mouth of the Murray which was being dredged, then found one of the five Barrages –  barriers built to seperate the waters of the salty Coorong and fresh water Lower Lakes, maintaining a supply of fresh water to the lower reaches of the Murray. Whilst walking on the barrage we came across some very lazy Australian fur seals, basking in the sun on the wooden beams under the jetty. 

Strathalbyn. 

I had heard this was a beautiful town with many heritage buildings, but I didn’t realise just how good it was. The streets lined with deciduous trees had stunning Victorian and Georgian houses, tucked behind large clipped cypress hedges, perfectly restored, with amazing cottage gardens. The main street was adorned with period buildings, mostly in great nick. We cycled around the town, it was quite hot, but that didn’t matter, we loved what we saw. 

Found a magnificent sculpture of a champion motor cyclist, Ken Blake, who beat the 11 times world champion Giacomo Agostini in the Australian GP. The pictures show you how it is made by the same artist who made the metal horse in Edithburgh.

Nick was keen to visit Gilberts Motor Museum, so I went to the Antiques Bazaar across the road. It was mind blowing to see the quantity of stuff in there and I came away with a piece of Spode china to go with mum’s set she gave me. 

Nick: I knew that there was a car museum in Strathalbyn and they had some very nice stuff in there, of most interest were the Rovers. A 1913 12hp model, a 1907 6hp model and a 1916 Rover motorcycle. Also there were four Sunbeams, a Tiger Mk 2 prototype, a Venezia Superleggera and a saloon. There was also an American pick up truck with an Indian Motorcycle in the back both in fabulous condition.  

Only one night in Strathalbyn, but it was very worthwhile. Heading south again, but that will be on the next blog which will follow quite soon. It’s written, just needs to be assembled into a blog.

Love and blessings to all

Jen & Nick