Hen's Excursion!

After I left McDonalds, I went back to the house to finish getting ready for the exciting day ahead of me. As I said, I didn’t know much of what the plans for the day were, other than that we were starting with a Dolphin Cruise. With a little help from Jess’ sisters, Hayley and Adele, we decided what would be appropriate to wear since the day was a bit cooler than we might have liked. We headed to Port Adelaide for the Dolphin Cruise on the Port River. When I had mentioned this activity to Jared at Calvary, he had noted that it was strange that Dolphins inhabited this river (which he assured me that they did), because it was so polluted. When we got there we purchased our tickets, which we had the option to purchase lunch at that time and choose between a one or two course meal. The tickets with a one course meal were $20. Once we boarded our group found seats and settled in. A waitress came around to take orders and then we were able to walk around on the deck and look for Dolphins or at the surrounding sights, which was actually quite industrial. We were told when there were dolphins visible but I always seemed to miss them. By the end I was a bit disappointed I hadn’t seen any. A couple of the girls and I went to check out the back of the boat and the upper deck near the end of the trip. When we looked over into the water, TONS of jellyfish could be seen swimming (or whatever you would call how they move) around. I tried to take pictures to show this, but it didn’t really work out. You’ll have to trust me that they are there. While we were talking about them, one of the girls casually mentioned that when they were growing up they would find them on the beach and throw them at each other, much like we might have a snowball fight at home. She did say that they generally made sure to poke them with a stick and make sure they were dead first. Both girls admitted that they find it hard to imagine growing up without the ocean so close by. Here they have their swimming lessons in PE classes at the beach and it seems that no child grows up without being familiar with the ocean. While we were chatting away and the boat was coming back into port, we noticed a group of dolphins swimming nearby. I was ecstatic and of course made sure to take a picture or two. As it turns out, only one of them is really clear. We all got together for a picture before heading back onto land.

The next activity that was planned for us was a scavenger hunt in the city. Adele and Hayley divided us up into teams and gave us our first clue. The plot of the scavenger hunt was that we were planning a wedding and needed to find places to get things for the wedding (such as shoes, jewelry, a dress, and cake) and when we found the places our clues led us to, we got the next clue. Along the way, we had an extra challenge to take photos of where the ceremony and wedding photos could take place. Our group went above and beyond this, in order to make up for coming in dead last. We decided the ceremony could take place at town hall (like at the courthouse) and then the reception could take place at a nice banquet hall, where Hungry Jacks would cater the meal. For anyone who can’t guess from the appearance of Hungry Jacks, it’s Australian for Burger King. We chose lots of (tourist) sites for photos and even found a street musician to play at the reception. He allowed us to take his one displayed business card when I explained that I needed it so he could be the band at the make believe wedding I was planning. We decided that rather than a cake we would have crepes from a Japanese stand. I really do plan to go back and have one because they were really amazing looking. They were rolled up and served in a way that made them look like an ice cream cone. We decided that we would get roses from bushes on the side of the road. It was really quite a fun activity. At the end of the scavenger hunt, we found ourselves in a flower shop and everyone purchased flowers for the bride.

After it was finished, we had a drink at a pub while we waited for Jess’ sisters who had gone home to get ready for tea. While we were there, we saw 2 other Hen’s nights and one buck’s night just in the one pub. It was easy to tell that our day/night were different than most as the women at the other hen’s nights were dressed in their little dresses and heels and apparently planning to drink their supper. We ate at a European style café that was very nice. Jess and I shared a bruschetta with capsicum and eggplant on it. For my main course I had pasta that had anchovies, capers and chilies in it. Dessert was a shared dessert pizza which was served with Gelato on top, and was to die for. Interestingly enough, I was informed that Gelato has no dairy products in it… which makes me even more impressed with how awesome it tastes. After supper we presented our pictures and explained how we’d done at figuring out the clues. I’m quite proud to inform everyone that our group won, mostly for our creativity. The prizes were chocolate bars, which I’d been with Hayley when she purchased.

After supper, some of the girls left, and the rest of us headed to a pub. This part of the evening wasn’t really planned. We attempted to go to a pub nearby, which already had a line outside. Jess left to get something and returned to the line, which caused the woman manning the door to approach us and say that groups behind us were complaining and asking that we be told to go back to the end of the line. We thought this was a bit ridiculous and went off to find a different pub. We went to one that is apparently somewhat known of called the Lion. There was a band and we formed a protective circle around Jess to dance. There were a couple boys behind us that I talked to, mostly about hip hop, for part of the night. At the end of the night I was informed that one of them was 18 years old. It was crazy to me; one because he did NOT look that young, but also because I didn’t really think about that happening even though I knew that the legal drinking age is 18 here. A couple of us were still going after the band was finished and decided to catch a taxi into the city. We went to a bar/club called Supermild, which was down below a different bar. They played a specific type of music and most of the patrons wore vintage/period clothes. It was somewhat easy to picture being in someone’s dark basement while their parents were away in the 50’s or 60’s. It was a really interesting experience. The most interesting adventure of the night was trying to find a taxi home in the city. Most places that were intended to catch them had lines that seemed a mile long. We walked around trying to find one without waiting in line, but ended up in a line in the end. We stood behind a guy who was kind enough to share some of his KFC fries with us while we waited. We finally made it home and fell swiftly into our beds to sleep. I’d like to note it was around 4am when we got home, and that the city was still very much alive. People were even just arriving to the bars when we were leaving.