Day 23: Adelaide cricket, library and SA museum

We had planned on visiting the market today, as well as the museum. But then while looking up the Adelaide Oval for Sunday's bike pickup, we noticed there's a cricket match. It's the Women's National Cricket League, top of the league contest between South Australia (home team) and Queensland. Let's go! 

At the Adelaide Oval stadium. The statue is of a famous Adelaide cricketeer who had a 0.9995 average many years ago.

We show up before the first pitch ("first ball") and ask directions of a bloke walking by. Ben turns out to be the voice announcer for the stadium, so he takes us up to the production studio for a look-see. Excellent! 

Ben in the announcer's booth.

Americans in the booth! 

Behind the scenes at the Oval.

Now it's game time, so we head to the main level. Low attendance so we grab any old seats. The girl on our left turns out to be from California, a student from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, here to study wine tasting (drinks wine, gets college credit). Then the woman on the right chimes in, she's a teacher from Cal Poly in SLO as well, and they don't know each other. Is it only Americans here?!?

SA in red and blue.

We watch a couple overs (whatever those are), mostly clapping for the correct team. Then Ben gives us a shout-out over the PA. When again will we ever get introduced at a 50,000 capacity stadium?

Model of the Oval. 

The California prof tells us to make sure to see the South Australia Library. Also that there is a free 98C bus around the city center. Who knew? Why does the web page for taking the Adelaide bus not mention this? 

(Later on we find that SA won by 5 wickets with 86 balls remaining. Can someone please explain this to me? I thought we were scoring runs here.)

Interesting aloe like tree as we walk along from Oval to museum. 

At the museum we dive into the Aboriginal displays. Oh wow, this is an old school natural history museum where the entire collection seems to be on display. So many shields, spears, clubs, masks, nets, boomerangs, digging sticks and other tools. And they have them for SA Peoples, many other Australian peoples, and each of many Pacific Islanders as well. Really impressive. Also, we hit overload.

Another meteorite from the west desert. 2500kg of iron, about 4.5 billion years old!

Shields.

Bark painting. 

Boomerangs.

Fishing gear. 

Fifty types of native things to eat. 

Papua New Guinea painted shields. 

About 60,000 years ago the sea levels were much lower, turning much of Indonesia and islands north of Australia into two land masses. So much easier to emigrate to Australia from Asia then! 

Double hulled boat.

Modern shields with aboriginal inspired designs. 

Designs etched in mother of pearl shells. 

We grab lunch in the cafe. Yum. Also, nicely air conditioned while it's 90°+ outside. So chilly that we are eager to walk outdoors to the library. A few steps into that walk we start thinking about how nice the air conditioning will be. 

Library entrance.

The library has a nice old reading hall, similar in design to the University Library in Dublin, though not nearly as large. And much smaller than Sydney's massive library reading room. 

The classic old library room. 

I race down the hall to check out the "Thomas Hardy Wine Library." Well, not that Thomas Hardy. And they have most of the wine books I own in this collection, except I have that first edition Etudes sur le Vin by Louis Pasteur. 

Now it's time to bus to the central market. At the bus stop (100 yards close, way better than walking all the way to the library) we only see 98A, not 98C. Hmm. Then the 98C arrives -- on the front sign is says "clockwise." Hmmm. Kathy soon spots a 98A bus going the other way -- indeed it declares itself "anti-clockwise". Cool. 

Central market is bustling, much more dynamic than QVM in Melbourne. Also they are offering discounts as they close up stalls for the day. We buy ingredients for tonight's dinner and head home. 

On the way home we see something that looks like Burger King, but it's not. 

Tomorrow we bike to the beach and back. I hear it will be warm. 

Tomorrow's forecast. Bring water.