After a very lovely cocktail party, I arose early to fly down to Adelaide via Sydney. Having gone a little cabin crazy in Dubbo I couldn't wait to get out of the place. And I had never been to Adelaide before, so I was looking forward to that as well.
The trip was not too bad, and the stop over not too long. When I got to Adelaide Peter was waiting for me at the airport. His plane had arrived earlier in the day. We made our way into town, by which time there was an hour to turn ourselves around before getting to finally meet the marvelous Millie and magnanimous MOTH for the first time.
We had a great evening, starting off with a few cocktails in the new 'The Collins' bar and getting to know each other before the very gracious M&M took us out to a beautiful restaurant called Georges. The food there was divine, and the wine even better. We had a couple of bottles of superb local Shiraz to complement the modern European cuisine.
Above: MOTH, Millie, Myself and Peter crammed in like sardines on a two-seater couch in the Hilton bar.
It was a truly lovely night and we can't wait to do it all again sometime soon. But the hospitality did not end there. The next day we went to meet the friends of a mutual friend who live just outside the city. We were invited to stay for lunch and got talking and hit it off, and so we made plans to dine together later in the week: we went out to Brighton Beach and had a walk along the sand at sunset and then dinner at a seaside brasserie.
Above: Sunset that night, with Brighton Pier just visible in the background to the left
The next day the ACEM Annual Scientific Meeting started off with a bang. The conference started with all the new fellows receiving their Testamurs, inc yours truly...
Then there was a welcome cocktail party with fresh local foods, inc. an oyster bar, free flowing bubbles and some rather unusual entertainment...
I decided the only way to get over my [rather healthy] fear of snakes was to pet one!
After a few days of concentration at the conference, I decided to take the afternoon off and go with a colleague to another beach, Glen Elg...
As you can see, Adelaide had put on a some truly glorious weather for us...
whilst back home WBP was not seeing such good weather...
Later on that evening was the gala dinner, a lovely a la carte affair with a few wines and again, unusual entertainment. There was a troop of female burlesque magicians!...
The conference was also a chance for me to catch up with dear friends and colleagues from New Zealand who, I must say, I miss very much...
In part two I will share my stroll around Adelaide looking at the architecture and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
