Our main purpose was to spend 4 days meeting travel agents from around the world and explaining our tours to them, at Australia’s biggest annual trade show, the ATE. It is very tiring, a bit like four straight days of speed-dating, but also very enjoyable meeting a lot of friendly and interesting people, making potentially valuable contacts and gleaning new ideas, and also sampling foods from the various states and territories.
the Araucaria stand at ATE
This is a very small part of the crowd
Environmentally-friendly transport
ATE street entertainment
It does get a little tiring
After the ATE we collected my grandson (Darren’s nephew) Axel from the airport after his first-ever flight in a large plane so that he could have his first-ever meeting with his Adelaide cousins and first-ever experience of Australia’s outback on our drive back to Queensland.
Axel arriving in Adelaide
We met my niece Britta and her two boys Niki and Alex at the Adelaide Zoo . Lovely see them again. The boys seemed to quickly make friends and enjoy exploring and playing together.
L to R Axel, Niki, Britta Alex, Darren
Axel meeting a squirrel monkey
Giant panda, part of the only pair in Australia, part of a conservation breeding and research program
Giant Aldabra Tortoise- vulnerable species from the Seychelles, hatched at the Zoo in 1976
Eclectus parrot from north Qld: unusual in that the female (pictured is the brighter-coloured (to our eyes at least – the male has an ultraviolet pattern visible to his mate)
Axel meeting a squirrel monkey
We wondered why we lost Darren for a long time. He was filming a lengthy video of a superb lyrebird displaying, with lots of mimicry
Meerkat – possibly Axel’s favourite
Then a family reunion dinner
Around table from left: Paul (Britta’s husband), Britta, me, Peter (brother, Alison (Peter’s wife), Darren, Axel, Niki, Alex
Next day a family visit to the SA Museum, which I was forever dragging my mother to as a child and later exploring frequently ion my own, followed by the art gallery and a stroll through Adelaide city streets.
As a child I used togas at the malachite until I felt I was being absorbed into its depths
Important fossils from the Flinders Ranges
SA Art Gallery
Rundle Mall, Adelaide
Next day we (3 generations: myself, Darren and Axel) met with lecturers from the new ecotourism course being offered at Adelaide University (where I graduated with Honours in zoology many years ago), followed by a personal tour of the University, especially the science areas and library, some of which I remembered but much of which was new.
Axel’s turn to be tired
Many hours were spent in the Barr-Smith library during my undergraduate and Honours year, usually with great enthusiasm for exploring so may aspects of our planet.
I remember being quite enthralled by the large models while studying botany: not sure if these Arte the same ones
Next day it was off towards that site so famous for Aboriginal history – Lake Mungo …….