We’re in Adelaide, the closest thing to a hometown, where my family lives. I haven’t lived here for nearly 30 years but I know the streets, they are familiar, I get around without a map, without GPS. Everything has changed but everything stays the same. We’re here on serious family business. Life and death stuff.
It’s late summer and Adelaide was hit by a heatwave. Between 35° and 40° for several days. At first it’s a bit exotic for Swedes coming from a long, dark and cold Nordic winter, but there is no respite, there is no hiding from it and it wears you down, despite the swims at the beach. You have to go early in the morning and late in the afternoon when the sun’s rays are not so intense.
We spent the weekend at “the farm”, the property south of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula, now owned by my sister and her husband. A lovely house on top of a hill with a magnificent view to the ocean. It’s quiet and peaceeful, with kangaroos, cockatoos, and warbling magpies. However, it has no air-conditioning so it was hot, really hot. Even at night. Hard to sleep. Opened all the windows to the evening breeze but it too was hot.
We hit the beach after breakfast, shaking the old Honda Civic we’re borrowing to bits on the rough gravel road down to Normanville. An old college friend that I haven’t seen for nearly 40 years invites us to lunch in Goolwa on the south coast where the great Murray River hits the Southern Ocean. It’s stinking hot but he has air-conditioning and we sit inside sharing memories and insights from where our lives have taken us.
Another swim in the afternoon and the back along the dirt road to the house on the hill and another hot night, this time with a stronger wind but just as warm.
In Adelaide the mornings are spent on family matters, and the afternoons getting around trying not to think about the heat. We visit the beach at Glenelg, have Gelato, and go to look at the whale installation on the beach raising awareness about climate issues. The sun and the heat is oppressive, there is no breeze, and it is not really a pleasant place to be. It’s full of people though. It’s a long weekend and they are trying to escape the heat.
A couple more days to go before we board the plane back to the north. Hard to imagine that cold, late winter can exist in parallel to the hot late summer that we are now experiencing.
Adelaide City images:
The farm on Hay Flat on the Fleurieu Peninsula and Nromanville Beach:
More farm, Carrickalinga Beach, Glenelg Beach and the whale:
