Hey, what’s up?

I decided to come back to Adelaide for the second time this year! At this point, I might as well make Adelaide a biannual pilgrimage because apparently I’ll be coming here every six months now. Adelaide has a special place in my heart because a lot of my university friends live and work here, so naturally, I’ll probably keep coming back until they all collectively decide to move somewhere else.

Plus, there are genuinely so many things to do here! Every time I visit, there’s somehow another hike, and another restaurant to try.

Basically, I took a flight here on Friday evening straight after finishing my shift. Believe it or not, I was still doing venepuncture ONE HOUR before my boarding time. Failed, by the way. So there I was, unsuccessfully trying to extract blood from a human being while mentally calculating whether Darwin Airport would accept me sprinting through security like a wanted criminal.

Eventually, I gave up, finished my shift, summoned an Uber and rushed straight from the hospital to the airport. Thank God I somehow made it just in time. One of my friends told me that I’m “living life in the fast lane,” which sounds considerably cooler than “chronically poor time management,” so I’ve decided to accept that description.

Day 1 — The River Trail Betrayed Us

After breakfast, my friends brought me for a hike at Sturt Gorge Recreation Park. The park is HUGE, with multiple entry points and trails to choose from, and we decided to do the River Trail. Now, considering the word “river” was literally in the name, you would think six university-educated adults might have predicted what was about to happen. Apparently, higher education has its limits.

Of course, the trail involved crossing an actual river. During winter. When the water was freezing. It was also a loop hike, which meant that after successfully crossing the river once and congratulating ourselves on surviving, we eventually realised that we had to cross the bloody thing again. At that point there was technically no escape because turning back would also involve crossing the river again. Checkmate.

So we crossed it. Freezing cold water, wet feet and questionable life choices, but who doesn’t like an adventure? As a direct consequence, the only pair of shoes I brought to Adelaide was soaking wet for the next two days. Did I bring a spare pair? Of course not. Why would I do something intelligent like that?

In the afternoon, we went for a badminton session just like the good old university days. It was basically the same group of people, except Sara wasn’t there because she was busy MO-ing away in Malaysia. Hopefully one day we’ll manage to gather everyone together again, preferably before we reach the age where a casual badminton session becomes an orthopaedic referral.

Day 2 — Apparently We’re Hiking Again

The next morning, because yesterday’s physical activity clearly wasn’t enough, we went for another short hike at Hallett Cove, which is conveniently close to my friend’s house. The place has these incredible geological formations that genuinely look unreal in person, and the whole coastal scenery was absolutely beautiful.

It was freezing when we first started because the trail runs right along the coast. The wind was blowing directly into my soul, and for the first ten minutes I was questioning every decision that had led me to that moment. But once we started walking, we warmed up pretty quickly. The sun eventually came out too, and suddenly everything was beautiful again. Nature is manipulative like that.

Most importantly, there were no rivers to cross this time, which was excellent news because my shoes had already suffered enough emotional and physical trauma for one holiday.

In the afternoon, we went for another badminton session. Since I basically never play badminton in Darwin, I decided Adelaide was my opportunity to squeeze six months’ worth of badminton into approximately 48 hours. Was my body prepared for this? Absolutely not. My arm hurt, my shoulder hurt, my legs hurt, and several muscles I didn’t know I possessed started submitting formal complaints. But honestly, it was worth it.

At night, we went out for two of my favourite things in this world: braised beef noodles and bubble tea. Happy tummy means happy me. People spend thousands of dollars going on spiritual retreats to discover happiness when apparently all I require is beef noodles followed by an irresponsible amount of brown sugar and tapioca pearls.

Day 3 — Food, Games and My New Addiction

By Day 3, everyone had returned to work because apparently my friends have jobs and cannot simply reorganise their employment around my occasional appearance in Adelaide (Just kidding!). Rude, but understandable. So I spent the day wandering around Adelaide CBD, doing a bit of sightseeing and, more importantly, food hunting. It was a much quieter day compared with the previous two, which my legs greatly appreciated.

Later, I met up with some other friends and we played a few board games. One of them was this game where you basically collect ingredients to make different drinks and complete customer orders. The more orders you complete, the more rewards you get, and eventually you can unlock upgrades that make your life easier. I believe it’s called Coffee Rush.

Then I was introduced to Triominos, which I genuinely don’t know how to explain without making it sound unnecessarily complicated. Imagine dominoes, but now make them triangles, add numbers and maths, and then have several grown adults staring aggressively at tiny pieces of plastic as if national security depends on where the number five goes. Somehow, it was extremely fun.

I enjoyed it so much that after returning to Darwin, I downloaded the app and started playing against random strangers online. Nothing says thriving young adult with a fulfilling social life quite like lying in bed at midnight aggressively placing virtual triangles against someone called Margaret67.

Day 4 — Goodbye, Adelaide

As usual, every trip eventually comes to an end, although apparently this blog post did not. It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish writing this. The first half was written shortly after the trip, while the second half was written six weeks later.

And why did it take six weeks? Well, my beloved rostering department decided that I should work six weekends in a row. Six consecutive weekends. At some point, it stopped looking like a roster and started looking like a personal vendetta. I don’t know who looked at that spreadsheet, saw my name appearing weekend after weekend and thought, “Yeah, that seems reasonable,” but I hope life gives you exactly the same amount of mercy you gave my weekends.

I hope every traffic light you approach turns red. I hope your phone charger only works at a very specific angle and disconnects the moment you stop holding it. I hope every USB you plug in is somehow wrong on the first attempt, wrong again on the second, and magically works on the third despite there being only two possible orientations. I hope you microwave your food and the outside reaches the temperature of the sun while the centre remains mysteriously frozen.

And when your time eventually comes, I hope Satan looks at your roster, looks back at you and says, “Six weekends straight? Mate, even we have staffing standards down here.” He can then politely escort you to a special corner of hell where every weekend is a mandatory evening shift, the ward phone never stops ringing, someone calls you at 4:59 pm to review a patient who has apparently been unwell since 9 am, and every leave request you submit remains permanently marked PENDING.

Anyway, no hard feelings. I am, as you can clearly see, a very forgiving person.

Despite the occupational trauma inflicted upon me after returning home, Adelaide was once again such a lovely little escape. Good friends, beautiful hikes, badminton, excellent food, bubble tea, questionable river-crossing decisions and a brand-new Triominos addiction — honestly, what more could I ask for?

Thanks for sticking around and reading all the way to the end! See you in the next post. Thankfully, my next holiday is coming very, very soon, because after six weekends in a row, if I don’t get on a plane soon, I may become the reason HR introduces a new policy.