Unforgettable Sunsets: Second Valley

One night would have been enough at BreakFree Hotel but we had already paid for two nights. In the morning, we spent couple hours at the empty pool area, and I managed to burn myself a little bit. I wasn’t cautious enough while spreading the suntan lotion. I must mention that the temperature had dropped from 38 to 24 degrees overnight.

Rest of the day was spent in Normanville and Carralinga. The haze made the coastline look super soft, giving it this dreamy vibe that kind of mixes the sky and sea together. Plus, the light shifts when you look around in different directions along the beach, casting a warm golden glow that really brings out the shapes of the land. It’s one of those spots where you can just chill and soak in the laid-back surroundings and the gorgeous views that are all around you.

Fortree Lookout had an old truck as attraction, we noticed several old trucks during our trip. Also the colorful water tank was interesting.

The sunset at Second Valley takes the cake for the day. First of all, I helped Asian male free a stingray from his fishing hook. I held the pole, and he cut the line. I asked him about the hook still in stingray’s jaw. He said that in salt water it can get rid of hook quite fast. Does it rust fast of something, I don’t know. Second Valley had all you needed for taking beautiful pictures. A dock, rocks and limestone coast.

Ever changing sky.


Text credit Mara Sillanmäki

Escaping the heat of Adelaide

Tuesday’s schedule was decided the night before because the weather forecast promised 43 degrees Celsius for Adelaide. It was going to be driving day for us. Staying and walking around city would be murder. First stop Mount Lofty’s Summit. You got a real nice view of the city from there, but getting really good photos was not that easy. This girl from Fidzi it was her first time traveling aboard, she was so excited to be there that she had her photo taken with a flag. I had to capture her joy. The color coordinated couple, no other reason than that.

From there you got a good overview of the city. Next stop historical German city of Hahndorf. Hahndorf was picturesque but it’s hard to get good pics because the parked cars ruin the view, ours included. We did manage to get a few.

Being off-season Hahndorf was quiet besides the lunch hour, when it was hard to find parking. And it was so damn hot that we didn’t walk around as much as we would have wanted. Instead we parked ourselves to a small café for strawberry smoothies and shared a piece of cake. As you can see from the photographs it was an old town with nice historic details all around. Antique stores were fun to go through. 

Text credit Mara Sillanmäki

Adelaide arrival and Glenelg Beach

Monday morning, we had to get up early to make the flight to Adelaide. The flight was 2 hours, and the time distance was 30 minutes. The scenery from the airplane was fascinating when we got closer to Adelaide. Sometimes it looked like they had made crop circles. We had reserved a car from Hertz for the next three weeks. We were told that they had a high-end Corolla for us 😊I never found out what high-end in this case means. Maybe it had good cruise control, because it was the only thing I thought was above normal. And the rent-a-car places never disappoint. You always go the counter expecting you have paid all expenses beforehand, but NO! This time they blamed a third party, Finnair, that we hadn’t paid the return fee. Return fee was returning the car with New South Wales plates to Sydney in NSW. What can you do. We had to pay 250 euros extra.


First few kilometers were exciting hence, to driving on the wrong side of the road but I got into the groove fast. It is much easier driving nowadays because of the navigation systems. You can mostly concentrate on driving and not reading a map.

Boutique Hotel Adabco close to the center of the city proved to really nice and the room was really large. Only negative thing was that there is no free parking. You had to park on the street for maximum of two hours between hours of 8 am to 6 pm. Naturally I ended up with a parking ticket for 66 AUD. Breakfast was included but not on the premises but in Greek café Diaspora. We had walk for about 400 meters but the choices for breakfast were good.

We spent the afternoon and the sunset at Glenelg Beach. We got there around 4 pm and found deckchairs for us at the Moseley Beach Club. Luckily it was off-season so were able to keep the chairs until past sunset at 8 pm. Of course, we bought lunch and couple cool drinks to justify our stay. Temperature was close to 40 degrees Celsius so it was also good to have umbrellas to cover us. Later during the day bar had a skilled guitar player/singer. He played suitable mellow songs for us: Bob Marley, the Eagles, CCR, etc.

A funny Welsh guy came to talk to us few times. He was getting more drunk and louder each time but he was a lot of fun. I sure he had a rough morning because they had on early flight waiting for them. His son was getting married in Sydney in few days and a group of 19 people from the same Welsh village had been travelling for few days before the wedding. The rest of the group is going to be pleasantly surprised at the wedding because a guy from the village, who emigrated to Australia 30 years ago, is going to show up.

Sunset was beautiful and the lighted Glenelg ferris wheel was great too. Check out the pics!

Lovely sunset