Other Wanderers and City Pigs

This morning we took a walk down what is effectively the main street in Adelaide; Hindle Street which then becomes Rundle Mall then went off around the block a bit to the museum. I wanted to see the Bringing Back the Butterflies exhibit that started recently there which we did. It was great and I was surprised and pleased to see my photos are still being used in this exhibit but only in a smaller form on a big information board. Lois has several things on display since they have borrowed butterfly paraphernalia such as clothing, crockery, etc with butterflies on from various people. The exhibit was aimed at educating South Australians in butterfly gardening and understanding and identifying their local butterfly species which it did very effectively. I heard people discussing the plants they have at home and whether they think they have seen certain butterflies in their garden. There were school groups being brought in to learn about them also since SA hasn’t started holidays yet. Following this we got on the free city bus just to get a look around the city then we had lunch before going back to our motel. There are some interesting sculptures around the place including a set of four pigs in Rundle Mall, one of which is up on it's back legs with its front feet on the rubbish bin. They each have a name like Horatio, Truffles etc and get a lot of attention, so much so that we went back in the evening to get a good photo without people all around and children climbing on them. By the way, there are some lovely old churches and other buildings in Adelaide too! Fin and I felt that Adelaide is more like Melbourne than any other place we have been to. The city malls, shops, cafes, restaurants and even the old buildings seem almost familiar.
Next we went for a drive to Brown Hill Creek which is a place that Lois told us about that is a habitat for the wanderer or Monarch butterfly so I was keen to see if we could find any sign of them. It is quite a pretty spot with a little creek running along beneath some hills. It seems that it is being rejuvenated with removal of weeds and planting of native plants which are endemic to the area. We spent ages wandering around along the creek banks and surrounds and there is a lot of wildlife including birds, frogs and lizards. We saw a monarch flit by a couple of times but couldn’t find their host plant (caterpillar food plant) which is a milkweed called cotton bush, anywhere. Eventually, I rang my friend Helen (Lois’s mum) since I still didn’t have Lois’s number and I knew Helen had been there and would know where to go to find the plants we were looking for. Helen was able to give me directions to where we should look and once in the right place, a little more walking and hill climbing and we found some plants complete with caterpillars. Hooray!
I got this picture of a Kookaburra just taking off from the wires there too.
Only two more sleeps and our wonderful around Australia adventure will be over. Wow – doesn’t 12 weeks go quickly!?