Sunday, 28 June 2026
A day of two halves today. We slept in, before enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Then, because we were a day behind with our travel blog, we spent the rest of the morning catching up on processing photos and writing the travel diary.
We eventually headed out at about 3.00pm to walk over to the Adelaide Oval, where we were booked to participate in the the twilight Adelaide Oval Roof Climb. One last adventurous activity on the last day of our holiday? Our group of 12 was kitted out in blue and orange overalls and then allocated to harness stations where we followed the instructions to get ourselves into our harnesses. After some tightening and tweaking of the straps we were issued with radios and earpieces. Our final piece of kit was the ‘trolley’ assembly that would attach us to the rail that runs up and over the roof.
As Tom led us towards the starting point for the tour, he cheekily asked if anyone needed to go to the toilet? Too late, he said, and off we went to the doorway leading to the ladder onto the first roof shell. At the top of the ladder, Tom’s colleague Alex hooked us all onto the rail and we were off on our rooftop adventure.
We clambered all over the roof shells as Tom regaled us with facts and figure about the oval and it’s long history. He pointed out the ground’s three heritage areas: the scoreboard that dates to 1911, The Hill and the Moreton Bay Figs that were planted behind the scoreboard to stop people watching the cricket for free from the Pennington Gardens. It was 40 years though before they provided an effective shield … and then people just climbed up into the branches to catch a sneaky peek at the cricket!! These days there is a fence behind the fig trees.
We continued onwards and upwards and practiced our backwards leaning for the ‘challenge’ photograph at the top of the stadium, 50 metres above the playing surface. Tom shared information about some of the surrounding buildings including: the Adelaide Hospital, the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (the cheese grater) and the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
At the top, we spent some time having our photos taken by Tom. We both accepted the challenge and leaned back on our harnesses to have our photos taken. Other members of the group were not quite as brave about leaning backwards 50 metres above the ground. While these photos were being taken the sun was setting. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and, apart from a moment, the sunset was … disappointing. Also disappointing was the fact that we had to take our watches off for the climb, so all our effort roaming over the roof was not being recorded.
After the photos we continued the climb inside the main dome so that we could see what an unobstructed view of the ground the shape of the dome allows from every seat inside it. Impressive! All too soon we had completed our circuit of the roof and it was time to head back to the ground. On our way down we had to be unhooked from the rail … which proved difficult in Bernie’s case. Tom joked that it looked like he would be spending the night on the roof, ha, ha.
Back on the ground we returned to the Roof Climb’s rooms within the stadium, where we had to do the whole harness thing in reverse to divest ourselves of all the equipment that had kept us safe and secure while we were on the roof. After picking up our photo package, it was time to walk back into the CBD and think about dinner.
We went to the very handily located Crown and Sceptre for dinner, where we enjoyed a delicious meal on the final day of our epic holiday. A big drive tomorrow and we will be sleeping in our own bed for the first time in 78 days!
Steps: 7,964 (5.57kms)
