#4 - Adelaide, it’s been emotional!

My final update from room 724, The Playford Hotel, Adelaide – my ‘residence’ for the last 14 days.

Having learnt earlier in the week that by South Australian rules, my departure date would actually be after 15 nights, so Tuesday 18^th (and not tomorrow as I and the team at Magic Millions had always understood) it was a slightly stressful few days applying for an exemption to this. It appears that the people with authority to make these decisions aren’t at all easy to contact and I just had to hope that the recipient of my application was a racing fan and sympathetic to my plea not to lose a precious day inspecting weanlings. To my shock and surprise but utter delight, just yesterday morning my application was approved (to leave after 14 days and 14 nights!). It stated that, providing my final (5^th and final!) negative covid test was received, I could leave here at 8.30am tomorrow morning. I managed to speak very nicely to the right people here at the hotel and have shaved an extra 30minutes off this, so taxi booked at 8am straight to the airport for a 9.30am flight to Brisbane and straight to the sales. Phew!

It’s a strange thing, I’ve been in this bubble for the last 14 days, watching Australian racing, reading the Australian news, perfecting my Ozzie ‘twang’ and becoming quite a connoisseur of South Australian wine, and yet I don’t actually feel that I’ve ‘arrived’ here yet. I expect that to happen when I touch down in Queensland, change my leggings for my shorts, get stuck into the sale and catch up with the gang on the ‘Goldie’.

I’m nearly packed. It was a sad farewell to my bicycle but I now swap tyres for trainers and I can’t wait to get out and run along the beach tomorrow evening. It’s been an experience, not one I’m desperate to repeat in a hurry, but definitely an experience that could have been a whole lot worse! My catalogue is done, bags are packed and I’m down to the last 11 hours… now for the real work to begin!

Thank you again for all your nice messages and emails through the last fortnight, they were greatly appreciated. I will touch base in a few days from the Gold Coast.

With best wishes,

Hannah.