It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, birds were singing, the air was hot, the water was cold. Then we went back to the car… did you notice there’s no photo attached to this entry?

Our second to last day in Adelaide our car was broken into and a bunch of stuff was stolen. LeeAnne’s purse and everything that goes with it and our cameras – both of them. It hurts.

We were spending the day on the beach south of Adelaide – it’s a bigger beach, well developed with a boardwalk – kind of like Va. Beach or Ocean City. Anyway, we did everything we could to help out whoever the thief was. Our stay in Adelaide had been so pleasant we let our guard down. We were driving a car with out of state plates, we parked in public parking at the beach (The Beach! The number 1 place to get ripped off!) right up at the boardwalk, next to the public bathrooms, we left our copy of “Let’s Go: Australia” visible in the front seat and a duffel bag of camping gear visible in the back seat. The only thing we neglected to do was put a sign in the front window that read: “Hello! We are Tourists!”

For safekeeping of course we put the cameras (which we had no business taking in the first place) and LeeAnnes purse in the trunk. They came in through the drivers side read door and made a bee-line for the trunk.

Maybe we were being watched, maybe not, but they got us good.

This doesn’t mean we changed our minds about Adelaide, still a wonderful city. But we did learn a painful lesson – if you don’t need it while you’re out don’t take it. Leave it somewhere relatively safe (not the trunk).

So our last day in Adelaide was spent camera shopping. They are a little behind the curve here: LeeAnne’s camera hasn’t even been released in Aus yet. So she got a comparable Cannon point and shoot. I’m going to wait until we hit Hong Kong to see about replacing the digital SLR – maybe there will be a deal waiting for us there.