Today we planned a day in the city on the bus to visit Ayers House, we've been by it lots of times and never gone in so today was the day. It's easy to find as it's right opposite the bus stop outside the hospital, on arrival we saw  it was National Trust and Paul being Paul asked if we could use our UK cards and to our surprise they said yes they work worldwide. I never brought mine but they let us both in FREE anyway. Result. We got there at 11.30am and at reception they told us that if we waited till 12 there would be a guided tour so we decided to go for a coffee across the road in the hospital beforehand. While there we saw they have a restaurant on the 5th floor open to the public so that's where we went go for lunch after and very nice it was sitting on the balcony overlooking the Botanical Gardens, not too much of a view but very pleasant.

Ayres House is one of Adelaides finest Victorian homes and is one of the last remaining 19th century homes that once lined the southern side of North Terrace . It was built of local bluestone with a slate roof and designed by Sir George Strickland Kingston. It stands on the site of a small cottage and has evolved over the years from a 9 roomed brick built house built by chemist William Paxton in the early 1850's. After he returned to England he leased the property to Henry Ayres a local businessman who went onto become one of the colony's most wealthy and influential politicians and financier. Eventually Henry Ayres bought the property and between 1855 and1897 it was extended into a 40 roomed property with two acres of land. Henry used 
his money to create an opulent home with furniture and fittings most of which was brought from England. He also brought painters out from England to create the magnificent ceilings and wall decorations which remain today. Unfortunately today the National Trust only own around a third of the building itself as the rest is now a function centre but it was still a very interesting place. 

Henry himself was the son of a carpenter from Portsea in Hampshire and had some education at a benefit school and in 1832 entered the Legal Office of S .W.Blyth in Portsea. Soon after he married at the age of 19 he and his 25yr old wife Ann emigrated but in order to gain a free passage for them both he stated his occupation as a carpenter. They arrived in Adelaide in 1840 and he worked as a law clerk for Sir James Fisher until 1845 when he was appointed Secretary of the South Australian Mining Association and made his fortune from the shares he purchased in the Burra Burra Copper mine. By 1850 He was elected Managing Director of the association. On 9/3/1857 he was the youngest elected member of the first Legislative Council of South Australia and went on to become a forceful politician. Not bad for a humble son of a lowly carpenter from Portsea. We really enjoyed this tour with a very interesting and knowledgable guide. 
Ne has also funded an exploration trip undertaken by William Grosse in 1873 and when he came across the huge rock in the desert he named it Ayres Rock after him, know today as Uluru.

After lunch we strolled down Rundel Street the main shopping street of the city and on to Elder Park before walking back to get the bus and this is when the day went quickly downhill as looking at our bus timetable we could get on either a C1 or C2 bus . The C2 was the first to come so on we jump and ask for stop 51, fine said the driver but we soon realised we didn't recognise anything in the route and after a tour of the new estates in the Adelaide Hills the bus terminated at Tea Tree Junction a long way from where we wanted to be. However the driver told us to cross over and make sure we got the C1, getting in this bus and explaining our tale to the driver he said why didn't you ask the driver first which we said we had amd he just laughed. Oh well we made his day.

Finally got home just after 5 having left Adelaide at 3.30 had a lovey roast chicken dinner and settled down to watch a DVD of an old Aussie soap called Return to Eden which became very addictive. There are 3 discs in the series but we had to give up after two, still tomorrow is said to be a HOT one so can watch the other two then in the comfort of the aircon.