Enjoy our best backyard without hurting the hip pocket
Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello joins Explore SA each Wednesday to share his holiday inspirations and latest tips on exploring South Australia with friends and family.
Each week Cosi will suggest a selection of beautiful landscapes to visit, events to get involved in and fantastic activities to enjoy.
Times are tough and money is tight (unless you are my wife, so it seems!) We are all finding the bills piling up and expenditure rising at a rate we have not seen, perhaps ever. This generally means that people are finding it tougher to spend big bucks in regional South Australia. So, I thought I would hit you with a couple of suggestions of things to do for free, for all ages.
Art Galleries are something that, up until four years ago, you would not have got me into! Nowadays my eyes have been opened to what a great experience for everyone art galleries can be. South Australia is loaded with them, practically every town has one and as far as I know, 99 per cent of them are free. Take the kids to the Goolwa Art Gallery which use to be an old goal. You can still lock the kids in the old cells (sadly as we found out you cannot leave them there for an extended period).
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Monash playground in the Riverland is a South Australian icon. More than 200,000 people a year used to visit this playground and ask anyone over 30 and they will recall their childhood holidays at some point involving the Monash Playground. Then after a few public liability issues the park was somewhat scaled back but recently good money has been spent on the playground and it is now a great spot to spend a day with the kids, again totally free. Here’s a good tip too, stop off at the Monash butchers shop and buy some snags for the Monash Playground barbeque. The butcher has claimed the title of ‘Sausage King’ (yes that title actually exists!), taste the snags and you will soon see why.
Beaches… South Australia has loads of them in a whole range of our regions. You know you are truly a South Australian when you pull up on a beach in country SA and you are a little bit annoyed because there is someone else already there! Seriously how spoilt are we? International guests are blown away when I show them how quite often we have the entire beach to ourselves. Also, as opposed to going to the same beach time after time, step outside the mould and go to one you have never been to before. Place it on your Facebook page and ask your friends what their favourite beach is. That is sure to help you get started.
Holidays do not need to be expensive, only if we choose to make them. Find some accommodation that is within your budget, pull some stuff out of your freezer that you would have eaten at home anyway and get going! I would rather eat some sausages sitting at Horse Shoe Bay watching the sun go down as opposed to sitting at home in front of the TV (unless of course that show you’re watching is South Aussie with Cosi – then you are excused).
For more South Australian holiday ideas see southaustralia.com
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