8.15am – Adelaide Botanic Garden
When I get up at the crack of dawn I often like to play with something to relieve any tension. Don’t you? But without my Viagra, the only worthwhile piece of meat under my covers was the half-eaten pork pie I’d crushed in the previous night’s alcohol-induced stupor.

Fortunately, however, there are other ways to let off steam. The 150-year-old Adelaide Botanic Garden was the perfect antidote to my hangover. I strolled around taking in the kaleidoscope of colours and fragrant smells that you’d expect when you meander amongst more than 3,000 interesting species.
The damage & the details: Free. North Terrace

10.50am – Become a chocoholic
After the hearty jaunt in the park, it was time to discover my inner Willy Wonka. No, I’m not talking about the nickname some pompous twats give to their favourite organ, but the guy in those films about cocoa. And at Haigh’s Chocolates Visitors Centre there’s oodles of the stuff. For awhile, I feel like one of those natural history fellas as I study the whole life cycle of the gooey confectionary’s production. You know, sort of like from its birth until its demise, which more often than not happens to be at the bottom of my contented stomach. Delicious!
The damage & the details: Free. 154 Greenhill Road, Parkside

12.30pm – Mesa Lunga
You’d think I’d be content after ramming so many sticky treats down my cakehole, but for the human dump truck that I am, now it’s lunchtime. Adelaide’s chock-full of cuisine that reflects its multicultural character – almost 25 per cent of the town’s population were born overseas. In fact, the place was even named after a German Queen. Nonetheless, I nearly choked to death last time I got my gob around a huge fat Frankfurter, so I plump for a Spanish tapas restaurant. Of course, it was swallowed-up without even touching the sides. And the octopus I munched into was so tantalisingly fresh, I swear I saw one of its tentacles wriggle.
The damage & the details: $10-$20; 140 Gouger Street.

1.45pm – Catch the Bradman Collection
It was time to pay a visit to a guy who frequently used to whack the shit out of witless Poms with a bat: Donald Bradman. Fortunately, not literally, as it was during some rather genteel games of cricket. Generally regarded as the greatest exponent of that pastime, Adelaide’s favourite son has a museum dedicated to his honour. Inside is such a fascinating array of the great man’s effects, records and other achievements that I feel like I get a real insight into his gracious character. God bless ‘the Don’.
The damage & the details: Free, Adelaide Oval, King William Road

3.30pm – Bite into the Rodney Fox Shark Exhibit
On the next encounter I saw more gums than you’d find in an old peoples’ home. Honestly, it was terrible. And, no, I hadn’t been rushed to the dentist because my teeth were clapped-out from my constant overeating; I was with someone who’d got as up-close-and-personal as you’d ever want to be with a great white shark. In fact, Rodney Fox was nearly killed when he was attacked by one in the 1960’s. But rather than hate them, he now spends his time trying to protect the endangered species. Consequently, his archive has several exhibits relating to this maneater. If you’re up for it, he’ll even take you out cage-diving in the North Neptune Islands, for a glimpse of a real-life Jaws. But I didn’t fancy it, as it seemed even more off-putting than sitting next to someone with incontinence who’s forgotten their underwear.
The damage & the details: $8; S.A. Whale Centre, 2 Railway Terrace

7pm – Living it up at the Grand Bar
While I was in Adelaide, I knew it would be as weird as a vicar conducting a sermon in an orange wig and skin-tight tutu if I didn’t swing by Glenelg. It’s a small seaside town where blood red sunsets cast long shadows over the heavenly waterfront. And obviously, the best way to see such an inviting setting was through the bottom of an empty beer glass. Thus I plonked my wobbly arse down in the cosy interiors – funky lighting, wooden flooring and cream pillars – that constitute the Grand Bar.
The damage & the details: how much can your liver take? In Stamford Grand, Moseley Square

10pm – Cash in at Sky City Casino
Unfortunately, I’d had way too much booze; so what do you think I did? Yes, I tried to pull. Goes without saying really. Never mind that the two broads I chatted to had husky voices and the frames of Russian power lifters, they still sent me packing. So I chanced my arm again, in the casino. Roulette. Poker. Blackjack. It didn’t matter. The imaginary skills I thought I had once again deserted me. Thus, I high-tailed it out of there.
The damage & the details: Whatever the cost, you won’t lose as much as I did; North Terrace, www.skycityadelaide.com.au

1am – Get down in the HQ
By now, worse for wear, I was starting to feel as old as the city itself. Perhaps, though, if I’d also been 173, I wouldn’t have been so stupid as to get even more sloshed in the most happening club in the vicinity, the HQ complex. I instantly got lost in one of its five rooms, which was so swanky it had a laser display that would have wowed a Jedi Knight. I had an intention to go somewhere else but thought the locals had probably had enough of me, so ambled away down the wide leafy boulevards that characterised this milieu. And do you know what happened this time when I went to bed? I got all luurved up with another piece of meat I foolishly took to be a part of a person’s anatomy: a greasy kebab!
The damage & the details: Who cares, it’s bedtime; 1 North Terrace.