Adelaide is one of my favourite cities in Australia and I've enjoyed visiting here for a few days.

I arrived on Thursday and leave on Monday morning to stay in Mount Gambier for a couple of days before heading to Port Fairy in Victoria for two nights and then back home to Ballarat.

I lived in Adelaide for more than four years from 2010 to 2014. It's a terrific city, a good size, around a million people. It has a full range of services, sporting and cultural events, and a very good airport.

It's a compact city and fairly easy to get around, it doesn't have the peak-hour traffic issues that Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth have, everywhere is pretty accessible.

Today was Sunday and I drove down to past Brighton along the coast and met my daughter and her partner for breakfast and a walk along the Esplanade. It was about a 25-minute drive but the roads were clear, and I hardly had to stop at any traffic lights.

It was a nice drive and the eEsplanade itself was beautiful. That's the other good thing about Adelaide, the weather is pretty good for most of the year.

It's winter now but today was 18 degrees, sunny and not much wind. Perfect weather really. There were people out on the water on paddle boards.

There were lots of people walking along the beach, running, bike riding, family groups, walking groups. It was just a lovely atmosphere.

On Friday I went to the Central Market and that's one of my favourite haunts in Adelaide. I spent over $120, around $40 on cheese for two small pieces but it was very good cheese, the French truffle cheese is a real treat which I don't have very often.

The other one was a comte. I also bought some keto treats. I had bacon florentine for brunch with a terrific coffee at Zuma's Caffe.

I also bought some sourdough bread and Italian butter which I had for meals with chutney and soups and other delicious things over the last couple of days.

On Saturday I went to the football and saw West Adelaide play North Adelaide at Prospect Oval. The game was meant to be played at West Adelaide's home ground but it got moved because of some issues to do with water damage in the club rooms.

That was a shame for me because I'd booked an AirBNB close to the ground, which is also handy for driving to visit my daughter past Glenelg.

I took public transport to Prospect which was a bit of an eye opener, that's part of the adventure though. It took me about an hour to get there and about an hour to get back, despite it being only about 10 kilometres from where I'm staying. I just didn't want to drive.

All up, I had a really enjoyable time in Adelaide. I've got lots of memories here. There are lots of places that I used to enjoy going to, restaurants, pubs, entertainment venues, sporting grounds, places where I used to go for walks and runs.

I was very athletic in that period from 2013 in particular to 2014 when I left Adelaide. I was running about 50 kilometres a week.

There are lots of trails around the parklands and along the beachfront where I used to go running.

It brings back good memories and a bit of sadness. I would like to have stayed in Adelaide, but I had to leave for employment reasons. One job finished and another one didn't really open up as quickly as I hoped that it would.

I left here in October 2014 and returned to the Northern Territory to be managing editor of the Centralian Advocate newspaper at Alice Springs, where I'd worked as a young reporter many years before in 1988.That's another story.

For most of the time that I lived in Adelaide it was in the inner west around Mile End, Marleston and for a while in the inner south at Wayville, near the Showgrounds.

I liked those areas and I got to know them quite well which was one of the other reasons why I stayed where I am at the AirBNB in Richmond.

Now it's onto the next part of my mini holiday, and I'm looking forward to a couple of days in Mount Gambier, where I lived before moving to Adelaide. I was editor of the Border Watch newspaper there from 2008 to 2010.

I'll revisit some places that I know and go for a couple of walks, maybe around the Blue Lake and Mount Shank.

My feet are holding up quite well at the moment. I've got arthritis in both of my big toes but it's behaving itself right now and I've been doing a lot more walking than I have previously done over the last eight or nine months. I did 11,300 steps on Friday, 7500 yesterday and 9600 so far today.

I'll write more about Mount Gambier after I've been there for a day or so.