Day 2: Adelaide/Stormaggedon
Another early morning for our three-something hour flight to Adelaide. There were whispers on social media of an intense thunderstorm headed for the Adelaide region, but my publicist and I were blissfully ignorant of the true extent of the approaching weather. Enter Stormaggedon.
We landed in Adelaide about two hours before the wild weather began, and went to get hot chocolate at Koko Black in Rundle Mall. And that's when all hell broke loose. The storm rolled over the city, and all of South Australia lost power. For reference, that's an area three times the size of Germany. Tragically, we did not get our hot chocolate.
Alarms were blaring from every second building. The roads were gridlocked with traffic because no lights were working. The whole city was dark and eerie.
As we waited for news on the power in our darkened hotel lobby, we wondered if we'd have to cancel the event to be held at Dymocks. Police were telling people to stay indoors and off the roads, and we didn't want anyone to risk their safety to try and make it into the city.
Then, an hour before the event was supposed to start, my publicist received a phone call from the bookshop: six people were already there.
We wandered back through the darkened city to the bookstore to meet Tori and Sian, who run the YA Circle out of Dymocks in Adelaide, and the six (later ten) very dedicated readers who'd turned up despite the conditions!