ADELAIDE is always thought of as a gracious city and an easy place to live; despite a population of around one million and a slick veneer of sophistication, it still has the feel of an overgrown country town. It's a pretty place, laid out on either side of the Torrens River, ringed with a green belt of parks and set against the rolling hills of the Mount Lofty Ranges. During the hot, dry summer the parklands are kept green by irrigation from the waters of the Murray River on which the city depends; there's always a sense that the rawness of the Outback is waiting to take over.
The traditional way of life of the Kuarna people, the original occupants of the Adelaide Plains, had been destroyed within twenty years of the landing of Governor John Hindmarsh at Holdfast Bay in 1836. The Surveyor General for the colony, Colonel William Light, had visionary plans for the new city. After a long struggle with Hindmarsh, who wanted to build on a harbor, Light got his wish for a city on the western side of "the enchanted hills", with a strong connection to the river. In 1823, Light had fondly written of the Sicilian city of Catania: "The two principal streets cross each other at right angles in the square in the direction of north and south and east and west. They are wide and spacious and about a mile long", and this became the basis for the plan of Adelaide. Postwar immigration provided the final element missing from his plan - the human one: Italians now make up the biggest non-Anglo cultural group, and the café society they introduced adds spirit to the city.
In the Mediterranean-style hot, dry summers, alfresco eating and drinking are commonplace and lend the city a vaguely European air, with its wide, well-planned streets and squares transformed with a squint of the eye into boulevards. One of the chief delights of Adelaide is the interest its inhabitants take in food and wine , with restaurants and cafés as culturally varied as Sydney's and Melbourne's but much cheaper, and South Australian wine monopolizing every cellar. Unlike a European city, though, the centre is virtually deserted in the evening and on Sunday - except for a couple of lively thoroughfares. However, culture is held in high esteem, and the city comes to life every year with a festival: the Adelaide Festival of Arts (held on even years) or Womadelaide (odd years).
Outwardly conservative, Adelaide nonetheless has the advantage of South Australia's liberal traditions, with a nudist beach, relaxed drug laws and 24-hour hotel licences. It's the free and easy lifestyle within an ordered framework that's so appealing; Adelaide may not be an obvious destination in itself, but it's a great place for a relaxed break on your way up to the Northern Territory or across to Western Australia, with only daunting outback and great distances ahead.
The City
Adelaide's city centre, south of the river, is a strict grid surrounded by parkland: at the very centre of the grid is Victoria Square, and each city quarter has its own smaller square. North Terrace is the cultural precinct with all the major museums, the two universities and the state library. Hindley Street is the liveliest in town, and the focus of the city's nightlife, while Rundle Mall, its continuation, is the main shopping area, and Rundle Street, further east, the arty café strip. The other important area lies west of Victoria Square: between Grote and Gouger streets is the lively Central Market and the small Chinatown. The Torrens River flows to the north of North Terrace, with the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo on its south bank. Three main roads cross the river to the distinctive colonial architecture and café culture of North Adelaide, with O'Connell Street the main drag on this side.
As you wander Adelaide's streets, you're struck by the bourgeois solidity of the structures - a solidity enhanced by the fact that virtually every building, public or domestic, is stone: sandstone, bluestone, South Australian freestone or slate. The city's well-preserved Victorian architecture is not the over-the-top style built from money made quickly in the 1850s gold rush, as it is in Melbourne. Rather Adelaide, which suffered numerous economic setbacks before establishing a steady mining industry, built up its wealth slowly, and the buildings have a reassuring permanence. There's really only one place to start your tour, and that's tree-lined North Terrace, a long heritage streetscape perfect for exploring on foot. |
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