The Manchester of the South?

Adelaide

I have always been a bit wary about visiting Australia. One hears stories about deadly spiders and snakes. Not to mention the heat and the forest fires.And then there are all those bronzed, athletic Aussies putting pasty northerners like me to shame.


However, the solution proved to be a visit to Adelaide  during their winter. In fact, Adelaide has quite a European feel. It reminded me of Manchester, only with better weather, and parakeets (both plusses, in my book). Like Manchester it has several universities, an excellent shopping centre, a rather good Art Gallery, a major sporting venue, free city centre buses and a tram. 

Adelaide Oval

Owing to a cricket-mad husband, our very first stop after checking in to our hotel was the recently-redeveloped Adelaide Oval, where he wanted to visit the Don Bradman Collection museum. We found Adelaide Oval easily enough, but finding entrance for Bradman museum was a bit harder. There was a surprisingly relaxed attitude to allowing public to wander around inside the stadium. No one seemed worried about two random visitors looking around.

Once we actually located the entrance we found a small but interesting exhibition about the life and career of Don Bradman, the Australian cricketing legend who made Adelaide his home. It includes items from his personal collection of cricketing memorabilia spanning the period 1927-77. Bradman’s career coincided with the introduction of radio commentary. He was an amateur and earned a living from journalism and stockbroking (although I suspect probably only had many of the opportunities because of his cricket). 

Rundle Mall

Both cities also have some quirky sculpture. Manchester has a giant Vimto bottle. Adelaide has bronze pigs roaming Rundle Mall. "A Day Out" by Marguerite Derricourt is one of the more casual pieces of street art that I have come across. It comprises four bronze pigs who look completely at home - one of them is even rummaging in a litter bin. The artwork was commissioned as part of an upgrade to Rundle Mall in 1999. A public competition led to each of the pigs being named. Horatio is the sitting pig, Oliver is the one rootling in the litter bin and the other two are called Augusta and Truffles.

Haigh's have been making and selling chocolate in Adelaide since 1915. The original site was at Beehive Corner, where there is still a Haigh's shop today. The factory is however located in Greenhill Road, and it has a Visitor Centre which offers free tours where you can find out why Haigh's don't make white chocolate, and see how truffles are coated by rolling them in tempered chocolate. On arrival, visitors are offered a complimentary tea or coffee. After a talk about the history of Haigh's and how chocolate is made from cocoa beans (with a chance to try some Haigh's milk and plain chocolate and chocolate speckles), visitors can view chocolates being made in the factory itself. We were told that employees are allowed to eat as much chocolate as they like. I would have thought that this would put them off eating chocolate for life, but we were assured that this is not so! Several children present on our tour were very interested in how they might apply for jobs. The tour only lasts about 20 minutes or so, but it's free, interesting, and you get to eat chocolate, so well worth a visit.

There are two kinds of museum - the traditional kind with object in dusty glass cabinets and the modern kind with lots of interactive, multimedia activities but fewer actual artefacts on display. Most museums fall somewhere on a scale between the two. The South Australian Museum is pretty much at the traditional end of the scale. I happen to like that type of museum, but it can be less interesting for children.The exhibits mainly comprise ethnographic material about Australia and the Pacific, palaeontology, mineralogy and natural history. One of the prize exhibits is a giant squid exhibited vertically in a stairwell over several floors. The ethnographic gallery dealing with Polynesia dates from 19th century. The curators appear to be a bit embarrassed about this particular gallery and there are notices explaining that it is old and does not reflect current attitudes, but is retained as a sort of museum of museum practice.

The Migration Museum, housed buildings that used to be part of Adelaide's Destitute Asyslum, is rather more modern in approach, It tells the stories of those who settled in South Australia, and the effects of the European migration on the indigenous people who were already there. Between 1815 and 1930, approximately 3.5 million people from Britain and Europe made the long journey overseas in the hope of a new life in Australia, though a far smaller number came to South Australia. There are documents, photos and personal possessions, as well as personal stories. Under the ‘White Australia’ policy, migrants who were not white British had to take a dictation test in a language they didn't know, such as Hungarian. I find it hard to comprehend how anyone could have come up with this scheme.

Elder Park is a pleasant park by the river Torrens. There are some interesting water features and sculptures to look at - I particularly liked the sculpture that resembled paper boats. The birds are also fun to watch - I watched as a pelican managed to get some food, then waddled to the waters edge where all the ducks and other waterfowl queued up expectantly beneath, waiting for him to drop it. From the park you can take a trip in 'Popeye'- a 40 minute cruise, with commentary, which goes as far as the weir in one direction, than back and along as far as the zoo. Tickets are available for the round trip or a one way ride to the zoo. We opted for the round trip - tickets were $15 each. Our ride was slightly more eventful than usual, as the boatman had to stop to come to the rescue of someone who had fallen in the river (not one of the passengers). Fortunately, he was OK.

A version of this formerly appeared on my Virtual Tourist page.