Things to see and do in Adelaide (part 1)

The cactus house

Time to tell you a little bit more about what I’ve seen so far, although I’ve barely been outside the confines of Adelaide.

. To be honest, most of the places of immediate interest are on North Terrace or the road parallel to the south. By immediate interest, I mean the RAH. Plus the botanic gardens which are right next to work – fine, but look at the plants, don’t look up as all you can see are the residential wing (a tower block worthy of Long Henry Row in Sheffield), the heli pad – on a tower block and ... Well you get the idea. On the other side of work is the uni, then the art gallery and the museum. And for those of you interested, the Adelaide oval is behind.

Actually I’m really impressed by the botanic garden. Mainly cos they’ve got ‘erbs. It’s obviously split into areas of different fauna. There’s a mallee (small eucalyptus bush) area – which is the native scrub. South Aus has a very dry, mediterranean climate. The eucalypts are beautiful – silvery grey trunks, and the air at times definitely clears the sinuses. And there are nasturtiums growing wild (instead of poking their heads up and immediately getting eaten as happens in my garden), and geranium hedges.

So the botanic gardens also has a mediterranean garden, with plants from all over the world (South Africa, Chile etc) as well as the obvious. There’s a beautiful walk called the Murdoch walk (no prizes for guessing which international corporation is currently paying for the upkeep) which has 100+ year old fig trees which are huge.

There’s also a big emphasis on Linnaean classification, so part is planted in families (which I think’s really interesting having done a bit of biology at A-Level), and an interest in economic plants. Which are ‘erbs – there’s a museum and a garden which I can walk around thinking “my one of those would be flowering now”. Anyway, it’ll be good during the summer when you guys are drowning in rain again (and I’ll be complaining about the heat) to see what I’ve missed. And I’ve got loads of ideas for my garden back home.

Anyway I cycled to Henley beach last week which is along the river (about 6miles there). Very pleasant in a managed environment sort of way. A much more pleasant ride than the Anzac highway which goes to Glenelg. Starting by the convention centre, the river is dammed to make a small lake, then is really a trickle after that. Like all city rivers it runs through a bit of an industrial area – then you turn the corner and are cycling through a cemy. No warning, no walls, just graves in a completely unexpected sort of way. Then it’s park until the final “wetlands” where the river is a bit wider and there are fields. But I did see pelicans, and a cockatoo (for anyone brought up watching Play School!) And again, the flowers are beautiful.

The beach at Henley is wilder than at Glenelg. There are managed dunes, then the sand which is so white that at first, with a steel-blue sky behind, it looked like snow. I didn’t really explore much as it was getting fairly late, but definitely worth a proper visit.

The only place out of the city I’ve seen so far is Maclaren Vale, which is about 45 minutes south of the city. It’s not far – just that the speed limit is 40mph for so far, and in fact you have to get right out of the city before they let you do 65! Maclaren vale itself is fairly small – it has a visitor’s centre (where one of the wineries has cleverly got itself installed), a sweet factory outlet shop and that’s about it. There’s a “tourist drive” around the hills surrounding, which again takes you round the wineries. Didn’t see any kangaroos, but a koala loped across the road in front of the car (brake!!!). I was intending to drive on and stay a bit longer, but it started raining so there wasn’t much point.

The economic garden (Note to self- look at the size of the silvery-grey wormwood. Think I might have some drastic pruning to do when I get back)