Things to see and do in Adelaide (part 2)

So what else is there? The main shopping street is Rundle street which is part pedestrianised, chain stores, the usual. There are a couple of old victorian arcades that are worth a walk through, and modern ones which are very like Singapore. And huge numbers of food courts.

For more interesting shops, there’s a small area just to the east end with two vintage clothes shops (OK, it needs a bit more exploring – but I don’t think it’ll take long). Thankfully there are a lot of second-hand bookshops as first-hand ones are not cheap.

And there’s the Central Market which runs into a very small china town. That’s definitely worth a visit. (Like the covered market in Oxford used to be before the owners realised just how much money they could charge in rent. And then some.) There are 250 stalls / shops and it’s great. All the fruit and veg you could want, much of it local, cheese shops selling, well, cheese (thankfully). Actually make that decent cheese. Meat, Deli (including an Italian deli), decent tea (thank goodness), coffee freshly ground for you, spices (pretty much any you could name and several I’d not heard of), dried fruit and nuts. And a great shop that sells honey by the bucket-load (and will refill your shampoo bottles for you. Remember when going to the Body Shop felt like it was actually something revolutionary?). Everyone seems to take shopping trolleys with them, not just the old dears – the best bit of advice is to take a rucksack.

So I came home when my rucksack was full (sadly the fruit at the bottom was also v. squashed). And made a tagine with kangaroo meat. Actually I’m not sure about the politics (if there are any) of eating kangaroo or if it’s just something that tourists are expected to do. Like gamey beef, but a much finer texture.

There are other shopping arcades, I thought I’d try out the Arndale centre – just for the name really. I suppose that it’s more honest than most of the out of town shopping centres in Britain – doesn’t pretend to be an Italianate garden with “roman” statues and fake topiary for one thing. (Ever been to the Trafford centre? Outside Debenhams (I think), above the coffee shop are some roundels portraying men in suits. I assume they are the developers, but I swear one of them looks like Lenin.) And the large British places have two ends – the upmarket, and the pound shops. The Arndale here just seems to be the latter. About the only places that seems to guarantee the quality are the coffee shops. Coffee is BIG here.

There are more upmarket streets – The parade in Norwood is only a block away from here and actually has a lot of shops you need, and has also got an Italian deli.

Actually this is all about food so far. Probably because there is so much about. There are large Italian, Greek and far Eastern populations so there’s a large variety. Apparently there is one restaurant for every 30 people here. Which means that either everyone eats out most nights, or there are a lot of empty restaurants. So far I’ve been to an Italian (OK), a Szechuan (pretty good) and a Nepalese restaurant. That is well worth a revisit, and not just because the people I was with knew the proprietor, and know a little bit about wine, so we got to do a tasting of his new stock!

I’ve hardly mentioned wine so far. I’ve not yet done much winetasting (/drinking), but that’s defo on the agenda. So is walking as the Adelaide Hills aren’t very far away. Wonder if I can combine the two...

The Pigs of Rundle Mall