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Published: June 21st 2009
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A simple question….why does one hear so little about Adelaide?Any discussion about cities in Australia seems to gravitate to the “Big 3”….Sydney,Melbourne and Brisbane.All we needed was a couple of hours,after a short drive into the city and then doing a walking tour to conclude that Adelaide is an absolute gem.After all,a recent survey concluded that Adelaide is the 11th most desirable city in the World to live in.A fair question would be….“why”?Firstly,and importantly,South Australia was colonized by settlers who sailed into Holdfast Bay in December 1836 and perhaps there was a greater sense of them wanting to be there.This in itself was different to most of the rest of Oz which was initially settled by miscreants of varying degree who couldn’t be accommodated back in England.Thereafter waves of immigrants arrived from all corners of the globe to forge the development of this vast country.Then,according to our informers in Adelaide,the region didn’t quite kick on as it could have due to the state elders being a little stodgy when it came to chasing the “development buck”.The rest is history…..the “Big 3” surged ahead and Adelaide ever since has been gasping in catch up mode.Another important factor is that it has a
population of about a million people which makes it a small city with a less frenetic pace than it’s bigger siblings.Walking around the city and viewing early Victorian architecture and the sort of memorials and monuments one sees in London adds to the feel that those early settlers wanted to create a cloned piece of the Empire at the other end of the World.Many of the original buildings still stand regally alongside more modern structures which somehow aren’t punching skywards to dwarf them so you have a fairly low skyline.At one point in the CBD we found ourselves walking down the open air Rundle Mall which must be in excess of a kilometer in length.Superbly laid out and the best I have ever seen.For all those cities in different parts of the World whose CBD’s are a depressing shambles(and we have a few in SA),they could do no worse than send their city planners to have a close look at Adelaide.An observation and a tip……no hawkers anywhere!Limited time meant we had to squeeze in as much sightseeing as possible and a short drive from the city took us to Glenelg which is the prime beachfront area.Clearly winter here is a
time when people don’t frequent the beach which took a little of the gloss off what is a really good looking beach and surf spot.On the subject of weather we have had to re-program ourselves as the 26-32 deg C range experienced from WA to Darwin has been nipped down to 7-17 deg C.One of the aspects of Australia which has intrigued us since we arrived is the collection of animals and marsupials which inhabit the country.Apart from kangaroo’s and the odd wallaby,we hadn’t seen any of the many marsupials with those tongue twisting names.Fortunately,Adelaide has a number of sanctuaries where these little fella’s are kept and mid afternoon we took a short drive to the Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills.Great walking trails through the park bring one into direct contact with many of these unique creatures…..Tassie Devils,Potoroos,Echidnas,Koalas,Bandicoots,Wombats and many others.A wetland and forest aviary also provide an opportunity to see a large variety of bird life.It was a fascinating three hour visit but inevitably there are highlights on any “tour”.Now there is some really bad news for the dolphins…….Sue fell big time for the koala’s and sort of announced that she may dedicate the rest of her
life to saving them(and forgetting her pledge to the dolphins).The photo alongside will attest to this….only problem,which one is the koala with that graying hair?Interesting fact about koala’s is that they need to nosh about a kilogram of eucalyptus leaves per day…….but only fifty five of the nine hundred odd types of eucalyptus trees found in Oz appeal to their palate(cute but fussy).The dingo enclosure was superb and these are magnificent looking animals which have had an extremely unfair press.Australia is faced with a fairly long list of endangered species across animals,marsupials,fish,reptiles and birds due to the usual culprits…over exploitation,human encroachment and habitat degradation.Impressively there are many programs managed by wildlife authorities to protect and,where necessary,rehabilitate.Day one was not yet done as we then made our way to Stirling to meet the first of our South African “connections”(apart from Chris Lendrum and Cathy Oakes in Perth).Mike Hayes is a brother of a very good friend in Johannesburg,Alizanne Wilkins.He has lived in Australia for the past four years or so.Mike is a highly qualified lawyer who came to Oz from SA via the UK and we spent a good few hours catching up with him.Importantly,he concurred with our enthusiastic reviews about Adelaide and let us in on the little snippet about the city’s status as being number eleven on that most desirable list.Being a good citizen he didn’t embellish as to how the other Oz cities stacked up.Interesting that in the pleasant restaurant where we met,all seven people there were South Africans(apart from the three of us,a young couple from Pretoria and their two children picked up on our accents and we ended up chatting to them).Now,I understand and accept that we live in a global village but somehow it saddens me when reminded(as we were there)how many young South Africans have and continue to leave the country taking their skills with them.They instinctively questioned whether we were on a “look,see,decide”visit but once we had cleared the air on this,they were so eager to discuss SA and clearly are still South Africans at heart.South Australia produces 60% of Australia’s wine and a visit to Adelaide should not exclude a visit to the wine growing regions.Barossa is about an hour’s drive from the city and the gently rolling hills,vineyards with their late autumn colouring and brilliantly green fields were exquisite.Real competition for the beauty of our wine growing region in the Western Cape.No visit to any wine producing area is worth it’s salt if it does not embrace food…..we ended up quite by accident at Maggie Beers Farm Shop (Sue’s navigational skills dulled by the beauty of the area).Maggie Beer is a famous gourmet chef who has a weekly program on ABC…..no need to namedrop any further as we had a superb picnic style pate lunch washed down with a crisp,chilled Riesling.The trip back to Adelaide on the A10 took us through some remarkably beautiful countryside.One of the towns was more than appropriately named Eden Valley.Hopefully the picture painted above about Adelaide and it’s environs is compelling enough to convince anyone planning to visit Australia not to bypass this magnificent corner of the country.If not,then see it for yourself and decide.Australian fact file….ever wondered where Australia is ranked in terms of wealth creation?With a GDP of US$768 billion it is ranked number 16 on the global list.(SA,with more than twice the population,has a GDP of US$255 billion and is ranked number 29).On the tourism numbers front,Australia rakes in US$22.2 billion from the huge number of tourists who visit the country each year(they are ranked number 8 in the top 10 by tourism receipts).Can’t tell you where SA is positioned as we didn’t feature in the tourism statistics table.Next stop Melbourne…the first of the “Big 3”.
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wendy crofton
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what a lovely time you having
Hi there you guys We still enjoy reading your blog - send it round to the management team and keep a copy to hand in case anybody wants to know how you are doing. We fine here - board and strat meetings tomorrow so all and sundry bit stressed.... Mervyn got burgled couple of weeks ago, broke in and ripped his safe off the wall - contained his gun, money, ID and passport so now has to do the standing in the queue to get temp etc. See we beat the Lions on Sat, hopefully will do same this weekend. Take care and enjoy the rest of your trip. Luv Wendy