Dubai-based travel writers Terry Carter and Lara Dunston are currently back ‘home’ in Australia where they recently completed a 5-month road trip updating the Rough Guide to Australia and researching driving itineraries for a new guidebook for Dorling Kindersley. Here’s the sixth in a series of posts from the couple from Down Under.
South Australia’s capital, Adelaide, must be Australia’s most underrated city. It’s also one of the country’s most attractive cities with lush botanic gardens, shady parks, charming beachside suburbs, elegant historic buildings and splendid old churches. In short, it’s the kind of city that makes you want to explore it on an old-fashioned bicycle with a cane basket on the front.
It’s also a cultural and artistic hub, with celebrated arts festivals and a calendar crammed with cultural events. Throw in excellent art museums (the Aboriginal art collections are noteworthy), approachable restaurants, and a fine-tuned café culture, and you understand why we extended our stay in the ‘city of churches’. Here’s our list of the top things to see and do in Adelaide.
Markets in Adelaide
Adelaide’s fresh food and fine wine
Adelaide’s Central Market is the hub of all things fresh, fruity and fragrant. There’s everything from cheese and chacouterie to fine South Australian wines and all the exotic ingredients required for an Asian feast (Chinatown is more ‘Asiatown’ here as there’s everything from fresh sushi to fiery Szechuan cooking on offer). To sample some illustrious Aussie wines head to Apothecary 1878 situated in an old pharmacy so you can pretend that the alcohol is for medicinal purposes only.
Adelaide is fiercely multicultural and if you want to eat on Rundle Street, the Greek bistro Eros Ouzeri has authentic meze-style delights. A few blocks away on Adelaide’s eat street of Gouger Street, buzzy Mesa Lunga is leading the city’s tapas infatuation, with formal and casual Spanish dining and a happening bar. Fine dining has a home in The Grange, showcasing the influential fusion cuisine of legendary chef, Cheong Liew.
Adelaide’s city centre isn’t just for business
In many capital cities 5pm sees a mass exodus of lanyard-wearing office workers from the city centre, leaving the Central Business District (CBD) a ghost town by sunset. In Adelaide, however, you have plenty of bars and restaurants within walking distance of the centre at the East End and West End of the city’s CBD, with a lively alfresco scene. Rundle Street, the partially pedestrianised main thoroughfare, has over 50 cafés and restaurants alone, as well as loads of wine bars and great pubs.
Adelaide has a vibrant café culture
Adelaide's East End cafe culture
Australia loves its café culture, mainly due to the influx of post-WWII immigrants from Italy and Greece, keen to drink good coffee just as they might have at home, and there are alfresco cafés dotted all over the city. Adelaide also has its own homemade success (à la Starbucks) in the form of the modish, Ferrari-red Cibo outlets found around the centre, but its successful branding has spawned a frightening number of mini-me coffee outlets – thankfully, they’ll all good.
In a nutshell, caffeine addicts need not fear Adelaide – just the crazy coffee names such as ‘a long macchiato’ or a ‘chai frappuccino’. The East End of Rundle Street towards Rundle Park is packed with cafés with outdoor tables, as is O’Connell Street and fashionable Melbourne Street in North Adelaide.
Adelaide is attractive
Adelaide is Sydney without the chaos and Melbourne with good weather. And, thankfully, Adelaide was planned. It’s hard to overemphasise just how easy it is to get around, either on foot, bike, public transport, or car. One thing you notice straight way compared to other Australian cities is how much of the Victorian and Edwardian architecture is still standing (Sydney’s great shame) and how the gracious heritage buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries make this one very elegant city.
Picture big corner pubs with wide verandas decorated with ornate iron lacework, handsome sandstone public buildings, spacious parks, and suburbs filled with historic residences that ooze pride. Leafy North Terrace in the centre has one of the best historic streetscapes, while a 10-minute stroll away, North Adelaide also boasts well-preserved Victorian architecture. The Botanic Gardens, dating to 1857, have lots of tranquil ponds, fountains, statues and wisteria arbours, while the Torrens River snakes between meanders central Adelaide and North Adelaide, surrounded by parklands. And we haven’t even mentioned the wealth of beautiful cathedrals and churches that the city is famous for.
Cutting-edge arts scene
Adelaide’s wealth of festivals dedicated to the arts makes the other capital cities in Australia appear rather unsophisticated – and for all the Aussie ‘ocker’ stereotypes (the archetypical uncultivated Australian working man, according to the Macquarie Dictionary), Australia has a thriving arts scene, Adelaide especially. The main theatre, Festival Theatre, is home to the largest stage in the southern hemisphere and hosts concerts, opera and ballet performances, as well as being home to the Space Theatre (cabaret-style performances) and the Playhouse Theatre (drama), which is home to the Adelaide Festival of Arts, held every even-numbered year since 1960.
A more ‘alternative’ festival, the Fringe Festival, coincides with the Festival of Arts (usually starting late February) creating a carnival ambience in the city for around three weeks. Almost straight after this, Womadelaide, a world-music weekend that began in 1992 as part of the Arts Festival, now holds its own with a great eclectic line-up of international acts.
Magnificent museums and engaging galleries
Australia’s history – from the original Aboriginal Australians that have lived here for some 40,000 years, to the ones that arrived uninvited in ships just a couple of hundred years ago or so – is covered wonderfully in Adelaide’s compelling museums. The Art Gallery of South Australia, established in 1881, has a respectable collection of colonial art and 20th century Western art from greats such as Sidney Nolan. While many of those works are notable for their historical content alone, the Aboriginal art is all outstanding, especially the major works by artists of the Western Desert school.
Moving right next door – and keeping the Aboriginal art vibe going – is the South Australian Museum. The highlight here is the world’s largest collection of Aboriginal artefacts – all painstakingly displayed. Also of note is the permanent exhibition on local geologist Sir Douglas Mawson, famous for the historic Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1911, which was the first to reach magnetic South Pole. For more Aboriginal culture and history head to Tandanya, the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, a centre run by Aboriginals with temporary exhibitions of visual arts, while there are small contemporary galleries dotted all over the city.
Adelaide loves its sports
The city of Adelaide is inexorably linked with the cricketing career of one Sir Donald Bradman, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Often referred to simply as ‘The Don’ he moved to Adelaide during his playing career. In accordance with the wishes of the cricketing legend, the historic Adelaide Oval is now home to the Bradman Collection, the great cricketer’s own memorabilia collection, including scrapbooks and historic cricket bats. Adelaide Oval is a great place to experience a game of cricket in summer – although new fans to the game will enjoy one of the shorter versions of the game (lasting an afternoon or an evening) rather than a five-day test match! Another legend now associated with Adelaide is Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong, who made his comeback in 2009 at the massively successful Tour Down Under bike race, which was the biggest event ever staged in South Australia.
Lovely beaches are literally minutes away…
Beach at Glenelg
Adelaide has some charming beaches and the stretches of sand from Brighton to Henley beaches are the most popular to access from the city. The most iconic beach is historic Glenelg, 11km southwest of the city, which you can reach via direct tram, terminating at elegant Moseley Square. With the long jetty reaching out into the sea right in front of you, it’s a popular family and tourist spot and gets crazily busy on weekends.
A great walk along the foreshore takes you in the direction of Brighton, an arguably even more old-fashioned seaside suburb. For something a little livelier, Henley Beach has a more modish air, with cafés and restaurants clustered around Henley Square, opposite the old wooden pier.
Atmospheric Port Adelaide
Early settlers in South Australia arrived at the not-so-promising Port Misery, where the mangroves and mud made the settlers’ view of their new home not such a positive one. By 1837 the port had gained its official new name of Port Adelaide and throughout the development of the city of Adelaide and state of South Australia, goods and passengers passed through the busy port. As a result, historic buildings abound here, with massive stone warehouses and the obligatory characterful corner pubs with their lovely balconies. The best time to visit is on Sundays, when the Fisherman’s Wharf Markets give the place a liveliness that’s missing mid-week.
The Adelaide hills are alive
Nearby Adelaide Hills make for an excellent day trip or weekend away as its attractions start at just 30 minutes from the city. The region consists of a series of often-charming towns such as Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement, Hahndorf, as well as Stirling, Mount Barker, Lobethal and Birdwood, which are all worth a visit.
There are plenty of wildlife parks, such as Cleland Wildlife Park, featuring Australia’s unique fauna, as well as a longer day trip out to Kangaroo Island.
Hahndorf Winery Center
But we’d be fibbing if we didn’t make it clear that the main attraction is the fantastic cool-weather wines. Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and fresh Chardonnays are the pick of the whites, while the Shiraz is special as well. Visit Udder Delights at Hahndorf first to pick up some handmade cheeses to go with your wines, then head off for some wine-tasting. We like Hahndorf Hill Winery and Petaluma Bridgewater Mill, a must-stop for foodies with great wines and a fabulous fine-dining restaurant. (You can also book a Barossa Valley and Hahndorf wine tour over on the main Viator site.)
-Terry Carter and Lara Dunston
Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s Adelaide tours & things to do in Adelaide as well as day tours from Adelaide.
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