5th February 2010
Our last job in our little yellow peril was to drop Andy at the station early on Friday morning. After 3 days and over 1000kms it seems strange for it to be just the two of us again, but I’m sure we’ll catch up with Andy again at some point, even if its when we’re all back in the UK.
After returning the car in central Adelaide, we took a free walking tour around the CBD. This started at the tourist centre on the main shopping street, Rundle Mall. Our guide, Bernie turned out to be a Gog (or a person from North Wales for the non-welsh people). He’d been in Oz for about 50 years though so only the odd hint of an accent remained.
Bernie told us all about how Adelaide was designed by a man called Colonel William Light. The wide roads were originally designed to accommodate a full battalian on the march. Well before the advent of cars they now prove extremely useful for that purpose too.
One of the idiosyncrasies in Adelaide is that although it is all laid out on a grid system, the streets crossing the main thoroughfare of King William Street change their name after crossing it. This is because the King was seen as the highest power and no-one was allowed to cross him. However, God is the ultimate power and God gave us the points of the compass, so North Terrace, East Terrace, West Terrace and South Terrace do cross King William Street and border the centre of the city.
Bernie continued the tour by pointing out some of Adelaide’s fine old colonial buildings, many built in a neo-gothic style. All Adelaide’s old buildings are now protected and their exteriors must be retained regardless of what shape the interiors take. This means that many of these buildings lie empty becase of the costs involved in maintaining these glorious edifaces.
Next we visted Adelaide’s war memorial. A statue full of symbolism with three figures of a woman, farmer and academic representing those people who saw their sons and friends go off to war. The angel on the front of the shrine has an unsheathed sword and is carrying a wreath of peace behind the sword. This portrays the fact that before we can have peace there must be war. Also the figure is a man, bringer of wars. On the reverse side of the shrine is another angel, this time a woman symbolising rebirth. Now the sword is sheathed and she is carrying the wreath of peace because the war is over. However, this peace has come at a cost and in her other arm she carries her dead son.
Inside the shrine are the names of those who died in the First World War. Surrounding the memorial are a series of crosses. Believed to be the only ones in existence today, these crosses were made of rough pieces of wood on the battlefields by soldiers in World War Two and placed where so many of their comrades fell. After the war these were retrieved and returned to Adelaide. A sobering but necessary part of the tour.
The tour ended on a lighter note with Bernie showing us the collection of four bronze pigs in Adelaide’s main shopping mall. Named by local school children, Augusta, Oliver, Horatio and Truffles hang around delighting shoppers and children alike.
After we finished the tour we headed for Adelaide’s central market. This is the largest covered market in the Southern Hemisphere. A haven of gourmet delights, fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, delicious breads and much more. For lunch we visited a small stall where we enjoyed sweet dumpling type buns filled with various savoury fillings such as chicken hot pot, cheese and chicken curry followed by some with sweet fillings for desert of course. Little puffs of delectable treats.
Having filled our tummies and our bags ready for tea tonight, we headed back to the apartment for an afternoon siesta and some laundry time.
Later on we ventured out for some more exploring and walked from our apartment in North Adelaide down to the festival centre on the banks of the Torrens River. These two geometric constructions of contrete, steel and smoked glass in a concrete arena scattered with 1970s civic sculpture form the city’s art complex and host opera, ballet and various concerts along with drama, caberet and stand-up comedy. The Festival Theatre has the largest stage in the southern hemisphere.
A full but relaxing day getting to know Adelaide.