Highlights of Adelaide | Australia
After launching into my Australia trip all guns blazing with a weekend on Kangaroo Island, things slowed down again the following week. As with much of my travel in Canada and the USA last year, I’m still working remotely as I go for a portion of this trip. My New Zealand hours translate to early morning starts here, which leaves me with the late afternoon to head out and explore. I spent the remainder of my first week checking out the highlights of Adelaide, South Australia’s largest city.
City Walk
As some readers may know, I’m a big fan of a walking tour, having been a guide myself for a time. Unfortunately, with my limited time in Australia’s cities, I wasn’t able to do any in-person tours that fit my schedule. Instead, I turned to an app, GPSmyCity, which has self-guided walking tours all over the world. I found the information about the stops was fairly brief in most cases, and pretty factual – not as engaging as a live guide. But it was a handy way to uncover what were the main sights of each city and how to plot a route between them. I spent a couple of hours roaming Adelaide’s city centre in this way. The centre is a large grid, enclosed on all four sides by parkland, so it’s easy to get around on foot or using the free trams.
My route took me past several historic churches and buildings, as well as alleys of street art and the main shopping boulevard of Rundle Mall. I especially liked the statues dotted along the mall, including a giant pigeon and several pigs! Then, I veered north towards the University of Adelaide. Its buildings line North Terrace, their older architecture tucked between leafy green trees. The University also boasts several of the city’s major museums and galleries – more on those below! I did pop into the South Australia State Library briefly, mainly to see the beautiful Mortlock Wing. I’m like a magpie to rooms stuffed with books!
River Torrens Walk
The next day, I swapped the city streets for the parkland. As mentioned, one of the highlights of Adelaide is its green spaces, with the city centre enclosed by park on all sides. I went to the northern section, where the River Torrens flows through the city behind the university. Recreational options surround the river, from walking and cycling paths to rowing clubs out practising on the water. The Adelaide Festival Centre hosts performing arts on one bank, while the Adelaide Oval sits on the opposite shore, the city’s sports and concert stadium.
I ambled along the shore in the sunshine, stopping to watch the world go by at times. There are a few more public artworks in the area, then the iconic footbridge next to the university. And despite being in the city, there’s certainly wildlife to spot too! It’s spring here in Australia which means duck parents taking their baby ducklings out to learn to swim. And I was totally gobsmacked to encounter a huge colony of flying foxes! I heard them before I saw them, their high-pitched clicks and screeches coming from overhead. Looking up, I gazed upon hundreds and hundreds of them hanging upside down in the trees! It was a total surprise and I spent a good while just watching them all. They would be just starting to wake up, though the sun was still out, so it was a great opportunity to see them pretty close up.
Adelaide Botanic Garden
The end of my River Torrens walk brought me to the Adelaide Botanic Garden. It’s free to enter and a lovely place to wander around for an hour or so. I had to navigate a few closed footpaths, as they are installing glass sculptures for an upcoming nighttime show. The pieces are all by Chihuly, who I recognised from my trip to Seattle last year! They made for a fun, vibrant addition to the colours and shapes of the garden already.
I wandered past water features and gardens designed after different climate regions, including wetlands and native desert plants. A couple of the indoor glasshouses were already closed by this time of day, sadly. But the upside was that the gardens were very peaceful with not a whole lot of other people around! I would end up visiting several more botanic gardens throughout this trip, but when they’re free and pretty and a welcome change from walking city streets, why would I resist?
Glenelg
The next day, I left the city centre behind to explore another of Adelaide’s neighbourhoods. I hopped on a tram and rode it about half an hour, to the end of its line in Glenelg. This beachy suburb has become a tourist hotspot, with plenty of shops along its main street and restaurants in Moseley Square. The beautiful town hall building with its clock tower dominates the beachfront, giving the scene an old-timey atmosphere. I wandered up and down the jetty, where people were line fishing over its sides.
A path runs along the coast overlooking the beach, popular with runners and dog walkers, who I joined for a gentle stroll along the waterfront. I also popped up to the wharf to see the fancy-looking yachts moored there, before circling back to Moseley Square. Rather than dine in, I grabbed a quick dinner to take back down to the edge of the beach. The bulk of my trip, like that of many visitors to Australia, will focus on its east coast. But Adelaide sits on the shores of St Vincent Gulf – facing west. Which meant this was my only beach sunset opportunity of the whole trip! Fortunately the weather cooperated and I got a blazing red and orange sky as the sun sank into the water.
South Australian Museum
Unfortunately, that was the last time the weather cooperated this week. It was a rainy couple of days that followed, but that’s perfect weather to explore the highlights of Adelaide’s indoor museums and galleries. First up, I visited the South Australian Museum, back up by the university. This is a free museum, looking at the history and ecology specific to South Australia. There are a few more global exhibits too, but since I didn’t have time to explore all of it in detail, I skipped those in favour of the more local displays.
I started in the Aboriginal culture exhibit, learning about the history of the local Kaurna people. While we refer to all Indigenous Australians as Aboriginals, it’s important to remember that they were actually over 200 smaller distinct nations spread across the country, each with their own language and culture! The exhibit includes many Aboriginal artefacts, including paintings, shields and tools. There’s also a Pacific Cultures display, mainly looking at South Sea Islands such as Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Finally, I also took a wander through the biodiversity exhibit, full of taxidermied specimens of South Australian animals, of which there are a lot!
Adelaide Central Market
On my way back this evening, I also stopped by the Central Market. This is an indoor food hall style market, which normally closes around the time I finish work. However, there are a couple of evenings it stays open later, so I took my chance to have a look. Although, some of the individual vendors don’t choose to stay open late as well it seemed! I’ve been to many similar food markets before, strolling past stalls of fruit, meat, seafood, preserves and sweet treats. It’s still nice to see local produce and sellers though, especially in a historic venue that’s been running a long time. I’d just recommend going earlier in the day than I did!
Art Gallery of South Australia
The next day was rainy again, so I turned to the art gallery. I’m certainly not a big enough art lover to want to visit every gallery I’ll encounter throughout this trip, but they’re a good indoor option, especially when free to enter. I didn’t pay much attention to the gallery map or try to read every piece’s descriptor. Instead, I’ve started visiting galleries by just wandering and paying more attention to whatever pieces I’m most drawn to. Which is not necessarily the same as the ones I like the best! I think I used to read all the descriptions to try to ‘understand’ the art. More recently I’ve found I enjoy galleries more if I don’t worry about meaning and critiques and just view and interpret the art on my own.
There were a lot of works by Australian artists, of course, but also exhibits from European and Asian artists, as well as from different time periods. The large installation composed of red threads woven across an entire room was definitely one of the most eye-catching, standout pieces! I was also playing a bit of a game with my friends back home, texting them pictures of the art that reminded me most of them, which was a fun activity.
Barossa Valley Wine Tasting
For my final day in South Australia, I had the full day to explore and one of the biggest highlights of Adelaide is its wine regions. The most famous being the Barossa Valley, which is one of the biggest wine-producing regions in all of Australia. I joined a small group day tour – so I could drink and not drive! – and we set out north. Our guide was an Adelaide local, so he told us lots of history and fun facts about the city and South Australia on the drive up.
Our tour visited three wineries, first up being Chateau Yaldara. Despite the appearance of the building, modelled after European chateaux, it was actually only built in the 1950s. After the tasting we also took a self-guided walk through the cellars, where we came across these gigantic casks, all full of wine! We had a quick break in the town of Tanunda for a mid-morning coffee and/or snack, with plenty of cafes and bakeries to choose from. Then it was onwards to Saltram Wines, which was also our lunch stop. We sipped our wines in the cool of the cellar, then sat at long dining tables under fairy lights in a rustic, farmhouse setting. Lunch was a charcuterie board style affair, and I got a soup as the vegetarian option.
En-route to our last winery, we stopped at a lookout point for a sweeping view across the Barossa Valley. The weather was cool and overcast but we could still see pretty far into the distance. The sheer quantity of vines growing across the valley is incredible! Then we finished the day at Rosenvale, a rather unique winery where their priority is experimentation and innovation. It was definitely interesting to see three very different wineries all in the same region.
The Overland Train to Melbourne
As my week in Adelaide came to an end, I readied myself to journey onwards to Melbourne. Australians take a lot of domestic flights to get around the country, understandable when it’s so big. But like my cross-country USA trip last year, I had researched my options to minimise the number of internal flights I’d need, in favour of overland travel where possible. And the Overland Train fits the bill perfectly! Adelaide to Melbourne is about an hour long flight, while the train runs only twice a week and will take most of your day, around 10 hours each way. Trains here are like the ones in America, much slower than in Europe or Asia!
I got up early to check in my luggage at the station, then settled into my window seat for the long journey. I was excited to get to see Australia’s landscapes, rather than just fly over the top of them! It made this day feel more like another activity, rather than just a travel day. The route first took us through the Adelaide Hills, curving and undulating through the green hills and forests. It crossed the Murray River, the longest in Australia and which you can take multi-day cruises along. Then the landscape levelled out, hours and hours of flat fields stretching into the horizon. The land was streaked with flashes of bright yellow, fields of canola in bloom.
The train doesn’t have Wifi or plug sockets (bring a portable battery!) so I spent much of the journey gazing out the window or reading e-books on my phone. I also swung by the cafe car for lunch, before we eventually pulled into Melbourne in the early evening.
Highlights of Adelaide, South Australia
A week certainly felt like plenty of time to see the highlights of Adelaide. It’s a city I hadn’t heard much about prior to this trip. Most tourists visiting Australia go to Sydney and Melbourne, plus maybe Brisbane if travelling up the East Coast. Adelaide seems to get overlooked by a lot of people! Initially I included it in my itinerary as a gateway to Kangaroo Island and to tick off South Australia on the states I was visiting. But in the end, I’m really glad that I spent longer in the region to see the city!
With just 1.5 million inhabitants, it’s much smaller than the other cities I would be heading to, and far more my size and speed. I loved spending time in the parks and at the beach, and it has plenty of museums and galleries to explore. And having done wine tasting tours before, the Barossa wasn’t necessarily a ‘must-do’ for me, but it was a very enjoyable day trip out of the city to see another part of South Australia. Even though Adelaide is a smaller city, that doesn’t mean it’s short on things to see and do!
