Adelaide, the city of churches, a big country town and our favourite city of the trip so far. Despite our arrival here being a little forced due to poor planning, it was one of the best parts of the whole trip. It was also the one place above all others that we thought, “yep, we could live here”.
The accessibility of the CBD area from any of the suburbs and close to the Torrens River was brilliant. The greenbelt around the city reminded us a lot of Cambridge in New Zealand. It felt a bit like New Zealand as well and the access to other attractions just outside Adelaide was incredible. The Barossa, Adelaide Hills, Deep Creek, Victor Harbor are all within a couple of hours. What more could you want?
We tried to cram a lot into our week here. It would seem though we didn’t take many photos…
Waterfront
We found our way to the water in Adelaide a couple of times. It wasn’t a focus though, as we knew that it would struggle to compare to some of the other beaches nearby.
Our first taste was Glenelg on our first afternoon in town as it would be the warmest day we had. We spent a couple of hours there, checking out the jetty, ferris wheel, the main strip and some of the parklands. It was a pleasant afternoon and the locals are pretty lucky to have something so nice so close to the city. Despite her protests, we did keep Hannah out of the water this time.
Later in our stay we made a visit to Port Adelaide. It felt a little to Adelaide like Fremantle did to Perth, just far smaller and still on its way up. It was a much shorter stop than our day in Fremantle, but we still had fun. The area was a combination of old and new, rundown and regenerated.
Port Adelaide is also close to Torrens Island and the Dolphin Sanctuary. Not every capital city has such a huge wetland and dolphins on its doorstep. Although we didn’t see any dolphins (to be fair we have seen enough), we yet again wished for the kayak. It would have been a great paddle through the sanctuary, along the island edge and mangroves.
It was a bit jarring to see the heavy industry alongside the sanctuary, but some things are just a hangover from a different time.
Adelaide Hills
It’s a pretty large area to explore with plenty of things to do. Between our two trips we did our best to see as much as possible. Despite our efforts there was still plenty more to so.
Two of our highlights were fruit related. Our visit to Beerenberg and Lenswood Farms had us picking fruit and it turns out picking fruit is always fun. Beerenberg was all about strawberries and we had filled our punnet in no time. It was pretty easy to do given how good they tasted. Lenswood was an apple farm and you could pick three different types. Best of all you could try them as you went. By the end we had both full bellies and a full bag of fruit. It was the best apples we had ever eaten they stayed super tasty for a couple of weeks as we munched our way through our haul.
Besides fun with fruit, we ticked a few of the tourist things off. In no particular order we wound our way up Mount Lofty for some great city views, Black Friday information and a short walk. We saw the Bridgewater Mill and had coffee and hot chocolate, headed into Hahndorf to explore the old German Town.
Hahndorf was interesting, it was a little too touristy in some parts, but other elements felt more authentic. Either way we enjoyed some time wandering the streets there. The girls loved the Cuckoo Clock shop and watched the different clocks chime and perform their sequence. The whole Hills area was pretty and there was plenty more to do and see if you had the time and money.
City
We made two trips into the Adelaide CBD. The first trip was on the bikes to explore the green belt, the second trip was to explore the city.
On the bikes we followed the River Torrens from the caravan park all the way into the CBD. The plan was to the circumnavigate the CBD using the green belt Parklands Trail. It didn’t quite go to plan as we somehow missed the turn to the start of the trail. After some freestyle trail making, we eventually found the big purple dots that marked the trail. It didn’t really matter as it’s not like the greenbelt is a bad place to get lost. On our travels we passed the Adelaide Zoo, the Adelaide Oval (and debated seeing a game the next day), the Botanical Gardens, the original Weir and plenty of parklands and greenspace. It was a decent ride, taking up most of our afternoon and after a long time off the bikes, we were all a little sore by the time we were done. The ride and the greenbelt were one of the reasons we enjoyed Adelaide so much.
The second time was more conventional. We parked in town and explored the rest of the day on foot and by tram. The plan was to see Rundle Mall and explore the city, visit the famous Adelaide Central Market, have lunch at the Duke before spending the afternoon doing some more exploring and visiting the Australian Space Discovery Centre. We ticked everything off the list and had a great day. Lunch at The Duke was one big highlight, and the Markets were a great spot. Although by the end we were pretty tired. All our exploring had meant some serious walking. Yet more reasons we really liked this city.
Morialta
The final hidden bonus in Adelaide was Morialta. One of those hidden gems that some cities have on their doorstep. Morialta is a bit of a natural oasis so close to the city. It has a huge number of walking tracks, taking in city views, several waterfalls, hillsides and in our experience, plenty of Koalas.
It was the sort of place that we could have explored again and again. We had to settle for a single visit, crafting a rough circuit walk from the available tracks. We managed to take in two of the three falls, the cave and plenty of amazing views and koalas.
In the kid’s opinion the base of the trails was just as good as the trails themselves. A huge nature play area (probably the biggest we have ever seen) kept them entertain for a while after lunch.
Adelaide was so far, the pick of the cities. It narrowly beat out Perth as our favourite. If we could wave a magic wand and live here we probably would.