Australia, Adelaide: Ambitious But Elusive Plans

Adelaide was the fifth largest city in Australia with just over 1 million people; it was also the capital and most populated city in the state of South Australia. It was founded as a city in 1836 and named in honour of Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William IV, and it was planned with a grid format, having 5 squares within the main city centre. Around the centre of Adelaide was a ring of large parks known as the Adelaide Parklands. We didn't manage to see much of the city when we were there, even though we had grand plans to do so; after almost a year of travelling, we think we were both a bit tired of sightseeing and decided to hang out and relax for most of our time there.

It was early afternoon when we arrived in Adelaide, and once we had collected our bags from baggage claim in the airport, we headed over to the Information desk to sort out accommodation for our time in the city. We had chosen to fly from Alice Springs to Adelaide using our airmiles and the flight was much nicer (and quicker) than the two-day bus journey would have been. A lady at the counter arranged our stay at a local hostel named Canon Street Backpackers that was used regularly and was situated in the centre of town. One problem we encountered was the fact that we were going to stay in Adelaide for four nights, but the hostel only had a room for the first three nights; we were told to check with the hostel later during our stay to see if any rooms opened up for the fourth and last night. Once we had booked our first three nights' accommodation, we were told to catch the airport Skylink shuttle to our hostel.

Set in a beautiful old colonial building, it contained many small boutique shops and was lined with traditional Christmas decorations

The Skylink shuttle dropped us off right at the front door of Canons and we dragged our bags into the lobby area and over to the reception desk. We "dragged" our bags because we hadn't been bothered enough to unzip the backpack straps when we arrived at the airport and just carried them by hand instead. They were a bit heavy, hence a bit of a drag (haha). After being checked in by a rather stroppy girl working at reception, we were given keys to our room - room 7 - and walked upstairs to the first floor where it was located. We asked Strop Girl to let us know if a room would be available on our last night in town, but we had a sinking feeling we wouldn't hear back from anyone during our stay. We were right. The room was okay, fairly clean, and a little outdated, but we'd seen worse on our trip.

After dumping our bags in our room, we left the hostel and headed into the city's main shopping area to check the place out. The weather outside was quite cool and a little overcast; by the evening, it became very cool, much too chilly for shorts, which we had stupidly worn when we left the hostel. After walking along one of the main streets for a few minutes, just ten minutes after leaving Canons, a group of drunken Aussie guys who were walking behind us heard Dan talking to Kyle. Dan heard one of the guys mention something about Britain and he realised that they recognised his accent. That was the beginning of another scary moment during our trip.

The guys instantly started talking to us and asked where we were from, generally being annoying. The main one speaking to us told the others where we were from, and one of the other guys shouted out "Pommie bastards" whilst raising his fist in the air. It was then that we knew we needed to get away from the group, especially since they were very drunk and could potentially have become physically abusive. An escape was needed and it was Kyle who quickly came up with one - he told the guys that we needed to confirm a flight for the next day and we ducked into a Flight Centre travel agency for cover. As we approached one of the agents in the store, we explained to her that we had ducked inside the store to escape from the group of guys outside, and that we would appreciate it if she acted like she was helping us with our booking. She played along beautifully and the guys got the hint that we would be there for a while, so they walked away.

King William Street was quite busy as we walked down it, and we took a good look around until we grew tired of walking. We decided it was time to see a film then, and we checked out one of the cinemas in the city centre. All of the films on offer there were ones that we had already seen, but one of the staff mentioned a cinema in North Adelaide that was showing a couple of new films and we decided to go there as it would also give us a chance to see another part of the city. Once we had worked out a bus route to get there, we found ourselves on the road for the short journey to North Adelaide. At the cinema, we decided to release our inner children by watching Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. The cinema had tables and chairs inside the lobby and we took advantage of some free time before the film by working on the travel journal for an hour (obviously not this journal entry which is being written in Aug 2008!). After the film, which was as silly as expected, we headed back to the main city centre and our hostel by bus.

The following day, we visited Central Market, which wasn't too far from the hostel. There, we bought chocolate covered Brazil nuts to eat later in the trip. We also had some lunch there; we shared a potato pie and a small quiche lorraine. We found good food in Adelaide during our stay, including a classy fast food Mexican restaurant called Burp that specialised in burritos. We opted to share a huge beef burrito in addition to ordering a taco each.

Much of our time in the city was spent walking around the shopping areas of Rundle Mall, a long pedestrian shopping street that eventually changed into Rundle Street. The "mall" area had all of your typical high street stores and chains, but as we walked further down the road to Rundle Street, we found many trendy bars and mid-range restaurants that all looked rather inviting.

There were a few shopping malls in the area and we decided to explore the small but elegant Adelaide Arcade, a very famous part of the city centre. Set in a beautiful old colonial building, it contained many small boutique shops and was lined with traditional Christmas decorations. When we left Adelaide Arcade and started walking along Rundle Mall again, we came across an incredible sight. There was an enormous Santa Claus halfway down the street on the outside of one of the shopping centres. He tried his best to put us in the Christmas spirit even though it was much warmer weather than we were used to in December!

During our stay in Adelaide, we saw a few other movies in the city, most of them at two small independent cinemas named East End Cinema and Nova Cinema, both on Rundle Street. We saw a French film called "Ne Le Dis Personne (Tell No One)", two American independent films called "Into the Wild" and "2 Days in Paris", and a mainstream American vampire film called "30 Days of Night". As expected, we enjoyed every single one of them.

For our final night in Adelaide, we decided not to take the room that Canons ended up offering us. We wanted to stay somewhere nicer and there was a room available at the YHA, which was only a minute away. There room was a little more expensive than Canons, but much more modern and clean. The facilities were also much better at the YHA. We wished we would have stayed at more YHAs, but things always could be different in hindsight. When we packed and left Canons to move into the YHA, we left the nice chocolates that we had bought at Central Market a couple of days earlier, and when we called Canons later to ask if they were still there or had been turned in, they had magically disappeared. We were disappointed because the chocolate covered nuts were fairly expensive and we had bought a large bag.

As we mentioned above, there were many great eateries in Adelaide. C'est Ci Bon was next door to the YHA and was a dodgy little cafe that served good breakfast food. It was run by a few older Greek women who were very friendly, and the food was cheap and cheerful. One morning there, we each ate an egg, bacon and cheese roll, which fuelled us for the day, and another morning there, we each ate full English breakfasts that put smiles on our faces that lasted all morning.

There was a Nandos in Adelaide that we kept passing during our walks around the city centre, so we had lunch there one day. It tasted pretty much the same as the ones in London, at least the chicken wrap and 1/4 chicken with peri peri sauce and chips that we ordered and shared did. For dinner one evening before going to the cinema, we had a craving for a curry and ate at Taj Tandoori Indian restaurant on Rundle Street - we shared poppadums with mixed chutney, chicken madras, and naan bread. On our last night in Adelaide, we couldn't resist ordering a Dominos Pizza take away and we finally finished the DVD "Hollywoodland" in our room.

You know now that we didn't see many sights in the city because we spent a lot of our time eating, walking around the city centre and sitting in air conditioned cinemas. We managed to find a lot of time to chill out in cafes, too, and work on our travel journal during our free time. We really enjoyed the slow pace and not having to rush here and there to see loads of things. We'll probably have to return to Adelaide one day, though, as Canons had a huge bulletin board in its hallway with 101 things to do in the city! We'd also like to visit nearby Kangaroo Island, which we could not do during our time there because of rapidly spreading wildfires that caused much of the island to be closed to the public.

The weather in Adelaide was generally sunny and warm during the day, but cooled off considerably at night. The first day was the coolest and it warmed up throughout the other days that we were there. We didn't mind the cooler weather after 11 months of very hot and often humid climates.

To get to the airport when we left, we decided to take a cab rather than wait for the shuttle bus. It was a little more expensive to take a cab, but it gave us extra time to hang around the hostel and work on the journal. Also, the shuttle bus would have dropped us off at the airport an hour earlier than we needed to be there. The penultimate place we would visit in 2007 was Melbourne, and the flight there only took around an hour and a half. Compared to a 12-hour overnight train journey, we were happy to have used some airmiles to fly between the two cities. We were very excited to see some great friends there whom we had not seen in a long time. Read ahead to find out who we saw!