Molins Down Under: Adelaide

We arrived in Adelaide quite late on the first evening – it was almost eight o’clock by the time we’d done the big descent into the city and found the beach suburb where we’d decided to stay (Glenelg and West Beach) so we didn’t see much the first night except for the space-age toilets in a big park which impressed the whole family no end (I believe a film is now in the making…). The girls particularly liked the voice that ‘welcomed’ you into the toilet when you locked the door. (‘Make yourself comfortable’, it said, and I wonder how long it took them to decide on that particular phrase…I thought, 'Come in and take a load off' might have worked well too.)

The next day we took a bus into town and it turns out that we timed our visit just right to join in the Adelaide Fringe Theatre Festival. It was fantastic – the festival takes over one of the many parks ringing the downtown centre and turns it into The Garden of Unearthly Delights with lots of small theatre venues, street performers, food trucks etc. We bought tickets to see a show of traditional Aboriginal dancers called Djuki Mala.
We also visited the South Australian Museum, which was terrific. It has the largest collection of Aboriginal artifacts in the world and lots about their history and culture and the tragedy of the Lost Generation – those taken from their families and put into Mission schools. It also had a fantastic 'Discovery Room' with lots of skulls and specimens to handle and explore. We were particularly fascinated by the bee hive with transparent sides and the hundreds of bees working hard and going in and out through a small tunnel in the wall.

We really enjoyed Adelaide - it has a very welcoming and relaxed atmosphere. Melbourne and Sydney seem to get all the attention, but I would definitely also put Adelaide on the list of ‘most liveable cities’.