So many Australian cities seem to be at the end of nowhere. Australia is a very thinly populated big continent. Each Australian state has at most one or two real cities. Most of the cities are miles and miles from each other. Adelaide, as many other Australian cities, grow significantly after the nineteenth century gold rushes in Australia. Gold profits paid for the lovely Victorian buildings that are Adelaide's legacy from the past.
The Torrens River, which runs through the city but is not navigable, was not its commercial center. Adelaide was a planned city development some miles inland from Port Adelaide, the city's original port. The central city is laid out in a grid and surrounded by thousands of acres of park land. Northeast of North Terrace, the northern boundary of the central city grid, lies the University of Adelaide. The university is a mix of Victorian gothic and modern architecture. The school draws students from all across Australia and lends the city an air of a university town. Though not a bustling metropolis, Adelaide provided enough sights and things to do to for Michael and me to spend most of a busy day.
Silver Whisper docked at Outer Harbor, mainly a cargo port with some passenger facilities. Outer Harbor (no u in harbor as in Sydney or Melbourne) is located about twelve miles northwest of Adelaide. Silversea provided a complementary shuttle bus to downtown Adelaide but Michael and I chose to avoid the crowd from the ship and take the railway, located steps from the pier, instead. The train ride to Adelaide took a little more than half an hour. We arrived and were walking around the city at least ten minutes before the shuttle bus came by where we were walking.
Michael and I spent a good hour at the Rundle Pedestrian Mall using the free Wi-Fi. Michael wanted to make several Skype calls but started downloading updates to his i-Phone and everything locked up. As a result, I very carefully didn't update any applications on mine. I lent him my phone and spent some time exploring the stores along the outdoor mall. Myers department store was having its summer end-of-season sale. (It is now late summer in the southern hemisphere.) Even the sale prices on clothing and shoes were much higher than we would pay in the U.S. I guess my only souvenir from Australia will be my wristwatch purchased in Hobart, Tasmania. Shopping opportunities are a very popular part of many Silversea tours but I'm not really interested in collecting useless things from around the world so they are mainly lost on me.
Michael's phone finally finished downloading and installing its twenty or so program updates and we were able to leave the free Wi-Fi zone and explore some of the city. We saw the Parliament building, Art Museums and civic monuments. We wandered through the University of Adelaide campus and stopped in at the student center. That was the first time I had seen chalkboards mounted on the doors of the stalls in the women's room! They had nothing written on them.
We walked down to the river and photographed the green and peaceful scenery. We plotted a route through the botanic gardens to the National Wine Centre of Australia. The route went through the botanic gardens' hothouse. It was difficult to tell it was a hothouse; the temperature matched that of outdoors but the humidity was higher. To Australians exotic plants are those from the Americas. Their exotic plants were ordinary to our eyes. To me the grass and bushes lining the ordinary sidewalks were exotic.
The wine center is located in a beautiful modern building but the self-guided tour was a bit disappointing. It was too early for us to appreciate the somewhat expensive wine tasting though it was fascinating to see all the bottles and unfamiliar labels.
Michael and I decided to hike back to the railway station and catch a tram to the beachside town of Glenelg (a palindrome as it is spelled the same way left or right). The ship's Destination Lecturer had said it was about a half hour ride but when we acquired a timetable, we saw that it would take more than an hour each way. If we went the whole way to the beach, we would have to come back almost immediately in order to get back to the ship in time for sailing. Instead, we took the tram through Adelaide, through the parklands and into the suburbs and disembarked at a tiny stop and made our way to the return platform. We waited a few minutes for a return tram – the service was good. Too late to take a picture, Michael noticed a sign that said, "Hail the Tram." We joked about writing an ode to the light rail.
Back in Adelaide, we checked out the local market. As to be expected, all the local restaurants that could provide a fast meal seemed to specialize in fast food. We found an underground passageway back to the railway station and returned to Silver Whisper for another very late lunch.
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