The Incomplete Guide to Adelaide

In which Elliot goes to the other side of the world

The Adelaide Fringe is the world’s second largest arts festival, the largest being Edinburgh, held from the middle of February to the middle of March. Just like Edinburgh, it has ballooned in size and scale, takes place during a time period when the city can potentially go through 4 different seasons a day, and involves me dining out constantly and trying to do so as affordably as I can. It was absolutely wonderful.

Adelaide is the capital of the state of South Australia. It’s not entirely clear where it ends, but it’s definitely beyond the city centre, affectionately known as the CBD (Central Business District). It’s a planned city, and it shows, with said CBD surrounded by parks, known as the Kaurna Lands. Some of them are unique, some of them are just massive parks, but all of them are beautiful. The one I spent the most time in (Rundle Park, #13, because, again, they planned this carefully) becomes the two biggest venues of the Adelaide Fringe: The Garden of Unearthly Delights and Gluttony.

A section of Rundle Park as it appears when Gluttony has its 12 venues up and running

My first observation about Adelaide is that it really achieves the best of both worlds. As a result of protecting the parks, you never feel far from a beautiful green space, even if, admittedly, this was a time when a bunch of tents and food stalls covered them. Simultaneously, the CBD feels like it has everything within it. There’s no copy and paste of huge hotels or bank buildings - the lack of skyscrapers makes it feel open and airy, (although Adelaide’s first official skyscraper building is inviting controversy).

The CBD is fascinating also because King William Street creates a half way point, where the streets and roads change names despite their continuity. Rundle St turns into Hindley St, Grenfell Street into Curries Street. It’s a leftover aspect of the colonial legacy, signifying that no one was to “cross the path of a monarch”.

I’ve not seen a city centre with quite so many shopping malls as Adelaide. I think what struck me so much about the sheer number of them, and the full nature of Rundle Street’s shopfronts: the high street is still alive in Adelaide, a total contrast to Britain of the last two decades. There are shopping malls within shopping malls, and you will not find a line of shops that are equivalent to Poundland and other such bargain chains. This is a city with a high standard of living and that’s proven by the shopping available to you, among other things.

Food is everywhere. Of course there are chains, and I’m sure there is an array of superb high-end restaurants but reader, those are not my scene. On my second day in town, I enjoyed a big burger with chips, a cola, and a Long Island iced tea from Milky Lane for $35 (ed.: £18.59 at time of writing). Absolutely lovely. The weather being as hot as it was (more on that later), I often struggled to eat more than 1 or 2 meals a day, so I didn’t get around as much as I wish I did. That said, I did dine well and avoided the use of chains, bar one late night McFlurry.

Adelaidians are proud of their sheer variety of food beyond excellent bars and independent pubs. Somewhere I was constantly recommended was the Adelaide Central Market, which boasts dozens of cafes full of fresh groceries. It felt like a better-organised counterpart to London’s Borough Market. I had several Chinese meals there, always enjoying them, especially on the day I happened to be there with a bunch of comics on Chinese New Year. Feasting in Adelaide at the huge number of restaurants and bars serving Asian food can be done for £15-£30.

The local thing ‘to have’ is schnitzel parmi, a crumb-covered slab of meat with a layer of melted cheese and parmesan. It was a bit too filling for me, but I can see why it’s a go-to, as it’s packed with flavour and not aggressively spiced.

I spent a lot of my time in the South Australia State Library and Museum (which, on the Northern Terrace, are in one grand, endless building), which eventually become the grounds of The University of South Australia. The buildings are majestic and the grounds back onto one of the northern parks through which the River Torrens flows.

This is a 5 minute walk from the actual city centre

The museum rises to 5 floors, but never feels overwhelmingly large; it’s almost compact. It has exhibits on everything from wildlife to space, and the history of the aboriginal peoples that originally inhabited the land before colonialisation. Colonial history isn’t shunned; it’s just not the focus.

The library is worth visiting for one reason above all others: The Mortlock Library. It feels like out of every old movie, and the books are like passages through time. Modern libraries are great, and important, but most look the same: corporate, and built out of necessity rather than passion. The Mortlock Library feels endless, even though it’s only one wing of a building, but infinite in possibilities and ideas. If you want evidence of the magic of libraries, I was walking around it, struggling to find somewhere to sit, when across its chasm I saw my friend Adam, a puppeteer I lived with during the Orlando Fringe. He wasn’t even doing a show in Adelaide; he was just visiting. Magic.

I absolutely loved the mini beach towns within Adelaide. About 30 mins away from the city centre by bus or tram are Brighton Beach, Glenelg and Henley. On my first day in town, some comedy pals and I ended up in Glenelg for a sunset and a Chinese-New-Year induced food festival. What a place. I already love Henley in the UK so there being another one on the other side of the world is great. A small town square surrounded by cafes and bars and yes, another mini shopping centre, looks out onto a vast beach. I didn’t go at weekends, but each time I went, the beach was wide, open, and virtually no-one else was in the sea. I was told by some police that the reason it was quiet was “it’s a bit chilly”. For reference: I had to de-ice the car at 5am the Sunday morning before I flew out, and it was 25 degrees Celsius in Adelaide. It was wonderful.

Kangaroo Island

I could talk about Gorge Wildlife Conservation or Handorf, the German village from hundreds of years ago that await visitors within the Adelaide Hills. Maybe another time I’ll tell you just how ecstatic the Giant Rocking Horse made me.

However, the most exciting thing I did other than my shows and attending many gigs, was take a 2-day excursion to Kangaroo Island.

I have never been one for camping. I tolerated it at music festivals as a teenager and student. Then again, before last year, I was never been one for travel. Kangaroo Island changed camping for me. I joined a mini bus with 10 other folks to go around the sights and secrets of this mysterious place.

Named after the Grey Kangaroo that explorer Matthew Flinders saw a lot of on his first exploration here, the island is tiny but still feels vast, taking nearly 80min to drive from end to end. Despite the obvious imposition of dozens of tourists, it feels sparse enough for my desired escape to the end of the earth.

We explored the isolated Stokes Bay - a beach that we could only reach by going through a maze and passage amidst some rocks, like discovering a secret area in a video games - and our tour guide, Jordan, took us to little ponds and secret spots where we saw koalas in the wild. Just milling about and sleeping. No other humans for miles. This isn’t magic, I realised, this is natural. Isn’t this how we’re supposed to be? The perfect mix of the world as it is and as we’ve built it?

Flinders Chase National Park is a huge expanse of wildlife, named for the explorer who discovered much of New South Wales and the islands surrounding the continent that we now call Australia. Within that park we spent a night camping (okay, glamping) under the stars. I have never seen the night sky look so beautiful, so overwhelming, so vast and detailed and vivid. I’ve lived in cities where air pollution obscures the universe and in the countryside of Britain where it can be seen in all its wonder, but that particular star scape changed me. I saw constellations and patterns I have never seen before and it was blending colours in all directions.

Flinders Park also contains the remarkable rocks, a strange beautiful set of geological monuments that have been formed atop the ocean. It also has the startling staligmites of Admiral’s Arch, under which I witnessed a colony of sea lions living their best life. Our group stayed an extra 15 minutes, looking at one going through contractions in labour. Incredible stuff.

The Little Sahara is a desert that looks like what the island was originally; a huge set of sand dunes. Here, for $37 (ed.: £19.64 at time of writing), you can hire a board and surf on the sand dunes. Maybe now that I’ve completed the beginner stage of tobogganing down the dunes, to varying levels of success, I’m ready to sand-surf and live out my teenage fantasy of being in Dune (very temporarily, and with way more Factor 50 on).

We had an hour at Seal Bay, which does what it says on the tin. We were metres away from them as they slept and played and had the odd fight. We even saw them arriving from the sea from their 3-day hunt. It’s a stunning place where you feel like you can just be.

A Whole New World

Australia has changed me. To quote Elphaba and Glinda, “for good”. It’s wild to me that a city with a high street that felt, at times, like a compilation of the high streets of Britain and America (McDonalds, Nespresso, The Body Shop, Lush!), felt so unique. With bars and restaurants full of terraces of people overlooking the street parties from above to authentic cuisine from around the world at all levels of quality, from street and fast food to Michelin restaurants, it had everything.

Nothing can prepare you for how at one you will feel with the universe when you’re watching the stars mere feet away from a kangaroo, and the kangaroos hopping alongside the traffic and mooching around the campsite are the bit that feel every day.

Also, I did stand-up in front of 120 people whilst completely naked. Only in Australia.

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