What do you know about Adelaide, South Australia? Until deciding to create this blogpost, I knew almost nothing apart from the fact that the blogger Elsie "River" lives there. I also knew that the city had been named after Queen Adelaide who married King William IV in 1818. She had previously been a German princess, born Adelheid of Saxe-Meiningen in 1792. Okay let me give you some key facts about Adelaide - just the low hanging fruit of my googling. First of all, the city should be called Tarndanya which was a name that indigenous peoples had used for millennia to describe the location. It means "male red kangaroo rock" after a particular stone outcrop that disappeared forever as the first European settlement grew.
St Peter's Anglican Cathedral
Adelaide is Australia's fifth largest city. Its metropolitan area has a population of 1,469,163 so if you removed Elsie River it would be 1,469,162. Adelaide is known for its food and wine industries, its coastline and hills, and defence and manufacturing industries. The city "consistently ranked within the top-ten most liveable cities globally for much of the 21st century".North Terrace in the centre of Adelaide
The population density is around 1,100 people per square mile compared with Greater London - 15,000 per square mile or New York City - 29,300 people per square mile.
The Luxe Cafe and Bakery on Sheffield Street. The city also
contains a Yorkshire Street and two Hull Streets.
Adelaide really only came into being in the 1840s. It was a well-planned city that employed a logical grid system for its central area which was deliberately ringed with green spaces. Unlike Sydney, Melbourne or Hobart it had no connection with historical penal servitude. In fact, the city's optimistic founding fathers thought that it would be so law-abiding that a prison would be unnecessary. Several prominent churches were built from local stone in the nineteenth century, including St. Peter's Cathedral. Even today, Adelaide is sometimes known as "The City of Churches".Typical homes in the Aberfoyle Park district
Ethnically, Adelaide has a fairly diverse community with immigrants from China, Vietnam, India and Germany amongst others but the core population identifies its ethnic origins as English (36%) and Australian (29%). Only 1.6% of the population is "Australian Aboriginal". No longer do they gather serenely at that male red kangaroo rock, in dreams of the natural world they inhabited for fifty millennia, little changing, at peace with their environment. Now there are cars, sirens and trucks carrying their payloads to retail parks while aeroplanes rise and fall like huge birds of prey over at the international airport.
The top picture is from Google Images but the other five pictures of Adelaide and its environs were randomly snipped from Google Streetview as I cruised around enjoying the comfort of my computer chair.
Angas Inlet between Torrens Island and Garden Island
You know more about Adelaide than I do (sorry, River!). I know it is a city in Australia and that's about it. Yes, I'm ashamed of myself.
ReplyDeleteAnd so you should be Debra! I wonder how much River knows about Edmonton?
DeleteThank you, I love my city. St Peter's Cathedral is enormous as well as beautiful and overlooks the football oval. We have two Sheffield Streets and the one shown here looks like it is in Malvern. Close enough to walk to probably, from my home not from yours ha ha. I have been to Torrens Island once long ago as a volunteer worker, we were supposed to be pulling or cutting weeds (anything non-native) but as a sacred indigenous place we weren't supposed to move or disturb anything so mostly we just walked around trying not to accidentally kick a pebble to a new position. Many of our streets and parks now have the Indigenous names on the street signs as well as the English names. Adelaide also has many Greeks and Italians that arrived after WW2, now also many Ukrainians.
ReplyDeleteYour city does indeed look spacious, clean and pretty affluent. Perhaps this blogpost will help to boost Adelaide tourism.
DeleteIt is a very nice city to visit, if it isn't too hot, but it is a dry heat, so fairly tolerable. We've visited three times, the first being in 1983.
ReplyDeleteRiver is generally a law abiding person, so I can't see any reason she would be removed from Adelaide, like a part white Aboriginal child.
River once made a spelling mistake in her blog Andrew! A heinous crime.
DeleteMy Aunt, my Dad's sister, lives in Adelaide. She has a Masters degree from Adelaide university. My Dad did a lot of research for her in the records offices of Preston, Blackburn and Clitheroe. He has a certificate commending his research.
ReplyDeleteI know that washing hung outside can be dry in minutes!😁
You only know that because you did an A level in Laundry Studies!
DeleteIt is highly unlikely that I'll ever set foot on Australian soil. All the more can I appreciate the trip you have undertaken there for us.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that the city was named after a German princess.
Just think. Adelaide could have been called Meike after Princess Meike of Ludwigsburg.
DeleteAdelaide sounds a very civilised city, not a sardine tin of people.
ReplyDeleteYes. Not like Crowthorne!
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