Adelaide New Year 2009

Adelaide New year 2009

The centre of Adelaide is set out according to the garden city principles of Ebenezer Howard. The Square mile of the business and commercial and shopping centre is surrounded by a band of parkland. Although the suburban sprawl is a as big as Los Angeles the inner suburbs of bungalows can be reached on foot or by bike or by a tram service that is free in the central area. This is where we stay with Ian and Margaret in a lovely bungalow. The front which is traditional has been extended to the rear with a modern sunny atrium, extra rooms and a swimming pool with jet propulsion. This enables you to swim energetically without actually getting anywhere - which may be a reverse metaphor for our trip.Each day up until the New Year we explore the city centre, visiting the Migration Museum, the Art Gallery and the Museum of South Australia. When culture overload sets in we adjourn to the park by the Torrens River or to the Rundle Mall to (eventually) get our phones working though we seem to have got this far without. In the evening we dine magnificently on Ian's cooking and talk of global education. Margot and Margaret met through work at the University and the conversation includes interesting insights to the work of reconciliation with the aboriginal population. We spent our time in the Museum of South Australia in the Aboriginal Section and though both though both museums deal with the issue of settlement it is interesting to see the different perspectives. The Museum of Immigration starts from the oppression and deprivation that drove many of the immigrants to settle here, but is making a valiant effort to balance this with the disastrous impact it had on the existing population . In the museum bookshop we picked up a copy of Sven Lindqvist’s "Terra Nullius" which deals with these issues in his usual uncompromising style. Essential reading for all Australians and anyone else interested in the movement of peoples

New Years Eve
On New Years Eve Lyn Butler, a friend of Margaret's who stayed with us in York briefly last summer, organised a New year's party for a few friends. We brought the whisky and the folk knowledge of the necessary rituals. To which was added a prawn Barbie, a stroll down to the beach to watch the early firework display (for kids and OAPs like us) followed by Raspberry Pavlova, apparently a traditional form of bush tucker. Not quite like our usual trips to Edinburgh but very enjoyable nevertheless.

After a leisurely start we had a couple of strolls, one up the gulley to the rear of Lyn’s house and another down by the beach. This was followed by an hour long massage treatment that left Margot and I as relaxed as those seals at Admiralty Arch.

Heading back to Ian and Margaret’s Lyn took us to an eco-village in the middle of Adelaide where a friend showed us around. Apart form the interesting architecture and th small carbon footprint it was run as a cooperative venture with mixed rented or for sale properties, in fact the kind of thing I would like to have been doing in England. Does this make the whole tour a study trip and therefore tax deductible?
We ended our stay with a meal for the five of us at a local Thai restaurant and early to bed as the train for Melbourne left at 740 the following morning.