Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012: Adelaide - State Library and Cathedral
Bob: The temperatures had dropped quite noticeably overnight, apparently due to a shift in the winds to the Southwest, where they blew in across the cool ocean waters, rather than from the North the day before, where they had blown in across the hot, dry interior of Australia. We seized the day to take a bus into downtown Adelaide and get a taste of the city. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. the Adelaide bus cost $2.90 whereas before 9 a.m. or after 3 p.m. it cost somewhere over $5, almost twice as much! Naturally we planned to leave right after 9 a.m. and come back right before 3 p.m. Since our loud, boisterous neighbors decided to get up early and yell at each other over breakfast, we were also awake early. Monika decided to put the time to good use by doing our laundry at the guest facilities at our hotel. I was glad to get my zip-pants washed as I suspected the cool morning would give way to a warm afternoon if the sun came out, and that is exactly when you need pants with zip-off legs. And so it turned out. We caught a bus shortly after 9 a.m. and had a truly surly, unsympathetic driver who angrily gestured at us instead of explaining where exactly to put our money--on the surface of a slotted device where he inserted them into the slots, a truly odd division of tasks that we have never experienced on any other bus system. Then he yelled at us to validate our tickets, and we easily found the time-stamp validation machine, but there were four possible ways to insert the paper ticket and three of them were wrong! While the bus driver was fretting and fuming, a fellow passenger took pity on us and explained the correct orientation (magnetic stripe facing you but printed side with arrow pointed downwards on the side facing away from you!!!), and we heard the successful "ding". It certainly was an unpleasant way to begin our day in Adelaide, and I began to think I would prefer to brave the traffic and the costs of parking downtown if the bus system was that arcane and the bus drivers that hostile. Once we arrived in the downtown area, I was glad to get off that bus and just walk around the Central Business District (CBD) and enjoy the city a bit. Adelaide is a very clean, modern city laid out in a classic grid pattern, but with the CBD surrounded by a ring of parkland. In the CBD, all the government buildings are on the northern side of North Terrace, and the main shopping area, including a pedestrianized section, is on the next street to the South. We walked along that pedestrian mall a bit and then North through a very pretty arcade that went through the block of buildings to North Terrace. There we turned left and wandered past the buildings of Adelaide University (very modern) and the much older buildings of the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australia Museum. We decided to turn in at the Library of South Australia because we hoped that we could find some free Internet terminals, which were, in fact, available. |
Monika: Today and tomorrow were scheduled to take a good look around Adelaide. We had a good map, and I had found out that between 9 AM and 3PM a bus ticket was only $2.90. Since by the time we were ready it was still before 8, I decided to go ahead and do the laundry as our motel had a nice laundromat available. We got some extra one and two dollar coins from the concierge, so that once the laundry was all done, we still had enough for bus fare. Our driver was rather un-Australian, which is to say grumpy, and after he gave us our tickets, he told us rather sharply to validate them as we just blissfully walked past the unobtrusive \little validation box. Now there are four ways that you can put a ticket into its slot and it was completely un-intuitive how to do it, so we, of course, tired three wrong ways first before a kindly passenger (Australian, I bet) showed us how. We were glad having that ordeal over and quietly sat down and watched on our map how we wound our way down to the CBD. We first wanted to go to the central library hoping for free internet. Our rather good map of Adelaide helped us find it easily and by the time we had walked through an Arcade and past the Australian Museum and found the library, it was 10AM and the library was open. We easily got two internet terminals and let the kids know that we were doing well, and checked our email and facebook accounts. |
Bob: After catching up on our email and facebook contacts, we decided to take in the 11:00 a.m. tour of the library. The docent, a volunteer, gave us a very thorough but low-key presentation of the various wings of the library as well as tidbits of South Australian history as we went along. I did not know, for example, that South Australia was from the beginning a non-convict settlement with the planned city of Adelaide at the center of it. The oldest wing of the library had one large reading room that had been kept "as is" with all of its original books on a beautiful set of dark wooden shelves ranging over two stories (Think of Professor Higgins' library in "My Fair Lady"). I noticed right away that it smelled just like a library should, some kind of musty essence of old books, and that brought back wonderful memories of the old books stored in my foster-parents' ex-coal bin that I first started reading many years ago. The middle-age wing of the library was larger and grander than the old wing, but really just as nice. There the Victorian penchant for intricately crafted ironwork and a central vaulted skylight had been added to the three stories of bookshelves. Since the main part of the book collection had moved to the new library, the lowest level of that wing had been converted to house exhibits on various topics in Adelaide's history, including some of the original set of books that had formed the very first library in Adelaide in the 1830s. Another exhibit was a set of panoramic photographs taken by an American in the 1850s from a central church steeple, as I recall. Beautiful detail. |
Monika: The internet work took us about an hour, and at the end they announced a tour of the library for anyone interested. Of course, we were interested although we were the only ones. The tour was really worthwhile. We learned that South Australia in general and Adelaide in particular were colonized by people who wanted freedom of religion and thinking. So books were very important and a circulation library by subscription was started at the very start of the colony. The old building from those early days was still standing and the room was filled from floor to ceiling with old books. It was a fascinating glimpse into history. When this one room became too small they built a two story building with a beautiful ceiling with windows and, of course, again lots of books and even comfortable places to sit with WiFi available. Of course, it is still used by students as a quiet place to study. |
Bob: The modern wing of the library was where we had used the internet terminals. As you might expect, it was efficient but relatively soulless. However, it also included a very nice cafeteria with reasonable prices, so after our tour ended we had lunch there before continuing our ramble down North Terrace. Just down the street from the library we found the WWI and WWII memorials. Somebody had put fresh floral wreaths at the foot of the WWI memorial, so clearly some Australians at least still honor the huge sacrifices made in those wars. Down the block from there was the Government House where we assume the local prime minister for South Australia lives. A car came out while I was trying to take a picture, and the guard was nice enough to leave the gates open for a minute so that I could get a decent shot of the house and grounds, for which I was grateful. And that, by the way, is the far more typical Australian friendliness and helpfulness that we are used to by now, which makes the absence of it, such as our bus driver, so much more surprising than it would be in any other country. |
Monika: Between those two older buildings is the present modern building. The tour was quite fascinating and at the end we got a brochure about the library a couple nice bookmarks and a coupon for a free cup of coffee at the cafe downstairs, if we ordered a sandwich. Well that certainly decided us on where lunch was going to be. They had quite a variety of sandwiches, Bob had a chicken wrap and I had a nice roll with brie and mushrooms both toasted together with a free latte for each of us. Nice lunch. After lunch we had to decide what to do with our time before we had to catch the bus back before 3PM. We knew we wanted to see the Australian Museum since it had a large section on Aboriginal culture, but knowing Bob and museums, we decided to do that tomorrow starting early. Besides, today was a beautiful day for walking, the sun was shining and it was not too hot. So we just wandered around a bit, past the World War I memorial, the Government House, and the convention hall. |
Bob: Turning North, we wandered up to St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral, and were fortunate to arrive just after a service had ended, so we could wander around and take pictures to our heart's content. It turned out to be a very pretty church with an intricately and beautifully carved set of biblical scenes above the altar as its centerpiece. |
Monika: We finally reached the cathedral of St. Peter, the Anglican church of Adelaide. It was quite a beautiful church. Behind the altar was a beautifully carved large piece with different scenes. I know that has some official name, but regardless it was beautiful. We also saw a vellum of an original chant. As usual, I was entranced by the old musical notation and tried to figure out what the chant would have sounded like when sung. |
Bob: Since I have made stained glass panels and appreciate exactly how hard that craft really is, I was impressed by both the old and modern stained glass windows in the church. The old panels were of traditional style, composition, and subdued colors. The modern panels, in contrast, used some distinctly modern themes and vivid, vibrant colors. I was particularly intrigued by a huge wall panel with some abstract, or possibly aboriginally-inspired elements, and a pair of windows high up near the ceiling that depicted the beautiful bow of a rainbow. I was very impressed to learn that one local Adelaide artist had done all that work in the 1990-2000 period. It's nice to know some folks can still work in the stained glass medium and create beautiful, evocative, and enduring works of art. |
Monika: The cathedral also had some very interesting stained glass windows. Some were very modern whereas they also had some very old ones. Interesting mixture. |
Bob: From the cathedral we returned to Torrens Lake, a section of the Torrens River separating Adelaide from North Adelaide that had been dammed and turned into a small lake. We enjoyed just walking along looking at the pretty buildings gleaming in the sunlight across the lake, as well as the antics of the ever-hopeful waterfowl that would paddle up to us and wait for a handout. We identified the usual ducks, black swans, and coots, although there might well have been other species. |
Monika: Walking back, we came to a small lake with a walk around it. There was a nice variety of waterfowl including some beautiful black swans. Yes, Australia really has black swans, they are not just found in the ballet Swan Lake. I was also watching a mother with a little daughter in a paddle boat when the little girl lost her hat. So I kept watching as the mother brought the boat around to retrieve the hat. Between watching birds and people we finally made it around the lake and back to the street where we thought we would pick up our bus |
Bob: Working our way back into the CBD, we ran across a Woolworth grocery store and stopped off to purchase some milk, bread, and shaved ham for our evening meal. Loaded down with an extra bag of groceries, we headed back to Grenfell Street and searched down a row of bus stops until we found a sign that included the 861 bus back to Glen Osmond and our hotel. I had trouble communicating with this bus driver also, but we finally purchased tickets, validated them, and rode back to our motel without further incident. The rest of the day we packed away the clean clothes as well as working on the journals, backing up the pictures of the day, working crossword puzzles, and doing some relaxing reading. |
Monika: We walked back to the CBD through a small skateboard park, that was patterned after aboriginal art. Very intriguing. When I spied a Woolworth (which in Australia means groceries) we made a quick stop to pick up a few essentials like milk, bread, ham and cheese, and tomatoes. At the meat counter picking up the ham, I was reminded how American I had become when I asked for 1/4 pound and was asked whether that was 250 grams. Now I remembered, in metric societies you buy by grams not by parts of a pound. So I asked for 125 grams and got the right amount for two evening meals. It took us a while to find the right stop for our bus, but we did and by about 2:40 we were on the right bus going in the correct direction. One thing the bus people made easy was knowing where to get off. Each bus stop was numbered and the number was displayed prominently. In town was stop number 1, and we had to get off at stop number 12. So after 11, we pushed the "please stop" button and were right back at our hotel. |
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