Adelaide Might be Secretly Great

When I went to Adelaide in December 2019, I hadn’t written for nearly a year. You may have noticed that my most recent blog post about the Great Ocean Road came about a year after the first two. However, after a long day of wine tastings in the Barossa Valley late last year, I sat down on the balcony of my hotel and I got a few words down in my journal. This was a huge breakthrough for me as I had waded through the mud all year trying desperately to finish my degree while being ill and encumbered, unable to write. I think it was the surprise that I was actually enjoying Adelaide (plus the alcohol) that broke through the fog. Here’s the entry:

Monday 2nd December 2019 – 5.47pm

“So it turns out that Adelaide is secretly great.

I’m sitting on the sunlit balcony of my hotel apartment, drinking the sparkling cuvée (of I don’t know what grape variety) that I purchased from deep in the Barossa Valley just 40 minutes ago. I thought it best to ship any winery purchases back to Melbourne but as Peter Lehmann Estate was our final stop on the winery tour, I succumbed to the door to door transportation method of the cuvée which afforded me the option of drinking it immediately- which I am now doing. Very wise. Now, as I sit here listening to Van Morrison sing the second verse of “Into the Mystic”*, wine in hand, watching some mild South Australian clouds sprinkle showers over Glenelg beach in the far distance, I feel it an apt moment to express my feelings about the city of Adelaide.

When we arrived some four days ago, I was in the midst of a three-day bout of insomnia. I had almost written off any chance of wine tasting in the Barossa so as to not further inflame the insomnia. However, much to my surprise, that first night here, I slept. It was so nice to wake up in a different bedroom, one that was not associated with feeling trapped in a prison of sleeplessness. I was still a bit groggy from the over-hanging sleep debt so I was hesitant to venture out into the CBD and explore. Feeling so sluggish, I was worried that I would be the odd one out, like an injured baby seal in a sea of sharks and that everyone would stare at me or eat me alive! But eventually I went for it and was relieved to find that I was wrong. The CBD was by no means fast paced and cut-throat like NYC or even Melbourne. Everyone was chill and I was fine.

I wandered around and eventually ended up at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Impressive and unexpectedly good! Surprisingly, my favourite works were the Aboriginal paintings. They were the only ones which really touched me. Usually it would have been the impressionist and expressionist works, (which are what I live for) but they were notably lacking - not surprising in Australia’s fifth largest city.

The contemporary works were also decent for a small gallery – except for the huge dead horse hanging by its feet in the middle of the room! Whoever decided that that is a creative expression of modern art should be the one hanging from the roof! Picasso said that the purpose of art is to wash the “dust of daily life off our souls”. Well, that damn horse added about 10 years of daily dust to my life!

After the unfortunate dead horse experience, I stepped outside to reclaim my soul. I went next door to the University of Adelaide campus and was blown away by its beauty. The stunning limestone brick buildings were shaded by the jacaranda trees in full purple bloom and their petals were scattered everywhere, making even the ground a sight to behold. The soft, sandy colour of the buildings, vibrant grass and purple flowers invoked such a sense of lightness and vigour – I felt no stagnant air like I sometimes do at the University of Melbourne and certainly at Monash! I walked down a path that was lined with tributes to famous female alumni; Julia Gilliard, Roma Mitchell, Penny Wong, Annabel Crabb and more. Surely all of these highly successful people could have chosen to attend more esteemed Universities anywhere in Australia, but after seeing this campus, I get it. Or maybe they weren’t good enough to get into other places, but studying there is part of what made them great? Who knows... maybe I will ask one of them one day.

The following day I walked along the river which borders the CBD with my Dad. He came separately for business. We had a great brunch, no lower in standard than the Melbourne brunch scene. He also recommended the Jaime Oliver restaurant and it didn’t disappoint. I’m going to go there again tonight. I also checked out the Adelaide China town for dinner and it was exponentially better than the Melbourne China town. Way better restaurants and variety, plus cleaner and safer.

I also had one of the greatest brunches of my life from “Peter Rabbit” in Hindley St. The food was incredible, and they had a cute rabbit in the courtyard where we sat! Thankfully it was alive and not hanging by its paws from the roof... I need to remember this café so I can one day go back… Its design was so well-cast from the imagery of the books after which it was named, so verdant and cosy!

Now, sitting here after what turned out to do a great week, I am left wondering why Adelaide gets such a bad rap? It may be a different story living here, but visiting every once in a while, well, I wouldn’t be mad about it.

Time to put the cuvée down and go to dinner.”

(2nd verse of Into the Mystic)

*Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic

So that’s the end of the diary entry. I should mention that the beaches and the Barossa Valley also played a huge role in improving, in my mind at least, the city’s boring reputation. The landscape of the Barossa was a mix of arid yellows and lush greens, so it was starkly different to the leafiness and tall timbers that I am used to in the Mornington Peninsula wine region. The Barossa would have to be one of the most unique grape growing regions in the world and I now realise how lucky I am to have experienced it in its full and vital glory just days before the bushfires swept through. It was also very special to buy some of the wines, particularly a fortified Tawny from Yaldara Estate which I sampled years ago while studying wine and winemaking at university. Some of the world’s greatest and most widely-distributed wines are produced in the Barossa, so you never know what memories a day’s sampling might evoke! To close, I put forward to these questions to you: is Adelaide underrated? Is it even, secretly great? I think so. But go ahead and tell me why or why not in the comments below.