Skip to navigation

Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Australia: Adelaide

Adelaide's pretty botanic gardens
Adelaide's pretty botanic gardens

When is a capital city not a capital city? When it's a capital town. Adelaide, capital of South Australia and home to 957,000 Australians, two-thirds of the population of the state, is miniscule when you're used to cities like London, Birmingham and more locally, Melbourne and Sydney. It's only seven times bigger than Hobart, and Hobart is tiny – indeed, even those who live in Adelaide refer to 'the town' rather than 'the city'.

Arrival and Exploration

St Peter's Cathedral
St Peter's Cathedral

After the Coorong I headed up the coast to where the Fleurieu Peninsula starts, and hung a left to Wellington, where I crossed the Murray River (one of the most important rivers in southeast Australia) on a cable-driven car ferry. Then it was a short drive down to the coast and along to Port Elliot, a picturesque spot on Horseshoe Bay, itself a cute little beach with granite boulders either side of the bay. Luckily the wind that had plagued me in Kingston had died, so I managed to get the tent up without getting Mary Poppinsed up into the sky.

At Home in Yankalilla

Adelaide's pretty botanic gardens
Adelaide's pretty botanic gardens

While in Adelaide I decided to ring up one of the people I'd met while doing telephone support for Acorn in Melbourne, who'd invited me to get in touch when I was in Adelaide. He and his wife live south of Adelaide but on the west coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, an area I hadn't seen, so on Thursday I went down there to stay the night.


1 This is probably the best way to enjoy it, rather like very loud music or rich chocolate mousse. Otherwise you might find yourself getting bored, which is what happened to one friend from Melbourne who had to spend a year of university there. 'It felt like exile,' she said with a wince...