Adelaide

The day starts out gray and gloomy. Rain clouds keep rolling in, making for a rather unpleasant day. The wind has shifted to the south, bringing colder air once again. While yesterday we enjoyed beautiful weather with temperatures around 25°C, today the thermometer won’t rise above 15°C. We leave the Barossa Valley behind and head to Adelaide.

Adelaide, Australia

Adelaide was named in 1837 after Queen Adelaide of the United Kingdom (Adelheid of Saxe-Meiningen). The city is the fifth-largest in Australia. But when it comes to culture, it’s probably number one. Sure, the Festival Center on the Torrens River can’t compete with the Sydney Opera House in terms of architecture. But the city has a lot to offer culturally.

East Gate, Adelaide Oval, Australia

Festival Center, Adelaide, Australia

Adelaide Oval, located on the opposite bank of the river and home to major sporting events, is also world-class. The city is home to numerous museums, such as the South Australian Museum and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Parks surround the city center, which is laid out in a rectangular shape. Among other attractions, the area is also home to the Botanical Gardens and the National Wine Center.

One of the many parks in Adelaide, Australia

By the time we reach Adelaide, it has stopped raining. The sky is still overcast, but every now and then a patch of blue peeks through the clouds. We park our campervan on Pennington Terrace. Here, you can park vehicles for ten hours free of charge. The city’s parking garages are out of the question for us anyway, since most have a height limit of two meters. At three meters tall, we simply won’t fit inside. Parking spots near the city center are usually limited to a maximum of two hours. So we’re willing to take the slightly longer walk. We walk through Pennington Garden, past Adelaide Oval, and reach the winding footpath over the Torrens River. From here, you enter directly into the grand train station building, which was built in the neoclassical style between 1926 and 1928.

Adelaide Train Station, Australia

Passing under North Terrace, we reach Hindley Street, which leads into Rundle Mall. Rundle Mall is Adelaide’s main shopping street. At the end of this street, you’ll find Rundle Park, which adjoins the Botanical Gardens. On our way back to the car, we stop by the Chinese Festival in Elder Park. The sun is shining now, and the temperatures are quite pleasant. A lot of food stalls have been set up, and there are plenty of places to sit in the park.

Coffee break at the Adelaide Arcade on Rundle Mall

But it’s slowly time to start looking for a place to sleep. Using the “park4night” app, I usually find parking spots in a park or along a highway where you’re allowed to park for 24 hours or where spending the night in a so-called “self-contained” vehicle is tolerated. “Self-contained” means that your vehicle is completely independent of external sanitation facilities. In other words, it has a built-in fresh water tank and a toilet. We find a spot like this just outside town in a park, though it’s right next to a banquet hall. Since it’s the weekend and there’s obviously a dance event going on, the parking lot is very noisy. Still, we’re in good spirits the next morning and want to check out Chinatown.

Chinatown in Adelaide, Australia

Chinatown is located in Adelaide’s Old Town district. The Central Market is also here, though it’s closed on Sundays and Mondays. So that left us with just Chinatown itself. Maybe it was because of the Chinese festival in Elder Park, but there wasn’t much going on in Chinatown. So we finally turned our backs on Adelaide and headed north. In Laura, we found a cozy campground where we felt right at home. Right across the street, a church had been converted into a brewery. The campground offered a free beer voucher, so shortly after arriving, we found ourselves inside a church, letting them “proselytize” to us. The beer tasted good, so the “proselytizing” went on for a while—until we finally called it a day by collapsing into our bunks. We liked it so much that we decided to stay for two more days.

Beer Brewing in a Church, Laura, Australia

Driving through the town of Laura, Australia

At a café, we meet a woman who is visiting relatives in Laura and actually lives in Queensland, near Brisbane. We strike up a conversation, and she invites us to her home. So off to Brisbane we go. But first, we want to visit the Outback. I’ll tell you all about that next time. Until then, may there always be fair winds, and keep a stiff upper lip.