Adelaide

Adelaide -  Mustard Seed of Grandeur

Oh Adelaide, in the beginning you were a mustard seed like a baby born in the manger. Your name, we are told, is from a lady, indeed from a Queen. And so, from a queenly mustard of a village in the jungle, you rise into the heavens in glory during, how many years now? As if time matters where the creative potentiality is concerned. Does time matter in the making of an aritst’s masterpiece, may this be the painting of a town or the building of the town itself?

The issue here is space, the space to make a change. It is also about how the simple may not be best and how the easiest, the manageable may not be the ideal and how the long road may prove to be the most enduring.

See, most human settlements in the world take place very close to rivers. Water being a basic human need, many human communities look around for rivers for settlement . In the case of Adelaide, the simple choice of a place for the town would have been Kangaroo Island. So why did Surveyor-General William Light, appointed by the first Governor of South Australia, Hindmarsh, choose, against the wish of his Governor, to explore Gulf St. Vincent and Rapid Gay and later decide to set up a camp in the North and West Terraces with his survey team?

The survey of the place that was named Adelaide began there. The map got completed in no time at all. In his papers, Light wrote, “The dark green round the town I propose to be reserved as Park Lands.” The survey was completed on 10 March when he had marked out 1042 city lots, seven hundred one-acre sites south of the Torrens, and 342 in North Adelaide. The plan which included a central, plus four other squares and seventeen main streets, was later adapted for many townships in South Australia and even overseas. Two weeks later all of the streets had been named. Light also suggested the digging of a canal from the Torrens River to Port Adelaide.

With this Adelaide goes down in history of the making of towns as a town that does not naturally emerge in the form of people coming together in the jungle around a river and pitching their tents which later grow into tall buildings but one that is, right from the beginning planned, based as it were on the concept, created and authored by one person. That person is William Light. That’s how it comes to pass that Adelaide, of all the Australian cities, and of course most of the cities of the world, shows the greatest influence of thoughtful planning with William Light as the founder. And so when Light died, inside the coffin was a brass plate inscribed, 'Founder of Adelaide' an accolade which he rightly deserves.

A true mustard of a town, Adelaide which was named after the Queen of the time, the consort of King William IV, began as a city of one square mile which is completely surrounded by park land with five more additional parks in its centre. This plan in which the green parks are built into the fabric of a city right at birth survives till today. It  gives Adelaide a badge of difference among the other capital cities in Australia in which the parks were later planted even though, as we shall see and have seen from the other capital cities, quite fittingly too. What follows from all this is Adelaide as one of the best planned cities in the world.

For this achievement, the city remembers Light, one at Montefiore Hill in North Adelaide to which his statue was moved to command a view over the city and the second, his grave in Light Square at the very heart of the city.

As you come to this town, you may need to take a pause to read this excerpt from the journal of William Light, 'The reasons that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies, however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it; and I leave it to posterity, and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame'.

Your coming to a city that brings with it natural attractions from the heart of its designer to the world is a signature of posterity in praise of William Light.
The place to begin therefore the exploration of the immense attractions, natural and cultural, both of which could be found in other capital cities of Australia in different form, style and fashion, is where the visitor could have the cool and historic view of Adelaide. The place is Montefiore Hill.

Before you on Montefiore Hill you could see other places of attraction whose beauty radiates from within, waiting for your august step to grace their doorsteps. North Terrace, for example. Wait! Something happened there! What’s it? We got the answer from James Potter in The Adelaide Review. Writing in The Adelaide Review, he wants to know about the City of Adelaide itself even if as everybody agreed the birthday and birthplace of South Australia is fixed at the Old Gum Tree, Glenelg. He answers the question with, “It may be considered to have been born on December 31, 1836, the day William Light made his final decision about the site for the city – although this is a contentious issue. Its birthplace could be the corner of North and West Terraces, where the survey party set up camp. For most of 1837, this area was the centre of settlement, with Buffalo Row to the west, Emigration Square to the south-west and the first permanent buildings appearing in the western end of North Terrace and Hindley St.”

This much we expect to have been confirmed by Light’s journal! And there you are are now, the very place. There are so many historic buildings and places in the north and west terraces that a whole library can be filled with books about them. There is nothing to compare with being there – personally.

Even then, we cannot continue without having a taste of the beauty of old architectural designs on North Terrace together. There we find South Australian Museum, State Library, Art Gallery and Ayers House, a mansion indeed, one after another. A bit further down is the Royal Botanical Garden, green and gracious, with exotic plants in 19th Century glasshouse.

A ferry ride on Torrens River, tram to Glenelg’s famous beach, Semaphore Henley beaches are an experience to enjoy and keep as lovely pasture for recollection.
Adelaide Tours include Surf & Sun Kangaroo Island Adventures, Bums On Seats, Go Goin South tours, For Wine or Reason, Gary Grimes Classic Adventures, Gray Line tours, Just Cruisn Tour and Wagon Wheels.

No less an experience of a special kind is traveling with bus, tram and train. Here is what the visitor should take note of. Tickets are purchased from the driver on a bus. On the tram, there is a conductor. In the train there are machines which sell tickets. They accept only coins. If a ticket is bought on a train and one wants to continue the journey with the next, the same ticket has to be inserted in the machine for validation. Once validated, one waits for the ticket to be returned.
Of this you can be sure: Adelaide has been working all day to receive you. Yes.