31.3.11 – From grey nomad to backpacker (Adelaide, South Australia)

Streets of Adelaide

Fountain

31.3.11 – From grey nomad to backpacker  (Adelaide, South Australia)

It’s an elegant city – broad streets, tree-lined and cool; cream stone buildings; tramrails shining in the sun.  It’s not too large, nor are the newer, glassy buildings too high.  The fountain in one of the the city centre’s small parks has a sculpture of three rivers, which are significant to indigenous peoples, water cascading from the beaks of the birds held high by three figures, arms outstretched.  Named for Queen Adelaide, about whom I confess to knowing very little, this was the only one of the major early Australian cities to be built without the assistance of convicts. 

 Canoes for little Aboriginalchildren

The South Australia Museum is airy, full of enthusiastic schoolchildren in neat uniforms, and of Aboriginal artefacts in dim quiet rooms.  Every so often, a small frame containing video of interviews with people from Aboriginal cultures, who tell moving stories of their struggle to hold onto their identity in modern Australia.  I’m becoming increasingly fascinated with this subject, so I buy a book to develop my knowledge of this ancient people – the oldest living cultures in the world at between 50,000 and 60,000 years.

Glenelg Backpackers Hostel

This morning we left out little van – our tiny home – with the hire company, and walked away feeling distinctly strange and a bit homeless.  And so we moved from mixing with the grey nomads of the campsites, exploring Australia in caravans, neat curled white hair, immaculate ironed shirts and shorts, some with zimmers and wheelchairs - to Glenelg Backpackers Hostel, where our comrades are young, bright eyed, wearing torn denim shorts, baseball hats, hair flopping over suntanned faces, legs curled casually on the settees or propping plates of pasta on their knees. A blond young German girl chats to us – she’s working her way around Australia until August.  The hostel is, in Australian terms, an old, white-painted building, stone, with the signature elegant wrought iron balconies, a large brick paved garden, solid wooden benches and tables.

Glenelg is half suburb of Adelaide, half seaside beach.  The main street is a jumble of noodle bars, ice cream parlours, bargain books, antique shops, tourist boutiques. Plump palm trees surrounded by round stainless steel tables, people sipping iced coffee; a long silver beach of sand as fine as icing sugar, a slim concrete pier stretching out to sea.  Fishing rods propped up, the fishermen casually check each of them from time to time, looking for the tell-tale twitch of the line.  Three swimmers make a steady progress across the bay, their arms curving lazily in and out of the water, heads turning to grab a breath in the hollow of the wave.  I settle down to read the book I bought in the museum, while Bill paddles carefree in the tepid surf.  Nice to have a couple

Meg reading on Glenelg Beach

of days to relax in the sun.