January 29 – Walking tour of Adelaide

We have a private, organized walking tour this morning.  We were met in the lobby by Mike, the tour guide, and Mary Ann, the tour company owner.

We started out with a trolley ride down to the South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute.  The main building is also called “The Cheese Grater”…because it looks exactly like one.

We were able to go inside; the architecture was great.

During our walking tour we saw lots of interesting street art…

the yellow stuff oozing out of a building represents the custard powder that used to be manufactured in the building. It is now an art gallery.

“Thumb Tacks” on the side of a building.

and many interesting buildings, both old…

and new.

The Holy Trinity Church is the first church built in Adelaide with the first service held January 1, 1837.  It is was reconstructed in 1845 and underwent later extensive extension.  It is still in use today.

We peaked in the train terminal...

and stopped to look at both the old and new parliament buildings.

We took a walk up to Rundle Street and stopped at the Haigh’s Chocolate Shop.  We were given some samples (very good).  They had some of their Easter merchandise out, including Easter Bilby’s (instead of Easter Bunnies).  Bilby’s are medium-size marsupials with rabbit like ears, hence the Easter Bilby in Australia.

The shop is on Beehive Corner (the tower on the corner of the building is a bee hive with a bee on the top).

We also stopped at Koko Black for hot chocolate…very yummy.  It is on the corner of the Adelaide Arcade, which has a very Victorian feel. 

By now it is beginning to get a bit hot but we were now rested so we headed down to the “cultural” area of town where we stopped in the Library.  The new section was pretty modern…

and the old section was magnificent.  It is considered one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.  We need to start putting more libraries on our travel itineraries.

The old library had a number of exhibits and displays, including one on women's suffrage. South Australia was one of the first places in the world where women gained suffrage in 1884.  Two of the key women involved in the suffrage movement were Catherine Helen Spence (one library wing is the Spence wing) and Mary Lee.  There was an interesting photo of Catherine Spence with an unknown lady (even the museum curator didn't know who she was).  The photo reminded Mary of the iconic photo of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two leaders in the US Suffrage movement.  After some research it was determined that the photo was of Catherine Spence and her mother, Helen Brodie Spence.  

We took a quick walk through part of the South Australia Museum where we saw a fair number of displays of aboriginal art and artifacts...

and then had lunch in the art gallery restaurant.  Here we parted company with our guides.  We then wandered through part of the art gallery.  We found a few of their Rodin sculptures,

a guy with a cigar,

and a number of beautiful and interesting pieces and displays.

By now it was really hot so we decided to head back to the hotel and rest.  Very good day of touring.