Where we live and the way to work

Adelaide was originally planned as two gridiron street patterns, Adelaide and North Adelaide, on each side of the River Torrens. Suburbs have of course sprung up around but the two are surrounded, and separated, by green belt in the form of parks and (being Australia) sports grounds. We live in the south of North Adelaide and the University campus is in the north of South Adelaide, so my walk to work is through the parks and over the river..

This view from the bridge gives a good idea of how pretty the area around the river is.

This shows the bridge from the river bank, with Liz for scale. Actually, it would be a creek or a swamp much of the time, but the level is artificially raised by a dam downstream. No shortage of water at the moment, though- rather the reverse. We can't complain, as it is breaking a drought of a few years and even now the reservoirs aren't quite full.

The department is reached by following Frome Road from the bridge. This is taken from the other (hospital) side of the road. The campus belongs to the State, not to the University, and as a result there are buildings both of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia. Strange arrangement, but there doesn't seem to be much friction resulting from it.

The green belt also contains the zoo (of which more later) and the botanic gardens. The latter are very nice indeed and a good deal of local pride seems to be invested in them. They have sections devoted to various forms of native plant life, so you can find out what the bush is like in complete comfort (which is not the case in the bush itself!)

This is the Torrens Lake, further downstream and close to the parliamant building, governor's residence and festival theatre (also the main casino, but we'll forget about that.) This shows the fountain reasonably well, but the intention was to capture all the black swans on the grass.

For some reason, all the urban high-rise development seems to be in Adelaide itself. North Adelaide has some very nice shopping centres and a lot of good restaurants and pubs, but has remained residential. There's some very expensive property, too.

So- having found out by trial and error how to manage this thing, how should I go now? (I can hear a collective shriek of "RTFM." ) Obviously, there's a lot to catch up with. What I think I'll do is to alternate postings on current events with retrospective ones covering our earlier activities. So the next will be on our recent weekend with Stephen, Vivienne and family. I'll then do one or even two longer ones on our tour of South Australia with the students, in whioch the wonders of the geography will be revealed.

Until then.