WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING CONVICTS

Rather than go on and on in terrible descriptive sentences, I thought I’d stick to bullet points.

Five Things I Learnt On My First Dérive: North Adelaide

1: It Stinks. 

Local houses, Nth Adelaide

Everywhere smells. Not in a bad way: North Adelaide has a constant fragrant scent of wood fires and rose, with a bit of lavender thrown in for an ‘old lady’ perfume. It’s quite lovely actually. Coming from the hotbed of Brisbane after almost four years, catching a whiff of fresh rose on crisp air is a bit of a treat, and one that immediately took my back to my childhood home (which some would argue wasn’t much different from Adelaide - cheeky buggers). At night, the air gets cooler and the fires come out again, and what was rose becomes an almost overwhelming smell in the air of peppercorn trees, so strong it makes untrained eyes water. My jolly took me into the city to get to know a few walking areas, and I found the botanic gardens fairly quickly. The herbal bed in the middle of the gardens was a rare find for a public garden that size: again, the aromas were gorgeous and I think I actually found it by nose, not feet. I’ve never seen a public garden with thai rainbow chillis and French thyme before, but there is was, smelling like a kitchen and reminding me of my mum’s chicken; which brings me to my second lesson:

2: Everywhere Reminds You of Somewhere Else. 

I spent so much time wracking my brains to figure out what the area reminded me of, it got annoying. In the end, I realised that while it did take me to places of my past (Tamworth, Quirindi, Newcastle, Sydney), Adelaide reminded me of……. my last visit to Adelaide! It’s easy to see new areas and find familiarity; what I find interesting is my need to compare the new with the old. I have a tendency to go somewhere and almost immediately exclaim “this is so much like (insert generic town/city/thing here)” or “this is nothing like (insert generic town/city/thing here)”. Rather than build new feelings and attachments based on old memories, I’m determined to experience Adelaide as a blank slate. So no more comparing. (For the record, it reminded me of most places I’d lived: the cottages and terraces could be those in Melbourne, or Sydney, or Newcastle; the gardens look like my home town, the wood fire smells are my grandparents house, and the sandstone buildings are pretty much most of Eastern Australian city buidings. Except Brisbane, where they knocked them all down…..).

Random church in Adelaide

3. Religious Freedom Does Not Mean No Religion. 

What is Adelaide known as? The city of churches. Lots of churches. Waaaay more churches than I thought. I love churches, don’t get me wrong, but it was particularly interesting to learn that Adelaide, as the first ‘planned’ city of Australia (as in, ‘we don’t want no stinking convicts’) was designed and envisioned as a sort of southern Utopia: progressive education, progressive politics and freedom from religious persecution. Of course, the atheist side of me immediately assumed that meant no religion. On the contrary, churches sprang up EVERYWHERE, from all denominations, sometimes right next to each other! What it makes for is a beautiful skyline of church spires and pigeons, not those wicked capitalist idols of skyscrapers ;- ) And in keeping with these traditional, protected buildings, they’ve protected pretty much everything around them too. Most of North Adelaide is actually heritage listed: original row houses, stand alone blue stone cottages, shop fronts, terraces and pubs have been restored to their former glory and make up for the majority of buildings in the area. It's such a huge heritage area and there are so many plaques I wouldn't be surprised to see a magpie with one attached: "This magpie is an example of an original bird in Adelaide in 1830 when Colonel William Light designed Adelaide to have lots of trees that would have been home to magpies like these....blah blah blah....."

4. Building Churches Is Thirsty Business. 

The British Hotel, est 1838

Ahh, Adelaide. There is one particular feature of this city that reminds me of Tamworth. For those that aren’t aware, Tamworth is a small city (approx 40,000) in North West NSW, which, apart from holding lots of rodeos and being the home of Phillip from Playschool, also happens to have a fairly famous festival every year. In order to keep the tens of thousands of people visiting the festival happy, they have an alarmingly large number of pubs, sometimes three to four in each city block in the main area of town. I’m not sure if a country music festival in the mid 1800s caused pubs to be built, but there is an abundance of them in North Adelaide alone. I’ve counted at least nine within 3 blocks. Surprisingly, one is even named after the cathedral it sits opposite: maybe they ran out of ‘blood of Christ’ and thought opening a speciality hotel was a good idea? In any case, beer and wine is cheap, and top notch. The wine list in the dirtiest pub in SA could and most likely would put most in other states to shame.

5. The ‘Green Man’ Is a Myth and Traffic Light Changes Are a Luxury Not To Be Squandered. 

I got sunburnt on Monday, my first walking day. Don’t get me wrong, I wear a hat and I always, ALWAYS wear sunscreen. It was a baking day, but there was one hiccup that I couldn’t possibly have factored in to my walk: traffic lights. They don’t change!! Ever!! I timed one corner: 3 minutes waiting on the side of what must be the WIDEST ROAD IN AUSTRALIA, with usually just a single car that drives deceptively fast enough to hit you if you choose to cross, and no end in sight to that smug little red man daring me to challenge him. There are no refuge islands in the middle of the road, and usually hardly any cars, which makes the whole situation even more irritating. If it was like a case of trying to cross Parramatta Rd I wouldn't mind so much. Normally I'd make a dash for it, but I have a feeling they factored in jay-walkers when they built this place eons ago and designed roads that are so wide they put the Brisbane River to shame. Then you have the classic game of chicken with the blinking red man. Don't fall for it. Yellow light? What yellow light?! The lights are green, then for approximately 2 secs they are yellow and then BAM!! It’s biped vs car and they aren’t stopping. If you intend to walk around the city, plan your trip in straight lines, walk around the same block in laps, or be prepared to add at least an hour in waiting. And carry extra sunscreen: you’ll need it.

The greenhouse, Adelaide Botanic Gardens

Interesting sites of the week:

http://www.history.sa.gov.au/

http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/

botanicgardens/home

Pub of the week:

The Archer Hotel, O’Connell Street, North Adelaide www.archerhotel.com.au

Next up: The eastern city fringe.

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IT'S ABOUT THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION

Will Self once said that people today are “decoupled from physically geography.” He observes that walking “blows back the years, especially in urban contexts. The solitary walker is, himself, an insurgent against the contemporary world, an ambulatory time traveler.” A little bit wordy, a little bit wanky, but not far off the mark. La dérive is a term that was first coined by the Situationist movement in France that rose to prominence in the 1950s. With theories that sat somewhere next to or between the Anarchist and the Marxist movements, the Situationists thought of the dérive as a sort of ‘emotional foot journey’:  following the innate emotions that lead one to certain corners and areas of a city or region. Cities are organized to encourage or discourage citizens in or out of certain areas: the dérive ignores these and acts on the instincts of the walker. They explored the theory of psychogeography: how your surroundings affect your emotional and psychological well being.

Without realizing it, I’ve been on my own little dérives for years, in every city I’ve lived in. Not to the extreme that our French friend or Mr Self have gone to, but it’s how I’ve settled in to new homes, and as a natural introvert, it’s how I’ve spent weekends: a takeaway coffee, a soundtrack in the headphones, and a general curiosity of finding places I’ve seen on a map, without actually using the map. Will Self wrote an entire book about it called Psychogeography (which, shamefully I’ve neglected to read), and his theory that people are less  inclined to form a bond with a city, or explore outside their natural and immediate community is one I tend to agree with.

I come from a family of fast striders: we’re the ones that are walking at break neck speed for no other reason than we enjoy it, and we do it often. Ten years ago I left country NSW, where cars or bikes are a necessity and public transport is non-existent and headed for Sydney, home of the traffic jam. Never fond of cars, I had my provisional licence only 8 weeks before moving and it wasn’t used for 2 years. I managed to get on to an open licence with about 10 drives under my belt. How did i get around in Sydney? I walked. I was broke, and whatever money I did have never managed to get saved for transport costs; so walking was the cheapest way around. With my discman (remember them?) and a coffee, I stomped my way around Australia’s biggest and arguably most beautiful city for three years. A sabbatical in Newcastle (with a car for some of the time – not mine), and walks around the steel city eventually lead back to Sydney, and then to Brisbane. I’ve never lived further than 4kms from the city centre in the last three places I’ve lived, and consequently have never been able to justify the cost of maintaining a vehicle when I can usually get to work within 30 minutes of walking. Besides, Australian cities are somewhat unique in that nearly all of them are on water, which makes for some pretty spectacular views, and all of them have sunshine and mild weather for at least two thirds of the year.  I’ve been making my way around Brisbane for the past three and a half years; a city built for bicycles and pedestrians. I’ve found plenty of village type suburbs in the inner central circle of Brisbane along the way: Rosalie with its gourmet delis and foodie delights; Bulimba, with it’s old fashioned charm and rows of restaurants; New Farm, with it’s urban village and sophisticated hipster vibe, and West End, where the Greeks, the hippies, the arty, the professional, the rich and the poor seem to meet harmoniously and congregate in the famous markets every Saturday, or nurse hangovers on Boundary St together. 

Now I’m moving to Adelaide, my fourth main city in Australia (yes, Newcastle is a big one so I count it as a ‘main’ city), and this time I’m keeping notes. I’m not following the strict rules of the Situationists – I’m allowed to use public transport, and I’m not trying to analyse anything from a psychological view (unless it’s “how much does a bad coffee really affect the psyche and stress levels?”); I want to explore, and get to know the local areas, customs, history etc etc etc. I’m still avoiding maps though: any bets on how long it takes me to get lost? 

North Adelaide at sunset

Interesting reads: 

Master of the erudite commentary:

will-self.com/category/wills-blog

South Australia tourism: www.southaustralia.com.au

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