Adelaide

Adelaide - Capital City of South Australia. If you look at a map of Australia it's in the middle, down the bottom.

Home of a lot churches and nightclubs. Sometimes they are combined.

It used to host the final race of the Grand Prix season, but that was stolen by an evil rival state.

Adelaide, known, for its variety of pubs, nightclubs, and churches is housed in the Adelaide plains in South Australia. The central city is one mile square, surrounded by lucious park lands which act as a cooler for the city, and separate it from the sprawl of suburbs. With the worlds best mediterranean climate South Australia houses producers of the worlds best wine and fruit fly free fruit.

Adelaide city itself is really small -- the city was deliberately planned (by Colonel William Light) to be a mile square, bounded by North Terrace, West Terrace, South Terrace and ... you guessed ... East Terrace. This is surrounded by parklands -- lots of trees, grass, and a river running along the north side. (Adelaide University lies between the city and the river.)

Within the city square mile, most of the action takes place at the northern end. North Terrace is where we have our Parliament, Art Gallery and Museum of Natural History. One street south, on the east side, is Rundle Street, which is the major shopping area; half is a mall -- no cars -- the other half is arguably the best eating district you'll find anywhere, with every style of food imaginable, pizzas to Thai food to Mexican, whatever. Dining here is always relaxed, cafe-style.

Adelaide is surrounded by suburbs. These stretch 25 miles to the north, and 40+ to the south, in a narrow band, confined between the sea and the hills. Beaches of white sand pretty much stretch along the entire coast line, so if you have any desire to get wet, you're spoiled for choice. Most visitors head for Glenelg, which you can reach by tram (similar to European trams) from the city. The tram is very picturesque, and the beach at Glenelg is OK. No surf though -- you'd have to go south, or a long way north, to find surf.

The hills are very nice too. We have several wildlife sanctuaries, and some quaint old towns from the colonial days.

For the wine lover, Adelaide is the starting point for tours to several wine regions: the Barossa valley (a favorite because of its German settler heritage), McLaren Vale to the south (very nice wines -- I live near there), and further to the north, the Clare valley.

Further afield, visitors usually go south to Kangaroo Island, which has nice wilderness, seals, penguins and other wildlife; or north to the Flinders Ranges, which are very rugged, spectacular country, wonderful if you like the outdoors.

Of course there are tour companies who can arrange visits to all these places for visitors. The wine areas and Adelaide Hills can each be visited in a day; Kangaroo Island and the Flinders Ranges really need at least three days.

I can also say that Adelaide is a nice city for just hanging around in for a day or two. Plenty for visitors to see.

The best time to visit, weather-wise is September through to the end of November, which is spring here -- the weather most days is just wonderful. (About 22 degrees Centigrade.) Also nice is our Autumn -- March to May. Winters are cold and wet, Summers are hot. But we don't generally get the extremes of weather. Most summer days would not rise above 35 degrees C, most winter days would not sink below 14C.

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Please come and visit -- we need your money!

Sven182: Adelaide's tap water, while taken from the dirty Murray River is not dirty, it's horrible taste comes from the purification process, which involves dumping lots of chlorine into the water.

I drink lovely hills bore water (from the ground, not a pig) but if you are in Adelaide, the easiest solution is to drink some of the states famous wine or perhaps a cold glass of coopers.

Adelaide is 'the murder capital of the world.' At least, that is what it has been dubbed by the UK Channel 4 programme, The Trials of Joanne Lees. Interestingly, Adelaide is also known as the City of Churches. Not surprisingly many South Australians were upset by this new title and several MPs made formal requests for the programme to be cancelled. A written apology was issued and the offending portions of the programme were removed.

Although Adelaide does not have anywhere near as many murders per capita as such cities as New York City or Los Angeles, it has been home to some of the most bizarre and memorable murders of recent history. One of the most infamous is the Snowtown murders, where a number of bodies were found in barrels in a disused bank vault in Snowtown.

While most South Australians consider these claims to be preposterous, a prominent criminologist, Alan Perry, has caused a large outcry by saying of serial killers that:

I think that in SA, because of our far more provincial and insular social structure, it does create something of a social hothouse effect that encourages the breeding of these type of people, where in a more dynamic and vibrant social environment they would find it harder to exist.

Infamous Adelaideans include:

• David Hicks: Allegedly fought for the Taliban during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
• James Miller: Convicted for the serial rape and murders of seven young girls in the small town of Truro, near Adelaide.
• John Bunting and Robert Wagner: Convicted on 11 charges each of murder, the bodies were found in barrels in a bank vault in Snowtown.
• Lleyton Hewitt: He may not have committed any murders and he is good at tennis but he sure is annoying.
• anoynmous, (as far as I know - any correction is welcome): Attacked British tourist Joanne Lees and murdered her boyfriend Peter Falconio, thus earning Adelaide the controversial epithet in the first place.