A guide to Adelaide, Australia

Author: Matt Preston Become a contributor

Latitude: -34.93 Longitude: 138.6

Many travel friends have remarked on how there’s not much to do in the Adelaide. The ‘City of Churches’ may not be best known for it’s nightlife or crammed CBD lifestyle but don’t be fooled. It’s still a great place to visit.

A long weekend in a city is a nice idea but our timing could have been better. Picking the Easter weekend meant most of the city’s 1.2 million inhabitants had embarked on a road trip of their own. On the Friday and Monday nearly everything was closed including museums and galleries but we still managed to find things to do!

Adelaide’s university and art gallery are based right in the centre of town with stunning architecture all neatly in a row with the Botanical Gardens nearby. A walk along this pretty street brings you to the South Australian Museum which houses some impressive collections of artifacts from all over the world including of course many aboriginal pieces. It’s definitely a great place to wander around, have a spot of lunch and even check out their creepy collection of stuffed animals. Keep an eye out for the Lion!

The other museum well worth a visit is the Museum of Immigration. A subject I’ve always wanted to know more about. Apart from the rather confusing start to the museum where you walk straight into 1960′s migration rather than from the beginning of Australia’s migrant history, this museum has all the answers, tonnes of interactive displays and lots of interesting anecdotes from Migrants from each decade. Well worth a visit.

On some days of our 3 day visit the city centre was all but deserted. Like a scene from a post apocalyptic movie. We soon discovered that anyone with any sense in this 30C heat was at resort town of Glenelg. Just a 15 minute drive or tram ride away this small district of Adelaide is teeming with cafes, restaurants, hotels and hostels. While the city snoozes through the Easter weekend this town is bustling with sun worshipers, day trippers and families eating ice creams.

Port Adelaide is another area of town worth checking out. This once run-down area of Adelaide has been rejuvenated and is fast becoming a new tourist destination with museums, boat excursions as well as new hotels and bars. We took the opportunity to visit the wonderfully quirky National Railway Museum. The display of Australian steam engines from yesteryear and the cute narrow-gauge steam train ride kept us entertained for the afternoon. We even had the staff waiting to lock up as we were enjoying it so much.

We managed to find some night life in Soho style district of the CBD. In between the fast food cafes and neon covered lap dancing clubs there’s some great bars and restaurants worth checking out.

We stayed at the friendly, clean and entertaining “Backpack Oz” hostel on Wakefield Street (08 8223 3551). They’re always arranging some kind of evening’s entertainment be it Karaoke or free popcorn and a movie. Plus the cheapest bottle beer in Adelaide! For an easy and cheap weekend’s accommodation it was perfect.

While Adelaide might not be known for entertainment it has more than enough to entertain. It’s well worth a long weekend any time of year, even when it’s Easter and most of it is closed!

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By Matt Preston

The co-founder and editor of the online magazine and community site, Travel with a mate. Matt is a social media guru, organiser of international travel meetups, web developer for some great travel brands and photographer.