Governor Hindmarsh in 1836 read the proclamation of South Australia at Discovery Bay in what is now Glenelg which is now a suburb of Adelaide (we subsequently abandonned the tandem and took the early bus-tram to there to go swimming with the dolphins!)
(We took this picture of Robert Burns' statue especially for our friends at the Cale)
The early Europeans colonists built with stone, pride and plenty of style. the dignified city centre buildings are encircled by green parklands. Leafy Adelaide is a cosmopolitan and cultural city bordered by the enchanted hills of the Mount Lofty Ranges and the long sandy beaches of the Gulf St. Vincent.
We were able to cycle from our campsite right to the city centre, where we found our way to the 
wonderful Botanical Gardens. there we learnt that there was more than the eucalyptus and accacias: the primeval conifers, straight from the age of the dinosaurs, the bottle tree that copes with drought by shedding its leaves and then living on the water stored in its bottle shaped trunk. So many of the indigenous species here have evolved diferent means of surviving the drought. The rain fall interestingly is roughly the same as London's but most of it fall in the 4 winter months May- August, some times within only a few days! We went on one of the free conducted tours of the 40 acres Botanical Gardens. I was intoxicated by the variety, scale and sheer profusion of Australia's indigenous flora. Only in the rainforest had I seen anything to match it. Nicole loved the imposing avenue of the Moreton Bay fig trees, the lotus flowers and the magnificent Bunyan Pines.
wonderful Botanical Gardens. there we learnt that there was more than the eucalyptus and accacias: the primeval conifers, straight from the age of the dinosaurs, the bottle tree that copes with drought by shedding its leaves and then living on the water stored in its bottle shaped trunk. So many of the indigenous species here have evolved diferent means of surviving the drought. The rain fall interestingly is roughly the same as London's but most of it fall in the 4 winter months May- August, some times within only a few days! We went on one of the free conducted tours of the 40 acres Botanical Gardens. I was intoxicated by the variety, scale and sheer profusion of Australia's indigenous flora. Only in the rainforest had I seen anything to match it. Nicole loved the imposing avenue of the Moreton Bay fig trees, the lotus flowers and the magnificent Bunyan Pines.Our next day focused on the migration museum with told the story of the migrants who came from all over the world to make South Australia their home. It also told the story of the Aborigenes, the loss of their land and way of life, They often didn't survive the introduction of European diseases for which they had no natural resistance. This is a problem that has only recently started to be addressed.
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