Saskia and Sigrid at the 9pm New Year's Eve fireworks at Elder Park, on the river Torrens. Photo: Sigrid Christiansen
Sigrid Christiansen and Saskia Watkins
There’s one place in the world where the bones of a long-necked, aquatic dinosaur with a face full of needle-sharp teeth have fossilised into precious opal.
That place is South Australia, and it’s the famous Addyman opalised plesiosaur: formed from silica and water in the desert far north of the state and buried for millions of years on the site of an ancient inland sea.
It’s a highlight of the state’s museum and just one of the unique things to discover about South Australia and its beautiful, walkable major city: one of the country’s best kept secrets.
With direct flights from Auckland taking just under five hours, it’s as painless as international travel gets.
Food and wine might come to mind – Coffin Bay Oysters and Clare Valley Reisling anyone?
Plus, there’s the climate: summer beach weather guaranteed. But most of all, it’s a top tier destination for travelling with kids. Think a safari park – the largest outside Africa – carnival favourites and some of the world’s best beaches.
King Country News reporter Sigrid Christiansen and her 10-year-old daughter, Saskia, checked out many of those family-friendly attractions last month.
n South Australian Museum
This elegant building in the city centre showcases the state’s cultural, geological and social history, as well as its animals, and historic figures such as Antarctic geologist Sir Douglas Mawson.
Children can touch a wall of ice, frozen to an Antarctic coldness, and see the (now taxidermied) huskies the explorer brought back to Adelaide as pets after his famous expeditions.
Visitors can learn about historic and contemporary Aboriginal culture, medicine and technology, and initiatives such as the language vans – a travelling team of linguists supporting indigenous dialects such as Pitjantjatjara, spoken widely as a community language in the state’s north.
A different sort of museum highlight is the Kraken: a preserved giant squid hanging full four floors down the building in a lift shaft, visible through glass on each.
Child rating: 9/10
“I liked the giant squid, and the taxidermy animals, such as the cheetah, polar bear and the lion whose tail moved.”
n Historic Adelaide Gaol
One for kids who love the gruesome series, Horrible Histories.
The hexagonal sandstone gaol, one of the oldest remaining colonial buildings, is now a hands-on museum with engaging displays that humanise the 300,000 prisoners housed there during the building’s use from the 1840s to1988.
One profiled inmate was Elizabeth Woolcock, the only woman hanged in South Australia (in the 1870s) accused of poisoning her abusive husband; her tragic life is put into context.
There’s also a wall of locks for young visitors to “pick”, plus artefacts such as a prison tattoo kit concealed in a library book.
We checked out the Miss Trunchball-like uniforms worn by the female guards and chatted through glass in the old visitation room.
Child rating 8/10
“I liked how they had the prisoners’ stories.”
n Port River Cruise
Next up was a dolphin and ships’ graveyard boat cruise on the industrial Port River. Highlights included the clipper ship City of Adelaide, which in 2014 was dredged off the bottom of a Scottish river and returned by barge to South Australia at a cost of $6 million.
Child rating: 9/10
“I liked seeing the dolphins from the boat, they came as close as 5 or 6 metres away in the water. The shipwrecks were creepy.”
n Monarto Safari Park
This popular safari park, an hour from Adelaide, started life as a place for the city zoo animals to stretch their legs. Now, visitors can check out hyenas, lions, African wild dogs, rhinos, to the giraffes (seen on this visit scoffing hay from a white ute) and a successful programme breeding rare wallabies and returning them to the wild.
Child rating 9/10
“The two sister cheetahs, obviously! We got to see the zookeepers feeding them. It was great seeing the baby giraffe too.”
n Beach Highlights – Glenelg, Brighton and Semaphore
Adelaide’s beaches are easily accessible by tram or bus. They offer carnival rides, cafes and in the case of Semaphore, a pint-sized working steam train offering rides between the nearby beaches. In January there’s the Glenelg Ice Cream festival, an evening festival devoted to the summer treat.
Child rating 10/10
“At Semaphore, I liked going on the Hurricane carnival ride, and the steam train was also quite cool. I loved the carousel too.
“I loved the Glenelg Ice Cream Festival: all the flavours you could go and get. The milk caramel (dulce de leche) ice cream was my favourite.”
Other fantastic South Australia family attractions include Aboriginal Cultural Centre Tandanya, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Motor Ruseum at Birdwood, the Railway Museum at Birdwood, the Beach House Fun Park at Glenelg, the City Zoo (complete with pandas and a prowling tiger) and the Cleland Wildlife Park in the hills.
There’s also a horse-drawn tram at Victor Harbour and the wildlife of Kangaroo Island.
Want something free? Then there are the many nature playgrounds, such as the wetland at Kensington Gardens, and the cycle trail that runs the length of the River Torrens. Koalas are often spotted in the suburbs.
Minister for Tourism Zoe Bettison said the city was becoming more popular with Kiwi tourists.
“We know our friends across the ditch love South Australia and the diverse tourism experiences we have to offer.
“New Zealand is our state’s third largest international market and currently worth $61 million to South Australia’s visitor economy – which is an impressive 36 per cent increase on pre-Covid levels.
“Unique experiences New Zealanders are loving at the moment are our world-renowned food and wine, houseboating along the breathtaking Murray River, our non-stop events and festivals calendar, as well as discovering the distinctive landscapes on Adelaide’s doorstep – and it is all so accessible with four direct flights every week from Auckland to Adelaide,” Zoe said.
