Growing up in Australia, you get used to hearing jokes about Adelaide. I would maintain that it is one of the better kept Australian secrets. There are two mysteries really. One is how Adelaide continues to be widely thought of as the city of churches when it has beaches like Henley (above, no seriously, that's not some tropical island, that's Adelaide... in autumn).
I have had a soft spot for the city since a good friend moved across and proceeded to live the kind of well cultured, sustainable and well fed lifestyle that would be the envy of any inner northern Melbournite. Spending some serious time in the city has really won me over though.
Because not only does Adelaide have beautiful beaches and delicious fresh produce at 90's prices, it has free bike hire.
It also has the Adelaide game, Adelaide's second great mystery. This is where you wander the city streets with the increasingly eerie feeling that you have stepped into some kind of alternate universe. It starts with just one. A single blue and white sign that you may (or may not) assume is a brand name referencing the good manners of the local church-going free settlers.
Then you notice two, perhaps on the same building. The font, colours and of course the word itself triggers your brain to read 'police' before the manual overwrite corrects it to 'polites'. This seems to somehow increase their visibility. Before long you see them everywhere, and you are hooked.
In the age of Google, this is of course a first time visitor experience because the slightest sense of mystery has us reaching for a smartphone. In the lead up to my brother-in-law's first visit to the city however many a merry evening was passed sending pictures of increasingly 'polites' ridden streetviews. He and my sister still hadn't guessed what it meant (or, amazingly, succumbed and looked it up) when they arrived two weeks later.
These signs symbolise for me that there is so much going on in Adelaide behind the clean and quiet limestone facades.
No comments:
Post a Comment