Hahndorf.
Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the cake, sorry Gaz.
Adelaide is one of those places a lot of travellers dismiss, it's certainly not as "happening" as Sydney or Melbourne, but we found plenty to do. The state museums are excellent and no I'm not just saying that because they are free. Although I do now find myself considering museums solely on the entry fee and of course "donation only" is another way of saying "free".
If memory serves me well (unlikely) the State Museum had some really interesting footage of Aborigines in the late 1940's living off the land. They were dressed in what as Europeans we'd call tribal clothing, hunting with spears. It's interesting learning a little about Aborigines. There are still huge problems here, some Aboriginal communities are not getting basic facilities. I actually learned this from Lana (I originally met her in Argentina, we caught up last week over lunch) who works as a social worker in Sydney, but also helps out with a charity that pushes for clean water in Aboriginal communities, yes CLEAN WATER apparently isn't obligatory in all of Australia.
I think there is a certain expectation of some (and I stress that, some) Australians of European descent, that Aboriginal people should integrate better. In Alice Springs the cinema had a notice asking all patrons to wear shoes and be of clean appearance. It's easy to assume "we", the modern consumers smelling of a brand deodorant and wearing the latest shoes made by a child in some far away country are right and those not meeting this criteria are wrong. But who's to say there's only one way to be?
I think asking a people who have been isolated from any other race for thousands of years to suddenly surrender to the 21st century and all it's flaws is ridiculous. Yes there are some grave problems in the Aboriginal community, child abuse being the most shocking, but the government or should I say previous government seem to have had a rather heavy handed approach to the problems. In the Northern Territory a state of emergency was declared, strict drinking laws have been enforced (physically Aboriginal people cannot tolerate drink like most races) stopping anyone from drinking before 2pm and in some bars enforcing a two drink maximum. However the community these laws are meant to help weren't even consulted.
It's very different from New Zealand, although Aborigines are also claiming back the land, it seems with less success. By this I mean there is no such thing as a 100% Maori living, the last person know to be of full Maori blood died over 20 years ago. The Maori people have mixed with those of European descent for hundreds of years. New Zealand may still have issues of racial equality (from what I saw, more in terms of how Samoans are treated), but the different cultures have mixed together. There are still differences and of course problems (again a problem of child and spousal abuse in the Maori community), but in general a common ground has been created. This isn't the case in Australia. Of course there are some people of both Aborigine and European blood, but the majority remain quite separate.
In the Northern Territory a huge area of land was given to an Aboriginal community (payment for what was wrongly taken in the first place) along with 10,000 cattle. However no one thought to educate the new farmers in farming! So a few years go by and the new land owners approach the government for some more cattle to replace the 10,000 dead cattle. It's assumed that a group of people living a nomadic existence off the land for thousands of years, will in the space of what 50, 60 years, a blip in their history, assimilate to Western ideas.
There is no easy answer to the problem and I certainly don't pretend to have a full understanding of it either.
I'll be interested to learn more as I travel further in Australia. I hope no one takes offense from what I've written, I realise each country has it's own set of problems, for me it's very interesting because outside of Australia I don't think these issues receive much (if any) media coverage. Also my first thoughts of Australian history involve those poor sods forced out of Britain and Ireland for stealing a loaf or the like. It seems there are a lot of wrongs to right.
So this post has turned into a kind of rant, apologies. Here are some photo's from the rest of our time in Adelaide.
Sian and I found a hostel offering free bike hire!
The pretty streets of North Adelaide
The beautiful beach at Glenelg.
Adelaide has so many of these pretty trees in blossom.
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