• Adelaide, capital of South Australia, is Australia's fifth largest city. It is 723 kilometres by road northwest of Melbourne and 1384 kilometres by road west-southwest of Sydney.

The Adelaide city centre, almost completely surrounded by parklands, is a jewel in a setting of green.

Within this sward of green, it is a city of compact streets running cleanly in a north-south, east-west grid.

At the heart of the Adelaide city centre, and breaking King William Rd, the main street which bisects the city, you'll find Victoria Square where the Glenelg tram starts its journey south -- to where Colonel William Light landed in 1836 to claim the area a British colony.

Watch out for street name changes

Aside from Victoria Square, there are four other squares in the city centre -- Light Square and Whitmore Square which break Morphett Ave in the west, and Hindmarsh Square and Hurtle Square which cut Pulteney St in the east.

The Adelaide visitor looking for particular streets will find that almost all of those thoroughfares intersecting King William Rd carry different names west and east of the main street.

Thus, Currie St in the west becomes Grenfell St in the east after crossing King William Rd, Waymouth St becomes Pirie St, Franklin St becomes Flinders St, and so on down the line.

North Terrace running east to west just south of the Torrens River is a logical starting point for Adelaide sightseeing. (See map.)

After-dark activities

Along, or within short walking distance from, North Terrace are Parliament (both old and new Houses), the Festival Centre, Government House, State Library, Art Gallery of South Australia, Migration Museum, and the University of Adelaide.

A bit further to the east is the Botanic Garden. Close by is the Adelaide Zoo.

Two blocks down from North Terrace in the city centre's eastern half is Tandanya, the National Aboriginal Cultural Institute and major Aboriginal multi-arts complex on Grenfell St.

Between North Terrace and Grenfell St is Rundle Mall, a shoppers? mecca, which runs west to Hindley St and east to Rundle St.

Most Adelaide after-dark activities are concentrated along North Terrace and Hindley St.

So what about wowserism?

Adelaide is still widely known as the City of Churches, having gained a degree of notoriety as the wowsers' capital. The churches are still there but wowserism is now pretty much non-existent.

With the city?s widely-respected arts festivals, Adelaide is very much Festival City.

As for wowserism, South Australia is the first Australian state to have a legal nudist beach, a short drive south of Adelaide.

Breaking out of the city through the parklands that surround it, the Adelaide visitor can find new adventures in the nearby Adelaide Hills and at Kangaroo Island, the Flinders Ranges, the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, the Murray River, and the wine country of the Barossa, McLaren Vale, and Coonawarra.