Adelaide Surprises

We drove into North Adelaide this morning for Brian to see his eye specialist for a six monthly check up for the pressures in his eyes.We couldn't park in the Specialists car park and finished up as usual in the next street. There is a lane which goes between the houses and goes through to Melbourne street. I usually wander off to look at buildings when Brian goes in to have his tests which can take well over an hour or even two. Once or twice have finished up in St Peter's Cathedral which I admire very much. This time though I went across the parklands and found all sorts of treasures and interesting things to look at.
I found this rather poignant memorial to a young man who lost his life so needlessly. You wonder what went wrong , did he use a more modern gun powder instead of black powder?
Did he perhaps not put in enough gun powder or too much?It reminded me of a headstone in the Penwortham Cemetery which had a stone saying the young man died due to a melancholy accident.

From the Naval Memorial garden I could see the spires of St Peter's Cathedral with the Jackaranda tree in the foreground.
The Jackaranda trees all over Adelaide were flowering prolifically and looking just beautiful.
It was a stunning day today weather wise and the park lands are still green. It may have been the Adelaide University cricket grounds I saw where quite a few birds were having a wonderful time under the sprinklers and a man was busy mowing. I wandered over to see the interesting grandstand and took a photo of it.Brian tells me he played hockey on some of the playing fields there when he was a young man and was knocked unconscious by a hockey ball during one game. I was amazed at the huge grounds there are there, we are so lucky that Light made sure Adelaide was surrounded by parklands.

I found the George Fife Angas Memorial and was somewhat nonplussed by the Black Angel holding a palmfrond.
When I looked up the Statues of Adelaide on the web, it had a very good rundown on this memorial. It appears there was quite a controversy about the proposed memorial because the Workers Union didn't think Angas was such a fantastic employer and had not paid his workers all that well....
Well, what was new, most of the pastoralists worked their employees hard and paid as little as they could get away with in those days.
If you want to know more about these statues you can look them up on the net.Someone had stated that they thought the Black Angel, well, they said dark woman with feathers....
was incongruous to the overall memorial and so it seems to me also.

Just to the west of the Angas memorial is the bronze created by Robert Hannaford of
Simpson and his Donkey of Gallipoli and WW1
fame. It is fronted by a large bed of white and red petunias which is very effective.
I read Hannaford as being quoted that bronzes will outlast anything else on the planet, art wise that is, paintings and other works of art would be utterly destroyed by some  world disaster.....
It is a stunning piece of art and how lucky we are to have such artists in South Australia.

Walking further along to the Torrens bridge and down the bike path along the river, which, by the way was looking full and quite good, I was met by numerous girls on bikes in large groups.
All exams must be finished as they all greeted me cheerily as they rode past. Were they all wearing orange for the 25th November ? or was  my re-call faulty, perhaps it was red they were all wearing, whatever... they were a happy lot.
Looking back along the path I could see the bridge with the looming flying saucers above it which of course is our new construction for the Adelaide oval...we must move with the times....

The city council has certainly landscaped all along the river Torrens and it was all looking just gorgeous. The agapanthus were flowering and with the roses looked wonderful against the bridge near the Adelaide Zoo. There were a lot of people either walking or biking along all the paths with others just sitting on the grass in the shade of trees. How different life is here in this peaceful city to so many other cities overseas in turmoil and savagery amongst their own citizens.

I had been walking past various fibre art pieces placed at intervals along the river. One was a long felted piece running from the top bank to the river with a hole in it to allow for a tree.
So I photographed this crayon art piece running up the steps to the path which eventually took me back to the University playing fields.
I love stone walls and steps that may or may not, lead to some other interesting place...
By the time I got back to the street where we were parked it took me quite some time to find the lane leading to Melbourne street and the specialists rooms to wait for Brian.
Only a little wait while I read some ancient magazine ( why do waiting rooms always have such old magazines? you'd think the fees they charge they could run to more up to date stuff ?) Brian got a good report and needs to come back in six months time.....