Experience Adelaide & South Australia

Nicknamed the "city of churches", Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, has long outgrown its reputation as a sleepy country town dotted with cathedrals and spires. The Adelaide of this millennium is infinitely more complex, with a large, multiethnic population and thriving urban art and music scenes.

Spread across a flat saucer of land between the Mt. Lofty ranges and the sea, leafy Adelaide is easy to explore. The wide streets of its 1 1/2-square-km ( 1/2-square-mi) city center are organized in a simple grid that's filled with parklands. The plan was originally laid out in 1836 by William Light, the colony's first surveyor-general, making Adelaide the only early Australian capital not built by English convict labor. Today Light's plan is recognized as being far ahead of its time. This city of 1.1 million still moves at a leisurely pace, free of the typical urban menace of traffic jams and glass canyons.

Nearly 90% of South Australians live in the fertile south around Adelaide, because the region stands on the very doorstep of the harshest, driest land in the most arid of the earth's populated continents. Jagged hills and stony deserts fill the parched interior, which is virtually unchanged since the first settlers arrived. Desolate terrain and temperatures that top 48°C (118°F) have thwarted all but the most determined efforts to conquer the land. People who survive this region's challenges do so only through drastic measures, such as in the far northern opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, where residents live underground.

Still, the deserts hold great surprises, and many clues to the country's history before European settlement. The scorched, ruggedly beautiful Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide hold Aboriginal cave paintings and fossil remains from when the area was an ancient seabed. Lake Eyre, a great salt lake, filled with water in the year 2000 for only the fourth time in its recorded history. The Nullarbor ("treeless") Plain stretches west across state lines in its tirelessly flat, ruthlessly arid march into Western Australia.

Adelaide's urban character combines laid-back city living with respect for South Australia's tough environment. Poles supporting the city's electric wires are made from steel and cement, not wood: timber is precious. Toward the end of summer the city parks are crowded with brilliantly colored parrots escaping the parched desert. Bushfires are always a major threat, and the city is still haunted by the memory of the Ash Wednesday flames that devastated the Adelaide Hills in 1983.

Yet South Australia is, perhaps ironically, gifted with the good life. It produces most of the nation's wine, and the sea ensures a plentiful supply of lobster, famed King George whiting, and tuna. Cottages and guesthouses tucked away in the countryside around Adelaide are among the most charming and relaxing in Australia. Farther afield, unique experiences like watching seal pups cuddle with their mothers on Kangaroo Island would warm any heart. South Australia may not be grand in reputation, but its attractions are extraordinary, and after a visit you'll know you've indulged in one of Australia's best-kept secrets.