Take a Tram to Glenelg
It’s a tourist tram these days but the tram ride from Adelaide to the beach suburb of Glenelg is possibly the most fun you can have in Adelaide. Adelaide’s only remaining tram runs from Victoria Square to Glenelg. Due to be replaced, this olde tram is the last of its kind. Glenelg itself is wonderful. Glenelg is Adelaide’s fashionable beach suburb, also the site where, in December 1836, Governor John Hindmarsh read the proclamation (by The Old Gum Tree) creating the colony of South Australia. Please remember – Do Not Protrude Limbs from Tram!
More statues in Victoria Square while waiting for a tram. Surveyor and explorer, John McDouall Stuart arrived in Australia in 1839 and worked as a surveyor with Captain Charles Sturt before taking up a spot of sheep farming and surveying the Flinders Ranges. Stuart explored deep into the centre of Australia with Sturt taking a rout which is now closely followed by the Ghan Railway running from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Made of Bronze, the statue of Queen Victoria stands in Victoria Square. Unveiled in 1894 the statues has become very dirty, not surprising considering it stands in the middle of a main road. It is due to be taken down and cleaned during 2005. The Victoria Square fountain is designed to represent the three rivers that provide Adelaide with it’s water – Murray, Torrens and Onkaparinga.
The tram runs from Victoria Square in Adelaide down to Moseley Square in Glenelg. The marble Pioneer Memorial was erected for the South Australia Centenary in 1936, the ship on top being the HMS Buffalo which originally brought John Hindmarsh from England.
Originally built between 1975 and 1877 as the Glenelg Institute, the Town Hall looks out over Moseley Square and has changed it’s interior over the years. The building was designed by Edmund Wright and it’s exterior has changed very little over the years.
