6. Adelaide Beaches

Sydney has Bondi, Perth has Fremantle, Melbourne has St Kilda, and Adelaide has Glenelg. Glenelg is a highly developed ocean-side suburb of Adelaide, and feels like it is trying to be a Fremantle. It is a pleasant enough area with a pier, cafes, pubs, pony rides, and ugly new apartment blocks. On a pleasant summer evening it has that city-meets-the-bay type of atmosphere.

Beach at Glenelg

As far as the beach goes, don't expect too much in the way of surf: it isn't that type of beach. It seems they even have to truck the sand in, because there were signs up about sand trucking movements.

Glenelg Pier

One thing that struck me is that the ocean-side here is very much a different feeling to that of Sydney or other places with surf-beaches. The calm ocean waters and piers create a much different atmosphere. I wouldn't say that one is better than the other, but certainly a different experience.

Pony Rides

On the weekend, the waterfront park was complete with camel and pony rides for kids. The animals just looked so much sedated.

Being a west coast, I had to try for a few sunsets over the water, and as expected a couple put on a good show.

Sunset at Glenelg

Glenelg Pier

6.1. Other Beaches

Fortunately Glenelg isn't all there is in terms of beaches in Adelaide. There are a string of other remarkably similar stretches of sand. Going South, Noarlunga Beach is about the closest to an East-Coast style surf beach. It has a headland, and apparently occasionally there are waves there.

Noarlunga Beach

I was also told that while Glenelg was for the tourists Henley Beach was the local's pride. Apart from the lack of cafes and pony rides, it actually seemed much the same to me though.

Henley Beach

When I was there, there was a mighty strong southerly wind blowing the sand up the beach, and I get the feeling that's a fairly common feature of the Adelaide beaches.

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