I arrived in Adelaide late in the evening of Saturday 12th November. The following day I discovered that I had missed the annual Christmas Pageant which had taken place just hours before my arrival. I saw the biggest model of Santa on the front of a building that I'd ever seen. I saw a bus displaying "Merry Christmas" on its front, a full six weeks before the big day. My impression of Adelaide? The city that loves Christmas. 
Adelaide is a highly planned city, with a central grid pattern of streets and then huge areas of parkland around, separating the city centre from its suburbs. I walked along by the River Torrens and saw a pelican, some black swans and some lorikeets. The botanic gardens are very nice. Unusually there are very modern glasshouses, one with water lilies in and another bigger one with rainforest plants in. There is also an older glasshouse and several ponds. I saw a lot of bird life. A sign warned about problems with magpies dive bombing people, but I didn't notice any doing this. I did see some noisy miner birds, which are not that large, swooping at larger wading birds repeatedly. Near the botanic gardens I stumbled across a colony of flying foxes (large furry fruit bats) hanging from trees. I find these creatures fascinating, having seen large colonies in Cairns and Sydney on my previous visit to Australia. They (literally) hang out in the trees all day, napping but also shuffling about and sometimes squabbling among themselves noisily. In the evening they take off in search of food. I find it interesting how they've chosen only a few trees that they all roost in while ignoring surrounding trees. 
 
I took a trip up to Port Adelaide and looked for dolphins but didn't see any. I saw a lot of jellyfish in the water though, and some sea birds. There's some interesting public art on some of the buildings there. The train to Port Adelaide stopped at stations called Croydon and West Croydon, which reminded me of home. I also went down to Glenelg on the tram and saw lots of pied cormorants at the beach.