Adelaide - Sliding towards the Third World

Have just spent some time in Adelaide, which up until a few days ago I was proud to say was my home town. Not any more. Like any relationship, it takes work on both sides and whilst I’ve held up my side of the relationship, we’ve finally grown apart.

I’ve always considered Adelaide to be the jewel in the crown. Sydney is fun, Melbourne is wet, but Adelaide was always perfect. The only thing I could ever fault it on was it’s distance from Europe….it was never a backwater but a town which, despite the strange murders and other odd things, was a place that was the way Australia should be... fun, laid back, great beaches within a maximum of ½ hr drive from anywhere, easy to get around and nothing too much trouble.. How can you fault any city where you can get a 2 hr park on the street less than 5 minutes walk from the main shopping drag?

The last few years have bothered me – I can’t see where all the money has come from. We no longer manufacture anything and our service industry revolves around supplying the locals with cafes and restaurants – not a bad thing, but it doesn’t really aid our prosperity. Wages are low, yet house prices are verging on the stupid and there’s nothing I can see to support these prices, except for those from the eastern states who’ve sold up and moved to Adelaide for the cheap property and lifestyle.

It shows in the way that buildings are left to rot, the state of the roads, the way that power lines are not underground yet and in a host of other little ways. The deterioration of infrastructure was acceptable 10 years ago when we were still trying to recover from the State Bank debacle (see how good I am, I too blame the State Bank for all our woes!) but there’s no excuse now.

It’s such a shame, I like my home… A shabby environment obviously breeds shabby people and I don’t think I can live there anymore – I just can’t lower my standards this much.

Australians have never been good at serving people – just like we’re no good at tipping… So for Adelaide to base an economy on hospitality then not be able to follow it through is a recipe for trouble. After my last couple of trips home I can honestly say that if I ever recommend Adelaide to anyone it will have to be with many provisos. If you can overlook the people it’s ok. As a visitor, you rely on so many of our so-called ‘Hospitality Workers’ that, without a sense of patronising humour, it becomes a place that you can go home and laugh about to your friends.

My last couple of trips back have been an eye-opener. I’d like to blame it on inexperienced staff, but really! The hotels where I have stayed and the cafés where I have eaten/drunk are not new but they are local (all bar one, but more of that later) – and it shows, In an ideal world market forces would make sure that they go to the wall, but in Adelaide people just ignore it. I suspect that’s because they’re so ignorant (I’ll lay bets that of all the states SA people are the ones who travel the least) they don’t know they’re been treated like shit.

I do a lot of travelling, from the first to the third world and all stops in between. I’ve seen all manner of ‘hospitality’ from the smooth and sleek to the intrusive and objectionable, but Adelaide really does take the biscuit.

In my last two trips I have experienced:

• A hotel that doesn’t get signatures for any room service and doesn’t present an itemised bill at the end – ‘you don’t trust us?’,


• A hotel that swiped my credit card when I arrived, then at the end the receptionist got stroppy when I asked for the swiped slip back so I could destroy it – very huffily she fished under the counter, pulled out a slip, didn’t show me it was mine then hastily put it in a shredder and didn’t like the fact I watched her,


• Had attitude from a room attendant who bailed me up as I left my room and didn’t like the fact I was only going out for 6 hours as didn’t think she’d have time as she had 2 other rooms to service and they were going to take some time as they were messy! She wanted to argue (!) with me but instead I just walked off,


• A café that delivered my order where the food was burnt and the coffee was not what I had asked for at the counter (this being Adelaide they don’t ‘do’ table service – not even to bring an ashtray). Then when I asked for a refund told me they hadn’t charged me correctly so there was no refund due (!),


• This is the same café where the staff cleaned every empty table but didn’t take the dirty dishes from mine (nor anyone else that was sitting at a table),


• The 5 star hotel where I had an overpriced Christmas lunch which consisted of curry and rice, a paucity of seafood, some strange salad looking things, no veg, no gravy for the meat and no service... Supposedly free wine and beer, but the waiter only made it to the table twice in 2 hours and the wine was the cheapest they could buy and leave the label on, but not cheap enough to actually leave on the table so we could help ourselves. They sat us in tables of 10, didn’t even have knives for the cheese platter at the end of the ‘meal’ provided the most miserly Christmas crackers I have ever seen (think of the cheapest ones you’ve ever bought and they would still be better than these – honestly!). All up, I felt beyond scammed, and as a traveller I’m used to being ripped off (see I’ve not grizzled about the $18.50 they charged me for 2 Gin and tonics where I couldn’t taste the Gin and the tonic tasted like soda water..)

And don’t get me going about Qantas – the sooner they go to the wall the happier I’ll be, particularly if their Adelaide ground staff never work in the airline industry again – unhelpful is an understatement. Telling bare faced lies is a new one on me and the woman who grudgingly checked my baggage in deserves the sack.

All up, if I were a tourist, I’d never set foot in that town again – and I’d make sure that I told everyone I knew to steer clear of it.

So, if you’re thinking of travelling to Adelaide for the festival (or just because you can) be warned – it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen! If you like freak shows you’ll have a great time though.

As their old tourist marketing slogan used to say – Enjoy!