North Terrace Cultural Mile Walk
Walk Adelaide's North Terrace — one of Australia's great cultural boulevards — where the state's major museums, art gallery, university, and Parliament House line a single avenue of grand sandstone buildings and public gardens.
- 1
South Australian Museum
The South Australian Museum on North Terrace houses the world's largest collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural objects — 30,000 items including the Ngurunderi Dreaming collection make this the pre-eminent institution for understanding Aboriginal culture.
- 2
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia has the finest collection of Australian art outside Sydney and Melbourne — the sandstone building from 1881 contains colonial paintings, Aboriginal art, and an Asian art collection of international significance.
- 3
University of Adelaide Elder Hall
Elder Hall on the University of Adelaide campus is a sandstone Gothic building used as a concert hall — the university, established 1874, occupies a beautiful campus on North Terrace and was the first Australian university to admit women.
- 4
Ayers House Museum
Ayers House is the finest Victorian mansion in Adelaide — built for Sir Henry Ayers (Premier seven times, after whom Ayers Rock was named), the house is now a museum displaying the grandeur of colonial South Australian society.
- 5
Parliament House
South Australia's Parliament House is distinguished by its massive colonnaded facade — the building has been under construction since 1939 and remains unfinished, a South Australian joke that says something about the pace of democracy.
- 6
Adelaide Botanic Garden
The Adelaide Botanic Garden (1855) is the finest formal garden in the city — the Palm House (1875), the Museum of Economic Botany, and the Bicentennial Conservatory containing a tropical rainforest make this more than a simple garden.
Walk this route with audio
Stories play automatically as you reach each stop — no tapping needed.
