Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A city in its Park Lands.
An introduction to the Park Lands around Adelaide’s city centre, where the zoo has stood since 1883.
On this page
Read the city
Colonel William Light’s plan of 1837 surrounded Adelaide’s city centre and North Adelaide with a figure-eight of parkland on both banks of the River Torrens. Adelaide Zoo lies in these parklands, just north of the city centre.
A guide can give context without turning a city into a backdrop. Notice how the zoo’s gates open straight onto Frome Road, and how quickly the streets give way to trees.
A zoo that is also a garden
Adelaide Zoo is also a botanical garden, and its plantings frame the enclosures and paths.
Begin with a detail and ask who planted it, who looks after it and how it changes through the year. A photograph alone cannot tell you that.
A zoo chapter
Adelaide Zoo shows one side of the city: an institution of the 1880s that has grown into a conservation charity’s zoo, still on its first site.
Look at the meeting of the two: heritage buildings such as the old Elephant House beside the newer exhibits for pandas and tigers.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the zoo’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
