The Glenelg Town Hall and Bay Discovery Centre

With its jetty, foreshore Norfolk Island pines and bay trams, Glenelg is instantly recognizable. It is also defined by its beachside Glenelg Town Hall. Inside there is a free show that starts in gloomy London in the 1830's and brings us all the way to a lovely day at the Bay.

The Bay Discovery Centre beckons - and it is as much about why South Australia is here as Glenelg itself. The tall marble Pioneer Memorial at the head of the jetty drives that point home. Erected for the state's centenary in 1936, it is all about the bronze cast ship on the top…. or at least its passengers who came ashore here. HMS Buffalo brought the first Governor, John Hindmarsh, and well into the twentieth century it was still very fashionable to claim a direct family link with the grim-faced volunteer migrants carved in bas-relief on the memorial. "No Convicts in South Australia!" was the proud catch cry. Their landing place was named Glenelg after the British Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg, who took his title from a seaside village in Scotland.

The town hall has presented a dominating façade to the seaside Moseley Square since 1875. It was first a symbol of an urge to provide ongoing education for workers. Built as the Glenelg Institute, it housed lecture rooms, a library, a concert hall upstairs and more. Its grand classical design was the work of the "Christopher Wren of Adelaide", Edmund Wright, whose monuments include the Adelaide Town Hall, the GPO, Parliament House and Edmund Wright House (the elaborate old bank building in King William Street in the city). It soon became the Glenelg Town Hall.

The Glen Osmond bluestone is as solid as ever on the outside, but inside the landmark there has been a total makeover. We're all most welcome, and you can spend hours inside. Perhaps a coffee to take in the seascape for starters? Where once were council offices, now we're in the Seafront Restaurant. Chef James Stanton recommends his seafood platter if you are a trifle peckish. Upstairs in the Town Hall Wine Bar, the cappuccino and cocktail crowd have taken over the old verandah balcony. Summer or winter, it is a cool way to watch the beachcombers as day turns to night and the music starts to pump.

Downstairs again, the Rodney Fox Shark Experience brings great whites ashore. It will get the whole family's hearts pumping, especially when they see the replica of a five metre monster caught off Streaky Bay. It is a very popular part of the Glenelg Town Hall's twenty-first century look.

The last time you came in through the main doors might have been for a rock'n'roll night upstairs, but if you're saving the last dance you missed it….. it was in 1999. The foyer is preserved, with its War Memorial Roll of Honour dominating. Max and Gloria staffed the information desk when the Postcards crew called. They are part of a 65 plus team of volunteers who answer questions.

"Where's the Old Gum Tree?" and "Where can I pay my rates?" are often asked according to Max.

It may be called the Bay Discovery Centre, but is if you are looking for a potted version of 1836 and all that, or how South Australia began, then this exhibition in the old hall upstairs is the place to come. There is a statue of the good Colonel William Light, of course. He wore the impossible task of surveying a couple of thousand kilometers of coastline and finding a good harbour with good land nearby and sites for a capital and other towns. And all in a matter of weeks before the first Governor arrived to add formality to a growing camp of settlers in the sand hills. Whoops. Make that camps plural. The exhibit properly pays tribute to the poor migrant souls stranded on Kangaroo Island for months, waiting for a decision on where and when it was all to become officially a new British province.

Most of the new arrivals are portrayed in a wall-size version of the famous painting of the Proclamation. It was a sort of formal declaration that South Australia was finally under way…. at the Bay, under the Old Gum Tree. To one side in the picture, there is a group of the first inhabitants here, Kaurna people, who called the area Parriwilya, meaning gum tree scrub. The British newcomers were a heroic lot - 10,000 miles from home, camping in the sand hills by the Patawalonga, enduring mozzies and frogs and summer heat. It was the middle of a heat wave on 28 December 1836 and so no wonder the party kicked on all night. They couldn't sleep!

Further into the displays you find you need a couple of hours to absorb the changing scene at the Bay. There is for instance some marvellous vintage film of beach fun and frolics. A looming ship's bow recalls the unintended call of the Barcoo, an Australian Navy frigate that was blown onto West Beach in a mighty storm in 1948. Nature lashed out, tearing the old jetty apart. It was the last Glenelg saw of its aquarium and jetty pavilion.

A great archway heralds the section about the Bay's own Luna Park, and, a giant sideshow area that sat about where Magic Mountain is now.

An old photo blown up on the Town Hall wall shows there was a huge crowd lined up for its opening in 1930. It included hosts of arcade games and you can spend twenty cents on the Haunted House, which was still revealing its ghoulish secrets as late as 1979 amongst the sideshows.

The exhibition designers have somehow unearthed some precious archival film taken on the star attraction - the Big Dipper rollercoaster's ride is projected above visitors, giving them an idea of the helter-skelter experience. It cost a lot in Depression-hit Adelaide, however, and soon it was dismantled and sent to become the feature of the Luna Park under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

At least the ride is remembered again.

The display is just one of the many entertaining reasons for calling into the old Glenelg Town Hall and its knew Bay Discovery Centre - and it's free.

More info on the Bay Discovery Centre (click here)

Details

Bay Discovery Centre
Glenelg Town Hall
Moseley Square
GLENELG SA 5045

Open 10am - 5:00pm Daily
Ph (08) 8179 9500
Fax (08) 8294 0901
www.baydiscovery.com.au

Seafront Restaurant / Town Hall Wine Bar
Glenelg Town Hall

Ph (08) 8350 9555