National Railway Museum, Port Adelaide

~ The National Railway Museum provides affordable family entertainment two sites: at Lipson Street, Port Adelaide, and on the foreshore at Semaphore.

The Museum is a self-supporting, non-profit enterprise which occasionally receives government grants for special projects. Apart from the duties of two paid staff members, all of its activities are conducted by volunteers.

The Museum is Australia's largest railway museum with over 100 exhibits representing state, Commonwealth and private railway operators on the three major rail gauges used in Australia.

At the Railway Museum you can climb into the cabs of giant steam engines, walk through elegant carriages, and enjoy a free train ride. New displays include the Man In Blue and the Adelaide Railway Station Indicator Board. There is also a new interactive interpretive tour of the famous Tea and Sugar Train.

Learn about the role of women in railways; trace railway development on the interactive map, and read about the famous Overland sleeping car train that operated for many years between Adelaide and Melbourne.

The National Railway Museum provides more than exhibits. Function and reception facilities cater for corporate events and dinners seating up to 600. The Museum is also a popular location for weddings, social club events, and trade shows, where as an added bonus, guests are able to wander through the exhibits and displays. In fact, trains can even be arranged to transport groups from Adelaide right into the Museum for major functions. More intimate celebrations are catered for in the historic Ghan dining and lounge cars.

Finally, children’s parties are a special treat in the Cafeteria Car. Children of course, will love the huge working model railway system at the Museum too.

Location:
Lipson Street, Port Adelaide.
Open daily: 10am to 5pm (except Christmas Day)
PH: (08) 8341 1690

Getting There:
Bus: from city routes 151 or 153 (stops Commercial Road, Port Adelaide)
Train: to Port Adelaide Station (then short walk)

Semaphore/Fort Glanville Tourist Railway
The Semaphore and Fort Glanville Tourist Railway operates daily from 11am during school holidays, and every weekend and public holiday from September to May. The mini steam train follows a two kilometre ride along the dunes from Semaphore Jetty to Point Malcolm and return.

Getting There:
From the Museum: Bus 333 from Commercial Road, Port Adelaide (stops corner Military Road/Semaphore Road).

IMAGE: Semaphore/Fort Glanville Tourist Railway
Photographer: Jim Lesses

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Art Gallery of South Australia: Turning Japanese

~ Located on North Terrace, Adelaide’s ‘cultural boulevard’, the Art Gallery of South Australia is a veritable treasure house holding one of the country’s greatest art collections in one of the state’s most beautiful buildings.

Visit the Gallery daily to explore the best of Australian art. From colonial and indigenous, through to modern and cutting-edge contemporary, you can wander through the Art Gallery’s extensive displays of European, decorative arts, Middle Eastern and Asian works.

The Golden Journey
Currently, the Art Gallery of South Australia is featuring a major exhibition called, The Golden Journey: Japanese Art from Australian Collections.

Billed as “a stunning display of almost three hundred diverse objects”, the exhibition reveals the rich heritage of Japanese art held in Australia's major public and private collections. The exhibition, the first of its kind in Australia, tells the story of Japanese art from prehistoric times until Japan opened its doors to the West at the start of the Meiji era (1868-1912).

The exhibition features serene Buddhist sculptures, spectacular painted screens, miniature netsuke talismans, colourful Ukiyo-e images of the ‘floating world’, costumes, masks, armour and flamboyant export art created for Australia’s late nineteenth-century international exhibitions. This is in celebration of the profound lyricism and sophisticated eloquence of Japanese aesthetics.

Guided Tours

Try to arrange your visit to coincide with the free guided tours that take place…
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 12 noon, or
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays at 12 noon and 2.30pm

Exhibition runs 6 March to 31 May, 2009
Entry: Adult, $12; Concession, $10; Members & Students 16 and over, $8; Child under 12, Free.
Open daily from 10am to 5pm.
Location: North Terrace, Adelaide

Visit the Art Gallery of South Australia website here…

IMAGE: Courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia

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Farewell to The ‘Marj’

~ So the ‘Marj’, that stupid, disrespectful sobriquet coined by god knows who, has finally bitten the dust.

Well might the citizenry cry: “Halleluiah! The Marj is Dead!”

Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem what-so-ever with Adelaide's new hospital being called the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital, in honour of our former State Governor, and former Olympian, but I had plenty of objections to it being called the ‘Marj’.

There seems to be some part of the Australian psyche that loves to give well known public figures stupid nicknames, like the Australian cricketer Darren Lehmann’s, ‘Boof’.

If you go to the Adelaide Now site and search for “Boof” you will find plenty of headlines with that word in the title, but precious few with the name Lehmann in them. Here are just a few:

• Boof’s push to seize cricket control
• Boof rules out SACA challenge
• Boof wields willow on red carpet
• Boof bound for India
• Boof from Pads to Punts

Some of the articles even refer to him as ‘Boof’ Lehmann, not Darren Lehmann.

If I was Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, I wouldn’t want future generations of school children left baffled and bewildered, wondering why their state hospital was being confused with margarine!

After all, how many times have you sat around the kitchen table at breakfast or dinner and said, “Pass the marj”?

I can just see the future headlines now:

• Argy bargy at the Marj (in response to controversy)
• The Marj: Premier lays it on thick (say no more!)
• Budget cuts: pass the Marj (demanding hospital be spared from budget cuts), Or…
• Budget cuts trim fat off the Marj (this is getting out of hand!)
• Health minister trips over the Marj (!!!)

I could go on, but you get the picture. In fact, the rot has already set in. Search Adelaide Now again for ‘The Marj’, and you will find these headlines:

• Marj budget burden fears
• Factions dig in over Marj
• Doctors blast 'mad Marj' plan

You’ve got to love that last one. “Mad Marj”, indeed. Little wonder then, that Mrs Jackson-Nelson asked that her name no longer be associated with the hospital.

In a poll conducted by Adelaide Now, apparently more than 54 per cent of voters thought the name change was a good move, while only 5 per cent thought it was a "disgrace and insult" to Mrs Jackson-Nelson.

Actually, it is a disgrace and an insult that only 5% thought it wasn't!

It is a disgrace that highly respected public figures like the former Governor are not kept out of the petty politics used by both side of the political spectrum to score cheap points. It is a disgrace too, that normally highly regarded members of the medical profession also stoop so low as to join the grubby scrum.

And it is an insult to a life time of personal achievement and public service that their names and ongoing memories are reduced to ridiculous nicknames like, the ‘Marj’, or ‘Boof’ or some other stupid moniker.

Image curtesy of the Adelaide Advertiser:
Former Governor Marjorie Jackson-Nelson inspecting troops during the opening of State Parliament. Picture: JAMES ELSBY

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