Adelaide Explorers

Tour

Aboriginal people have known the landscape that we now call Adelaide intimitely for millenium. For the first Europeans to arrive it was a strange and challenging landscape. On this walk you will meet some of the explorers and surveyors who first documented the area for British colonists.

Colonel Light statue

Colonel William Light’s statue on Montefiore Hill, pointing towards the centre of Adelaide, has come to symbolise the city that Light laid out.

Colonel William Light Grave and Monument

Colonel William Light was given the unique honour of burial in the city square bearing his name and granted South Australia’s first official public funeral.

Captain Charles Sturt Memorial

Leaning forward and shielding his eyes from the sun, this bronze figure of Sturt looks over Victoria Square

John McDouall Stuart statue

John McDouall Stuart is celebrated as Australia’s greatest explorer. On his sixth and final expedition, in 1862, he succeeded in crossing the continent from south to north.

J150 Plaque, Bejah Dervish

Camel driver Bejah Dervish, highly-regarded for his part in the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition in 1896, became a familiar figure in South Australia’s far north.

Matthew Flinders Memorial

Navigator and cartographer Captain Matthew Flinders was not only the first European to map the coastline of South Australia but he was also the first to circumnavigate Australia.

Sir Douglas Mawson bust

Sir Douglas Mawson was a colossus of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration who carried the banner of scientific research to the great white continent and established Australia’s territorial claim.