We swept away in the tram, over the bridge, to the city; got off in Currie Street by the wedding-cake bank; turned into King William Street, and our exploration began.

(King William Street is slotted by Victoria Square. Here stands the dumpy monarch billowing on her pedestal, surveying her lawns, her trees, her flowerbeds, her bronze heroes — Sturt and McDouall Stuart, become stay-at-homes for ever. Nearby are the dim halls of the Central Market where waxwork joints of meat jostle carnations and roses, hyacinths buried in shaggy moss, lilies and hydrangeas.) We walked past giant cheeses and slabs of marbled bacon, packets of biscuits and jars of pickles to the stall where Nan changed the True Confessions.

(Beyond the market and the square and Queen Victoria is South Terrace, and beyond that the inevitable parklands, the dreary wastes of landscape-gardening and bowling greens and croquet lawns. At the other end, past the department stores of Rundle Street and the Little Italy warren of Hindley, is North Terrace.

The guide-books compare it to the boulevards of Paris. Here, in a staid row, stand the baroque façades and Corinthian columns, gazebos and belvederes of the institutes of learning. Edgings of wrought-iron scallop to more miniature convulsions through long vistas of trees and lush green lawns. There are pansy and petunia borders. Between the Japanese bamboos and the veronica bushes lurks a strange company: coy Grecian ladies expose marble breasts to an impervious Matthew Flinders; Edward VII and Robert Burns keep sprightly watch outside the Library; nineteenth-century worthies muse over the University they helped to found.)

We promenaded hand in hand: past the petrified horse and rider that cavorted in remembrance of the South African War dead; down a secret alley that wound beside the ivy-draped walls of Government House with its pill-box and Union Jack. We came out by another memorial to other wars, where a great-winged angel castrated himself before privet hedges and the bloodiness of salvia.

We walked past the Public Library and a plot of grass edged with ragged palm-trees and an elongated shed that housed the skeleton that must surely have been a dinosaur’s. We entered the Museum, and once again I felt lovely horror as the lions and tigers edged close with sharp white grins. I climbed the staircase to the very top, and hung over balustrades, and gazed to the bottom of the light well. I saw whales suspended in space, a wrinkled elephant, a rhinoceros, a bear. I found glass cases that lit up to reveal Willie wagtail, Robin redbreast, and speckled Jack. There were chocolate aborigines in modest loin-cloths, honey-ant men and witchetty-grub people. There was an Egyptian Room where I saw a mummy and a row of bandaged cats and a figure that looked like Reece.

We regressed to the world of 1890 when we entered the Art Gallery. Pink and silver ladies abounded, shrinking from harsh antipodean suns under parasols and trellised vine leaves. The coldness of satin gowns was matched by the chilling austerity of parquet floors. We were cowed by gold frames and too much varnish and the lizard glances of old men spangled with braid and seals and watch-chains.