Hurtle Square

I have a bit of an urban design crush on the late Colonel William Light. Adelaide is such a fortunate city to not only be surrounded by parklands but to have 5 squares situated inside of the square mile for frolicking, lazying about, playing sport and lunchtime picnics.
Hurtle Square is simple in its design, like most of the squares. It has a couple of seats on the outskirts, a random plaque in the middle dedicated to pigeons and is where one of the soup kitchen vans operates after 6pm each night.
I probably wouldn’t walk through the square at night because it is very poorly lit but during the day it is a nice spot to sit on the grass and sun bake. It lacks any form of serenity because it is so close to Pulteney St but the grass is incredibly soft.
It would be lovely to see some more benches and picnic tables, perhaps even a BBQ or two so that the many residents who live in this corner could enjoy the square on the weekend. However, you’d then loose out on all the miners (who stay in the short term accommodation near by) playing rugby on the lawns on the weekends when they are home from work with nothing to do. Mmmm decisions decisions.

Guh. I have bad memories of this place. I got more sunburned than a redhead ought to. It was really bad. You could’ve taken a bite out of me and I would have tasted amazing. But I won’t let that poor experience get in the way of a good review. Because, to be fair, the unpleasantness came later, when I realised I’d need to shed my skin and get a new one. While I was sitting and soaking up all the nature (and the skin cancer), I was having a whale of a time.
The square’s fantastically bare (which is nice, for a change), with enough trees to provide a decent level of shade (if you’re wise enough to use them, which I, as I’ve said, was not), and with enough green to make you love the colour, if you didn’t already.

Although there’s another park closer to the city if you’re walking down Pulteney street, I think this one is much nicer to sit in and eat whatever takeaway you’ve managed to bring with you. As I have said before, one of the things I really like about Adelaide is how green is.
This particular spot has plenty of space and the grass is well tended to. On a warm day recently, I had a bit of time to kill while I waited for someone, so I sat in this park and sipped a coffee that I’d ordered just up the road. Just do yourself a favour and wear some sunscreen if you’re going to sit here on a hot day.