Good Friday 2020

It is Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2020.  In Adelaide, the City of Churches, it is a public holiday. From our observations, we’ve often found the Adelaide’s nickname was misguided.  It seemed to us that it should have been called the ‘City of Pubs’ since there is one on every corner and many between the corners.


The oldest church in Adelaide is adjacent to our apartment.  St. Peter’s Cathedral is a few short blocks away on the opposite side of Adelaide Oval. These and all the other churches should be filled with Easter weekend worshipers.  They are empty.


The city’s streets should be jammed with pedestrians and vehicles seeking out churches or celebrating Passover or observing Ramadan or making merry on the public holiday or simply taking advantage of the tried and true Aussie tradition of filling the pubs at the end of the workweek.


Looking down on North Terrace, one of the three busiest streets in Adelaide, there is not a single pedestrian, not even crossing in front of the Railway Station. The number of vehicles on the street can be counted on your fingers. There should be a traffic jam on this street.  There should be pedestrians by the hundreds.  There should even be jaywalkers.

 

There is nothing in these pictures. When the first person appears, it is a health care worker in scrubs walking toward Royal Adelaide Hospital.  They are walking when normally they most certainly would be on the tram.

‘Stay at Home’ and ‘Social Distancing’ is working in South Australia.