Last year, the city council made 90 bikes available to whoever cares to leave their ID as deposit. Yup — free bike hire for eight hours, including helmet and lock. Bizarrely, given that Adelaide is cycling heaven, this is little-known and little-used.

The Botanic Gardens is classic Adelaide Victoriana, established to foster knowledge, recreation and plants that the European settlers could actually use. Which is why Haydyn Bromley's Bookabee Tours through these hallowed grounds is such genius: Bromley is a Kaurna Aboriginal man and his thing is to have you tasting bushtucker.

Looking to dine with a view? There's a CBD riverside restaurant that rarely gets a guernsey because few realise it's open to the public. Regattas is the Adelaide Convention Centre restaurant and it enjoys pole position on The Torrens. But don't spoil the magic — enter from the river side, not off North Terrace.

Gilles St Fashion Market is for fashionistas-in-the-know: on the fourth Sunday of every month, spunky girls set up stalls to peddle their handmade accessories and edgy creations.

Port Adelaide used to be euphemistically called "rich in history". Actually it was rough as guts, but smart money is doing what it's done to docksides the world over. The time to visit is now, while there's still a blend of the old, the alternative and the new. Go Sunday: the markets do great bric-a-brac, the three (excellent) museums are open, the pubs are buzzing and get this: a two-hour river cruise of the Port River (seeking out the world's only inner-city dolphins) with lunch served on board costs just $14. Yes, you read that correctly.

Go against the crowd — try Semaphore instead of Glenelg for better dining (try menu-less Sarah's Sisters for something very different), a wilder beach and more interesting architecture. Elvis-lovers take note, the Ferris wheel on the foreshore starred in the 1964 movie Roustabout; the King sat in a carriage on the No 2 position.

Don't miss the courtyard hidden within the Medina Grand Adelaide Treasury hotel and served very ably by the hotel bar. If you ask really nicely at the hotel reception, they might show you the underground tunnels.

South Australia was never a penal colony (it was free-settled) but the old Adelaide Gaol near the railway yards is suitably ghastly. The Tuesday night ghost tour is not available to the under-15s. Need we say more?

Bridgewater Mill is housed in a picture-postcard mill in the Adelaide Hills; reputedly one of Australia's finest restaurants, it also has a price list to make your eyes water. In the same evocative building however is the Bridgewater Mill Cellar Door; for $25 you can grab a bottle of shiraz and still wonder what the poor people are doing.

The beaut inner city North Adelaide Golf Course behind the Adelaide Oval has 18 holes (said to be among the most scenic in Australia) for just $25. For something different, try the shooting range on the Marksman Indoor Firing Range, Franklin Street where you can fire infamous handguns like the .44 Magnum.