Vamoosing from our front-bar nook, we carry the lamentable lettuce cups out with us and I then drop Claire at the Gov, where she’s interpreting for Josh Pyke, who — recalling what she told him at his gig in April — offers a heart-swelling shout-out about our wedding and the role played in it by his exquisite song Sew Your Name.
Pausing our celebration amidst the pubbish murmurings, Claire does a gallery walk around the bar studying the sepia Adelaide Oval Test-cricket photos, and as we speculate about life a century ago for these bowler-hatted, stern-faced types, I try to orient the oval for her by pointing at one grainy image and saying ‘That’s north,’ which proves unhelpful when she replies, allegedly, ‘You know I find compass references troublesome.’
Devolving ever deeper into late-capitalism, a telling symbol of this is that the only youngsters in pubs are often those pulling the beers; tonight is no exception, though our barkeep is convivial as we order a bowl of wedges — gladdening and homely in their aroma — and a delicious-sounding plate of lettuce cups.
Returning bar-side, the aroma of deep-fried calamari wafting past our noses, we claim our second and final drinks — Claire’s now-established espresso martini and my Pale Ale — and linger over them at a secluded table beside the — is November 14 premature? — Christmas tree; before this, we’d opened our night with a white wine and a pint of Heineken, which I always forget is essentially European VB, though without its charismatic nose or middle-palate length.
Ambling through the brisk air into the Queen’s Head (my choice for this month) past a footpath table of chaps relaxed into their late-Friday residency, having parked our RAV4 on gently undulating, village-like Kermode Street after a ten-minute automotive crawl up Montefiore Hill — itself preceded by collecting Claire from the ghostly TAFE on Light Square — we begin the sixtieth edition of Mystery Pub.
‘I like jazz in this context,’ says Claire. ‘It’s creating a nice atmosphere in here.’ I nod. At HYMN, an upstairs bar on Grenfell Street, a smoky sax slithers above a mid-tempo, New York swagger. I try to pick the artist. Coltrane? Monk? I’m an enthusiast but hold no deep expertise in this genre. I wonder how well music catches the mood of a place. A Beatles song works almost anywhere, anytime — such is their irresistible charm and sparkle. Jazz can be petulant and angular like a prickly dinner guest. But not here, not now. The sax is warmly insulating.
The owner explains how his bar is a former law firm and glancing about the peaceful loft, we take in the stained glass and holy interplay of light and shadow. Distinctive church motifs surround us. All traces of legal smugness and imposing suits are gone. Two or three lone men are dotted about. They sip neat spirits, luxuriate at their tables, and then drift downstairs. A half-full pub never works — it’s better when these are swarming with parties or empty like a desolate street. Both present as tantalisingly intimate. Meanwhile, merchandise is available and beyond shirts and caps are HYMN branded guitar plectrums. Christmas is now sorted.
Claire and I then have a nostalgic, encompassing conversation about a photo we know well. It has become an emblem; though neither of us appear in it, it evokes a moment of almost unbearable intensity. With Pale Ale in hand, I was suddenly misty with grateful memory. Having just returned from a trip to Bali, we were planning a Mediterranean tour next autumn. However, as becomes increasingly clear, life unfolds mostly in our everyday and simple spaces. This is true late on an afternoon when we’re between things: work and home for me, and for Claire an intermission before an interpreting job at Town Hall.
Travelling together in this gilded cocoon, I hope it is another enriched scene we’ll fold into our mutual narrative. In a Friday twilight, HYMN feels tenderly triumphant.
Mystery Pub #58 was at The Archer, in North Adelaide. We enjoyed our time there at a small table by the front door. It’s a monthly event during which Claire and I happily immerse ourselves in ourselves while about us strangers come and go. We had hot chips.
Dadaism is an avant-garde intellectual movement. It began around the time of the First World War. Although not at first an art movement, it did influence art greatly for a time and Salvador Dali was a follower as was Samuel Beckett.
Buckethead is an American guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He grew up near Disneyland. In 2011, Buckethead started releasing albums in the Pikes series, mini-albums usually around thirty minutes in length. He has released 655 Pike albums, 175 of which are live albums.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres in circumference and as deep as 175 metres beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva.
Pulsing with purpose. Chirps off-stage. Little eruptions of colour, of movement. Bars and secret nooks and tiny eateries.
It and Leigh Street run off Hindley Street and these evolving clusters also show Adelaide’s bold new face. Not just the ever-sprouting steel and glass towers or modern bowl of the cricket ground. The fizz is affirming.
Claire instructed me kindly to ‘walk down the street’ — and I did, trusting her logistics. Stepping along the gray pedestrian lane, a voice called out to me. I know this better than a Beatles’ song.
The sky stretches upward as it can in late August, promising rebirth. It’s crisp — pyramidal heaters guard the doorway.
I’ve been summoned to a bar called Bckyrd. I gather wine and beer. We sit. It’s the bubble to which I’ve pinned my week — Claire’s hand warm like a winery fireplace.
As a linguistic device, Bckyrd appeals to me. It’s an example of consonantal abbreviation and is a marketing tool. Think of Tumblr, Flckr, or the Primal Scream album, XTRMNTR. Also known as disemvoweling (Freddy Krueger areas) or graphological deviation (worrying if suggested by your proctologist). Drop one of these terms into the chat when you’re next at the footy club.
Fairy lights above. Open sky. Three levels of Bckyrd, but we stay grounded. Can a bckyrd really have three stories?
Exchanging thoughts, little prayers to each other. Conversation like Sunday tennis — parabolic lobs, wayward shots, long rallies.
It’s a heartening hour. Tonight I’m Mcky Rndll. Vowels gone. Age gone. Almost.
As a kid I was often carsick, and the rubber grounding straps Dad dangled from the back of the XY Falcon didn’t help. My skin went clammy, my face green, and my stomach leapt like a cornered cat.
Winding our way to Mystery Pub reminded me of this.
Claire was the Mystery Pub chaperone for the month of June. To preserve its integrity, I was on the front seat with a scarf wrapped around my noggin. Looking like a Merino mummy, I was sightless, and my gizzard was gurgly. It was a notorious pre-pub theme-park ride.
In the city, Mystery Pub works by car or foot. But in the Adelaide Hills, as John Denver sweetly sang, country roads take me home — and they rarely lie about which pub’s waiting at the end.
Here in these wide, antipodean spaces, we’re all prisoner to the hardhearted truth of geography.
After a lengthy and nauseous crossing from our Birdwood digs, our car came to a stop. Yanking off my scarf, I blinked. Claire proclaimed, ‘Here we are. In Palmer.’ Home of granite outcrops including Bear Rock. Home to one hundred citizens. I flung open my door and gulped at the fresh air like a stranded goldfish.
Palmer! Mystery Pub had delivered a most surprising surprise.
I get a Pale Ale and Claire asks for a house white. Mine Host flees through a door (startlingly quick for an ample fellow) before reappearing with a glass of vino. Sipping, her face makes a grim assessment. With superior powers of deduction, Claire asserts that it must be, ‘Banrock Station. From a cask.’
We go outside to the veranda and take in the vanishing orange light.
I’d be happy to have misjudged the fellas sitting at the veranda table, adrift in a mountainous sea of discarded bingo tickets. Each bloke — there’s about ten of ’em — has a black drink in front of him: stout, Bundy, Coke and something. They all wear black beanies, black coats, and, near as I can tell, black jeans.
Bingo tickets were once central to country pubs. Sold at the bar, punters would buy a handful, hoping to peel off a winner. Each batch held four prized reds, worth $50 each — a tidy sum and once enough to buy a busload of beer.
The sharp-eyed punters — usually nursing a West End — let others burn through the duds. Then, like card sharks, they’d pounce. Spend $30, snag a couple of reds, walk off with a hundred. As my mate Dick used to say, ‘A nice earn.’ Looking again at the unsightly swell of bingo tickets, Apocalypse Now comes to mind when Captain Willard says to Colonel Kurtz, ‘I don’t see any method at all, sir.’
The blokes about the table talk in staccato ways — and all at once. But there’s laughter and warmth in their in half sentences. I catch the single newsworthy snippet. It’s from the gruff chap in the corner. He reveals, ‘Blue got a flat around lunchtime.’
With this Claire and I head inside.
The fire crackles along while there’s a flow of customers to and from the bar, ordering their dinner. Some dine in, others opt for takeaway. 80’s and 90’s ‘old school jams’ play on the TV until the VHS tape runs out. Sitting by a window, we flick through a tourist magazine and make a few amused observations.
We watch folks come and go, just like fictional Queensland bouncer and former Eastern Suburbs Rooster Les Norton at the Bondi Icebergs.
A painstakingly dressed woman presents at the bar to apologise for she and her husband being no-shows last Saturday. The barkeep, like the best of them, a social worker and bush psychologist, offers, ‘Yeah, well, it got to 6.30 and I thought — that’s unlike Marg and Blue (unsure at time of writing if this is flat-tyre Blue). Something must’ve cropped up.’
Marg replies. ‘The afternoon just got away from us. I’m so sorry.’ For atonement, she then buys a can of coke (to take away). Relationship repaired. Although an elementary exchange, it spoke of the rural values of mutual dependence and traditional courtesy. I remembered the country communities in which I’d happily lived.
Our week included visits to Lobethal, Mt Pleasant, Charleston. Palmer hadn’t been on the obvious itinerary — but then again, the best things often aren’t.
We return to the car. I throw my scarf on the back seat.
Each of us studies the lunch menu like it’s a sacred text, applies some unnecessary critical thinking, and in succession — as anticipated — orders a schnitzel. It’s a collective declaration of mateship, and an acknowledgement of being deep into our sixth decade. Growing up in Kapunda, we’ve a lengthy and easy friendship.
Outside’s blustery but we’re in the pub’s cosiness.
With the dining room’s blazing fireplace, pot belly stove in the front bar, and rib-ticklers (for her pleasure) soliciting purchase in the toilet’s vending machines ($2 each) there’s still much that appeals. Happy groups are dotted about the tables amidst a humming Thursday ambience.
In a world hurried by notifications, noise, and busyness, the Greenock pub resists performative velocity. Storytelling is our afternoon’s purpose and theme, and we’re now less about bedlam and more about meaning.
Chris (Rohde) tells us of his recent trip to Europe and Berlin, of steins and asparagus, and staying a drop-punt from Checkpoint Charlie. Of Copenhagen and the Tivoli Gardens. We also hear more about Chris and Letitia Hayward’s golfing and post-golfing explorations of Ireland, Scotland and London. All described as, ‘magnificent.’
A photo shoot’s happening in the neighbouring anteroom, and I spy etched glassware filled with wine the colour of ox blood, arranged in a pretty tableau. A silver reflecting umbrella illuminates the human and vino talent, and I nod into my ale at the prospect of a glossy double-page spread. It’s as deserving as any pub. I wonder if there’s a magazine in Germany called Schnitzels Monthly.
A log shifts in the fireplace, and there’s a scrape of cutlery. Easing my chair back, and with our beer rhythm wordlessly established, I fetch another pint of Coopers Draught for Lukey and a Pirate Life for me.
Chris (Hayward) continues his animated observations. ‘We found a great pub in Soho, and I thought that’d be our local for the week. But then we came across another that was even better!’
Our schnitzels arrive and these, too, are magnificent. Lukey says, ‘Good that everyone has a schnitzel. About time you all got with the programme.’ Pepper gravy sweetness wafts through the snug air along with the hot comfort of chips and steamed broccoli. These hearty plates — though probably not us — could star in the magazine shoot.
Talk accelerates to footy and the upcoming Kapunda Bombers premiership reunions. Teams from 1965, 1985, and 2005 will gather in the club. With this comes the mandatory story of Lukey’s stratospheric hanger in the 1985 grand final. It was a colossal mark but the sole VHS tape of the game is lost. I can see the back-slapping, and hear the bellowing laughter erupting above the din of the Dutton Park clubrooms. That the 2025 Bombers are struggling won’t matter one bit.
We consider relocating to the front bar but linger, preferring the stillness. I love how the Greenock pub is humbly and wilfully unrenovated. In middle life, competition yields to communion — and today and annually for us, this is a chapel. It hosts our companionship and remains a landscape for thought and gratitude.
This annual lunch is where we reconnect with younger versions of ourselves, even as we sit with our shifting adult responsibilities. It’s also a place to remember who we were — teenagers piling into dusty Holdens blasting Midnight Oil — and to marvel at how this whole scrappy, beautiful mess is turning out.
In this City of Churches, stained-glass adorns religious buildings but also those devoted to sinful pursuits. Some argue that pubs and places of worship offer the same functions, but the former attracts a better standard of employee.
The Arab Steed on Hutt Street is in the bohemian quarter of Adelaide and upon arrival I note the dreamy autumnal light refracting through the bar and am instantly gladdened. Announcing the pub was established in 1849 and depicting a galloping horse, the glass above the doors and windows elevates my hospitality expectations to stylish and sophisticated.
Claire and I then enjoy a Catholic hour of sorts—communal, confessional, and consisting partly of (holy) wine.
Late Saturday afternoon can be fraught in a boozer. It’s not our preferred Mystery Pub day and time, as it’s often a twilight when the lunchtime lunchers and piddled punters have departed, and the evening’s effervescence remains remote.
It can be a bleak, betwixt period of sludgy purposeless and ennui.
But inside’s a big table encircled by animated diners. They’re female, of a certain age, and generate a heartening front bar context. Strolling through on a quick Cook’s tour, I reach the TAB section.
The screens cycle from Randwick to Flemington and over to Ascot. A handful of rumpled blokes is cheerfully strategising their next bets while bemoaning their losses. Punting’s a narrative pursuit where the protagonist scripts their own saga of triumph and ruin, all dictated by huge horses and the tiny people perilously astride them.
Barkeep is young, beardy and kind. He asks what Claire’d like. ‘Just a glass of sauvignon blanc, thanks,’ comes her bright reply. I’ve scanned and evaluated the taps and say, ‘Tell me about the Ocean Alley Ale.’ He explains that it’s a new ‘collab’ between the Sydney psych rock band and Coopers that recently ‘dropped’. The lingo of yoof! I later read the beer’s, ‘a sessionable tropical pale ale that will set you and your best mates up for sunny afternoons that roll into balmy nights.’
For mid-April, it’s troublingly hot out (and in) and feels like January. However, the pub ceiling, veranda, and alfresco section by Hutt Street are garlanded with atmospheric strings of warmly glowing globes. This is an inviting setting, so we claim a footpath table. Adelaide pubs are notoriously indifferent regarding this, and all the guilty mine hosts should undertake a compulsory study tour of Fitzroy hotels in Melbourne to research evocative lighting design.
My heart’s then further a-flutter at the sight of an old-fashioned wooden refrigerated cabinet, fitted with chrome hinges and latches, giving it a vintage, almost maritime aesthetic. The top section glows with a striking blue light through glass-fronted doors, illuminating a neat arrangement of beer glasses inside. Beneath this, a row of solid wooden doors with metal fittings suggests older refrigeration units—reminiscent of the iceboxes of earlier decades.
I recall how all the pubs in Kapunda’s main street had these—the Clare Castle, Sir John Franklin, North Kapunda (recently kaput) and the Prince of Wales. I can still hear the affable closing and opening clangs as frosty glasses were retrieved following cricket on those now hazy Saturdays.
To the right, a rack is filled with classic Aussie snack options, including Smith’s chips and Twisties, adding a colourful contrast and casual charm. The whole scene is nostalgic and cinematic with Australiana, blending functional hospitality with retro ambiance.
Meanwhile, I get Claire an espresso martini and myself another Ocean Alley Ale. How is my beer? A zesty, fruity, summery cup although it’s of concern that Coopers now need to so nakedly chase the kids. The old world’s racing away—maybe in a canter, maybe flat out.
We chat of work, play, loved ones and (checks notes) make mandatory mention of The Pina Colada Song. Today included an Auslan job for Claire at Gather Round, preceded by an earlier session interpreting for a beekeeper down at Pennington. How uniquely clever!
Me? I mowed the lawn (badly).
With the stained-glass light suspended gently like the final note of a hymn, we head home from the Arab Steed for hot chips, our Saturday evening lounge, and The White Lotus.
And as we’d driven to work in Claire’s RAV4 it made complete sense to go home in this instead of inexplicably abandoning the vehicle in the pub’s undercroft carpark like an orphaned hatchback and take the tram.[5]
[1] Until recently it was known as the Bombay Bicycle Club, a nod to the hotel’s little-known popularity as a setting for many Bollywood musicals. None, however, with Brett Lee.
[2] Claire enjoyed a sparkling white (champagne) and an espresso martini while your limerickeer had two Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ales which can be quicker to drink than to type with two fingers.
[3] The pub offers no official Happy Hour(s) but does have really good prices, all day, every day.
[4] Notable conversation topics include Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) – A UNESCO World Heritage Site; a stunning railway station built in 1887, blending Victorian Gothic and traditional Indian architecture, and the surprising joys of porridge.
[5] May not adhere to traditional limerick final line metre.
I’m about seven. We—Mum and Dad and my sister, Jill— were visiting people at their Yorke Peninsula shack. I don’t recall the afternoon’s crabbing but gathering later about a table in the childhood-hot evening. On it were long necks of Southwark while a black and white tele flickered against the fibro. The adults bashed the crimson crabs and busted open the tepid claws.
I could smell vinegar.
This table was Formica and from the 60’s—today doubtless worth a minor fortune with its chrome trim and retro mint top.
Just like the elegantly vintage tables now out the back of The Wheaty, Adelaide’s finest music pub. A large floor lamp’s on the side of the stage—turned off and quiet. Bulbous, orange lightshades dangle from the ceiling, evoking Disco Inferno and its eleven-minute polyester frenzy. Galvanised iron clads the northern wall. The space represents as a twilight Sunday backyard crossed with a 70’s lounge room.
I can almost smell fondue.
Pizza (pepperoni) from the food van and craft beers are our prelude. Their website boasts there’s, ‘no skinny lagers or low-carb blands.’
We’re here for Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
*
The funniest nominal group in music is at the end of this verse. Using the head noun: cowboy it employs pre-modifiers in an amusing string of adjectives. It’s central to Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Where I Hide—a narrative song that’s part stand-up routine, part wish fulfilment.
Anyway People started to talk Started to talk about this Legendary mysterious loudmouth invisible rock singer cowboy
*
I’m rereading Catcher in the Rye and tonight’s music conjures Salinger. Short stories in sonic form. Graney loves intertextuality—his song Warren Oates nods to Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia—and I make my own connections.
Holden Caulfield’s narration comes to mind
He wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was “The Secret Goldfish.” It was about this little kid that wouldn’t let anybody look at his goldfish because he’d bought it with his own money. It killed me.
*
Irony works best on Thursdays.
Certainly not Mondays. Fittingly, we are at The Wheaty on a Thursday, Valentine’s Day eve. Our musical host, Dave Graney doesn’t weaponize irony, he seduces us with it.
How does his appearance amplify this? A dinner suit winking to the safari style. Moustache channelling the pencilled elegance of Clark Gable.
Completing the mythic persona, the hat.
Every so often his voice drifts to Sprechgesang— the German term for half-sung, half-spoken delivery. This elevates the irony.
Once, Graney woke up and immediately thought about how the American band Wilco can’t itself wonder vaguely about Wilco when he inescapably does. Is this American cultural hegemony? We then hear Wilco Got No Wilco.
Festival favourites – out of shape guys in denim Happy to be home – happy to be there Romans! Legionnaires! We saw the white sails
Between songs he muses, ‘I have many guitars.’ Dave then turns to his wife Clare, behind her drum kit, and says, ‘Clare’s playing her B drum kit. The A kit’s home in the studio.’
Turning to the bassist, he asks, ‘Is this your A bass?’ Then, pre-emptively, with a flourish that borders the reverential and the sardonic: ‘It’s his John Cougar Mellencamp bass.’
*
Black Statesman ‘73
Caprice.
Leaded.
The thrilling opening of Feelin’ Kinda Sporty is a triumph of nostalgic parochialism. It’s as Australian as Skyhooks. Or Gough. Or begrudging affection for the Gold Coast.
Is Graney applauding that this marque gulped leaded (super) petrol? I hope so. I bet he once drove a lumpen V8.
What a car.
*
Out the back of The Wheaty we have an evening of wry storytelling. But it’s also an invitation—to view our prickly world through Graney’s secluded and exceptional window.
His lyrics suggest imagist poetry which originated a century ago: lean, distilled, potent.
Its famed example is Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro. This two-line couplet captures a scene of bustling commuters waiting on a train platform:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough
*
Tonight, there are no girl meets boy stories. But there’s affection of a different, uncommon kind. Commemorations of the minor and minuscule. We take excursions into Graney’s head and its sometimes lurid, always lush, jungle.
The second song of the encore is Night of the Wolverine, featuring this cinematic pan. Memoir or fiction? It doesn’t matter.
Free beer and chicken man, and hotel rooms Hired cars, alligator boots A scarf over the lampshade Black tape over the window
Graney’s music chaperones us to places humid and strange—where the ceiling fan’s revolving slowly, ice clinks in a frosty tumbler, and irony is a welcome, surprising seductress.
Claire’s hat blew off and the man passing us on the footpath bent to pick it up.
I also stooped over, but Claire was quicker than both of us. He was a tall, older fellow, wearing boots and jeans. Elegant. As we all straightened up— in slow motion it might’ve been a quirky moment in a music video for a band like The Go-Betweens— I caught his eye and felt an instant rush of excitement.
Almost immediately I whispered to Claire, ‘Did you see who that was?’ No was her reply.
With festive excitement I announced, ‘It was Rampaging Roy Slaven!’ Or rather John Doyle, who plays the much-loved sporting colossus (and trainer of equine star, Rooting King).
In our shared instant Roy shot me the look I’ve seen a thousand times on TV—the eye-twinkling, self-aware grin when he’s already amused by what’s to come and hopes you will be too.
Within our first hour in Balmain I had the best Sydney experience. Roy!
*
With time before check-in, we explore Balmain’s snaking thoroughfare, Darling Street. It was hot with punishing humidity and sinister sun. For days, my shirt—and probably night tools too as described by Roy and HG—would be soaked. In the airconditioned library I found the New Yorker and read a Haruki Murakami story while Claire browsed.
Back outside there’s dogs everywhere. Friendly, trotty ones who are nearly laughing. Flopping by their owner’s feet at sidewalk cafes and, as we later learn, spreading across the ancient carpet of pubs. How great? Dogs aren’t generally resident in Adelaide boozers.
Coming from tree-lined Darling Street is a constant, subtropical score of birdsong with happy chirping suggestive of alfresco evenings and catchy melodies. It’s a bubbling soundscape of butcherbirds, boobooks, and frogmouths.
*
In the heart of the village is The Cricketers pub. Inside’s cosy like a lounge room. Travel’s core principle is to mimic the locals, so I buy my debut schooner of Resch’s. Sipping tentatively, Claire says, ‘How’s your beer?’ Taking another slurp I reply, ‘I think it similar to West End Draught. It serves a purpose.’ Claire has a utilitarian white wine.
The patrons seem happy to be in and unlike some Friday night crowds, it’s not just fugitive old men. There are agreeable groups of young and not-so gathered and the murmuring percolates up from the dappled tables.
On the bar is a tips jar filled with gooey pink liquid, Claire’s told, to repel thieves from nicking the donated coins.
*
Balmain’s best on foot, so Claire and I saunter along Mort Street to the ferry, noting the conical but dead Christmas trees on the footpaths and bougainvillea too. The trees are erupting with reddish pink flowers. The carpet of colour punctuating our stroll like a minor film awards event.
The ferry wharf houses a community library with hundreds of books lining the wooden walls. What an emblem of civility and hope! My joy deepens when I note that it’s also catalogued. My eye’s caught by the weighty tome, London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. It’s long tempted me but being restricted to hand luggage renders its 884 pages unlikely to accompany me home. Might be a retirement book. When we next visit it’s gone.
The obsolete Maths and medical textbooks remain available.
*
My run streak continues (624) and Sunday morning I jog along Darling Street through the village. How fantastic to live here? Flog the car, walk to the ferry, waddle to the pub!
Passing the Hill of Content bookshop I’m struck by the cleverness of the name with (apologies for this) content being happiness and content also being included material. Just across the street is another bookshop. What a literate and literary location is Balmain!
After the crest of the first hill emerges the appealing London pub with its Sparkling Ale sign nodding under the veranda: it was once owned by the Coopers family. I also take interest in the Balmain Bowls Club (oldest in NSW: 1880) which offers jazz on Sunday afternoons, and a chicken schnitzel on Thursdays for $19.90. I vow to take a photo and send it to Mum and Dad (for decades he’s played first division for Nuriootpa).
Hearing St Mary’s church before I see it, the pumping pipes of the organ and resultant hymn swells over the bougainvillea.
The East Village Hotel is almost hiding from view, crouched by the boulevard although there’s tables on the footpath and empty beer barrels squatting in the lane. It’s picturesque, melts into the streetscape and could be in Hertfordshire.
I’ve gone up and down two serious hills, and my unaccustomed calves are mooing. Back home in Glenelg, the terrain’s cricket pitch flat. Approaching the wharf, I get a glimpse of a sail and pylon, so cross the street and there it is. Along the silent horizon’s a panorama of the bridge.
Falling down the sheer incline, I arrive at Balmain East ferry wharf, peer through to Barangaroo and the Crown Casino. Nicknamed Packer’s Pecker, the architecture’s a combination of blatantly penile and Dubai-lite aesthetics.
*
With all the water surrounding us on the Balmain peninsula we needed to get wet, so Claire suggests the Dawn Fraser Baths for a cooling splash. On our way home we spot the neighbouring Riverside pub where she was the publican for a stretch. She truly was the queen of all things liquefied, our Dawn.
Popped into the Unity Hall pub where the Labour Party has deep connection. Claire asks (reasonably), ‘Do you have a wine list?’ The youngster says, ‘No but tell me what you’re after.’ It’s a pub fiercely for locals (men) and we overhear a lively chap announcing like he’d just mowed the lawn that he’d, ‘been arrested on Saturday.’
*
Following a BBQ at Claire’s brother Matt’s we wander home along an insect-buzzing and hot Darling Street.
Tomorrow night two inches of rain will fall from the swollen skies. The village of Balmain is to be awash.
A waterfall of noise is tumbling off the balcony of The Colley.
From the footpath I cannot see our spot, but the sonic assault means it’s already unappealing despite the promised view across Moseley Square and the twinkling ocean.
We’ve a table booked.
Claire and I are here to talk over a couple beers with dear old friends, Bazz and Annie, Paul and Ali, and Mozz and Kath.
During the previous month I made multiple calls to The Colley to reserve and confirm our balcony booking. Mystery Pub* demands administrative effort especially as tonight we’ve special guests. An email was promised by the pub on each occasion.
Nothing bothered my expectant inbox.
Racing towards the Colley’s stairs (you know what I mean) we’re stopped by the authoritative hand of a bouncer. Black trousers, straining shirt and ancient Nikes block our path. ‘There’s no thongs in here, sorry.’
No thongs in a beachside pub?
It’s like making a po-faced demand that all who come to your Sunday BBQ wear a collar and tie.
No mention of this during any of my careful phone calls or those sweetly literate and informative emails that the pub never feckin’ sent.
Just a short time ago, the Colley had a different name, and the front bar gleefully threw open its doors around dawn, welcoming in all every ratty type for whom thongs were aspirational wedding attire. There wasn’t even a ‘No shoes, no service’ sign.
We’ve promoted our gathering as Mystery Pub* and suddenly for Claire and me it is too. I panic: where will we go? The Moseley? Rush around to the Broady? Surely not the Watermark!
On the Mystery Pub* satisfaction scale the Colley scores 3/100.
Like a trusty old B grade footballer, the Grand could be the last chance saloon. We stride down there past Mama Carmela’s (serving Italian cuisine since 1974). Security waves us in, the (evidently) unspeakable horror of our menacing thongs (used by FBI profilers as a key indicator of future trouble) in full sight.
It’s quiet (sort of), so we claim a table by a front window. Outside, the pines are buffeted by the stiff wind. Yes, it’s much better here than on the (moronically pretentious) pub balcony back up the street.
Paul and Ali are back from Abu Dhabi, and we hear of their plans. For them, too, they’re racing towards retirement. How did this happen? Minutes ago, it was the New Year’s Eve of 1994, and they were getting married on a hot afternoon in Kimba.
Mozz and Kath are here from Pinnaroo, having driven up for the night. On Sunday Mozz reaches a landmark (pension) birthday. This prompts much discussion about their intentions. As always, what do these things also mean for us?
Annie and Bazz now live in Moonta Bay with their dog, Reggie, and some (non-laying) chooks. We’re all here for a Christmas drink (not the chooks). Bazz, Annie, Ali, Kath, and Claire gather around the table and chat away. Our group variously enjoys Pirate Life, sparkling white and shiraz among other refreshments.
Mozz, Paul and I are on our feet by the windows. In groups, I like to stand in the pub. It seems more conducive to conversation. We discuss superannuation, work, and our offspring before moving to travel.
‘How’d you find Geelong?’ I ask Mozz.
‘A bit subdued. Not much going on. Pubs were unremarkable.’
I offer, ‘I liked the yacht club but didn’t see much else. The waterfront looked good.’
Our discussion migrates to Melbourne. ‘Jed’s a big North Melbourne fan so last visit we went to Arden Street,’ Paul suggests. ‘Walked straight in off the street. Sensational.’
‘Footy’s everywhere there. I love it.’ I note of the Victorian capital.
After an hour we’re done. We’re all heading around home so on the way, pizza’s collected.
There’s nothing quite like the deep enveloping comfort of old friends. Moving through our decades and across the country and planet, we’ve maintained connections. Our veranda chat’s funny and warmhearted and familiar.
Historian (and darts champion) Herodotus once noted, ‘Pubs are markedly different at 5pm on a Sunday compared with after work on Friday.’
The former timeslot is disposed towards anticipation and the later, reflection. Friday pub crowds are singular of purpose whereas those in the Woodville Hotel as Claire and I stroll through late Sunday seem assembled for a variety of intentions.
The Terrace is new to the pub, and its roof, open. This affords the place far more exhilaration than it probably should. Feeling the sun upon your face in a pub is somehow elevated magic and any breeze drifting through a hotel courtyard becomes bewitching and rare.
By a Port Road window there’s a gathering, each woman with an adjacent and empty cocktail glass. A late afternoon malaise has drooped over these patrons. Maybe it was the cocktail they thought they wanted but didn’t actually need or possibly it’s the Sunday night dreads that haunt working folk like prodding ghouls.
A fellow with a prosthetic-leg scurries past and such is the fluency and speed of his gait that if he’d been wearing trousers, we wouldn’t know he’d an artificial limb. Science has done well here—now if we could hurry up with hoverboards.
All clad in basketball singlets, a team of young bucks saunters in from their Sunday fixture. I suspect the match is just a pretext to the post-game pub visit as it’s difficult to tell if they won or lost. I think this is a good approach. They’re all energy and young buzz. A few have moustaches and these have gone beyond irony and are now just fashion.
Earlier, a couple had come in, ordered drinks and wedges, and without difficulty, claimed a table close to the bar. They chat easily and constantly, ranging over topics both personal and global.
The woman detects a plastic sign on a neighbouring table. It says: $5 schnitzels. The man goes over, interrogates it and learns that on Tuesdays folks can dine on schnitzels with the second offered at the advertised price of $5. I can imagine Protagoras being excited by this.
Back up at the bar and in the proliferation of beer taps, the man notes both Coopers Vintage Ale and Sparkling Ale. On this drowsy afternoon he has no use for either but is reassured by their presence. It’s nice to know they’re available. This reminds him of Nick, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, who writes
My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
A second drink for the woman is a Frozen Key Lime Pie cocktail. The ingredients include a dehydrated lime wheel— surely not a DLW—which was formerly known to most as a slice of lime. Linguistic dishonesty continues apace, even in the pub.
The bowl of wedges arrives, and this is also exciting beyond comprehension. How on earth did sweet chilli sauce and sour cream come to be the preferred condiments for this? It must’ve been a party accident, likely in a share house of law/arts undergraduates.
And so, this couple—your correspondent and his wife Claire—drove home, pleasantly buoyed by a Socratic hour in the hitherto unvisited Woodville Hotel.
Friday afternoon and we’re strolling through the heart of the city — on the edge of the weekend, the edge of gentle possibility, and the edge of restoration.
Claire and I pass the infinitely charismatic Malls Balls and enter Rundle Street before making a sharp left at, but not into, the Exeter.
Claiming a corner booth, I glance outside and consider the Elephant is that rarest of boozers — it’s not on a street but a pedestrian lane. In contrast to my previous visit in July of 1997, it’s now bright and airy as opposed to somber and gloomy, presumably in former imitation of a Tottenham tavern.
That was just prior to the Ashes when Mark Taylor and his team thrashed England, again. Back then a group of Kapunda chaps engaged in a Wednesday ritual called Schnitzel Club during which we visited over one hundred and fifty pubs.
At that point, the England cricket team was sponsored by Tetley’s Bitter Beer and as a British boozer, the Elephant had it on tap. To heighten the pre-Ashes anticipation, we ordered one each.
How was it?
It was tepid like Tibooburra tap water and stank (tasted is too generous a verb) of late-capitalism collapse, murky Yorkshire moors and Thatcherite despair. It remains the worst beverage I’ve ever put in my (chiefly) undeserving gob.
Tonight, gladly, I’ve the immeasurably superior Coopers Pale Ale and my imperial pint is only $9. Claire has a white wine. We discuss the usual suspects — work, family and how Escape to the Country might later unfold (with the scarcely disguised disappointment of the house hunters, the host, or most likely, both).
There’s a lively (non-suit) crowd in and the atmosphere’s propulsive. A DJ is on the decks and doing a fine job. He plays an underappreciated track by The Beatles in ‘The Night Before’ before spinning Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’ with its decidedly cinematic opening and Arabesque atmospherics
In the mornin’ you go gunnin’ for the man who stole your water
And you fire till he is done in, but they catch you at the border
Fireball Fridays have arrived, so Claire buys one (it may have been a double, Your Honour) with a squelch of ginger beer. It’s whisky with hot, spicy cinnamon and accordingly, the late afternoon sun bends in through the ample windows. It’s an immediate hit.
Our Mystery Pub fare (ye olde fayre) is sausage rolls with fennel, and arancini balls. The plates come with three items, so having had one of each we agree to divide the remainder. Claire says, ‘Which one would you like?’ and I reply, ‘I think you know.’
And she does.
Concluding our second cups, we press out into the sparkling evening. Our weekend’s underway.
My Dunlop Volleys bundle me into the pub and across the dark floorboards of the front bar. Happy Hour started at 4.30, but today this is too early.
Up to the altar to order my favourite beer of the entire calendar. Mine host smiles and asks, ‘What can I get you?’ I scrutinise the taps. Coopers? Something European? This changes from year to year. I’m flexible but decide. ‘I’d love a Pirate Life.’ It’s an occasion ale.
I’m in the Royal Family Hotel on Port Elliot’s main drag and (in Dale Kerrigan voice) this is my favourite pub visit of the year.
There are other much treasured annual beers such as the introductory ale of the Adelaide Test, Christmas Day festive cheer, and that nostalgic one in Kapunda at the Prince of Wales but tonight’s is especially elevated. It’s warm and familiar like a Beatles record.
2023
This is my annual retreat during which my hobbies come together: writing, reading, listening to music, and running. My established 5k route is across to The Strand and past the boutiques, and book and record shop then along Main Street with its brief knot of businesses and out to the hardware store on the Victor Harbor Road. Turning around I cut up Rosetta Terrace and then slip home by the booming surf.
The Royal Family’s beer garden is broad, with spongy lawn pushing out towards the low perimeter fence. There’s an immense pine so evocative of the salty coast and vast wooden tables have congregated around this tree, almost as if in prayer. Alongside are accompanying benches while above these are boxy umbrellas, leaning at jaunty angles as their blue and blackness smears across the pale sky.
I’ve spent the afternoon on the townhouse deck overlooking Knight’s Beach and its tumbling, roaring waves. Immersing myself in some words I’ve located a few obedient ones and invited these onto my page.
Peering across the pub grounds with lager in paw, I’ve gratitude for my gentle surrounds as well as our lengthening days with the sun now setting beyond six. Like so much of life, the encompassing context shapes the experience, and so it is for this restorative pub visit.
All is sunny.
These three days represent the longest unbroken stretch I have annually in just my own company and it’s productive, refreshing, and introspective.
But by Friday I’m keen for Claire to arrive. We’ve much to discuss and I’ll have a story for her.
She was one in a million So there’s five more just in New South Wales
This is from the song, ‘Up Against the Wall’ by The Whitlams and stick with me as I connect it arithmetically, if not desperately, to The Hotel Royal in the Adelaide suburb of Torrensville. On Henley Beach Road, of all places.
So, nationwide, how many Royal Hotels are there?
As Deane Hutton used to say on The Curiosity Show, ‘I’m glad you asked’ and I can tell you in Australia there’s roughly 240. In the 19th century even Bendigo had four such pubs: Royal Duke, the Royal George, The Royal and the Royal Mail which made bewildering the generalised if earnest invitation, ‘Let’s meet at the Royal.’ Especially if all communication was by telegram.
On this 26-degree winter’s afternoon (weather both welcome and existentially troubling) Claire and I navigate through this renovated pub to the Back Pocket sports bar. The roof’s open, there’s chirpy folk about, and a girl’s strumming a guitar and applying herself to some Friday tunes.
Having secured our corner table, I set off bravely to buy booze and returned in minor triumph with a Sauvignon Blanc (never to be described on this website as Savvy B. Oops, failed.) and one of my preferred occasion beers, a Stone and Wood Pacific Ale. However, while at the bar I had this conversation.
Me: I’m unsure what beer to buy.
Barkeep: Hahn Super Dry is only $9.
Me: It’d still be over-priced if it was a dollar.
Barkeep: Oh.
Pleasingly, our chosen drinks were comforting if unspectacular. Festooned across the walls on the TV screens, Fox Footy talking heads ‘provided’ pre-game ‘content.’ Mercifully, the sound was on mute.
On the ceiling were some electrical appliances which rank highly for me. Yes, I know, the accurately and funnily named, Big Ass Fans. While these were still, it was of considerable comfort to see them sitting above us with quiet majesty. Next time you’re at the Adelaide Oval (or in The Hotel Royal) check them out for these are truly Big Ass Fans.
With, ‘I was tired of my lady’ the singer then played ‘Escape (The Pina Colada Song)’ which despite its depiction of a largely grim marital situation, I always find amusing. I do enjoy some aural pub nostalgia, and this ranks highly on my list of 1970’s one-hit wonders.
I’m not much into health food and I’m not into champagne so it was timely that our plate of wedges then appeared. Like that first opening of your motel room door, the delightful arrival of food’s one of hospitality’s petite joys.
I tried to order the wedges (Wedges? We don’t need no stinkin’ wedges!) using a QR code but our table number wasn’t included so I had to walk upwards of seven metres to the inside bar and place the order by actually speaking to the barkeep. I thought of sending a telegram but this wasn’t on the app. No-one was harmed and you’ll be relieved to learn, I did recover. Can’t life in 2024 be tricky?
They were, I’m thrilled to report, most succulent spud segments.
The bacchanalia continued with Claire then buying me a second beer and an espresso martini for her kindly self. Our corner table now resembled Caligula’s palace on a most raucous Thursday (well, not entirely). What an hour we were having!
With that twilight moment arriving when the afternoon folk depart and the dinner crowd’s still in transit, we took our leave. Mystery Pub was done for August.
We had things to do, and in front of Escape to the Country with its reception rooms and chickens and ruddy-cheeked village lifestyle, I was scheduled to take my obligatory Friday nap.
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