Category Archives: pub reviews

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Conquer Mount Remarkable, collapse in the North Star Pub

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Farewelling our car at the North Star pub, we march off past the tennis courts and dissect the caravan park with all those swarming bikes.

Claire and I confess later to each other that we both instantly and secretly anticipated our return in several hours and couldn’t wait to plonk ourselves down in the pub. Is this wrong, we asked ourselves? No, we agree, it is not.

The sign at the trail head suggests four hours return for the 13.5k, ascending on the North trail and descending along the South. With some experience in traipsing about, we declare brazenly that we’ll be back in three. Fonzie couldn’t say it, but we can: we were wrong, and the official hiking information was correctamundo.

Trudging off with a vague sense of excitement but also looming doom, our hike quickly became demanding with wide sweeps of scree falls and narrow paths from which a tumble would send one cartwheeling down the slope a hundred feet. That’d be a messy opening to our weekend.

However, we enjoy views over the neat town and east to dehydrated Booleroo Centre (no Word, not Bolero).

After an hour, Claire proposes a mandarin stop to rejuvenate us. We later have a lollipop intermission and to the dismay of my wife mine’s gone in less than a minute. I nibble at lollipops like a rabbit.

As we see yet another long stretch of path ahead, dispiriting moments occur. These weren’t helped by signposts marking the distance to go with my inner voice – or maybe it was my spoken one – saying things like, ‘How the actual fuck can it still be three kilometers to the top?’ Tantrums were close, I think.

We arrive at the summit. We rest a moment and take photos, wanting evidence of this for any legal action.

There’s a sturdy historical monument. It notes that Edward John Eyre announced, ‘I name this Mount Remarkable’ to which I’m confident his colleague replied, ‘Mate, I’m guessing you’ve not been to the Himalayas? El Capitan in Yosemite? Or as American band Toto will sing in a century or so, Kilimanjaro (which) rises like Olympus above the Serengeti?’ Still, good on you, EJE.

Beginning our descent of 7.5 kilometres at 3.45pm, we reward ourselves with scroggin, which I scoop into my noggin. Thank you, Claire although I prefer the chocolate over the fruity bits.

We’re booked for the early dining session (5.30pm sharp) in the North Star pub. But we’re now in our very own reality TV show, competing against a cruel countdown clock. Will our heroes make it to the pub on time? Will they run out of scroggin? Will the guttural yelps of an industrial-sized sulk (me) wail out across the twilight?

To lighten our exertions, Claire sings a few kids camping songs and I say to her, ‘You should’ve hosted Play School.’ And, of course, I’m right, for she combines many showbiz talents and a fetching on-screen presence (as is already known). It’s a lovely interlude.

During the final two kilometres, our knees and hips and backs become personified and they’re not at all happy with us.

In the rising gloom and scrubby murk, I ring the pub to let them know we’ll be late. Louise says that’ll be fine. We later learn from the innkeeper, the abrupt and matronly, Jude/Rhonda/Gladys (Glad) that this is not the case.

*

Following our four-hour exercise episode, we swap our running shoes for boots (I have a sensible and incurable fear of sneans) and with unprecedented relief, lean on the front door.

It’s immediately engaging with a long bar, roaring fire, and rustic décor. Wool bales draped from the ceiling. Lots of iron. Floorboards, not sticky carpet. Bursting with folk from the Fat Tyre Festival. Are they cyclists or are they bikers? Invariably with beanies atop their crania, there’s a communal buzz. By the door someone’s selling raffle tickets.

We’re at table 2 and have never been so excited by the unpretentious, restorative joy of chairs. Easing into one is a Buddhist moment. For our knees, hips and (lower) backs we take hors d’oeuvres of anti-inflammatories and painkillers.

Refreshments. Pale Ale for self and Claire requests a sauvignon blanc, which is served in a 1970’s wine glass- the kind you might’ve received as a bonus with a (K-Tel) fondue set.

We evaluate our Mount Remarkable experience and finally, here’s the joy: the retrospective fun, the shared enterprise and how (as Clint Eastwood says) we’ve kept out the old man and old woman, at least for another day. Did I mention how after fifteen taxing kilometers we’re enjoying the chairs? Profoundly?

Having placed our order of chickpea curry and a burger with the aforementioned Jude/Rhonda/Gladys (Glad) she made it clear we need to vacate our table by 7pm, for the next session of diners. The subtext is gruff (like the ascent of Mount Remarkable) but the food’s good.

It’s been an afternoon.

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Mystery Pub: The Curious Case of the King William Hotel

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‘What’s this King William pub?’ I hear you inquire. As Daryl Somers used to remark, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The CBD has a new boozer but is it just the old Ambassadors tarted up and rebadged? We were about to find out.

I’ve limited recollection of the former tavern but know it was one patronised by our old school friend Davo when he wasn’t wading through an elongated Friday lunch at The Griffins Head. Come to think of it, not a traditional culinary meal as I’m confident Davo doesn’t eat food.

Claire suffered a morning blowout on her acutely heeled shoe and like the Better Home and Gardens craft-segment host she secretly aspires to be, taped it up with clandestine assistance from some borrowed office supplies. It was fortunate that we only needed a brisk stroll from her Light Square workplace and so the only victim was the reduced opportunity for mystery to build for Mystery Pub (a key ingredient), but like Tom and Daisy in The Great Gatsby, neither of us cared.

Aggregated on the wooden bar were three softly glowing lamps offering unexpected contribution to the ambiance. Adelaide pubs are over lit (fluoro the darkest crime, ironically) and could learn from the moody atmospherics of hotels in Melbourne’s Fitzroy. Once, inside two evenings I visited ten of these for research purposes although the resultant scientific paper remains troublingly unpublished or even peer reviewed.

Featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I lately read ‘The Hound of The Baskervilles’ and wondered what the Londoner sleuths would make of the pub’s beer situation. I probed, ‘Why don’t you have Coopers Pale Ale on tap?’ Mine host retorted, ‘We’re having trouble getting any.’ Peculiar, I thought, doffing my woollen cap, and extracting a pipe from the pocket of my houndstooth jacket. Noticing my appearance in the barroom mirror I was baffled to observe that in the hour since leaving my employment I’d grown a dapper, entirely Edwardian, moustache.

Safely in the beer garden there was however a sharp smell of fresh paint and utilising my detective skills I rapidly deduced that a person or persons had applied tint to the walls, probably during this past day. Inspecting the exposed bricks and decorative ladders which added to the interior design, we procured a table and during our two-drink sojourn, multitudes of Crows fans arrived with sunny expectation upon their faces, and this proved, of course, to be wholly without logic or reward.

The relationship between text and context is at its most fascinating when the boundary between these is indistinguishable. If the pub was our text and the context was our discourse, I then relished that fantastic experience of the immediate surroundings essentially vanishing as Claire recounted several items from her day. This was a delight.

A rotund troubadour then commenced a set of songs on his guitar to which he added his unexceptional singing. He played Vance Joy’s ubiquitous ‘Riptide’ and later, ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ by the Beatles. While it incorporates splendid sitar moments from George Harrison, I newly learnt that my wife finds little value in this tune and admit that it wouldn’t make my top fifty of the Liverpudlians. Their number one? ‘And Your Bird Can Sing.’

Our scrumptious but wretchedly delayed potato dinner devoured, we farewelled the ghastly paint and the visible bricks and the now vanished musician and the ghostly lamps and the lack of kegged Coopers beer and ventured once more into the pulsing, discordant Friday city.

Alighting onto the footpath I said to Claire, ‘Careful in those shoes.’

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Mystery Pub: bung fritz, beanbags and Botched

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Mystery Pub was on Sunday afternoon at the Marion Hotel, but it’s mostly been at the working week’s end. There are cultural and atmospheric contrasts between the timeslots with Friday about dusty boots and yelling men in orange set among menacing urgency.

However, Sunday’s often a day for family functions in the pub and we chat with a former colleague attending his niece’s farewell. She’s eighteen and going to Sydney to study dance.

Prior to this monthly excursion Claire and I made our annual investigation of the Brighton Sculptures. Along the esplanade is a row of wrought and welded stuff, made from glass, timber, and metals. We’re gently prodded by the creations, and each comes with a description penned by the artist. One read:

The artwork embodies an environmental consciousness, highlighting the interplay between human and more-than-human temporalities within the material world

I am concerned that this asks too much of corrugated iron.

Prior to this we visited the Glenelg Air-Raid shelter. As with many of these in Adelaide it’s situated by an oval. We learned that during WW2 the ovals were a mustering point. If required people would then have been bussed out of the city and on such dark trips were permitted only one type of sandwich: cheese or egg. It was instructively sombre.

Prior to that I watched San Francisco beat Green Bay in the NFL Divisional Playoffs. While I’m a Denver Broncos supporter I’ve affection for the 49ers as they were great when I was a kid. I recall the stentorian commentator Pat Summerall and his iconic, ‘Montana……Rice……touchdown.’

Prior to this I ran six kilometres to the Adelaide Sailing club and back. It’s hosting the World Regatta Championship and I was disappointed to not spot bobbing on the briny the Caddyshack tub, Flying Wasp, or the yacht, Unsinkable 2.

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Saturday evening was balmy, so we plonked our beanbags on the back lawn for The Ringer podcast on the terrific film, The Big Chill. Sprawling over 120 minutes it included astute dialogue on the opening scenes of Alex’s funeral and wake. This sequence, soundtracked by the Rolling Stones’ classic, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ is my favourite song use in a movie.

Earlier we slipped into the cinema for The Holdovers, and I liked the protagonist’s line, ‘life’s like a hen-house ladder: shitty and short.’

Earlier still, one of the year’s smallgoods highlights was the annual running of the (time-honoured) Bung Fritz Cup at Gawler in the uproarious timeslot of 1.02pm. The numbers were: 1, 6, 2. But you probably knew this.

Yet even earlier around the Patawalonga I undertook my weekly parkrun (#51) and thought I did well although the official clock indicated a muddling amble.

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The Marion Hotel’s heart is The Garden. It features a large tree, and we do like a beer garden built around a tree. There are a few pubs which claim this although I was dismayed that the Broady’s beloved frangipani tree was felled recently due to ill-health (the tree, not the publican). These charming surrounds reminded me of Australian Crawl’s, ‘Beautiful People’ with its lyric, ‘the garden’s full of furniture, the house is full of plants.’

On a wall were two bedsheet-sized TV screens and surprisingly both were dark. In a pub when was the last time you saw this? However, undistinguished music was bleating rowdily, and I finally guessed it was Keith Urban’s Greatest Hit, on repeat.

In a Mystery Pub first, we had the dinner in The Garden with a veggie patch bowl for Claire and a beef schnitzel for me. Our flashing buzzer nagged us to collect our meals immediately and slightly aggrieved, I wondered if it was akin to self-checkout at a supermarket. Frowning, I vowed to next time put through Lady Finger bananas as loose carrots.

Furthermore, will future bartenders only be apparitions? Will our pub experience devolve into humming dispensers squirting one’s beverage like a dystopian bovine teat? Swipe your details and stick a cup under an unappetising nozzle?

Is this already a thing in Japanese train stations?

After a weekend of cultural immersion, we then raced home for Botched.

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Merry Mystery Pub-mas from Club Marion

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1. The Club Marion website declares:

Happy Hours

Sunday – Thursday’s: 4:30pm to 5:30pm

Friday’s: 4:30pm to 5:30pm

Aside from the rogue possessive apostrophes, mistakenly inserted because of pluralisation, I am wholly unable to fathom this. Speaking with Stephen Hawking through a Ouija board, he was also at a tremendous loss to explain this. I cannot differentiate between the two separate listings. My mind’s going, Dave, I can feel it. Anyhow, pleased participants in happy hour we were.

2. For visiting Queenslanders the dress code with its variation upon ‘no shoes, no service’ is dispiriting, likely antagonistic news but not so bad for those of us from the shoe-wearing states. And while I’m at it, at what point did wearing footwear guarantee good manners and necessary courtesy towards bar staff and one’s fellow consumers?

3. And there’s an additional gaming room dress code. As I now understand it poker machines, highly sensitive machines that they clearly are, take deep offence at humans resplendent in head ware. Not just a ‘Damn Seagulls’ cap with white splatterings or a West Wyalong Rugby League Football Club beanie but any functional or fashionistic item you may pop on your ungainly bonce.

Funny, isn’t it?

4. Club Marion has a fetching deck overlooking the oval (upon which play the Marion Rams Footy Club) providing a vista east to the Flinders University and Hospital precinct and the low, chestnut Hills. As the regular, welded-on patrons are all huddled inside at their legally designated spots (howdy to Bert, Fred and Sid), we’ve the entire sprawling, outdoor area to ourselves. Neat.

5. In the foyer there’s a book exchange. The novels appear untouched since 1986 but nevertheless, it’s a good idea. Somehow there wasn’t a single John Grisham text present.

6. The club features seven bars. Seven! Club Marion really is Vegas adjacent to the Sturt Creek.

7. Weekly meat tray raffle. In a world surely gone irreparably mad, we can all take comfort from the earthly stability and spiritual nourishment offered by a weekly meat tray raffle (WMTR). Not courtesy of actually buying a ticket or five but by knowing that if we wished to, we could.

8. Club Marion is Adelaide’s home of korfball. I know.

9. The bistro offers Australian salt and pepper squid. As Claire asked, is the salt and pepper Australian or maybe it’s only the salt? Or is it actually Aussie squid? Or are all of the ingredients from our wide, brown land and deep, blue oceans? Regardless, I’m confident it’s superior to the squid I recently had which was sourced exclusively from that global seafood capital, the Czech Republic.

10. In the late afternoon sun, and with my working year now in the rearview mirror, Claire and I had a genteel time on the quiet deck. As the final Mystery Pub episode for the year, it was a welcome chance to pause and contemplate our good fortune.

So, we did.

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A single sentence on Mystery Pub in the Warradale

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Escaping today’s guerrilla heat spike (41 degrees at 4.50pm), Claire and I march like North Korean soldiers from the motor and then we’re inside the dead-eyed TAB-tomb and want to steal through to the beer garden but head-butting all the internal walls, we’re thwarted as the Warradale Hotel comprises two separate buildings so it’s actually dual, eerily competing pubs with distinctive demographics, and we reluctantly retreat outside to the hotness; subsequently re-entering through the gaming section during which I’m sure Claire wants to shout, supportively, to the glum zombie faces, ‘Save yourselves from this vampiric psychic awfulness and the free tea and instant coffee and colourless digestive biscuits which aren’t really free’ and arriving in the Garden Bar, despite my studiously booking a spot on Monday and now stepping purposely like mildly enraged librarians, we locate no sign gently announcing in a kindly font, ‘Michael 5 pm,’ and it’s personally deflating and sets a prickly, I suspect, unrecoverable tone for my relationship with this colossal concrete pub, but right now doesn’t matter, as we enclose a dappled table reserved later for the dedicated, undoubtedly oppressed folk of the dastardly Spotlight emporium (fabrics, craft and homewares) who, we collectively decide, are getting their Christmas function done early this year, a celebration certainly to be fraught and hilarious and teary and concluding messily with more unashamed tears and multiple snotty carpark wailings of, “I bloody love you’ and ‘I tell you, Jayden’s not bloody good enough for you, Honestee’; however, as the ceiling aperture is useless, it’s a marginally toxic room, and boxes in the fuggy smoke (both vape and traditional, like so much in our world we now have electronic and organic versions) shrouding us like a Scooby Doo phantom, so we flee inside with our cherished friends Michelle and Trish, who are today’s Mystery Pub special guests like Suzi Quatro when she was on Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero (even becoming a brief love interest for Ralph Malph) and each of us clasps a unique Friday drink: Claire opting for a turbo-charged brandy and coke, Michelle indulging in a zesty and luscious cocktail, Trish choosing an uplifting soda water adorned with mint leaves (an unparalleled scent, methinks) while I foolishly endure my twice-a-year Heineken in retelling myself that it’s not an exotic lager but really just European VB sans the sophistication; spinning our attention to Michelle’s trip to that continent next year, which arrives as ‘I’m going to Eurovision in Malmo’ while my question to her, ‘Are you looking forward to the irony of it?’ receives a positive reply, with Michelle also listing kitsch delight, outrageous music, and ridiculous Swedish fun as key anticipations then our conversation migrates to our vegetated backyards and our sometimes errant offspring, and the bi-weekly quiz nights, and our respective dreamy retirement visions then concluding with goodbyes a-fluttering, and we’re going, ‘to the places you will be from,’ as the band Semisonic sings in the rousing barroom anthem, ‘Closing Time’; nevertheless, the curious future tense of the lyric is true for blessed people in midnight bars sometimes chance across their momentous other, and fashion mutually enriching lives, and I wonder about our table in the Warradale, yes, this very durable table which another sign indicates will later vanish when the floor beneath us enjoys a twilight transmogrification into a space for disco, Nutbush, the military two-step but hopefully not line dancing, and I mention the short story conference I’m currently attending to which Trish says, ‘The Californian creative writing professor (from whom at a provoking but productive workshop I was inspired to attempt this literary technique) is a dancer too and I danced with him Wednesday night at a salsa social,’ but overall it’s been a buoyant hour, and the Mystery Pub excursion into minor pleasure and suburban surprise continues, while in our tandoor car, Claire pulls the seatbelt over her shoulder.

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Mystery Pub: Viva Las Vegas – The Peninsula, Taperoo

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Claire and I are back in the nation of Le Fevre at the accurately labelled Peninsula Hotel. Motoring there proved simple as we accessed the Northern and Port River Expressways with the metaphorical Friday breeze in our hair.

Taking in the hotel visage, I’m smitten as the 2019 renovations have aspired to a Vintage Vegas aesthetic. This evokes iconic buildings such as Circus Circus, the Tropicana, and the Flamingo.

It’s a genuine point of difference as both outside and in are devoid entirely of Port football iconography. It’s brazenly decontextualized and if you wish to drink up homegrown sporting nostalgia, there’s a dozen nearby pubs in which you can do this until you’re silly as a wheel.

This is an architectural delight and midcentury Americana tribute. With a rhetorical front and conventional behind, the Peninsula adopts the Stardust Showroom model of being a ‘decorated shed.’ It presents as a portal to an immersive world.

Most striking are the bright greens, pinks, reds, and blues on the external and internal windows. Lighting and colour are often poorly done by interior designers, so this sets an enticing tone and suggests risk and adventure and ageless excitement.

All in downtown Taperoo.

Vegas motels are styled as pleasure zones like the Alhambra, Disneyland, and Xanadu while the famous gambling strip is also neon in the Atomic Age and uses Miami Moroccan visuals. I mention to Claire that according to my reading, Vegas is situated in an ‘agoraphobic auto-scaled desert.’

But that’s enough psychosexual geography.

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5pm can be a curious, twilight time to descend upon a pub. The lunch and function crowd have (mostly) long left and omitting Queensland pensioners, it’s too early for those seeking dinner. Office types are still pretending to write outcomes-driven emails. But we’ve arrived and the emptiness aids critical appraisal and having the bar to ourselves is also helpful for conversation.

Like racehorses and heavy metal bands, modern beverages are prone to enchanting names that overpromise and underdeliver.

Claire requisitions a Shy Pig Sauvignon Blanc while I go for a local beer in the Big Shed Peninsula Proud. It’s a hazy pale ale, brewed in the neighbouring province of Royal Park. Both drinks deliver and my pint is hoppy and aromatic and pokes me in a late afternoon kinda way.

The movie set-like Peninsula isn’t an inexpressive cavern or processing plant but rather a place promising veiled and tempting nooks. Taking up residency we examine our week and encouraged by the setting, talk shifts naturally to the Rat Pack and the Chapel of Love and Elvis.

We consider visiting Vegas. Claire says, ‘I’d love to go. You’ve been there, right?’

Queue my Vegas blackjack story. I reply. ‘Yes, you know!’

Claire summarises neatly if a little eagerly. ‘That’s when you went to a casino at midnight and got to bed at 8am? When you were still winning at dawn and then gave all your money back?’

Ouch.

‘Correct,’ I affirm before offering a meek defence. ‘It was such good fun.’ I interrupt with an idea. ‘A trip there would have to include the Grand Canyon. It’s easy the best thing I’ve seen on the planet.’

Claire doesn’t say, ‘Make sure in Vegas we get a steak and Caesar salad.’

Returning barwards for our second and final refreshments, I note that the busiest section of the pub is the gaming room complete with carnivorous pokies.

But a picturesque, serene light streams in across our table and unlike the optical and aural assault of Vegas, it’s quiet and lounge standards from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin drift through the languid interior like smoke.

And now we’re a very long way from Port Adelaide. Maybe that’s the seductive trick of the Peninsula: the escapism, the effortless time travel, the mirage.

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Mystery Pub: Stanley Tucci to play Greg Chappell in upcoming biopic

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The Britannia pub is by Adelaide’s most infamous roundabout. It was so unspeakably horrendous that its mere mention caused folks to shudder and shake. The final solution was, bizarrely, to build a second roundabout. This reminds me of the surgeon who says to a patient, ‘I’m sorry but the operation only has a fifty percent success rate.’

The patient replies, ‘Well just do it twice then.’

Twice a day for nearly eight years I drove through the Britannia roundabout.

In those 3,000 journeys I only saw one accident which is odd given back then it averaged a prang per day. There were plenty of near misses and times when motorists in front of me were paralysed by the challenge and didn’t enter the roundabout for what appeared as eternities. That one car headbutted a veranda post of the Britannia. The pub survived but I’m unsure about the vehicle.

When my ridiculous Nissan Exa was stricken with gearbox issues I rode my bike through the roundabout during peak hour on the way to and from Marryatville High. For nearly a week. It was a decent haul from Glenelg. The roundabout was exhilarating if fraught.

Friday nights in a pub should be fizzing with energy and promise and with the extra frisson of Mystery Pub they mostly are. But 5pm on Saturdays can be a lethargic, twilight zone. They’ve saluted in the last at Flemington so the sports bars are barren and it’s too early for dinner and the kids won’t hit the town for hours.  

The Britannia is mostly empty on Saturday for our Mystery Pub visit. Inside is stark and functional like a suburban café rather than seductive and intriguing and bursting with secret stories.

We claim a table with a Coopers Pale Ale (me) and a Padthaway white (Claire). I spy a brochure for the Repertory Theatre Company featuring the brilliant farce Noises Off. Unfortunately the performance dates and ours don’t align. Claire says, ‘Poo.’

Otherwise, it’s been a rewarding week as I saw Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which in its metatextuality includes a documentary about a play within the nested narrative of the film. The sense of mise-en-scène is tremendous. Claire and I enjoyed an episode of Julia Zemiro’s Great Australian Walks and I continue to read Room with a View (upwards of a page a night before sleep) which is partly set in Florence.

Friday night we dined with dear, old Kapunda types (thanks for the soup, Trish and nice to see you Trev and Eleni). We discussed Stanley Tucci and his excellent series, Searching for Italy. Not only does our lovely friend Stephen look like him but their families are from neighbouring Italian villages. As a host Stanley is witty, curious and grateful (so is Stephen).

We also speak of the episode set in Sicily and Palermo. What utter privilege to know Italy and compare travelling tales. As always, Stephen and I chat about the Beach Boys and tonight dissect their wonderful, haunted song, ‘Heroes and Villains.’ I reckon Stanley might also be a fan.

He’s also in the great film Margin Call which explores the origins of the Global Financial Crisis. In it he plays a quantitative analyst who formerly worked as an engineer. Clearly bitter about Wall Street he delivers a monologue about the real, human benefits of a bridge he once built.

“It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned nine hundred and twelve feet above the Ohio River. Twelve thousand people used this thing a day. And it cut out thirty-five miles of driving each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That’s a combined 847,000 miles of driving a day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986, that’s twenty-two years ago. So, over the life of that one bridge, that’s 6,708,240,000 miles that haven’t had to be driven. At, what, let’s say fifty miles an hour. So that’s, what, 134,165,800 hours, or 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted in a car. One thousand five hundred and thirty-one years.”

As you can see, the gubmint should’ve phoned Stanley to fix the roundabout. After less than an hour Claire and I leave the Britannia. It’s quiet on the roads.

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Mystery Pub Madness: The Olivia Hotel and the General Havelock!

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With her now traditional misdirection Claire drives me up and down and around Hutt Street.

We circle many hotels and bars and so my uncertainty regarding tonight’s Mystery Pub is happily heightened.

Wife – 1, your correspondent – 0.

Parking on Carrington Street we then walk past the snug terrace homes and accountancy and law firms with their wintry windows all aglow.

The Olivia Hotel is new, but the interior design is deliberately shabby with intimate, living room atmospherics. Among former functions it was an Asian restaurant, and I can see it. Ambling in, we hear Feist’s excellent song called ‘1234.’

Given our Formula One bladders, we race at the loos through the courtyard. It’s compelling in a Mediterranean, film-set way, and we note that it’d be a decent garden for a summer’s evening. A century-old grapevine is the defiant, gnarly centerpiece.

A staircase spirals heavenwardly into the rooftop bar. I love the idea of these elevated areas but wonder if we’ll look back at some of them as our boozers’ skinny leather ties.

With hopping orange flames there’s two fireplaces, and these create an alluring mise-en-scène.

I order ale while Claire has a chardonnay and we get a table by a bookshelf, loaded with games like Scrabble and weighty, ancient cookbooks. Margaret Fulton’s surely in the ghostly pile.

Claire asks, ‘Do you think anyone actually plays these games?’ I reply that I don’t think it matters for their aesthetic value is symbolic. Rather than engaging in a boisterous bout of Monopoly, folks are comforted by knowing they could play. Ah, the sanctuary of proximate boardgames.

And then, dear readers, our afternoon took a curious turn.

*

Always capable of a sun-drenched surprise Claire declares, ‘After this we’re heading next door to the General Havelock.’ Such boldness, such cheerful extravagance. Two Mystery Pubs!

What a time to be alive on Hutt Street.

So, we decamp to the Havey and it’s quiet but still before six bells.

Standing at the bar I recall being here late last century and mulleted men in chambray shirts and women wearing rugby tops with upturned collars and Gumbo Ya Ya playing New Orleans rhythm and blues.

Above the fireplace there’s a topographic map of Adelaide in 1876 and Claire and I peer and point and examine in our almost superannuated way.

‘Where’s Adelaide oval?’

‘Do you think that’s Norwood?’

‘Why so many churches?’

Even for a June 30, Friday evening it’s fun.

Our geographical ponderings are disturbed when a loud conga line of young, drunk things evidently celebrating the end of the financial year (EOFY) bursts into the pub and wobbles out towards the beer garden.

Oh.

Partying to honour fiscal milestones is as mystifying as throwing a bash because you’ve just bought three cheap tyres for the Corolla. It may be brash and inappropriate, but I was reminded of this.

What do accountants use for contraception?

Their personality.

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Pirate Life Brewery

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Listen. I’m hugely sympathetic to those affected by the potato shortage. I really am. I’ve got Irish ancestry.

But Saturday evening I was tackling my cheeseburger and fries in Pirate Life brewery when I had bad thoughts about my fries. Nobody should experience this. Meanwhile, Claire enjoyed her brussel sprouts. More on these later. Both Claire and the sprouts.

Like so many of you I’m a big fan of chips. More than I should be although I doubt this is a small, exclusive club. Despite the pony-tailed DJ pumping choons, the ambiance convivial and my ale a-tasty, I decided that fries, in this particular case, shoestring fries, are more than a little bit rubbish.

The surface area to actual spud ratio is poor. With an authentic chip, you can and should eat them singularly, but pesky fries require you to snatch them by the handful, like a lesser primate. They make you a greedy-guts and I’m reminded of the cafeteria scene in Animal House when prior to spitting a mouthful of cake over everybody and declaring, ‘I’m a zit, get it?’ Bluto Blutarsky is stared at by Babs Jansen who says, ‘That boy is a P-I-G pig.’

See, fries make us worse. Fries invite self-loathing.

Fries. They just ain’t no good, mama.

I love being taken on a secretive excursion, and despite my occasional affections for Pirate Life’s South Coast Pale Ale, hadn’t visited the source. So, ever mindful, Claire chaperoned me to the Port. With about two dozen beers on tap, choice was difficult, in that bounteous, contemporary way. For no good reason, I thought I deserved a treat.

I got underway with a Mosaic IPA, which was feisty entertainment if somewhat boisterous, weighing in at 7%. As is her ritual, my wife tried a squirt of cider, shook her golden locks and then asked politely for a glass of red.

The brewery’s a lively place and there was a 30th at a nearby table, and lots of unfettered kids scurrying about. Suddenly, our ears twitched like rabbits. Yes, the DJ was playing ‘Africa’ by Toto. But not the version we all know, which inexplicably has had more than a billion and a half plays on Spotify. How can this be?

While I decamped to buy an additional IPA, Claire approached the choon-smith and learnt that the funky version was by the Hackney Colliery Band, a modern British ensemble that’s, ‘inventing the brass band format for the twenty-first century.’ As it’s synonymous with our adolescence, we share some affection for the song however its enduring appeal ultimately escapes us. Yes, the musicianship is impressive, but the lyrics are among the most turgid slop ever imposed upon humans. Try this.

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in, 12:30 flight

The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation.

Steaming, heaving nonsense, I hear you say.

I now ask: has anybody really seen stars reflected in the moonlit wings of, say, an Airbus A380? Agreed. No, not even by an aggrieved baggage-handler on a rainy Heathrow night as he drop-kicks your increasingly scuffed case across the tarmac.

In pleasing contrast to the lyrics and the shoestring fries were the aforementioned brussel sprouts. Did they ever really go out of style? When he was about eight, Max described them as ‘balls of leaves’ but either way these oval spheres are excellent, and possibly the new broccolini. Claire ordered a plate of them, and pan-fried and coated with garlic stuff, it was our meal highlight. Each one feels healthy to eat and a single sprout counteracts the harm of a hundred shoestring fries. It’s true. Ask your grandma.

Nearly out the door, we swung by the merch tent which was really an in-brewery shop. Some folks collect spoons or stamps or Nautical Sextant Telescopes, but I like to keep my stubby-holder stocks healthy. So, I left, rubber beer-drinking device in hand.

It’d been a fine hour.

2

Royal Family pub, Port Elliot

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The year’s first Tuesday. Alex, Max and I are in one of my favourite beer gardens.

In each of the last two Septembers I’ve come down here to a townhouse overlooking Knight’s Beach for a writing retreat. After each big day of introspection and prose, I enjoy a late afternoon ale in this glorious pub.

The beer garden’s coastal and festive in that loosely shared sense, with ten or a dozen big wooden tables scattered on the lawns. Today, as a mark of familial solidarity we’ve all decided upon a chicken schnitzel but with varied toppings (parmigiana and Kilpatrick minus the sea boogas).

My ridiculous generosity continues as I treat myself to a Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ale which seems geographically appropriate down here on the south coast, masquerading as the Fleurieu Peninsula. Increasingly, it’s my occasion beer. Fruity and summery, these are fine qualities in a refreshment.

The boys are hugely grateful for their tumblers of room temperature tap water.

Strolling into the airy and light and old front bar we’d noticed opposite how the queue to the (doubtless award-winning) Port Elliot bakery stretches a decent drop punt along the footpath. Hopefully, the bakers have prepared well for the masses so that most accusatory of rhetorical questions need not be asked, ‘Who ate all the pies?’

Between claiming our booked furniture and ordering, some folks have mistakenly pinched our chairs so upon our return I merrily shoo them away. I’m sure they welcome my inserting them into their correct place in our messy universe. At least that’s how I interpret the audible absence of their cussin’ at me.

The boys and I plan our week.

Jetty-jumping. Ascending The Bluff. Exploring Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island. There’s also the Murray mouth, which I can reveal, for the hydrologically unexcitable like me, lacks a little star power. I had hoped for towering waves and deafening crashing and Niagara-like power. I wouldn’t invest any coin in a Murray Mouth theme park just yet. But it was important to view it during these times of biblical flooding.  

While waiting monk-like for our poultry Alex and Max pop next door to the surf shop while I peer at the racing form with Stony Creek and Maree gallops on the menu. Nothing takes my fancy, so I wander back outside.

As the late Victor Lewis-Smith often asked in his restaurant reviews, what made me pleased to be here?

The food was honest and tasty. My beer was great as is always the case with early-January-on-holidays-beers. The boys’ excitement at the beginning of our languid week with busy days and cricket nights ahead of us. Our tremendous fortune and the soft charms of this inviting pub.

Schnitzels inhaled; we drive back to Victor Harbor for our Granite Island pilgrimage. We’ll follow the horse-drawn tram out along the new causeway.

Our week is underway.

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The Gepps Cross Alehouse

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So, today seven of us, who have deep connections to Kapunda, visited the pub for lunch.

Here’s the answers to the quiz. The winner was Mrs. G. Cross of Gepps Cross.

  1. Seven. Attendees were Crackshot, Swanny, Fats, Lukey, Woodsy, Stef, Mickey.
  2. Yes, lunch began at 12.30.
  3. No, incorrect. Everyone in attendance ordered a schnitzel.
  4. False. Nobody ordered the Diane sauce.
  5. No, incorrect. Everyone ordered salad with their meal despite the ‘no salad, extra chips option.’
  6. True. Apparently, Fats ate most of his salad to the surprise of not just his lunchmates but all in the pub.
  7. Three minutes. A new record time. That’s how long it took to disparage another Kapunda chap who wasn’t at the lunch but should have been. Sorry, Whitey.
  8. Inexcusably home on his couch. See Question 7.
  9. A goat. Lukey was elsewhere.
  10. Four. The number of former and current Kapunda publicans mentioned over lunch. For bonus points in order these were: Nugget (Clare Castle Hotel), Puffa (Prince of Wales), Alan Meaney (Prince of Wales) and Unknown Queenslanders (Prince of Wales).
  11. Four. Number of lunch attendees eager to play for Kapunda Cricket Club in the new year. This was announced after two beers and part way through the schnitzels.
  12. One. Number of lunch attendees who will likely play for Kapunda Cricket Club in the new year (Woodsy: current A5’s captain).
  13. Three. Number of attendees who went to the recent Adelaide Test.
  14. Six. Number of second inning South African Test wickets to fall during our lunch.
  15. One. Australian Test victories witnessed.
  16. None. Number of D. Warner fans in attendance at lunch.
  17. Three. Nostalgic and somewhat wistful mentions of cricket at Adelaide Oval during the 1980’s.
  18. Eight.
  19. One. Discussion of Greenock Schlungers (for those following at home this is the affectionate name for their local cricketers and not a German smallgood).
  20. None. Bikies spotted. Whew. If you don’t count avid amateur motorcyclists Fats and Swanny.
  21. 72.7 kilometres. Distance from Gepps Cross Alehouse to Kapunda.
  22. One. Beers needed for trip from Gepps Cross Alehouse to Kapunda.
  23. 14.7 kilometres. Distance from Greenock to Kapunda.
  24. Two. Beers needed from Greenock to Kapunda.
  25. Three. Number of attendees who drove up the river yesterday to look at the flood.
  26. A goat. Schnitzels are incapable of deliberate physical movement.

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Puffa and the Prince

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Driving for over four hours, dodging roos and road-trains, I fell into a schooner at 8pm. A hike from Kimba where I was living, it’s always great to come home to Kapunda for a weekend. Of course, I’d driven straight to the pub.

There was a warm reception.

“Hello, West Coast smack-head,” said mine host. It’d been a couple months since I’d popped my head in the door. He continued. “Are you still driving that dopey sports car?” And finally, “Gee, you’re getting fat, Mickey.”

Welcome to the Prince of Wales hotel, run with affection by our gruff publican Peter “Puffa” Jansen.

But the curt comments were really like warm handshakes. This was Puffa’s way. His was an inclusive environment: no-one was spared and barbs were part of the boisterous charm. To not be insulted would’ve been offensive.

In 1989 Mikey Swann, Paul Hansberry (son of Roger who was a regular in here), Bobby Bowden, Greg Mennie and I hired a VN Commodore wagon and drove, sometimes legally, to Brisbane for three weeks. We set off from the Prince of Wales. Ever the benefactor Puffa said, “I’ve seen you blokes drive. Here you yo-yo’s, take my radar detector. It’ll save you a few bucks. Just bring me back a carton of that new Powers beer.” On our way across New South Wales the detector beeped frequently. When it did those who were awake or sober or driving or maybe even all three would chorus, ‘Thank you Puffa!’

Puffa loved a bet. It was but one way he nurtured the pub’s community. Behind his bar, up on the wall, next to the clock, was a bunch of beer coasters on which the wagers were scribbled. He once said to me just after Christmas, “Don’t worry about the Sydney Test. It’ll be a draw. It’ll be rained out.”

I’d seen the forecast, so saw my chance. I retorted, “I reckon it’ll stay dry.”

Puffa then growled, “I’ll give you 4 to 1 that it won’t rain. Easy money for me, you yo-yo!”

So early in the new year, Fanie de Villiers (and what a splendid name that is) bowled South Africa to victory in a rare rain-free Sydney Test. Puffa took down my coaster and I enjoyed his cash briefly, before donating it in yet another spoofy final. This was representative of the abundant life in the Prince of Wales.

One Sunday afternoon I was introduced to the English public-school tradition of spoofy. It only requires three coins. But, if you lose, it results in significantly more fiscal investment, especially if there are six or seven of you in a roaring circle. How terrific would it be if they struck some commemorative spoofy coins? With Whitey on one side and Goose on the other? The world spoofy championships should be held in Puffa’s and I can hear the voices now: Good call. Eight! Thank you very much. And in the grand final telecast to a global audience of three billion a voice shrieks: Yes! Your buy, dickhead!

It’s a cosy pub like you might stumble across in the English countryside. It functions as an extension of your lounge room and this is how we are expected to behave. About the bar are nine black-topped stools. How tremendous is the beautiful, old pub fridge with timber doors and those ancient door handles?

Chief among its attractions is a clear-minded rejection of pokies, thumping music, and other distractions. The Prince is dedicated to conversation and companionship. Puffa advocated for these, and much more. His generous, fun and always unforgettable legacy means this pub, his pub, remains one of my favourite places on the planet.

One notable afternoon in Puffa’s we watched the unparalleled 1989 Grand Final between Geelong and Hawthorn. It was packed. Over by the fireplace was a boxy old Rank Arena tele, and we willed on Ablett the Elder before the clock ran out for the Cats.

And now, dear friends, the clock has run out on a most magnificent era.

It’s been 38 years. We thank Linda, Puffa, Tolly and everyone who’s ever poured a beer in the Prince of Wales. Enjoy your evening.

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The Blanchetown pub: a pea and corn salad celebration

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Weather permitting I take my workday lunch on a bench. It’s a chance for some fresh air and sunlight but is devoid of ceremony and any broader meaning. It’s entirely functional and that’s fine. Across the calendar other meals are invested with ritual and expectation.

Lunch at the pub on the October long weekend is one of those. It’s among my favourite occasions of the year. It’s about tradition and nostalgia with people who knew you when you were young and ridiculous.

Mozz and Kath had organised a small bus and driven it from Pinnaroo. Named the ‘Okey Chokey’ payment takes the form of whisky. Rattling into the pub carpark at noon there were already eight or ten vehicles, almost all large, lumbering 4WD.

The pub is the oldest in the Riverland (est. 1858) and is close and low of ceiling which gives it an intimate, historical atmosphere, completely unlike modern, suburban taverns that possess less charisma than a K Mart. Whitewashed walls add to this ambience. None of our party had been to the pub previously and this was a rare first.

Our table was on the expansive front deck and this was also hosting a 50th party. Just as our meals arrived so did the guest of honour and the cheers and her reaction made it clear that it was all a surprise. I hope they enjoyed their celebration.

Mozz and I each assembled a personal betting portfolio for the day courtesy of the in-pub TAB and I must report that both of these were wildly, spectacularly unsuccessful. But even this, given the afternoon’s deeper magic, was a triumph. A horse I’d selected is called ‘The Astrologist’ and it ran fourth. Surely, if it was any type of fortune-teller, it would’ve seen this coming and scratched itself that morning, saving both equine animal and sad human some heartache.

Claire had a local red from Burk Salter and as a cabernet merlot it was acceptable if not spectacular. The beers were cold and fresh and that’s as simple and complicated as they should really be.

Our meals were mixed with the boys having meat-lovers’ pizza that was pretty good and my beef schnitzel was excellent and although I was initially disappointed with the portion of chips a quick phone call to my heart surgeon confirmed that this was not, indeed, a bad thing.

We had spoken around the kitchen table the night before of the cultural and social significance of pea and corn salad. At country cricket clubs across the country Thursday night, post-training barbeques would witness an oversupply of these, lovingly organised and presented in blue ice-cream containers by multiple late-order batting bachelors.

Imagine our shared joy when my lunch arrived with this green and gold nourishment. It was a culinary highlight. I doubt a salad has ever been received with such communal delight. I’m pleased I gave peas (and corn) a chance.

Claire and I popped back into the dining room to chat again with Kapunda folk R. Lewis and P and A. Schultz about their weekend at the shack and the forthcoming Kapunda High School celebration of one hundred years of Sir Sidney Kidman’s bequeathing of ‘Eringa’ to the education department.

Then it was time for ‘Okey Chokey’ to be steered back home via the agricultural, frequently pot-holed route through Morgan. We had a balcony and a riverbank and an obligation to commence some serious relaxing.

Just as ritual and happy history demanded.

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Three Hobart Pubs

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Preachers

Strolling home to St Ives after submerging ourselves in sex, death, and repulsion at MONA we went up hilly Montpelier Retreat where some tempting music swam into earshot. Not a recognisable song but a tune curious and indicative of youth and a vibrant pub.

And it was!

The beer garden is set on a typical Hobart tilt and is jammed with tables and stools and a bus. Yes, a bus that serves as a playground for the kids and dining snug for the bigger kids. There’s a beanie on most heads and most heads have a burger and chips in front of them.

I get a glass of red for Claire and the barman persuades me out of a lager and into a local ale. Again, the wisdom of strangers has prevailed, and back outside and supping on my cup, I say a silent prayer to the beardy youth who served me. It’s a fine ale.

The chatter weaves around the music. A catchy song is playing. Claire says, ‘I like this one. Let’s find out what it is!’

Neither of us has Shazam or a music identification app so the race is on. With a traditional song structure, we’re heading towards the final chorus! Quick. The little wheel is spinning on my phone screen. Ding! Done.

I point it towards the speakers under the veranda. After a few moments, bingo! It’s an indie band from Florida called Flipturn and the tune is ‘Vanilla.’ It mightn’t be a song for the ages, but it’s certainly contextual and added to our playlist as a sonic souvenir will always evoke the lovely late afternoon visit we made to a fun Hobart pub called Preachers.

New Sydney

Collecting a hire car on Easter Sunday we drove to Richmond which seemed to be a petite version of touristy Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills and performing a similar role for Hobart. We explored it and two animal-themed Coal Valley wineries in Every Man and His Dog which was rustic, and Frogmore Creek all dazzling and stylish if maybe just a little too self-pleased.

Centrally located on Bathurst Street, the New Sydney is ancient and well-loved, like a couch from your childhood. There’s a thin beer garden that matches the pub’s grungy ambience.

Curious and dotty stuff lines the walls and shelves. There’s a collage of license plates, mostly from American states which was probably interesting once but is now somewhat cliched like a horse walking into the pub and the bartender saying, ‘Oh, why the long face?’ Of course, one license plate, probably from Alabama urges, ‘Run, Forrest, run!’

The light is fading and a young bloke gets the fire going. From the mantlepiece two hefty candles emit an orangey glow. He’s a skilled firestarter and heaves on an enormous log. The fireplace could double as a garage for a Smartcar. Down here in Tassie they know about wood.

Huddling about the crackling combustion, I scan the bar. It’s not a footy or a betting establishment. It’s just a pub that attracts folks who’ve decided on a late Sunday afternoon as the cold rises from the blackening streets that this is a perfect place for company and warmth.

Hope and Anchor

Following a drizzly afternoon in Port Arthur we push open the darkened door to a CBD pub claiming to be the country’s oldest continuously licensed boozer. The dining room is busy, and the fire’s ablaze in the front bar, so we plonk down in two old armchairs within comfy range of the flames.

As expected in an antique town the walls are festooned with memorabilia that speaks to its varied pasts and below the TV is a set of enormous, tatty bellows. British and brown hues dominate, and it doesn’t need Tony Robinson from Time Team to confirm it dates from 1807. I order an XPA while Claire’s request for a port is met with difficulty despite the town’s latitude of 42.8794° S which one might expect drives increased demand for fortified gargle.

I glance in the beer garden and it’s murky and barren, although it might appeal more in January. Back in I pause by the wood-panelling at a Moulin Rouge-like print with female posteriors which I’m sure was rousing for 1920’s Parisians. Above the fireplace a large deer head also disapproves. He’s not changing his mind.

Again, there’s no shiny or jangly entertainments on offer so people must make do with the company they bring or the company they find or introspection.

So we do.

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Pub Review: Greenman Inn, Ashbourne

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Often seen as a carved ornamentation on churches, the Green Man motif originated in Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Byzantine cultures. Nowadays, there are countless British boozers named for The Green Man, and it’s the name of a tranquil Fleurieu pub snuggled between Willunga and Strathalbyn.

We’d never been, and lunch is at noon. Claire’s arranged this, as part of a magnificent day’s excursion.

A roomy bar. It drinks in the golden afternoon light. A moment passes but then the absences announce themselves: no screens, no music, no pokies a-janglin’, no incessant bed of horse-racing babble.

It’s the front bar as traditionally experienced: a place to talk and imbibe and be among others, and this communal quiet can be a rarity. The bombardment upon our ears now equals the manufactured and sustained assault on our eyes.

Outdoors is a verdant municipal park with lawns both broad and uncluttered. There are front, side, and rear verandas, then out the back a paved patio, and finally an elevated expanse next to the remaining wall of a ruin. We could claim any of these painterly places but find our table beneath a tree. At once it’s a private room and offering a panorama of the Southern Mount Lofty Ranges.

The Greenman’s an acoustic haven.

Pub lunch menu. Lovely. Here we go. Order burger. Easy. But it comes with both pineapple and beetroot.

And here’s my reaction to this.

In recent years I’ve increasing affection for beetroot and decreasing tolerance for pineapple. I think these are connected. Although, the latter is cultural not epicurean with a possible factor being the PM absconding to Hawaii that summer as his country burnt. Beetroot and pineapple can’t cohabitate, so I ask for the omission of Golden Circle’s finest (alleged) fruit ring.

Of course, everything’s a political determination, especially the purposeful denial of pineapple.

Behind us is a soccer pitch-sized carpark. In a triumph of gravelly multi-tasking, it’s shared by the pub and Eastern Fleurieu School (enrolment: 26 pupils). This utilitarian concept continues to the north where pine trees guard the community church. Nearby is a table tennis club (meeting most Tuesdays). Leather clad and genderless motorcyclists stop by the road-side stall which with quiet trust offers:

Roses- $5

Flowers- $2

Plants- $2.

Our lunch is unhurried, as all lunches should be. Other diners drift by and smear our green palette with denim and cheesecloth. The fire truck roars past like a throaty, lumbering quadruped. A quarter hour later it returns. I wonder about the causative combustion, once errant, now extinguished.

While neither Claire nor I love our meals the context compensates. For me lunch is only ever vaguely concerned with food; it’s simply a pretext to conversation. A plate of high-end grub (read: microscopic morsels with daubed jus) reveals me as akin to a Eurovision-enthusiast studying musicology at Oxbridge.

With the necessity of a second beer, I move from birdsong to bar and the auditory momentum is unbroken. A component of any lunching encounter, today’s musical score is sublime, a marriage of nature and sympathetic human murmuring. Walking back to Claire and our table, I take in the garden scenery, pleased that my footfalls are silent upon the compliant grass.

A wealth of compulsions can take us to the pub and once there, assorted attractions might bewitch and keep us. At the Greenman Inn in Ashbourne it’s the aural sanctuary.

Treat your ears soon.