A white picket fence encircles Point Lonsdale Oval, lending the ground an idyllic English geometry. It’s Saturday afternoon and, lured by a cricket match, I drive in and park by the mid-wicket boundary. Snatching ten minutes to take in a genteel encounter — any venue and contest will do. The trend for picket fences is heartening; simple wooden slats bring an elegance to our increasingly coarse world. They also suggest quiet expectations of courteous behaviour for both players and spectators.
I love country cricket but understand many find it incomprehensible. As a sporting contest it is often ritualised rather than wild battle. To the uninitiated, nothing appears to be happening on the field, but in truth everything is transpiring with absorbing compulsion. It’s a psychological feast of anticipation and patience, punctuated by staccato bursts of movement — then lengthy, enigmatic lulls.
Bowling and fielding, characterised by a cheerful mellowness, suggest this is a B- or C-grade fixture, a suspicion confirmed by the participants — grey-haired and slower of limb. Of course, the chubbiest chap keeps wicket, and he’s unexpectedly spritely, crouching behind the stumps before bouncing in to scoop up the return throws. His nickname is surely Nugget.
The scrubby surrounds are unmistakably coastal Australia, and the scene reminds me of the one time I played cricket by the sea. This was at Elliston, after a Friday night at the Port Kenny pub with my Wudinna CC teammates. The next morning, a tinny putted out into the bay and we went fishing — Stink, Ning, Jock, Snook, Chess and me, crowded onto the tiny deck — during which the bird’s nest I made of my line earned me a new nickname: Tangles, in honour of the beloved Max Walker. Winning late in the day, I recall hearing the crashing surf in sonic contrast to the dusty breezes and magpie warbles of landlocked Kapunda.
Gazing again at those sharing the patchy grass and leisurely privilege, I think of the joyous belonging cricket clubs can gift their members. It’s only partly about what happens on the field; the spirited and forgettable exchanges at training and in the clubrooms matter just as much. Bumping into your teammate — the mechanic — outside the post office on a Tuesday lunch confirms this bond.
On Point Lonsdale Oval, the placid medium-pacer saunters in and overpitches just enough on a decent line. Seagulls dance on the salty air as the batsman steps into an off drive, but it rambles over the rough turf straight to a fielder and I hear the shout of, ‘No!’ This is representative of the even contest during my stay: no wickets or chances, but no boundaries either — just a handful of modest scoring shots. Was it dull? No. Utterly engrossing and healthily diverting.
Claire is shortly due on stage at the Queenscliff Music Festival, so after half a dozen overs I turn the key in the ignition. This brief cricket excursion has returned me, happily, to the languid Saturdays of my youth.
‘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.
Weaving through the punishing heat past the Quick Shop, on my two-wheeled international debut. Claire, on the back of the scooter, squeezed my arm and said, ‘Watch out. There’s a snake right there.’
And there it was, a long, green-brown thing, slithering across the road we were troublingly also on. My eyes darted, scanning. Cold fear. It was moving quickly — even for reptiles a good idea when traversing any Indonesian thoroughfare — it’s green-brown length whipping into a bush and rustling it wildly. It was big — I only saw the back end of it and that was all of six feet. How long overall? I shuddered in my seat. My distinctly un-altar boy response was, ‘Fuck me.’ Though to be fair, among St. Roses altar boys, this was conventional.
Seconds earlier and we’d have run over it — subsequent pictorial investigations suggest a cobra — and doubtless it’d have been flung up by the front wheel of our scooter so, like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark,I was face-to-fang with it. We were far from a hospital.
*
Kicking my fins, I tapped Claire before pointing to the ocean floor. Fluttering about, she turned and we now saw it together. A black and white, striped sea snake. It was small and ignored us before zig-zagging off into the warm murk of the Bali sea.
Back aboard the boat and describing it to the local in charge of our snorkelling trip he cheerily explained, ‘If one bites you, you have about five minutes.’ I frowned and he smiled. ‘Enough time to say goodbye.’
It was a Banded Sea Krait and they’re highly neurotoxic, causing paralysis and respiratory failure. A CV to make the entire family proud. Each year hundreds of Thai and Indonesian fishermen perish when dragging up their nets and surprising one of these shy reptiles. They prefer life on the seabed. We all have our limits.
*
In east Bali my running streak broke through the psychological barrier of 900. I mapped out a route through the village and into the deep green countryside and rice fields. It was tough in the harsh humidity and already blaring morning sun — upon returning to our bamboo villa I’d instantly fall into the pool. Of greater concern were the dogs along my daily trail.
Some were apathetic but others were territorial and guarded the narrow path past their homes and temple. These barked with menace, so I avoided eye contact. The hounds were often in poor health and appeared unloved. While I felt sorry for them, I was more worried about my exposed, spindly legs which through canine eyes may have presented as a KFC snack pack.
Rabies is common in Asia and each day on the island there’s an average of 183 suspected rabies bites. Recently, before the authorities intervened — think Atticus Finch — a rabid dog bit eighteen people. Was my running streak worth this risk? If treated quickly, most recover. For others, however, an especially gruesome death arrives following seizures, paralysis, delirium, coma, and most worryingly, excessive salivation.
*
Jogging beside a lush field, I wondered if a muted, underacknowledged purpose of travel is this: to confront our own mortality. Especially as our seemingly gentle tourist activities on this tropical paradise revealed startling, wilder threats.
Is this also why we temporarily abandon the security of our lives — to glimpse, however briefly, the slender edge between beauty and danger? To immerse ourselves in a more brutal ecology — to glance timidly at death while being hand-in-hand with your wife as you swim among the deadly reptiles? Snakes on the good earth and in the usually restorative ocean. Ominous dogs. These encounters jolted me toward gratitude — for the calm, suburban safety of home.
It seemed the island, for all its beauty, had its own curriculum for the living.
Sedans feel selfish in Bali. The local brothers picked Claire and me up at the Taksu Sanur Motel in their boxy people mover. Here, there are only two types of vehicles: scooters — cheap and nimble — and people movers that carry half a dozen or more.
Heading north up the east coast the brothers queued up some music on a phone. We immediately recognised the twangy guitars of a beloved American performer. The brothers sang along in broken but affectionate ways. You know the words. Join in!
Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Claire and I suppressed our giggles, barely. What better way to engage with Western culture and to learn English (should you wish) than courtesy of the clear-eyed melodies of John Denver’s ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home.’ I do think it’s a terrific song about the love for home with its introspective, soaring bridge that often makes me misty and want to jump in my car and hurtle up to Kapunda.
I hear her voice, in the morning hour she calls me Radio reminds me of my home far away Driving down the road I get a feeling That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday
Lunchtime on Monday and the traffic’s dense but moving as we slowly weave our way to Sideman, east of Ubud. The song finishes and I wonder what will be up next. To our aural surprise we have: ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home’ by John Denver. Except it’s not JD on repeat but the tune’s been pinched by some gormless baritone, likely with a too large hat draped on his too large, empty (Texan) bonce.
It’s a wonderful song, of course, but nothing should be played twice in a row. The second listening is always diminished, an entirely foreseeable disappointment. Still, for us in the back seat, it’s an intercultural education. Finally, the Appalachian Mountains have come to south-east Bali.
Tragedy! One of the brothers — he has pretty good English due to his stint on a cruise ship — was poking about in the console and glovebox when he timidly announced, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I left my phone at the hotel so we’ll have to go back.’
Rather than spend an unnecessary hour in the car, Claire and I are deposited at Sanur Harbour. Strolling around, we’re constantly asked if we’d like a taxi. It’s like being questioned in a bakery if you’d like sauce on your sausage roll. I want to scream, ‘Yes, I’m so unspeakably dim that I need a stranger to alert me to my condiment requirements. Of course! Sauce. Thank you kindly retail assistant.’
Sometime later the brothers return in the people mover, all phones now present. We’re hot so it’s a relief to be in the cool of the car. Again, we steer north. The brothers both fumble with their phones — driving’s no impediment to this — and for our shared, involuntary pleasure, they recommence the tunes.
We then hear that familiar guitar picking — in the key of A minor — and the warm vocals of one Henry John Deutschendorf Jr whom you may know better as John Denver.
Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Three times in under an hour — and we were still stranded in Sanur, vehicularly and musically. Claire and I squeeze each other’s hand in silent, intimate acknowledgement. We’ll hear it twice more before we leave — drifting from waterfalls and restaurants, the song now a comical motif, an improbable Asian companion.
Listening to the song in the future, I’ll remember those lovely brothers and that captive drive along the coast of a small Indonesian island.
Music really does surround our tiny, receptive world.
I wondered about you as I ran along the Balinese boardwalk. I imagined you in our room — fixing your hair, brushing your teeth, tidying up a little like Ann in The Famous Five. I hoped we’d cross paths. I liked the quiet intimacy of that thought.
The context of the moment matters; it offered a hopeful glimpse of our future. Up early, somewhere tropical. Taking our exercise — as you sagely remarked while coming down the stairs, ‘Even on holidays, we probably need to stay active.’
Running along the boardwalk, after peering in at Pier Eight — we’d have a late-afternoon drink there during our stay — I felt pleased about the morning ahead. Swim. Reading. Breakfast. You.
I had on my Glenelg Footy Club 2024 premiership guernsey. Running in it’s great. It’s lightweight and often a conversation-starter. Just by a beach hotel an older chap and his wife hollered across at me, ‘Is that a Glenelg top?’ I was lost so welcomed a break. ‘Yes,’ I panted, stopping with them by the boom-gate. He continued, ‘I’m from Mundulla, near Bordertown. They’re the Tigers, too.’ We swapped footy histories and off I trudged through south Sanur.
If Claire and I were to meet, I hoped it would be along what I’ve now dubbed the Police Path — no cars, few scooters, only the odd dog ambling along with no real morning agenda and the tourist police office right there. I sensed you were close, just as you had sensed me that summer afternoon, watching the world’s slowest cricket match.
Blue denim shirt. Sunglasses. A singular freely offered smile. Coming around the corner, in the dappled morning sunlight, there you were.
Claire and I stand side by side on the ochre path, a splash of red and a patch of navy against the panoramic landscape. Her coat flares like a small flag of likable boldness, while beside her I carry — optimistically — the casualness of weekend ease.
The land unfurls in layers: first the pale grass sprinkled with dew, then a row of shrubs in muted gold, and behind that the uncompromising wall of dark pines, straight as sentinels. Beyond, the green hills roll upward, their ridgelines softened by distance and a sky pressed with a haze of placid, reassuring cloud.
The coloured cones at our feet — blue, yellow, scattered like afterthoughts — are relics of the parkrun, yet in this setting they appear ornamental, like petals casually dropped along the path.
Together, we seem anchored but at peace with the vast quiet extending out all around, an image of warmth set against nature’s wide canvas.
It’s a moment on our annual Carrickalinga escape with dear old friends during which certain traditions have taken happy hold. Pizza Friday night, Saturday morning market, evening cocktails. As with most traditions, the joy comes largely from shared anticipation although the rituals remain delightful in their luxury.
That the photo was taken by Trish is special. She has known us both so long and so well and caught this moment as a gesture of kindness, an unspoken but mutually understood gift. The picture isn’t of us alone; it carries Trish’s affectionate eye.
Photos make permanent the ephemeral, and cryogenically freeze us all, sometimes against our will. Are these images dishonest in their fleetingness or quiet protests against life’s cruel acceleration? We look eternal but already the past has fled, with tempo like a chariot.
After, we ambled back down the hill in our chatty knot and past the retreating parkrun crowd of huffing participants and hovering volunteers.
Saturdays, at their best, spread out from dawn with kaleidoscopic possibility, hours to be coloured, festive windows through which to view self and others.
We go from forest and reservoir to coffee and toast. Like time, we are never still — least of all when we believe we are — and I consider that boundless, comic truth. I feel this thought prickle, until for a breath, I outpace it.
Happy birthday! I thought it a fine moment to pause and raise a glass (West End if available) to a few tremendous memories from the vault…
Let’s begin with the ongoing tradition of our SANFL Grand Final texts in the case of Sturt or Glenelg winning. You had the upper hand in 2016 and 2017; I had a turn in 2019, then received a text in 2023 and 2024. Surely one of us gets a message this year. Watch out!
*
I still think back to those Adelaide Oval Test matches of our youth. We loved the cricket, of course, but also the economy of the cheap kid’s ticket. More cash for beers. I can see us now at the Victor Richardson Gates — me first, just 17, sliding through. Then Davo. Taller. He’s waved in too. Chrisso, taller again, gets the nod after a suspicious squint from the bloke on the gate. But then comes you, all six-foot-five of you, last in the queue. The old guy takes your ticket, peers up, irritated, and says, ‘Are you sure you’re all under sixteen?’ Davo doesn’t miss a beat: ‘Yeah, we’re from the country. Breed ’em big out there.’
We all then galloped straight to the hill and set up shop just in front of the Duck Pond. We heard the whistling of stems being pulled from empty kegs. Shortly after one of us came back with a plastic cup holder bursting with beers, slopping West End Draught onto the sloping lawns.
*
A highlight was most certainly the trip Chrisso, and I made to Coffs Harbour in July of 1990 to visit you and Michelle. We had a great week. I recall Mutton Bird Island, Par 3 golf in Coffs, the cocktail party with your footy club friends, going to the Sawtell RSL and Joe Bananas for dinner, lots of fun along the way and — of course — the triumphant meat tray at a local pub.
Good people, good weather, and that ancient stubby holder still tells the tale!
*
A less successful expedition was the 1982 Lutheran Youth trip to Naracoorte with Stephen in the Gem. Ending up in a ditch and travelling home by train! Found sanctuary on the Fanks farm. In between was a theological and beery blur. But we survived — just.
*
Then there was Melbourne in 2017 — you, me, the Hayward brothers, Lukey and Nick. Listening to Phil Carmen at the North Fitzroy Arms. He was truly compelling. It was a great event and as people say, you know it’s a big day when you get to the pub at noon and next thing, you’re ordering dinner there too before zipping into Young and Jackson’s for a midnight nightcap. Collingwood and Port the next day! Free bird seed. A funny weekend.
*
It was also terrific to be part of two Senior Colts cricket premierships. Fergy our coach. Tanunda and Angaston Ovals. I had a stint at silly mid-on when you charged in. No helmets in those days — and no shortage of courage. Both the Tanunda batsman and I in danger of fouling our whites. Especially when he defended one of your short balls using only his (four-cornered) head. I was sure it’d come straight off his double scoop Gray Nicolls.
*
But it wasn’t all bouncers and meat raffles. That you and Michelle asked Chrisso and I to act as ushers at your wedding ceremony in Hamilton remains an utter honour. The Yalumba reception was also excellent!
Thanks for all this, Rod — the cricket, the laughs, the travel, the stories we can now retell like old blokes at a reunion. Hang on! Enjoy your extended birthday celebrations. Well played!
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.
I appreciated the experiences we shared during our visit to Sydney and from start to finish, our trip was filled with your curiosity, infectious enthusiasm, and so many moments of fun. You subscribed to each day and excursion with open hearts and minds and for this generosity, I thank you.
It began (intentionally) with our exploration of Circular Quay and the Opera House, followed by the awe-inspiring sight of Ovation of the Seas. Taking your debut ferry ride to Luna Park and walking back across the Harbour Bridge was an adventure in itself, and Alex and I enjoyed the thrill (terror for me) of climbing the Pylon lookout for those tremendous views over the harbour. From there, the stroll through Hyde Park to our accommodation provided the perfect balance of excitement and exercise!
All the while you’re both nattering away to each other; to me; talking about what’s in front of us, work at Pasta A Go Go—your sense of teamwork and camaraderie is impressive—and so much other stuff. I was constantly reassured by your brotherly relationship, and how you look out for each other. This joint resourcefulness shone when you returned from the op shops with your new finds. Shirts, pants, tops.
One particularly dramatic moment came in Bondi. Jumping off the bus onto the footpath, Alex immediately realised the problem. ‘Dad, I’ve left my video camera on the bus.’ The 333 omnibus promptly roared off down Campbell Parade—with the camera still on the back seat. I said, ‘You better run off after it!’ Watching you both dash off, cinematically, to catch the bus—and succeed about 500 metres later—was a heartwarming moment although Max hurt his calf (too many weights and insufficient cardio). I was reminded of Jason Statham in The Framer.
Though the weather tried to challenge us, it never dulled our eagerness. We then explored Bondi Pavilion’s art gallery and walked along the vacant beach up to Icebergs, marvelling at the raw beauty of the coastline, even in the abysmal conditions.
The opportunities for learning and reflection were abundant. From the Sydney Museum’s stories of the First Fleet and Indigenous history to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s powerful environmental themes, there was so much to absorb. I liked how you both were particularly captivated by the MCA’s bookshop if not the rebirthing film. Exploring The Rocks, Barangaroo, and the surrounding areas deepened our connection to Sydney’s geography and culture.
There were ferry rides aplenty too and how excellent are these?
A highlight was our trip to Balmain. Going along Darling Street was great, as was stopping by the Hill of Content bookshop, where Max picked up a Jack Reacher novel. It pleases me profoundly that you’re both happy to engage with ideas and writing—a bookshop hosts all of these. Our visit ended with schnitzels and T20 cricket from New Zealand at Dick’s Hotel—a perfect end to a day of discovery, despite the beer garden being closed due to storm damage.
Manly was another adventure entirely, with its jaw-dropping weather. We were bemused by the surf lifesaving carnival, witnessed the heaving ocean swell, and encountered a just fallen tree blocking our path on the way back.
As we bounced along on the ferry, Max’s Sam Pang-like quick wit in hoping the owners of a small boat, ‘hadn’t left any eggs on the kitchen bench’ was a moment of humour on the stormy seas. And though Alex’s new/old 49ers cap now resides in the Pacific, the voyage on the Manly Fast Ferry, especially past the Heads, was exhilarating. The skipper’s skill in navigating the massive waves was impressive.
Culminating with a salty coastal walk along Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Waverley, and Coogee— was a fitting finish to a shared adventure that was as scenic as it was fun.
A final stroll around Surrey Hills record stores and op shops. Flicking though the vinyl Alex paused and said, ‘Dad, here’s Skyhooks!’ There was the black lamb on the cover of Straight in a Gay, Gay World. He continued, ‘You’ve already got that one.’
Thank you for being a part of this experience. It’s an incredible destination that offers so much—beauty, history, learning, and exciting connections. Sydney gave us that and beyond. More vitally, you both offered your willing participation and your faith.
Alex, Max, and I were staying by Hyde Park so strode past twice daily going to and from Circular Quay.
The St James Station on Elizabeth Street is part of Sydney’s underground system. It’s my boys first visit to the Harbour City and I’ve not been there in over a decade. My previous time was a day trip for an (unsuccessful) interview.
It grabbed me instantly. As art, it’s beautiful and transportive to multiple personal destinations. It’s heritage listed (1938) and draws upon an Art Deco aesthetic. The pale blue of the Chateau Tanunda lettering and the Vintage Vegas orange tone of The Brandy of Distinction juxtaposed with the (formerly) white tiling. The neon colours are joyous and sentimental.
The station itself is mimicry of London’s Underground.
Staring at it from the edge of Hyde Park, I wondered about the naivete. Although dating from just prior to WW2, there’s an innocence at play. Over time do even the darkest of eras become prone to unsophistication? With the painterly mise en scène does it also evoke the often-quaint cinematography of Wes Anderson?
I thought about my own (brief) brandy drinking career. After cricket, and a meal in the Wudinna Club, my captain, Peter ‘Honey’ Boylan would often say, ‘Beer’s no good after a steak. I get too bloated. Buy you a brandy.’ I didn’t especially love nor hate it, but I’ve not had one since.
I do love the persistence of analogue clocks in railway stations despite the difficulties of moving parts, manually adjusting the time, and keeping all of them accurate. I read that railway station clocks, ‘provide optimal time awareness to patrons.’ The sign and the clock are pleasingly synchronous.
With the Barossa adjacent to my hometown of Kapunda, my parochial self was also activated. It makes me proud that Tanunda’s conspicuous in Sydney and I feel a swell of nostalgia for growing up. Is it true that the older many of us become, the more magical appears our childhood? This neon display in Sydney certainly had this effect.
Of course none of this mattered to my boys who were impatient to get over to Luna Park. I tore myself away, but the image stayed with me.
In this bejewelled alpha city with curving harbour views, this is a gently magical interior vista.
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.
To recycle an old joke, I’m going to try to write this without mentioning the Himalayas. Oops, failed already.
The Barahsinghe is a swamp deer that’s native to Nepal. It has given its name to a craft beer brewery located three hours from the capital Kathmandu in Kurintar. Founded in 2016, it has a modest range of products including a dark wheat beer, fruit beer and pale ale. Should the words swamp and beer co-exist in the same sentence? Let’s find out.
Claire and I are not in Nepal.
We’re just across the road from the Coles supermarket in Glenelg at the Sherpa Kitchen and Bar. It’s long held curious appeal, and we decided to visit early Saturday evening (our dining hours are veering dangerously toward that of Queensland pensioners). We had a minor celebration to acknowledge.
Taking our chairs on the alfresco area the menus soon materialise. Our server is affable and answers our questions. For starters we settle upon some dumplings. We can select ten or five. We ask for five. The smiling staff says, ‘Would you like six?’ As the Dalai Lama noted in his cricket diary, ‘Kindness is my religion.’
‘Yes,’ we chorus, knowing he’s saved us from the interpersonal calamity of an irreconcilable fifth dumpling.
Claire orders a white wine. I follow with, ‘I’d like the Barahsinghe Pilsener, please.’ Having completed our order, we chat among ourselves.
There’s modest frisson for I’m about to make my Nepali beer debut. Cars come and go from Coles. There’s a river of foot traffic past the restaurant. Modern music plays throughout, presumably from Nepal. Doof, doof but Buddhist.
We speak of Christmas, NYE cricket, The White Lotus (we’re late to streaming TV) and our impending trip to Sydney. Hot on the heels of our 1985 adventure to the Harbour City (it’s been forty years, so hot like tundra) and it’ll be fresh and distantly familiar as teenaged memories largely are.
Next to appear is my beer.
The label tells me it’s made with German hops and natural spring water, and I wonder if spring water can be unnatural.
The Pilsner’s bright and appealing in the glass. Entirely unlike a swamp deer I quietly imagine. The aromatics are zesty, and this builds my expectation. It’s hoppy and refreshing to sip. Does the Dalai Lama approve? Should he?
My ale from the foot of the Himalayas is going well. Can’t believe I did it again!
While our starters of Sherpa Momo (dumplings with curry sauce) were excellent our main courses arrived prompt and hot but presented as a little bland (like the early evening view of a Coles supermarket).
The Barahsinghe Pilsener was a highlight and in our globalised world it has made its way from Nepal to Glenelg (likely via Dan’s at the execrable Watermark pub).
This is Blog #500. Thanks for reading and your words of encouragement. Here’s to more stories, and adventures.
It’s a bright day and there’s optimism everywhere; ideal to begin the summer of Test cricket. The city by Corio Bay’s vibrant and cheerful people stream up and down the waterfront. I’m dining with eight chaps, and we’re all connected by the communal and effervescent Footy Almanac. Today’s lunch is all about conversation: a delightful jumble of 1970’s SANFL, Gough, and the far-flung places we’ve lived from Darwin to Tassie to England.
*
I love cricket. I love going to Adelaide Oval and feeling its captivating pull as I cross the Torrens footbridge. I love watching it on TV—especially when Tim Lane’s commenting. But cricket on the car radio is a unique joy. Following the Geelong lunch, I’m driving back to Point Lonsdale, and I poke at the hire car’s screen and get Australia v India on. The first session’s underway, and I’m eight again. Through the speakers flows the crowd noise with its comforting hum, the whip crack of willow on leather, even the aural assurance of the hyperventilating commentators with their, ‘Starc in, bowls… Big noise! There’s a shout…’
It’s as summery as slamming screen doors, fish and chips by the beach, and those ticking nights when it’s still thick and pizza-oven hot at midnight.
*
We’re here as Claire’s the Auslan interpreter for the Queenscliff Music Festival (the Auslan). Murray Wiggle and Jeff Wiggle are doing a DJ set. Claire gets a backstage photo and chats with them. Her brother Geoff knows both and decades ago they were all in a band. In the big tent young troubadour Jack Botts is playing his wistful guitar pop, and Murray’s just in front of me with his shoulders like a rangy country footballer. I imagine him somewhere like Angaston pulling in a few casual grabs at centre-half forward. As he takes in the music, there’s a ceaseless trickle of fans and he’s kind to all, smiling for a selfie, offering each a few minutes. It’s lovely to see.
*
Saturday morning and I’m in Portarlington for their park run. It’s a quarter to eight and the air is dense and unmoving. Gathering by a tree on a gravel path we’re alongside Port Phillip Bay and just under a hundred of us set off. Ambling along, I peer through the close murk and see the Melbourne CBD, a silhouette of grey and black and imposing quiet. There are dual hills to finish the course, but these are gentler than I’d heard. Making my way back to Point Lonsdale I listen to 3RRR and drive through Indented Head and St. Leonards. Both are daggy—unpretentious and a little outdated—but hugely appealing.
*
Watching Claire perform at the festival is a joy given her distinctive skill and focus. It’s mesmerising and humbling for I understand not a single sign. She interprets for CW Stoneking, a Katherine native who adopts a Southern persona complete with Mississippi drawl. He plays hypnotic blues music that could be a century old. Backstage, Claire asked him to explain one of his lyrics, and he replied, ‘I don’t know what it means.’ Sometimes, on stage when speaking between songs, he slips briefly, almost imperceptibly, back into his Territorian accent.
*
Other mornings in Point Lonsdale I run along the beach or through town. The town oval hugs the bay, and an underage cricket match is underway. The pitch is Gabba grass. Most of the players are in whites but the batsman’s in jeans. Nostalgia pricks at me as I pass. I also run west past the lighthouse and down onto the endless beach. I don’t usually run on the sand, instead preferring an esplanade but this morning’s forced path’s a revelation. Rather than being by the beach, and a spectator to the surf, I’m a participant. The waves are closer, their roar is louder and the air’s muggier. I’m now converted to sand running, immersed rather than observing, and it feels enlivening—physically and spiritually. Vast cargo ships pull themselves sluggishly in and out of the bay.
*
Monday, we zig and zag across the peninsula through towns like Clifton Springs and Wallington. It seems to function like the Fleurieu: a relaxed retreat for the neighbouring city folk. We take our lunch at the Rolling Pin bakery in Ocean Grove. My pie is massive and collapses on my plate, so I collect a knife and fork. Claire’s baked good is more cooperative. A PE teacher tramps in, local primary school polo shirt on, a Cleveland Cavaliers lanyard dangling, and a silver ring of keys jingling in his pocket.
The attendant mythology grew when he announced his molted skin was being kept in a bedside cup. For some days he’d been adding to his store of discarded epidermis. Happily, his flesh was less burnt than another friend who was hospitalised after a scorching, shirtless day at the cricket.
But one afternoon we returned to the Sydney apartment and from Brendan’s room there were shouts of horror. ‘No, no, no!’ Someone, likely Woodsy or Swanny, rushed to his aid. ‘We’ve been burgled,’ he cried, ‘Someone’s stolen my cup of skin.’
We’d all enjoyed many days together during cricket season at the Adelaide Oval so welcomed a Day/Night fixture against Sri Lanka. Earlier that day Claire and Trish arrived by train, and joined Chrisso, Woodsy, Swanny, Trev, Paul, Stephen, Brendan, and me. The girls had an epic adventure, and they’d already been to Ballarat, and Melbourne.
It’d be our collective SCG cricket debut. We won and the eternally salvaging AB made 79, while the eternally angry RM Hogg took 4/47. It was punishingly hot, and even our eyeballs sweated as we sat in front of the mammoth scoreboard on their Hill.
Like Sydney itself, it was fun and filmic in scale and more vivid than conservative Adelaide. Leaving, the Hill was a graveyard for countless, abandoned thongs. It seemed to be where all rubber footwear went to die. ‘Hey, you,’ smiled Claire and promptly whacked me on the leg with a thong. She was always doing stuff like that.
Back at the Gem, it was so humid the dew was draped on the roof and windows as if there’d been a monsoon. What a strange, sultry country Sydney was! It was also the era of Derek and Clive, so waiting for the traffic, Stephen, Trish, Claire, and I listened to those horrendously drunk British men known properly as Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.
…he come up with the name of ‘John Stitch’. He come up to me. He said, “I’m John Stitch and I, I do non-stop dancing.”
Trish laughed in that bright, instantly infectious way that always amplified the fun of the joke. We cackled as if we’d never previously heard a word of it. As is her way, Claire didn’t get why we were snorting and giggling so we’d take turns explaining. Often this was unsuccessful.
*
Specialising in jazz, The Basement is an iconic music venue, essential for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in Sydney’s culture. We went along one night, just to take it in. Vince Jones, Don Burrows, or Galapagos Duck weren’t playing, and while this was disappointing, it was something we did in our unquenchable desire to extract what we could from this alpha metropolis. I can’t remember the music but the distillation of memory remains: we saw live music at The Basement.
Later, crossing the Harbour Bridge, we climbed up inside a pylon to take in the panoramic sweep of the city. As we gazed down at the traffic and water, some (me) were fearful of heights, while others like Paul (assisted by being in the Air Force) and Brendan (assisted by being unfathomable) welcomed the flirtation with the deathly descent.
The Centrepoint Tower also afforded dizzying views and at the top I was a screen showing how many centimeters the tower swayed in the wind. I don’t recall the number, only my deep, unsettling fear. I didn’t like it.
Varied groups visited Luna Park, Taronga Zoo, the Moore Park Golf Club, Manly Beach, and Kings Cross where a burly bouncer asked us, ‘Is this your first time in the Cross?’ to which Woodsy replied with nodding honesty, ‘Yes!’
Then, in The Rocks, we stumbled upon a Rolls Royce, its blue elegance gleaming like a jewel. The licence plate declared a single word: Kamahl. It seemed an odd name for a car, but we later realised this referred to its singing owner! We stood by it, all thin limbs and emergent irony. His music meant nothing to us, but he was famous, and this regal car added a sparkle to our kaleidoscopic view of the city.
*
Beach culture was inescapable in Sydney. Courtesy of the 2Day FM radio surf updates and Stephen’s knowledge — as an air traffic controller he’d lived there a while — Curl Curl Beach presented itself to us as a (satirical) pilgrimage. Open to all things local, we ventured there simply because we could. A couple of carloads headed, en convoy, over the Bridge, through the leafy streets of Mossman and past painterly Manly.
We didn’t even swim at Curl Curl — something about the waves didn’t look overly inviting and we carried fresh scars from Bondi — but did pose for a photo by the modest brown sign. Chrisso snapped it, and while Paul and Brendan lingered to the side, it captured us at that exact instant: young and fresh-faced and with our categorically eighties hair.
In the photo a tanker drags itself across the horizon while below us in the carpark is the now retro cool of an EJ Holden. It has roof racks so likely is anticipating the return of its surfer-owner. Claire and I are the bookends. Huddled close together are Stephen, Swanny, Woodsy, Trish, and Trev, their faces now fuzzy, washed in the soft, faded colours of the photo. It projects a wistful affection, a feeling that belongs to the past, even as it unfolds.
Gleefully oblivious, we were on the edge of things — not just a shallow cliff at Curl Curl.
We were untouched by the weight of the world, and unburdened. A modern view might be that we were merely living in the moment. We were about to plunge into adulthood, but that morning, standing above the beach, responsibility was as distant as Vladivostok.
A twentysomething birthday gift from Claire and Trish, a block-mounted copy of this photo now sits on my desk. It reminds me quietly of my privileged youth and favourite people. I don’t have a witty or poignant story about that visit to North Curl Curl and I’m perfectly content with that. What does it mean to look back and know that we were unaware of how precious those days would become?
What matters is the warmth of attachment and love that stays, how this now blurry image, taken decades ago on an East Coast beach, has come to embody our teenage years — our abundant fortune, and the deep connection we shared in Kapunda.
This summer, I’ll look at the photo again, and, outrageously and sadly, it will be forty years since our Sydney trip. Time moves like that — faster than we ever expect. One day soon, I’ll go for a drive, pick up Trev, and put on Midnight Oil.
After lunch, he might announce, ‘I’ll just get a nut sundae.’
mickeytales 