Category Archives: travel

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Running Around Melrose: Fog, Roos, and Mountain Views

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Town

In a Dickensian fog I creep along the rocky road out of the Kookaburra Creek Retreat. I’m accompanied by a pair of roos bounding along the fence line. My headlights cut through the mist, even though it’s nine in the morning. It’s fifteen minutes into Melrose.

Mount Remarkable hangs over the tiny township, and is monolithic, majestic, defiant. It’s why we and the settlement are here. There’s watery sun and a cathedral of wintry blue sky. I’m here to run around the hamlet.

In the gums guarding the school the air’s alive with shrieking cockatoos. Suddenly, some fly off, zooming and swooping in formation, white smudges on the azure atmosphere.

A teacher strolls by, his satchel swinging with Friday jauntiness. He could be the principal. We offer each other a chirpy, ‘Morning.’

Outside the Over the Edge bike café stands a hoop of cyclists, drink bottles in hand, guts curving their black lycra. They’re in discussion.

On the Mount Remarkable pub veranda, a blackboard declares the brisket burger and chips are a special for Fat Tyre Festival visitors ($24). Seems a decent deal but I reckon we’re fully booked.

The streets of Melrose are broad and serene, and I have them to myself save for a nodding tradie in Jaffa orange. Heading south, Jacka Brothers Brewery swims into impressive view, a four-story basilica of historic brick. We’re pencilled in for Claire’s birthday on Sunday. She loves her breweries as much as I love a knitting museum.

Completing a circuit, I’m back on Horrocks Highway and peek in a bric-à-brac shop named Joe’s Corner. In the front window sits a Little Golden Book about Taylor Swift.

Ambling along, the North Star pub hoardings proclaim that it opened in the mid-1850s. Facing the mountain there’s a modern deck with gas heaters. Later today, we might find ourselves beneath the blue flames.

Every where’s dangerously dry and it’s utterly still as late autumn here can be. All is glorious and enlivening. Back at the car I’m puffing but eager to climb Mount Remarkable this afternoon. There’s much psychological benefit in being proximate to massive things for they bring wholesome perspective and dissolve some of your worries – at least momentarily.

Port Augusta parkrun

Another foggy dawn in the Southern Flinders Ranges and edging onto the highway I pass a whizzing line of cyclists, their lights piercing the snow-white air. I continue through Wilmington and then Horrocks Pass with its bitumen snaking beneath the rocky cliffs.

On the other side of the range the blue-brown earth slopes down to the sea. The sun is now up, with massive wind turbines and the landscape reminding me of Mykonos, all dusty and baked. I descend to Highway 1, a road I know well from my decade on the West Coast.

Fumbling in the predawn dark of Judith’s Hut (our accommodation) I forgot my pre-parkrun banana, so I get one from the Port Augusta Woolworths and pay the 74 cents on our credit card.

During briefing it’s glacial with the temperature frozen at 3.8 degrees but I later learn it felt like zero by the Joy Baluch Bridge (one of the Iron Triangle’s plainest speakers). All of today’s parkrun volunteers are female, but none cuss like Joy.

At 8am sixty-one parkrunners begin shuffling south alongside the gulf past Wharflands Plaza, the silent mangroves and rail yards. It’s pancake flat and calm and perfect for running. The landscape is an arresting hybrid of desert and the post-industrial with indeterminate sheds and mangled iron alongside the quiet sea.

The Yacht Club appears on its fetching point and then I spot the Men’s Shed and wondering about plural and singular nouns ask myself: what if there’s only one bloke? Does it regress numerically and socially to being a Man Cave?

As I’m still shaking COVID, I splutter and stagger on the return leg, towards the end.

Crossing the line in thirteenth spot, my hands remain icy. I chat with the chap who came twelfth. He’s also staying in Melrose and camping with mates who’re in town for the Fat Tyre Festival. He doesn’t ride so is just aboard for the giggles.

I drive to a café in town, for a medicinal cappuccino. I fear I may lose my fingers.

The Southern Flinders Rail Trail

I run part of this on the King’s Birthday Monday. Today’s my 408th consecutive day of running. No, thanks Chuck.

Just north of Goyder’s Line, the trail hugs the highway and has scrub to the west. I see nobody, not even a curious kangaroo. Jogging along I dwell on our weekend and am grateful for the mix of exploring and relaxing at our accommodation.

During the early afternoons we’ve read and then sat near the firepit underneath the heaven’s dark blanket, and her peppery stars. A mile from the main road, sometimes the thunder of trucks has rumbled into the surrounding hills.

We’ll be home just after lunch, and I’m keen to go to the Glenelg game against (the cock of the) North.

Melrose, you’ve been magnificent.

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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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Robe, Recollected

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Sunset drapes our coach house garden as Claire and I push back on our chairs, having driven from Glenelg and taken lunch alfresco at Wangolina winery. Trucks rattle vaguely on the road to Beachport while cattle bellow out into the disinterested dusk and unseen sheep bleat. Surveying our setting Claire notes, ‘It’s a most beautiful place,’ as overhead honks a flying vee of ducks. Our holiday has begun.

*

During each day my anticipation simmers ahead of an elemental and enchanting ritual. Squatting by its open mouth I coax and urge with the black poker. Orange flares suddenly whoosh and cloak the room with warmth. Is there a more exquisite joy than kindling the fire in a pot belly stove?

*

In the morning, I steer into Robe for the first ever time. Taking in the painterly foreshore I run from the Cally pub to the Obelisk admiring its marinas and dotted coves and expansive sky water land. Passing stately homes, I rumble along the Arthur Fennell Way Board Walk and Lake Butler. On my right the jetty yawns, and here’s the Robe Gaol ruins. Hands on hips, I stagger about the headland while down below pounds the relentless, thunderous surf. Erosion will eventually triumph, and the proud 169-year-old Obelisk will tumble into the ocean.

*

Lunchtime is breathless and balmy. We picnic at Little Dip National Park and circumnavigate the lake. It’s rainforest-like and in my hyperbolic mind this trekking demands Bear Grylls skills. I’m sure we’re only halfway around when to my surprise we’re back at the beginning! The entire lush wilderness is ours and ours alone. Is this seclusion the deeper, necessary magic of holidays? Go somewhere new but see no-one old?

*

We’re bogged on Long Beach. I rev and rev again and the wheels spin and sink. Flinging open the doors we assess our position, and I mutter, ‘Poo.’ We kick and scoop sand from around the submerged tyres. Worried, I turn the key and gingerly toe the accelerator. The car lurches out. Whew! Surrendering I say, ‘I think we’re done.’ We slink back along the crescent of white coast.

*

Midnight brings a treacherous descent down the wooden steps from our coach house mezzanine bedroom. Claire’s brightened the shadowy stairwell with a thoughtful candle, but despite this it still commands a methodical and cautious approach. With the arrival of dawn’s tentative light, I puff out the flame. It illuminates all four evenings.

*

The gilded sun piggybacks in on the cascading waves and we sit in the twinkling beer garden, peering seaward. Inside thrums with hooting footy fans while we decant our day by the shore and about this silvery, sleepy town. Near the hulking utes, two dogs are tethered to veranda posts. Claire curves down and pats them with her customary affection. Late Anzac Day at the refurbished Robe pub.

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Mystery and Murder in Moana

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Hurtling past O’Halloran Hill on the Southern Expressway and Alex slides in a Steely Dan CD. Although he views this dad technology with bemusement, he’s also a devotee of nostalgia, and I’m thrilled he can meld irony and joy. Their jazzy and bewitching song, ‘Aja’ fills the cabin, and he mentions, ‘Manny’s dad loves this. He reckons it’s goated.’ I say, ‘It’s great. When I was at uni, I played the cassette in my old Holden going to and from Kapunda.’

Earlier at Writers’ Week we heard my favourite ever novelist, Richard Ford. Alex came to this excursion (I see no other teenagers in the garden) knowing it’s significant to me and this is heartening. Listening to the author of The Sportswriter he made connections to his Year 11 English course, and these were deliberated over the day. We returned to Ford’s point that characters are not people, but instruments of language and I’m convinced this insight puts Alex in front of his ATAR competition, should this still exist, and not a few literature teachers.

When Alex turned thirteen, we spent a night in Hahndorf and then last year on his equivalent birthday Max and I stayed in Aldinga. Claire suggested acknowledging these rites of passage and for this idea I’m most grateful. Each is an occasion to pause and talk and contribute to our future selves in novel surrounds.

Yielding again to my paternal voice I declare, ‘I think we should swim between the flags.’ Alex nods. Late afternoon at Moana beach, it’s chilly in the water but splashing about we promptly acclimatise. Irregular sets of waves march in from the icy Southern Ocean and some hoist themselves up as green walls, while others crumple sullenly about us, all slovenly foam and disagreeability. This burst of activity provides a relaxing physical context on which to hang this sparkling day. We catch a couple each and are rushed shoreward like straw.

For dinner it’s the esplanade’s Deep Blue Café. We’re sat by the windows and the sun slants in, all gilded and promising. It’s a cheerful, assured place with table service and over pepperoni pizza and a fat burger talk moves to Alex’s favourite Beatle, George Harrison. While I’m a McCartney man I see the appeal of the band’s youngest Liverpudlian with his quiet genius and affable ways. I say, ‘How amazing that he was only twenty-six when the Beatles finished.’ Musically, Alex’s unquenchable and sees no generation gaps as his preferences range from Kanye to Miles to 1970’s Japanese avant-garde. Hopefully, this cultural inquisitiveness is a predictor of a hearty, fulfilling life.

Back in our dune-side cabin we speak of the soundtrack for the film Alex’s making and how esteemed directors Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino use wistful music in their art. He plays ‘Miserlou’ by Dick Dale, made famous in the Pulp Fiction opening credits. Intrigued by Bob Dylan, he’s shortlisted several of his tunes for their project and asks, ‘Do you think Paul Kelly is the Australian Bob Dylan?’ It’s an essential, probing question.

We then turn on the tele. As he’s about forty years too young for Escape to the Country, I surrender the remote.A Bond film. Skyfall. During a break, I show Alex a clip from The Trip to Spain during which over an entree of scallops Coogan and Brydon battle with their respective Roger Moore impersonations. He laughs at, ‘Come, come, Mr. Bond’ and reckons the next movie introduces Jane Bond.

Before 007 defeats the cyberterrorist in Scotland we hit our cots. Today’s gone well and there’s been lovely moments and also, I hope, fruitful investment.

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Ripper 76 to Patsy Biscoe to The Fonz

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I bought my new turntable a house-warming gift yesterday.

Lenny’s Records on Henley Beach Road is near my work and poking through the racks, I contemplated Aja by Steely Dan and Living in the Seventies by Skyhooks before deciding on Bob Dylan’s tour de force, Blood on the Tracks. Nothing says welcome like an iconic album.

Living (mostly) alone decades previously in a farmhouse south of Wudinna, this CD was a Sunday evening ritual. With its warm songs of love and looming heartbreak, Dylan was excellent company, and offered much to ponder every rich listening.

On wintry nights I’d get the fireplace a-roarin’ and his wit and poetry were cantankerous comfort as the acoustic guitar and Minnesotan twang sprung about my big, empty home.

‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ remains an uplifting song about impending hurt and there’s gleeful despair in the verse

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu

San Francisco, Ashtabula

Yer gonna have to leave me now I know

But I’ll see you in the sky above

In the tall grass in the ones I love

Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Given the name’s lyricism, I’d like to visit Ashtabula, Ohio.

*

On Thursday evening with old Kimba friends Bazz and Annie we enjoyed the world’s greatest compilation album which, of course, is Ripper 76. Among its curios is the theme song from everybody’s favourite show, Happy Days.

Over Coopers and pepperoni pizza, we spoke of this, and I mentioned how The Fonz (Henry Winkler to others) is touring Adelaide next year to promote his biography and Claire will be the Auslan interpreter. How great is this? The other day I asked, ‘Happy Days began when we were about ten. Did you ever imagine you’d work with The Fonz?’ I hope she asks who’s his preferred Tuscadero: Leather or Pinky?

*

Having met Paul McCartney, the English singer Noel Gallagher from Oasis was asked how he felt and replied, ‘Macca’s a legend. It were fooking great. I mean my favourite band is Wings.’ Wednesday afternoon I popped on the triple live album, Wings Across America and loved side four’s closing track, ‘Listen to What the Man Said.’

Soldier boy kisses girl

Leaves behind a tragic world

But he won’t mind, he’s in love

And he says love is fine

It’s emblematic of McCartney’s enticing optimism and talent for a likable melody. However, Tom Scott’s soprano saxophone solo is the happy highlight, and I appreciated it soaring out across our summery garden.

My new turntable and I were getting on superbly.

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I was reassured to read that Neil Diamond was in my top five Spotify artists for 2023 along with Karen Carpenter heir apparent Weyes Blood, Lana Del Ray, The Beatles, and Belle and Sebastian. This is largely founded on Hot August Night being our Friday evening ritual (imposed by me). It’s a splendid, intensely familiar way to farewell the week and muster in the weekend.

So last night on the patio with Christmas lights twinkling and candles flickering I dropped the needle on side three (it’s good to mix it up) and its exquisite ‘Play Me’ with

You are the sun, I am the moon

You are the words, I am the tune

Play me

Of course, on the second verse Diamond sings, ‘Songs you sang to me/Songs you brang to me.’ Brang? Yet again, Claire and I had the conversation during which we agreed passionately that English is a cruel language and yes, the past tense of bring should plainly be brang.

*

Late Sunday in Tanunda for a music festival, Claire and I had a brief chat with Here’s Humphrey star, retired naturopath and former deputy mayor of the Barossa, Patsy Biscoe.

It certainly was a memorable week in music.

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Mt. Lofty Majesty: A Week with My Boys

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Travelling to Hahndorf was a calculated venture, a precious escapade that I guarded with an awareness that our shared holidays are approaching their natural quota, and every moment counted.

One sun-kissed afternoon, Alex, Max, and I ventured to the tourist park’s flickering pool. In our aquatic triangle an American football sailed across the water between us three. This game, as I’d hoped, was just a pretext to indulge in teenaged chatter. They bantered with the bustling spirit of brothers, yakking about everything and nothing, their chat interwoven with pokey jests. When these sometimes targeted me, I was delighted.

Assuming the role of invested observer, my ears were sharply tuned to the cadence of their conversation, picking out words and tones that conveyed encouragement or concern. Pleasingly, all was as expected. My seismograph remained flat.

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Our mini-golf tournament became the ‘Tronky Cup’. A tronky, should you be unaware, is a maddeningly marketed chocolate bar from the Kinder empire and doubtless a shrieking delight for the offspring of Jayden, Kayden, and Brayden. Home on the couch recently watching these being advertised, Claire and I pondered the accompanying sense of doomed entitlement and twee allure.

While us boys battled the miniature concrete course, I recounted my whimsical and unsuccessful quest to purchase one as a vaguely amusing gift for Claire. Today’s victor, I decreed, would claim the prestigious ‘Tronky Cup.’ It was just silly enough for them to agree.

Max held up a wet finger to the breeze on the 12th before lowering himself over his putt, a tricky nine-footer. This reminded me happily of how golf and droll humour belong together, and they appeared alert to this. Despite an earlier hole-in-one, Alex met with catastrophe on the 18th hole, taking eight shots, and so I was victorious. At the German Arms a dreadful beer was a cruel celebration.

*

After a substantial schnitzel at the Oakbank pub, we went to the local school. Like many built in the 1970’s, its façade projected unwarranted smugness, the campus set back haughtily from the road. Max and I strolled to the half court, for some one-on-one basketball.

He, the young aficionado, offered a constant stream of commentary as he gracefully schooled me on the court. Our conversation spanned the entire spectrum of the sport, from his lunchtime games to his local team, district competitions, the NBL, and his revered NBA.

Max’s roster of basketball heroes is impressive (MJ easily better than Lebron, he argues), though I couldn’t help but think that, at his age, mine was filled with footballers and cricketers. His passion is a globalised, contemporaneous expression, and that’s fine with me.

*

As the sun began its descent, and we were bathed in a muted afternoon light, Alex and I circumnavigated an ornamental lake to the giant chessboard. His moves were calculated, each one deliberate and considered. An Asian boy appeared, offering unsolicited advice, but Alex played a patient, long game, demonstrating impressive self-regulation before emerging as the eventual conqueror. It was an exquisite hour. We shook hands.

The thought crossed my mind that, as parents, we secretly wish for our kids to surpass us in life’s endeavours, and now, chess and what it symbolises, is added to the lengthening list of Alex’s triumphs.

*

Our week’s zenith was a hike from Waterfall Gully to the Mount Lofty Summit, during which we were immersed in nature’s grandeur. I mused to the boys about the psychological benefit of being occasionally dwarfed by colossal creations, whether natural or human. Wise beyond his years, Max summarised with an ironic wisdom I wish I’d possessed at thirteen, ‘So you can know that you’re just one of eight billion people.’

On our taxing ascent, Alex spotted an echidna, and Max sporadically sprinted ahead, his youthful exuberance propelling him up the tough terrain. I lurched along behind. We discussed school, past trips like this one, and the significance of reaching this summit, together. Our knees and ankles were tested on the descent, but I felt gratitude for this challenging, shared excursion, undertaken with a purity of purpose.

*

Throughout our trip, the boys had accepted my itinerary with happily natured grunts and shoulder shrugs, and these became wordless affirmations of the mottled good that just might come from a holiday with their dad.

Travelling back down the freeway, we nattered about where we could go next time.

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Under the Blonde Light by a Hahndorf Bakery

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Running up the main street, noting the folk sat outside various coffee shops, I then veer about by Otto’s Bakery.

An American was explaining something to a passive local sitting and eating toast about four seats away. He seemed confident and had a rich voice like he had, or thought he should have, his own podcast. Aproned people were wiping down the tables outside both pubs leaving glistening trails of cleanliness ready for the lunchtime slop of unwieldy German steins.

The once-drowsy slumber of the evening had vanished, giving way to the bustling dawn of a Tuesday.

Amidst this tumbling tableau a woman passed me going the other way along the footpath. In a whirl of forceful purpose, she was striding fast but reading her book as she went. It was a rare sight, a fusion of worlds, an embodiment of the allure of a solitary journey amidst the written word.

I love early mornings.

Some are taken in nature like Saturday on parkrun dissecting the pine forest by the Myponga Reservoir and mornings like today as a town awakes and smiling hospitality staff scurry about. I run through it all.

Turning by the Otto’s bakery at the top of the street, suddenly a golden, soft light was behind me and bathed the scene with warmth that carried profound love and unornamented joy and you, Claire. It was a welcome alchemy, and a transcendent instant.

In that moment, I was spirited away across continents, to Italy, to a morning much like this one, perhaps in Monterosso on the Cinque Terre. Meandering about with a coffee along narrow lanes we looked at those charming shops and Mediterranean homes and funny little three-wheeled utes for which I found curious affection.

Those unsophisticated amblings during which we spoke of our surroundings and the day ahead and sometimes directed our chat back home. And you were the only person I knew in that entire country, that foreign soaring land, and I wondered how younger me would have been astonished and surprised but grateful beyond expression.

One day soon Claire we’ll be in Hahndorf, and in a minor pilgrimage I’d like to point out the spot by Otto’s Bakery where Italy, you and the remarkable gift that is each day came together in a singular, luminous moment.

Scampering back that bright second metamorphosed to a meditation, and then a prayer offering thanks for all that’s transpired and all that’s to be.

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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.

*

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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Sausage Roll Review: Platy Pie Bakery of Mount Compass

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BREAKING: Do sausage rolls have inherent meaning, or is their significance a construct of human perception and interpretation?

More to come…

September brings witness to my quest in locating the Fleurieu Peninsula’s finest sausage roll. It’s my higher earthly purpose. Heading to Port Elliot for my annual writing retreat, I call into the Platy Pie Bakery.

Strolling in I announce myself with the chirpily invitational, ‘Hello there. How are you going?’

Behind the counter the woman serving stares through me with the dead eyes of a cyborg and allows my words to hang in the air before they die shamefully, undeservingly, on the scratch-resistant, modestly industrial flooring.

This is not how I wanted our relationship to begin.

I press on. ‘I’m pretty keen on a sausage roll.’

‘Sauce?’

Ahh, she speaks.

As my task-oriented, chit-chat averse comrade digs about in the warmer I wonder. Beyond physical sustenance, what nourishment does a sausage roll offer to the human spirit, if any, and how does it contribute to our overall well-being?

Dodging a delivery man by the door I slip out to the front veranda of the bakery and pop onto a chair. The breeze is pushing the trees about with considerable energy, and I reckon it’ll turn into a typical spring day: windy and warm.

I then unleash the beast and It’s the most colossal sausage roll onto which I’ve ever clapped my blinking eyeballs. Its girth reminds me of the weapons used by the chimps in 2001: A Space Odyssey to cause violence to each other, thus signifying the vital evolutionary leap when our progenitors began to assert control over their world and, tellingly, each other.

As is often the case I was then distracted from my reflections upon Stanley Kubrick’s cinematography by some carrot.

Yes, my mega-sausage roll was happy host to sizable chunks of carrot. This constituted rare, positive, orange-hued news. Despite the pastry being somewhat flaky and on the cusp of oiliness it tasted, as the man once said, good.

Of course, a key thematic omission in 2001: A Space Odyssey is that none of the dramatis personae ask the following question of themselves or the villainous computer HAL 9000: Is a sausage roll more than the sum of its parts, and if so, what metaphysical properties might it possess?

Coming from a small family I’ve never had to tear competitively through my food with any urgency (although my wife Claire enjoyed her childhood tucker with an almost cricket team of nine gathered around the table her meal-time etiquette doesn’t reflect this at all). Today, on this gusty patio I inhale my lunch with primeval, almost disturbing haste.

I next contemplate the thoughts of Aristotle or maybe it’s Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski. I can’t never remember which. He might’ve remarked, what role does our appetite play in our enjoyment of a sausage roll, and how does it relate to our broader desires and cravings in life?

My lunch now done, I walk about town before pressing on towards Port Elliot.

The Platy Pie Bakery serves up a mammoth sausage roll and for carrot-lovers it’s a double treat which gives clear rise to this eternal, epicurean conundrum-

How do sausage rolls symbolise cultural identity and heritage, and what can their evolution over time tell us about cultural change?

Dunno.

2

At Large in Largs Bay: a parkrun yarn

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Easing down Jetty Road in Largs Bay there’s a sign pointing towards a Historic Shopping Village. Historic? If I put on my bowler hat, ring the bell apologetically, and enter will there be rations of corned beef, jam, sugar, and tea? Would each cost me 2 and 6?

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti the Pier pub appears and from the ghostly stage, I can almost hear Barnesy shrieking, sniff the stale West End Draught, and through the fug, see the frayed denim.

At the parkrun starting area (right near the public toilets) I chat with an English couple. They indicate to the south of the pub where they’ve just moved. They’ve done very nicely.

I ask, ‘Have you done this run before?’

‘No, we’ve been travelling, and this is our first one in eighteen months.’ I wish them well.

The briefing begins. It’s always encouraging, and I’m buoyed by the shared purpose and infectious sense of community. The Run Director explains that in quick succession the course goes over five bridges. Only two more for an Eagles’ song.

A dry fog drapes the city, and this generates an almost Victorian England atmosphere. Gazing ahead, the northern esplanade hides under a white cloak. We’re off and the sailing club is soon in the rear-view mirror as we ribbon out along Lady Gowrie Drive.

A distant siren wails through the mist, and I wonder what strife might’ve befallen folks on a quiet Saturday morning. This is replaced by birdsong, and I push into the brusque wind.

We’re now in Taperoo and over to the right is a geographic festival dedicated to Roy Marten. There’s the Roy Marten Dog Park, the Roy Marten Reserve, and alarmingly, the Roy Marten public toilet. I vow to visit. You can’t have too much Roy, whomever he is/was/might yet be.

This is a popular parkrun with one hundred and seventy-odd participants today. Dan, who I know from the Patawalonga event, reckons it’s a PB course. No pressure then. We’ll see.

We’re right in the heart of the Lefevre Peninsula. I imagine if it could secede from Adelaide, it just might. They’d strike their own currency, and each would feature a Port Magpies footballer. Russell Ebert on the fifty, Fos Williams on the twenty and on the dollar coin Bomber Clifford grinning like a shot fox. Their air force mightn’t be much chop, but they’d assemble a tough navy.

I swing for home and over the rise see the jetty and pub. In their white silence both are majestic and it’s a wintry postcard. Pippi’s coffee caravan remains shut by the footpath and I wonder why. Surely weekend breakfast is peak for the caffeinated.

A large wooden yacht is in a front yard. On a trailer, it’s in poor repair, and I remember it from my student days golfing at North Haven. At least, I think it’s a yacht. Ben Lexcen, if he were still about, could help with my nautical lexicography. I’m sure it’s been there for over three decades, and a better option might’ve been a garden gnome. What’s the owner been thinking all this time?

With the end approaching (today’s run not mortality, I hope) I pass another commercial caravan on the esplanade. It’s a doggie wash van with, as one would expect, a Billy Joel theme.

Puptown Girl.

I’m a slow starter, but usually finish well. A few runs ago in Glenelg, Dan and I did our last kilometre in a decent-for-old-chaps four and a half minutes. The results are emailed mid-morning. My PB remains elusive.

Next week.

Back in my car I strap on my Abraham Lincoln beard and put a shilling in my waistcoat pocket. I’m off to the Historic Shopping Village.

0

Open a Kissing Gate

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It’s dusk on a Friday.

Below us, and the tree-lined slopes, are the now-twinkling lights of the city.

Tramping along together in our cocooning coats, the creek’s interrupted by a stone wall. Behind us is the cottage’s yellowish beacon. Claire’s scarf bounces.

On the Heysen Trail, we’re approaching Norton Summit.

As we swing open a kissing gate it protests with a shriek. My phone light shafts over the scrub as if it’s generating suspenseful effect in a horror flick.

Upon arriving at Morialta Barns we ignited the fire. The redgum was now burning, but gently.

We heard the ghostly bleating of hidden sheep. The rounded hills were receding into the rising murk. Bushes swayed and jumped at the directive of a gust. Our hosts reckoned we could encounter a quietly twitching roo.

Chatting about the days we’ve had and the days we’ve to come, we clasp hands for affection, and warmness.

An hour earlier, having collected Claire from the city, we edged up majestic Magill Road, through the eastern suburbs and then suddenly, bottle-green paddocks were pushing back the forest. There we were, in the countryside. The transition was startlingly brisk.

We’d jettisoned.

Steering our way through another gate, there was the Scenic Hotel. My birthday dinner would soon be served.

0

Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and the Delight of Context

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On an ordinary street Claire and I went to a mostly forgettable Milanese church.

We’ve been to many spectacular places of worship in Europe but this one’s façade had less charisma than a suburban supermarket. Italy has a chain of these called Pam. I think this is funny.

Our visit wasn’t even really about the church, Santa Maria delle Grazie, but the nearby refectory.

The Mona Lisa is the star of the Louvre art museum, and the Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre in Madrid is famed for Picasso’s anti-war satire, Guernica. But these are dedicated galleries, and within them we expect masterpieces.

Increasingly, I’m interested in the context of experiences, and the more unlikely the circumstances, the more compelling. One of the world’s great paintings, Da Vinci’s The Last Supper is on the dining room wall.

These unremarkable circumstances are remarkable.

The story of this magnum opus is as distinctive as the painting itself. Located next door to a medieval kitchen, Da Vinci finished it in about two years. The thinking behind it being on a refectory wall is that the monks would feel a divine connection with this painting of Christ at supper while they, in turn, gobbled their bread and stew. Unsurprisingly, The Last Supper suffered extensively from steam, smoke, and soot. And probably, if truth be told, cabbage odour.

Where the feet of Jesus should be in the painting is now a door, knocked through a few centuries’ ago because, you won’t be surprised to hear, the monks wanted better access to the kitchen. Later, Napoleon used it as a stable. It recently endured a twenty-year restoration.

As he was mastering the use of a single vanishing point our expert guide (she was terrific) told us that Da Vinci hammered a nail into Christ’s temple (ouch, irony!) and radiated string to assist with the perspective.

Apparently, the table at the centre of the painting wouldn’t have actually fitted in the portrayed room at Mount Zion, but there’s significant captivation as Jesus announces his looming betrayal. Da Vinci shows this with each disciple’s face and action a psychological revelation.

Despite the intolerable yelling from fellow visitors, it was extraordinary, and I felt privileged to see it. It speaks to my ignorance, but I was unaware that on the opposite wall is another painting, called the Crucifixion. We weren’t encouraged to view it.

The entire site was nearly destroyed by Allied bombing during WW2 and The Last Supper is conservatively valued at half a billion dollars.

*

On another Italian back street is an art gallery and the beige walls suggest a warehouse. There are fresh smatterings of graffiti by the entrance. We’re in Florence.

Claire booked our Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze tickets months ago and these were so tight that we could only get separate entrance times. Getting lost on our way, we clarified directions with a local and ran, backpacks a-jiggling, to make our 8.45 timeslot.

Got there. Seconds to spare!

Just like the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan we went through airport-style security at the door and then rushed to the famed exhibit.

The first glimpse is arresting.

Among many ironies is that this version of David is indeed a Goliath. I’m confident that Michelangelo was entirely aware of this when sculpting his subject. Standing over five metres tall it’s inside a roped fence and so it’s impossible to stop beneath the marble colossus and feel fully shadowed.   

Immediately, I’m drawn to the massive hands and feet. David’s head is also immense and each of these, I’d suggest, indicates Michelangelo’s faith in human gifts. Communicated with Renaissance calm and intellect, the artist presents his subject with optimism and awe while reminding us of our potential for creating good.

Of note is the small genitalia which I reckon is emblematic of a modern, evolved masculinity. This is predicated on enlightened thoughtfulness that is freed from narrow constraints of sexual prowess. Michelangelo might be saying that regardless of David’s physical heroics we should look deeper for inspiration and ideals.

Most agree that David is presented in a theatrical moment: just as the youthful warrior has reached a momentous decision to go into battle against his larger foe. The statue weighs over six tonnes but emits a sense of almost celestial light, youthful beauty, and weightlessness.

Claire and I returned later to gaze again upon this mesmerising sculpture before continuing with our Florentine day.

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Three Italian Beers

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Varenna

It’s late afternoon in Lake Como.

Claire and I are sitting on our second-floor balcony and in the cool twilight, we help ourselves to dreamy snatches of the water. As the mist settles, snowy mountain peaks fade into the bluish light of Switzerland.

We listen to our scenery, the breeze, and the folks below.

Birra Moretti’s mustachioed mascot makes my beer instantly recognizable. He’s patriarchal, encouraging in that European way, and timeless. He’s urging me to be my best beer-consuming self. Luigi Moretti launched the brewery in 1857.

Our initial Italian meal was a belated lunch at a bistro on Piazza San Giorgio. We both had variations upon lasagna as, wide-eyed, and happy, we gazed at the cobblestones, the church, and the black scooters, lined up like fast, rebellious smears.

Given this postcardy context how was the beer? Moretti’s a fruity lager; energetic and offering of infectious excitements. Mine is in a cooperative tumbler.

Of course, it was great. How could it not be?

Vernazza

Arriving by train in the Cinque Terre we had to yank our luggage up a cliff around sunset. It was nearly three-hundred uneven and ancient steps, clinging to the rock face.

We struggled past two (American) couples, securely dining and wining in a café, and these both remarked helpfully on how our physical chore appeared as if it, ‘Sucked.’

My philosophical question remains: Is it good to warrant a holiday beer? Are they to be earnt while travelling?

Either way, sitting on our lofty terrace I had a Peroni Red. I can’t recall an unwelcome coastal beer and this one certainly wasn’t.

We also drank in the view of the rolling Mediterranean where to the north the blinking lights were the Cinque Terre’s first village in Monterosso. We’d explore it in a day or so.

The ale is slightly darker than its more famous stablemate, Nastro Azzurro, but is flavoursome and feisty. The brewery was established in 1846 in Vigevano, just south of Milan. Its aroma and palate are fetching.

As we sipped and chatted, we heard the bells ring out from Santa Margherita di Antiochia Church.

Glenelg North

Back home and it’s the Sunday before work. I’ve a near-fatal case of post-holiday dreads.

Dr. Dan prescribes a medicinal excursion to his liquor emporium. A variation on our Mystery Pubs and Mystery Days, I come home with Mystery Drinks. I get beer and on occasion, something tentative and spiritual (alcoholic not holy) for Claire. It’s an opportune distraction.

Pirate Life’s Italiana lager catches my mourning eye. It’s brewed down at the Port, the Napoli of Adelaide, or not.

At 5.2% take caution after a few so you don’t get lippy with Nonna. If you did, I wouldn’t want to be you.

A zesty beer, I found Dean Martin in my glass, and it made me think of zig-zagging home after the opera at La Scala; birdsong by a Lake Como church; scampering along the platform to make our train to Pisa.

0

An Italian Arrival

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I am shaving while characters rush in and out. It’s seven in the morning, and I have spent over thirty hours travelling.

Here I am in Milan Airport. In the men’s bathroom/restroom/toilet/euphemism.

Since disembarking all is going well. Through a large window I’ve already seen the jagged and snowy Alps.

A sludgy sea of shuffling people at passport control. I hear someone say, ‘Australians come this way.’ My eyes dart towards the voice and about three minutes later I exit via the non-EU, or third countries lane and charge the world’s biggest baggage carousel. It’s the size and shape of the Monza formula one circuit.

Luggage is dropping onto the belt and shortly after, thud. My bag! And it’s not damaged.

I now brush my teeth, and this feels fantastic too. Rinse, spit, go!

As always, early morning is the best time to land in a new country so the day and your adventure can begin together. While airports can be viewed merely as venues for transition, right now all about me is invested with wonder. Stretching out with golden expectation, our Italian trip’s in front of us.

I remain alert to the terminal’s minor dangers but my surging notion is that strangers are kind. My fears submerge. With the rush of passengers, I sense the richness of universal narratives. How many stories have compelled them to this airport?

I’m enjoying the exhilaration of arrival.

Later tonight, in our Lake Como apartment, the toll for my voyage will be extracted, brutally. When I collapse at dusk, the violence of modern travel will come for me with little mercy. Waking abruptly at 3am I’ll find myself in the bathroom checking the weather back home, just stopping before I open my work email.

But in the terminal my mind buzzes, and I compare everything: the Italian and English languages, the café menu, the manufacturer of the cistern. Look, there’s a bidet! These are enchanted curios in a bold, bright world.

Claire suggested our reunion for Exit 5 of Terminal 2. Given my first hour in Italy had gone well, I’m now over-confident as I tow my case to the meeting spot. See! Easy!

Outside’s brisk in Milano. There’s a stream of pedestrian traffic, and my eye’s especially caught by a white-suited man. He also wears white shoes. I think of Dean Martin. Carrying himself past the forecourt with relaxed confidence I wonder if he’s meeting someone here, too?

To my west is a bus stop and a constant line of vehicles siphons through it. The success of my morning makes me certain that from here Claire will emerge. A dot at first. Then her familiar brisk gait followed by her hair and face, and finally the smile I know so very well. I haven’t seen her since Friday evening. I’m sure she’s on the bus that’s just paused. I peer across the traffic. Where is she?

And then suddenly, Claire’s sunny voice is behind me, coming from the terminal.

‘Hey, you!’

2

Milano parkrun

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I was an island in a lake of hugging and hollering and happy chaos, and the energy was catching.

I didn’t hear it, but Claire later told me a grab from, ‘The Final Countdown’ was blasted as we gathered. Given I was about to undertake the Milano parkrun its 1980’s bombast was probably a welcome supplement to the mise-en-scène.

By the start line was an Italian flag, and I joined the run briefing in English during which laminated maps were shared around. Unlike home there would be no defibrillator.

With a crescendo of noise, we were away! Fittingly, the initial dash was on cobblestones and these then trended to dirt with a high chance of puddles.

European parkrun time is 9am as opposed to the Australian start of 8am, largely I guess because during the northern winter it’s then still dark. Today’s idyllic with an invigorating air. Milano is famed for its windlessness; it’s the anti-Chicago. This pleases me.

Dominating the north of Lombardy’s central city, Park Nord extends over four municipalities. Our Uber out here was a Mercedes Benz Vito; it’s imposing black finish befitting this fashion capital. Milan seems a wealthy place with smartly dressed folks, stylish attractions, and high-end eateries. I’m yet to spy a K-Mart.

Around the back of my first circuit, I see that most Italian of sporting landmarks: a velodrome. It’s all whizzing blurs of lyrca and metal. I’ve seen very few cyclists in the city, probably given the narrow streets are bunged up with buses, cars, and trams. Being collected by an errant Fiat Panda can be nobody’s aspiration.

Moving past the fields of wild grass into the home straight, I jog through a grove of trees. Glancing at my old Swatch, I’m making reasonable time given we’ve both been crook with colds and I’m still shaking off jetlag. Being in Europe during our footy season I’m always a little surprised upon a weekend awakening that it’s half-time at the MCG. That’s an arresting symbol of our planet’s vastness.

One lap done and from the volunteers I hear lively Italian urgings and I’m electrified for these anonymous gestures. And there’s Claire waving, taking photos and calling out, ‘Go, Mickey Randall!’ How great to be unreservedly supported in this Saturday pursuit.

It’s both a blessing and a curse that I know what to expect on my second trip around.

I push on.

Although I’m about as competitive as lettuce there’s a healthy sense of rivalry in parkrun. I try to keep close to a guy in orange but can’t. The Patawalonga run in Glenelg appears to attract a wider variety of participants. Here, they’re all athletic and coolly confident.  

T-shirts are instructive texts and there’s a few about today. I spot a couple geezers in garb advertising Sussex’s Run Wednesdays and a white-bearded fellow with one announcing he competed in a 100k event (or at least paid his entry fee). As it’s bright yellow and obviously declares my Australian citizenship, I’m in my Singapore Sharks footy shirt. Did you know the Sharks host the world’s biggest Auskick programme?

Exhausted, I cross the line and find Claire. I’ve extended myself and am pleased. I’ve really enjoyed the various enthusiasms of the morning, and how these exist beyond language. I remain embarrassingly monolingual.

Fellow competitors help themselves to a complimentary drink that looks like cola. Curiosity urges me to claim one. It’s boiling and black and I wonder if it’s coffee which isn’t what I’d generally take after hard exercise. Sipping hesitantly, I discover it’s a sweet tea. Nearby is a plate of pastries.

Ahh, Italy.

During my run Claire spoke with a volunteer and of course he has a friend running a bar in Adelaide and I love this universal desire to locate connections.

Despite feeling lousy it’s the fifth best time of my brief parkrun career. Today, Milano hosts a compact but classy field with nearly two dozen runners getting around the five-kilometer course in under twenty minutes. I finish mid-field.

We head south through the park to the Metro and the lilac line. Duomo, mid-afternoon gelato, and the Last Supper await.