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Kapunda, Monday: A Drive Through the Quiet

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From the top of Gundry’s Hill, Kapunda lies soundlessly below — half-hidden in its jumbled valley.

The topography gifts this view — and encourages a certain kind of reflection. I consider how some of the nearby towns such as Freeling, Nuriootpa, and Tanunda are largely flat — perhaps a little reserved in their landscape. Our steeper hills allowed for a testing upbringing of bike and billycart riding.

Once, the surrounds of Gundry’s Hill were simply paddocks — rolling and empty. Now, a housing estate sprouts, improbably dense. There’s about twenty homes hounded in together — you’d struggle to swing a nine iron between them. However, unlike other locations further north, the population’s climbing.

Driving about I’m gladdened by the early-week industry. People on foot and in vehicles are moving about collecting and depositing stuff, accomplishing transactions, making things happen.

A blue sky presses down on Kapunda, dragged by an icy wind slashing at the trees and roofs. I remember days like these from my childhood. A friend once called it a lazy wind — ‘It doesn’t go around you, just straight through your torso.’ She was right.

I’m curious — profoundly invested — in the high school’s rebuild after the 2022 fire. Eringa now looks familiar and is regaining much of its grandfatherly glory. It’s reclaiming its place as the town’s reassuring heart. The croquet lawn lies beneath a compact row of building site offices and the apron sloping from the grand front steps is crowded with what I hope are temporary structures. The old palm tree stands noble by the basketball court.  

*

Idling through the Dutton Park gates I take a slow lap around the sporting precinct, passing the clubrooms where Claire and I had our wedding reception. I then see the sleek bowls club, tennis and netball courts, and sadly becalmed trotting track — remembering long, dust-kicked laps in the heat of footy’s pre-season. The encircling gum trees bend in the crisp June gusts.

I veer past the old Railway Hotel. Most of it’s intact behind some hopeful orange bunting. I wonder for a moment at what it could become. A motel? Café? Restaurant?  I then shake my head. It’s been decades since the pub fire and nothing’s happened.

Across the road is the Railway Station. It’s now luxury accommodation but I remember Mum taking my sister Jill and I to collect our monthly parcel of State Library books and cassettes. There was always excitement in pulling open the brown paper wrapping to see what’d made the train trip up from North Terrace.

I note mechanics garages all around town. A number have sprung up to service patiently waiting trucks and utes. Diesel motors have feelings, too. A boxing club’s in a shed across from Bald Hill.

The North Kapunda pub is shut although the forlorn loss is yet to drape itself glumly over the veranda and windows. I hope it reopens but Kapunda has probably always been overserviced by pubs. Smiling at the thought of Saturdays in there during the 1980’s — the rowdy white smear of a couple dozen cricketers and I hear, ‘Where are you goin’? You owe me a beer for the Schooner School!’   

In contrast, Puffa’s drive-through has been trading steadily since dawn and just over on Clare Road’s a flashing sign urging punters to drop by for morning coffee and afternoon delights. I love pushing through the front door into its cosy bar but before noon on a Monday’s not really the time. One day soon.

Turning onto Hill Street I spy the sporting mural about which I’ve heard much. I’m carried back to the past and beam at Rocket Ellis, Paul O’Reilly, Davo, and other portraits. Macca — iconic teacher and sportsman — is also there and he once told me, ‘You’ve got it arse about. You hit a cricket ball in the air and a golf ball along the ground!’

I smile at the adjacent mural more broadly acknowledging Kapunda’s story. Much-loved deli owners and revered citizens Eli, Brian, and Reg Rawady are at the rightful centre. I can still hear their distinctive voices, especially Reg’s bellowing baritone. A town that appropriately praises its people and history is surely a healthy place.

At Litl Mo’s bakery, I park outside the former Eudunda Farmers store. Inside’s noisy with older folks concluding their morning tea. As I’m ordering most amble towards the door — leaving behind their coffee cups, chatter, and crumbs. A murmuring din bounces around. ‘See you next week, Bill. Enjoy your golf on Thursday!’ It’s an encouraging hub for the town and a bustling café.

Deciding to eat on the balcony, I spot the dental clinic across the Main Street. It’s new although Dad later tells me it’s been open a while. After too many of Mo’s chocolate donuts, stride across the road to get your teeth fixed.

My sausage roll is excellent. Scrutinising it after a bite or two, I’m thrilled to spot that neglected ingredient: carrot! The taste is delicate and flavoursome. It’s not massive — no need to compensate for tastelessness or oily pastry. It’s a treat.

*

Monday mornings teach you things in a country town. I’ve taken a tranquil drive through memory but have also glimpsed something of Kapunda’s boisterous and bright future. There’s movement beneath the quiet.

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Running North Terrace

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I’m jogging west along Adelaide’s most distinguished boulevard on this dazzling Sunday morning. Much of this street I’ve never explored.

The footpath is wide and tree-lined, and the streets are hushed, empty. The warm weather’s more akin to October and not late May so I flip between viewing this as serene and approaching apocalypse. Claire had an Auslan interpreting job at the Lion Arts Factory — a burlesque dance competition — so we decamped to the Intercontinental (Hotel not a nuclear-armed ballistic missile).

Next door, the Adelaide Convention Centre sprawls— so vast, Boeing could assemble planes in it. I enjoy it best at big events like the Cellar Door Festival when over splashes of red wine and among the Merlot-ed masses, Claire and I whisper in snug, secretive ways.

I pass the medical precinct ­— towering, assured, glittering — on which I’ve never set foot. Formerly overlooking the railyards, it was the road to nowhere. Like much of our privileged world, its function has transitioned from industrial to knowledge, a Victorian badlands to a district of profound applied intellect.

A duo of male joggers materialises. Relaxed with each other, they’re chatting comfortably. We exchange a chirpy round of, ‘Morning.’

I cross the terrace at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. It’s among the most expensive buildings on the planet. With relief rather than pride, I nod at this thought. Nuclear plants, much of Singapore, and those futuristic Gulf state mirages, all sit higher up the list. Even the American football stadium at Inglewood, in LA, cost more (five billion) and yet much of it is (fake) grass. How could this be?

The Newmarket Hotel stands silent, a ghost ship. Its legacy is to the nomenclature of glassware with the butcher, named for the small beer preferred by abattoir workers at lunchtimes. Where can we now find these 200ml tumblers? Maybe in lonely country pubs. Are these victims of the American (read: global) trend for upsizing?

Peering in at a cluster of UniSA buildings, it’s another mysterious pocket of North Terrace, an architectural Siberia. The intriguingly named Elton Mayo building (a pianist and salad dressing hybrid) has an almost mocking confidence. One day, I should stroll in. He was a celebrated psychologist.

Striding along now. The Oaks Horizon. We had a couple of stays there with my boys to explore the city. I wanted them to experience Adelaide’s cultural riches and investigated the Botanic Gardens, Museum, and Art Gallery. We also played mini-golf at Holey Moley near Hindmarsh Square. Education complete at the Pancake Kitchen.

Red and blue flashing lights and my heart quickens. What? Why? A paused police car menaces a white SUV just by the Stamford Plaza. I amble through during that tense interlude when the car-of-interest stops and the pair of police alight — adjusting their belts, straightening their navy caps — and I imagine the driver’s halting, ‘Morning, Officer. Is there a problem?’ What has gone badly at breakfast on this Sunday?

A convenience store window offers a super deal: two unlikely allies finally together — Farmers Union Iced Coffee and a ham and cheese croissant. I’m proud that South Australia is one place where Coke is outsold — Glasgow and its carbonated Irn-Bru being another. Bravo, iced coffee! Take that Paris! Take that Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré! Take that Atlanta!

No traffic. Flouting the crossing light’s red man, I scurry over King William Road. I see solitary pedestrians, the homeless interrupted by dawn into forlorn, shuffling movement and I’m grateful for my fortune. Turning around at the former Botanic Hotel, there’s evocations of my untroubled university life. The building’s majestic, its raucousness now becalmed.

With the sun on my face, the future technopolis of Lot 14 swims into view. It’s only hoardings and a barren block but could erupt suddenly, all dazzling glass and steel. Taking in the University of Adelaide and Bonython Hall’s honeyed façade, I’m reminded, not unjustly, of Bath and Oxford.

This is a handsome boulevard.

Kintore Avenue dips down to the River Torrens and hosts the State Library. I spent hours there at uni — the reading room’s newspapers (Ooh, there’s the Wagga News) and borrowing Steely Dan cassettes to play in my HQ Holden. The ease of shaping my days with leisure and study.

Adelaide remains tranquil and I again spy the pair of male joggers. They’re still nattering and unbothered by exertion. It could be a pre-coffee pretense.

The casino emerges. Australian cities have increasingly thorny relationships with these, and glamour has largely given way to wretchedness. Seeking dinner last night, Claire and I foolishly walked through one of its eateries. Glaring lights. Cafeteria tables. All the allure of a Soviet hospital. We declined.

Adelaide Casino’s a boorish, puffed-up pokies barn. You could get in wearing double-plugger thongs. Nearly. It annexed the splendid Railway Station. But I remember being disgorged from the Gawler train in the 1980’s, heading to the one-day cricket and this rushes back to me, riotously. Eskies, flags, Adidas Romes. AB, whistling kegs, zinc.

I jog on, buoyant, smiling at my younger self and his friends.

Outside the Intercontinental’s an idling fire truck with Technical Rescue emblazoned on its side. Ignoring these blue and red lights, the hotel elevator then ejects me on the seventeenth floor.

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Our Annual Pilgrimage to the Greenock Pub

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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.

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A Gentle Ambush

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Strolling back from lunch on Port Road’s broad and grassy median-strip, a black car approached. Familiar shape and model — but surely not. It glided closer. I zoomed in on the numberplate.

In our small city of 1.4 million, few things thrill like stumbling upon you.

Our car. You.

Walking along, in no physical or professional hurry, I’d been wondering about your morning — and somehow, as if conjured, there you were. Like a kid at a parade, I waved wildly.

You pulled over. Right lane. Outraging the fretful and the furious. Horns shouted. Arguing with you, with each other, with their contrary planets. You didn’t care. I love that you don’t care.

I leapt in. We shoved your stuff from the seat — there’s always things — and up and down the Port Road you zipped.

A side street.

You park (no honking this time). A rapid exchange. Mornings, work, lunch, the day ahead. A speedy farewell. A kiss.

I love how secretive forces conspire to let these little joys find me. Small gifts from the day itself. Delightful interruptions from the commonplace.

Resuming our travel: you vehicular; me perambulatory. You go to the hospital at Woodville for an interpreting job. I return to editing the curriculum.

It’d been a gentle ambush.

Taking in the sky’s blue ceiling, I find myself quietly grateful — as though a prayer had arrived before I even knew I’d said one.

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What the Photo Knows

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Whether it’s a repeated holiday, yearly lunch, or the lame recurring joke I inflict upon Claire, I reckon tradition offers psychological warmth. Do you have your own conventions that you repeat over and over again?

My rituals unfold like this: the deliberate or accidental start, the adhering — however long it endures — and the anticipation for next time, commencing immediately once the event’s done.

I’ve known Claire since we were thirteen so with much to consider and scribble, head to Port Elliot for a few days to immerse myself. At the beginning of my now biannual writing retreat, I conduct an opening ceremony. This is done by arranging a tableau of items on the townhouse deck’s wooden bench, overlooking Knights Beach. As is our modern way I then take and share a photo, mostly for self-amusement. Like the youngsters.

So, what’s in the photo?

I include my Kapunda Cricket Club hat; the Greg Chappell version (c.1982). It’s my oldest piece of apparel and a life-long companion. It represents youthful frivolity and fellowship. Having been on my head during many summers, I hope it inspires a sunny, grateful tone in my writing. Or at least not a golden duck.

It’s well-worn—perhaps even an heirloom. It’s certainly a talisman from another era—something with personal gravy gravity. Just this week, my eldest, Alex, wore my other beloved cricket cap (Kimba CC) while playing an old, broken-down PE teacher in his Year 12 drama performance. It was a star! Upstaged everyone. So maybe I can pass various cricket items down through the generations. Surely, there are more miserable inheritances. I reckon they’d prefer this to a house.

We can all learn lots from a hat.

Also in the photo is Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter. Paired with the cricket memorabilia, it suggests a longing for past versions of masculinity—or the shifting seasons of life. The Sportswriter is the first in a series of five stories I’ve read three times across this past decade. It’s about loss, introspection and hope.

As I’m striving for enlightened forms of myself, I want both hat and novel, as personal texts, to be illuminating. To work like flares in the fog.

This writing retreat is for contemplative isolation —not loneliness. I generally seek no company — not even during my late-afternoon pub visits — but see the time as an opportunity to swim in words. Not drowning, waving. My sentences take shape from memory and its attendant considerations. Being beside the glittering, pounding Southern Ocean and adrift in language and reflection is spiritual.

The horizon line on the glass balustrade is enlightening. Did Frank Lloyd Wright once say this? Though it sits near the top third of the photo’s frame, it suggests both elevation and humility—the viewer just above the sea, but not grandly removed from it. I hope this projects gratitude for the occasion and the painterly environment, and encourages the idea that these are combining together, in serene concert.

This tableau proposes that through the laptop and novel, I’m straddling the border between writer and reader. Additionally, I’m fluctuating between labour and leisure and ultimately, thought and the expression of it. My retreat is simultaneously and indistinguishably all of these.

It’s my idea of fun.

Lastly, this is a portrait of myself in retreat— not from life, but toward something. Maybe a particular reckoning with age, or self, or meaning. The animating idea is that we harvest the past to better command our present.

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Charlie’s Good Tonight: The Rolling Stones and the Showdown Mark

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The Rolling Stones carry metaphorical wallop. Mick may love cricket, but I sometimes drag them—unlikeliest of guests—into footy. After all, sport and music can both be art.

Full forwards are Jagger, midfielders are Keef, and backmen, of course, are Charlie Watts behind his Gretsch set, vacant of expression and caressing his drums almost awkwardly, giving occasion for the melodies and vocals, allowing everybody else to happen.

Charlie’s first love was jazz, but he kept time for the planet’s greatest rock band. Was it his day job? Like SK Warne, the best ever leg-spinner, preferring deep down, to run around on a forward flank for St. Kilda?

Did both choose excellence over longing?

I wonder about Charlie in his Savile Row elegance, offering percussive minimalism to a Wembley crowd while his inner ear yearned for Miles Davis—and the other Charlie (Parker)—in their 1947 version of Out of Nowhere.

Like Charlie’s rearview of the band, football’s defenders monitor proceedings up the ground, eyes vigilant for imminent threat. They bear the dreadful burden of vision. There’s Mick—elastic, swaggering, now self-parodying—and here’s Keef on his 1954 Telecaster, summoning the spirit of Blind Willie Johnson, cloaked in his own phantoming smoke.

Kids love goals and a huge hanger—or specky, as we called them at school. Muddling through middle age and with retirement morphing in the fog, footy’s defensive acts increasingly appeal. I’ve never loved so much the redemption of a spoil or a smother.

Grit has succeeded glamour.

As we age, do we adjust from attack to protection, our crumbling biology shaping a third-act philosophy? Is there any footballing instant with higher psychological value than an intercept mark? Paul Kelly once described sport’s best theatre as danger converting unexpectedly to grace and, as always on matters liturgical, he’s right.

*

Showdown 57 had been pulsating. In the final quarter Port Adelaide was ferocious, generating a fully invasive twenty inside-fifties in as many minutes.

Emboldened and ravenous, they surge again—and from inside a tangle of smearing limbs, Finlayson flicks his leg and conjures a goal. With thirty-one minutes gone, the margin dwindled to a fraught four points.

Centre bounce. Jason Horne-Francis snatches the ball and rolls to the outside. He is heir-apparent to the Dangerfield accolade: explosive. But he is also volatile—and this amplifies his peril.

Like a reddish comet, his drop punt slices across the night sky, then begins its return to earth in the forward arc.

Five games in two years at Collingwood. Five games in his first year at Adelaide. Mark Keane is from County Cork and was skilled at both Gaelic football and hurling— a game featuring amended jousting sticks— with the latter requiring substantial pluck.

He takes six marks tonight, and all attention lands on the last. Maybe moments late in a match acquire falsely enhanced acclaim, but sometimes in life and football, context subverts the text.

Keane’s eyes fixate on the ball with a purity of commitment. He crabs backward and across, almost akin to a country hall line-dancer—I can hear Far Away Eyes chugging along—but the Irishman is more slippery of hip.

His tenure as a backman requires obliviousness to ominous traffic, which can arrive like a freight train—fundamental to the mythic bluesmen so adored by Jagger and Richards.
Up go his periscopic arms and—clunk—the Sherrin’s path is truncated. It might have been an uncontested interception, but the preceding imagination and gallantry offer Keane instant cult status.

With this the remaining 107 seconds unfold in a terse sequence of disposals and turnovers before Sam Berry kicks a behind on the siren.

Did Keane’s grab save the game? Or was it any of a hundred prior events?

*

It was a moment at which to gasp and then smile.

Just like hearing Get Off My Cloud and realising abruptly that while the melody and vocals are frantically urging, and the lyrics are buoyant fun—In the morning the parking tickets were just like flags stuck on my windscreen—Charlie’s drumming was always the deeper, mostly unheralded magic in the song.

Ultimately, whether it’s music or footy, some of the finest artists are those who don’t take centre stage—but make the centre hold.

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‘…and the Arab Steed wins the Mystery Pub Stakes in a canter’

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In this City of Churches, stained-glass adorns religious buildings but also those devoted to sinful pursuits. Some argue that pubs and places of worship offer the same functions, but the former attracts a better standard of employee.

The Arab Steed on Hutt Street is in the bohemian quarter of Adelaide and upon arrival I note the dreamy autumnal light refracting through the bar and am instantly gladdened. Announcing the pub was established in 1849 and depicting a galloping horse, the glass above the doors and windows elevates my hospitality expectations to stylish and sophisticated.

Claire and I then enjoy a Catholic hour of sorts—communal, confessional, and consisting partly of (holy) wine.

Late Saturday afternoon can be fraught in a boozer. It’s not our preferred Mystery Pub day and time, as it’s often a twilight when the lunchtime lunchers and piddled punters have departed, and the evening’s effervescence remains remote.

It can be a bleak, betwixt period of sludgy purposeless and ennui.

But inside’s a big table encircled by animated diners. They’re female, of a certain age, and generate a heartening front bar context. Strolling through on a quick Cook’s tour, I reach the TAB section.

The screens cycle from Randwick to Flemington and over to Ascot. A handful of rumpled blokes is cheerfully strategising their next bets while bemoaning their losses. Punting’s a narrative pursuit where the protagonist scripts their own saga of triumph and ruin, all dictated by huge horses and the tiny people perilously astride them.

Barkeep is young, beardy and kind. He asks what Claire’d like. ‘Just a glass of sauvignon blanc, thanks,’ comes her bright reply. I’ve scanned and evaluated the taps and say, ‘Tell me about the Ocean Alley Ale.’ He explains that it’s a new ‘collab’ between the Sydney psych rock band and Coopers that recently ‘dropped’. The lingo of yoof! I later read the beer’s, ‘a sessionable tropical pale ale that will set you and your best mates up for sunny afternoons that roll into balmy nights.’

For mid-April, it’s troublingly hot out (and in) and feels like January. However, the pub ceiling, veranda, and alfresco section by Hutt Street are garlanded with atmospheric strings of warmly glowing globes. This is an inviting setting, so we claim a footpath table. Adelaide pubs are notoriously indifferent regarding this, and all the guilty mine hosts should undertake a compulsory study tour of Fitzroy hotels in Melbourne to research evocative lighting design.

My heart’s then further a-flutter at the sight of an old-fashioned wooden refrigerated cabinet, fitted with chrome hinges and latches, giving it a vintage, almost maritime aesthetic. The top section glows with a striking blue light through glass-fronted doors, illuminating a neat arrangement of beer glasses inside. Beneath this, a row of solid wooden doors with metal fittings suggests older refrigeration units—reminiscent of the iceboxes of earlier decades.

I recall how all the pubs in Kapunda’s main street had these—the Clare Castle, Sir John Franklin, North Kapunda (recently kaput) and the Prince of Wales. I can still hear the affable closing and opening clangs as frosty glasses were retrieved following cricket on those now hazy Saturdays. 

To the right, a rack is filled with classic Aussie snack options, including Smith’s chips and Twisties, adding a colourful contrast and casual charm. The whole scene is nostalgic and cinematic with Australiana, blending functional hospitality with retro ambiance.

Meanwhile, I get Claire an espresso martini and myself another Ocean Alley Ale. How is my beer? A zesty, fruity, summery cup although it’s of concern that Coopers now need to so nakedly chase the kids. The old world’s racing away—maybe in a canter, maybe flat out.

We chat of work, play, loved ones and (checks notes) make mandatory mention of The Pina Colada Song. Today included an Auslan job for Claire at Gather Round, preceded by an earlier session interpreting for a beekeeper down at Pennington. How uniquely clever!

Me? I mowed the lawn (badly).

With the stained-glass light suspended gently like the final note of a hymn, we head home from the Arab Steed for hot chips, our Saturday evening lounge, and The White Lotus.

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Five Things That Made My Saturday

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Saturday afternoon and I’m home alone. Chores are in hand. Nothing on TV and the book I’m reading, the collected stories of cult American author, HP Lovecraft, is more medicinal than recreational, so it sits untouched by our bed.

On Record Store Day (globally recognised on April 19th) I swung by Mr. V’s on Semaphore Road, and because one of the very best ways to invest half an hour is by listening to a Beatles’ album, I bought this. The music transports me to my childhood. It remains thrilling and urgent and while Paul is my favourite, I can understand why George Martin, their producer, commented that of all the great things he got to do with the Beatles, his absolute preference was mixing the vocals of John. As I type, the album’s on and it’s utterly joyous and innocent and compelling.

I love our backyard. And the time of peak admiration is, of course, in those first minutes after it’s been mowed on an autumnal afternoon. The breeze is coaxing the trees and shrubs towards folksy dance and there’s bursts of birdsong. I’m in debt to Claire who, with her artistic eye, designed and brought our garden to painterly life. Later, I may sit out here with a quiet ale and admire the view.

I purchased Glenelg Footy Club’s 2023 premiership jumper at Adelaide Oval during last year’s finals for tuppence and my appreciation of this simple item is twofold. Yes, the dual flags (nice win yesterday over Norwood in the Anzac Day grand final rematch with Lachie Hosie kicking eight goals) but the guernsey is my default running top. It’s frequently a conversation starter and when I’m on the beach in the morning a passerby will sometimes say, ‘Go Tigers’ as we puff by each other. I had it on this morning at the Patawalonga parkrun (my 110th, the 200th such local event and day number 729 of my current streak) and it was a fun 5k (24.49 which is decent for me). I’m grateful for footy and running.

Dinner is slowly cooking in the slow cooker. Which is what the label promised, Mr Spock. It’s a beef casserole and I look forward to it. I assembled it late morning with the help of a Ball Park Music playlist. Can you remind me to throw in the beans around six o’clock? Thanks.

It’s a bit of a narrative but Claire has been in receipt of red wine. Needing some for the aforementioned dinner, I opened a bottle of the 2005, McLaren Vale. This was done with nervousness for I anticipated it might have aged as well as the K-Pop song, Gangnam Style.

How is it? It was a little cantankerous during those early minutes, but I commented to Claire that if I’d been trapped in a bottle for twenty years I would be too. I slopped a few generous glugs into the cooker and popping into the kitchen across the afternoon, both casserole and plonk are doing well.

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Where the Light Found Us

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You wear an elegant, off-the-shoulder sequined dress—sparkling, even in monochrome. In your left hand is a small bouquet of white roses. Your right hand rests gently on mine.

We are gazing at each other with affection, both smiling softly—it’s a candid and heartfelt demonstration of connection.

The setting is outdoors, beside Kapunda’s duck pond. In the background gum trees contemplate while the island’s soft, weeping branches add to the serene, almost dreamlike atmosphere. Late afternoon light filtering through bathes everything in tranquil reverence.

As kids, how many times had you and I walked, rode or driven here? It was always evocative but I dared not imagine it as a setting for such a photograph.

You exude warmth, elegance, and joy. Even in the black-and-white image, you are catching the autumnal light. Your hair is styled in soft waves, loosely pinned back with a natural, graceful finish that frames your face with an artful, effortless beauty. As you look up at me, beside you, you have a luminous smile and your expression is one of affection and contentment. Your face, as well-known to me as my own thoughts, is wholly familiar but somehow brand-new.

With this, my world is remade.

Your posture—relaxed, leaning slightly into our embrace—conveys ease and deep correlation to this instant. The sparkle of the dress, paired with the tenderness in your eyes, contributes an almost cinematic glow. There’s an attractive balance of glamour and surrender in your appearance, making the scene striking.

We had a timeless and profound minute—the photo’s composition accentuates love and natural beauty.

Your face is turned slightly toward me, and you’re looking with a warm, affectionate smile. There’s a calm confidence in your gaze—you look truly content and immersed. You are muse and memory, myth and moment.

For this moment, my life had been a faltering, often uncertain rehearsal.

On this day of orchestration and meticulous planning and staging it is an improvised tableau. A reverential moment at a childhood location. Late afternoon you and I drove past and were drawn to this poignant place. An intermezzo between the ceremony and the reception. It is a place that catches the magical narrative of our wedding.

And here, in this quiet place, is where the light found us.

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Kapunda, 1983: Dutton Park to the Duck Pond

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Let’s imagine a drone hovering over Kapunda.

Gundry’s Hill is the natural place for it to commence with its views across our undulating town. There’s St Roses’ spire, a patchwork of roofs, and the silos standing quietly down near the road to Freeling. The vista is smeared green from the trees lining Clare Road, Mildred Street, and Hill Street which is home to the ancient playground and its old black steam train.

We’re now above Dutton Park and its fetching oval protected by those silent eucalypts. If we listen carefully, we can hear the Mickans chuckling and telling stories. It’s a short flight then to the Duck Pond and if it’s a weekend evening there might be half a dozen cars parked haphazardly on the southern bank, near Dermody Petroleum. There are teenagers draped all across the lawns. My friends. From the tape deck of a car, possibly a Gemini or a Kingswood, you hear this soulful song

Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon
You come and go
You come and go
Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dreams
Red, gold, and green
Red, gold, and green

We then zip over to the swimming pool. On this hot afternoon we see dotted on the grass untidy groups of kids. Zoom in and they’re munching on Bush Biscuits or a Zooper Dooper before running to the diving board. From this they leap off aiming desperately and adolescently at the canteen, run long-sufferingly by Mrs. Chappell. They try to splash her by doing a storkie, arsey or a coffin. They’re tiresome but determined. The supervisor—an elderly Englishman—yells to the skinny boys, ‘Pack it in!’ They ignore him but he yells again. ‘Pack it in or you’ll have a rest for five minutes!’

A short journey and we pause over the Pizza Bar on the Main Street. Johnny Guzzo is the boss. Again, inside there’s some of the town’s youth and they’re huddled about the Formica tables. Some spill onto the footpath, weighted by black duffle coats and ripple boots. With P plates blutacked to their windows, assorted cars lined up outside. There’s a knot of motorbikes too.

Inside by the windows and next to the pinball machines, a mate’s trying for his best ever score on Frogger. He’s trying to cross the river on logs and—be careful—skip over on the backs of hopefully drowsy crocodiles. But he gets munched and the game’s over. He thumps the glass top of the arcade machine. Johnny’s throwing pizza dough up into ever widening circles and hears the racket. ‘Hey! Do that again and I kicka you out!’

It’s 1983 and for one group of kids, they’re in year 12. Seventeen is an age when much happens but you’re no longer a child and not yet an adult. It’s a fraught, fantastic time. Let’s zoom in and see who they are.

*

Here’s Kapunda High’s class of 1983. There’s only thirteen of us although this was boosted by the subsequent return of one Paul Masters, and arrival of Eriko, our Japanese exchange student. Then, of course, most of the fifty-odd who began with us in year 8 had left school for a job. Year 12 was matriculation which meant qualifying for university. It an innocent and wonderous time.

This photo was taken on the croquet lawn at the front of the school. I never saw any croquet but sitting on its grass under the autumn sun was calming and peaceable. And it’s such a picturesque setting that a few short decades later it was where the girl fourth from the left and I would be married. No other location presented itself.

There were only fifteen of us, but I thought us an unruly collective. All day long we laughed and yelled and interrupted each other. Thirty years on, talking in the footy club with Macca—our beloved History teacher Paul McCarthy—he told me we were, ‘bright and well-behaved. A really great group.’ In 1983 I sat in a corner next to Chrisso and Davo and we did much together.

Claire and Trish and I had long enjoyed our triangular friendship, and this continued. There were a couple of classmates with whom I barely exchanged words. I didn’t dislike them; we just had little in common and I hope they’re happy and well.

*

Our matric centre was at the front of the school just near the croquet lawn. It was down the cement steps and in Kidman’s bequeathed mansion, Eringa, it had been a servant’s bedroom. A tiny room, it could only fit ten or a dozen of us around the little student tables.

A blackboard hung to the side and an old gas heater sat above the mantle and we’d use it to toast sandwiches until we weren’t permitted. A corridor ran around two of the walls and our individual carrells were lined up there. How lucky that we had our own private desks? Much of our year was spent at these.

In that little classroom we’d conversations which influenced us. Mrs. Schultz, our gentle and wise English teacher, chaperoned us through The Grapes of Wrath with the Joads as they made their emblematic and weighty way from Oklahoma to California through the Mojave Desert.

I recall my terror as she and Trish talked at length about the novel’s symbolism, focusing upon the turtle crossing a highway and how it represented struggle, determination, and hope. Committed to making my own life difficult, I read many Steinbeck novels over the summer and loved them. But, of course, I didn’t finish the compulsory Grapes of Wrath, and generally only saw the turtle as a turtle.

Our Australian History teacher, Mr. Krips, escorted us through a study of our national identity and the apotheosis of the nomad tribe. I’d not encountered the word apotheosis before. It wasn’t used on the cricket, even by Richie Benaud or by Graham Kennedy on Blankety Blanks. It impressed me and I vowed to keep it in my vocabulary as I thought it could have future value. I swiftly forgot it.

Of equal value was the extra-curricular stuff we learnt from our teachers. The girl fourth from the left and Trish always had enthusiasm for curating our experiences and so set up communal diaries in big scrap books. Quickly becoming known as the Crap Books, these enjoyed daily entries, with some contributing more than others. Occasionally Kripsy did too. How great was he? Early in the year he noted the discovery of a musical gem.

Last night I saw Marvin Gaye on TV singing, ‘Sexual Healing’ which was terrific. What a voice! What a performance!

It is a great tune and now when I hear it I instantly think of Kripsy and that tiny, windowless classroom. I hear it with fondness for my classmates and teachers and that fleeting, singular time and place.

Get up, get up, get up, get up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up

Oh, baby now let’s get down tonight!

*

The Coorong is a distance from Kapunda, south of the mouth of the Murray. Until our matric year, school camps had been breezy and amusing affairs. More like holidays than educational experiences. As we had to study both a science and a humanities subject, I found myself in Biology and had to undertake a special personal project. For reasons which over time have only become more bleakly absurd, I was about to immerse myself in the heady, sparkling world of Banksias.

Yes, my teenaged fantasies were all becoming real. I would undertake a vegetation transect. It’s not, however, as glamorous as it sounds.

We stayed in rustic accommodation with Mr. Zanker and Miss Searle. Curiously, I would work with Mr. Zanker decades later at Marryatville High where I taught his daughter in year 12. In 1983, there were about eight of us in Biology and we drove down on Sunday. I recollect none of the journey.

It was cold and grey but one night by a shared metal sink I had a novel experience. One of my classmates, the girl fourth from the left, leant towards me, giggling, and announced, ‘Hey you. Listen to this!’ A brief subterranean rumble followed. We both collapsed into laughter. It was the first time I’d heard a girl fart.

This remains the clear highlight of that camp.

Monday morning was grim and wretched, and it began to rain. I was utterly alone in the middle of a forest of banksias. My task was to measure all sorts of variables like tree height, number of banksia flowers, distance between trees, and other things too hideously dull to itemise for you now.

Until then I think I was a kid who just got on with stuff. But this was new for it was an obligation in which I had zero interest. It was a necessity and there was no escape. I sat on the wet ground and my bum became damp. Three more days of this! I reckon it was the first time in my life I was truly bored. Even now I twitch if I see a Banksia. They’re for life, not just the Coorong.

It gave me a glimpse into the dark world of adulthood responsibility. I didn’t like it.

*

The second and final part is coming soon!

0

Max. fifteen

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Happy fifteenth birthday dear Max.

It’s of significant joy to me that you’re teaching yourself the guitar. I love your discipline in playing each night and how fully you immerse yourself in it. You practice with patience and skill, clearly striving to be the best guitarist you can be.

I really enjoy hearing Jeff Buckley’s ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ and then some chunky blues riffs filling up the house. Your insight into the technical aspects is mightily impressive too. Arpeggio. Capo. Chromatic. This shows me just how deeply invested you are.

I’m completely confident that you’re transferring these skills and successes to other areas of your life. Music is of tremendous benefit to us when we listen, discuss, and in your case, actually make it too. You are living this positive behaviour, Max.

I hoped that going to the Led Zeppelin documentary would be interesting but also inspirational. I hope it has been for you! I anticipate eagerly the next steps for you as a musician which might include forming a band with friends like Levi. I know you’re looking for a bassist and a singer. You could be the vocalist yourself! I would love to be at your first gig!

What about the tremendous learning that’s come from your job? Pasta Go Go has been excellent for you and I can see multiple benefits regarding responsibility, teamwork, hard labour, managing your money, self-assurance, and thinking about your future. I also like that this is a connection between you and Alex.

You also seem to have strong self-awareness about this and understand both your strengths and areas for improvement as an employee. Well done! I was especially impressed that you took a shift at Henley Beach when you didn’t know the venue or any of the other workers. I’m sure this made your boss rapt too. These are the kinds of choices that build character and confidence—ones that will serve you well in life.

Like the guitar, this job experience is a positive indicator for your future as well. It makes me both proud of and excited for you.

I said to you a few weeks ago how compared to last year you are now in many ways unrecognisable. Your growth and advancing maturity are hugely pleasing, and this is also evident at school. Attendance, application, and achievement are all vastly improved with B grades thus far in 2025 across all subjects!

Wednesday mornings are a symbol of the new Max. Now, you get up at 7am, ride to the gym and then meet friends before school actually starts. You are harnessing the late start as an opportunity for fitness and fun. I’m delighted in your approach to this.

It was well over a decade ago that you gave us the immortal line, ‘I’m cooler than a robot, older than the wolf.’ One of the highlights of our Sydney trip was the ferry ride across the harbour to Manly.  As we rode up and down the towering waves and you saw the small leisure craft bouncing around on the massive swell you remarked to Alex and me how you, ‘Hope on that boat they didn’t leave any eggs out on the bench.’

Comedy gold.

Happy fifteenth, Max.

Love Dad

4

No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush: A Willunga Sausage Roll

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Is there a more fetching architectural feature than a bull-nosed veranda? it’s wholly inviting how it curves down to the approaching guest and beckons you inside for a cuppa and a Monte Carlo (goodness, what a biscuit). Does the sloping iron suggest submissiveness? Or on this early afternoon, a very attractively priced sausage roll? The Willunga Bakery veranda is at once confident but also modest and I wonder if this is reflective of Australia’s idealised self-image. After being overseas, a bull-nosed veranda can welcome you home with a hug just like the song Flame Trees and then being cussed at spectacularly in a nasal twang by a dear friend.

At $3.90 I was stunned and wondered bleakly if I wasn’t still in Sco-Mo’s Australia. A quick slap to my own face and I was returned to 2025. How was the sausage roll? Pretty good. Decent size and flaky pastry. The taste was initially uncertain but finished with a pleasant zing. And which Wednesday isn’t improved by a pleasant zing? Like a member of the Barmy Army attacking a late-night kebab, I woofed it down pronto. I then remarked to myself, not unlike an English cricket tourist that my sausage roll was, ‘dead good.’ I stood proudly, allowing the flakes to fall onto the ground. Small marsupials would enjoy these tonight.

Sitting on a bench out the front of the bakery is a visual feast. The handsome pub’s across the road, promising cold Pale Ale, and clots of tourists wobble up and down the hilly street. Like a diminutive Smithsonian Institute, there’s a random but artistic assortment of objects on the bakery footpath, festooned across the walls, and dangling from the iron ceiling. I found it diverting, just like a Test match crowd after tea when the full theatrics unfold. I would never wish to use one but there’s deep aesthetic comfort in an old (are there new ones?) typewriter. Do these and Betamax video players weep together in lonely old church halls and console each other?

I love a community notice board. These are often rich texts laden with intrigue and narrative clout. Willunga’s bakery adheres to this. When was the last time you saw a sheep pose for a photo with such grace and composure? For a recently lost livestock the unflinching way it’s staring down the camera seems uncharacteristically calm and accepting of its bleating circumstances. A Current Affair could do worse than to interview this lamb. Found: Lost Dorper Lamb could be an animated Wes Anderson film, 70’s agrarian concept album or minor Roald Dahl short story. Our sheep contact and agricultural hero, ‘Margret’ has a curious name. This rare variant of ‘Margaret’ sounds Welsh and is therefore entirely appropriate for one collecting and saving stray sheep like a Fleurieu shepherdess.

In 500 words (or fewer) discuss how this image is emblematic of a small town, nostalgic Australia. Ken Done should put this on a tea-towel. Blue and white fly strips fluttering in the warm breeze. A daggy Open sign that’s rusty and worn. A bright yellow chair that’s cheerful and retro, promising no nonsense, 1950’s values inside. It’s charming and unpretentious. Stick Bill Hunter on it. If this doesn’t already exist, the photo could feature in a calendar called, ‘No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush.’

0

Mystery Pub: A Particularly Disobedient Limerick about The Ovingham

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There once stood a pub in Ovingham,[1]

Where Claire and I drank a wee (inducing) dram.[2]

The Hour was quite Happy,[3]

Our chatter was yappy,[4]

And as we’d driven to work in Claire’s RAV4 it made complete sense to go home in this instead of inexplicably abandoning the vehicle in the pub’s undercroft carpark like an orphaned hatchback and take the tram.[5]

[1] Until recently it was known as the Bombay Bicycle Club, a nod to the hotel’s little-known popularity as a setting for many Bollywood musicals. None, however, with Brett Lee.

[2] Claire enjoyed a sparkling white (champagne) and an espresso martini while your limerickeer had two Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ales which can be quicker to drink than to type with two fingers.

[3] The pub offers no official Happy Hour(s) but does have really good prices, all day, every day.

[4] Notable conversation topics include Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) – A UNESCO World Heritage Site; a stunning railway station built in 1887, blending Victorian Gothic and traditional Indian architecture, and the surprising joys of porridge.

[5] May not adhere to traditional limerick final line metre.

0

7:22 am, Friday – Glenelg North Beach

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Jogging along the ribbon of blonde sand, he was grateful for the gulf and majestic sky.

There were only vague, soundless characters scattered on the coast.

In the softened distance a lone figure was smudged on the scenery. He could make out her muted pink dress. She was at the water’s edge, moving north towards West Beach.

Arriving at her side he slowed and bent towards her. Then he reached for the closest shoulder. He kissed her cheek—exquisite, familiar—and was moved in a profound, unspoken way.

She murmured that the morning suited her, that she should come here more often.

He reminded her of the unseasonal winter’s day, a few years’ back, when they did this before work.

She smiled, a kind nod to their memory.

Yes, he said, August—just before the Josh Pyke concert.

He returned to his jog and stretched away from her. The water receded some more with the moon’s fading gravity.

It was the briefest of exchanges, a sliver of chat. But it was connective and affectionate. As he pushed away, she offered tender encouragement after him, before laughing too.

Squaring his shoulders to make erect his carriage, he stared towards the usual turn-around point. It was just beyond a jutting ramp, bordered with rocks.

With the delighted sun vaulting into the incalculable blue, he’d soon return and ease to a walk alongside her.

Again, he would kiss her cheek.