Claire’s hat blew off and the man passing us on the footpath bent to pick it up.

I also stooped over, but Claire was quicker than both of us. He was a tall, older fellow, wearing boots and jeans. Elegant. As we all straightened up— in slow motion it might’ve been a quirky moment in a music video for a band like The Go-Betweens— I caught his eye and felt an instant rush of excitement.

Almost immediately I whispered to Claire, ‘Did you see who that was?’ No was her reply.

With festive excitement I announced, ‘It was Rampaging Roy Slaven!’ Or rather John Doyle, who plays the much-loved sporting colossus (and trainer of equine star, Rooting King).

In our shared instant Roy shot me the look I’ve seen a thousand times on TV—the eye-twinkling, self-aware grin when he’s already amused by what’s to come and hopes you will be too.

Within our first hour in Balmain I had the best Sydney experience. Roy!

*

With time before check-in, we explore Balmain’s snaking thoroughfare, Darling Street. It was hot with punishing humidity and sinister sun. For days, my shirt—and probably night tools too as described by Roy and HG—would be soaked. In the airconditioned library I found the New Yorker and read a Haruki Murakami story while Claire browsed.

Back outside there’s dogs everywhere. Friendly, trotty ones who are nearly laughing. Flopping by their owner’s feet at sidewalk cafes and, as we later learn, spreading across the ancient carpet of pubs. How great? Dogs aren’t generally resident in Adelaide boozers.

Coming from tree-lined Darling Street is a constant, subtropical score of birdsong with happy chirping suggestive of alfresco evenings and catchy melodies. It’s a bubbling soundscape of butcherbirds, boobooks, and frogmouths.

*

In the heart of the village is The Cricketers pub. Inside’s cosy like a lounge room. Travel’s core principle is to mimic the locals, so I buy my debut schooner of Resch’s. Sipping tentatively, Claire says, ‘How’s your beer?’ Taking another slurp I reply, ‘I think it similar to West End Draught. It serves a purpose.’ Claire has a utilitarian white wine.

The patrons seem happy to be in and unlike some Friday night crowds, it’s not just fugitive old men. There are agreeable groups of young and not-so gathered and the murmuring percolates up from the dappled tables.

On the bar is a tips jar filled with gooey pink liquid, Claire’s told, to repel thieves from nicking the donated coins.

*

Balmain’s best on foot, so Claire and I saunter along Mort Street to the ferry, noting the conical but dead Christmas trees on the footpaths and bougainvillea too. The trees are erupting with reddish pink flowers. The carpet of colour punctuating our stroll like a minor film awards event.

The ferry wharf houses a community library with hundreds of books lining the wooden walls. What an emblem of civility and hope! My joy deepens when I note that it’s also catalogued. My eye’s caught by the weighty tome, London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. It’s long tempted me but being restricted to hand luggage renders its 884 pages unlikely to accompany me home. Might be a retirement book. When we next visit it’s gone.

The obsolete Maths and medical textbooks remain available.

*

My run streak continues (624) and Sunday morning I jog along Darling Street through the village. How fantastic to live here? Flog the car, walk to the ferry, waddle to the pub!

Passing the Hill of Content bookshop I’m struck by the cleverness of the name with (apologies for this) content being happiness and content also being included material. Just across the street is another bookshop. What a literate and literary location is Balmain!

After the crest of the first hill emerges the appealing London pub with its Sparkling Ale sign nodding under the veranda: it was once owned by the Coopers family. I also take interest in the Balmain Bowls Club (oldest in NSW: 1880) which offers jazz on Sunday afternoons, and a chicken schnitzel on Thursdays for $19.90. I vow to take a photo and send it to Mum and Dad (for decades he’s played first division for Nuriootpa).

Hearing St Mary’s church before I see it, the pumping pipes of the organ and resultant hymn swells over the bougainvillea.

The East Village Hotel is almost hiding from view, crouched by the boulevard although there’s tables on the footpath and empty beer barrels squatting in the lane. It’s picturesque, melts into the streetscape and could be in Hertfordshire.

I’ve gone up and down two serious hills, and my unaccustomed calves are mooing. Back home in Glenelg, the terrain’s cricket pitch flat. Approaching the wharf, I get a glimpse of a sail and pylon, so cross the street and there it is. Along the silent horizon’s a panorama of the bridge.

Falling down the sheer incline, I arrive at Balmain East ferry wharf, peer through to Barangaroo and the Crown Casino. Nicknamed Packer’s Pecker, the architecture’s a combination of blatantly penile and Dubai-lite aesthetics.

*

With all the water surrounding us on the Balmain peninsula we needed to get wet, so Claire suggests the Dawn Fraser Baths for a cooling splash. On our way home we spot the neighbouring Riverside pub where she was the publican for a stretch. She truly was the queen of all things liquefied, our Dawn.

Popped into the Unity Hall pub where the Labour Party has deep connection. Claire asks (reasonably), ‘Do you have a wine list?’ The youngster says, ‘No but tell me what you’re after.’ It’s a pub fiercely for locals (men) and we overhear a lively chap announcing like he’d just mowed the lawn that he’d, ‘been arrested on Saturday.’

*

Following a BBQ at Claire’s brother Matt’s we wander home along an insect-buzzing and hot Darling Street.

Tomorrow night two inches of rain will fall from the swollen skies. The village of Balmain is to be awash.