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.

*

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 12^th 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.