Tag Archives: Sydney

0

A love letter to Balmain

|

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.

2

Sydney, 1985: As the Manly Ferry cuts its way to Circular Quay

|

Part 1 of our trip is here- https://mickeytales.com/2024/11/10/sydney-1985-catch-the-bus-to-bondi/

And now for Part 2!

*

Brendan’s skin was peeling.

The attendant mythology grew when he announced his molted skin was being kept in a bedside cup. For some days he’d been adding to his store of discarded epidermis. Happily, his flesh was less burnt than another friend who was hospitalised after a scorching, shirtless day at the cricket.

But one afternoon we returned to the Sydney apartment and from Brendan’s room there were shouts of horror. ‘No, no, no!’ Someone, likely Woodsy or Swanny, rushed to his aid. ‘We’ve been burgled,’ he cried, ‘Someone’s stolen my cup of skin.’

We’d all enjoyed many days together during cricket season at the Adelaide Oval so welcomed a Day/Night fixture against Sri Lanka. Earlier that day Claire and Trish arrived by train, and joined Chrisso, Woodsy, Swanny, Trev, Paul, Stephen, Brendan, and me. The girls had an epic adventure, and they’d already been to Ballarat, and Melbourne.

It’d be our collective SCG cricket debut. We won and the eternally salvaging AB made 79, while the eternally angry RM Hogg took 4/47. It was punishingly hot, and even our eyeballs sweated as we sat in front of the mammoth scoreboard on their Hill.

Like Sydney itself, it was fun and filmic in scale and more vivid than conservative Adelaide. Leaving, the Hill was a graveyard for countless, abandoned thongs. It seemed to be where all rubber footwear went to die. ‘Hey, you,’ smiled Claire and promptly whacked me on the leg with a thong. She was always doing stuff like that.

Back at the Gem, it was so humid the dew was draped on the roof and windows as if there’d been a monsoon. What a strange, sultry country Sydney was! It was also the era of Derek and Clive, so waiting for the traffic, Stephen, Trish, Claire, and I listened to those horrendously drunk British men known properly as Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.

…he come up with the name of ‘John Stitch’. He come up to me. He said, “I’m John Stitch and I, I do non-stop dancing.”

Trish laughed in that bright, instantly infectious way that always amplified the fun of the joke. We cackled as if we’d never previously heard a word of it. As is her way, Claire didn’t get why we were snorting and giggling so we’d take turns explaining. Often this was unsuccessful.

*

Specialising in jazz, The Basement is an iconic music venue, essential for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in Sydney’s culture. We went along one night, just to take it in. Vince Jones, Don Burrows, or Galapagos Duck weren’t playing, and while this was disappointing, it was something we did in our unquenchable desire to extract what we could from this alpha metropolis. I can’t remember the music but the distillation of memory remains: we saw live music at The Basement.

Later, crossing the Harbour Bridge, we climbed up inside a pylon to take in the panoramic sweep of the city. As we gazed down at the traffic and water, some (me) were fearful of heights, while others like Paul (assisted by being in the Air Force) and Brendan (assisted by being unfathomable) welcomed the flirtation with the deathly descent.

The Centrepoint Tower also afforded dizzying views and at the top I was a screen showing how many centimeters the tower swayed in the wind. I don’t recall the number, only my deep, unsettling fear. I didn’t like it.

Varied groups visited Luna Park, Taronga Zoo, the Moore Park Golf Club, Manly Beach, and Kings Cross where a burly bouncer asked us, ‘Is this your first time in the Cross?’ to which Woodsy replied with nodding honesty, ‘Yes!’

Then, in The Rocks, we stumbled upon a Rolls Royce, its blue elegance gleaming like a jewel. The licence plate declared a single word: Kamahl. It seemed an odd name for a car, but we later realised this referred to its singing owner! We stood by it, all thin limbs and emergent irony. His music meant nothing to us, but he was famous, and this regal car added a sparkle to our kaleidoscopic view of the city.

*

Beach culture was inescapable in Sydney. Courtesy of the 2Day FM radio surf updates and Stephen’s knowledge — as an air traffic controller he’d lived there a while — Curl Curl Beach presented itself to us as a (satirical) pilgrimage. Open to all things local, we ventured there simply because we could. A couple of carloads headed, en convoy, over the Bridge, through the leafy streets of Mossman and past painterly Manly.

We didn’t even swim at Curl Curl — something about the waves didn’t look overly inviting and we carried fresh scars from Bondi — but did pose for a photo by the modest brown sign. Chrisso snapped it, and while Paul and Brendan lingered to the side, it captured us at that exact instant: young and fresh-faced and with our categorically eighties hair.

In the photo a tanker drags itself across the horizon while below us in the carpark is the now retro cool of an EJ Holden. It has roof racks so likely is anticipating the return of its surfer-owner. Claire and I are the bookends. Huddled close together are Stephen, Swanny, Woodsy, Trish, and Trev, their faces now fuzzy, washed in the soft, faded colours of the photo. It projects a wistful affection, a feeling that belongs to the past, even as it unfolds.

Gleefully oblivious, we were on the edge of things — not just a shallow cliff at Curl Curl.

We were untouched by the weight of the world, and unburdened. A modern view might be that we were merely living in the moment. We were about to plunge into adulthood, but that morning, standing above the beach, responsibility was as distant as Vladivostok.

A twentysomething birthday gift from Claire and Trish, a block-mounted copy of this photo now sits on my desk. It reminds me quietly of my privileged youth and favourite people. I don’t have a witty or poignant story about that visit to North Curl Curl and I’m perfectly content with that. What does it mean to look back and know that we were unaware of how precious those days would become?

What matters is the warmth of attachment and love that stays, how this now blurry image, taken decades ago on an East Coast beach, has come to embody our teenage years — our abundant fortune, and the deep connection we shared in Kapunda.

This summer, I’ll look at the photo again, and, outrageously and sadly, it will be forty years since our Sydney trip. Time moves like that — faster than we ever expect. One day soon, I’ll go for a drive, pick up Trev, and put on Midnight Oil.

After lunch, he might announce, ‘I’ll just get a nut sundae.’

3

Sydney, 1985: Catch the Bus to Bondi

|

Dramatis personae:

Chrisso- ridiculously smart, dry of wit
Woodsy- upbeat, an enthusiast
Trev- funny, beyond naughty
Swanny- convivial, night-owl
Paul- plain speaker, machine-gun laugh
Stephen- our host, gentle
Brendan- enigmatic, fatigued by the stupidity of others
Trish- quick to laugh, dramatic
Claire- cute but required explanations for most jokes
The Gem- Stephen’s bright green Holden Gemini
Your correspondent- always first asleep, silly.

*

The girl pointed at Chrisso but spoke to all four of us.

‘Are youse from England?’ We’d done a 900k day and here we were in West Wylong (pop – 2,500 odd) and some girls thought we were British. She was barefoot and continued. ‘Youse have got an accent.’ Someone, probably Trev said, ‘No, we’re from South Australia. Kapunda.’ He may have then added, ‘Where they have hot cars.’

We were a long way from home and here was an indicator of how wide the world was.

Idle chat with locals done, we decamped to our onsite caravan. I doubt there was a TV, radio, or home cinema. So, in that time-honoured way we inhaled pizza — likely ham and pineapple; mercifully eggplant hadn’t been invented — and the national beer which is now rarer than rocking-horse droppings; Foster’s Lager. I’m trusting it was from the Royal Hotel on Main Street (true; look it up).

We sat at the tiny table, and I’m quite sure, said things silly and then things sillier. This was best illustrated by Woodsy saying to me, ‘Your face is red,’ and catching his reflection in a mirror, then asking, ‘Aren’t I?’

Aside from the Foster’s Lager, on the trek to Sydney there was only one injury. As he slept in the back, Woodsy had a bad dream (doubtless being naked in a public place), threw out his leg, and cut his toe on the driver’s seat assembly. Ouch.

The next morning, we went through Bathurst, and all took turns driving the famous circuit. Speaking of hot cars from Kapunda, we were in Woodsy’s Datsun 180B. Bathurst was far steeper than imagined — TV tends to flatten these things — and as we whizzed along Conrod Straight at 140k, the little Japanese vehicle must’ve sounded like an oversized, determined mosquito.

*

The following tradition began, I think, in Katoomba.

We called into Macca’s, had lunch (two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles…), and leaping up from our red chairs, were keen to finish that final leg, and motor to Stephen’s. We were Sydney bound!

I pushed open the door when Trev announced suddenly, ‘I’ll just get a nut sundae.’ And so he did. We watched him eat it. Every deliberate mouthful. Some would say Trev ate it with a Zen approach. Some would say it was excruciating. It was a scene from a future Tarantino movie where characters chat in pop culture but strangely menacing ways before most are messily dispatched.

Regardless, once Trev eventually finished, the little plastic container could’ve been immediately and hygienically reused. Not a speck of sundae remained. Across the trip and indeed, the years, when we were halfway back to the car after a meal, we’d often hear Trev declare, ‘I’ll just get a nut sundae!’

Having passed the medical following his toe injury, Woodsy was ruled fit to drive. Back behind the wheel and with Sydney tantalisingly close, he chirped, ‘Let’s get there!’ and out into the honking traffic lurched the little Datsun. From the rear Chrisso murmured, in that distinctive Chrisso way, ‘Yeah, let’s get there.’

*

As a Kapunda kid, Bondi was among the most thrilling places I’d been.

The boisterous, teeming crowds on that striking, sandy crescent! With my saltwater swimming mostly restricted to gentle Glenelg and Horseshoe Bay, the Pacific was intimidating. The surf was enormous with towering waves rolling in and dumping us, metronomically. We bodysurfed and it was exhilarating but we were all dragged into a brutal rip.

Late afternoon with the marching breakers crashing on our heads, Trev and I tried to stand there and ignore the swell, mock-heroically. Amusing ourselves tremendously, we had the most mundane conversation as the azure walls collapsed onto us.

‘Yeah, I reckon Weetbix is the best breakfast cereal,’ I said, just as a massive wave nearly swept us off our feet.

‘Don’t forget CoCo Pops®,’ Trev added, as another tonne of blue-green water dumped onto us.

‘Cornflakes are overrated,’ I evaluated, fighting for balance.

*

It was also the summer of Midnight Oil.

They were everywhere and our unofficial soundtrack to Sydney. One of their early songs, ‘Section 5 (Bus to Bondi)’ became an anthem for us. In the carpark overlooking Bondi Beach we all heaved ourselves at Stephen’s silent, rolling car — known with great affection as the Gem; short for Gemini — in a theatrical, utterly unnecessary attempt to jump the engine into ‘life.’ Onlookers gawked as we performed our dramatic tribute, the song blasting from the open windows

Push start that car tomorrow
I’ll take it to the tip yard
We’ll leave it as a metal wreck
For cats to sleep
Then I’ll catch the bus to Bondi
Swim the beach and wonder
Who can wear the fashion when
The place is oh so hot

It felt like a scene from an arthouse film — but possibly not. Back then, we excelled at amusing ourselves.

*

Stephen lived in a high-rise apartment in the inner suburb of Drummoyne.

He’d been joined by our somewhat mysterious friend, Brendan, who’d abandoned his law degree and moved to the Harbour City. During our stay Brendan introduced us to British post-punk band, The The and such is this legacy that Swanny and I are seeing them later this month.

Like Hugh Hefner or The Dude, he seemed incessantly attired in his dressing gown, and with his nocturnal leanings, translucent face, and Morrissey-like melancholy, Brendan was more Manchester than Manly Beach. He was the most cynical person I’d met. He was already fatigued and world-weary. He was twenty.

Meanwhile, we grew a green mountain of empty beer cans in Stephen’s lounge room. It was an especially adolescent achievement, and the ring pulls from the cans were strung into lengthy chains and festooned about the flat like bogan Christmas tinsel. I guess they were. These were christened by Swanny, I think, as ‘Ring Mans.’

*

Sydney was an exciting but principally alien city. Unlike Adelaide, it was lush and brazen, seductive and dangerous. There was water everywhere. The Western Distributor — a bold, elevated boulevard — led us in and out of the city, curving dramatically above the buildings below.

On a sharp bend in Darling Harbour, a huge advertising billboard swam into cinematic view. And every time it demanded a theatrical response. It warned us with a menacing image straight from the film, Arachnophobia, of the threat we needed to take with extreme seriousness: Funnel web spiders! This was worrying. Home, we had friendly huntsmen. Our routine soon became that when the large, hairy arthropod came into startling sight — all beady, black eyes and dripping fangs — we’d shriek in chorus, led, of course, by Trev!

EEEEEEKKKKK! FUNNIES!

Paul and Swanny drove from Kapunda in Paul’s VK Brock Commodore. When they arrived, we were out, so with no mobile phones — those only existed on The Jetsons — they exercised their only option: wait in the grounds of the apartment block. With a slab of VB but no ice. They braved the beer. Back then simmering lager held no fears.

Now, there were six of us crammed into Stephen’s compact lounge room. We flopped about, foul boys in our now-illegal adidas shorts which revealed many things about us and none of them were healthy. The trapped odour must’ve been monstrous with lager, pizza, humidity, and ripe adolescence. Belated thanks, dear Stephen for your tolerance.

But, gee, it was fun.

Among the many delights was playing cricket in the hot and plush surrounds at Drummoyne Oval. Bare-footed and juggling beers, we batted and bowled and laughed, surrounded by all that sky and all that cobalt water. The details of the cricket don’t matter, but I recall the white picket fence, our lazy bliss, and VB in naval quantities.

It was another golden moment, and these stretched across that endless summer. 

Part 2 coming soon!

0

Road Trip- Kapunda cars and boys

|

 

Once upon a time we took photos by cars. Were vehicles more important when we were young? I suspect they were, and now we’re defined by other things: family, houses, work.

Here’s some old photos. Each tells a story.

 

Some friends- Chris, Stephen, Rodney and I bonded while at Kapunda High over a shared ownership, and then, love of the iconic Adidas shoe, the Rome. We became the Romers. There were four of us, and in this snap we’re heading off on a trip in Stephen’s Holden Gemini, but for reasons I can’t recall, Rod is absent.

Of course, we’re all blubbing and bellowing into our hankies, wondering how we’ll cope without Rod.

Yes, well spotted. I’m wearing a Kapunda Cricket Club cap.

Why did they stop painting cars in that particular green?

In 1988 Paul, Mikey, Chrisso and I ventured to Melbourne in Paul’s VK SS Commodore. It accelerated, as they say, like the clappers. We went to the MCG and saw Dean Jones up close, hitting a few in the net. I was keen to see the Australian captain, Alan Border, bat. After some refreshments I wandered down in the bowels of the stadium to use the facilities.

Coming out into daylight and blinking, I looked at the scoreboard. AB had made a duck. It was the last time full-strength beer would be served at the MCG for many a year.

Yes, well spotted. I’m wearing hideous, fluoro-coloured, hyper-coloured board shorts. No, I don’t know why.

In January of 1985 Woodsy, Chrisso, Trev and I drove to Sydney to stay with Stephen and Brendan in Drummoyne.

Yes, Woodsy and I are wearing Adidas Mexicos shorts, which for humanitarian and visual arts reasons are now banned.

On the way we stopped in West Wylong and met some local girls who, apparently because of our accents, thought we were British. In Sydney we played cricket, and went to the SCG and saw Simon O’Donnell make his debut while sitting on the Hill. We swam at Curl-Curl, Bondi and Manly. It was innocent fun. Then we went to Kings Cross where our country boys’ eyes were widened.

We also went to the Basement to take in some jazz. One afternoon in The Rocks we saw Kamahl and his Rolls Royce.

Ah, the days of the Road Trip!