The Tale of the Fat Koala

This week has been one of close encounters with Australia’s unique brand of wildlife. That, and my first visit to our shiny new IKEA, but that’s still a bit too painful to talk about.

For a city that most people have heard of, Adelaide is very small. It is wedged in-between the sea and the hills, so it is difficult to see it getting much bigger. While the sea is a shark filled shimmering vision of deep blue, the hills are a rolling green carpet of eucalyptus trees with mountain bike tracks cutting through the dense forest, making superb riding and offering an eye to eye experience of some very strange animals.

It’s no big news that this country sits on a far out branch of the evolutionary tree, apparently Australia broke away from the larger land mass and went it’s own sweet way relatively early in the earth’s history.

The net result of this is that Aussie critters a little bit lower down in the big scheme of things, let’s say spiders, snakes and particularly crocs, are as hard as coffin nails, while those fluffy things alleged to be in the tall branches of Mother Nature’s big tree are mostly big pansies.

From what I can see, these animals have had the luxury of evolving without a major carnivorous threat. So most tasty mammals just got complacent. Take the koala, it sleeps where it fancies, doesn’t bother hiding and nothing eats it.

The same goes for possums. There cannot be a fluffier, cuter and fatter animal anywhere. Where else would you get such a tubby, juicy, slow moving meal on legs which fears nothing?

I nearly rode into one last week as it took a breather on the pavement. Skidding to a halt and cursing loudly, (well, I was on the way home from the pub), it gave me a dismissive stare, didn’t move a muscle and made me cycle round it.

Kangaroos are slightly different; they have no predators apart from people like me who think they taste great. I reckon this makes them half of the world’s only legally edible national emblem. Apart from the leek.

Anyway, back to koalas. It seems that the biggest danger they face is from themselves and I saw something last week which I am sure I will never see again, in front of my eyes, deep in the forest, a koala fell out of a tree. And it wasn’t a small tree, in fact it was a bloody big gum tree and it fell all the way from the top.

Three of us were riding through the forest and had stopped for a break. I can only imagine that the koala had spied a juicy looking clump of leaves at the end of a branch which was never designed for a bottom that big. Hence the crack which we heard and the sight of the koala hanging onto plummeting foliage. And then a hefty thump. And then nothing…..

The second of my notable Aussie wildlife encounters of the week involved the other edible half of the Australian flag, the emu. A uniquely menacing bird.

There is a long list of things which scare me, and right at the top is the emu. Unlike Mandy, who, as you will see has a special bond with them. The photo was taken from quite a distance on full zoom. As for me, I hate them!

The unsettling thing about an emu is that they always look as if they are on the verge of starting a fight. That, along with their sinister unblinking gaze, razor sharp claws and an over exposure to Rod Hull as a child has long ago chased out any warm feelings I might have for them.

Back to the point, I was riding along a narrow track and rounded a corner to find not one but seven of the evil looking so & sos guarding the middle of the track, (all much larger than Mandy’s friend), their murderous eyes fixed on me as I slid to a frozen halt.

I was leading the way and my sudden braking caused some cursing from the blokes who crashed to a halt behind me.

They reliably informed me that the poor birds were more frightened than me….without bothering to check quite how scared I was. And if that was a mob of frightened emus, please never show me a punchy one!

But it didn’t end here, we came across the same mob (bit of jargon for you there – a mob of emus) another half a dozen times, always appearing inconveniently in my path as if the birds and I were two pieces in some giant game of chess and they were perpetually one step ahead of me.

It was with some relief when I made it to an emu free pub shortly afterwards.

I am going on a bit, so enough for this episode. We are taking a long weekend on Kangaroo Island from Friday, a place which is supposed to be unique even by Aussie standards, there is a link on the right of the page. Hopefully we’ll be able to report on a good time next week. I may also be able to talk about IKEA by then.

As for the koala…after a minute of silence, a bewildered and embarrassed head emerged from the forest floor. Shortly afterwards the tubby little chap tottered to it’s feet, wobbled a bit and climbed back up the tree to a round of applause. Having a fat bottom has it’s advantages.

W&M

Here Comes The Sun...Maybe

The sound of a million raindrops on the tin roof woke me up and for a moment I forgot I was in Australia. After all, it was Good Friday and surely it only rains on Bank Holidays in England?

Apparently not. After weeks of glorious sunshine, winter made it’s first appearance and wiped the sun tanned smile off the face of the city. But this rain came as something of a surprise as it totally escaped the attention of our weather forecasters who were happily predicting lovely sunshine followed by even more sunshine.

Forget the rain though, you could sneak a troupe of dancing elephants and a brass band under the radar of the forecasters here. Jeez I hope we don’t get a hurricane here, they’ll never see it coming.

The term forecasting is management speak for educated guesswork and in true Aussie style, simple and blunt, they take the educated out of it. Then they hand the job to a series of out of work clairvoyants and palm readers who take turns being weather person for the day.

The result of this is the same forecast every day, ‘fine’ and a guess at the temperature which bears more resemblance to the number on the lottery bonus ball than what’s happening outside.

I know this sort of inaccuracy is nothing new and that it’s not always spot on in England, but these failed mystics are seen as a nightly comedy show which nobody believes, in fact they are so widely ridiculed that you wonder why they bother wasting the air time. Easter Monday was going to be ‘fine’, as it happened the rain woke me up at 4am and was still teeming down at bedtime.

Meanwhile, the footy season continues and the local team, Norwood, show signs of being a frustrating bunch of hunks. After a winning start to the season, the mighty Redlegs have since scraped a win in a game they should have had wrapped up by half time and then threw it away this weekend, losing dramatically to the last kick of the game after leading by a long street. It’s just like watching City.

But the results are neither here nor there, watching the game is one very sociable way to spend a Saturday afternoon. All the grounds have a barbecue going and a fridge full of beer. So, we join a couple of thousand oddballs, standing on a grassy knoll, swigging beer, groaning and hurling abuse as the Redlegs throw away another huge lead.

And so far, nobody seems to have noticed we haven’t got a clue about the rules. It’s like crashing a trainspotters convention.

To take the edge off the growing tension at the footy, we took a trip to the Barossa Valley to try some wines out. It’s only an hour’s drive north of the city and is truly beautiful, row after row of vines nestled in the nooks of rolling green hills, all making the finest wine region in Australia.

For you trivia types, it is also the home of Jacobs Creek, which really is a little stream named after William Jacob who built a house next to it in 1839 after deciding it was a decent spot to farm. While the little cottage is still there, so is the slick HQ of the Jacobs Creek empire, a little out of place amongst it’s more modest competition.

We didn’t stop there though, what’s the point? Their wine is no stranger.

We did, however, stop at several other places and put away a fair bit of their finest. All jolly nice and a thoroughly recommended day out.

However, after years of fooling myself and trying to fool others, I have to finally admit that I can’t tell the difference between one cabernet sauvignon and another. Or a merlot and a shiraz.

I’m pretty confident on distinguishing a red from a white though. The white is cold, right?

As for local news, Adelaide finally hits the big time this week when our very own IKEA opens. Everyone is very excited, with the understandable exception of the city’s current furniture shops who are in a state of collective panic. Every break on Home and Away advertises a new sale.

And as for me, I managed to catch supper on Sunday. I don’t think much of gutting, cleaning and filleting the poor little things, but they sure tasted good. And spending the day standing in the surf on a hot day pulling your dinner out of the sea takes some beating.

Hope it’s all going well.

No Indian Summer Here

Already the resolution to write here weekly is under pressure, my apologies to anyone who has been waiting in limbo for this episode.

Following Greek, Italian and Chinese festivals, as well as broader food and wine events in most of the city suburbs, it was the turn of the Indian community to put on the show last weekend.

Now while all this food and drink is of course very welcome, festival fatigue is a real danger and I have been suffering from a culinary apathy of late.

However, I had been particularly looking forward to this one, and with good reason. Surely my quest for decent curry must be at an end.

Alas, it continues.

For somebody who’s desert island diet is three parts curry to one part smelly cheese, the quality of Indian food in this town is frankly nothing short of a scandal, and a growing blot on my gastronomic landscape.

With an air of what I can only describe as insouciance, a series of waiters have conspired to leave me longing for Rusholme.

I have been thinking long and hard about how to best describe this uninspiring, primordial swill advertised as curry. I would say mediocre, but it’s not that good. I was tempted by gristly lava, but it’s not that hot.....spices being too left field for the “curry” chefs of Adelaide.

Eventually I concluded there was only accurate way to describe it.

Brown.

At a recent unfulfilling Indian experience, we were served by a girl from Leeds. She at least, and alone among the purveyors of “curry” in this town, had the good grace to look embarrassed at the slop she placed in front of us.

But enough of that. Now that all the festivals, motor races, athletics and cricket are out of the way, there is room on TV for the winter sports, which in South Australia means Aussie Rules Football, or just plain footy.

This week was the start of the new season and if you thought there was a lot of soccer on TV in the UK, think again. There were eight games on TV at the weekend, each of them lasting a little shy of 3 hours.

No signs of overkill though, it seems that too much of a good thing IS a good thing and by Wednesday, the withdrawal signs are already on show.

It’s a pretty unique game which only seems to resemble a Wild West brawl between enormous numbers of huge blokes on a massive pitch with a ball which they largely ignore while landing tasty looking blows on each other and wearing vests designed for the girls to swoon over vast biceps.

Despite the name of the game, there are very few rules and it’s brilliant to watch live. We live about 100m from the local oval (bit of jargon for you there, oval = Aussie sports ground) and are now Norwood Redlegs supporters. It’s a bit like supporting a non league football team with 4,000 other misfits.

You’ll be pleased to hear we won the first match of the season against local rivals Glenelg, the seaside team. After being behind the whole game, we came back to snatch a brave victory in the last five minutes.

Tomorrow the mighty Redlegs take on Sturt, another big match apparently but, more importantly, the venue, the Unley Oval, is close to another alleged Indian restaurant of repute.

We’ll see!

M&W