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I woke up on Monday feeling less than brand new. My legs did not want to move and my head was a bit thick; the combined effects of the annual Adelaide ‘fun’ run and ensuing hospitality.

The run is a 12km affair from the middle of the city to the beach and attracts all sorts, from Commonwealth Games athletes to 95 year olds who are happy to walk it with their great grandchildren. In all 30,000 people took part and it was great fun.

It was a hot day, even at 8.00am, as we all jostled around the start and stumbled along the main boulevard of the city. It took a while for the numbers to thin out and there were plenty of trips, oaths and collisions along the way. All very entertaining.

I have always felt that running is a bit dull if you are not chasing a ball around and I worried that the distance might drag a bit; but far from it. With the crowds cheering us on and bands playing along the pavements all the way to the beach the time seemed to fly by and I felt I was running pretty quickly.

All of which was a total illusion. The clock said I had achieved what might charitably be called a leisurely pace as I trotted in at 61 minutes and 26 seconds. I was a bit disappointed not to get under an hour but still pretty pleased with myself as the 2091st fastest person in the race. This pride lasted until about 5 minutes after I arrived at work when my boss merrily pointed out that his 71 year old uncle had gone round in 55 minutes.

There’s always next year though, and he’ll be 72 then so maybe I’ll get a bit closer!

The inevitable barbecue followed as a group of people from the gym sat in the sun complaining about their aches and pains and how they would run a better time next year. It was only supposed to be for a couple of hours but, I suppose predictably, took all day and a couple of cases of beer.

After all this strenuous work, I thought a spot of fishing would put some balance back into life and took my newly acquired rod to the jetty.

It goes without saying that I caught nothing, but that’s really not the point. Standing on the pier with fishing tackle gained me entry to a select club; a club where ancient Greek blokes reeling in undersized fish acknowledged me with an almost imperceptible nod. I was one of them for a couple of hours.

Membership of this club also gained me a private audience with the mad bloke on the pier who was pulling out ever larger crabs while telling me ever taller stories. I let his monologue wash over me as a pod of dolphins played a little out to sea, a pouch of pelicans swooped low over the jetty and I waited in vain for a bite.

We’re going to have another go at fishing today, this time with Mandy to provide the sound effects!

Meanwhile, good news at last on the curry front. It seems there is a decent Indian restaurant in Adelaide, in fact it’s pretty bloody good. It is also liberally decorated with cricket bats signed by teams from the last 30 years, apparently it is a tradition for the players to adjourn here during the test match.

Of course all this makes it a pretty expensive night out as well, but it didn’t seem to matter so much as the door to a future of decent curry opened and another one slammed shut on the world of bland, brown slop.

Cheers
M&W

Khaki

It seems like ages since we posted any news here, it has been a busy few weeks and there is a lot to tell.

Of course you won’t need telling about the tragic death of Steve Irwin, on hearing the news we all expected a punch line to follow, it was all a bit unbelievable and shocking. I’m sure it was the same over there.

Much though this past week has become Australia’s Princess Di moment, there remains a vocal minority which considers his daredevil antics as little more than exploitation of animals for financial gain. This lobby saw him as a mere lion tamer who picked on very big crocodiles.

On the other hand, most of the money he did earn apparently went to buying up vast areas of outback, setting up animal rescue centres and plenty of other conservation projects. A TV crew stopped a man in the street for his reaction; “I reckon Australia has lost a bloody good bloke today”, he said. I think that about sums it up.

While we are on the subject of Australia’s wildlife, the last couple of months have seen the annual influx of calving whales to the beaches an hour or so south of the city. How cool is that?

They come in July and August and lollop around in the sheltered bays taking respite from the cold Antarctic waters where they spend the rest of the year.

These beaches were the centre of Australian whaling for 200 years but now thrive on the hordes of people jostling to get a clear view through their binoculars.

And a pretty spectacular view it is too. Some of the whales are only 50 yards offshore and, if you haven’t seen a whale before, believe me, they are huge. I thought the big black shapes just below the surface were reefs until their noisy blowholes revealed them to be 60 feet long whales. They are massive! As are the calves, the homely whale museum at Victor Harbour reckons these baby whales are 20 feet long and weigh a tonne when born.

So we joined the crowd on the beach with woolly hats and thermos flasks, (springtime and deep winter can’t decide who’s turn it is at the moment), to watch these gentle giants lie pretty motionless and mostly submerged in what must be a state of some exhaustion.

However magnificent these animals are, half an hour watching the apparently lifeless lumps through binoculars does drag a bit and works up an appetite.

Thanks to Mandy, I was fortunate enough to return the very next day to see the whales again when there were no crowds. She had left her bag in the restaurant and not realised until we got home. Many thanks to the honest soul who handed it over the counter. This meant a road trip to collect the bag for Jonny McGarty (back from the desert) and I.

We took the scenic route, or alternatively we got lost, as Jonny helpfully and repeatedly pointed out. We drove through winding lanes deep in the Adelaide hills, meandering through avenues of enormous gum trees in full blossom with what seemed like a thousand technicolour parrots squabbling at every corner. It really is a beautiful time of year and wild parrots beat the socks off pigeons.

Carried away by the sun setting on the rolling, eucalypt carpeted hills, we pulled into what looked a charming country pub only to find some wobbly locals who must have been sat at the same barstools for at least a few days. For a Monday teatime, there were some spectacular drunks. Our favourite was trying to tell his wife that he had only just arrived and, honest darling, had been working all day, apparently he couldn’t stand up because he was so tired. I could live in the country, no worries.

But before I harbour too many dreams of my own barstool in the hills, I have to complete the City to Bay race. This annual fun run does exactly what is says in the tin; it starts in the city and ends up in the sea 12km away.

In the spirit of trying anything once while over here I have put my name down. Unfortunately, wild horses could not convince Mandy to enter. Training has been going fairly well, I haven’t got any blisters, or been chased by any dogs or run over on the poorly lit streets.

Sunday is the big day, so fingers crossed I can make it less than an hour. Adelaide is 40m above sea level and I guess the sea is at sea level, so I keep telling myself it’s all down hill.

Hope you’re all keeping well.
M&W

Bigger

Any speculators out there may be tempted to acquire the big lobster pictured on the last entry. This classic piece of anti culture has just gone up for sale and is expected to attract massive interest from eccentrics with more money than sense.

For $750,000 you can be the proud owner of the world’s most imposing crustacean and a tacky restaurant to boot.

There is a story that the original drawings for the lobster specified the dimensions in feet. However, the people who built it worked in metric, so the town has a lobster 18m high which appears in a million photo albums.

Unfortunately there is no record of the conversation between the builder and the owner.

In the spirit of all things large, I spent a few days in Melbourne recently. Unfortunately I had to leave Mandy behind and take on sights and lights all alone. She took it reasonably well and we were talking again within a couple of hours.

Melbourne is busy. It is a big city and it feels like one. After 9 months in Adelaide, the trip to Melbourne made me feel like a country bumpkin. The speed and bustle of the place was quite a surprise and shattered any illusions I still harboured about Adelaide being a real city.

But it is a great place, like Manchester but with loads more trams. The city is a crowded mix of Victorian grandeur, towering skyscrapers and extravagant design which would probably look ghastly anywhere else in the world. But in Melbourne, it just seems to fit in and makes for a relaxed but exciting blend.

In fact, I get the feeling that you could try anything in Melbourne and it would just work, the city is cool enough to accommodate most things.

It is also the sporting heartbeat of Australia, home to one of the one of the great horse races, one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments, the Australian Grand Prix, the Boxing day test match (I’ve still got a couple of spare tickets) and, most importantly here, the spiritual home of Aussie football.

The centrepiece is the100,000 seat Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), an awesome stadium which is full for the really big footy matches and will be bursting at the seams on Boxing Day.

I also reckon that the houses here don’t have kitchens.

How else could you explain the sheer number and variety of restaurants, all of which were full at both Monday lunchtime and evening. This is probably because they are very good and offer something for everyone. One evening, when I found myself wondering what I felt like for dinner, the solution appeared, as if by magic, on a blackboard in front of my very eyes.

Not only was the cheese smelly and the wine excellent (I think), but as a measure of the establishment, there were hooks under the bar for coats.

Now this might seem a little thing, but it is a mark of commitment to the pleasure of the customer and in a pub which offers hooks under the bar, there is no need to worry about the quality of the beer.

The other significant event this week was the first barbecue of the season; although it is still mid winter. The weather has been great recently and as one of the mountain bike gang is moving interstate, we thought a few beers and some kangaroo would be a good send off.

His company might be missed, but his cooking skills will not be. Kangaroo is generally best served rare, but not that rare. He was quickly relieved of the tongs and told to sit on the deckchair with his beer and enjoy his leaving do. It might be most fun he has for a while. He is going to Canberra!

For the vegetarians out there, you might be pleased to know that the tomatoes are growing well although the peppers and basil show no signs of playing ball just yet.

Finally Mandy has landed some more work on the burns ward which is more fun for her, and as Australian Pop Idol has just started, she is a very happy bunny at the moment.

Hope all is well
M&W

Big

Last weekend was time for a break from the bright lights and hard labour of the big city; all this sunshine, flexi time and coffee does begin to wear you down after a while.

We are very conscious that since arriving here we have spent a lot of time trying to settle in and shopping in IKEA while neglecting the country beyond the city limits. So we were looking forward to heading down the road to a little seaside town called Robe, perched 200 miles south east of Adelaide on the Limestone Coast.

Robe is a very pretty and well kept place where proudly maintained Victorian buildings provide a roof over the heads of fancy restaurants and artist’s studios. Meanwhile a sheltered harbour offers haven to a small fleet of (seemingly) fabulously wealthy lobster fishermen while the Southern Ocean bashes away at the cliffs outside.

It reminds me of Cornish fishing villages with the sort of prices which would give you an acute pain in the pocket if you weren’t lucky enough to be boarding at a friend’s holiday shack.

Did I say shack?

I meant luxury escape pad 50 yards from the beach.

With all due respect to the very helpful people at the tourist office in Robe, one of the beauties of the place is that there is very little to do apart from walk along the cliffs and argue over which wine to have with dinner. So we slobbed around, read books, paddled in the sea and argued over which wine to have with dinner.

We took our time on the drive down to Robe, partly because I was ferreting around trying to catch the lizard Mandy is holding in the picture but also to stop for an Australian icon, the giant lobster.

Those of you who have been around Australia might be familiar with some of the ‘family’ of giant objects scattered around the country. These include giant pineapples, koalas, sheep, Ned Kellys and, strangely, a boxing crocodile.

Apart from the necessary eccentricity of their patrons, the only thing these objects share in common is that they are in little towns on the way to somewhere else, and they represent an attempt to lure people into the over priced cafes and petrol stations attached to them.

Of course they have developed a cult status as well with people collecting pictures of themselves at each one, so it was no surprise to find a group of snap happy Japanese guys appear as if by magic, just like the shopkeeper.

We passed another South Australian 'big landmark' on the way, but this one doesn’t seem to make the official list on the link above; the giant olive of Tailem Bend.

And frankly, I’m not surprised, in fact Mandy may be the only person in the country to have had her picture taken next to it. It is placed in the grounds of an olive oil factory in a long forgotten part of the town, the sort of place you only find if you are lost.

And getting lost in a place the size of Tailem Bend is not an easy trick to pull off.

Of course I can manage it though.

Anyway, the lobster was not a let down, it really is quite big, and it fulfilled its mission as we filled the car up and bought a pile of unnecessary chocolate.

While getting away to Robe was just the ticket, it was also poor timing as it meant leaving all our new plants and seeds which we had sowed. After the tree planting of a couple of weeks ago I had become strangely inspired and bought a boot load of native Australian bush plants and tomato, beetroot, red pepper (or capsicum as we must learn to call them) and jalapeno seeds.

The master plan is to have half a garden of authentic bushland full of contented birds, lizards and spiders while the other half is a lush crop of home grown veggies to go with the barbies which will be starting again soon.

The news so far is that the seeds have shown no signs of interest and the plants have not attracted any interesting birds or spiders yet. Watch this space though, despite Mandy’s lack of confidence, I reckon I’ll sprout green fingers yet.

Keep well
M&W

Brown

I would hate to tempt fate, but it looks like spring is nearly here. There is pink blossom in the garden, the daffodils are emerging and, after quite an absence, sunglasses weather is here again.

It has not been a cold winter when compared to the north of England, there have been no frosty car windscreens, no snow and no biting wind. Indeed, outdoors it has been bright, fresh and thoroughly pleasant.

On the other hand, indoors has been brass monkeys; we have often left the back door open to let some warm air in and Mandy has taken to warming the bed up with her hairdryer. Reminiscent of a couple houses I lived in while at university.

Our house is a lovely traditional bluestone cottage built in about 1910. It is spacious, affordable, in a great suburb, with its own wine cellar, and bloody freezing in the winter while unbearably hot in the summer.

Not to worry though, the worst of the cold is over and the first barbie is on the radar.

While the warm weather cheered us up no end, it is still a bit cold for the snakes around here. Thank goodness, my mum would say, as I found myself learning to catch and handle a brown snake somewhere in the hills, at least an hour from medical attention.

If you haven’t come across the brown snake before, this website, among others lists it as the second most venomous snake in the world. This is a contentious subject as the snake has to land a bite first. So a shy snake with massively toxic venom, such as a brown snake, is less dangerous than a thoroughly ill tempered bugger which packs a lesser punch but is more than happy to use it.

Anyway, I think it sounds cool to say that the snake in the picture is potentially the second deadliest in the world. Sorry mum.

I was lucky enough to get this invitation to a snake handling lesson following my trip to the venom farm a few weeks ago and what a brilliant day it was. The chap teaching myself and a guy from a wildlife park has a part time business clearing snakes from houses and offices and has had many years experience in handling them; he is a no nonsense pro who makes Steve Irwin look like a show pony. What a bloke to learn from.

We spent the morning at his friend’s house, somewhere in the hills surrounding Adelaide, practicing our techniques with a rubber snake until he thought we were ready to take on the real thing. In between learning the ropes we played with her pet pythons and ate home made pumpkin soup. Not bad.

Eventually, deemed ready to do battle with the snake, we went to see a farmer who figured that one more snake on his land probably wouldn’t make much difference, and found a nice flat piece of pastureland.

We had taken a snake with us, one which Mike had recently caught in a house somewhere in the suburbs. It was a beautiful animal, about a metre long, slender and healthy. Our mission was to pick it up from the grass and, in stages, manage it in such a way that its fangs didn’t get near us, then hold it’s head between thumb and forefinger and eventually place it safely in a porous bag to be placed out of harm’s way. These things are both fiddly and scary with only two hands and one very dangerous animal.

Fortunately the weather was wet and a little cold, not ideal for a snake’s reflexes, but perfect for a clumsy and nervous chap like me who did not need a writhing, agitated and frightened snake to deal with. While it is generally a shy animal, it is always important to remember that an angry brown snake does bite.

My heart was cracking my ribs as I tried to be assertive about grabbing it for the first time but eventually I got the hang of it, albeit with a very dopey snake.

Obviously snakes are not at their best in the cold weather and complacency could easily set in while practicing handling the poor thing. However, it only needed to sun to peep from behind the clouds for a couple of minutes to wake it up and remind us just what a quick and, at that point, irritated animal it was. What a buzz that was! We have a follow up lesson in mid summer when the snakes will be a little more lively, I can’t wait.

After a whole day with the snake, I was feeling quite fond of it and it was great to find a decent place to release it near an old tree by a creek. Just as we let it go to enjoy a life eating frogs, the sun came out and the dopey practice snake woke up again, sniffed its freedom and disappeared effortlessly into the rotten trunk; a graceful and beautiful animal. God help the frogs this summer.

Have a good week.

M&W

Green

There are lots of things to like about Adelaide, from the parks to the markets and the hills to the sea. I still don’t think much of the curry, but one thing that I really enjoy is the city’s little attempts to look like a big place.

This occurred to me during the week as I came across our own little LA, a series of handprints from Formula 1 drivers placed haphazardly on garden walls and shop fronts. A kind of metropolitan fossil find…dinosaur bones from a time when Adelaide had something for the rest of the world to look at. There is no explanation attached, no apparent reason, they are just there. They are not a tourist attraction, but perhaps should be. I got a small kick from knowing I have bigger hands than Damon Hill.

Another of my favourite South Australian institutions is that of Thinker In Residence. Each year we invite an eminent academic to come and live amongst us and then tell us where it is all going wrong. It is a highly sought after position, partly because much of their time here is spent as drinker in residence, touring the abundant vineyards, and partly because being a salaried smart arse is a job to kill for.

The ‘Thinker’ for the year is generally selected to address the burning issue of the day for our perpetually worried state. This year an American professor is telling us about environmental sustainability which, after bidding for the world cup (!), is the hottest potato in town.

To be fair he is very clever and a brilliant speaker, I attended a lecture which suggested that his time in the wineries was not entirely wasted. He is here because Adelaide has a massive environmental impact for a little place, it’s the size of London with a tenth of the population.

Apparently we have what is called a significant footprint. Depending on your spin it means big gardens for everyone or an unsustainable metropolis. When you add the size of the average car, the way we drain the River Murray and fill the shark infested sea with pollutants, we become the biggest environmental terrorists per capita in the world. Something must be done and he has some very practical ideas.

Next year’s resident boffin has just been announced as an eminent Canadian child psychologist. As I mention, the choice of Thinker reflects the worries of our state and this can only be a reaction to our paranoia about childhood obesity.

The tabloid TV which this country so adores runs a story a day on tubby kids. So, forget the Home & Away propaganda of skinny, tanned, well adjusted, surf dudes; real Aussie kids are probably chewing through a Chico Roll, the deep fried food of choice. Everyone assumes it is full of chicken, but nobody is brave to check for sure.

That the country is getting fatter is not really a surprise; the restaurants have no concept of portion control. I have rarely been able to finish my plate when eating out; too much is just enough being the motto of the South Australian restaurateur. Meanwhile, bananas at nearly £5 a kilo make the healthier option a little out of reach.

Anyway, getting back to greener matters, it was National Tree Day last Sunday and we took our trowels down to the park to join in a mass planting of drab looking shrubs. These sorry looking sprigs are of great importance as native species which offer food and cover for native wildlife and strike a blow back against 200 years of introducing weeds and tougher plants which wipe out the more frail local flora.

While Mandy and I had a good time getting our hands dirty, I’m not sure this was the relaxing weekend in Adelaide that I had promised Jonny McGarty. For those of you who don’t know him, Jonny has been beavering away in the tropical north of Queensland at a mine engineering firm. He recently resigned to take a job in the desert, 400 miles from the nearest town, a place which redefines the benchmark for the middle of nowhere. After a year in the fruitless pursuit of intelligent life in Queensland he had hoped that the relative sophistication of Adelaide might give him one last bit of cheer before heading off to find copper in the harsh outback. I don’t think his plans included wallowing in the mud. Still, he’s from Wigan and knows how to put a brave face on things.

Keep well
M&W

Bananas

Apart from digging huge quantities of copper, gold, and uranium from the scorched earth, Australia is mostly an agricultural country and the fruit and vegetables are fantastic. Much of it is also only available in season as very little fruit is imported. So right now we have no mangos but loads of big, juicy, and very tasty mandarins to go with the dozens of lemons which are weighing down the branches of the tree in our garden.

I mention this because, while taking a leisurely breakfast at a smart cafe this weekend, I was surprised to see slices of banana decorating my porridge. I have nothing against bananas in my porridge, quite the opposite; I was taken aback because this was my first banana for three months and normally I am near the front of the queue at the greengrocers.

In April, cyclone Larry crashed into northern Queensland and, by the time it blew out again, took the livelihoods of the banana farmers with it. The pictures of trees ripped out of the ground were pretty dramatic and over 80,000 houses had no power for a week.

Apparently the trees will grow back relatively quickly and the government have looked suitably concerned, which, while reassuring for the farmers, still leaves the country in the grip of a banana squeeze.

So, along with big gaps on the shelves at the greengrocers, there are signs in cafes which say ‘No Banana Milkshakes’ and if you fancy a banana and cinnamon muffin with your breakfast latte…forget it.

While a few bananas are still on sale, the laws of supply and demand dictate that the price is around £1 per banana. And those available are not the prettiest of fruit. At the moment you have to be a big fan of small black bananas to get your fix.

The obvious solution would be to import a few tonnes of bananas, but this is Australia and they are particularly wary of inadvertently introducing more virulent pests and diseases at the same time.

Australia is rightly very worried about importing new variables into its ecological mix. The place is a unique and fragile environment which has evolved largely in isolation and is vulnerable to imported species, be they cats, toads, ants, weeds or viruses.

But that’s a long story and the exploits of the feral camels will have to wait for another day.

Meanwhile, in the absence of reasonably priced, yellow bananas, Mandy has just about completed her apprenticeship at the wildlife park. After six months of sweeping up leaves and dusting out cobwebs in mortal fear of snakes and spiders, she has been offered a role working with koalas. This is a much sought after job which involves picking up droppings and fetching truck loads of eucalyptus leaves. It is the pinnacle of the volunteer’s career path.

Inbetween stooping to pick up marsupial pooh, she will continue as rat breeder in chief, a role very popular with the snake population of the wildlife park. This makes her lots of friends, as the picture shows…I reckon the smile is a little forced.

As for me, the highlight of my week was a narrow victory at the ping pong table over a very disappointed town planner. There really is nothing more satisfying than beating an Aussie at absolutely anything. I guess everyone must have a hobby.

Keep well
M&W

Just A Sliver

Since the news last week that our tennis tournament had been stolen by sneaky Queensland, the media have been keeping an eye out for any similar behaviour. Sure enough, this week we find that our northern neighbours are stealing nurses from South Australia. Not in late night body snatches from the hospital canteen, but through the underhand trick of offering a lot more money.

Queensland is the home of all year sunshine, surfing, rain forests, and now, increasingly affluent nurses. Quite an attractive sort of place which I thought might appeal to Mandy.

I asked her if she wanted to head north to work to escape the inclement weather, earn a bit more money and, of course, to watch some tennis. But, despite even these lures, she wouldn’t hear of it, declaring that Adelaide wasn’t such a bad place. She also added that people from Queensland tended to come from close families, or something like that.

She has got a point and, just to demonstrate this, we celebrated Christmas lunch with our diving club at a very well situated restaurant up in the hills. On a good day it is possible to look across the eucalypt covered hilltops to the sea while enjoying the fabulous food they dish up.

However, this was Christmas so the view was limited to a very large rain cloud while we opened our presents and pulled the crackers. It all seemed very traditional until my kangaroo steak arrived.

Why we had Christmas in the middle of July remains a mystery, but a rather tasty one in the case of my steak and one which rounded off a great weekend during which I came face to face with the world’s most venomous snakes.

Mandy had a week of night shifts, which never makes her brightest little ray of sunshine, so I was happy to make a dash for the Barossa Valley to keep a date with a company which milks snakes for their venom.

I have to underline that I was very lucky to get this invitation. It was the fruit of repeatedly mithering a nice chap who happens to know the owner of the business and who spends his weekends clearing houses of dangerous reptiles; for fun as well as the money.

So it was with a skip in my step that I followed the chief snake wrangler into one of the sheds situated among the pruned vines of the rolling Barossa hills.

I have to admit that my bounce disappeared pretty quickly as a cage door was opened and, three feet from my face, a large cobra sprung to it’s full height with it’s hood fully spread. My first instinct was to jump backwards with a little yelp; not quite the image that image I was hoping to portray!

From this point on, poise recovery and adopting a cool exterior were my key targets. This meant that as each cage was opened, I had to put my face as close as possible to huge African vipers, rattlesnakes, more cobras and Australia’s finest specimens, which are generally more toxic than any other snake you are likely to come across.

The only inmates we were not allowed anywhere near were the coastal taipans. These are pretty much the most venomous snake in the world and they look like it too; they are lithe and menacing with deeply intense eyes. A beautiful, but deadly animal. There were 160 of these snakes in the space of an average living room, somebody somewhere wanted a lot of taipan venom!

I asked why they kept so many, (10 of every other species seemed sufficient), and was told that a special customer required it. It all seemed a bit suspicious to me. OK it is probably the health service which needs those quantities to treat unfortunate fruit pickers, but maybe, just maybe, it was an evil criminal mastermind of Bond film magnitude and I have uncovered a conspiracy which threatens the world.


Anyway, it was an absolute privilege to spend a few hours with the people who run this place (each of the 600 snakes is hand milked) and to get so close to such fantastic animals.

The only way to improve on this was to drop into a small winery along the way and sample a few of their finest drops. Perfect.

I slept well that night, although it was in the cinema. Mandy didn’t mind too much as she could gaze with starry eyes at Johnny Depp while I happily snored the film away.

Hope all is well
M&W

Anyone for Tennis?

Adelaide revolves around its lunch; more so than anywhere else in my limited experience. I am a small and insignificant part of the machine but, much to Mandy’s irritation, am still expected to attend a pleasing number of luncheons for various speeches and launches.
A day in the city has three phases; the mornings pass by at a gentle pace of slow and steady achievement while the afternoons are spent in quiet contemplation of the lunchtime wine. In between times though, the city bursts alive like a roman candle over the buffet table, everybody desperate to give and gain a day’s opinion into two short hours.

Most of these lunches are great fun as well as being very interesting. Take my lunch this week at a talk by a professor of zoology about how to balance the town planning needs of Adelaide with the requirements of sustainable biodiversity. Get me!!! It was held in an intimate wine cellar and the buffet was first rate with an excellent shiraz, so I was told.

Apart from being a fascinating topic, this lunch witnessed Adelaide’s first case of graph rage as a member of the audience frothed over in frustration (and possibly MacLaren Vale shiraz) about the integrity of the axes on a chart showing the impact of introduced mammals on native species. Most amusing it was too as he could not be silenced on the matter. When he was eventually convinced to take his seat again, it was with a promise to see the speaker later.

You see, lunch is very serious here. Alas Mandy can only hear about them second hand, I like to keep her informed on the standard of food at these places.

On the subject of threatened species, many people in Adelaide will tell you that the city is itself in danger of fast becoming an irrelevant backwater. There may be grain of truth in this too. While it will never have the size or profile of Sydney or Melbourne, people worry that it is becoming the poor relation to cities like Brisbane and Perth.

These cities are booming on the back of massive mining exports and are leaving Adelaide behind, despite the huge mineral deposits in South Australia and the billions of dollars being invested in even bigger holes in the desert.

I have a theory that the city is suffering in comparison because of its attitude as much as anything. This town has something of a split personality. Part of it talks about being a growing and dynamic city while there is a comfortable body of opinion quietly undermining this vision in preference for a nice quiet life of long lunches and sipping wine on their balconies overlooking the parks. In short, it doesn’t walk the walk.

It was announced today that Adelaide’s international tennis tournament will move to Brisbane despite being held here since 1890. It is a significant and popular tournament which acts as the warm up for the Australian Open in January. It is also something of a curiosity in that Tim Henman won it once.

The city is outraged, in an understated and reserved sort of way. Meanwhile the tournament will be held at a shiny new tennis complex in Brisbane and I am left wondering why Queensland has the ambition to spend $70m on a national tennis centre and Adelaide does not.

This is not the first time Adelaide has lost a major event to a more ambitious neighbour. For eleven years from 1985 the city hosted the Australian Grand Prix through the streets and parks until Melbourne showed the kind of initiative often lacking here and spirited the race away.
As a pretty poor substitute, the city still hosts a big motor race each year but is not an international event. The only people really interested in racing big Australian saloons are big Australian saloon drivers who love their country and western music.

Meanwhile the rest of the country sees Adelaide as quiet and rather sleepy. This is a little unfair on a great place, but the city really needs to be fighting harder for its share of the cake, whether it is sporting events, business headquarters or exhibitions. It all seems a little half hearted to me.

On a brighter note though, the city’s national Aussie Rules team are by far the best team in the country and, as I write, are on TV handing out a spanking to Sydney which will be very satisfying for everyone here.

Cheers
M&W

Inquest

In the wake of their cruel and frustrating exit from the world cup, Australia is going through the inevitable inquest. In fact they are going on and on and about that dive to the point of relentless tedium.

It was a dive and it was tough luck, but this country needs to wake up to some eternal soccer truths if it is to get over the unfamiliar feeling of entering a competition and not winning it.

The first lesson is that Italians dive and, more often than not, win close and dour matches. The second lesson is that Harry Kewell is always injured, this time developing gout after the game against Croatia. Apparently another medical first for the world’s most committed footballer.

Thankfully the backlash against this sentiment has started. There is a growing voice reminding the maudlin, arriviste soccer fans that their team won only one game out of four, and that supporting plucky losers is not the Aussie thing to do. Leave that sort of thing to the Poms!

On an average day Australians enjoy nothing better than bringing the rich and famous down off their pedestal. Only public figures of the stature of Kylie, Don Bradman or Dame Edna are safe from the relentless sniping which they so enjoy. Even Rolf Harris gets a hard time, and the bloke is a true Aussie legend of galactic significance who, I think, may still hold the West Australian junior back stroke record.

Anyway back to the football, hopefully for the last time, as our own world cup inquest drags on and the welcome sight of Sven’s back fills the media. In England’s scrapbook of penalty shoot out losses, this was my most challenging as I watched in a room full of Australians at an engagement party which, until the footy came on, was a pretty good night.

Restraining strong language and putting on a brave face were not easy at all in the face of numerous smirking Aussies. But manage it I did…barely.

After all that, I was happy to leave the city and it’s angst ridden, yellow shirted mob behind and head into the hills for a day out. Firstly to find a bit of peace and quiet, then, fortuitously, to find a pub which helped me to forget all about penalties.

Called Grumpy’s, after the two middle aged chaps who run the place, it operates on a very simple basis; if you don’t like pizza or home brewed beer, go elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want pizza you have only ever dreamt of and unique beer, just make sure you get there early. The beauty of the place is that they know what they do well and don’t bother with anything else.

The owners look like they take full advantage of their product too, which is always a good sign. The only problem is who gets the car keys!

Other events, a couple of weeks ago, saw my TV debut while queuing in the small hours for the second round of Ashes ticket sales. When I eventually got to the front of the line, it was 10.30am, by which time I should have been beavering away at my desk.

As I may have mentioned in the past, Adelaide is a small town and I was spotted on the evening news by at least five of my colleagues, firstly standing in line and then making a show of counting my tickets wearing a big grin, as instructed by the cameraman.

All of which was a little embarrassing as, strictly speaking, I should have been at work. Fortunately my boss likes his cricket and is an understanding chap.

As for Mandy, she had been gently dozing in front of the TV and narrowly avoided a nasty falling off chair incident as I filled the screen. The poor girl didn’t deserve a shock like that as she was getting over another rotten run of shifts at the hospital. Bless her, they do get their money’s worth at that hospital.

But despite the long hours, she still seems to be enjoying herself, even in the coldest South Australian winter for 40 years. They never mentioned that in the brochure!

Keep well
M&W

Gutted

It had to end sooner or later, although it is a heartbreaking way to go out. There were eight seconds of normal time left when the clumsy Italian striker Grosso found an excuse to throw himself to the ground.

The referee pointed to the spot immediately, it was a brave decision. And under awful pressure, Totti stepped up to slot the ball home and bury the dreams of the plucky Socceroos.

So Australia’s first real world cup adventure is over. They feel cheated, angry and gutted. Even the many Italians here don’t know what to think. While they are delighted to progress as Italians, they are distraught that it had be Australia that lost.

But as a football nation Australia now has a history and a touchstone, a point of focus or, if you like, their very own ‘Hand Of God’ moment. Every serious footy nation needs one, today Australia has graduated.

In truth, Australia never looked like scoring, even after Italy had a man harshly sent off. As for the penalty…I don’t think they can complain. Lucas Neill has had a brilliant world cup which might land him a transfer to Barcelona, but it was naïve for a defender to go to ground in the box like that.

If the boot was on the other foot and Australia had been denied such a penalty, they would be equally outraged. Italy were slightly the better of two teams lacking an edge. The result was probably right, it was just the timing which was devastating.

So super coach Guus Hiddink now leaves Oz to take a job with Russia as possibly the best paid coach in the world now. He will take this accolade away from the worthy Sven.

From here it seems that SuperGuus has turned an ordinary bunch of players into a spirited and purposeful outfit. I believe this ability to create something greater than the sum of the parts is called synergy.

The opposite is called Svenergy.

The Fever Gets Stronger

The patient’s condition is not improving. Symptoms include a rash of green and gold, the mercury cracking the thermometer and a puzzling delirium as Adelaide’s quality paper suggests today that Australia might win the world cup.

As a draw with Croatia sets up a knock out match with the Italians, the land Down Under is turning upside down. Work that out.

Once again, I understand that the wave of emptiness and frustration sweeping through England and this house after the Ecuador game must dwarf the euphoria here, and my apologies for labouring this point. But this is a journey into the unknown for the Socceroos, and all the more engaging for that.

So please bear with me, the world cup experience here is an innocent journey of joy and discovery, but also one with fascinating cultural ripples, as Australia’s ethnic fault lines start to widen.

Just in case you weren’t aware of the mix here, please allow me to give you a quick run down, it might explain the footy context.

South Australia was officially settled by the British in 1836, for you trivia types, the only state not born as a penal colony. This followed some failed settlements by whalers and a few close scrapes with prospective Napoleonic colonists, which left many places with French names. Apparently the little chap was very keen to acquire Josephine some pet kangaroos.

When it comes to romance, the French have always been streets ahead!

Not long after this colony was proclaimed a part of the empire, a wurst of Germans arrived, fleeing religious persecution. Among several other notable achievements, these Germans founded the wine industry that this page is so fond of and the state is so proud of. Their wines, surnames and sausages remain a highly visible part of South Aussie life.

As the years passed by, along with all the Brits, other notable ingredients in the pot have included more than a few Serbs, Croats and Greeks alongside enough Italians to support a thriving hair lacquer industry. We happen to live in Adelaide’s ‘Little Italy’ and a great place it is too. Norwood is a wonderful suburb for coffee and cakes as well as sharp clothes, strong aftershave, loud cars and oppressive testosterone.

This mix is replicated around Australia, along with several dozen other nationalities of slightly less significance to the world cup.

Despite all these Mediterranean influences, Australia’s sporting heritage has not included soccer, with cricket, rugby and their own version of football being the predominant team sports. All of which means that there has never been a high profile sporting clash to relish between the southern European teams and Australia. Until now.

The performance against Croatia both animated and fascinated a nation which was a little surprised by the huge Croatian support. Usually this country takes on the world as one. Now we have all sorts of allegiances showing their true colours.

The result was the biggest in Australian soccer’s history, the party unrestrained and the optimism has now bordered on the delusional, as demonstrated by the local press speculating on an Aussie victory in Germany.

We know the delusions are becoming serious as the Prime Minister has been pictured celebrating Harry Kewell’s goal in an unflattering tracksuit, looking like Yoda with a spider in his shoe. Even more hot air was blown into the balloon as the South Australian Premier has launched his own bid to host the World Cup in 2018 at a recent lunch which I attended, (see the circles I move in).

I think it was a bit of a snap announcement on his part, it was certainly a surprise to the audience who were expecting to hear about the prospects for the mining industry. In an effort not to appear as if he is sailing this ship alone, he has been drumming up support from his fellow politicians. Most of them think it is a curious idea while those that do back him have already started fighting over whether the final should be in Melbourne or Sydney, a familiar sporting squabble over here.

Anyway, this enthusiasm is only set to increase as the next game is against Italy. And if the Croatia game was big, this one is going to be massive. But the biggest of all, the one they all want, is a game against England.

It is hard not to get carried away with the Socceroos’ progress, particularly with England promising another dismal and frustrating tournament exit.

However, after watching them beat everyone at pretty much every sport they turn their hands to, I don’t think I could bear them doing too well here. It would be just too much. Mandy on the other hand has green and gold blood.

Have a good week
M&W

A Dose of World Cup Fever

In common with the rest of the planet, World Cup fever has swept across Australia. Since qualifying via penalties against a cynical Uruguay in November, anticipation has been building to a crescendo, and, prior to the first game against Japan, the country was about ready to burst.

I know this will sound pretty mundane to those north of the equator, I guess the excitement here is a mere ripple compared to the tidal wave which has swept the streets of England. But, bear with me, in Australian terms it is remarkable. The country has no real tradition in football and has only qualified once before for the finals (in 1974) and nobody can remember that as they didn’t even score a goal and came home very shortly after they arrived.

Suddenly though, the whole country is footy mad, the streets are decked in green and gold, the politicians have taken their seats on the bandwagon and the man on the street is an overnight expert, sagely discussing Angola’s chances against Mexico.

After a deflating 80 minutes (sound familiar?) against Japan, the Socceroos banged in three goals from absolutely nowhere, surprising everybody including themselves. On a normal day, watching Australia play soccer is only marginally more exciting than watching grass grow, so this was a an incredible moment in their soccer history.

So, in the blink of an eye, the excitement swept straight past optimism and confidence and has now become something resembling their usual sporting swagger and cockiness. The creaky bandwagon soon sprouted wings and jet engines and now resembles the De Lorean in Back to the Future.

After this morning’s plucky but fruitless stab at the Brazilians we will wait and see how the mood changes. I will keep you informed.

Meanwhile, I am suffering from my own World Cup fever as my body tries to adjust to the contortions that my sleeping arrangements need in order to catch a 1.30am or 4.00am kick off. And I am in good company. The whole country is suffering from sleep deprivation and there are plenty of bewildered looking people at Adelaide City Council. They all work in community development.

Meanwhile, as the party got under way in Germany, Mandy got dealt some bum shifts over the weekend and I took the chance to disappear up country for a couple of days.

My new diving club had planned a weekend on the Yorke Peninsula, a 250 mile drive from the city and a great chance to see a bit more of the country.

Aside from being a good place for fishing, not much else seems to happen on the peninsula. It is a big and very, very flat piece of land with small towns scattered sparsely about in order to break the monotony of mile after mile and field after field of sheep.

The towns themselves are typical examples of Australian country settlements. Not being short of room, they manage to make a tiny place spread and sprawl with wide roads and big spaces between the buildings. However, being pretty small, (the word ‘town’ is a relative one in Australia), the places are generally over before they have begun and it’s back to the sheep.

Anyway, weekends away diving in Australia are very similar to those in the UK, which is to say that if you are not in the water, you are probably in the pub. The club boat was being fixed so we jumped in the choppy, murky water and explored under some of the numerous angler infested piers.

Diving under a jetty is always interesting as they tend to act as artificial reefs and, over here at least, the legs of the piers are covered in corals with a great abundance of life and junk to investigate.

It turned out to be my lucky weekend under the pier as I bumped into a creature unique to South Australia and while not particularly rare, very difficult to find, the Leafy Sea Dragon.

As you can see from the picture, it is a little like a special forces sea horse, it doesn’t move very fast, is about 8 inches long and spends it’s days pretending to be a piece of seaweed. And a very cunning disguise it is too. It is not uncommon to see divers pointing animatedly at phantom Leafys which turn out to be clumps of seaweed.

They can be frustrating, but they are amazing creatures and it was my first confirmed Leafy find after making a fool of myself more than once by waving my arms wildly near big lumps of seaweed! So I’m happy now.

Have a good week

M&W

My Kingdom for a Seat

Winter is finally here and the temperature has gone south, it is now a bone chilling 70F during the daytime and I have to roll the sleeves of my shirt down to avoid getting goose bumps.

So, a little like the hype around the Australian soccer team, nicknamed the very cuddly Socceroos, it would seem that the warnings of a dire winter are just so much sound and fury. It’s the summers that are tough, 110F every day for a week is no laughing matter.

I have been a little slack in posting our news lately, but today I have some time on my hands due to a public holiday, this time for the Queen’s birthday.

For a country which largely describes itself as republican, they need no second invitation to take the day off, fire up the barbie, crack open a cold one and sing happy birthday, Your Majesty. And they find it difficult to believe that it is not celebrated in the UK. The fact that it is not her birthday at all doesn’t bother them.

In some quarters Australia is known as the Land of the Long Weekend, partly because nobody does anything on Friday but also because of their willingness to grasp any excuse for a public holiday, even celebrating the birthday of a Queen they feel they are ready to dispense with.

Which leads to a question I was pondering on….how grown up is Australia? Now it is 218 years after a few ships full of miscreants and oddballs landed to form the original colony.

The average Australian politician feels that they are grown up enough to suck up to George Bush and sit at the table of the Western Axis of Evil. At the same time, the average Australian Bruce or Sheila feels that they are grown up enough to break the shackles of empire. They feel this country is no longer an outpost of the ‘old country’ but a vibrant and thriving melting pot of European and Asian influence, unique in it’s outlook, culture and opportunities.

I, on the other hand, have a rather jaundiced and contrary opinion. After participating in the national debacle of the sale of Ashes tickets, this place should feel itself lucky to be an outpost, let alone a principality or colony.

You may or may not have heard of the ‘genius’ scheme of the Australian Cricket Board. This scheme, cunning even by Baldrick’s standards, was to prevent the English from buying all the tickets for this summer/winter’s cricket matches, the most eagerly awaited tickets for a cricket match ever.

For those of you with no interest in Vaughn’s knee or Warney’s sex life (it is only a matter of time before you are), the simple upshot is that the only people who did not forecast the unprecedented demand for tickets were the people organising the sale of those tickets.

A complex system to ensure that the vast majority of seats were taken by Aussies was hatched with the following results;

Within ten minutes of the tickets going on sale to Australians, they were being sold to English fans on EBay. The tickets are being sold in such quantities by Aussies with no intention of going to the match that English fans may well outnumber local fans and the price for the tickets is nowhere near what the speculators had anticipated, purely due to over supply.

The only disappointed people are the genuine Aussie fans who could not get through the totally inadequate ordering system, whether on the phone or the net, both of which crashed repeatedly during the opening day of sales.

So, the upshot of this cunning plan was that the people it was set up to protect are the people left with nothing. And the Cricket Board still have jobs and smugly appear on TV defending themselves. I wouldn’t check my coat in with them.

And, to return to my original point, this is why I feel this country is not grown up yet. If a place cannot organise the orderly sale of tickets to a cricket match then it needs a regal head on it’s coins, a governor for each state and a Queen to make sure they have a glass of hot milk before bed at night.

If I seem a little bitter then I feel I have good reason. In short, I spent the busiest and most tense day of my Australian working life pressing the redial and refresh buttons for nine solid hours.

Eventually, I got most of the tickets I wanted. But what is left of my hair is leaning towards grey.

But, I have four tickets spare for Melbourne on Boxing Day if anyone fancies the holiday of a lifetime……C’mon Monty!

W&M

Earning A Crust

It is six months ago this week that we first blinked at the southern sun and wondered whose bloody stupid idea it was to come here.

In some ways it seems like five minutes ago and in others like we have been living here for ages. We have gone through the trial and error routines of finding a favourite beach, favourite pub and the bus routes that get us where we want to go. We have also become part of the system with driving licences, medical insurance, a lease on the house and parking tickets.

We have bought a car, bless it, which has gone further and faster than I ever dreamt possible and got a decent job each. So, with a bit of luck to help us out along the way, the ledger looks OK.

So far, since putting ourselves at the disposal of the South Australian economy, we have been pretty lucky and things have worked out fairly well. Mandy has been in great demand as a nurse and I, after work as a removal man and ticket collector, have found a comfy swivelling chair from which to earn a living.

After moving around from ward to ward, being the new girl on the Intensive Care Unit means being assigned all the rotten shifts. While they do it with a broad smile and a pat on her back, Mandy knows this is an inevitable part of the process. Although the money is good, very good, working from Good Friday through to Easter Monday, immediately followed by three night shifts, is a prospect which would make most nurses shudder.

On the other hand, I have been pretty lucky in landing a job with the city council. I am based in lovely offices in the heart of the city, working with 800 people who are largely as helpful, open and friendly as you could wish for.

On top of that, my terms of employment include a table tennis table, subsidised massages (lovely), and, when I take my books back late, no library fines.

So far, Maltese Eric has consistently cleaned me up at ping pong, but I am getting better. This week though I am taking on an Aussie from Transport Planning with the high stakes of a few beers on the outcome. The hairs on my neck are rising at the prospect of beating him. Beating an Aussie at anything is an exciting prospect.

As if that wasn’t enough, we have the most agreeable routine of morning tea, which, depending on your perspective, is either one of the great institutions of local government or another excuse for council employees to stand around gossiping.

It works like this. Every week, two people on our floor of 50 or so take it in turns to put on nibbles and coffee for everyone else. For thirty minutes the city stops and we all tuck in. It is very sociable and a chance for the talented and imaginative among the staff to show off a little. This week was my turn to put on the show along with a very friendly lady from town planning.

Well!…..I wouldn’t mind popping round to her house for my dinner. She came up with the most fantastic home made cookies, and dozens of them. My mouth is watering just typing this. I simply do not have the words to do credit to her efforts. Wow.

Fortunately for those of us less blessed in the kitchen, Adelaide has a produce market beyond compare. I will tell you more another day, but for now, I was able to saunter up to one of the many dedicated cheese stalls and put myself in their capable hands.

After explaining my situation to the more than helpful staff, I spent the next 20 minutes tasting a variety of South Australian cheeses and walked back to work with something for every taste and enough for the appetites of a couple of dozen hairy building assessors.

If you like your food and wine, this really is the town for you.

Have a good week
W&M

Hmmm, I can smell.....

Adelaide is a small city, but it is perfectly formed. It is also a city full of surprises, if like us, you wander round with your eyes closed most of the time.

After living in this house for four months, we only recently discovered that the original Penfolds vineyard is only two miles from our front door, (Penfolds is Australia’s most famous label). And last Sunday was our well overdue first visit to sponge some free booze, otherwise known as ‘tasting’.

Looking back over this diary, there is recurring theme of wine, wine and more wine. Despite what you may think about my reasons for this, it really is what South Australia is most proud of. With seven wine regions in the state and most of the best wines in Australia coming from around here, the locals are pretty clued up about their wine; it’s just something they grow up with.

To be fair, SA really does have something to be proud of too. For example, one of Penfold’s wines (Grange for those of you in the know) was named best red wine in the world by some fancy magazine or other. Needless to say that wasn’t up for tasting, costing as it does £250 and upwards a bottle.

And people like to talk about their wine too. If you have wine with dinner, people want to know which wine. A night in with a DVD and a bottle of wine is not acceptable. It must be a night in with a DVD and a specified label and a report is expected. So you see, getting away from wine in Adelaide is impossible. Even if you wanted to.

Anyway, the clever money is on drinking the wine here as the kindest thing that can be said about the beer is that it’s cold.

All of which leaves us at a bit of a disadvantage. ‘Nice’ is about the limit of my tasting notes and to fit in around here that needs to change, so the time has come for us to sign up for a wine tasting course. Partly for interest, but mostly to save Mandy from herself.

The tasting room at Penfolds is rather well appointed and they do a very good service considering it’s free and there is no obligation to purchase anything. Set in an old pressing room full of dusty bottles, straw and various antiques with a suave and well informed barman filling the glasses, it is very well done.

In no time at all though, the posh surroundings and expensive wine had gone straight to Mandy’s head and before you could say ‘plummy finish’ she was transformed in to a gargling, glass swirling font of adjectives.

As one ‘nice’ wine was followed by another, everyone in the room was treated to Mandy’s opinion which started with ‘smoky’ warmed up to ‘caramelly’, before the splendid ‘liquorice bouquet’ and reaching a memorable crescendo with ‘grassy’.

The slick barman caught this last one and my translation of his pained expression was that he considered Mandy had been inhaling her grass rather than drinking it.

Keeping Mandy away from the free grog is easy when it comes to Aussie Rules Football though. Offer her the chance of standing on the hill (Aussie jargon, hill = terrace), within six feet of the brutal action and you are in grave danger of having your hand chewed off.

So it was an enthusiastic Mandy who accompanied me to watch the Redlegs with 4,000 other oddballs. It’s a shame, but the season is falling apart and even though they fought hard for ¾ of the match, in the last quarter they were totally outplayed.

I have no idea why North Adelaide looked so good, I still have no idea why one team is better than another and not the faintest grasp of the laws. But I know when to cheer and when to shut up and that is the international law of life on the terrace.

As for Mandy, she doesn’t care about who wins. As long they do it with a bit of grappling and near her. She’s very easy to please.

Take care,
M&W

Make Mine a Gold One

The good news from Australia is that the two Tasmanian miners have been rescued after two weeks trapped in a tiny cage under several thousand tonnes of rock.
(I work in that lot somewhere)

They were dragged out early in the morning live on breakfast TV and the breathless wait for them to emerge from the lift reminded me of waiting for the Marie Rose to rise from the Solent. In fact, I reckon the miners were deeper than the Marie Rose.

The rescue of Todd and Brant was almost certainly the most interesting event to happen in Beaconsfield for many a long year and the locals weren’t going to wait all day to start the party. By the time the two dishevelled heroes emerged everyone else had already settled in to a long day in the pub.

This was 7.00am, but most people looked very comfortable with a beer for breakfast, reinforcing the general feeling throughout Australia that there is not much to do in Beaconsfield if you are not looking for gold. Until 1878, the town was known as Brandy Creek but the vicar of the time renamed it in the hope of creating a more desirable image. Judging by the TV pictures, it really doesn’t matter what name you give a rose.

While this news was greeted with delight across the country and with yet another beer in Beaconsfield, everyone remembered their mate who was not so lucky when the mine collapsed and four hours after seeing their first daylight for a fortnight, the (by now ex) miners were at the funeral.

Meanwhile, the TV companies have not been quite so dignified. The day before the rescue and shortly after interviewing the manager of the mine, the best known reporter in Australia died suddenly from a heart attack. He was a household name and seemingly quite a journalist who had seen the rough end of many conflicts over the last 30 years.

By the next day, the tributes were already being overshadowed by the inevitable but still unseemly bidding war for the story. The chief executive of one channel had even flown over to buy a drink for everyone in the local pub, with cameras everywhere of course. All this overshadows the probability that the mine will close in the near future. The cost of the rescue has put an already marginal mine beyond any measure of viability and there is no guarantee of work further than the end of June.

With one drama in Tazzie nearly resolved and another bubbling away, Adelaide has been getting over it’s own little excitement of the exploding café with nobody any the wiser as to the reasons behind it. A colleague and I have picked up the job of trying to work out what the city council can do for the businesses affected by the blast. It’s all PR of course but it still needs doing and short of helping with some plastering there’s not a lot we can offer.

Fortunately, most of the owners are philosophical about not having a shop anymore. The building was a dump and they are all insured so we pat them on the back, wish them luck and wander off for a quiet coffee to discuss our next mission.

So while Adelaide returns to it’s happy and sleepy equilibrium, winter’s grip is getting tighter and the lazy evenings of drinks after work on sun drenched boulevards seem so long ago. The conversation is less about where to go tonight and more about what is on TV. And in this house, that means only one thing.

Bloody Home and Away!

Just in case any of you do watch Home and Away, you will NEVER guess who killed Josh West. While it’s a big surprise, it was a big disappointment too. There were at least four people I would rather have seen written out of the programme. I don’t know how far behind you are, so I do hope I haven’t ruined anything by telling you Josh gets bumped off.

It has seemed like a slow couple of weeks for us since getting back from holiday, I think we are still stuck on Kangaroo Island time which means pretty slow. Back to work blues are an international thing which are usually only solved by one thing….time to look for the next break. How does diving on the barrier reef sound?

Hope all is well
M&W

Little Islands & Big Bangs

Although this may seem like one big holiday to many people, it really is a lot harder than we manage to make it look. So, exhausted after a long hot summer, we obviously deserved a holiday and headed off to Kangaroo Island, about 100 miles and a short ferry ride south of Adelaide.

It really is a remarkable place, largely untouched bushland and forest with white sandy beaches, spectacular cliffs and an ocean of pure turquoise. It’s pretty big but with a tiny population so finding only your footprints on the sand of one of the many coves is not unusual.

Similar in many ways to Cornwall, it is a quirky place where everybody waves to each other on the deserted roads and the happy hour at the pub lasts thirty minutes. There is also a graveyard for former lighthouse keepers where one chap who passed away in 1858 has two headstones at opposite corners. He must have found the spiral staircase a challenge.

It also has bitterly cold winds, white knuckle ride dirt roads and every single snake on the island is dangerously venomous. We bumped into a few and fortunately they gave us the benefit of the doubt, even when we nearly trod on them.

Kangaroo Island is renowned for being probably the best place to see much of Australia’s animal life in an environment identical to that which the whalers who first landed on the island would have seen.

Being out of season, we almost had the island to ourselves and had a fantastic time walking along beaches full of seals, climbing over the strangest rock formations and tripping over wallabies, koalas and penguins while parrots and eagles filled the skies. It really is a great place.

As is the way though, it was soon over and it was time to go home again, and very strange it was too, to be heading back to Adelaide to continue the holiday.

On our arrival back in sedate old Adelaide though, we found that an explosion had rocked the centre of the city, wrecking a café, a sports shop and the preferred wine bar of the local politicians. Sadly the owner of the café lost his life in the blast and so can’t explain what he was doing there at 3.00am with 50 litres of kerosene. So the mystery and speculation continues, all of which leaves the whole city a little shocked. These things just don’t happen in Adelaide, it’s not that kind of place.

Away from our little local dramas, the whole country is hooked on the story of two miners trapped 900m below the surface. As I write this, they have been down there 12 days following an earthquake which caused a collapse in their gold mine.

While the rescue teams are getting close to them, it is very slow going and the conditions sound appalling as they scratch at rock five times tougher than set concrete.

There is obviously a lot of public sympathy for these blokes, but it’s not for them being stuck in a tiny hole licking water off the rock; Aussies expect their diggers to put up with the odd hardship. Everyone is more concerned with their battle with the nutritionists who are deciding what they should be eating.

Each and every day they request McDonalds, pizza and beer and each and every day they are given carrot soup and vitamin tablets which is pushed through the little serving hatch they have managed to drill through. We have a new public enemy number one; the bloke denying these heroes a Big Mac. Anyway, hopefully they will be out tomorrow.

On the home front, Mandy is now rat and mouse breeder in chief at the local wildlife park. While she enjoys it, she would rather be working with the wombats, partly because they have more personality but mostly because all the rats and mice end up in with the snakes.

And finally, this week sees the end of an institution in Australian as This Is Your Life is taken off the air. There is nobody left over here to do.

Until next time, hope all is well.

M&W