While Not Working

 "Pets are the new children," said our son.  "And plants are the new pets." I think he's right about that, given that his own dog goes to doggy day care and regularly comes home with a report card. Which begs the question if children have been usurped by pets, what are children these days? That's a question for another day.  Today, we're here to talk about pets or, more specifically, dead pets. Once there was a man, and the man had a dog. The man loved his dog and when the dog died of cancer the man wanted to bury his dog properly but he couldn't do so because there was nowhere to bury his dog. Well, there was the time honoured back yard option of course, but he didn't want to do that because he was moving and who knew how the new residents would respect (or not) the dog's burial site. The man had to get his dog cremated instead, and then when he and the ashes had settled into his new place he decided that he wanted other pet owners to have t...

We drove down to Port Hughes, stopping in at Tea & Treasures to pick up some home-made Rocky Road to have with our thermos coffee at the Port Hughes jetty.  After coffee we planned to tag-team the bicycle ride home, one of us leaving from Port Hughes and the other leaving the car half-way  and riding onwards.  This grand plan, of course, relied on each of us carrying their own set of car keys. So I forgot my car keys, didn't I? Well, the sun doesn't set til late here on the bottom of Australia, so we could take a bit more time.  Roger would start from Port Hughes and I would cool my heels on the jetty for a while and then meet him halfway, conduct the Ceremony Of Handing Over The Keys, and continue on my bicycling way. All sorted then, we settled in for our cup of coffee. Let's get that thermos out.  What thermos is that?  The one that's on the kitchen bench at home, that's the one we want.     Oops.  Never mind.    An...

I'm very disappointed in Ports SA and Vessel Finder. I want to know what this ship is doing.   Despite the mountains of grain growing on the bulk storage pads, fed by busy caterpillars of trucks and swarmed by pigeons, Ports SA stated confidently that no ship was due in Wallaroo for the next thirty days. Vessel Finder informed me that there was, indeed, a ship in the Wallaroo anchorage but did not hazard a guess as to whether it was coming in to port or just having a little rest before going on its way down (or up) the Gulf. "It must just park there before going somewhere else," we decided. "Maybe up to the smelters at Port Pirie or Whyalla." Turn your back for a minute and there's a big ship just out to sea from your verandah.   Next minute the big ship was most definitely coming in to port in Wallaroo, dodging the ferry and getting pushed around by an officious little tug. It snuggled up to the jetty and a pall of wheat dust drifted out over the water. The...

 Morning coffee at The Shores Eatery is never dull.  Last time we were there we were privy to the saga of the men in wet suits working to remove some unidentified but obviously well-buried item from the sand at the bottom of the swimming enclosure.  This time around we sat outside with the brunch crowd, minding our own business and commenting on how every weekend brings more people to Wallaroo as the summer gets under way.  Prawn trawlers and crab boats littered the far horizon of the bay, the pre-Christmas prawn season having started a couple of days ago. My resident Man With Binoculars keeps a close eye on the working movements of the prawn trawlers. As we sipped our coffee (in my case, tea) it became clear that one of the trawlers was motoring purposefully toward the jetty.  The brunch crowd perked up and, as one, shuffled their chairs around for a better view, because the prawn trawlers usually headed over toward the marina which was nowhere near the jetty. ...

We had appointments in Adelaide so I took the opportunity to take my bike in to the original point of sale and ask them about the finer points of getting the tyres on and off.  Technically the bike shop was closed to customers on a Monday but they very graciously made an exception for me. "It just needs patience and persistence," said Dave the bike shop man, as he coaxed my tyre to do the right thing. It all looked so easy when someone knew what they were doing. In no time at all I had new thorn resistant tubes all filled up with puncture sealing goop and I had even put the last tyre on myself and gotten it seated properly in the bead too. Which just goes to show that it's not necessarily easy but definitely do-able when you know the knack. In the course of all this bike maintenance I discovered that the last bike shop must have broken a tyre lever while working on my bike, and had left the sharp little snapped-off pieces of plastic in the tyre to roll around and threaten...

All these years I've been riding a bicycle and trying to preserve the illusion that I am a Very Serious Cyclist, tracking my kilometers, always aiming to beat my PB (personal best, but Serious Cyclists use acronyms) and racing to be KOM (King of the Mountain, because acronyms).  Well, that illusion has been shattered now. Today I lost my Serious Cyclist credentials for good. Today I went cycling carrying a full sized thermos, two insulated coffee mugs, and the required accoutrements including chilled milk. Sadly I forgot a spoon, which meant that although disqualified as a Serious Cyclist I did not quite qualify as a Mad Picnicking Cyclist either. I blame Myponie Road for my fall in cycling status. I had such a lovely time cycling along there a week ago that I wanted Roger to enjoy it too. I even had an answer when he expressed a certain reluctance to cycle into a fresh southerly breeze. "I'll drive up to the other end and cycle into the wind! Then you can drive home....

"Are you catching anything?" I asked a fisherman.  He gave a beaming smile. "  I caught a decent squid!" he said proudly.  "I put it down there while I sorted out my line and one of those bloody big birds came down and took it away!"  That's pacific gulls for you: silver gulls on steroids.  He didn't seem too unhappy about the whole affair, and settled himself in for another afternoon of feeding the fish/birds catching himself some fish. No-one gets up early in South Australia.  Even the fishermen are scarce on the ground before 1000.   Wallaroo's jetty, built in 1869, doesn't see a fraction of the trade which it enjoyed back when sea transport was the most reliable and quickest way to get anywhere on the Yorke or Eyre Peninsulas. The jetty's website proudly declared that it was South Australia's 'leading fishing jetty', a claim which I suspected would be hotly contested by every jetty dotted along the extensive South ...

After riding the beautiful Myponie Point Road, I met Roger in Tickera for coffee before we explored a little more of the Spencer Gulf coastline.  We had to bring our own thermos coffee because Tickera, boasting a population of 194 persons in the last census, did not boast such esoteric establishments as any kind of shop at all.  In fact, the District Council of Barunga West, in its Tickera Master Plan, plaintively stated that " the Tickera community want to retain their small-town values, scenic beauty, natural surroundings, and open space, yet they wish to see continual investment in their road network, amenities and boat launching facilities and the provision of essential council services ..."  Which was to say that the Tickera residents wanted their cake but didn't want to share it. Black swans drifted across the water, while a crab ship worked in the background. Tickera had a post office and a council office all rolled into one in a big tin shed.  The sign on the...