3/13/23 The Red Hat From Venice

A woman wearing a bright red hat stood fishing on the Stansbury jetty. It was a cloth hat, shiny, with a little brim and a smart red flower. It looked like a hat that would be more at home at the races than on the jetty, waiting for fish and risking being blown into the water.

"I like your hat," I said.

"Thank you. I bought it in Venice."

"It's a long way from Venice to fishing on this jetty."

She was a frequent visitor to Italy, Venice in particular. She rattled off the name of somewhere in Italy where, apparently, there is a whole week of festivities involving costumes and for which, when she was in Venice, she bought her hat. The hat, by the way, was waterproof which made it eminently suitable for fishing apparel.

"Well" I said "I hope it brings you lots of fish."

She laughed. "Hardly! I haven't caught a thing. Just one squid tentacle, but without the squid.' And she went back to fishing in her red Italian hat.

Woman in red hat not pictured.

 

I spoke with the red hat lady at the end of my ride. I only rode a short way today, 22km from my front door at Port Vincent to the Esplanade at Stansbury. The WtY behaved impeccably, with accurate and well placed signage.

I like signs like this.

 

I started with a spot of gravel road riding which, while corrugated, was not long enough to be bothersome before I turned off on a little track and soon was back on the cliff top.

Back on the first riding day I took my helmet brim off because the wind was so strong, and promptly gave myself a fine sunburn. Now I ride covered up to mummy standards. Better too late than never.

Possibly don't follow the signs too closely.

Roadside ruins.

 

I had lots of time. I faffed around taking photos and setting up videos. The wind of the last two days had died away, the sea silky smooth and the Adelaide Hills clearly visible on the other side of the gulf.

 

After twelve kilometres of cliff top riding the WtY booted me unceremoniously onto the road while the walkers got to walk the beach and hop over rocks at the headlands. The trail, neglected and overgrown, wandered in the road reserve but was still preferable to sharing the road with the grain trucks, so pedal on the path I did.

Past picturesque old farmhouses.

 

Before I could say boo I was in Stansbury, which greeted me with an impressive sign: 

And a fancy lookout.

I rode down to the water front and rang Roger. "Bring a picnic. It's too nice to go home."

 

We picnicked on the Stanbury esplanade. The tide was out. An old man waded in waist deep water, harnessed to a red plastic tub which floated behind him. He raked the bottom for crabs, and when he raked up a crab he deftly flipped it, without even looking, into the tub. Possibly he should have looked, because a third of the crabs he flicked sailed over the tub altogether and splashed to freedom in the sea behind him.

 

When we tired of watching the crabbing man we went for a walk on the jetty and that was where I met the woman wearing a red hat which she bought in Venice.

Back in Port Vincent Roger went out to watch the sailboat racing and I stayed at home. The sailboat racing occurred in slow motion due to (rarely, for the Yorke Peninsula) a lack of wind but he didn't mind because it gave him more time to savour his milkshake.

As the sun set that night we watched the lights flick on in Adelaide. Two pelicans settled in the shallows for the night and planes trundled overhead on their way to or from Sydney and Melbourne.

We sat outside and watched the sun set until the mosquitoes sent us in to bed.