While Not Working

If I had to ride a bicycle to Seacliff to hand over some car keys, at least I had a nice day to do so. The breeze was gentle, the sky was clear, and the sunshine was bright if lacking a bit in the warmth department. I double and triple-checked that I had the car keys, and then rode a meandering path south through suburbia because I was a wee bit bored with riding along the beach front.  I followed the Stuart River, a rather depressing flashback to the days when progress entailed the domination of nature and the employment of copious quantities of concrete. Wild river.   Arriving at Seacliff well before Roger, I entertained myself by riding to the very end of the beach and I'm so glad I did, for what did I find but this... "Soft sand slurry present: enter at own risk."  AKA man-made quicksand: temptation for fools.   After 30+ years of marriage I know what thrills an engineer, so after we had conducted the all-important key transfer and had our almost-as-important cup...

One of our previous house owners offered a short sit, slumming it down in McLarenvale with a small fluffy dog and a plethora of vineyards and cafes available for taste testing.  Short straws were drawn and the upshot was that Roger took himself off for the hardship posting and I stayed home with the big fluffy dog. Roger, buoyed by the retreat of his back problems, took himself off to McLarenvale a day early and by bicycle,  along the way staying in a caravan park beside the sea.  He pedaled all day into an arctic head wind, consoling himself at the cafes scattered along the waterfront and perfecting the art of finding sheltered places for picnics. The struggle is real. In the sun, out of the wind. Perfect. He pitched his tent in the arctic wind and sought shelter, first in the caravan park laundry for the purposes of recharging, and then in a warm and cosy bar with comfortable chairs and patrons playing Uno.  For sure a hardship posting. It was a very civilised way ...

The coastal walk from Hallett Cove Conservation Park to Seacliff hugged the shoreline, meandering through a narrow band of heath between the back yards of seaside mansions and the cliffs above the sea, regularly interrupted by steep narrow gullies where torturous wooden staircases descended to the bottom and climbed breathlessly up the other side.  Not long after I first puffed my way along the Coastal Walk the staircases became so rickety that the council closed them to the public, putting up barrier fences reinforced with metres of bright orange tape and stern signs telling the public not to pass lest they lose their footing and tumble to their demise. The public ignored the signs and took precarious detours around the tape, determined to walk their dogs and peer in the unshuttered seaward windows of the mansions, as they had always done.  They stumbled dangerously close to the cliff edges to spot seals, have picnics, and watch for whales. The council put up bigger fences an...

If you've come to hear a story about a shipwreck on the high seas with crashing waves, howling wind, and tales of miraculous escapes to safety, you'll be sadly disappointed.  Instead, 'tis a pedestrian tale of the life of the screw steamer Excelsior, built in 1897 By Gourlay Brothers in Dundee, Scotland.  The Excelsior worked out of Sydney and Tahiti before moving to South Australia where it was owned by the Darling flour millers and then the SA Farmers Union Cooperative.  In 1933 it was sold to the SA Harbors Board and converted to a coal hulk for the purpose of carrying coal to the steam powered dredges working in Port Adelaide.  Progress marched onward, diesel-powered dredges took over from coal, and in 1945 the Excelsior was unsentimentally dispatched to Mutton Cove, on the northern end of the Lefevre Peninsula, and left there. I rode my bike out to the Excelsior on a day when winter tussled with spring and neither one could win. Mutton Cove lay at the end of a l...

Well that was a nice little break from blog updates, wasn't it? I worked 4 days/week for the month of August while my other (work) half went gallivanting off around the world. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) my constitution had gotten quite used to the whole two day week/five day weekend routine so this venture back into the world of more work was not much fun apart from the undeniable financial benefits. Unfortunately work stretched, as work does, into September so I have another week of suffering before life returns to normal programming. A winter sunset, just because it's pretty. As if working wasn't enough to keep me out of mischief we moved back to the Adelaide suburbs to take care of a Great Pyrenees and three chooks. That's a Great Pyrenees dog, in case you were wondering. He's big, white, fluffy, and comes with a lot of slobber. Slobber not pictured. The chooks and Great Pyrenees come with a large garden already showing hints ...

In 1970 the then SA government, buoyed by overoptimistic predictions of population growth and hankering after federal 'New Cities' programme funds, acquired 16 000 hectares at Monarto south of Adelaide. Grand plans were made, getting grander by the minute, and then in 1975 it all ground to a halt as population growth slowed and federal funds dried up.  No-one was happy , particularly the farmers of the previously-thriving Monarto community, and no one knew quite what to do with 16 000 hectares of scrub at Monarto, so nothing was done. Roll on 1983 and the Adelaide Zoo, located as it was inside the park lands and bounded by river and city, was running out of space and that unused 16 000 hectares suddenly looked quite capable of accommodating a rhinoceros or two.  Monarto Zoo was established as a closed-to-the-public facility where big animals could stretch their legs and breeding programs for endangered species could proceed in private.  By 1993 Monarto had morphed into a...

Monarto Zoo lay just down the hill from Mt Barker, so when we decided to go to the zoo it made perfect sense (of course!) for me to ride my bicycle to the zoo. In order to arrive by zoo-opening hours I left just before sunrise, thus missing out on watching the highlights of the last stage of the men's Tour de France. Such are the sacrifices one must make for one's minor obsessions. I cheated a little bit and got a lift to Nairne, skipping the first busy and boring 5km. It will be daylight soon.   I avoided the Old Princes Highway, sticking instead to minor gravel roads that wound through paddocks painted in bright green from winter rains. Big old eucalypts stood sentinel over grazing sheep and morning sunlight teased the tops of the hills. I obeyed all speed limits. Sunlight was in short supply down in the valley.  The wind was cold. Because I like big old eucalypts. The coffee at Kanmantoo General Store was meh, but it was warm and that was what counted. Down the valley I wen...