ON THE ROAD AGAIN IN 2016 - A QUICK (?) LOOK BACK AT OUR FOUR MONTHS IN ADELAIDE (8 MARCH 2016)

Well dear readers one and all, the blogging ball and chain has again been installed around your scribe's neck and my morning ritual at the keyboard has been revived. Adelaide is now well and truly in our rear vision mirrors and the Mobile Marshies are roaming the country anew.

It would be churlish to suggest that we did not enjoy much of our four months back in Adelaide, but honesty demands that I note that we were well and truly ready to scratch the itch in our feet by the time we left on Friday 26 February.

Let me share a brief highlight reel of our summer at home before new horizons open on these electronic pages.

Birthdays

I found myself under a spot of pressure in this regard....it was my 70th and many in the family considered this something of 'a significant event' (probably driven by sheer amazement I have made it this far!).  I did not, and firmly resisted all attempts to be party to any form of big bash. Rather Liz and I (our celebratory days are one apart.....7 - 8 November respectively....ignoring the years' difference of course) enjoyed pub meals with our closest family on two consecutive weekends. This was more than good enough for us both and just how we wanted to mark the occasions.

Test Cricket

The first day-night Test Match in history.....what an event!  As long time members of the South Australian Cricket Association, and real devotees of test cricket, one of the highlights of our return to Adelaide was to be part of the crowd at the magnificently revamped Adelaide Oval 

for this historic match, and to share the company of many good friends we have met here over the years.



The stands were absolutely packed. There can be no doubt that the redevelopment of this venue has been a stunning success and the good folk of South Australia have responded. I shall resist banging on about the numbers...suffice it to say they made other larger cities look silly.





I think it fair to comment that all of us were somewhat ambivalent about the concept. The traditions of long years' standing were about to be overturned. Would it all really be as good without the unique breakfast behind the stands in the rising warmth of a summer morning?  What will test cricket under lights really be like?

Stunning! To not have to rise with the birds to join the lines at the gates as the sun rose over the Mount Lofty Ranges was an obvious benefit.  A light luncheon under the umbrellas on 'The Green' seamlessly replaced breakfast,



and as the pastel colours of dusk painted the skies over the eastern stands and the oval lights produced four way shadows on the sward, we knew we were being part of something really special.

With the spire of St Peters glowing warmly behind the magnificent old Adelaide Oval scoreboard in the retained open space of the northern mound and the venerable heritage Moreton Bay fig trees looking on, this was indeed a spectacle. We just loved it, as did all to whom we spoke. And we won the match....easily!

Operations and other medial stuff

With the cricket over, it was back to reality and into day surgery for your scribe. The first troublesome cataract was removed on ...successfully I am delighted to announce. The advent of the Xmas holidays meant that the second eye went under the knife on 11 January, with an equally good outcome.  It did take a while for things to settle, but long haul driving is now a much more safe and pleasant task, as is driving at night. I am still having to adjust to the fact that I don't have to reach for my glasses when peeling the spuds and cutting up the carrots.....all that is now required is a pair of '2.0 magnifiers' with which to read the printed page. After the past thirty five myopic years, this is all a little strange.

We both did the rounds of our dentist, skin specialist and other medicos over the weeks and left Adelaide with a renewed health confidence.  

There is a significant postscript to this tale. My eye specialist has insisted that he be given the opportunity to check my progress and was keen that I present myself at his rooms, preferably no later than August. That was out of the question I told him....we shall be sunning ourselves at Kurrimine Beach in FNQ in August....surely we can reach a compromise. We did. Our previously unplanned return to Adelaide in 2016 has now been set for mid October. To take full advantage of this, I have now also arranged to have my troublesome right knee replaced whilst home....so with the necessary post op rehab we shall be back in the old home town for at least two months later this year.

A return to work for one of us

Liz spent much or her time back in harness at The Memorial Hospital and doing casual shifts at a couple of others. This played havoc with our social calendar, but I have to say that with the current state of both interest rates and the share market (and the particularly gloomy current outlook), the added income was more than welcome. 'The Matron' was delighted to again don a uniform, thrash her 'nursing neurons' back into good order, and share her undoubted nursing excellence with a number of fortunate patients and many of her old staff who were equally pleased to see her back amongst their numbers. In fact her position at The Memorial Hospital has now been held open for our return in October of this year.....she now travels the country on 'extended open leave'!

Christmas Festivities

Having spent the first couple of months at the Windsor Gardens caravan park, we moved down to the seaside at West Beach for a five week period in early December to be closer to the 'silly season' action.



Here, after a false start on a site on which we just would not fit, we were offered an alternative which was a cracker. After the dolomite of Windsor Gardens and the dust and dirt of many parks in which we had stayed over the past months, our lawn surrounds were caravanning 'heaven on a stick'.





No concerns about dropping freshly laundered clothes in the dirt here. This was the 'bees knees'.  We did make the most of this comparative luxury, but at a cost. On 18 December our site fee rose from $40 to $55 per night in what can only be described as a classic holiday season 'gouge'. With the added expence of $20 per day to have Max sequestered for the duration (this park is not pet friendly) our Xmas accommodation was not cheap.  




But it was a fun time.  We kicked off the formalities with a return to Oleander Street, or at least Taylor Lane at the rear, where the tradition of the 'Xmas Lane Party' which our back neighbour and I had kicked off some seven years ago, continued in 2015. It was just lovely to again catch up with all those who had been such good neighbours and friends during our 15 years of life at South Brighton

On the day itself we began with drinks at my 'home away from home' since I was 16, the Glenelg Surf Club, before making our way to nearby Somerton Park.  After having spent the past two Xmas Days in WA (Perth and Albany respectively) it was a real treat to be spending Xmas 2015 with the Keoghs (Liz's sister's family). 

The unseasonally hot day meant that rather than spread across the back deck of their lovely home as we have normally done in the past, air conditioning became a must for the full enjoyment of the Xmas feast. Nothing that a few hired trestle tables and some imagination couldn't fix.

It was a real treat to be tucking into good old SA crayfish and prawns (don't let anyone tell you that there are any better to be had anywhere in Australia.....it is just not true) with Cam opposite at the table and Stu and his fiancee Briony at the end. 







Cath is a genius in the galley, and today's offering was no exception, with the traditional turkey and a full suite of roast veggies arriving at table as the seafood platters were cleared.  I was tasked as the 'saucier' for the day, and can happily report that Marshie's special seafood sauce and a new addition to the menu of cranberry, plum and ginger, to accompany the turkey, were both very well received. 




True to tradition, after a magnificent lunch, a lazy afternoon in the pool, some fierce and marginally skillful tussles at the pool table, and a completely self-indulgent pick at the left-overs for tea, Jim and I sat down to enjoy one of our favourite indulgences.....a flight of single malt whiskies and a good old yarn. Needless to say, we slept the sleep of the righteous that night.




Boxing Day was a much more sober affair. Liz and I had volunteered to baby-sit the latest addition to the Keogh family, their eight week old pup 'Womak', whilst they spent the day with other relatives.  Ah, the joy of lying back in a huge recliner lounge watching the Boxing Day Test and the start of the Sydney-Hobart race whilst munching on large lumps of succulent crayfish and slices of cold turkey.....stay asleep pup...your babysitters have only limited energy!


The aftermath of these festivities was less appealing.  We toddled back to our park late on the afternoon of 26 December to discover that the piping winds of the south-westerly change which had hit Adelaide on the previous afternoon had ripped off the perspex hatch cover which provides ventilation to the heads.  Fortunately I was able to borrow a long ladder from the park maintenance staff, and after a hurried visit to a nearby caravan service centre, and a deal of head scratching and much reading of instructions, a replacement hatch rose majestically skyward on its hinges. A new skill acquired!

Post Xmas activities.

In early January we left the post Xmas chaos of Adelaide Shores and the hordes of rowdy youngsters who had descended on the park in the annual January migration to the seaside. We returned to the relative peace and quiet of Windsor Gardens for six weeks or so whilst I had the cataract my right eye removed, and Liz went back to work.

Over Xmas, Stu had announced that he and Briony planned to celebrate their engagement with a party on 13 February. This knocked our previous departure plans into the proverbial 'cocked hat', so all that was now required was to decide what to do for the next few weeks. This was easily managed.

We began by spending a long overdue and much enjoyed visit with close friends on their 400 hectare property at Meadows, some 40 kms south of Adelaide in the western Mount Lofty ranges. 

With the rig tucked up in the small front yard of their current home (a much larger edifice is on the drawing board as they continue to develop the property) 














and an delightful rural outlook, we sat down to a good old fashioned 'catch up'. 







After what was a wonderful 24 hours at Meadows we hauled out mid morning to continue further south down the Fleurieu Peninsula the the small southern coastal town of Port Elliot where our erstwhile Oleander Street neighbours have a country property.





They had previously invited us to make use of it, and this time we took them up on the offer.











What an outlook we enjoyed from the van windows on this elevated property......west along the coast to the hump of The Bluff at Victor Harbor,











and in the opposite direction over the waters of the Southern Ocean. Liz and I have another two very close friends who live in this coastal idyll, friends we had not seen for some time and with whom we were just delighted to share more than one marvellous social occasion during our week at Port Elliot.



Not that it was all fun and games here. There was work to be done. We were very close to the stretches of southern beach in the sands of which that wonderful mollusc, the Goolwa Cockle, thrives. Many folk eat these (particularly in Asia)....not your scribe. 



For me they serve an entirely different purpose......bait! There is noting better on a hook to entice an unwary King George Whiting to its doom. Overfishing has seen a daily bag of 350 and strict size limits imposed.  These things are now like gold. Ten years ago I bought a chaff bag full of cockles for $28.  Now they sell at $30 per kilo!!







As I counted, bagged and weighed my hard earned catch, I discovered that I was now in possession of nearly $100 worth of this excellent bait. Watch out all you Yorke Peninsula whiting!












So from Port Elliot we were off, from one seaside village to another, this time Point Turton at the bottom of Yorke Peninsula, 



where we had booked ten days in the delightful caravan park overlooking the short local jetty. This park was the scene of our first decent trip away in our old Coromal van many years ago, and we were delighted to find that it was still as good as we had remembered.

We were give a choice of sites, and decided on one tucked right up in a corner under the cliffs.  At this time of the year the prevailing south-easterly winds can be a pest....not for the Mobile Marshies.....in our secluded corner they blew right over the top of us with hardly a ripple in the awning to mark the passing gusts. The absence of any TV signal was but a small price to pay for such comfort.

We really did have a good time here on this huge expanse of good lawn. An added bonus was the company of no.1 son, Cameron, who hired a park cabin for five days. Here afternoon drinks on his balcony provided another view of the jetty below.



Unfortunately the wind did hoot for most of the time we were here, but not to the extent that we could not get out onto the jetty on occasions.  Although my plans to plunder the local whiting population went sadly astray, a number of feeds of plump garfish did find their way into our fishing buckets.  Liz was more than happy....these are her favourite fish, and I have to say, properly filleted (no bones....Marshie, take a modest bow) and crumbed to perfection, these indeed present a fine flavoured fillet on the plate.

Chef Pierre's fish galley swung into action on several occasions.












Yum.....thanks Dad!

Cheers Cam...bon appetite.  This was a wonderful sojourn. We actually felt as though we were on holidays rather than living on the road.








But then came the time to return to Adelaide and the engagement party at the Hove home of the boys' mother. We took up our old site at West Beach for ten days and made preparations.  Oddly enough, I had been tasked to man the BBQ for the evening, but there was a deal of running around to be done before hand. 





At the last minute Stu sidled up to me to ask if I would make a short speech after Briony's father, Fraser, had said a few words of welcome . "Delighted, Stu, but be prepared for a roast".  






I have to say at this juncture that we are utterly delighted with Stu's choice of life partner. Briony, as I have mentioned before, is a real marvel and we could not be more pleased.

They were indeed 'The Happy Couple' and the party was a wonderful success. 




Not that I actually saw much of it.....they were a hungry lot.....(this is but a sample section of the crowd). I stood at the BBQ in from 1830 to 2200 cooking a never ending stream of snags, chevapcici, and skewers of all kinds. Always pleased to help, Stu! 





Our Adelaide stay was nearing its end. By the following Thursday, after two significant birthday shows and an important farewell to a long standing friend and surf lifesaving colleague at SA Surf House (he is moving to Sydney to work for the National body) it was time to pull down for the last time at West Beach, break the Ship's Cat out of jail, and hit the road again.

It had been a very busy four months or so. We had relished the opportunity to catch up with so many of our good friends and relatives, and to ensure that our bodies were in some sort of reasonable repair, but we were now were more than ready to...the road ahead beckoned and we were in 'Gypsy' mode. The Marshies are again 'mobile'. Dimboola was our destination for the first night out.