January 24.
The hottest day in Adelaide history. 45.3deg.
The front door handle feels like a branding iron as I close the door behind us. The world is burning hot . The streets seem strangely deserted. People are holed up inside watching the thermometer rise and praying that the power won’t fail. But we have to go out.
The car's aircon kicks into action and we hum off to take the long coastal way down to Mount Gambier in the South Australian South East. Our date is with the Grant District Council for which I am to be the Australia Day Ambassador of 2019.
It’s already 40deg and it is hard not to be fixated by the car’s temperature gauge.
From Tailem Bend, which is now "The Bend" location for motor racing, we branch right across farmlands and blindingly white salt lakes to the little fishing town of Meningie on Lake Albert. The lake stretches out green-brown to the horizon. Pelicans glide across it, low and sleek.
I’ve always loved this town.
I gave an Australia Day speech here a few years ago with the Coorong Council.
We stop to breathe the lake air and get near the water. Ouch. It’s 42 deg out there already and the sun is fierce on the skin. Nonetheless, I have to visit the ostrich sculpture and recall the extraordinary tale of the midget bushranger who rode an ostrich to hold up coaches and steal the passenger’s money and finery. It’s a true story. I never stopped marvelling at it. The Birdman Bushranger of the Coorong.
I caress the saddled ostrich statue.
It is hot and its beak has been slightly vandalised. Grr.
It is nearing noon so we explore the shoreside main street for eating possibilities. We are too early, says the pub. No grub until midday. We’ve spotted a wee cafe called …. Diner and turn back to it. It is almost opposite the public conveniences which also are a target.
The diner is cool and empty.
A huge Australian flag drapes across the counter and then,
the proprietor, Tess, emerges clad in a bright Australian flag apron.
She’s ready for Australia Day.
We order the local specialty, pan-grilled Coorong mullet - the beautiful, delicate fish found in the waters of the lake outside.
While Tess cooks, we dart over to the loos, noting their excellent hygienic standard. Country town loos have come a long way. There is new public art on the nearby green -
a giant pelican carving. A seagull is preening on its head. Whimsical sight.
Back at the diner, we take our fish and salad to one of the quirky tables where black vinyl records act as placemats. And we coo and sigh at the exquisite freshness of the fish and the skill with which it has been cooked. Tess tells us her secret. The fisherman lives next door. He simply hands the freshly-caught mullet over the fence.
This is a wonderful start to our trip.
Then again, there is suddenly a dark shadow and sorrow haunts me. My father’s biographer, Betty Snowden has phoned through a connection distorted by the remote location, sounding as if she is under water, hard to understand. Is she saying her organs are shutting down? Her husband, David, comes on the muffled line explaining that, indeed, Betty has suddenly become acutely ill with a compound of issues on top of her chemo treatments for cancer metastasized in the liver and her prognosis is dire. She tries to speak more, calling from her hospital bed, crying out and I can just understand her saying that the book looks good with its editing and if Wakefield won’t take it in its new form she will find another publisher. I am aghast, leaden with impotence. So many emotions regarding Betty’s place in my life - her extended relationship with my mother, the long ritual phone calls, the notes and recordings, her loving and fastidious research. Her academic’s dogged pursuit of a seemingly expendable detail, like an issue number or date. The progress of the book has been arduous and fraught, climaxing with its publication and inclusion in Writers’ Week wherein for no known reason Tim Lloyd chose to “review” our WW panel session and condemn me talking lovingly about my dad and the book he had not yet read as "hagiography". It was a mystifying act from which I have never recovered and it resulted in the sensitive Melbourne publisher pulling the plug on the book. And it was back to the drawing board.
The road south from Meningie is one of the world’s great treats since it skirts the magnificent Coorong - a long, shallow very salty lagoon protected from the open ocean by 140 km of mighty sand dunes. The beach beyond runs for 200 km - the longest uninterrupted stretch of beach in the world. The Coorong is home to the delicious Coorong Mullet we have just consumed and also to lots of pelicans, viz the recent release of the copycat movie Storm Boy.
I haven’t driven this road in more than a decade and I rejoice at its every scenic curve.
We stop and get close to the water. Oh, my, it is hot. 44 deg. The water is an exquisite array of colours - such sweet green in striations with a yellow hue and darker greens against the bright blue sky. There’s a thin line of white sand and coastal greens far across the water. Such serene and meditative colours. - and a gently sulphuric, organic aroma. What a pity it is too hot to stand in
the sun. We drive on a while but I have to connect again with the water. This is the sacred Coorong. I won't be back for who knows how long. To hell with the heat, I want to savour it. I pull off onto the dirt road at the Pelican observation point. There are some hardy European travellers, bare-chested and in thongs, coming back on a dune track from the observation point. Bruce won’t
come outside. I leave the car engine on for his aircon comfort and step out into the searing heat, treading carefully across the dried sandy mud and exotic exposed rocks with their deep whorls and sharp edges. The tide is out and there are pale swampy mudflats and shallow pools reaching out to the flat, silent Coorong water. There’s that mysterious, strangely rich yellow green of the
deeper water. Despite the heat, I can’t hurry away. I am experiencing a visceral feeling of the primaeval. Oh, what a place this is.
We drive onwards past the few landmarks - roads off to the right leading to Chinaman’s Well or the 40 Mile break. There is Salt Creek which is a now dead refreshment stop, cursed by a nightmare
abduction and torment of European backpacker girls. It's a horrifying tale of backpackers looking for work and travel through a website connection and a predator looking for victims using the website connection. Poor girls replied to that serious nutcase and ended up in terror for their lives out there in those beautiful sand dunes.
But there are different sorts of nut cases out there. We pass not one but two cyclists plugging solidly south on bitumen in denial of the extreme heat. Yep. They're sear-iously mad.
We don’t stop again.
The road with its wonderful salty arid lands vegetation, leads us south, south, south, to the outlying farming lands around the town of Kingston. Kingston is a cray fishing, lobster port. On its outskirts, it features The Big Lobster. Why can no one make a go of this? It is under new ownership now, “saved” by an heroic local landowner
- but it seems quiet, and abandoned as I pull in to the closed cafe. Still a wonderful object, however. I love it.
We drive on into the town. It has picked up since last I was here. It has a sense of quiet vitality but still with the same handsome old historic
buildings in its centre. We have stayed here a few time and seen massive sculptural formations of seagrass on the beach. We once tried to take a hot chicken and chip lunch onto the beach only to have a bold seagull swoop down and nip the kidney right out of the piece of chicken in Bruce’s hand.
We reminisce as we peruse what now seems to be a quite sedate and affluent fishing town. There are lots of tourists. There are all sorts of campervans, caravans and
tents in the seashore campground. There is also a sense of heat-drenched ennui.
I find a tree and park illegally to gain its meagre shade so we can take a walk on the Kingston jetty. It is a long, famous and historic jetty, an important feature of this town. The 45 deg temp on the road has slipped to 40 or so as we walk out
towards the horizon. But, oh, the clear green water. Clarity. The purity. It is swooningly beautiful. I’d like to drop into it. I feel refreshed just looking at it.
It’s a long walk out to sea. There’s the buzz of a fishing boat seeking harbour somewhere. Some campers are walking on the vast, wide, weed-blighted foreshore beach, silhouetted in unhurried holiday happiness. As we near the end of the old jetty, I hear a lightness of voices. No one is to be seen. Then, towards the jetty’s end on a ramp to the water, there are two boys, maybe 12 or 13 years old, the age when boys
become so wonderfully clever and worldly. They are snorkelling around the furthest piers of the jetty, I ask if they are seeing much sealife. “Only small fish so far,” they say. “But we have just got in”.
We cannot not hurry.We meander sluggishly back to our car under its mercy
of shade. Two sturdy European women campers are picnicking at a nearby table. They look ruddy-faced and hot. But, “Yep", they agree. "It is cooler here by the sea than it was out on the road."
After a sentimental circuit of Kingston, we are humming south again watching the car thermometer rise. 45. Ouch!
And now we reach lovely Robe. Suddenly, the temp has dipped dramatically.
Here is halcyon, lyrical, lovely seaside and a lot of people relishing it. Robe is almost unrecognisable since my last visit. It has become a modern seaside resort town. Where once it had arty and
elite local craft shops it now has added icecream parlours and t-shirt shops. It is a traffic jam of popularity.
We head to the seafront and find a park amid the 4-wd utes and holiday vehicles to gaze upon the sheer perfection of the sweet bay and the families swimming and playing between the sand and the
pontoon. A lovely scene. Happy. Timeless. A stunning wee bay and some really dreamy and accessible tiny island rock formations. I watch a solitary girl playing engrossed in a wee island rock pool. I watch families cavorting around their shade tents on the clean crescent beach.
We visit the cliffside coast before we leave. There's Adam
Lindsay Gordon’s pathway. The horse-riding poet was quite the identity here. It's lovely to have poets remembered in the tourism landscape. I quietly cheer. Yes, this is the part of the country whence poets come. My dad, Max Harris among them.
Sandy trails wind around a coastline of cliffs and bays and rock formations surrounded by oh, such pristine waters. We follow these soft pink paths amid breathtakingly lovely sand dune vegetation. It's still hot. Bloody hot. We are red and sweaty but in a joy of immersion in this superb natural aesthetic.
Back on the road and the temperature relief vanishes. The car reads 45 again. But we are airconditioned and we hum blithely south towards Beachport where, abruptly, the temperature drops again.
Beachport is another South East seaside town which seems to have grown. Another sturdy old
fishing town. Always a nice, understated place. It looks prosperous. It is absolutely swarming with holidaymakers on this hot Australia Day long weekend. The beachfront is gorgeous, busy and happy, busy with swimmers and families beside a placid, friendly sea. I think about how these people right now are imprinting happy family
summer holiday memories.
We can't stay here, but I seek a loo and discover the most amazing public facility in the boaties’ carpark. It has a chain mail curtain across the door and M and F sections are identified by pictures of crayfish. There’s fresh air ventilation in the loos themselves. It is all clean and pristine, something one notes of the public facilities throughout regional South Australia. Councils are keeping excellent facilities for travellers. Sweet relief.
There’s another communication on the Betty Snowden front and I start to understand the physiology of what has happened to her. It is terrifying, I have connected with Peter Goers to help get through to the Wakefield publisher, Michael Bollen to tell him of the massive editing to the book by the respected ex Penguin editor Bruce Simms. I am able to convey the report to dying Betty that he now is keen.
Amid my flurry of anxious phone calls from Beachport, Peter demands that we retrace our route to see the Woakwine cutting. He is adamant. It must not be missed. Turn back, he insists. I'm a bit worried about petrol but we do it - and find ourselves on a perilous landing perched above a savagely deep manmade gulch. Sheer drop. Sheer sides. So terrifyingly, abysmally deep. I’m not good with heights. Timidly and very bravely, I step onto the metal landing. I can't come here now and not have done it. My legs turn straight to jelly. This man-hewn
chasm is very severe, like a micro Grand Canyon. It is just so utterly strange and extraordinary. A herculean man-made marvel. What a mind-bogglingly unexpected phenomenon out here in the gentle, agricultural landscape. The Woakwine Cutting.
Onwards to get petrol in Millicent. It ever was a darling town. It still is. There is a charm to it. It is an unassuming place. Just a nice place. We pause and admire the pleasant shopping area, noting that it is not exactly thriving.
We skim along the outskirts of Mount Gambier to find our lodging, The Barn. We have been here before and when the Grant District Council asked if we had any preference for accommodation down here, I was quick to nominate this wonderful place set out in the farmlands amid glorious gardens.
It is 46deg as we roll in and those lovely gardens are putting on a brave, if wilted face. We are welcomed and given Room 46, a king room with a lovely garden aspect. All the newer rooms face these handsome gardens. We unpack, mix a G&T and try to sit outside on the verandah. But it is just too bloody hot. We watch a poor beetle dragging itself agonisingly along the edge of the garden bed and realise that this is wicked, cruel, killing heat. We take our drinks indoors.
The Barn is part of a working farm, a big operation which specialises in beef. The Barn's Steakhouse serves aged beef as a speciality. Also Wagyu. At dinner, we celebrate having reached our destination, or maybe the fact the Bruce poured strong G&Ts, by ordering Wagyu which is tres expensive. It is a treat. A succulent treat. The fragrant fennel slaw with it is complementary bliss.
Friday
It’s cooler. Ten degrees or so.
The sprinklers are working like crazy on The Barn’s glorious herbaceous borders, reviving them from the punishment of that record-breaking 46-degree day. Roses are perking up. Bees are returning.
The idea of Breakfast Greens really appeals on The Barn’s breakfast menu. I have never seen a breakfast dish like this. Out of curiosity, I order it.
Baby spinach with quinoa and grapefruit, avocado, labeneh, a poached egg and lemon dressing.
This turns out to be the most deliriously beautiful breakfast of all time. Of all time! The zing of lemon and the delicate sourness of the labenah with the bright citrus and rich green - and then the softness of a perfectly poached egg. Oh, how I swoon.
What a great start to the day.
Less joyful are the extensive phone calls which follow through on Betty Snowden’s sudden decline. I speak for a long time to her husband David who has just followed her bed as it was wheeled from a ward into the hospice at Flinders. He leaves the room to talk to me and suddenly, as he describes the multiple failures in her chemo-tired body and its lack of ability to respond to the antibiotics against chest infection and sepsis, the reality hits him and he breaks down. It is gut-wrenching. My heart breaks. One is impotent. I speak of Mary MacKillop, being in MacKillop country and we agree that prayers from those wonderful Josephite nuns who so lovingly surrounded and prayed for my father would be a good thing. I call Sister Mary Ryan, with whom I work on the MM Taskforce, and ask for Betty to be put into the nuns’ prayers. Mary gets all the details and adds Betty to the prayer order, praying for her peace and comfort and a serene passage.
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I am emotionally drained. It has grown late in the morning as we set out on my planned day of Mount Gambier and Grant District Council tourism. Linda Hay from the Council has given me lots of advice and has lined up connections for me. She is a legend.
I have been through Mt Gambier many times but always on an in-and-out media mission so I have never visited the city’s amazing sinkhole gardens.
Umpherston. Wow.
It is set in a gracious old park, groomed lawns and mature trees. And there it is, a massive deep hole
draped with creepers and at its base, hydrangea beds and paths. It is lush and absolutely spectacular. Paths and steps wind down into its core. But I am carrying a knee recovering from serious injury, steep climbs are not the go. And we are behind in time.
We ooh and aah. We read about Mr Umpherston
and his house and the history of the place. We marvel at the mighty timber works which now surround the sinkhole and enjoy the fragrance of cut pine. We take a quick look at the cafe which has Australia Day observed on a table but really is just a wee souvenir shop. And we head off to the town to buy me a soft pillow. I have left my travel pillow behind for the first time ever. Spotlight does the trick.
We do a familiarisation drive around Mount Gambier, admiring handsome old preserved buildings and getting a
sense of the buoyancy of the local economy. I have always liked this city. My father grew up here until he scored a scholarship to St Peter's College in Adelaide. Famously, he had read the whole Mt Gambier library from A to Z.
We park and walk the main street, checking out possibilities for lunch. We have spotted some Thai
places. We are checking them out on TripAdvisor when a local man pauses to ask if we are lost. How thoughtful. Big tick to Mt Gambier residents for friendliness to visitors. He recommends two places. We are heading onwards when I spot Collins Bookshop. I love a bookshop. I grew up in a bookshop. I have to pop in, just to breathe the scent of new books. Aaah. I ask the desk staff where they recommend for lunch. We follow their advice since it is close. It’s a pleasant Thai restaurant wherein I order a Tom Yum and Bruce a Chicken Larp. The food is exquisite.
And now to the
Echo Farm, which is just a wee bit out of town.
It is the recreation of an old country farm complete with butter churns, water pump, Coolgardie safe… It is the recent purchase of Linda Hay and her husband, Bruce. Her mother, Heather appears from a back room with a fresh egg in her hand and welcomes us. I like her
instantly. She gives a bit of a guided tour of the rooms and stories and then introduces us to Bruce, who is on the tractor out back. Aussie Bruce shakes hands with American Bruce. Aussie Bruce is a weathered country fellow with arms covered in scratches and dried blood from a day of hard farm chores. He runs the farm part time and loves it to bits but, in truth, he says, it is a full-
time job, what with all the animals and maintenance. There are a lot of animals. We meet a tame wallaby with a face tumour and watch kids riding old-fashioned trikes around a special track. We meet piglets and a big old mumma pig. We meet friendly heifers and chooks and a turkey, a donkey called Tony after Tony Abbott (because of his big ears). We stroll around a field of chainsaw carvings. And we meet a mass of gorgeous curious goats. This voyage back into the past and this meander through a world of farm animals has been like a big spiritual valium. The anxiety and sense of haste I was feeling when first I arrived at the farm has been replaced with a bucolic calm. Heather gives us a parting gift of a dozen fresh eggs from the farm chooks. I am so touched.
We cruise off to check out Mount Gambier’s most famous landmark, well, water mark really - the Blue Lake. It is a volcanic crater lake. It is vivid blue. It is a glorious, powerful, pure blue. It also is gloriously pristine water and it provides the city of Mount Gambier with what is arguably the loveliest drinking water in the world.
It is not a huge mountain, the old volcano from which Mount Gambier takes its name and it is easy to drive
around. We find the main vantage point and park the car, walking downstairs and going through an underpass to cross the road and stand on the viewing platform - and marvel and marvel and marvel. It is beautiful. Just beautiful. We drink it in as if to store its glorious blueness forever.
There are others coming and going to see this
wonder - Indians and Chinese. It is a major Australian tourist attraction. There is also a plaque citing the mad leap of the South East poet, maverick politician and general daredevil, Adam Lindsay Gordon. He was a skilled horseman and his leap apparently was over the parapet and onto a perilous ledge overlooking the lake and then back onto the road again.
Lastly, we head back into the centre of town to see the Cave Garden which is another sinkhole. It is extremely dramatic, set in a small central park.
It really is quite astounding that a city should have such startling marvels in its midst.
One wonders that the national tourism authorities don’t give this city a higher profile.
Althought the cave garden sinkhole is very sheer and deep, there is a good path around it. There seems to be eerie caves leading back into a dark somewhere nowhere from the base, which is hardly surprising in this landscape of limestone honeycomb. It certainly is very dark and deep and scary and mysterious - but, dammit, some local eejits have pushed supermarket trolleys over the brink and they lie ignobly at base of the sinkhole.
Back at The Barn, we change for dinner and walk across to the bar to meet the Mayor of the Grant District Council and members of the council. There are a lot of them as we walk in at 6pm but they are gracious, welcoming individuals each of whom makes it as easy as possible to get to know in the brief time available.
I’m soon engaged with Jody Elliott who is newly elected and has had a fascinating life some of it in an Australian enclave in South Korea. Gill Clayfield is experienced on the council and is deputy mayor who brags a talented journalist son who once was arts editor on the Australian but gave it all up, seduced by the lure of travel. There’s vivacious Kylie Boston, elegant Megan Dukalskis and the fascinating Julie Reis who teaches community nursing but has a PhD in rural sociology with an emphasis on the world of beef. Then there’s Barry Kuhl, the one male councillor amid these sparkling women. He is an impeccably dressed farmer and a seasoned councillor. Finally, here’s the mayor, Richard Sage. He fusses discreetly on the outskirts of the group, ensuring that everyone has drinks and is comfortable and that everyone can communicate easily. The chairs are arranged in a big circle and conversation is animated. The council never has had so many women. It is proudly flexing feminist muscle in all directions.
We are all getting along with such greedy interest that time whizzes past and suddenly it is time for the councillors to disperse and for us to go to dinner with the mayor. We pose for a group photo and make lingering farewells. The mayor’s wife, Lynette, has arrived. She is one of those people one just likes instantly. She works at TAFE liaising teaching subject.
We repair to The Barn Steakhouse and talk through a gorgeous dinner. Prawns for me. Fish for the Sages. A rump steak for Bruce on his keto diet. The prawns are divine. Everything is divine. Including a local rose called Bells & Whistles. We learn about Richard’s work rehabilitating prisoners and his varied long career in the country. We learn about each other’s families. We learn about the region and Australia Day observations. We find ourselves sitting next to the owners, the Cleves. Dale and Marianne. I sing praises of the magnificent gardens and the stunning herbaceous borders. Marianne says they are her labour of love. I am thrilled. It just adds to the finesse of this place.
Out the back are the flourishing vegetable and herb gardens which supply the kitchen. Chooks scratch away around a couple of old fruit trees in a run with two little tabby cats in residence, keeping the rodents at bay. The property grows its own beef and, famously, ages it. It's a class act. Again, a Mount Gambier treasure.
AUSTRALIA DAY.
The day dawns cool and cloudy. A huge change has drifted in overnight. The gardens outside breathe with relief and look vivid. But, me? Oh, dear. There goes the planned summer frock. I wonder about what I may wear for the Grant District Council's brunch schedule.
But first, back to the breakfast room for another Green Breakfast. Today it takes a little longer to arrive. I’m happy reading the paper and don’t really notice until the waitress arrives with the dish apologising that “the chef had to run out and climb a tree to get your grapefruit this morning”. Now that is service. The dish is even more blissful than yesterday, coming with the thought of a chef up a tree.
I run through my speech and choose my cool weather backup outfit - black slacks and T with my flamboyantly coloured flowing Port Lincoln top.
Mil-Lel is a few klicks out of Mount Gambier in dairy country. It was once famous for its cheese factory and Mil-Lel parmesan is still massively popular in the supermarkets, but now it is made across the border in Victoria. Other cheeses are now being made in Mil-Lel. The cookery book author,
Liz Harfull filled me in on the history of cheese there. She’s a Mil-Lel girl, the most famous member of the community I think. I was lucky to have her connection to background me on her home town. I’ve actually recipe-tested for her in the past and we have in common recipe books of home-style foods, her traditional fare and mine budget On-A-Shoestring creations. She’s a best
seller with
The Blue Ribbon Cookbook and
Tried Tested and True among them. My book,
On a Shoestring - Recipes from the House of the Raising Sons is still in print - just, at Wakefield Press.
So, we find little Mil-Lel with its few houses and its sturdy old country school.
And, we find the Mil-Lel Park and Memorial Hall.
I don my Australia Day cap for walking around in the
sun. The Australia Day Council does not like its ambassadors to cover their heads or obscure themselves so I take it off for eating, speeches and photos. The Mayor, however, has an Australian Flag t-shirt and cap for the day. So do the councillors and the MC. Nice touch.
The two flags, the Aboriginal and Australian, are flying side by side at the Mil Lel grounds where two big marquee tents face each other across an expanse of desiccated grass. There’s a collection of showground buildings around the place and lots of people. A volunteer
is directing cars to park in a large paddock to one side of the proceedings while behind the more permanent of the tents are a colourful old-fashioned swing, merry-go-round, and a large array of collectors’ cars.
People are seated around at picnic tables and in camp chairs with others massed and seeking shade in the
big tent. It’s a good crowd. But the cooling cloud cover suddenly has vanished and with the sun out, it is surprisingly hot. Now I regret the black slacks. Oh, well.
We’re directed to a nice, tidy shed where a bevvy
of cheerful women are serving up BBQed sausages, rissoles and a mass of salad choices. It is extremely well organised and the food supplies are being constantly replenished as the gold coin queue stretches back out the door. We take our plates and are about to sit on our own camp chairs when Linda Hay, the wonderful council programming whiz, rocks up and tells us that we
are allocated a nice table with the mayor in the big tent. Linda is official photographer for the day. She is a busy good spirit.
We settle in with the Mayor and his wife, now familiar as Richard and Lynette and feeling like old friends. The local Federal MP Tony Passan rocks up, loud, hot and hail-fellow. We chat about the perils of the River Murray which is in his electorate. He reveals that the cotton farm, Cubby Station, is important for flood mitigation. Without
it, and before it, towns like Mannum were all but swept away. Hmm. He brings a plate of cakes to the table.
I meander off to explore the collector cars on show. It’s another world out there, some magnificent metal beasts adorned in Aussie flags.
One has a big inflatable Boxing Kangaroo. Peaceful specialist petrolheads are lolling and chatting, peering under bonnets and doing their best to keep cool. The day is hotting up.
Down near the stage area, small children are getting free rides on miniature steam engines and dads are peering with interest at the working models.
Then the skippers arrive. Children displaying synchronised rope jumping. Jump Rope for Heart. They display in turns and in groups the assorted styles and combinations of skipping - long ropes and short ropes. It’s hot work but the kids power on with discipline and skill. I would never have thought of a skipping demo but it proves to be
good entertainment and a fabulous involvement for and by children.
The Mount Gambier Band has been giving a sterling recital betwixt and between preliminary happenings, serenading the lunching masses. They’re strong and spirited and, playing good Aussie tunes, fill the air not just with music but with a sense of national occasion.
We are called to the stage tent to assemble for the official proceedings. The Mayor, deputy mayor and several councillors are there, the MC, and Linda with her camera.
It’s hot under the tent. Somebody swings a chair in my direction so I can sit through the preliminary proceedings. The OzDay local awards are all laid out neatly on a trestle table. And the whole thing goes off as smooth as silk. Auntie Michelle gives a splendid Welcome to Boandik Country. Two young girls had given a pleasant performance which had relaxed and pleased the crowd. They now sing the national anthem - as well as I have ever heard it sung. Brianna Scanlon and Jennieva Burn. Another gold star for Grant Council.
The Mayor’s speech is well-timed, rousing and comprehensive. He is easy-going and relaxed. The local politician Tony Passan gets up and gives an excellent speech. The crowd is well warmed up.
As I stand at the lectern, it is to look across the grassy expanse and see just the shadowy shape of the crowd massed in the shade. But the sound is
good and they are receptive.
They listen attentively and laugh in the right places.
"Ah, the stories which have come from this region. I’ve heard them all my life," say I. "The poets. John Shaw Neilson, one of the country’s greatest poets. Adam Lindsay Gordon. My dad, Max Harris. He was a Mount Gambier boy…he wrote poems about Bert Sassanowsky and the Tantanoola Tiger among other things.
He described the South East as 'The Land of the White Man’s Dreaming'. That was a tourism promo down here for some years, you know.
Of course, I hardly have to tell you, there is also Mary MacKillop and Julian Tennison Woods. They also strode this landscape."
This is old land with strong history in which education stands high. The South East has a true sense of identity rooted in generations of hard and skilled workers since its settlement - dairy, grazing, lobster, fish - and poetry.
I talk about the continuity of Mil-Lel families - the Robinsons and Preeces, the Chambers and Telfords, McGregors, Hunts, Dycers and Douglas families...
And the cheese makers - the Innes sisters here at Mil-Lel who started cheese making in 1889 with their brother John and how Janet Innes became acting factory manager and the only woman in South Australia licensed to run a steam boiler.
Mil-Lel cheese history is intriguing and I realised that I had a personal link to it, recalling the sawdust-floored cheese maturing room in Turners Meat & Produce store in Angas Street in the city where my grandfather, Vic Harris was MD of Produce. They were cheeses from here.
A brisk wind is whipping through the tent - just in time to ruffle my notes. They are a bit hard to hold down.
I plough merrily on, talking of the meaning of Australia Day, why this country has such special qualities, who we are...
We go on to celebrate the volunteers, the heart and soul of Australia Day. This is the day we name them and cheer them and thank them.
Here in Grant District Council, we are recognising Peter Feast as Citizen of the Year. He has done astonishingly significant things with native plantings and the regional environment. We are also cheering the Carpenter Rocks Progress Association which just pitched in and fixed up the community centre.
The Mayor also celebrates a man whose name I did not catch. What a wonderful story. Truly what Australia Day is about. This man is legally blind. Born that way. No one quite knew why. He has some sight, obviously, because he has spent his life helping other people. He takes his mower to the cemetery and keeps the greens neat and groomed. He helps older people in nursing homes to get or send their mail or get papers. He does errands just to be helpful. I managed to shake his hand and, afterwards, ask him a bit about why he is such a sweet citizen. He says he loves it at the cemetery. It is a beautiful peaceful place and he feels comfortable there. “And now Mum and Dad are there, too.” I am very touched by this bloke. He started life with great disadvantage but has found a place in society and a way to give his life true meaning.
After all the formalities we pose for official photos and gradually make our farewells.
But wait, the day is not done.
Kilsby Sinkhole awaits.
At the insistence of the legendary Linda, there is another Mount Gambier "must" pilgrimage.
To that end, I have liaised to visit the Kilsby Sinkhole. Linda was pressuring me to go snorkelling in it but I have an injured knee and I am not game.
It’s an interesting cross-country drive, lovely rural landscape. We are directed to ensure we close the gate behind us as we arrive at the location. It is an active farm. But, as chance happens, another car is leaving and the driver takes on the gate duty as we bump gently down the long driveway towards a huge shed. Jen greets us. She’s the site manager and a scuba instructor.
The shed is immensely high. Apparently, there were science and defence tests run once upon a time here, using the sinkhole for massive ladder operations and the weapons research testing of airdrop sonar buoys. It was all explained but my mind wanders as I gazed down into the great pit
behind the shed. It is a great yawning black chasm. Down within it is water of incredible clarity and purity. Water like glass. “Clear as gin”, someone said. Jen regales with details of the beauty of snorkelling in the water and what people come here to learn. We watch some people down there in scuba gear doing exercises. It is very quiet. Almost reverend. One can see green growths shimmering underwater on the side of the sinkhole.
The country air around us is clear and fresh. There is a sense of immense space with pastureland stretching to the horizon. It feels
ancient and mysterious. The sinkhole looks eerie and primaeval.
A great, sudden hole in the earth’a crust, going down, down, down to caves and tunnels and an underworld... What a wonder.
Then the owner, Ben Kilsby materialises. This is the remarkable thing. The sinkhole is privately owned. The family simply have this wonder amid their farming
property. And there are their grazing sheep in the neighbouring paddock.
I fantssise about how it must feel to "own" such a weird phenomenon. Not a lot of people can say they own sinkholes. You certainly can't go out and buy one. Although, sink holes can open up just like that, abruptly, unexpectedly, lethally. That's the story of Bert Sassnowsky perpetuated in a poem by my father. He was driving his bullock dray down here when the earth simply
opened up underneath him. His body, they said, eventuallyt showed up in the sea out near Beachport, carried through the honeycomb tunnels of the Limestone Coast. I grew up with the Arthur Boyd painting which illustrated this tale, a wild and terrible imagining, Bert wide-eyed in mortal terror. A fantastic painting. No wonder these sinkholes are resonating with me. They are almost in my DNA.
We are invited to go down to the water level. This involves a little path and a steep runway cut into the side
of the sinkhole, with a ladder down to the dive platform. My knee injury makes such climb madness so I wait and watch and gaze and ponder the idea of free diving and the coldness of the water and the mystery of the honeycomb landscape of the South East. And I silently bless Linday Hay for pressuring me to come here to discover this astounding place. Of course, the diving world knows all about it. Divers come from all over to drop into its deep, deep, crystal
clear silence.
The Kilsby family has had to have the sinkhole itself put on a property title separate from the sheep-grazing farmland which surrounds it to enable its development as a remarkable tourism site. The shed already has a cafe-like atmosphere
with seating and walls of photos sinkhole history and information. There now are plans for eco accommodation among other things, says the owner. But, immediately and most importantly, since people had described the water as “clear as gin”, they have started making Sinkhole Gin. And here it is. Among other things, native muntrie berries are used in the process to give the botanicals. It is due on the market any moment now.
We are not offered a taste so I can’t report, but it had a fine fragrance. I shall look for it in the stores anon.
Back in the Mount, we pop into the local Woolies for some provisions. It is a big, spacious store. I’m just standing looking for snack-sized ziplock bags when I feel a shocking pain in my foot and cry out in alarm. Good lord,
I have been run over by a massive handicap vehicle. This woman has just run over my foot. It is no ordinary gopher. It is road-worthy with huge wheels. The woman has a lot of safety yellow around her. “I was going to warn you…” she says. Huh? I say she has just hurt me. What is she doing with that vehicle in the store? I am sorry she is disabled but that is no reason to disable me. She mutters something and drives right on, leaving me in pain and anxiety. That is a big vehicle. How badly is my foot hurt?
I decide I should report the incident to management in
case this turns out to be a serious injury and also because, well, it could be a child or a frail elder next time. I am doing so to some hapless young store manager when the woman rolls up and starts screaming at me, that I was in her way, I walked into her, she doesn’t care, she hopes she hurt me, I can fuck off, just fuck off…. Wow. The store manager seems nonplussed. Do I want to call the police? Oh, dammit. I leave my name, my card and limp out of the store. By the time I get to the car, the bruising is showing on the foot, pattered by the soft shoes I was wearing. Dammit.
We repair to the Barn, a beloved sanctuary. It is hot and the room is cool and beautiful. We decided to eat in again so we pour G&Ts and sit on the terrace a while, worrying about the insect life which is suffering in this heat. Dinner is lovely, of course. We stroll back to our room, me very relieved that I am walking OK on that now darkening and painful runover foot.
27th
A last chance to have the most beautiful breakfast in the world. Joy.
Thankyou Barn.
With a final pause to salute the Blue Lake, we head south to Port MacDonnell. It is a pleasant drive and seems shorter than we expected. It is a reasonable commute for a lot of Mt Gambier workers.
Port MacDonnell is a small lobster port.
It is surprisingly uncommercialised. There aren’s hotels and motels to speak of. We are staying in the
Customs House which is the most imposing building in town. An historic site which has been beautifully converted as a B&B with several expansive suites. We are in the Policeman’s House which looks out over the sea, but one can only see the
view by standing at the high windows, since it is an old stone structure preceding the concept of picture windows. It has been lovingly modernised with excellent kitchen and bathroom, a small living room and very steep stairs up to two bedrooms. I’m not happy with the stairs now I have a foot injury to add to my torn meniscus. I hold the rails carefully and take the steps one at a time,
suddenly worrying about nocturnal micturation trips.
We walk out to explore and get some lunch. There’s a Periwinkle Cafe and it is hopping with action. Packed. Nonetheless, the manager finds us a spot where we can sit at a semi bar table and look out over other diners and out to the sea. It’s a while before we realise we have to queue to order. I have fresh grilled local fish and swoon. We ask to reserve lobsters to return for that evening. They have a list enumerating all sizes at all prices. $160 for one for the two of us. But we have to have a fresh lobster here.
As arranged, I call the mayor, Richard Sage, and he tells us how to get to his place.
We turn on Siri and head out of town onto a semi-rural road which skirts along the coast.
Chez Sage is neat brick house in a large expanse of land, all yellow with daisies. At the end of the block is the sea breaking onto a vast beach covered in heavy kelp.
Richard and Lynette are in their “guest house” with their family, daughter Danielle, son-in-law, Brett and gorgeous grandie, Lucy. We’re welcomed and introduced after which Richard announces that they have caught a fabulous cray and it is meant for us. They urge us to cancel the reserved cray at Periwinkle. I call up and do so. They are delightful, saying you should never pass up a fresh cray at
Port MacDonnell. Thus reassured and excited, we pile into Richard’s huge 4WD and head off for his tour of special places in his council area, humming over beautiful country roads surrounded by farms, dairy cattle and thriving crops. He takes us to the Ewens Ponds, a serene a lovely place out in the flat lands, composed of a series of connected lakes with lush reeds
all around. They are sinkholes…look into the water and there are those lovely, mysterious hues and shapes. People are kitting up and snorkelling, oh so slowly, gliding across the deep, deep crystal clear water. It is very peaceful.
Along more quiet country roads and through more fertile, handsome pasture land and, then, suddenly, these mysterious great holes in the world appear, sinkholes. Piccininni Ponds - more beautiful connected lakes with no bottoms. Well, of course they have bottoms but they have that eerie reputation down here on the Limestone Coast. I talk to a woman who is packing her wetsuit into the
back of her car after a swim. She’s not young. She seems to be alone. I ask why she is doing it. “The beauty,” she replies. “It is like fairyland. It is fairyland. Gliding over fairyland.” I go to the Information shelter and look at the photos. I call up some images on YouTube. Oh, my. Now I want to do it.
Richard and Lynette drive us on along backroads then suddenly across the border to Victoria. Here is his council boundary, right on the state line. One side of the road is SA and the other is Victoria.
And we visit the lovely Glenelg River winding and meandering from state to state
in its national park. People are picnicking and fishing. I chat to a Lebanese woman about the fishing and the hubble bubble pipe her husband is smoking. Kids play on the grass. Parents sit about in camp chairs. It’s a lazy day. We drive on down to another spot where there is a crowd of old corrugated iron shacks. Little boats are puttering by. People clean fish beside their shacks. Classic, gorgeous old river shacks over the water, many of them a bit run down. Richard pops his head into an open door. “Look, it’s the mayor,” exclaim in inhabitants. A hearty chat about the latest shack rules ensues.
We drive on and look at the river from vantage points. It is soul-restoringly lovely. We take a selfie.
Next stop, some miles further back towards Port MacDonnell, Richard detours for just one more sinkhole, not like the others. A scary one, he warns. As we approach on the backroads, we encounter “no entry” warnings and gates to very rough tracks. Richard knows these parts and we drive in the open side of the gate and over an inhospitable bumpy road. Then, with his guidance on foot along a rough trail with fallen trees, we find our way very carefully to the hole…a dark and sinister sinkhole. It has a caged viewing platform. I don’t want to be on it with that pit of black water beneath. it is a nasty thing down there. None of the lyricism of Piccannie or Ewens. It is the hell hole. It has a history. No one uses it now. Richard said I’d be scared of it. I am. It is horrible. But it is another aspect of the sinkhole phenomenon - how perilously they can dot this limestone landscape, how they can just open up, how unsuspecting animals can just crash into them…
A quick detour to satisfy my love of hens and free range eggs. Richard has been explaining the hens which are trucked around the farmland and liberated on the fields to free range while guarded by big white Maremma dogs… I had not known of this egg business. He points across a broad farm field and there is a pantechnicon hen house out there and around it a happy scatter of busy chookies doing their clucky thing on the pasture. “They call them Splendid Eggs,” says Richard. “Love it,” say I.
We return to the Sage house and prepare to check the cray pots. Richard hopes we might get another cray for dinner. We bundle up in life preservers and, leaving a very unhappy dog on the beach (he likes to crew the boat) we surge out into the sea. It did not look at all rough from the shore but once out a way it is very choppy. We bucket through it, whack whack whack. We go a long way out. Richard navigates with his GPS and we swing in to the lobster floats. Brett hauls them up. Nope. Nuttin’. Zip. Zilch. Disappointed, we bucket back to the far-distant shore, ready for a glass of wine.
But the crayfish Richard and Brett had brought in earlier is there awaiting, bright red and fresh as fresh. We have crays all the time. No thrill for us. We want you to enjoy it, says the family, setting out a massive spread of food which Danielle seems to have prepared while we were out adventuring. And, with the magic view of the coast from the dining room picture window, we ease into a convivial night with a family we feel we have come to know and love. Just like that. Lucy turns on some after-dinner entertainment with her gorgeous dance skills. We feel blessed. We have not just come down on an Australia Day pilgrimage, we have been taken into the hearts of gorgeous, kind, fun, generous, interesting people.
We part fondly and return to our stately Customs House digs.
The next morning dawns calm and sunny. I have coped gingerly with the stairs overnight. My foot looks ugly with darkening bruises but I am getting about on it. Phew. Bruce sets to work in our well-equipped kitchen and soon the scent of bacon wafts through our Policeman's Quarters in the Old Customs House and we are purring over the fresh eggs we were so kindly given at the Eco Farm.
We have a whole glorious day to explore Port MacDonnell.
The moment it is open, we are into the local Maritime Museum beside the Customs House.
This is also the Council office and Linda Hay has foreshadowed our visit. There's a gallery space with a fabulous exhibition arrayed. I fall in love with a couple of artworks, especially a dot-painted umbrella.
The gallery manager sets the technology alive for us and we enter the gallery. It is in quite a small area but its layout makes it seem huge and we are engrossed for ages in the displays of maritime history and memorabilia. There are graphic descriptions of the famous shipwrecks of the rocky coast, gut-wrenching. There are displays of outboard motors. There is eclectica. There is even humour. It is an excellent regional museum, we purr enthusiastically.
We find the one and only quaint all-purpose back street
general store to replenish our supplies for cooking ourselves dinner in our gorgeous Customs House digs . What an eccentric, all-inclusive country store it is. Small, but remarkably stocked.. No chilis of course. But that's OK. We have brought our own. Patty, our travelling patio chili plant has been flourishing in the sunshine on a column in the handsome Customs House courtyard. We harvest chilis and bring them in to spike our home-cooked spag bol dinner later on. It's a travelling tradition - wherever we go, Bruce likes a kitchen to cook up his special version of the all-time comfort food.
But first, we must not waste our chance to
play tourists. And off we go to visit the historic home of the famous horse-riding poet Adam Lindsay Gordon - Dingly Dell. I am crushed to find that it is closed to the public today. A note on the door says that illness is to blame. Woe. We meander around the charming country garden and think of the simple life of yore. Dear little
cottage it is. A perfect retreat for an equestrian poet who also took a burl at politics. Then we come upon a modern contribution to the heritage landmark and laugh in incredulity. Who does this stuff? Zany art - a faux racing cyclist embedded in a hay bale, just the wellington boots poking out.
Off along the dirt roads we drive and back to the wonderful coast. Splendiferous, it is. Breathtaking.
We devour it as we walk interesting cliff trails with lighthouse histories, tales of shipwrecks in the wild crashing seas deep below. The vistas are stupendous, the rocky outcrops, so spectacular, dangerous, beautiful. Waves crashing in and producing mighty bursts of silver, foaming spray. Camel Rock. Yes. Tucked between the island outcrops. Yes. It is a camel.
We come upon a gentle
rocky bay with jewel-like aquamarine waters caressing golden sand. A family is on the beach, children revelling in the shallows. We sit a while on the rocks and simply love sharing it all. Just feeling lucky to be alive and in such rapturous beauty.
We go hunting for a beach walk and find a huge, slightly seaweedy and untidy strand of firm sand and stretch our legs for a kilometre or so. People drive on this beach which unnerves me a bit but we meet a pleasant local couple setting out an evening picnic on the tray of their ute. Nice.
Doing a last drive around the foreshore, we return to our gorgeous digs and take a stroll around the Port MacDonnell foreshore and jetty, admiring the marina, now quiet. A restful safe harbour. The cool of night is drawing in.
We meander back to the Customs House
and I make salad while Bruce does his pasta thing. And thus do we nestle into our little living room and devour our ritual road trip meal in front of the telly as the dark night enfolds our little seaside town. We bless the Australia Day Council for bringing us out into the regions for these enriching experiences.
POSTSCRIPT.
To everyone’s surprise, Betty Snowden rallied from death’s door and was released from hospice to spend really precious time at home with her huge, adoring family. She enjoyed almost five more weeks of love, music, farewells and the sea and died gently on February 27.
This blog was published on the day of her Memorial Celebration.
Vale Betty and thanks.
