Still not October

More walking. You’d think I don’t do any work. The truth is, like many ED jobs, sometimes you spend a lot of time on the shop floor, sometimes you don’t. Plus all the things like teaching and a few meetings and such, which are always part of the job. So I went to a meeting a couple of weeks ago in the orthopaedic dept, run by a very enthusiastic (evangelical?) orthopod trying to improve the treatment of ankle injuries. Minor injuries really are a much smaller proportion of our workload here than in the UK – and as a senior you rarely get involved because of the high proportion of patients that go through resus and, obviously, take up time. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you get non-clinical sessions as well as clinical – they are, handily, the day after doing an evening shift. The shifts are 8 hrs long (well, it’s 76hrs in 2 weeks), which means lots of days at work (as opposed to a few long shifts). So weekends are precious, so I’m trying to see as much as possible.



Last weekend I walked up Mt Lofty (710m – 4 ½ mile round trip, 75mins up, 45 mins down!) from Waterfall Gully. Proper waterfalls (see picture). I slogged up – it’s not a long walk but there is a ½ mile just below the top that’s a bit of a pull. And people jogged by. Some sort of an event. The view from the top right across Adelaide is worth the walk (or drive if you prefer, but you feel so much more virtuous if you’ve worked for it). After a bit of a wander around the top, I sauntered down (the joggers weren’t quite so past as they passed me this time!) , and on the way down spent most of it talking to a random bloke who was completely not keeping track of his kids. A mine engineer, Not many mines in Adelaide but Australia’s largest Uranium mine is at Roxby Downs (the sort of town that seems beloved of Sunday Supplements telling townies what “real life” is).



I went back up (in the car this time), on Tuesday for a couple of hours before work, There is the second part of the botanic gardens up there (the third part is somewhere completely different), specialising in temperate woodland trees. The rhododendrons and azaleas are out at the mo (and the daffs, which was a surprise). There’s a special area at the bottom with specimens of some exotic, “remarkable” trees, Oaks, Ash, Elm, Birch, Maple and Alder. Which is strange because that’s what I see when I look at a wood from a distance – I don’t see the Australian trees until I get close up. There are various other areas with a collection of cherry blossom trees, South American plants, fern, etc. A pleasant place to have lunch before going to work.


Actually work doesn’t seem to be nearly as busy at the moment, although it has its moments. Such as last night – Port Adelaide lost to Geelong in the grand finals of the AFL (a record loss – and no need to mention any other record score lines from yesterday, Thank You Very Much!). So half of Adelaide got drunk and beat up (sorry, “bashed” to use the media word) the other half, who were also drunk. Thank God I was working days. Although today was frustrating. Not too much in resus (probably a good job) but the ward took for ever to sort out, and the junior who was helping me on the ward round was doing it for the first time, and also kept getting called away.

I’m going to have to be careful what I say. There’s a link to this blog on my Facebook page, so any one can read it. Not that I would write anything evil (too much). And freaky – type “Catriona Thompson” into face book and there are only 3. One of them goes to Icknield!!

The End of September...

...which is a strange time - the nights are drawing in, the holidays are over and it is a time to regret all those things you didn't get round to doing while the days were long and hot. Except of course it isn't here. Maybe time to get as much done as possible before it gets too hot. Anyway.

So the water shortage is only going to get worse, although there has been a temporary respite as for the last couple of days it has managed to rain during the night. And tomorrow is a Bank Holiday (Labour Day, apparently - have to look up what that means). So I suppose it'll rain tomorrow.

Anyway, that's the main topic of conversation for the local rag (I use word rag advisedly). There's been a huge multi-million dollar fund announced for all those farmers who are losing their land. And talk about opening a desalination plant. Or even recycling water, which local people seem to hate the idea of. To be honest, the water couldn't taste any worse to drink

I'm still searching for a decent newspaper. So far it's the Weekly Telegraph for UK news, the Weekly Guardian for for foreign news. For local, there's the Australian (or "what John Howard and Kevin Rudd said today". Who knows what they'll write about once the election is held. Rambling opinion pieces, I suppose. There's not a lot else). Or there's the Advertiser, the SA rag. A serious paper for a serious state - the sort of paper that you buy to look at, certainly not to read. They'll run out of topics if the water situation ever gets sorted (there's even an interstate feud over the Murray-Darling Basin Water going on to keep them happy. The hose-pipe ban is more of their level, though). I suppose there will alway be people getting bashed to sensationalise. Apparently the Age is better, even if it does sound like the local weekly Saga newsletter.

PS

I gather that some of you are actually reading this. (No, Vaz is not a stalker - he's just the only one leaving comments).





So thanks for that.





I suppose I ought to assert my rights as the author of the photos, or something (not that it makes any difference) - pretty good considering most of them have been taken on a phone.





And I'll share some good music if I find it (although I do miss British radio). So at the mo I'm listening to the Hoodoo Gurus (eighties band still going strong), and the Hot Lies (local band, first album, slightly american college-rock, but defo worth a listen). As are Mere Theory. Sadly I missed all three bands live last weekend. If you like "roots" (country, basically), the Waifs are pretty popular.

As far as other Aussie culture goes (no laughing, over there), I'd recommend Joy Dettman who writes girlie books but with enough of a twist to make them worth reading. And I also read a 1940s book called "the Battlers" by Kylie Tennant, which is interesting (hardly in depth critique this).

I'll admit to finding a couple of decent TV programmes. OK, one. (This is a country that can fit 4 ad breaks into Neighbours). It's an improv comedy programme called "Thank God You're Here", and apparently it's been syndicated to the UK so look out for it.

Films and DVDs? I finally saw all of Lantana (which I'd been meaning to watch for a while) - and halfway through realised that it looked very familiar - it was on in the UK in June. There's a few more Aus films I'm intending to rent, so I'll let you know. (Oh and talking of films, I'm very distressed about The Seeker - looks like it has completely ruined one of my childhood favourite books. I like to judge before I've seen - but then that is the point of trailers after all)

The one I didn't post...

Just to make this blog a little more human, and to stop this blog being a List of Places I've Been Walking. (Unedited from the 31st August)

Ever had a bad week? Bad month?

The car. White car...white elephant. So far had one new battery and still doesn’t do – booked into the garage on Wednesday to find out why the battery has no charge left. At least there is a warranty.

And when you buy a car, the govt charge tax (GST. Global standard tax? Government slush-fund tax? Actually I think it’s Goods and Services Tax. Appears on everything.). To pay this tax you have to take your receipt (sorry...docket) to a govt office within 14 days, say what the car is worth and pay a random amount. Lucky the office is listed in the phone book.

Anyway, my first attempt at paying it was Saturday. Which admittedly was 14days after buying the car, but given my slight disgust with its not-goingness, I had left it late. Anyway, the office isn’t open Saturdays.

So yesterday I work late – home at 0030 as usual this morning – and wake up around 1030 this morning. Phone the garage, who can’t help with electrics (which I knew anyway), so I phone the dealer. Speak to the sales rep, who says he’ll talk to the manager and get him to phone me. 2 hours later I phone again, get through to the manager who will book me into the electrics place (it’s all so highly specialised here) – he’ll go over the road and book it in. By the time I’ve done this it’s 1500, and I really should make an effort to pay the tax as it’s now overdue.

I get the bus into town, which drops me off outside the office, go in, take a ticket. And while I’m sitting there an employee comes round to say that I haven’t brought nearly enough paperwork with me. So back out, find a bus – which is 10 min late, back home by 1620, find all the rental agreement, bills etc they want to see, jump on the bike and back into town.

Now I know I can make work in 10 minutes if I really have to.

Back into the office, it’s now 1640 – and the office closes at 1700. First name called, red faced, it would have been nice to have had a couple of minutes to catch my breath at least. Anyway, the upshot is that as I am on the verge of telling the car yard where they can stick the car and that I would like my money back, I can defer payment until I have settled the “dispute”. Without incurring the late payment fine. Great.

So now I have a couple of minutes to get into town and try to find some socks as I have worn through pretty much every pair that I bought just before coming out here. Of course when I get back to unlock my bike I realise that I am missing the tag that opens the security gate and my locker key for work (which have a tendancy to drop off my keyring without warning). Too late to get back to the govt office.

So even though the car is booked in on Wednesday, if nobody has picked it up, I can’t let the RAA in to start the car or get it out onto the road anyway.

What else? Well I’m in the process of writing to HM Revenue and Customs for about the fourth time. Because, aside from sending me the wrong form for renting my house out so that I’m paying 22% tax on the rent I receive (ie not received any yet. “Oh yes, you can it claim back when you do your tax return” – files nails, blows bubbles, couldn’t give a... So 2009 then. How helpful.), they are now asking me to repeat all the information I sent them in June, in an organised way, when I had all my financial records in front of me.

At least Peterborough Council have now taken me off their council tax records so I don’t have to pay that.

Not sure if I’ll publish this one – too annoyed at the moment. In need of a hug.

Addendum – yes it has been found, so at least I will be able to get my work boots out of my locker tonight.

And as of this morning (Wednesday) the car is in the auto electricians and I ain’t picking it up until Friday. Let’s hope that’s long enough to find the problem

Appendix – The car has been sitting in the garage (sorry. The auto electrician’s shop. See I’m getting the hang of this Strine lark) a week. Did the battery go flat? I’ll leave you to work the answer to that one out.

PS - Yes, I now have 2 pairs of walking boots, the car is running fine and I didn't get a late-payment tax on the car, HMRC have sorted out the tax on my house rental (doesn't stop the mortgage rate going up again tho), and the GST is only 3% on a car (10% on everything else - makes VAT look like a rip-off). And most importantly, I found somewhere to buy some new socks.

Bel Air...

Orchids









... obviously not the glamourous suburb with the swimming pools and limos (that’s just across the other side of Portrush Road).

Adelaide is great for having real countryside within a spit of the suburbs. None of this farmland in between (there’s no water anyway so no farms), there are real hills and everything.

So, given a still relatively fragile state, I drove to Bel Air Conservation park for a quick walk. Went to see the falls - the word “waterfall” depends on two premises – and there was definitely a 6m drop. Actually the upper falls had water and a drop. Around four drops a minutes to be precise (see piccie).





There are definitely flowers. It’s very odd walking around not knowing the names of anything, but everything seems to have an equivalent. So there’s the pea-bush (that smells incredible and is bright yellow), a vetch-like flower, a daisy-equivalent, cream coloured forget-me-knots – and those-things-that-I-bought-from-Sainsburys-that-were-labelled-as-*new*-bulbs (see blurred piccie) growing wild. And a whole field of freesias (you can imagine the scent). And the orchids – far more than your average British orchid which is a small, unpreposessing pink flower that can be seen on exactly the right weekend in Spring if easter hasn’t been too early and too many people haven’t chased it away. These aren’t big, but lots.

Actually it’s amazing how many of the wild flowers from here can be bought at Homebase. The nasturtiums just aren’t as caterpillar-eaten.

And I saw koalas – just sitting (sleeping?) in the trees, including one with a babe.

I’ll get over it.

Hallett Cove

Aussie Kestrel


Having successfully dodged most of the winter bugs in the UK, I came over to Aus to sample theirs. If only people would stay at home when they’re ill – not go to hospital to spread them around. And I can say so now, too. Anyway, I was supposed to be working the weekend, but spent it in quarantine instead. If only you could get paid for doing Sudoku and crosswords...

Anyway, Friday was strange because as well as being ill, there was a bit of phone traffic with England and a lot of waiting – until a text at 5:30 Saturday morning announcing Theo Murray Thompson was born. All 8lb12oz of him.

Feeling a bit better today (if not quite eating yet – and I was supposed to be off anyway), and slightly stir crazy, I decided not to go away as planned, but stay local. So I went to Hallett Cove which is just South of the city in the City of Holdfast Bay. (City seems to be a word for “council area”).

It’s another interesting place. Geology at work. Actually it’s Geology at play in a "teehee" sort of way. (“Let’s see what the geologists make of THIS anomaly, and how about if we don’t leave any traces of activity for 140 million years over here. That’ll confuse them. They’ll have to think of new term for it”). It’s difficult to describe, but I guess top down is best – mainly because it’ll explain the photos. Sort of like the Dorset coast but you can walk it in 2 hours, not days.

So the top is various rocks and mud caps, then where that has eroded is a bowl with pink and orange candy-striped soft sandstone cliffs and a mini “sugarloaf” that is about 10 feet tall. That slopes to the sea and a beach which is strewn with random erratic rocks that were deposited by glaciers.

The cliffs are the silt from below that (same as some of the inland mountain ranges and are a rich dark-chocolate colour, in strata like shale. On the beach are rows and rows of long, thin rock pools (no anemones or crabs sadly) in the ends of the worn away rock which looks like old wood. The stones and boulders are beautiful – browns and purples, maroon and caramel swirls. On the cliffs are glacial pavements (between the dark rock and the sands) which are polished flat and some have alluvial deposits on– and the reason that Hallett Cove is a conservation area. Just like an O-level geography lesson


As usual I walked longer than the book suggested – once again due to the wonderful signposting here which means that the signs are only visible from one direction. But it was worth it. Most of the path is boardwalk to protect the soil from (more) erosion, but over the hill you get onto path, which at one point is strewn with the tiniest pale-lilac irises. And waterfall creek for once was well named, with a cute little brook falling over foot-high waterfalls into natural pools.

It’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow so I’ll try Bel Air and see what that is like.

Last weekend

The only problem with working is that, despite only being 37 hours per week, it takes up a lot of days. That and an inability to get out of bed after a late shift, has probably accounted for a few days off. Plus of course, there’s all the other chores that need doing.

So the next Saturday (after getting up at about 11. Getting home from work at 1am does mean that it is a good time for phoning home), I spent doing the cleaning, shopping etc. I’ve (unsurprisingly) started a few culinary herbs in pots, so a bit of gardening too. Or could you call it yarding – “garden” is a slightly grand word.

Then I was invited out for supper – winter and the Aussies are still cooking on the barbecue. Except that as I went out of the house it was to see a small crowd of people and lots of flashing light. And a fire engine parked right across the gate. Not sure what happened exactly, but when I went up to offer a hand (not needed – which is a good thing as I wasn’t exactly dressed for the roadside), someone was being cut out of a car. It can’t have been that much of an impact as there was more damage done by the fire service than by the collision. So anyway, I went in and found a gardening programme to watch instead. Lots more ideas now for my garden. And I really didn’t need to watch.

I was about 30 min late for the supper in the end, so not too bad. And v pleasant – not much of interest to relate, really. Except the wonderful bluntness of the questions from the Aussie men. Such as “why aren’t you pregnant?”. Personally I thought “pleased to meet you” would be a good start, but I guess I’m just an uptight Pom. To be fair two of the other girls are about to drop in the next few weeks, and Kylie (the hostess – what a grown-up word) has a 3 year old.


The next day – again, when I got up – thought I’d try Port Adelaide. You can tell it’s the place to visit because there are lots of banners saying “Port Adelaide – It’s happening”. I’m just not sure where it was happening, and I am glad they told me that it was cos I’d never have guessed otherwise.

OK, I’ll be fair. There’s a bright red lighthouse in the middle of the street and a large indoor market which is worth a visit – all sorts of very random rubbish. A lot of it was, actually, rubbish. Sorry. Antiques. There’s a fairly good photographer, who on chatting, was a Pom, lots of bric-a-brac, and some craft-y type things that had to be seen to be believed. All plastic, glitter and fairies. Acceptable if you’re five, I suppose.

Then I wandered on round the streets. There are a lot of old (obviously it’s a relative term), really good art deco, Victorian etc. But what was most noticeable was that most of them were to let. On Lipson Street (did I say that this place is a strange elision of places where I’ve lived), is the maritime museum (cheaper if you go just before closing and smile nicely). It’s actually pretty interesting – lots of history of immigrants over the last 200 years, and of the docks. There’s an old ketch you can actually go in – galley smaller than a dining table. The strange thing was going below, coming up and finding that the boat was NOT rocking – I’m so used to them moving that my brain was definitely telling me that there were waves lapping at the hull.

Upstairs was slightly disordered and charming, in the sort of way that small museums often are. Moving from a sailmaker’s locker and knots to a display on bikinis and an old bathing machine, for instance.

I drove back around the peninsula and watched the sun go down at Larg’s bay – another beach. Adelaide is not short of sandy beaches. But the kiosk there just missed the point of chips by the sea. I want cheap, coarse malt vinegar and a mug of builder’s tea that you can stand the spoon up in. Not a cup and saucer with a cinnamon biscuit. It was wrong. But I’d recommend the chips.

South for the winter

The weekend after I went south – out of the city on the South Eastern expressway. Actually only about 2 hours drive, off the expressway and through Sterling. Which somehow with its crystal blue sky, bare trees and height (only about 400m, but that’s a mountain compared to the pancake that is Adelaide) it was almost Alpine. It’s a good time of year as the grass is still lush, there is water in some of the ponds (even if some of the brooks look like wadis) and of course the flowers are out. It’s fragrant. (Pass the anti-histamines) – particularly cycling home at night, and in the creeks where the air is trapped and warmed by the sun. Two days when the weather was just what I’d think an August should be. So a ‘mountain road’ to Strathalbyn, then across the farmland of the Fleurieu peninsula. I stopped at currency creek – a small brook in a beautiful valley, a rickety viaduact (look up and you see the sky between the sleepers). On the hill overlooking it is a cemetary dating from the 1850s, below is a tree with a huge scar where the Aborigines cut bark for a canoe. (The book said look for the tree – obviously being blonde, I only realised which one it was when I looked at the photo after I’d walked past) And a small waterfall at the end. Perfect place, really.

Actually – another aside – it’s a strange country. I go walking and usually I plan the route around something old, a bit of water, some woodland. That sort of thing. And here is country where the native inhabitants are less than 200 years from being dragged out of the stone age (that’s not meant to be a comment on the aborigines – it’s about how they were treated), yet seems to lack the monuments with which I would associate the stone age. It’s a country which is so old, yet seems so young and undiscovered because of it. Obviously, like the UK, the inhabitants have left their mark by deforestation and those sort of necessary changes – but it seems that the sacred places are all natural phenomena rather than man-made. OK, this paragraph isn’t particularly articulate, but it’s an attempt to convey a feeling, not something concrete.



Then I drove on, through Goolwa and along the coast to Victor Harbour. Don’t you just love out-of-season seaside towns. I arrived at 4pm and the centre was just about shut. Several of the shops reopened in next month. So I wandered around looking for a hotel. There were a rather new and just-built hostel, the recommended hotel (full, naturally) and a few motels. So I ended up in the Grosvenor. An old building, lath and plaster constructed (at least the corridor ceiling Definitely were. The proof was there for all to see), with a balcony. Put a marble at the back of the balcony and it would be over the front edge as soon as you stood up, there was that much of a slope. The room was a (very cold) single with a small basin (memo to self – need to carry a spare sink plug to avoid needless plumbing to find contact lenses), bathrooms were cubicles down the corridor (with flooring by Airport Carpet Supplies International). So salubrious that the doors leading to the rooms actually had locks on.

Anyway, I left the hotel after changing and went to the seafront where there is a pier about ½ mile long that leads to Granite Island. It’s granite where the rest of the landscape tends towards the limestone. And where limestone cliffs are masculine, cracked and weathered into square blocks, the granite here was eroded into almost exactly the opposite - round feminine, primitive boulders. The sun was nearly down as I got round the island, and despite minimal wind, the waves were crashing a good 10feet into the air. Reaching the visitor’s centre as it re-opened at 4:30pm, I managed to book onto the evening’s penguin tour. (Does what it says on the tin). Around 60 people came out for it, a guided walk in the dark (kitted out in emergency fleece) watching the fairy penguins coming back to their burrows. Like small gaggles of school children trying to cross the road, they hopped from rock to rock, preened and generally looked very cute and tourist friendly. The guide was extremely knowledgeable, actually. There were possums too, but sadly no whales in the bay.
By the time I got back to the hotel, ate and had a beer, I fell asleep. So I (sadly) missed the karaoke – or at least the chance to participate, neither did I get the chance to sample a genuine Aussie small town pub.


I left town the next morning to try and find the Newland Head reserve. 30 min later and I was way too far on, having completely missed the road due to A) a completely inaccurate map (did I say that mapping isn’t great here) and B) an almost total lack of signs. Some places are signposted in one direction only and in the end I found my way by following the sign to the congregational church in Waitpinga.

But boy, was it worth it when I finally got there (at about 11am). The road ran through the eucalypts with slender grey trunks against the blue sky, out across the green fields spotted with small scrubby bushes, and across the dunes to a red beach where the surf smashed in turquiose and silver. The walk I planned (I do have a book of short walks), didn’t look that long, so I decided to do most of that then follow one of the other trails back. There was a 15min hike across the dunes, arid and how I imaging the interior of Aus to be, then through dense woodland full of alien plants, butterflies and lizards (shinglebacks). Eventually after a good half hour of walking up the path – which was very fine sand – it leads out onto the top of the limestone cliffs that drop sheer slabs of dark rock into a sea that is such a benign teal colour, until you look down and see how it boils against the rocks.

It wasn’t a hard walk and that wasn’t nearly long enough then back on the sandy path up Ridgeway Hill (not quite!). The trail cuts quite unexpectedly into the scrub, and like orienteering, you are passed from green post to green post in a seemingly random, twisting path that leads across grass, through clumps of bushes. The grass is thin, sparse and prickly, studded with tiny purple lily-like flowers. Turn left at the kangaroo under the tree (don’t know who was more surprised) and back into the wood, but yet again a different character, grey and spiny, with delicate flowers on the bushes and huge spiky grasses. I’m sure the path went in circles, eventually I could hear the waves again and then came to a hill that overlooked the sea – round a corner and I was 5 minutes from the sand dunes.

I sat on the beach for a hour, reading, watching the waves and the gulls before driving back. The coast road back up was worth it, through what looked like chalk combes leading to the sea, and huge long hill, humped and rounded like a stranded whale, and a lake (reservoir) that could have come straight out of Snowdonia. The sort of hill that makes me want to stop the car and walk up. Too late in the day, sadly. Then, before you realise it, the speed limit drops, there are yellow bus stops along the route and back into the city. Up the one-way expressway (that will always amuse me) and home.

Walking part 1b

Pastoral scene




The day after, I walked down the rest of the Torrens in the city. Took the bus out to About 10 miles, probably. The whole of the river bank in town (both sides) is a park. Or reserve – which as far as I can tell could be anything from a conservation area the size of a national park to a small bit of grass on the verge of a road. Anyway, this one is Linear Park. I would love to have been at the meeting where they decided on that one. “Hey boys, let’s not bother debating this one. It’s long, right. Linear. Pass another stubbie.”

Anyway, in another attempt to prove heritage, there are some random plaques commemorating the families who farmed the ares – in some cases until as recently as the 80s, (Except for the family who stayed for 4 years studying English until 2003 before going back to Japan. Goodness knows how much they paid for that memorial) and some very random old miniature pumping engines concreted to the ground. There’s a very nice bluestone house from the mid 1800s, but sadly the park around it is currently being turned into a housing estate.

But it’s a lovely walk, particularly the top (east) end which really wasn’t full of people and worth it just to sit by the river with a book for a while.

To be continued...

Walking part 1a

Glen Osmond mines

Small hiatus there. What have I been doing in the last 10 days?

Well, working, obviously. It’s a job that always takes time to get used to, but I think I’m probably going to enjoy it overall. And I’ve started to go out of Adelaide.

I spent a weekend walking – well, OK a Saturday afternoon and Sunday. I cycled up Glen Osmond (45 minutes slog up, 5 minutes down: no pedalling), which is the hill that overlooks Glenside and the S-Eastern suburbs. Walking is dificult in that there is a distinct lack of maps which are detailed enough to plan a route properly and have faith that the tracks are there. However, if you know where to go, there are a lot of trails marked. So when I got up there, it was possible to do a circular walk – up the glen (sun, birds, butterflies etc). Actually it is beautiful. Through groves of Eucalypts, past the wattle with yellow pom-pom flowers that smell of licorice (probably an acquired like). It’s all pretty well inhabited up there (lovely houses with a view over the city to the sea), and the path eventually goes to the cutting where the motorway runs through. Imagine the M40 cut, but in red not chalk. Actually, like so much, the countryside is so familiar yet so strange – from a distance the scapes and the trees are just like home, and it’s only when you get close that you realise that the silver bark is on a mallee, not a beech tree. And the flowers are all equivalent to home. So there are daisy-type things, a sort of vetch... you get the picture. Oh, and a bright yellow oxalis EVERYWHERE. (Ever seen my front garden in P’boro?)

Anyway, Glen Osmond is also famous for wheal Watkins and Wheal Gawler, the first metal mines in Aus, and the site of the first smelting. See, they do have heritage here. Or at least two tunnel entrances and an old bluestone (which of course isn’t blue at all) quarry.

Things to see and do in Adelaide (part 2)

So what else is there? The main shopping street is Rundle street which is part pedestrianised, chain stores, the usual. There are a couple of old victorian arcades that are worth a walk through, and modern ones which are very like Singapore. And huge numbers of food courts.

For more interesting shops, there’s a small area just to the east end with two vintage clothes shops (OK, it needs a bit more exploring – but I don’t think it’ll take long). Thankfully there are a lot of second-hand bookshops as first-hand ones are not cheap.

And there’s the Central Market which runs into a very small china town. That’s definitely worth a visit. (Like the covered market in Oxford used to be before the owners realised just how much money they could charge in rent. And then some.) There are 250 stalls / shops and it’s great. All the fruit and veg you could want, much of it local, cheese shops selling, well, cheese (thankfully). Actually make that decent cheese. Meat, Deli (including an Italian deli), decent tea (thank goodness), coffee freshly ground for you, spices (pretty much any you could name and several I’d not heard of), dried fruit and nuts. And a great shop that sells honey by the bucket-load (and will refill your shampoo bottles for you. Remember when going to the Body Shop felt like it was actually something revolutionary?). Everyone seems to take shopping trolleys with them, not just the old dears – the best bit of advice is to take a rucksack.

So I came home when my rucksack was full (sadly the fruit at the bottom was also v. squashed). And made a tagine with kangaroo meat. Actually I’m not sure about the politics (if there are any) of eating kangaroo or if it’s just something that tourists are expected to do. Like gamey beef, but a much finer texture.

There are other shopping arcades, I thought I’d try out the Arndale centre – just for the name really. I suppose that it’s more honest than most of the out of town shopping centres in Britain – doesn’t pretend to be an Italianate garden with “roman” statues and fake topiary for one thing. (Ever been to the Trafford centre? Outside Debenhams (I think), above the coffee shop are some roundels portraying men in suits. I assume they are the developers, but I swear one of them looks like Lenin.) And the large British places have two ends – the upmarket, and the pound shops. The Arndale here just seems to be the latter. About the only places that seems to guarantee the quality are the coffee shops. Coffee is BIG here.

There are more upmarket streets – The parade in Norwood is only a block away from here and actually has a lot of shops you need, and has also got an Italian deli.

Actually this is all about food so far. Probably because there is so much about. There are large Italian, Greek and far Eastern populations so there’s a large variety. Apparently there is one restaurant for every 30 people here. Which means that either everyone eats out most nights, or there are a lot of empty restaurants. So far I’ve been to an Italian (OK), a Szechuan (pretty good) and a Nepalese restaurant. That is well worth a revisit, and not just because the people I was with knew the proprietor, and know a little bit about wine, so we got to do a tasting of his new stock!

I’ve hardly mentioned wine so far. I’ve not yet done much winetasting (/drinking), but that’s defo on the agenda. So is walking as the Adelaide Hills aren’t very far away. Wonder if I can combine the two...

The Pigs of Rundle Mall