|
I was woken up by Paddy at 7am despite setting
my alarm clock for 6:45. I sleepily discovered that I had mistakenly
set it for 7:45. Denise and I were due to leave Melbourne today
on a tour bus that was departing at 8am. The tardy alarm would
have woken us just in time for us to pull our hair out while
racing for the bus and still missing it. Luckily Paddy was on
top of things and he drove us to the pickup point at the Victorian
Arts Centre, cursing every red light even though we were twenty
minutes early.
 A dog in sheep's picture. |
Back on the bus, Chris had us all introduce ourselves. There were 12 passengers and himself. A Dutch girl who had been working as an au pair was travelling with her visiting parents, who were also on board. All three had unintelligible and highly forgettable names. Another Dutch boy called Ruul (no, that probably isn't how it is spelled, but that's how it sounded) was also on the bus. There was a Swiss guy called Raymond who had a goatee that actually made him look like a goat. Initially he was immersed in a Star Wars novel and casually regarded the sights as a curious and rather inconvenient diversion from the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia et al. A Taiwanese girl with near-fluent English called Zoe was travelling on her own, and an young couple from the UK, Ian and Karen were also part of our merry gang. Karen introduced herself and Ian followed her with "I'm Ian, and I'm the same as her." What a cop-out. Denise followed my lead in the same way. That wasn't a cop-out though, because she was *my* girlfriend. There were two forty-ish women travelling separately, a Scot with greying hair named Sheila, and an American by the name of Roberta. Roberta had a sophisticated-looking camera which I was eyeing until Denise accused me of lens-envy. Roberta was rather weather-beaten looking - she looked like she had been hiking all of her life and had never seen a hair brush. The last guy to introduce himself was Taiwanese, and spoke very poor English. I didn't catch his name. In fact, I didn't understand anything he said except the word "Taiwan." He was well prepared to travel alone - he carried a little retractable tripod which he set up with his camera to take pictures of himself at sights of interest, of which there were many.
The bus wound its way along the coast and breaking surf to the seaside town of Lorne, where we stopped for a snack. We continued along the coast road at sea level and presently passed underneath a large timber arch marking the official beginning of the Great Ocean Road, 285 kilometres of coastal route showcasing the remarkable beauty of the area.
 The beginning of the Great Ocean Road. |
We made a brief stop at Apollo Bay where Chris went to buy our fresh bread rolls for lunch. I wandered around a small craft fair which was offering some pretty but completely useless works for sale. Elderly Americans dressed in primary colours were buying these crafts, fumbling for their overstuffed wallets while trying not to drop their video cameras.
 Warning! Koalas driving dangerously ahead. |
Chris herded us back onto the minibus and drove us to Melba Gully Conservation Park for lunch. Melba Gully is inland, and marked our first departure from the coast since morning. It looked like a rainforest. I found out from a guidebook that it is one of the wettest spots in Victoria, and although it wasn't raining when we arrived, the soft and muddy ground showed that the raincoats weren't long gone. We helped carry bags and large ice-boxes from the bus down to a picnic table in a clearing as indicated by Chris, and then we stood around awkwardly waiting for him to give us further directions, or alternatively, our lunch. Eventually flasks we uncorked, bread sliced, tins opened and ham unwrapped and a pleasant meal was scoffed by all. Our group began to acquaint itself and new friends were made over cups of lukewarm tea and overstuffed sandwiches. We walked off the calories by wandering into the temperate rainforest, visiting the gushing creek and looking at The Big Tree. In the middle of any forest, a battered and moss-covered sign reading "The Big Tree" and pointing deeper into the forest would seem to be rather vague, but when we came across it, we saw that the Big Tree's distinction was well earned. It was, well, big. One could even call it "The Ginormous Tree" if "Ginormous" was a real word and would fit on the rotting signposts. It was also three hundred years old, which is certainly old, but which is probably mere adolescence on a Big Tree scale. If the park rangers had considered The Big Tree remarkably elderly, the signs would most certainly have read "The Big Old Tree." After pausing in its shadow long enough to feel suitably small and insignificant, we meandered further down the rainforest loop, and eventually emerged back at the clearing. We packed up the bus and rejoined the Great Ocean Road en route to the 12 Apostles, one of Victoria's most prominent visitor attractions.
 One of the Twelve. |
The 12 Apostles, of which there are now only eleven, are giant limestone stacks that project out of the sea just beyond the retreating cliff face. They stand as defiant and lonely widows of erosion by wind and wave, and are strung out over miles of coastline, so that you cannot see more than nine from any one place. We arrived at the most popular place from which to view an Apostle subset and joined the throngs of people there for the same purpose. It was getting pretty windy by this stage, and short squalls of rain would sweep over us periodically. The Apostles were being photographed by busloads of tourists, including us, and I felt robbed of the experience. When photographing "David beside landmark X," I feel that there should be some effort involved on my part on getting to landmark X, like the top of a mountain, or the end of a journey. Taking a tour bus which picks you up, sets you down at lookout spots and scenic viewpoints takes all of the work and sense of exploration out of the experience.
 (Most of) The Twelve Apostles. |
We clambered onto and off our bus several more times during the afternoon, visiting eroding coastal features like an over-enthusiastic team of marine geologists. We saw Loch Ard Gorge, Port Campbell, the London Bridge (which DID fall down!), and just as darkness was overtaking us, the Bay of Islands. Loch Ard Gorge has an interesting story associated with it - the gorge is named after a Scottish-built ship which was wrecked off the coast nearby in 1878; (Trivia Time: the coastline we had been following throughout the day reputedly has a shipwreck for every kilometre of the Great Ocean Road, or, for those readers who weren't paying attention a couple of pages back, 285.)
 Loch Ard Gorge. |
The Loch Ard was bringing immigrants and cargo from England, and was due to land in Port Phillip (then Melbourne) after a voyage of almost three months. On the last scheduled night of the voyage there was a party on board in anticipation of their long-awaited arrival. A heavy mist shrouded the Victoria coast that night, and Captain Gibb, the
 Captain Gibb |
 Tom Pearce |
 Eva Carmichael |
When we pulled into a lookout point just after sunset and nobody ventured out into the cold, Chris recognised the pretty scenery saturation symptoms and leaned on the accelerator, taking us via Warrnambool to our rest stop for the night, the town with the identity crisis, Port Fairy, also known as Belfast. Half of our party unloaded at the "Star of the West" Hotel. For $12 a night we got a clean and spacious room, a share of newly renovated bathrooms and showers, fresh towels and sheets, and breakfast. The $6 dinner in the bar downstairs was almost as good a deal. As Port Fairy is a fishing village, I tried the seafood platter. Sheila, Ruul, Zoe, Raymond, Denise, Chris and I sat down at tables at the back of the pub near the fire. The area was quite empty apart from us; all of the locals were up at the front near the bar and the TAB betting desk, drinking out of their midis or pots or whatever they call those shrunken beer glasses, and watching the dogs/footy/horses on the telly. I decided to put on the jukebox to entertain us while we waited for our dinner. It was turned off at the wall, so I flipped the switch and it awoke, whirring and flashing. I dropped my two dollars into the slot, and chose a few Van Morrison songs. Just as I finished entering the codes, the opening bars of "Moondance" boomed out of some loudspeaker inside the contraption. Somebody had left the concealed volume control way up and I nearly jumped when the melody kicked in. I stood stupidly staring at the jukebox for a few moments while the astonished, drunk and disgruntled locals up the front memorised my face for mashing later - they could no longer hear each other or the television commentary. I slunk back to my seat and tried to enjoy the songs I had programmed as they ran their course, but I kept seeing the locals glancing in my direction and motioning to each other in secret Point Fairy hand signals. I tried to hold conversation with my fellow backpackers, but it was rather pointless; I couldn't hear a word that they said. I courteously nodded and smiled as they attempted to explain something to me. My efforts at lip reading were in vain. When their lips stopped moving, I took my cue to begin talking and started to respond to what it was I thought they might have been talking about. They obliged me by nodding. Presently the songs finished and we chatted amiably and successfully for several minutes until the cursed jukebox started up again, playing a random and happy tune from a Janet Jackson soundalike called Celite. Isn't that something women worry about getting on their thighs? We sat through Celite's vocal strainings, as the locals seemed to be getting used to the music and to choke the machine in the middle of the song might push their tolerance of me to the limit. Once Celite had yodelled her last, I silenced the jukebox with a surreptitious slide out of my seat and an even more surreptitious flick of the power switch on the wall. No more flashing lights, no more whirrings, no more glares from the heavies at the front of the bar. My days as a Port Fairy DJ were over.
Dinner was delicious. Afterwards we were joined by the owner of the hotel and by a old local man calling himself Bernie Baxter. He sat down with us, introducing himself to Denise with "Watch out, I cuddle hard!" Obviously a man to be respected, and a man to be watched. He had a worn and wrinkled face, and a wide grin revealing a perfect set of false teeth. Bernie was friendly and lively, the sort of man who was probably more at home in the pub than in his own house. Even more so for Bernie, as he told us the sad story of how his wife had been dead for 9 years, and how his children were all grown up. Despite his engaging manner, Denise and I were eager to explore Port Fairy, so later on decided to take a walk through the town. Bernie gave us directions to the wharf and we left him in the capable company of our fellow Wayward ladies and gentlemen.
The lights and hubbub of the hotel faded as we wandered down the empty street towards the water. We found the wharf deserted, silent, and heavy with shadows cast by cold streetlights and a bright moon. Unoccupied fishing and sailing boats were moored bow-to-stern alongside the wooden walkway on which we strolled, our slow footsteps on the boards sounding loud and threatening in the silence. A trawler straining against its mooring lines creaked as we passed, causing Denise to jump. It was cool, but not uncomfortably so, and we lingered for a while, each choosing our favourite sailing boat from the battered examples present. It was nice to spend some time alone together after the hordes of tourists we had been herded with that day. Most of those tourists were back in Melbourne by then; day trips from the city are the most common way of seeing the Great Ocean Road and relatively few tours venture as far west as we had. The consequences of this geographical disincentive were palpable - my unproven but lasting impression of Port Fairy was of a genuine, down-to-earth town with a charm still untainted by tourism.
We navigated our way back through the quiet and elegant streets to the hostel, noting further examples of Port Fairy links with the north of Ireland - several of the small business signs identified themselves as Belfast firms, and the river Mourne flows through the town. As I was falling asleep, piano playing and singsong accompaniment started up in the bar-room below us. The tinkling piano didn't so much disturb my sleep as encourage it. I fell asleep to many Australian voices singing along to a chord-rich rendition of "Waltzing Matilda." Now that's culture!
Seacoast Saturation, Superdog, South Australia
Sunday, July 12; Port Fairy - Beachport, South Australia
I
finished my bottle of Body Shop men's shower gel in the shower
this morning. It was still at least one third full, but I was
disgusted with the weight of my backpack, so I was becoming ruthless.
Despite the absence of any special occasion for which I needed
to smell particularly pleasant and manly, I lashed on palmfuls
of the stuff. Everywhere from between my toes to behind my ears
gave off a sweet and clean, yet musky odor. In addition, while
getting dressed, I sleepily applied deodorant twice. As I headed
downstairs for breakfast, I could sense the trail of sweet-smelling
air wafting out behind me.
Breakfast was set out in the bar-room containing the previous night's offending piano. It looked extremely guilty and a little hung over, standing silently in the corner without uttering so much as a minor chord. I munched toast with the others, and once we were all breakfasted, we boarded the bus. Chris took us to The Crags, a short stretch of coastline with some unusually-coloured and extremely jagged rock. I'm sure that I was told some important geologic fact about The Crags, but it was too early in the morning to appreciate or remember it, so I clambered out onto some rocks jutting into the sea and let the fresh breeze wake me up properly. We loaded onto and unloaded from the bus several more times during the morning to visit Shelly Beach in Bridgewater Bay, a petrified forest and blowholes on Cape Bridgewater and some limestone caves in the area. On Shelly beach Denise and I befriended an elderly couple and their two jack russell terriers who were walking along the sand. Tuppence and Woody were in prime stick-fetching form, but their owners were content to amble relaxedly along the beach like almost every morning of their retirement. No such mellow pace for us - we were tourists and had things to see. Chris herded us back onto the bus, put on some Elvis, and we promptly fell asleep. I don't think that it was a reflection on The King's crooning, we were just overdosed on fresh air and early starts.
 Wayward washing-up. |
Lunch was a chilly affair, at an unsheltered picnic table in Nelson. I did the washing-up just so that I could heat my hands in the hot basin of water. Others crowded around the electric barbecue to warm themselves. Ramon, the Swiss guy, kindly fed our lunch meat to a stray dog who couldn't believe his luck. Zoe sat on a log and shivered. The washing-up water quickly grew cold leaving only the sweet chili sauce on my sandwich to keep me warm inside.
 South Australia Passport Control. |
The South Australian air must have given me some energy, because on our next stop, Mount Schank, I ran into a volcano. An extremely dormant volcano, but a volcano nonetheless, and I expended superfluous energy by climbing the outer trail to the rim and then descending the steep grassy banks to the centre of the crater. My goal there was a circular gravel clearing featuring several small white rocks, which, when arranged properly, could spell out a message to other visitors on the crater rim far above. The Wayward bus passengers who stopped here twice a week were typically the only people who ever altered the stone arrangement, all other visitors having more sense than to make the otherwise pointless journey into the centre of the crater. I resolved to leave a mark in Mount Schank and was joined in my quest by an uninvited jack russell terrier who appeared from nowhere and seemed determined to race me to the centre, despite an apparent limp in one of his back paws. As I puffed my way up to the rim, and half-ran, half-stumbled down the steep inner slope, he teased his way ahead of me, occasionally stopping to impatiently check what was taking me so long. Once I reached the gravel clearing,
 Superdog in the stone smiley. |
 Mount Schank: Spot the smiley. |
We drove on to Mount Gambier, a prosperous town of about 20,000 and the commercial centre of the area. Mount Gambier is built on the sides of an extinct volcano with three craters, each containing a lake surrounded by steep and wooded slopes. The largest and deepest of these lakes is Blue Lake, another imaginative appellation from the inspired administrators of The Big Tree and the Bay of Islands. Although not particularly broad, the Blue Lake is seriously deep, over 200 metres deep in places (should have called it the Deep Lake) and gets its name from the shimmering blue colour the water takes on during the summertime. Since we were staring at the lake in midwinter, we were disappointed by a bomber grey colour.
Mount Gambier, like Port Fairy, is another town with an identity crisis - many residents want to rename it "Blue Lakes City" which they think will attract more tourists. I reckon that could be considered false advertising in wintertime. If they insist on selling their town's soul for the sake of commerce, they should adopt my suggestion and rename the place "Deep Lake City." I'm sure the town councillor would sleep easier at night knowing that their town's name was representative of the truth year-round.
According to Chris, the town has South Australia's highest road fatality rate. I found that difficult to believe as we drove through its sleepy Sunday streets, but Chris assured me that it was true. Apparently, since the town is quite wealthy, parents have no trouble buying new cars for their teenage children. The teenagers drive 5 hours to Adelaide for a night of partying, and crash on their way home, due to alcohol, fatigue or both. At the time of our visit, there was a program in place in Mount Gambier to actually discourage parents from buying cars for their kids.
 Sunset from Canunda National Park. |
After a gourmet stop at McDonalds, (an unavoidable tragedy) we cruised on to the last lookout of the day - watching the sun set over the spray-soaked and rugged coastline in Canunda National Park. We also saw a midden, which is an ancient Aboriginal rubbish heap. I found it remarkable in that it was quite unimpressive, comprising of a scattered heap of shells concentrated around a sand dune. If it wasn't marked as a midden and roped off, I wouldn't have even noticed it. I wonder if anyone will ever rope my rubbish off and study it. Better shred my offshore bank statements.
It was after dark when we trundled into the village of Beachport (pop. 500). Chris did a loop of the roundabout in the centre of the village, pointing out the town's attractions - the youth hostel, the beach, and Bompa's, Beachport's bar/restaurant. He then wittily decided to give us another tour of the town, and so did a second loop around the roundabout. He almost did a third loop but the Dutch girl's mother threatened to vomit on him.
We were assigned a youth hostel dorm room with the English couple Ian and Karen. Most of the beds were unoccupied, as it was low season. The room was cold enough that I could see my breath. An old wooden sash window facing the beach rattled vigorously when gusts slammed in from the sea. I stocked up on extra blankets and a duvet provided by the hostel, and threw my sleeping bag onto my bunk for good measure. Since leaving Sydney, Denise and I had been donning woolly hats and scarves far too regularly for my liking, and I wondered how far we had to go before we could pack them away for good.
Despite the cold, after a dinner in Bompa's, we wrapped up and took a walk to Beachport's most distinguishing feature, a seven-hundred metre wooden jetty stretching out into the sea. Not a soul moved in the town as we walked from the hostel to the beach. A notice at the jetty head informed me that construction of the structure began in 1878, with the plans proposing that the jetty be a mile long, but the project was halted prematurely due to shoddy workmanship. Denise didn't read that part, but was still apprehensive about walking in near darkness to the end of the old pier. Nevertheless, we wandered out from the beach onto the jetty, avoiding the occasional loose or suspicious-looking board and were soon far removed from the reach of streetlights. A signal lamp guided us towards the end of the dark promenade, where we bathed in its rich red glow and tried to pick out constellations overhead.
Back on solid ground, we walked down the main street of the town, meeting nobody. Well, almost nobody. We did spot a couple of police officers and others huddled around what appeared to be a drunk or injured man on the ground, but that hardly rated as a tourist attraction (even in Beachport) so we left it alone.
Bracing Brekkie, Largest Lobster, Amiable Autoguide
Monday, July 13; Beachport - Adelaide
There
was frost on the grass and on the bus' windows when Denise and
I went out at 7am to see the sun rise over the bay. Breakfast
was a deferred affair - we climbed into the bus and slowly defrosted
on our short trip to the farm of Mick and Bill Quinlan-Watson,
middle-aged brothers who appeared hard-working and sincere, and
who were clever enough to realise the potential of eco-tourism
on their own farm. There really wasn't much point in defrosting
as we tumbled back out into the cold yard and into a sheep-shearing
shed for breakfast. At one end of the shed, tables and benches
were set up, and breakfast was laid out on red and white chequered
tablecloths. Our friendly hosts loaded and primed the toaster
as we entered, and flasks of
 Beachport sunrise. |
After breakfast, still clutching my second mug of coffee, I watched as Mick sent his sheepdog Jessie to gather and drive the sheep into the shed. Actually, since the sheep were already in a holding pen outside the shed, gathering them wasn't necessary, but Jessie looked professional enough to leave no doubt in my mind that he could gather as well as the best of them. Physically, Jessie looked both past his prime and his vet's weight recommendation, but his admirable efforts and obvious concentration resulted in success on his second attempt. A rebellious young sheep trying to avoid the untold perils of the shearing shed even gave Jessie a chance to show off his one-on-one skills. That was probably a set-up though, just for the tourists. I even think I saw Jessie quietly slip the aforementioned sheep a greasy twenty later on behind the holding pen.
 Mick shears sheep for breakfast. |
Inside, Mick grabbed a sheep by the shoulders, dragged it out of the stall onto a raised wooden platform, flashed his electric blade and proceeded to free the sheep from several kilograms of woolly insulation. The sheep maintained a stupid expression throughout his haircut, which didn't surprise me, as I have yet to see a sheep who isn't wearing a stupid expression. After the demonstration, Mick showed us how the wool is spread, classified, trimmed and packed. Tom relieved us of $5 each on our way out (obviously the financial genius of the enterprise "If you shear it, they will come.") But there was more fun to be had on the farm - just around the corner of the shed, two hungry and mean-looking emus in an enclosure were greedily grabbing bread from our fellow backpackers. Keep your palm flat and your thumb down, unless you want to lose either or both. I was relieved when my hands came back with only the bread missing. Emus are ugly and bad-tempered, and their poor manners leave something to be desired too.
We made our way into the town of Robe where Chris' navigator hero, Matthew Flinders was laid up for a while. The intrepid British explorer and navigator got sick and had to swing idly in his hammock while his French contemporary Nicolas Baudin draw the maps of the surrounding coastline. Baudin drew his maps a little differently to Flinders - he used Paris as a zero reference, whereas Flinders had used London. Some time later, Flinders was astonished and puzzled when he came across some rocks off the coast located 185 nautical miles south-southeast of where the map said they should be. Thank goodness for GPS.
 Larry the Giant Lobster.. |
We hiked along Robe's cliff edge for a bit and took a last look at the coastline. We made a bathroom stop (that second cup of coffee demanded it) and headed inland, stopping for a look at Larry the Giant Lobster in Kingston SE. The SE is for South East, to distinguish Kingston SE from the other Kingston in South Australia, Kingston OM, On the Murray river. Anyway, enormous as Larry the Lobster was, he was so tacky that I couldn't bring myself to photograph him. Denise had no such qualms. Larry is located on the forecourt of a bad souvenir shop and cafe. Larry was for sale; there was a small painted board between his fake feelers advertising the fact. I wonder if the owners had received many offers for a 30-foot high fibre glass lobster. I can't imagine that the market is terribly large.
Inside the souvenir shop, Denise and I came across the trashy novel collection. "Love so Wild" immediately caught my eye, with a cover featuring a bare-chested, handsome, and proud warrior with flowing back hair standing atop a rock in the wilderness, his keen eye seeking out the bandit scum who murdered his father. I would have thought that this picture, along with the book's title, would be enough to distinguish the novel from its counterparts for those in the market for such drivel. Obviously not. Hanging onto our hard-done-by hero's bronzed and muscular left leg is a comely young maiden in a blue evening dress, staring longingly into John-boy's bright eyes, while showing just enough bare leg and cleavage to distract him momentarily from his quest to find the bandit scum and avenge his father's death. I opened the book at a random page, and Denise and I were confronted with literary gems such as "his thrusting manhood," "Yes, do it to me again like you did it last night," and "As she felt herself explode into a thousand pieces, somewhere she heard herself cry out in ecstasy." Upon turning back a few pages to see what exactly he had done to her on the previous night, I blushed, placed the paperback quickly back onto the stand and moved away, my innocent Catholic mind shocked by what I had read. No, no, don't be ridiculous. Curiosity (and that's all, honestly) aroused, I pored over the explicit pages and only put the book down when the intimate details became so repetitive that I got bored. That took about twenty seconds.
We stopped at the beach again, this time in the Coorong wilderness. Coorong is Aboriginal for "long neck" and the Coorong National Park is based around a 100km-long saltwater lagoon separated from the sea by high sand dunes comprising the Younghusband Peninsula. We walked along about 100 metres of the 100km beach and felt pretty good with ourselves, so we hopped on the bus again and made our way to some giant sand dunes at 28-mile crossing (Trivia Time: the name refers to the distance from Kingston of
 Dave at 28-Mile Crossing. |
We had lunch at the 42-mile crossing, and then drove some more through the Coorong National Park. The wilderness started to look a bit wilder, and we stopped at a lookout alongside the enormous lagoon. It was beautiful, and the water was so blue and still that it was difficult to tell where it ended and the cloudless sky began. Pelicans hung around looking rather bored, although several more exciting ones flew gracefully over the lagoon, just high enough so that their wings cleared the water's surface. There was a information board at the lookout, explaining the geology, flora and fauna of the Coorong, but I admit to not looking at it, wholly enraptured by the pelicans' inch-perfect flight path and the shimmering landscape.
For the next leg of the journey, Denise chose the music from Chris' cassette collection. To be fair to her, the choice was rather poor, but she still managed to choose a spectacularly dreadful album. We listened to "The Super 70s," a two-dollar bargain featuring such hits as "I Wanna Dance Wit Choo" by Disco Tex and the Sexettes, "Build Me Up Buttercup" by the Foundations, and other classics by artists like The Rubettes, Marmalade, and Edison Lighthouse.
 Lake Albert, South Australia. |
We stopped in Meninge (Chris needed to appease the tachometer god) and wandered around the shores of Lake Albert, before continuing on to some allegedly pink lakes that were blue today. Wasn't it only yesterday that Mount Gambier's Blue Lake was grey? I was starting to suspect that someone in the South Australian Tourist Board was either colour-blind or getting their buckets of dye mixed up. We crossed the Murray river by ferry at Wellington and made our way towards Adelaide via Langhorne and Mt. Barker. We came upon the German-founded town of Hahndorf as darkness was falling, and stopped for a another break.
Denise and I sauntered half-interestedly down the main street, past the gift and craft shops, past the German sausage shop, and we probably would have given up on Hahndorf had we not come across an intriguing parking token machine on the edge of the footpath. After initial examination, we discovered that it wasn't a parking token machine at all, but a multi-lingual talking guide to Hahndorf. In an introductory message, the voices in the machine invited us to deposit a dollar to hear a complete account of the town's history and highlights. Neither Denise nor I were convinced that Hahndorf had sufficient potential to justify expenditure of a dollar, but we were captivated by the machine. We pressed all of the buttons repeatedly, and learned how to ask for a dollar in French, German, Korean and Cantonese, a skill which cannot be overrated for future budget travelling. The machine also announced the time, although it was half an hour slow. I turned the volume to maximum during the time announcement so that passing pedestrians might become confused. We spent quite a while with our newfound friend, and had a small but genuine celebration every minute when the time announcement changed. All too soon it was time to leave.
 Chris, our Wayward driver and guide. |
The bus meandered down through the Adelaide Hills into South Australia's capital city and we checked into the EastGate Lodge. After a cheap meal at a local hotel, Denise and I took a short walk into Victoria Square and the city centre. The city appeared clean and well-planned. Pedestrians were few and traffic was sparse. Some of the streets were rather dimly lit, and the relative quiet of the city made me aware of our vulnerability as tourists and strangers. Lone figures walking along the pavement towards us became thieves and criminals in my mind's eye. A drunk who saw me taking a photograph in the otherwise deserted Victoria Square advised me loudly and repeatedly to stick my camera up my arse. We gave him a wide berth and I kept the camera hanging from my shoulder, thank you very much.
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