Happy Holidays!
Jan. 7th, 2024 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capn_n_pyeThe Christmas season was upon us and that means holidays!! Let’s see if we remember how to Holidays
Christmas snuck up faster than ever this year and was a pleasant and lowkey affair.
Moose enjoyed being the centre of attention (in his opinion, anyway)…
… and the gifts were even more creative and clever than ever before!
Chuckles got Moose a new friend, Leif Stonebreaker, who had written an impassioned letter about how all he wants in the world is to be besties with a moose and will even share his gold if that’s what it takes. This is the sort of shameless toadying that Moose finds irresistible!
Leif is much more polite than the fake parrot Stinky snuck into the garden to see if the AI bird feeder would recognise it. The bird doesn’t give Moose any attention whatsoever, which of course Moose finds baffling.
Climate change meant that instead of being hot enough for a post-lunch swim (or sink, as the case may be), it rained so much that we (almost) regretted petitioning the Rain Gods to watch over our lawn seedlings. We were really into it up until they killed a couple of people, whoopsies.
Even though it wasn’t hot, Pye still trotted out the experimental snow globe cocktail…
The rosemary is supposed to stay frozen in the bottom of the glass, but ours all floated straight to the surface. Still tasted good at least ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another unusual aspect to this Christmas was the need to minimise and preserve any leftovers, on account of going away for a week starting on Boxing Day. Stinky opted to pickle the cherries (she is wont to pickle anything that sits still long enough, be warned), while Pye wishes her hair would go that colour…
Where were we going? Well, back in April 2020 we were supposed to go to Lombok, but for some reason we couldn’t. Qantas gave us our money back, while Virgin did everything they could to weasel out of ponying up – but what they didn’t count on was the fact that D’admiral is tenacious, stubborn, and retired. In October they eventually agreed to flight credits, with the proviso that we used them before the end of the year. Well, we’re stubborn too, fuck you Virgin, you don’t get our money, we’re going to Adelaide (which was as far as we could get without having to give them any more money).
We placed our trust in Previous Pye and hoped she’d packed properly for Adelaide because anyone who thinks they can do that at the end of Christmas Day is one of God’s special creatures. Then, on Boxing Day we raced each other to the airport…
Just when we thought everything was going swimmingly…
…the Rain Gods followed us to the airport and punished us for our hubris…
They closed down all flights to let the storm pass, but eventually we were on our way. We'll thank everyone to not point out that it might have been faster to drive. Don’t know if you can see in this picture, but we got a sneak peek at the mouth of the Murray…
… and then we were in Adelaide! Cue song:
We’d only ever been there for a wedding one time, while D’admiral and Chuckles were a bit more familiar. We were staying down near South Terrace and being Boxing Day, everything looked shut. But, you know, that might have been normal for Adelaide!
We found The Original Coopers Alehouse for our first dinner, which had some special aged Coopers on tap. Hooray!
Then one of us went to the loo (Pye!) and happened to look past the ‘not in use’ sign on the door to find a soft-serve horror show waiting to be tended to. Then she insisted the rest of us witness it, there’s something very wrong with her!
… The pictures don’t do it justice! We might have been a bit delirious, because at the time it struck us as the funniest thing in the history of the universe.
It had us giggling all the way back to our budget accommodation…
…where we found that Moose had been playing ‘Pubes or Nah?’ a game he invented himself but we wish he hadn’t been inspired to do so.
We labelled our second day ‘Port Adelaide is More Than Just a Football Team’ and jumped in the car to prove it. We had the whole place to ourselves for some walking around…
…and we were very obedient.
Yes good, keep on keeping left!
Flinging ourselves wantonly into learning, we darted inside the minute the South Australian Maritime Museum unlocked their doors.
Yuck, why did we do this to ourselves??
Moose sees this sort of thing at a challenge to rub his bum on everything he can. It’s been ages since he’s been let off the chain, and he had the time of his life! Although he had to have a time-out in the galley at one point…
Pye had a bit of a time-out too. She went off for a little lie down in the fo'c's'le and after a while got cranky because no one was coming to give her attention.
Meanwhile, back in the stern, there was a very good reason why Pye wasn’t getting any attention.
We came back to feed the beast eventually, but Moose had a taste for it.
Rules don't apply to mavericks so he got himself in wherever he could!
If the cat on the right of Moose didn’t want him there, it should have pushed him off.
Moose loves a good piece of artillery…
…but sometimes it can give him the shits!
Some things were behind glass, so he wasn’t allowed to rub up on this evidence of D’admiral’s historical side hustle ginger beer business.
We also found out that there are two different types of people in this world (some more ghostly than others)
What a miserable time we had!
It was so awful to be able to play with vintage clowns games that we used to play at the Show!
Admiring figureheads? Grossssssss
Becoming a figurehead? Nooooooooo
We should have written a negative opinion in a ye olde visitors’ book!
(We’re pretty sure the middle entry says Not interested)
Then we got hungry and had to eat at Port Admiral Hotel, because it fit the theme. Gah. Why did no one warn us today would be so hard? (Also, there was nobody else upstairs so we had a nice time being able to hear each other!)
Continuing with the nautical theme, we were thence cruelly forced onto the City of Adelaide clipper ship. They’ve got a dedicated team of volunteers and a lot of interesting history about the ship and the people who travelled on it… somebody save us!
We’re fairly sure Moose conspired with this guy to keep us there, what a villain!!!
We’re quite sure he did it so that the knowledgeable volunteer guide could trap us there and tell us all sorts of interesting things about the ship so Moose could scamper into and about things and get more attention!
Joke’s on him, we did our best to go Full Instagram instead. Take that!
When we all finally managed to squeeze out of a porthole and escape, we thought we'd go check out Glenelg Beach (hopefully without the mysterious deaths or kidnappings/murders).
For some mysterious reason that escapes our understanding, this easily accessible beach was absolutely crawling on a day between Christmas and New Year when the weather was lovely??
D’admiral and Chuckles had been going into withdrawal on account of not being able to walk on a beach for like, 12 hours, so thankfully some therapy was at hand.
We’re not sure about D’admiral and Chuckles, but we kept looking out for lil idiots (endangered plovers) just out of habit (spoilers: there were none). What we did find, however, was the Patalawonga estuary mouth!
Pye thought that she was looking at the mouth of Glenelg River (because we were in Glenelg what the fuck river would it be?? River Torrens? THAT WOULD HAVE MADE MORE SENSE) and felt more pleased with it than the last time she was on the Glenelg, which was many years ago when she was tricked into going on an Outdoor Ed camp – it’s much nicer when you don’t have to be in a canoe with a Year 10 kid who doesn’t know how to paddle and it took them all too long to get on the river so then you’re paddling against the tide.
The way Glenelg is laid out made us think of Belém in Lisbon, to which – like Glenelg – you can ride a tram. We thought Glenelg was lacking Belém's homages to colonialism, although hang on, is that a pioneer’s monument over there? Look at them, it’s the same place!
(although one place is grander and the other had warmer weather while we were there…okay shhh, it was the vibe we got, not the accuracy!).
Rehydration is important, so we stopped for a beer - the big Maori guys with face tats on the next table over had mad respect for how D’admiral had a Jug To Himself.
It’s okay, it was just a jolly jape, he really did share. No one needed to take a good hard look at themselves.
We got a taste for looking at where rivers find their way out, so the next day decided to do a bit of a road trip.
Having completely failed to realise in advance that it was Proclamation Day, we joined happy holidaymakers down the coast. First stop was Port Noarlunga where we admired the reef from a cliff. A retiree on a motorbike stopped to tell us about shark attacks, then later that day a kid got eaten whoops (not there and we don’t think it was our fault, maybe it was motorbike guy’s).
The 400m reef is apparently very good for snorkelling and seldom (but not never) is home to hungry sharks, so now we might have to come back again!
A stone’s throw away was the mouth of the Onkaparinga River. And yeah, up until that day we only knew Onkaparinga as a cool kind of blanket, don't judge us.
We really should have brought our bathers, because we do love riding a river out to sea, and these kids were having the time of their lives. #NextTime
More salubrious pursuits awaited however, go it was thence to d’Arenberg in McLaren Vale. I don't know if you’ve heard, but there are a couple of wineries around Adelaide, and the team at d’Arenberg have had a good think about what could distinguish them from the others.
I mean, you’ve got your grounds, you could always pop old farming implements around the place?
Maybe some art in the grounds, that tends to be popular…?
We could do picnic spots?!
“WHAT ABOUT WE BUILD A GIANT CUBE?”
“I love it! A big box.”
“And then we could fill it with art!”
“That’s even better!!”
“Let’s go!!”
Shiz got arty pretty quickly!
There were fun things to play with…
… and things that Stinky really, really wanted to play with but wasn’t allowed (that’s just mean, we could play with everything else, why not this bit?!).
… and every now and again there was something Indonesian (or maybe Indian idk) because why not!?
Even more special was the Salvador Dali exhibition full of things that we all wanted to stroke, it was really hard on Moose. However, each piece did have a price tag on it, so he had to admit he couldn’t afford to pay several hundred thousand to millions of dollars for his tomfoolery. He had to just cope with it the best he could.
Heh, bum.
Then when you get to the top, you get even more views and get to taste some wine!
Very challenging, a terrible time continued to be had by all.
Now, we’re not sure how deep into a barrel of Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre they were by the time they got up to designing the toilets, but we suspect it might have been pretty far…
But the women’s loo was nothing on the gent’s! Look at the urinals!
If we were more inclined to vandalism, we could have stolen a film camera from the Art, embraced our nostalgic pre-digital photographic age, and popped into McLarenvale to develop the photos and some other stuff. Not LOTS more, but a fair bit.
Two river mouths clearly wasn’t enough to satisfy us, so the next stop was the Murray Mouth lookout, at Goolwa Channel. A normal river sees the sea and gallops towards it, but not the Murray! It gets all big and confused and forgets what it was doing, bless it.
We’d been fatalistically expecting classic South Australian late-December weather of soaring 40+ temperatures, so were completely unprepared for 16 degrees and rain! Moose complained that he is accustomed to better conditions than this.
Meanwhile, Pye had her hat for rain protection while big fat raindrops assailed her top.
Chuckles was prepared, though!
If it starts to rain and you’re scootching around outside Adelaide looking for non-winery distractions, you could do worse than popping by Hahndorf. Santa agrees!
Settled by 19th-century Lutheran migrants, it’s a lil patch of Germany in the Adelaide hills – perfect for…something…what could it be?
Could it be…a beer and pretzel break!?
Stinky and Chuckles hit up a lolly shop and Stinky was about to go into full Russell Gilbert mode to demand a Bertie Beetle. She drew breath and was just about to do all of this (except for the bits where he assaults people)…
…and then went…oh there they are. Right next to the register, where a child might demand a Bertie Beetle.
Guess what? Stinky got a Bertie Beetle!
Meanwhile, D’admiral and Pye were next door at an antique shop. When Stinky showed up (clutching her Bertie Beetle), she:
1. Immediately decided she’d be buying the magnifying glass in the previous photo, and;
2. Decided that it would be funny to buy a couple of old keys that might fit in the bathroom lock back at the Spinster Pad (for aesthetic reasons and why not).
We told the register lady our plan and that if anyone get locked in we will claim it was Nanna’s ghost’s fault. She loved the idea and told us the heartbreaking story of how she didn’t end up buying a house with a (still active) graveyard in the backyard included in the title. Can you imagine what Simon The Gardener could do with a place like that?!
Anyway, we’re best friends now and how hot are these keys?!
We wandered out and it was only then that D’admiral mentioned he’d seen something Moose would love. Stinky galloped back for it and our new best friend was like, “Hmmm, you know what, I like you, have it for free!”
And that is the story of how Moose is delighted with his new cup decorated a la femme.
That night we sought out one of Adelaide’s (surprisingly numerous) Indonesian restaurants. This was Very Important Meal because – as the keen-eyed reader will remember – we were on our ‘Fuck You Virgin For Taking Our Indonesian Trip Money Tour’. So, of course we had to have some Indonesian food to spice up our spite!
We were very cross with the café near the hotel for having rendang Benedict on their menu but being shut/on holidays for the whole time we were there, so went to Hut&Soul instead. They used to be a Balinese restaurant, but have done better as Singaporean/Malaysian – yummy food, actually spicey, 10/10.
For dessert Chuckles got a sample of some Very Authentic durian ice cream. Pye was curious about how durian-y it was, so heroically licked some off her little finger. She has so much residual trauma that she didn’t even swallow and scrubbed her tongue with serviette, but still needed half a glass of wine to get the taste out. We should have got Chuckles a separate room so poor D’admiral didn’t have to endure the Durian Grin all night!
Eventually we realised we should have a cheeky look around Adelaide itself.
As the sun rose, we decided to seize the day.
In the morning, D’admiral and Stinky went on a quest to refuel the hire car and found a service station across the road from a couple of places we’d been in and around twice, but had never looked up to see the servo.
This day, we didn’t need to drive it anywhere, because travel was by tram and foot, hurrah!
Who could dare call themselves a person if they didn’t go to a church in the churchy city of churchy churches? We walked to St Francis Xavier’s Catholic Cathedral for Pye to say hi to some Ignatius roots and write off everything on tax (except everything that day was free lol).
Stinky immediately started asking difficult questions about the church, like “Which Harry Potter house are you in?”
Meanwhile, we were very respectful while Chuckles lit a candle (the church takes PayPass for donations now, look at them entering the 21st century!).
We certainly didn’t wander off a little to the right and start (very quietly) screaming WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BACK HALVES OF YOUR ANIMALS???
There is a terribly tasteless joke to be made about a German-influenced city and buses here, but we are too classy to make it.
Praise be to trams!
Off we zoomed to stroll around the Botanic Gardens.
As we went in, there was an old lady in a pink top coming in at the same time. This is relevant because we proceeded to stalk her pretty much the rest of the day – or she stalked us, who knows.
Moose was delighted by some attention (again)…
…and it was very picturesque.
And what’s that we see? Is it…a whole lot of caculents? I THINK IT IS
As we wandered around the gardens Chuckles tried not be infuriated by their maintenance skills, while Stinky checked that she has (or has previously killed) most of the caculents.
Most, but not all! Moose likes to show off that his bum is immune to prickles…
…and Stinky’s resolution to not put big caculents in the ground is being sorely tested.
There was a very confident 18-month-old child hanging around but alas, we didn’t get to see him crawl onto a lily pad – he could have done it, but his guards were too vigilant.
Anyway, pretty gardens are pretty!
And guess what? Bum.
That shiny white bum was a sign that it was time to cop some culture, so in order to so do, we took a short walk to the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Their ‘Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour’ exhibition was very good – the old lady in a pink top from the gardens thought so too.
Stinky found a way to make her day a tax write-off too…
D’admiral and Chuckles enjoyed finding originals of art they have around their house…
…and life imitated art.
What’s that? Bum!
Just next door was the South Australian Museum. It’s almost a museum-museum – it’s very old school, full of stuffed creatures and collections of…stuff. But we like stuff!
Moose thought the moose behind the glass was inferior because he was stuffed…who’s going to tell him?
Balls.
Stuffed stuff!
A love story for the ages! Free the mousie!
Wandering off down the road some more, Stinky found her bestie again…
… we said hi to the River Torrens, and Chuckles tried to get another church on her list, but it was shut :(
Then there was a hilarious reference to season three of Ghosts…
… as we approached the more feral end of town.
Obviously, we had to go to Rundle Mall to say hi to the Mall Balls, but man, the whole place was off its chops, full of pigs.
Hi shiny balls!
As we waited for the tram back to the more peaceful end of town, Stinky’s eye was drawn to the top of this building…
SURPRISE BEE BUM
There was nothing else of to do but have pre-dinner drinks on the hotel balcony…
… and then challenge ourselves to all-you-can-eat Japanese Mugen House style
We got more than our money’s worth and waddled home as the sun set on our last day in Radelaide.
Bright and early the weather failed to delay our departure, and we had some mad Yogya flashbacks as we watched our luggage wait to get eaten by the plane.
Melbourne, ho!
Adventures achieved, we went on to have a very low-key New Year’s, where we were home in time for fireworks and in bed by 12.03.
Hooray!
Our favourite pastime these days is watching grass grow, and of course we were very grateful for the Christmas rains, not least because it enriched our other favourite pastime of watching the Geelong water storages graph.
Happy New Year specifically to all the grass that has chosen to grow in our driveway!
As is tradition, we heroically jumped in the car on New Year’s Day to brave the West Gate in time to get back to Somers to wish Nonna, Rita and Mario the happiest of new years. Happy New Year!
Now to get on with summer holidays….
Christmas snuck up faster than ever this year and was a pleasant and lowkey affair.
Moose enjoyed being the centre of attention (in his opinion, anyway)…
… and the gifts were even more creative and clever than ever before!
Chuckles got Moose a new friend, Leif Stonebreaker, who had written an impassioned letter about how all he wants in the world is to be besties with a moose and will even share his gold if that’s what it takes. This is the sort of shameless toadying that Moose finds irresistible!
Leif is much more polite than the fake parrot Stinky snuck into the garden to see if the AI bird feeder would recognise it. The bird doesn’t give Moose any attention whatsoever, which of course Moose finds baffling.
Climate change meant that instead of being hot enough for a post-lunch swim (or sink, as the case may be), it rained so much that we (almost) regretted petitioning the Rain Gods to watch over our lawn seedlings. We were really into it up until they killed a couple of people, whoopsies.
Even though it wasn’t hot, Pye still trotted out the experimental snow globe cocktail…
The rosemary is supposed to stay frozen in the bottom of the glass, but ours all floated straight to the surface. Still tasted good at least ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another unusual aspect to this Christmas was the need to minimise and preserve any leftovers, on account of going away for a week starting on Boxing Day. Stinky opted to pickle the cherries (she is wont to pickle anything that sits still long enough, be warned), while Pye wishes her hair would go that colour…
Where were we going? Well, back in April 2020 we were supposed to go to Lombok, but for some reason we couldn’t. Qantas gave us our money back, while Virgin did everything they could to weasel out of ponying up – but what they didn’t count on was the fact that D’admiral is tenacious, stubborn, and retired. In October they eventually agreed to flight credits, with the proviso that we used them before the end of the year. Well, we’re stubborn too, fuck you Virgin, you don’t get our money, we’re going to Adelaide (which was as far as we could get without having to give them any more money).
We placed our trust in Previous Pye and hoped she’d packed properly for Adelaide because anyone who thinks they can do that at the end of Christmas Day is one of God’s special creatures. Then, on Boxing Day we raced each other to the airport…
Just when we thought everything was going swimmingly…
…the Rain Gods followed us to the airport and punished us for our hubris…
They closed down all flights to let the storm pass, but eventually we were on our way. We'll thank everyone to not point out that it might have been faster to drive. Don’t know if you can see in this picture, but we got a sneak peek at the mouth of the Murray…
… and then we were in Adelaide! Cue song:
We’d only ever been there for a wedding one time, while D’admiral and Chuckles were a bit more familiar. We were staying down near South Terrace and being Boxing Day, everything looked shut. But, you know, that might have been normal for Adelaide!
We found The Original Coopers Alehouse for our first dinner, which had some special aged Coopers on tap. Hooray!
Then one of us went to the loo (Pye!) and happened to look past the ‘not in use’ sign on the door to find a soft-serve horror show waiting to be tended to. Then she insisted the rest of us witness it, there’s something very wrong with her!
… The pictures don’t do it justice! We might have been a bit delirious, because at the time it struck us as the funniest thing in the history of the universe.
It had us giggling all the way back to our budget accommodation…
…where we found that Moose had been playing ‘Pubes or Nah?’ a game he invented himself but we wish he hadn’t been inspired to do so.
We labelled our second day ‘Port Adelaide is More Than Just a Football Team’ and jumped in the car to prove it. We had the whole place to ourselves for some walking around…
…and we were very obedient.
Yes good, keep on keeping left!
Flinging ourselves wantonly into learning, we darted inside the minute the South Australian Maritime Museum unlocked their doors.
Yuck, why did we do this to ourselves??
Moose sees this sort of thing at a challenge to rub his bum on everything he can. It’s been ages since he’s been let off the chain, and he had the time of his life! Although he had to have a time-out in the galley at one point…
Pye had a bit of a time-out too. She went off for a little lie down in the fo'c's'le and after a while got cranky because no one was coming to give her attention.
Meanwhile, back in the stern, there was a very good reason why Pye wasn’t getting any attention.
We came back to feed the beast eventually, but Moose had a taste for it.
Rules don't apply to mavericks so he got himself in wherever he could!
If the cat on the right of Moose didn’t want him there, it should have pushed him off.
Moose loves a good piece of artillery…
…but sometimes it can give him the shits!
Some things were behind glass, so he wasn’t allowed to rub up on this evidence of D’admiral’s historical side hustle ginger beer business.
We also found out that there are two different types of people in this world (some more ghostly than others)
What a miserable time we had!
It was so awful to be able to play with vintage clowns games that we used to play at the Show!
Admiring figureheads? Grossssssss
Becoming a figurehead? Nooooooooo
We should have written a negative opinion in a ye olde visitors’ book!
(We’re pretty sure the middle entry says Not interested)
Then we got hungry and had to eat at Port Admiral Hotel, because it fit the theme. Gah. Why did no one warn us today would be so hard? (Also, there was nobody else upstairs so we had a nice time being able to hear each other!)
Continuing with the nautical theme, we were thence cruelly forced onto the City of Adelaide clipper ship. They’ve got a dedicated team of volunteers and a lot of interesting history about the ship and the people who travelled on it… somebody save us!
We’re fairly sure Moose conspired with this guy to keep us there, what a villain!!!
We’re quite sure he did it so that the knowledgeable volunteer guide could trap us there and tell us all sorts of interesting things about the ship so Moose could scamper into and about things and get more attention!
Joke’s on him, we did our best to go Full Instagram instead. Take that!
When we all finally managed to squeeze out of a porthole and escape, we thought we'd go check out Glenelg Beach (hopefully without the mysterious deaths or kidnappings/murders).
For some mysterious reason that escapes our understanding, this easily accessible beach was absolutely crawling on a day between Christmas and New Year when the weather was lovely??
D’admiral and Chuckles had been going into withdrawal on account of not being able to walk on a beach for like, 12 hours, so thankfully some therapy was at hand.
We’re not sure about D’admiral and Chuckles, but we kept looking out for lil idiots (endangered plovers) just out of habit (spoilers: there were none). What we did find, however, was the Patalawonga estuary mouth!
Pye thought that she was looking at the mouth of Glenelg River (because we were in Glenelg what the fuck river would it be?? River Torrens? THAT WOULD HAVE MADE MORE SENSE) and felt more pleased with it than the last time she was on the Glenelg, which was many years ago when she was tricked into going on an Outdoor Ed camp – it’s much nicer when you don’t have to be in a canoe with a Year 10 kid who doesn’t know how to paddle and it took them all too long to get on the river so then you’re paddling against the tide.
The way Glenelg is laid out made us think of Belém in Lisbon, to which – like Glenelg – you can ride a tram. We thought Glenelg was lacking Belém's homages to colonialism, although hang on, is that a pioneer’s monument over there? Look at them, it’s the same place!
(although one place is grander and the other had warmer weather while we were there…okay shhh, it was the vibe we got, not the accuracy!).
Rehydration is important, so we stopped for a beer - the big Maori guys with face tats on the next table over had mad respect for how D’admiral had a Jug To Himself.
It’s okay, it was just a jolly jape, he really did share. No one needed to take a good hard look at themselves.
We got a taste for looking at where rivers find their way out, so the next day decided to do a bit of a road trip.
Having completely failed to realise in advance that it was Proclamation Day, we joined happy holidaymakers down the coast. First stop was Port Noarlunga where we admired the reef from a cliff. A retiree on a motorbike stopped to tell us about shark attacks, then later that day a kid got eaten whoops (not there and we don’t think it was our fault, maybe it was motorbike guy’s).
The 400m reef is apparently very good for snorkelling and seldom (but not never) is home to hungry sharks, so now we might have to come back again!
A stone’s throw away was the mouth of the Onkaparinga River. And yeah, up until that day we only knew Onkaparinga as a cool kind of blanket, don't judge us.
We really should have brought our bathers, because we do love riding a river out to sea, and these kids were having the time of their lives. #NextTime
More salubrious pursuits awaited however, go it was thence to d’Arenberg in McLaren Vale. I don't know if you’ve heard, but there are a couple of wineries around Adelaide, and the team at d’Arenberg have had a good think about what could distinguish them from the others.
I mean, you’ve got your grounds, you could always pop old farming implements around the place?
Maybe some art in the grounds, that tends to be popular…?
We could do picnic spots?!
“WHAT ABOUT WE BUILD A GIANT CUBE?”
“I love it! A big box.”
“And then we could fill it with art!”
“That’s even better!!”
“Let’s go!!”
Shiz got arty pretty quickly!
There were fun things to play with…
… and things that Stinky really, really wanted to play with but wasn’t allowed (that’s just mean, we could play with everything else, why not this bit?!).
… and every now and again there was something Indonesian (or maybe Indian idk) because why not!?
Even more special was the Salvador Dali exhibition full of things that we all wanted to stroke, it was really hard on Moose. However, each piece did have a price tag on it, so he had to admit he couldn’t afford to pay several hundred thousand to millions of dollars for his tomfoolery. He had to just cope with it the best he could.
Heh, bum.
Then when you get to the top, you get even more views and get to taste some wine!
Very challenging, a terrible time continued to be had by all.
Now, we’re not sure how deep into a barrel of Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre they were by the time they got up to designing the toilets, but we suspect it might have been pretty far…
But the women’s loo was nothing on the gent’s! Look at the urinals!
If we were more inclined to vandalism, we could have stolen a film camera from the Art, embraced our nostalgic pre-digital photographic age, and popped into McLarenvale to develop the photos and some other stuff. Not LOTS more, but a fair bit.
Two river mouths clearly wasn’t enough to satisfy us, so the next stop was the Murray Mouth lookout, at Goolwa Channel. A normal river sees the sea and gallops towards it, but not the Murray! It gets all big and confused and forgets what it was doing, bless it.
We’d been fatalistically expecting classic South Australian late-December weather of soaring 40+ temperatures, so were completely unprepared for 16 degrees and rain! Moose complained that he is accustomed to better conditions than this.
Meanwhile, Pye had her hat for rain protection while big fat raindrops assailed her top.
Chuckles was prepared, though!
If it starts to rain and you’re scootching around outside Adelaide looking for non-winery distractions, you could do worse than popping by Hahndorf. Santa agrees!
Settled by 19th-century Lutheran migrants, it’s a lil patch of Germany in the Adelaide hills – perfect for…something…what could it be?
Could it be…a beer and pretzel break!?
Stinky and Chuckles hit up a lolly shop and Stinky was about to go into full Russell Gilbert mode to demand a Bertie Beetle. She drew breath and was just about to do all of this (except for the bits where he assaults people)…
…and then went…oh there they are. Right next to the register, where a child might demand a Bertie Beetle.
Guess what? Stinky got a Bertie Beetle!
Meanwhile, D’admiral and Pye were next door at an antique shop. When Stinky showed up (clutching her Bertie Beetle), she:
1. Immediately decided she’d be buying the magnifying glass in the previous photo, and;
2. Decided that it would be funny to buy a couple of old keys that might fit in the bathroom lock back at the Spinster Pad (for aesthetic reasons and why not).
We told the register lady our plan and that if anyone get locked in we will claim it was Nanna’s ghost’s fault. She loved the idea and told us the heartbreaking story of how she didn’t end up buying a house with a (still active) graveyard in the backyard included in the title. Can you imagine what Simon The Gardener could do with a place like that?!
Anyway, we’re best friends now and how hot are these keys?!
We wandered out and it was only then that D’admiral mentioned he’d seen something Moose would love. Stinky galloped back for it and our new best friend was like, “Hmmm, you know what, I like you, have it for free!”
And that is the story of how Moose is delighted with his new cup decorated a la femme.
That night we sought out one of Adelaide’s (surprisingly numerous) Indonesian restaurants. This was Very Important Meal because – as the keen-eyed reader will remember – we were on our ‘Fuck You Virgin For Taking Our Indonesian Trip Money Tour’. So, of course we had to have some Indonesian food to spice up our spite!
We were very cross with the café near the hotel for having rendang Benedict on their menu but being shut/on holidays for the whole time we were there, so went to Hut&Soul instead. They used to be a Balinese restaurant, but have done better as Singaporean/Malaysian – yummy food, actually spicey, 10/10.
For dessert Chuckles got a sample of some Very Authentic durian ice cream. Pye was curious about how durian-y it was, so heroically licked some off her little finger. She has so much residual trauma that she didn’t even swallow and scrubbed her tongue with serviette, but still needed half a glass of wine to get the taste out. We should have got Chuckles a separate room so poor D’admiral didn’t have to endure the Durian Grin all night!
Eventually we realised we should have a cheeky look around Adelaide itself.
As the sun rose, we decided to seize the day.
In the morning, D’admiral and Stinky went on a quest to refuel the hire car and found a service station across the road from a couple of places we’d been in and around twice, but had never looked up to see the servo.
This day, we didn’t need to drive it anywhere, because travel was by tram and foot, hurrah!
Who could dare call themselves a person if they didn’t go to a church in the churchy city of churchy churches? We walked to St Francis Xavier’s Catholic Cathedral for Pye to say hi to some Ignatius roots and write off everything on tax (except everything that day was free lol).
Stinky immediately started asking difficult questions about the church, like “Which Harry Potter house are you in?”
Meanwhile, we were very respectful while Chuckles lit a candle (the church takes PayPass for donations now, look at them entering the 21st century!).
We certainly didn’t wander off a little to the right and start (very quietly) screaming WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BACK HALVES OF YOUR ANIMALS???
There is a terribly tasteless joke to be made about a German-influenced city and buses here, but we are too classy to make it.
Praise be to trams!
Off we zoomed to stroll around the Botanic Gardens.
As we went in, there was an old lady in a pink top coming in at the same time. This is relevant because we proceeded to stalk her pretty much the rest of the day – or she stalked us, who knows.
Moose was delighted by some attention (again)…
…and it was very picturesque.
And what’s that we see? Is it…a whole lot of caculents? I THINK IT IS
As we wandered around the gardens Chuckles tried not be infuriated by their maintenance skills, while Stinky checked that she has (or has previously killed) most of the caculents.
Most, but not all! Moose likes to show off that his bum is immune to prickles…
…and Stinky’s resolution to not put big caculents in the ground is being sorely tested.
There was a very confident 18-month-old child hanging around but alas, we didn’t get to see him crawl onto a lily pad – he could have done it, but his guards were too vigilant.
Anyway, pretty gardens are pretty!
And guess what? Bum.
That shiny white bum was a sign that it was time to cop some culture, so in order to so do, we took a short walk to the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Their ‘Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour’ exhibition was very good – the old lady in a pink top from the gardens thought so too.
Stinky found a way to make her day a tax write-off too…
D’admiral and Chuckles enjoyed finding originals of art they have around their house…
…and life imitated art.
What’s that? Bum!
Just next door was the South Australian Museum. It’s almost a museum-museum – it’s very old school, full of stuffed creatures and collections of…stuff. But we like stuff!
Moose thought the moose behind the glass was inferior because he was stuffed…who’s going to tell him?
Balls.
Stuffed stuff!
A love story for the ages! Free the mousie!
Wandering off down the road some more, Stinky found her bestie again…
… we said hi to the River Torrens, and Chuckles tried to get another church on her list, but it was shut :(
Then there was a hilarious reference to season three of Ghosts…
… as we approached the more feral end of town.
Obviously, we had to go to Rundle Mall to say hi to the Mall Balls, but man, the whole place was off its chops, full of pigs.
Hi shiny balls!
As we waited for the tram back to the more peaceful end of town, Stinky’s eye was drawn to the top of this building…
SURPRISE BEE BUM
There was nothing else of to do but have pre-dinner drinks on the hotel balcony…
… and then challenge ourselves to all-you-can-eat Japanese Mugen House style
We got more than our money’s worth and waddled home as the sun set on our last day in Radelaide.
Bright and early the weather failed to delay our departure, and we had some mad Yogya flashbacks as we watched our luggage wait to get eaten by the plane.
Melbourne, ho!
Adventures achieved, we went on to have a very low-key New Year’s, where we were home in time for fireworks and in bed by 12.03.
Hooray!
Our favourite pastime these days is watching grass grow, and of course we were very grateful for the Christmas rains, not least because it enriched our other favourite pastime of watching the Geelong water storages graph.
Happy New Year specifically to all the grass that has chosen to grow in our driveway!
As is tradition, we heroically jumped in the car on New Year’s Day to brave the West Gate in time to get back to Somers to wish Nonna, Rita and Mario the happiest of new years. Happy New Year!
Now to get on with summer holidays….
