Adelaide, Aussie Rules Football and the Conference from Hell
Now, I can't tell you the name of the conference that Barbara was attending. To do so would be to risk a repeat of the Ag....p debacle, and we wouldn't want that. Suffice it to say that it was organised by an international group of agricultural movements (by which I don't mean some kind of grain transport symposium). This movement is well known for the woolliness of its thinking (although sheep are only a small part of its remit) and the zeal of its idealism. What it is not well known for, with good reason, is the depth of its science.
The part of the conference which Barbara was presenting to had been set up in part to address this deficiency. It still has a long way to go. In general the papers presented (Barbara's included - she will probably admit if her sponsors are not listening), were not up to the standards required by any of the major scientific journals. But at least it was a start and at least they were trying. Unlike the delegate who announced that the movement didn't need empirical research based science to further its cause.
So Barbara didn't enjoy the conference as much as perhaps she could have done. But it came with a three week holiday in Australia and New Zealand attached, so we can't complain. Or maybe we can. At least about the 'spouses' programme of events. Or lack of it.
There was an Aussie Barbecue, arranged at the Adelaide Oval. Only no-one thought to provide beer. Just wine - and you had to pay for that. The food was nice enough, once you got to one of the three serving stations set up to service over eight hundred people. And halfway through the evening some enterprising fellow managed to get hold of some beer supplies, so things began to look up. Unfortunately the Adelaide Oval is by the boggy part of town, with copious small biting insects abounding. Barbara was bitten on the hand, her wrist and arm proceeding to swell up like some fleshy water balloon. In the end it took about three days to go down.
On the last day of the conference, at a loss for anything else to do, as nothing had been organised, I took myself off to the Botanic Gardens. It had rained heavily in the night and everything was washed clean. A large pond was steaming gently in the morning sun and honking in a slightly surreal manner. Closer up, I could see coots swimming in amongst stiff dried reeds, bobbing their heads as they looked for things to eat that weren't discarded cigarette packets or hamburger boxes. But they weren't the ones making the honking noises. I stood for long minutes, straining my ears to try and pinpoint the source of one honk, but they eluded me. Frogs, probably, but well hidden ones or very, very small.
Out on the edge of the gardens is the Australian Wine Centre. Early morning and there were already groups of people in being taught how to taste wine. Sadly these courses were pre-booked and you couldn't just join in. I did learn about the heroic madman who is growing vines in Alice Springs. In the immortal words of Spike Milligan: you shouldn't eat things, in Alice Springs. It's those pre-cocktail bits that give you the squits.
I can't bring myself to go into the disappointment of the conference dinner. Suffice it to say I was underwhelmed by the food, not amused by the prices charged for the wine (there are conferences where they don't charge at all), and glad to get away as soon as possible.
The next day, we left town early, before the full conference had finished, and headed out to the Barossa valley. If you look at a map, you'll realise that this isn't the right direction for Melbourne, our next destination, but we went that way anyway. Australians are very civilised about their wine, and most wineries have cellar door tasting. Many have whole industries based around this simple pleasure, adding good local food and other attractions to the whole occasion. We had lunch at Maggie Beer's Farm Shop and tasted a few good wines (spitting out, at least for me - I was driving after all), before heading across country to Murray Bridge.
Here we could have taken the fast inland road, heading for Naracoorte and Coonawarra (both fine wine producing regions), but instead we decided to hug the coast. With hindsight, this was probably a mistake, as we'd only been going for an hour or so before the sun set and we couldn't see much anyway. Still, what we did see was nice enough, including a lake which is actually pink, and not just appearing that way in the setting sun. There's something in the saltmarshes at the mouth of the Murray river that makes the salt pink, and in some areas it's considered a great delicacy. It still tastes like salt to me.
We reached Penola quite late, and since neither of us was hungry after our lunch at Maggie Beer's, we just picked up a six-pack of local beer and checked into a motel. There was a short panic when we realised the bottle caps weren't the screw-off type (and we had no bottle opener), but a fork made a suitable substitute. There was a crap movie with Kurt Russel and Steven Seagal in it on the telly (and nothing much else to do in Penola), so we watched that and drank beer. This is the true face of exotic holidays.
Next time. Victoria and beyond...
The part of the conference which Barbara was presenting to had been set up in part to address this deficiency. It still has a long way to go. In general the papers presented (Barbara's included - she will probably admit if her sponsors are not listening), were not up to the standards required by any of the major scientific journals. But at least it was a start and at least they were trying. Unlike the delegate who announced that the movement didn't need empirical research based science to further its cause.
So Barbara didn't enjoy the conference as much as perhaps she could have done. But it came with a three week holiday in Australia and New Zealand attached, so we can't complain. Or maybe we can. At least about the 'spouses' programme of events. Or lack of it.
There was an Aussie Barbecue, arranged at the Adelaide Oval. Only no-one thought to provide beer. Just wine - and you had to pay for that. The food was nice enough, once you got to one of the three serving stations set up to service over eight hundred people. And halfway through the evening some enterprising fellow managed to get hold of some beer supplies, so things began to look up. Unfortunately the Adelaide Oval is by the boggy part of town, with copious small biting insects abounding. Barbara was bitten on the hand, her wrist and arm proceeding to swell up like some fleshy water balloon. In the end it took about three days to go down.
On the last day of the conference, at a loss for anything else to do, as nothing had been organised, I took myself off to the Botanic Gardens. It had rained heavily in the night and everything was washed clean. A large pond was steaming gently in the morning sun and honking in a slightly surreal manner. Closer up, I could see coots swimming in amongst stiff dried reeds, bobbing their heads as they looked for things to eat that weren't discarded cigarette packets or hamburger boxes. But they weren't the ones making the honking noises. I stood for long minutes, straining my ears to try and pinpoint the source of one honk, but they eluded me. Frogs, probably, but well hidden ones or very, very small.
Out on the edge of the gardens is the Australian Wine Centre. Early morning and there were already groups of people in being taught how to taste wine. Sadly these courses were pre-booked and you couldn't just join in. I did learn about the heroic madman who is growing vines in Alice Springs. In the immortal words of Spike Milligan: you shouldn't eat things, in Alice Springs. It's those pre-cocktail bits that give you the squits.
I can't bring myself to go into the disappointment of the conference dinner. Suffice it to say I was underwhelmed by the food, not amused by the prices charged for the wine (there are conferences where they don't charge at all), and glad to get away as soon as possible.
The next day, we left town early, before the full conference had finished, and headed out to the Barossa valley. If you look at a map, you'll realise that this isn't the right direction for Melbourne, our next destination, but we went that way anyway. Australians are very civilised about their wine, and most wineries have cellar door tasting. Many have whole industries based around this simple pleasure, adding good local food and other attractions to the whole occasion. We had lunch at Maggie Beer's Farm Shop and tasted a few good wines (spitting out, at least for me - I was driving after all), before heading across country to Murray Bridge.
Here we could have taken the fast inland road, heading for Naracoorte and Coonawarra (both fine wine producing regions), but instead we decided to hug the coast. With hindsight, this was probably a mistake, as we'd only been going for an hour or so before the sun set and we couldn't see much anyway. Still, what we did see was nice enough, including a lake which is actually pink, and not just appearing that way in the setting sun. There's something in the saltmarshes at the mouth of the Murray river that makes the salt pink, and in some areas it's considered a great delicacy. It still tastes like salt to me.
We reached Penola quite late, and since neither of us was hungry after our lunch at Maggie Beer's, we just picked up a six-pack of local beer and checked into a motel. There was a short panic when we realised the bottle caps weren't the screw-off type (and we had no bottle opener), but a fork made a suitable substitute. There was a crap movie with Kurt Russel and Steven Seagal in it on the telly (and nothing much else to do in Penola), so we watched that and drank beer. This is the true face of exotic holidays.
Next time. Victoria and beyond...
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