LIFE IN ADELAIDE III

MY LOCAL AREA: I sense you all like to have a photo now and again so I am including two more, taken whilst on a walk along the cliffs about a half mile from my sister’s home. My family purchased a small house here, 30 kilometres south of Adelaide downtown some fifty years back. It was a kind of middle class beach house within a very short walk of the beach but set high up on a bluff. In those days there were just a few other houses, a constructed camp for a youth organization and a small store. The environs were really quite wild and natural. I hunted rabbits (of which there were very many) along these cliff tops. Down below, a rocky section of the coast which is otherwise given to sandy beaches.

Access to this natural area was cut off when Mobil built an oil refinery there. With the wind in the North strange odours would waft in our direction while the night was constantly lit by the flare of burning waste gases. Thankfully, the refinery no longer operates although the structures remain. Now the State Government is financing the construction of a huge desalination plant in this area. If you ignore the disfigurement of these structures, the area is still quite beautiful and subject to wonderful sunsets. The family later sold the beach house and moved to a small home of better construction in a nearby street in which my sister now lives and which I am repainting.

In those early days, this small settlement was surrounded by wheat or barley crops; occasionally a crop duster would operate from a nearby field. The littoral bush area below the cliffs was also the site of a surprising, if macabre, discovery when a couple walking along the beach were drawn to the excited barking of their dog ahead of them in the small scrub. Sticking out of the sand was a human foot. Later, as a prison psychologist, I met the perpetrator of this murder and I assure you that he could tell a most interesting tale. Now it is a reserve to allow regeneration of the natural bush.

OPRAH HAS ARRIVED! In her private jet and accompanied by a Qantas Jumbo Jet filled with some 300 of her fans as guests on a trip to the Land Down-Under, Oprah has been in Australia for a week or so. The huge party split into not a few small groups to travel to various tourist destinations. Yesterday, they all came back together for the filming of two live shows near to the Sydney Opera House. These will be shown as part of Oprah’s final year of her current shows. The Australian Tourist Commission funded a good part of this trip and expects good returns on this investment as the show goes to air in 149 countries around the globe. Russell Crowe was one of her guests. He lives in nearby Woolloomooloo (try saying that three times quickly) and decided to walk around to the Opera House. A zealous security man initially barred him from entry. Eventually a message got to Oprah, “There’s a bloke out here who says he is Russel Crowe…” They allowed him to enter in time for his moment with Oprah.

Oprah did something I would like to do. Along with other intrepid members of her party, she trekked across the high arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge…no mean feat. Good on you Oprah (Aussie translation: ‘On yer, Oprah mate!’). All this was such big news, with pages being devoted each day in the Aussie press. I did a Google News search and was astounded that the rest of the world has hardly noticed this watershed event.

On the other hand, the world press continues to take notice of the Aussie I mentioned in my previous posting: Julian Assange. Here, in Australia, the balance of opinion seems to be shifting to support him. President Obama is not quite at this end of the support continuum, not to put too fine a point to it. For an interesting comment on the 'balance of probabilities' in relation to the possible political motivations underlying the current charges against Mr. Assange, follow this link. Hopefully, the Assange affair may lead to a return of the press, the so-called 'Fourth Estate', to its role of ensuring balance between the interest of the government and that of the governed.