Smithfield Rotary Club Blog

Saturday September 27

The plane ride that never ended. We just rode and rode. The entire flight experience is more than 30 hours.

Get on plane in Raleigh (it was late) about 2:30 pm

Raleigh to New York=1.5 hours

Layover in New York-4 hours

New York to LA-6 hours

Stop in LA to refuel-1.5 hours

Get back on plane in LA at 3:30 am

LA to Sydney-14 hours

Walk around Sydney airport like a zombie-2 hours

Sydney to Adelaide-2 hours

Total travel and layover time-31 hours. Grueling. On the fourteen-hour leg of the trip, I sat with a pleasant gentleman who had an Australian accent. We spoke very little because of the grueling nature of the trip and the fact that we were comatose or semi-comatose about half the time. Once I asked him if he had been on this flight before and he said “many times.” I remarked that it was arduous and he said “you know, that’s on purpose, it’s too keep you people out.” I later learned he was a cinematographer who had done work with National Geographic and other magazines. He lived in Tyree, which is four hours north of Sydney.

When we arrived in Adelaide, it was 11:30 am Saturday morning September 27. What happened to Friday? Crossing the International Dateline takes a day out of your life. We will get that day back in a month when we return.

Our first hurdle, Qantas lost two of Katie’s three bags. Everyone assured her they would be found. But she angry and weary. The bags were returned to her the next day.

Saturday afternoon with Alan and Pam Deverell.

My first host family was a very pleasant couple who live in Mitcham, SA. A suburb of Adelaide. I first had lunch at their house. This was two apple s and bread with fresh avocado. We then watched on TV a few minutes of the Australia rules football super bowl. Similar to rugby, no pads, very rough. I was clueless. Then we drove to Adelaide, went to a beautiful botanical garden and rode through Adelaide. Dinner was vegetable pies and salad. A quick look at TV, email to Linda and then to bed at 8:30. I slept 11 hours until 7:30 am.

Sunday September 28. For breakfast we had a bowl full of millet, with bananas, apples, and fresh squeezed orange juice. They have an orange tree in the backyard. Because SA is the driest state in the driest country in the world, Alan and Pam save all the water they can. Alan has set up an 11,000-liter tank in his back yard that gets its water from the roof. The tank is almost 75% full because of winter rains. It will be used to water his garden.

The group assembled in Hahnsdorf, a little German town for Sunday lunch. There was never any mention of church, no blessings, nothing. This is sad and disturbing to me.

The GSE team then went with our host families to Hans Heyden’s art studio called The Cedars. His art work was beautiful and the scenery with the eucalyptus trees (they call them gum trees) was exquisite.

We then went to Cleland Wildlife Park where we petted Koalas, kangaroos, and saw Dingos. Pretty neat. On the way home, the Deverells took me by an area where wild koalas are sometimes seen. We saw two in the trees.

The teams then went to a pizza place for dinner.

Tuesday September 30, 2008

A wonderful tour of Carrick Hill English manor house and grounds in the morning. The director of the place was Richard Heathcote, President of the Brownhill Rotary Club and an Englishman. The Australians call UK natives “poms” or “bloody poms” or “pommy bastards.” The weather was fabulous and Richard was a charming and humorous host. He served us a fabulous lunch in the outdoors amongst the exquisite garden plants.

Olive farm and two Winery tours in the afternoon. Our first presentation went well and we had good questions and some silly ones. Good questions about tobacco, climate, silly question about the opossum being Irish. The Rotary president, Richard, is more of a game show host than I am.  Banner exchange was funny—all the Presidents of the seven clubs forgot their banners. No problem—they got plenty from us.

Wednesday October 1

The team assembled at the Adelaide Botanical gardens at 10:00 where we were handed over to the next area within District 9520. We said our good byes and took pictures and met Barry Coddle who had a rented van and a Rotary trailer to keep our luggage.

Our second presentation went extremely well. Again the technology and the laid back attitude of the Okinparinga club almost did us in, but we prevailed. They had drinks before the meeting, drinks during the meeting, and after. Happy crowd. Questions we got were about the literacy rate of NC, the population of the state, and what is a calico cat. Many people came up to me after the meeting to say that they had enjoyed the presentation.

Thursday October 2

Dennis Butler picked me up in his 1980 Mercedes 320 SEL and we drove into Adelaide to the South Australia Writer’s Center. The center was quite inspirational and gave me some good ideas about the writing process and completing my book. I had lunch with them and then Dennis took back. We talked cars just about the entire time. He will soon be president of the local Mercedes Benz club and with that he gets a free trip to Stuttgart, Germany to tour the Mercedes factory.

When we got back to my host family’s house, he did the most curious thing. Instead of just dropping me off and leaving he sat with Sandy Hughes and her 16 month old grandson and the edge of the sandbox and we just chatted for 30 minutes. Very nice to be that relaxed.

A fabulous meal of leg of lamb with John and Sandy’s daughter and son-in-law. Good conversation, much laughter.

Friday October 3, 2008

We toured a chocolate factory (could not find Willy Wonka) and a cheese factory.  Then we toured the Mount Lofty Botanical Gardens and had lunch there. Then we went to an apple processing plant. Across the street from the plant was a lawn ball (lawn bowling) “stadium.” It seems that every Saturday each town assembles at the these places to compete, drink tea, and drink wine and beer. Sometimes people assemble on Saturdays in Smithfield to drive to Wal-Mart. I like the lawn ball option better.

The team then went to a pub where we looked at the FOX news coverage of the Sarah Palin-Joe Biden debate.

We then met with the Mayor of the Adelaide Hills council. He had coffee and cookies for us and we sat for about an hour and talked about his role and the differences and similarities between North Carolina and Australia. We talked about industry, attitudes about alcohol, sports and the universities, and so on. It was quite stimulating. Then the neatest thing happened. A family from Sri Lanka came in and it turned out that they were getting ready to gain citizenship in Australia. We were invited to watch the ceremony, which was very touching. It was moving to hear them pledge their allegiance to their new country. We shook their hands and took pictures.

The evening activity was a social activity at Dennis Butler’s home. We toured his beautiful gardens and his home and he cooked chicken and pizza for us. Everyone had a great time.

Saturday October 4, 2008

In the morning, a trip to the wildlife park which was incredible. The place specializes in albino kangaroos and there were many. The cool thing is that an albino female would have a brown baby in her pouch and vice versa. We were able to hold a male koala named Charley. I purchased several boomerangs and a great kangaroo scrotum pouch.

We then drove about thirty minutes to the National Car Museum. Many cool cars but yours truly was running out of gas. A quick trip later to the Bierhaus restaurant for lunch and then back to the Hughes home for a nap. I slept for two hours at the Hughes home. Hallelujah!

Progressive dinner at three different homes—good fun and laughter. I told stories about Schultz, the family dashund who passed away several years ago.

Sunday October 5, 2008

Breakfast at the winery of an Onkaparinga Rotarian. All the Rotarians cooked us breakfast and the President spoke about what a great time we had had. I also spoke and then we hugged and left for Loxton and Mildura. Oh, Yes we had to have wine with breakfast…a special mulled wine.

We drove for 2.5 hours to Loxton and then had lunch at the most curious place. It is a club owned by the people of Loxton. It had several nice dining rooms a restaurant, a bar, and a casino. We met Jody and Noleen from the Mildura club and they drove us the rest of the way to Mildura. We arrived at Glen Hornsby home and sat and drank wine and talked. Our host families came and we had home made pizza and kangaroo burgers on the grill. What a wonderful home. It had a wrap around porch with a tennis court in the front yard and grape vineyards all around it. I stood back as the sun set in the west and said, “This is my vision of Australia.” One of the prettiest sunsets over the wide open spaces of the Aussie land. The Hornsby children were delightful. Hannah, twenty years old, had just come home from a stay in Norway. Grace, seventeen, was a great piano player, and Henry, age 13, was a good tennis player. They were very comfortable in all types of conversation with adults.

My host was Jeremy Seward, a college professor, who put me up at his abode in a youth hostel room. I got my own bathroom and TV!

Monday October 6, 2008

I went to a writer group meeting today. Very inspiring and very fun. Jeremy and I then went to a great Chinese restaurant. Delicious!

Tuesday October 7, 2008

Morning we went to the Chaffey Brothers restored homestead on the River Murray. The Chaffey brothers came to Australia from Canada in the late 1800’s and introduced “modern” irrigation methods which revolutionized Ausssie agriculture. We then went to Trentham winery and tasted wine. The winery is on the River Murray in the Wentworth area. I struck up a conversation with two couples who had rented houseboats and were camping along the river. Each houseboat had three bedrooms. Cool.

We then went to a deli restaurant and had lunch. It was really nice because Jeremy left us alone and we were able to talk and process about the previous day and etcetera. Everyone seems to be hanging in.

About 2:00 in the afternoon, we left for Mungo National Park. About a third of the way into it, the pavement quit and we rode on dirt roads into the edge of the outback. Some of the dirt road was so rough that our brains felt like they were going to shake out.

We got there at 4:00 and went on a guided tour of the “Great Walls of China.” This is named because from a distance it looks like a wall but it is really small hills rising up from an ancient lake bed. Our tourguide was an aborigine. The pictures will tell it all. Some parts of it you felt like you were on the moon. We also saw about 20 grey and red kangaroos and had a fabulous afternoon. Prior to dinner we had wine (big surprise) and walked out and looked at more kangaroos. Then the sunset was beautiful, however, the Glen Hornsby sunset was prettier.

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