Wandering Scotsman

So it was a quiet day in and around Adelaide when I drove around in Scott’s car. A trip to Glenelg, the shark museum, the internet, NZ guidebook purchase, and that was about it.

On my way back to town I met Scott and his fellow Adelaide restauranteurs, a bit caned after a day tasting a tad too many wines in the Barossa Valley. There was no option but to head to the area of the Fringe preview again (think similar to the area around the Spiegeltent in Edinburgh last year if you are reading this from ‘home’…just that Adelaide wasn’t good enough for the tent this year ;-> ).

The night before it was kicking off after the touring car racing and one of Scott’s mates had initiated a dance off competition to spice things up a bit, complete with ‘caterpiller’ moves. Tonight it was dead, so we had to create other things to do….so it was off to the restaurant.

After listening to lots of random conversations , interspersed with the odd wine appreciation conversation to make us sound intelligent (“yes, tones of berries in here, it’ll go really well with the cheese” – it was white wine to me, but these guys did actually know what they were talking about – one had been asked to work at a vinyard earlier in the day)…there was only one thing to do….start writing puzzles on the paper tablecloths.

Afterwards it was back to the preview and we decided that since we were so full, and had a combination of rich food, wine and beer in our stomachs, it would be a good idea to take a go on the trampoline bungee to mix it all together (we were actually pretty sober at this point), so off we climbed into the harnesses, holding onto the bungee ropes doing back and front flips….not the wisest decision going by the ‘I’m gonna throw’ looks on some faces.

So that was that….we had to find a bar, and off we went to Distill on Rundle Street. The bowl of limes were intriguing us, so we decided to put a wager on – $5 each – to guess how many were in the bowl – winner takes all! There were 6 of us so we invited the whole bar to join in…..and I ‘scooped’ $48.50 – yes some swinebag gave $1.50 short! After a quick negotiation to make it look like it wasn’t a fix we got the barmen to give everyone in the bar some Fresh Pussy for $25. Now, now, it’s a shooter (Cranberry Juice and Peach Schnapps if interested).

After this is was back to Scott’s for some home made cocktails, almost running over a wild koala outside his house in Adelaide Hills. Being that two of the ‘restauranteurs’ were blonde 19 yr olds I wandered if cocktails meant the same over here as back home to my mates, or if it was just some other Aussie slang. Anyway, I was amazed at the concoctions made out of nothing (although there did happen to be fresh mint growing in the garden and frozen berries in the freezer). When the berries ran out we tried some cranberry jam. Sound disgusting but it rocked.

When squaffing the cocktails, the intellectual food critics (the 4 others who worked in some of the top restaurants in or around Adelaide) started talking menus, wine and food in general. Now, my food of choice (except Thai) is my local delicacy of an Aberdeen rowie, so like the wine chat, some of it was lost on me, but I can remember that one of the best fish and chip shop’s secrets around Adelaide is to ensure that the batter is ‘crispy and thin, not thick ‘n’ shit’.

Anyway, that was about the night…well morning – we finished at 5am. It was a great laugh in the morning with three of us giving out loads of banter and laughing at the state of the place in the morning.

Amazingly, Scott and I managed to go mountain biking in the afternoon. We finally made out about 4.30pm after me buying a 3 litre Camelbak that was in fact a 2 litre one, rendered useless for the trip as it had no straps – I should have know as it is identical to the one at home that I never got sent over in my package to NZ!

Needless to say our following evening was a pretty chilled on – me repacking, acquiring more music, while watching lovely home made pizzas being made. The night was rounded off with a quality snowboard move (After Lame) which just made me want to hit the snow. We were so knackered we couldn’t even be bothered to change from a pathetically bad ‘quiz’ show to a DVD (it didn’t help that the didn’t put us through when we called up to tell them the name of a famous John to win $1150!).

There are more pictures of my time in Adelaide in my gallery.

Who watches this shit? (the quiz show we didn’t end up switching off)