Published The Advocate, December 19, 2004


HUSKY 53, the dinky little Port Security boat, floated gently on the Mersey River, dwarfed by the Spirit of Tasmania II, and kept a watchful eye out for … nothing much at all.

Looking like a converted fishing boat, Husky 53 did not appear capable of thwarting a determined terrorist threat. The nearby Outlaws bikie clubrooms at East Devonport, bristling with security cameras behind a high fence, seemed better equipped to repel invaders.

The closest thing to a threat were the Grey Nomads on their ``lap’’ around Australia. With wide backsides and fat bellies, and Swiss Army knives attached to their belts, they would be a daunting security threat if they ever got themselves organised.

Here I was setting off overnight to Melbourne and then to Adelaide for a mate’s birthday, my first Spirit crossing. In a previous life, the Spirits were Greek ferries. This one still had yellow warning signs written in Greek: DANGER KEEP CLEAR OF MOORING ROPES.

I kept a safe distance from Deck 9, in the outdoor area reserved for smokers although I do not smoke, surrounded by the acrid exhaust from the ship’s funnels. Running amok were little kids with the names of rappers’ wives – Icelene, Desray – made up by parents who cannot spell.

I could have booked a quiet cabin with a bed but wishing to ``rough it’’ to an extent, I had a business class seat, A10. If I closed my eyes, the background shuddering-juddering vibration was almost soothing.

But I slept little and with eyes like cracked Jaffas pop-riveted into my face, I was back on deck at 4am for the passage through The Rip, the narrow, churning entrance to Port Phillip Bay where the tides and cross-currents meet.

Sadly, the passage was smooth and dull. I watched the dawn, keeping my bald head warm with a baseball cap bearing the Geelong Football Club logo. It gets a lot of wear although people mock it.

In the bright sun, Port Phillip Bay was shining except for the smoke from the funnels. A smoker next to me said he was heading to Queensland on a working holiday. A high number of Tassie blokes, on the same route, marry Queensland girls.

This bloke had the conversation skills of a man who had spent too long talking to sheep.

``What’s that?’’ he said, nodding.

``The You Yangs,’’ I said, explaining how the peaks near Geelong had once been climbed by Matthew Flinders to get his bearings.

``What’s a ewe’s yang?’’ he snorted. Spare me.

The Spirit docked at Station Pier at 6.40am, a voyage of less than 10 hours. Unfortunately, it took another hour to disembark in my car. Even Greek ferry operators, not especially noted for their organisational skills, can empty and reload a crowded ferry in half that time.

The highlight of the voyage, I am pleased to report, is the eternal flame atop the Mighty Ulverstone Clock can indeed be seen from Bass Strait, a beacon in the night.

Published The Advocate, December 11, 2004


"The 2002 crop had a very good concentration of fruit and fruit flavours – great fruit – carried through to a great outcome."

WHAT a pity, I thought.

Here was the chief winemaker at Pipers Brook vineyard waxing lyrical after The Age named his pinot noir as Australia’s best red wine.

What a great pity, I thought, what a damn shame pinot noir is wasted on me.

It tastes like raw wood, like licking a fence picket, and smells even worse, like a mucky abattoir floor. No hint of fruit there, let me tell you, and at $65 a bottle for the Pipers Brook, I suppose I should be grateful.

Pinot lovers kept telling me I was mad. They could not understand how a red wine drinker of considerable repute – me – could not stand pinot.

I never had a problem appreciating the fruit in shiraz, merlot, cabernet sauvignon or any other red wine variety. I even had my fair share of Grange stacked in a shoe cupboard at different times.

Yet something peculiar about pinot noir makes it fall off my palate. I cannot explain it either.

It reminds me of asparagus. After eating asparagus, some people can smell it on their urine, others cannot. I am one who can. The less said about that the better but there it is.

Tastebuds are odd things. In his final year, my father, a heroic Melbourne Bitter drinker all his life, was forbidden on doctor’s orders to drink beer because the yeast was somehow wreaking havoc with his immune system.

Momentarily shattered by the news, he soon discovered Johnnie Walker Red Label whisky, a beer drinker’s scotch if ever there was one.

On his final birthday, as a special treat, I took him an expensive bottle of single malt whisky from which he took one sip, coughed and spluttered, and went to his grave without touching it again.

One man’s malt being another’s poison, I snaffled it at the wake.

Then, possibly as punishment, I went off all red wine, not just pinot. Almost overnight, I found even one glass of red gave me a splitting headache that lasted a couple of days.

A doctor friend said he had seen similar symptoms in other wine drinkers around my age. One had been forced to stop drinking red for three years until eventually the adverse reaction subsided and he was able to drink again. So there is still hope.

For my 50th birthday, an old mate gave me a bottle of 1986 Grange valued at about $270 at the time. His gesture was generous to an embarrassing degree except by then I had given up drinking red, which he had not realised.

Never mind, the same mate turns 60 this weekend and I am giving him back the Grange. It is now worth $675, which only goes to show how much more generous I am than he was.

Meantime, I am acquiring a taste for Boag’s draught.