SA Weekend: Riding on the Coast Tales

JUNE 5/6 2021

A D E L A I D E CA BARE T F E ST I VA L E D IT ION

CUMMING OF AGE

STAGE STAR’S LOVE LETTER TO AUSTRALIA

THE BREAST MEDICINE

WHY I CHOSE TO HAVE A DOUBLE MASTECTOMY

PITCH PERFECT

EDDIE’S NEW SOLO SHOW TURNS DOWN THE VOLUME

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PLUS

SA’S GREAT

INTRODUCING OUR NEW TRAVEL PLANNER

SAWEEKEND JUNE 5-6 1

CONTENTS 5/6.6.2021 COLUMNIST COVER PHOTO Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Alan Cumming.

Picture: Francis Hills

5 IAN HENSCHKE As numerous historic buildings around South Australia fall into an increasing state of disrepair, it’s time to introduce a heritage lottery to ensure their survival.

FEATURES For years now, SAWeekend journalists have been travelling the state looking for holiday destinations, weekends away and fun experiences.

Every week we’ve published reviews of these locations and activities, which range from shark diving in Port Lincoln to quaint cottages in the Adelaide Hills to camping grounds in the Flinders Ranges.

The visits are usually unannounced and paid for by SAWeekend, so the reviews are our honest opinion, unencumbered by the need to pull our punches lest we offend those paying the bill. Not that many of the reviews usually have anything negative to say anyway.

Today, we launch our SAWeekend travel planner, in which we have collated five years’ worth of reviews into one easyto-use digital guide, which goes live this morning at advertiser.com.au/ travelplanner and on The Advertiser app.

Oh, by the way, the tone of the reviews proves we really do live in a great state.

PAUL ASHENDEN SAWEEKEND EDITOR paul.ashenden@news.com.au

6 HAPPY 21ST Alan Cumming can’t wait to take centre stage at the Adelaide Festival Theatre as the artistic director for the 21st Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which starts next week.

8 AT HER LEVEL BREAST Selina Jenkins did not have cancer. She was not transitioning to become a man. But she didn’t want her breasts anymore. So she flew to America for a double mastectomy.

10 TONING IT DOWN After the bright lights of Broadway, Eddie Perfect is taking control and turning down the volume for his new show Introspective, in town for the Adelaide Cabaret Festial.

EDITOR Paul Ashenden

ESCAPE 16 COAST WITH THE MOST A cruise along the South Australian coastline reveals a rugged beauty and a rich history littered with love, tragedy and a story of remarkable resilience.

FOOD 18 THE FOURTH ESTATE The care that clearly goes into the outstanding selection and preparation of beverages at Fourth in Glenelg isn’t truly reflected in the food.

11 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS The team behind smash Fringe show Velvet returns for a luxurious and voyeuristic journey inside a French hotel in L’Hotel.

12 ENTER STAGE RIGHT Go inside Adelaide’s amateur theatre scene to find out why it is thriving and the hard work required to bring the stage to life.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Roy Eccleston ART DIRECTOR Rebecca Fletcher STAFF WRITERS Michael McGuire FASHION EDITOR Anna Vlach ARTS EDITOR Patrick McDonald PRODUCTION Julie Nowell, Sandra Killen, Vicky Lamonby, Justine Costello ADVERTISING & MARKETING Acting Head of Product/Trade Marketing: Rhiannon Klar Acting General Manager – Agency Sales SA: Candice Arthur CONTACT US saweekend@adv.newsltd.com.au Published by Advertiser Newspapers Pty Limited (ACN 007 872 997).

31 Waymouth St, Adelaide, SA. 5000 All rights reserved. SAWeekend magazine is free with The Advertiser weekly.

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OUT&ABOUT

RIDING ON THE COAST TALES An adventurous cruise among our remote islands reveals a history many of us never knew, writes Roderick Eime

T

hey rowed with the grim determination of men fighting a losing battle. However, their very survival meant they must prevail. Yet, their search for muchneeded water for Investigator had failed. The dry and barren inlets around the cove were devoid of any lifegiving moisture.

“Make for the ship please Mr Taylor,” directed the master, John Thistle, “we need to be back with our melancholy news lest we be caught in the dark.”

With the light fading, the six oarsmen made the extra exertion required to break through the tidal rip that threatened to send the cutter back whence it had come.

But the more they rowed, the greater the rip seemed to embrace them, swirling the 10m

16

SAWEEKEND JUNE 5-6

wooden boat in a wild spiral. Mr Taylor, the midshipman, fought at the tiller as a man possessed, but his Herculean effort was in vain. The little craft was suddenly gripped by a most vigorous eddy that drew the stern into its grasp before flicking the bow skyward, jettisoning the men into the angry torrent. There was barely time to cry out and each one disappeared into the maelstrom as if snatched by Neptune himself.

When the cutter failed to return on that fateful day in February, 1802, Lieutenant Matthew Flinders, commander of the Investigator, sent crews out to find the ship’s master and his crew. After three days of fruitless search, all that was recovered was a badly broken hull, an oar and a barrel.

“I examined with a glass the islands lying off, and all the neighbouring shores for any

appearance of our people, but in vain,” wrote a despondent Flinders who had developed a close friendship with Mr Thistle over many years. A copper plaque was affixed to a cairn and placed in a prominent position over the picturesque cove now known poignantly as Memory Cove, on the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula in Port Lincoln National Park.

The surrounding islands were also named in honour of the brave seamen: Thistle, Taylor, Hopkins, Willians, Grindal, Smith, Lewis and Little. And just to remind future mariners of the tragedy, the nearby headland was christened Cape Catastrophe.

South Australia’s remote and craggy coastline is steeped in history. Beginning with Aboriginal exploration and settlement

at least 20,000 years ago, it wasn’t until 1627 when the first known European, Dutchman Pieter Nuyts, explored the southern coast from Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia as far as today’s Ceduna.

Matthew Flinders, who we know so much about thanks to his meticulous logs and cartography, was just one of numerous European and American explorers, scientists, whalers and sealers who ventured to our dry and inhospitable coastline from the outset of the 19th century.

Flinders’ French contemporary, Nicolas Baudin, began his southern Australian scientific survey from Cape Leeuwin, WA, in May 1801, heading eastward, while Flinders arrived at the same point that December with the two making their welldocumented encounter near Victor Harbor in April the following year.

We all know from our schooldays that Adelaide was proclaimed in 1836, but I’ll wager most of us are unaware of the numerous clandestine enterprises conducted before Governor Hindmarsh’s fateful reading under The Old Gum Tree at Holdfast Bay. ere aboard the brand new 93m purpose-built adventure vessel, Coral Adventurer, I’m on a journey of discovery myself. Accurately entitled Wild Islands & Walks of South Australia, the expedition is led by acclaimed local author, photographer and historian Quentin Chester and his equally knowledgeable partner, Dale Arnott.

This 10-night roundtrip from Adelaide visits numerous islands, headlands and coves relatively few native South Australians would have knowledge of, let alone set foot on.

I’m talking about such minor isles as (the

H

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Clockwise from main: the pristine Eyre Peninsula coastline, Coffin Bay, Troubridge Island and the ruins of an island farmhouse. Pictures: SATC, Jonathan van der Knaap, Roderick Eime

DID YOU KNOW? ■ South Australia

has more than 5000 kilometres FLINDERS of coastline, ISLAND including the islands.

■ South Australia

has more than 150 offshore islands ■ More than 90%

of South Australians live within 50 km of the coast ■ SA’s islands are largely

REEVESBY ISLAND COFFIN BAY CAPE CATASTROPHE

feral pest-free, making them ideal sanctuaries for endangered species Source: EPA

other) Flinders Island, which could perhaps be more accurately named Samuel Flinders Island, off the east coast of Eyre Peninsula, Troubridge Island, which hosts one of the colony’s first lighthouses, Wedge Island, where a secret WWII radar station was located, and Reevesby Island where stout horses for the British Indian Army were bred.

During our visit to Flinders Island, we meet the Woolford Brothers, Tobin and Jonas, whose family has evolved their primary industry from mundane sheep and cattle to premium wild abalone.

“The very tasty greenlip abalone is the dominant species around here,” Jonas informs me as he prepares a lightning cooking demo on the beach, “but we’re going to flash sear the blacklip right now.”

Abalone, most of us will know, is a rare delicacy in Asia, but slow to take off here at home. Lately, exports to China have slowed.

“We’re growing the domestic market slowly,” says Jonas, ”and in these waters, we have probably the healthiest and cleanest abalone in the world.”

The island was likely used by sealers and whalers, including the nefarious American, Captain Isaac Pendleton, very soon after Flinders and Baudin departed in 1802.

Pendleton, I’m reminded, built the first vessel in SA, the Independence, a neat 35tonne twin-masted schooner as a support vessel for his burgeoning operations based mainly around Kangaroo Island.

The sealers, in particular, were a rough breed with little regard for anything other than the next seal hunt and the bounty of rum that would provide. Made up of stowaways, escaped convicts and deserters, it was common for these ruffians to brutally abADVE01Z01WE - V0

duct native women from the mainland or even Tasmania.

Ironically, the kidnapped women would often become critical players in the success of these crude ventures. On Kangaroo Island, one English sealer, Nathaniel Thomas, built what is now SA’s oldest surviving dwelling in the early 1820s at Antechamber Bay (aka Red House Bay), a short drive from Cape Willoughby on KI. “Nat’s ‘wife’ was known as Betty,” says Andy Gilfillan, the current owner who grows olives and runs about 6000 head of sheep on the land with his wife and three daughters. “She was one of several Aboriginal women who came to the island with both the bush skills and strength of character that were crucial to the success of these early settlers.”

By the way, the historic house at Antechamber Bay, christened Nat’s Retreat, can now be rented as an exclusive weekender.

Back on Flinders Island we learn of another such woman, known only as Black Charlotte, who was the partner of William Bryant, an Irish sealer who’d jumped ship and set up a modest encampment on a small bay that now bears his name. The crumbling remnants of his cottage are the only clues and are likely the oldest European ruins in SA. Despite his questionable morals, Bryant was an industrious man who farmed his patch, planted fruits and vegetables and ran small herds of livestock, particularly pigs. His carpentry and blacksmithing skills enabled him to operate a decent little enterprise repairing ships and supplementing that with wallaby skins, meat and fresh produce.

He died in 1844 from a nasty infection,

leaving Charlotte, her young son Bill and two daughters alone, but not before amassing a tidy sum in gold sovereigns that are reputed to be in a tin chest that remains buried somewhere on the island.

The following year, if local legend is true, another scoundrel, the brutal yet charismatic African-American pirate Black Jack Anderson arrived on Flinders Island after his ship, Vulcan, wrecked on the west coast.

He and his 17 surviving crewmen, all likely convicts and rogues, took over the encampment at Bryant’s Bay, helping themselves to everything. They built a small boat using Bryant’s tools, sailed to Coffin Bay and effected a rescue, with one crew member deciding to stay as Charlotte’s new “husband”.

L

ater, on a sealing venture to nearby Waldergrove Island, Charlotte, her new husband Charlie Mason, a man called Jackson and two daughters were caught in a violent storm and the boat capsized.

Tragically, Charlotte was the only survivor.

Local author and historian, Eric Kotz, is on her trail and believes she made it ashore near Coffin Bay and continued sealing with another chap named James Miles where she survived yet another shipwreck, saving the life of Miles in the process. Charlotte was clearly an extraordinary woman. I’ll be waiting for the movie.

WEDGE ISLAND

ADELAIDE TROUBRIDGE ISLAND

CAPE WILLOUGHBY

On the homeward leg, we explore another fascinating outpost, the former farm and horse stud on Reevesby Island in the Sir Joseph Banks Group where the Sawyer family planted crops and bred horses for the British Indian Army one hundred years ago. The old farmhouse and assorted relics are being maintained by a preservation society and the island is now a wildlife conservation park. Our final stop was the curious outpost of Wedge Island, halfway between the tips of Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas.

“With its hallmark profile, this chunky limestone isle looms large at the crossroads to SA’s gulf waters,” said Quentin as we set foot on the sandy beach next to the crumbling jetty. “For sailors and fishing boats it’s a time-honoured landmark.”

Similarly, 10 sq km Wedge Island has a fascinating history and was another location for breeding the British Indian Army’s ponies. During WWII, the island housed a top-secret RAAF radar station, one of several along our coast, that was on constant alert for enemy warships and submarines known to be stalking our waters. A small lighthouse, first lit in 1911, still operates at the site.

Free of feral pests, the island supports a small population of reintroduced rock wallabies and wombats who, along with a few freehold families, live blissfully unmolested by wild cats, dogs and foxes.

On our run back across the gulf to Outer Harbor, we reminisce on these fascinating islands, but for me at least there is a touch of melancholy. We have enjoyed superb food and accommodation aboard Coral Adventurer, such a complete contrast to the deprivations and hardships our pioneers faced. Both Flinders and Baudin died prematurely, while our seals and sea lions were all but exterminated by greedy hunters. Not to mention the inhumanity inflicted on the native people.

But there is no doubting the beauty of our rugged coastline and the richness of our waters. Exploring close to home has its distinct rewards.

Coral Expeditions will offer two 10-night voyages exploring SA’s islands in November. Go to coralexpeditions.com for details

SA’S GREAT...YOUR SAWEEKEND TRAVEL PLANNER Looking for a quick weekend away, a long relaxing road trip or just something fun to do?

Plan your next SA holiday experience with our easy-to-use guide, featuring trusted, expert reviews from SA Weekend magazine. LAUNCHES TODAY advertiser.com.au SAWEEKEND JUNE 5-6 1 7