(Note the trip was partly to check out the home of Australian submarine building at Osborne (up from Semaphore) Adelaide. And a non-poetic security aspect)
Two sunny days drive
Good sense denied
Stay awake
Stay alive
Long, scrubby road
Medication adjusted
Sleep interrupted
Navigation corrupted
Inland drought a Lawson-esque story
A sad sight Narrander[y]
Town centre’s dead
Grey shops long closed
Nary McDonalds nor KFC colour exposed
South Australia confronts
Drought in Barossa, 11mm rain in
4 months
A weekend escape
Wine tastings le grape
Ten days on Adelaide’s Semaphore shore
Leads to my ancestors' door
Sun dancing on sea
Nostalgia for free
carries the accolade
To those gallant sea-captains
who visited Adelaide
List of sea-captains on plague starts: “Capt. William
Begg”
Begg is/was my great-great Grandfather,
Dour Scot of warm heart
His 2 legs in a storm broke apart
But he walked on canes still
On slippery docks and uphill
But he walked on canes still
On slippery docks and uphill
From Glasgow to Adelaide, he sailed 1855
Then settled in Adelaide 1870s alive
Harbour Master of Port Adelaide, before dying 1889
With his Ghost I communed with a glass o’wine.
Of my ancestors 7/8ths Protty Iro-Scots watch out!
Were born in Adelaide, rarely devout.
And 1/8th? A Jewish Grandmother, an outsider
Her existence suppressed. Memories denied her.
Adelaide's shipbuilding din.
Would take me too far from my kin.
So I blissfully return to my humble home
Where whales fly and wombats roam
A place of optimism, warmth and friendship for free
Where I commune with ghost Captain’s love of the sea.
Pete
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