#Grange #Golf Club

Yesterday the North Adelaide ladies played Flagstaff Hill at Grange

as part of the ongoing Hickory competition.

We won 4 to 1... guess who was the 1?

It was the first match in the competition we played in the rain.

While it wasn't heavy rain, the light rain persisted for at least

two of the nearly five hours of play. It was a slow day!

Still, it wasn't windy or cold and with the right wet weather gear

it was manageable.  Indeed, it is always lovely to be on a golf

course, surrounded by trees and birds.

The first 13 holes of the west course were ready for play by 1927.

The land was originally swamp, so there's a lot of sand!

Grange is lucky enough to have two courses. We played on the 

West Course leaving the Greg Norman designed East Course

to the other club members wanting a game.

Greg Norman won his first professional victory on the East Course,

with a course record round of 64, ten under the course par.

Wayne Grady and Stuart Appleby also won their first

championship victories at Grange.

#Carrickalinga #beach #southaustralia

Carrickalinga beach is one of the many beautiful beaches in South Australia.

The name Carrickalinga is derived from a Kaurna Aboriginal word

meaning "home of redgum firewood".

Just up the road from the township of Normanville, 

Carrickalinga has two beaches, north and south, separated

by the volcanic outcrop of Haycock Point

The two bays are called Roma Mitchell Bay (after the first 

woman Govenor of South Australia and local shack-owner) and 

Yankalilla Bay (after the name of the local council). 

Holiday homes and shacks are dotted along the esplanade.

The rocks are great for climbing on.

The beach from the northern carpark is accessible via a ramp.

This part of the coast is home to the famous leafy sea dragon.

There is great diving and snorkelling off the beaches. HMAS

Hobart has been sunk off the coast and makes up one of the

many reefs in the area.

Another reef is being formed after a 3000 tonne wave generator being towed

to Port McDonnell in the South East ran into trouble and sank 1500m 

off shore.  

Vietnamese grilled quail with cabbage salad #vietnamese #quail #salad #cooking #cookspantry

The other part of the dish we created at the Cook's Pantry Cooking Class

(use search function on the right hand column to find other Vietnamese recipes)

was Vietnamese grilled quail with cabbage salad.

This recipe serves 4 as an entre or for lunch.

Firstly, make the marinade for the quail:

Combine the Marinade ingredients:

1 tbspn of five spice

3 tblspns chilli paste in soya bean oil (nam prik pao)

juice of 1/2 lime

1 tspn fresh chopped ginger

1 tspn sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Now you need to deal with the 4 quails

Cut the little creatures in half using a sharp knife

And cut out their backbones (they won't need them anymore).

Stick them in the marinade for an hour or more. The longer the better.

 Grill the quails over medium heat until just done

(about 2-3 minutes per side)

While the quail is resting, make the salad by mixing the

2 cups of cut Chinese cabbage,  a handful of chopped coriander,

a handful of torn mint leaves and a sliced chilli.

For the salad dressing mix together 

3 tblspn fish sauce

3 tblspn rice vinegar

2 tblspn sugar

125ml water

Put these ingredients (above) into a saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved,

then after it is cooled, add:

2 finely chopped cloves of garlic

1 birdseye chilli, chopped finely

2 tblspn lime juice

Mix this combined dressing into the salad

Place a mound of cabbage salad on each plate, top with grilled quail, then

scatter with coriander, mint and fresh chilli.

Olive Trees in the Adelaide Parklands #olives #trees #parklands

The first olive trees were brought to Adelaide on the HMS Buffalo

in 1836, the city's founding year.  A few of that very first batch of olive trees

were planted on Kangaroo Island, with the rest of them

planted out at Elder Park on the banks of the River Torrens. 

The Elder Park olives were transplanted to North Adelaide in the first few 

years of settlement. Up until 1900, thousands of olive trees were 

planted throughout the Adelaide parklands.

From what I can work out the olive trees (photographed in this post)

 on the edge of Victoria Park were planted in 1872.

Even back then the colony of South Australia had a thriving

olive oil business, exporting the oil to other colonies.

Many of the olive trees survive to this day throughout sections

of the Adelaide parklands, with the city council issuing licences

each year to locals who want to pick the olives for either pickling

or making olive oil. 

The end of a life #life #death

Today is a day of reflection.

It is a day of melancholy. A day filled with thoughts for a family who

has lost a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter. 

Today's funeral will celebrate a beautiful life but there is no escaping the

fact that she was taken too soon. Hearts are breaking.

We get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of life, making a fuss over

trivial matters, until death smashes our cocoon.

Funerals remind us we are 

only on this earth for the blink of an eye.

At times like today we vow to do things differently - to care more,

to be there, to make a difference.  We are reminded of the

 beauty in life, in nature, in others. Nothing else seems important.

King William Road #kingwilliamroad #shopping #hydepark

One of the more vibrant shopping 'high streets' in Adelaide is

King William Road at Hyde Park.

The shopping precinct has hundreds of small shops, ranging from 

cafes, restaurants, fashion, shoes, antiques, kitchen, beauty and hair salons,

small supermarkets, florists, through to health professionals.

Occasionally the street is closed for festivals like the Tour Down Under

bike race, Fashion Week, Gourmet affair or as an open-air art gallery for

the South Australian Living Artists Week.

Photo courtesy of enoki.com.au

We had lunch at one of the newest cafes to open in the street, Zahr Mezzo Cafe,

offering modern middle eastern food.  The food was delicious

and the service was even better.

Only a couple of kilometres from the city, it offers cosmopolitan shopping.

Normanville Beach #Normanville #Beach #southaustralia

We travelled the one hour down the south coast to play 

golf over the long weekend and just had to stop at Normanville

beach to take in the view. The beach spans 7.3 kilometres and 

is flanked by Lady Bay to the south and beautiful 

Carrackalinga beach to the north. 

Three creeks run into St Vincent Gulf from the beach;

Yankalilla River, Bungala River and Carrackalinga Creek.

During the winter months seaweed from the seagrass, that

is only 50 metres offshore, washes up.  Fortunately the

seaweed disappears in the summer months.

Locals and visitors often fish for squid off the jetty or launch their boats

from Lady Bay or Normanville Beaches in search of King George Whiting,

Snapper or mullett.

The Jetty Caravan Park is adjacent to the beach park and carpark.

The Normanville Surf Life Savers patrol a portion of the beach,

particularly during the summer and school holidays.

The beach cafe does a roaring trade in the summer months.

In a future post I will show you some of the quaint

Normanville township, founded by the State's first

dentist, Robert Norman in 1849, and who happens to be

a late relative of my husband.  Adelaide is like that.