An alternate reality

Above: Mark McCarthy takes a bath with Charlotte Dalton and Ben Cooke during one of Mark’s @bathtimebevvieswithmacca sessions. Photo by Miah McCarthy.

Smartie pants! (Note to self: get better at framing interview questions.) Technically, what he’s saying is true: there’s still plenty of work to do in our ‘essential’ industry. The vines don’t stop growing, the wines still need to be cared for, our cellar doors are mostly back open and we still need to get our wine out to people all over the world. But for our local wine community, the form of that work in 2020 is in some cases vastly different than it would usually be. Vintage time, when all the grapes are being harvested and wines made, is relentlessly hectic. It’s all-hands-on-deck to make the best wine possible from the grapegrowers’ yearly toils. Once the last fruit’s been picked and the year’s income tallied, grapegrowers and contractors can enjoy a few moments of semi-relaxation. All the harvest machinery is cleaned and stripped down, cover crops are sown in the mid-rows, sheep are redeployed on mowing duty, trellis maintenance jobs are ticked off and the irrigation gets shut down. Then pruning starts in earnest and the seasons roll on.

Winemakers look back at their vintage creations, allocating wine and blends, making sure the reds are safely tucked away and perhaps bottling whites or previous vintages. Everything is cleaned and then cleaned again, and staff take a few days in lieu to reacquaint themselves with their loved ones. The bean counters take stock and prepare the budgets.

Above: Bernice Ong and Julian Forwood Of Ministry of Clouds winery have been working on completing their new winery and tasting room.

As a comparative quiet falls over the wine community locally, in a normal world, this is when the job of storytelling really kicks into gear. Work shirts are shelved in favour of branded dress shirts and we all board planes. We sell our wares from deepest China to the restaurant next door. Hosting dinners. Running tastings. Attending events. And pouring, pouring, pouring.

But not this year. This year things are very different. We’re all living an alternate reality.

D’Arenberg’s flamboyant winemaker Chester Osborn has a bag of tricks he’s been dragging around the world for years. It’s stuffed to the brim with props that represent his myriad of wine labels. Think a fake dead arm, a lucky lizard stuffed toy, some rose-tinted glasses and a small pixie. This year the suitcase is gathering dust under his desk, only to be pulled out for the odd Zoom tasting. By now Mark McCarthy from McCarthy Orchards is usually grafting vines in the eastern states. This year his creative new social media project @bathtimebevvieswithmacca has taken off, so he’ll be packing up the camper trailer (including two baths!) and heading west to graft in Margaret River instead.

‘We are cleaning!’ exclaims Hotel California and Inkwell Wines proprietors Irina and Dudley Brown. With more local guests staying for shorter periods, and the new cellar door restrictions, the cleaning of glasses, surfaces and linen has grown exponentially. Fortuitously, stranded international workers were able to be deployed to handweed thirty acres of vines, ‘…did we mention cleaning?!’

Artisan wine producer James Hamilton from Golden Child Wines would have snuck in a family holiday to somewhere warm with surf, in and around the many interstate sales trips. Instead, he’s spending time building online sales for his small business and upping the trips to local surf breaks. >

Left: Selina Kelly and Andre Bondar (from Bondar Wines) have been focusing on building a small winery on their Chalk Hill Road vineyard. Top right: The new seated wine experience in the original Coriole homestead – a space with phenomenal views overlooking the vineyards and Willunga Hills. Bottom right: Aaron from Oliver’s Taranga vineyard feels nothing much has changed for him. Although he’s stilll a little annoyed there was no end-of-vintage party.

Jeremy Maxwell is ‘not flying around the country and world like a blue-arsed fly.’ (Note to self: where does this most excellent saying come from?) Rather, he and the Maxwell Wines team have used the restrictions to refine their restaurant tasting menu and develop high-end tasting experiences in cellar door. Velvet Oakes has done likewise at Coriole, developing a new seated wine experience in the original Coriole homestead, a space with phenomenal views overlooking the vineyards and Willunga Hills.

Wirra Wirra’s chief winemaker Paul Smith was supposed to be at a friend’s wedding in Puglia, Italy and was using that as an excuse to explore some of Italy’s great wine regions while celebrating a significant birthday. ‘Travel restrictions saw that revert to a miniFleurieu escape instead,’ he says. ‘We still managed to get a taste of Italy through some of the wines we drank – mixed in among our favourite local drops – without the challenges of airports, jet lag and language barriers.’

For many, the travel moratorium and restrictions on gatherings has created space to focus on building projects at home. Dynamic duo Selina Kelly and Andre Bondar from Bondar wines would normally be prepping for their massive annual open day over the June long weekend. Instead, they’re focusing on their next very exciting project – building a small winery on their Chalk Hill Road vineyard.

Langhorne Creek’s energetic winemaking sisters Rebecca and Lucy Willson from Bremerton Wines have found it quite calming to look at their wall calendar and see all the crossed-out entries, redirecting their energy into cellar door building developments. Bernice Ong and Julian Forwood of Ministry of Clouds wines are putting the finishing touches on their new winery and tasting room, as well as getting in touch with their ‘super patient and slightly neglected’ direct customers.

My colleagues in the Oliver’s Taranga vineyard – Don, Tom, Aaron and Dan – don’t reckon much has changed for them. They each have their own designated tractor, and they’re still cross they didn’t get an end-of-vintage party.

The smartie pants wine executive is right, of course. Many of us in the wine community are still at work, and lucky to be so. But it’s a different type of work this year and one can’t help but wonder whether parts of this alternate reality will stay for good.

Page left: Each and every one of the many thousands of yaccas on the island are sporting yellow flowered spikes towering 3 to 5m high. This page left: New growth sprouts the entire length of the trunk on many gums across the island. Top right: While Remarkable Rocks remains relatively unscathed, the surrounding area still shows some devastation. Bottom right: The residents of Seal Bay never fail to grace visitors with their presence.

In early February this year, Kangaroo Island tour guide Nikki Redman took her mum to have a look at some of the fireaffected areas on the Island. Both are long time nature lovers and locals. They were amazed and fascinated by the regrowth that was already emerging in the ravaged landscape. ‘It was interesting to see that mum was so interested,’ Nikki shares. And she wondered – wouldn’t others be interested too?

This moment of curiosity led to the Road to Recovery Tour, designed by Nikki to take guests into the fireground to experience and appreciate the amazing resilience and regeneration of nature as it’s happening. Nikki was convinced of the importance of this tour, staying up late to prepare a presentation for the leadership team at the tour company she guides for, Kangaroo Island Odysseys. ‘I created a PDF and it was my first ever!’ she enthuses, declaring herself ‘not a computer person.’ Her passion for the Island won them over and we were lucky to be one of the first groups to see her vision realised.

The tour starts early, so we ferried over the night before. We stayed overnight at American River’s Mercure Kangaroo Island Lodge, enjoying an incredible three-course, five-star dinner. ‘We didn’t just put that on for you,’ GM Ian Solomon tells me, ‘it’s like that every night.’ (We will be back!)

After a comfortable sleep and buffet breakfast, we are joined by Nikki as well as Gaylene Ingram, Kangaroo Island local, tour guide and CFS volunteer. They share with us not only their wealth of nature and wildlife knowledge, but also the destructive reality and lived experience of the firefighters, volunteers and locals during those late December and early January days as KI suddenly headlined local and international news. They take us through an itinerary that covers parts of the south and north coasts including the three main tourist drawcards – Seal Bay, Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch. It’s truly a nature lover and photographer’s paradise. The vivid green of the regrowth contrasted with the blackened branches is breathtaking. >

Page left: The phenomenal regrowth in Flinders Chase National Park is clearly evident in this particular spot. This page top from left: Sean Martlew and JulieAnne Briscoe from SeaLink, with Nikki Redman, Sarina Davis and Gaylene Ingram from Kangaroo Island Odysseys . Photo by Petra de Mooy. Bottom left: An eastern spinebill amid charred branches. Photo by Nikki Redman. Bottom right: A few months ago this photograph would have shown no greenery at all. Photo by Heidi Lewis.

This was our second trip to KI after the bushfires, having visited in March on a self-guided tour. Then, the regeneration was only just beginning and now seven months on from the fires, all sorts of incredible transformations have taken place. This time around, we’re treated to some of Nikki’s favourite spots. These include a number of roadside areas that have shown the most regrowth and now display spectacular plant specimens – only nature has the creativity to make things of such striking beauty. The prolific and prehistoric xanthorrhoea (yacca or grass tree) has benefited greatly from the fires. Flower spikes soar up to five metres in height from every last one of these amazing specimens, providing a unique and almost whimsical landscape beside the regeneration of the bush, mallee, casuarina and gum trees. It also means these shoots will begin to seed and spread more yaccas while also providing an important food source for honeyeaters and pygmy possums. Nikki is careful not to underplay the devastation to the Island’s human population and wildlife, but she also sees the fires as a ‘giant restart button’ for nature. Fires are important for regeneration and have happened for hundreds of millions of years. ‘We really want this to be a message about recovery. We could sit here and cry – and in our private moments we do – but I just want to get back to work and share the journey,’ she says, ever practical.

A self-described ‘naturalist’, Nikki has an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and animals. Now, that encyclopedia also extends to the effects of the bushfires. Alongside the number of hectares and animals lost to the fires, she also shares some amazing stories of resilience. Take the dunnart, which burrowed its way to survival. These small, rare marsupials were already monitored by a conservationist group. When the group were able to check on the population again after the fires, they were (happily) surprised >

Above: Spectacular Admiral’s Arch at Cape Du Couedic. Photo by Drea Chong.

by how many had survived. They’ve since stepped in where mother nature couldn’t to protect the vulnerable population by providing aboveground caged tunnels and trapping predacious feral cats. Snakes and other reptiles also sought refuge underground, as did echidnas which also pulled another party trick – lowering their core temperature to 24.5 degrees.

It goes without saying that the human population has also suffered unthinkable losses and the Island’s rebirth is an emotional one. And it’s only just begun. The human and property losses took a huge toll on the Island community and the effect on farmers was and is unfathomable. It’s hard to absorb the numbers of stock losses and the impact on infrastructure. But these losses stand against stories of community resilience.

For visitors, it’s a time to respectfully and gently observe and enjoy the landscape and all the community has to offer.

The park rangers and tour guides can’t stress enough how important it is to respect the fragile recovering environment. They say too many people are doing the wrong thing. The inland regrowth has been swift, but the delicate and fragile dunes and coastal areas take a lot longer to regenerate. The harsh, windy and dry conditions make survival of the fittest a hard-earned truth. ‘We see footprints in the dunes and it is just people wanting to get the best angle on the photo,’ Nikki laments. ‘There are so many great spots to take photos from the well worn paths,’ she assures us.

It does make one pause for thought. After all of the destruction and devastation, these small acts of thoughtlessness are like stepping on the hearts of those who have lost so much. The KI economy needs visitors, but Nikki emphasises that nature needs to be given its best chance at recovery at the same time.

It’s clear Nikki feels a quiet pride in the Road to Recovery Tour. And why wouldn’t she? It may be a two-day experience for us, but for Nikki it’s another two days in her ongoing commitment as part of the KI community, helping the recovery along: supporting it, protecting it and sharing it with others.

Page left: ‘Tall Bike Stan’ Lowe can be seen regularly on the roads (and beaches) in the area, sporting one of his custom bike builds. Above: Lowrider style.

Somewhere between a penny-farthing and a BMX, the tall bike is not unlike a jungle gym on wheels. It’s a sight seldom forgotten, and on the Fleurieu there’s one man known for riding high on these metal giants. ‘Tall Bike Stan’ Lowe’s custom bikes – some tall, others stretched long – appear to defy bike-building logic. But the twenty-three year old has become wellversed in the mechanics of bicycles, and the frames he fabricates are comparable to artistic metal sculptures.

While his designs are contemporary and unique, ‘tall bikes have been around since the 19th century,’ Stan says, ‘for lighting gas lanterns, because people were fed up with taking step ladders.’ Stan prefers to travel on them, embarking on long trips. The furthest so far was a twelve-hour ride from Sellicks Beach to Tailem Bend, with his luggage stored within the custom frame. While it seems, to the untrained eye, impossible to safely take one of these tall bikes up hills and across the country, Stan claims it’s a piece of cake. He says the added height allows for longer chains and, therefore, as many gears as you can fit.

‘When I build these, I get extremely attached to them, because it’s just like this piece of art that you’ve made, and you just don’t wanna get rid of it,’ Stan says as we sit in his shed, surrounded by bike parts and tools. From vintage school chairs wrapped in leather and edged in spiked metal studs, to bike frames fashioned from old trampolines, the workshop walls are a shrine for bike-lovers and recyclers alike. But it’s not just all tall bikes. Stan’s magnum opus is the electricpowered ‘Night Crawler’. Covered in hand-welded webs of steel, it looks more like a motorcycle than a treadly. He plans on taking it to the Old Skool N New Age Auto Show later this year. ‘I haven’t won it yet, but when I bring that thing to it I’m gonna!’ Stan says with sure determination.

‘The kind of stuff I’m doing now, most of my mates didn’t believe I’d even get this far,’ Stan says proudly. He points to a shiny, red tall bike, ‘it’s been three different forms now, in its evolution from the first bike I ever welded.’ This particular iteration sports a built-in ladder the rider climbs to reach the seat perched an anxiety-inducing twometres above the ground.

Stan, who struggled within the conventions of the education system, eventually discovered his passion in a metalwork class. It wasn’t until years later that a teacher finally asked what it was he wanted to make. Stan recalls thinking, ‘I don’t know! You’re the first teacher to ever ask me what I want to do.’ It was a question that allowed Stan to realise his dream, and his first pushbike was welded soon after, right there at school. ‘I only learnt a fraction of what I know now at school. The rest is all self-taught. I’m a cabinet-maker by day, pushbike fabricator by night,’ Stan says. ‘But literally, if this starts firing up enough, I’m dropping the cabinet-making and doing full-time fabricating for anyone, anytime.’

He now has his sights set on establishing his business, and a weeklong tall bike trip up the Great Ocean Road.

If you’re looking to take your own trip or explore the Fleurieu Peninsula’s stunning trails on a custom creation or newly restored bike, Stan’s your man.