The Australian Outback Experience

Stark red earth, the dry gray-green of stunted plants, kangaroos and unending flat, disorienting planes; I doubt I am alone in these images of the Outback, culled from postcards, films and friends’ Facebook albums. But after a year of record rains, this is a land transformed. Blanked in thorny shrubs, frosty salt brush, and leafy trees, it is the greenest the land has been in recorded memory.

Seeing the Outback now is quite literally a once in a lifetime experience.

Looking over the Outback

We stop for coffee at an endearingly kitch café which entreats us to ‘comonananavacoffee.’ The shop next door is for sale, its for-sale advertisement praising the town’s active bowls club, several churches, easy access to kangaroo culls and country fairs. I imagine writing a similar advertisement for Marree’s general store, promising prospective buyers cold pints in a pub for hard drinking shearers, an old bush mosque made of wattle and daub, a large wooden camel, a yacht club 200 km from the nearest lake, a large sign warning drivers of dangerous and impassable roads, and apparently more small aircraft than inhabitants. With no possibility of an evening boat ride, we take to the skies for a two-hour flight over breathtaking landscapes.

Aerial View of the Outback

The old cliché of the earth looking like a patchwork quilt has no place here. The land is broad strips of dusty red, cut through with old roads, mottled swatches of green, the 5614km dog-proof fence built to keep out the dingos. The lake, an hour’s flight from Marree’s yacht club, is startling. A sudden deep blue in the red earth, surrounded by billabongs and the bleached ghosts of dead trees. In the late afternoon light, hundreds of birds come into nest. Even in the wettest year on record, the earth is visible beneath the water.

We fly on over Eyre, a salt lake roughly times the size of London. The unusual weather has brought out a bloom of cyanobacteria. The lake, all 9,500km2 of it, is a dusky rose. Even from above it is impossible to take in the whole lake at once; the white salt gradually rising from the pink, the peninsula where the land speed record was broken in 1964, the sheer scope of it. With an ever-changing landscape, it is an experience that can never be repeated, nor missed.

Pink Salt Lake in the Outback

We detour through the Flinders Ranges. The landscape changes without pause or warning. Suddenly we are surrounded by tall trees and delicate alpine flowers, we cross deep streams and descend steep mountain bends. Without the red earth to camouflage it, our first kangaroo forages in the meadows, soon another darts across the road.

More of the now ubiquitous emus scatter as we approached, all feathers, legs and confusion. But in the town of Blinman, at 614 meters above sea-level the highest in South Australia, we spy our most incoungious find. Shaggy haired camels, legacy of the Afghan cameleers, graze on the mountainsides.

A flock of startled Emus

In total, we travel over 3000km in four days often on unsealed roads. This is not the well-worn tourist trail: we see more emus than people.  At times, it’s 200kms to the nearest hotel but we chose to sleep in the ruins of settlers cottages.

Abandoned Cottages at Sunset

Starting in the late 1800’s, it took twenty years to survey each twenty kilometers. The distances between the cottages must have been insurmountable in the height of summer.

Even today it remains an adventure, a green Outback that most likely won’t be seen again in my lifetime.

When I return, it will be to an entirely different world.

Happy Birthday Nicole Kidman

On 20 June, City Connect celebrates the birthday of Nicole Kidman – actress, singer, producer and humanitarian – born on this day in 1967. Nicole Kidman began her career in 1983, starring in various Australian film and television productions until her breakthrough in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Nicole Kidman’s notable films include To Die For (1995), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Hours (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), The Interpreter (2005), Australia (2008) and Rabbit Hole (2010).

Nicole Kidman at Tropfest 2012

Biography

After appearing in the Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton, Nicole Kidman starred in Dead Calm (1989) which garnered strong reviews and brought Kidman to international recognition. She moved on to star alongside her then-boyfriend and future husband, Tom Cruise, in the 1990 auto racing film Days of Thunder. This was Kidman’s American debut and was among the highest-grossing films of the year.

In 1991, her work in the film Billy Bathgate earned Nicole Kidman her first Golden Globe Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard’s Irish epic Far and Away (1992), which was a modest critical and commercial success. In 1993, she starred in My Life opposite Michael Keaton and the thriller, Malice opposite Alec Baldwin.

In 1999, Nicole Kidman reunited with then husband, Tom Cruise, to portray a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut, the final film of Stanley Kubrick. The film opened to generally positive reviews but was subject to censorship controversies due to the explicit nature of its sex scenes. The film received further attention following Kubrick’s death shortly before its release. After brief hiatus and a highly publicized divorce from Cruise, Kidman returned to the screen to play a mail-order bride in the British-American drama Birthday Girl.

In 2001, Nicole Kidman played the cabaret actress and courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrmann’s musical Moulin Rouge!, opposite Ewan McGregor. The film was a critical and commercial success. Subsequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award, for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, as well as other acting awards. She also received her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress.

In 2003, Nicole Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. Kidman wore prosthetics that were applied to her nose making her almost unrecognisable playing the author during her time in 1920s England, and her bouts with depression and mental illness while trying to write her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The film earned several nominations, including for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Kidman won numerous critics’ awards, including her first BAFTA, third Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Actress. As the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award, Kidman made a teary acceptance speech about the importance of art, even during times of war, saying, “Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld.”

Following her Oscar win, Nicole Kidman appeared in Anthony Minghella’s war drama Cold Mountain (2003), was a critical and commercial success. Kidman appeared opposite Jude Law and Renée Zellweger and received her sixth Golden Globe nomination at the 61st Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress.

In 2004 Nicole Kidman appeared in the black comedy-science-fiction film The Stepford Wives, a remake of the 1975 film of the same name. The film, directed by Frank Oz, was critically panned and a commercial failure. The following year, Kidman appeared opposite Sean Penn in the Sydney Pollack thriller The Interpreter, playing UN translator Silvia Broome.

In conjunction with her success in the film industry, Nicole Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann, to promote the fragrance during the holiday seasons of 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned US$12million for the three-minute advert.

Nicole Kidman starred in the commercially successful fantasy-adventure, The Golden Compass (2007), playing the villainous Marisa Coulter. In 2008, she reunited with Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann in the Australian period film Australia, set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman played opposite Hugh Jackman as an Englishwoman feeling overwhelmed by the continent. Despite the film’s mixed reviews, the acting was praised and the movie was a box office success worldwide.

In 2010, Nicole Kidman starred with Aaron Eckhart in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole. In 2011, Nicole Kidman starred alongside Nicolas Cage in director Joel Schumacher’s action-thriller Trespass, with the stars playing a married couple taken hostage.

In 2012, Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen perform in an HBO film directed by Philip Kaufman about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn. entitled Hemingway & Gellhorn. Kidman will also star in Lee Daniels’ adaptation of the Pete Dexter novel, The Paperboy with Zac Efron.

Nicole Kidman has raised money for, and drawn attention to, disadvantaged children around the world. In 1994, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. On Australia Day 2006, Kidman received Australia’s highest civilian honor when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. Kidman has been married twice, first to actor Tom Cruise, and then to singer Keith Urban.

Biography text reproduced from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Marriage Equality & the Ice Cream Truck of Love

Here at City Connect, we believe that everyone should have the right to marry the person they love no matter what their sexual orientation. That is why we are proud to support Features Writer Adrian Fernand and his project to raise awareness about marriage equality in Australia.

Many of you know Adrian Fernand as the creator of the blog I Do Believe I Came With A Hat and he is a regular contributor on City Connect sharing his unique etiquette and social protocol advice as the unoffical Agony Uncle of Australia and the World!

We all love ice cream (unless you’re lactose intolerant!). Some people like vanilla. Others like chocolate and some prefer strawberry. If the government were to say that someone wasn’t allowed ice cream just because they prefer strawberry rather than vanilla, that wouldn’t be considered very fair.

When it comes to marriage equality, it’s the same principle. Why should a loving and committed gay or lesbian couple be denied the right to get officially married just because of their sexual orientation?

Adrian Fernand has become a spokesperson for marriage equality in Australia and has come up with the innovative idea of the Ice Cream Truck of Love which will be travelling around Australia handing out free ice cream to demonstrate that people should be treated the same regardless of their personal preference.

The campaign is a non-political and a-religious way to raise awareness about marriage equality across several locations in Australia including Sydney and Brisbane. Adrian says: “For too long now only a certain portion of the community has been able to get hitched to the person they love, and quite frankly we think that stinks. What’s to say that marriage can’t be between two people, no matter their gender or whether they’re purple and covered in yellow polka dots? So we’re doing something about it.”

Soon, the Australian Senate will be discussing same sex marriage and what it means for the country. Adrian believes that the Senate needs to hear the voice of those who believe that same sex marriage should be made legal. At City Connect, we tend to agree with him. Watch the video below for more information about this worthwhile cause.

City Connect is supporting Adrian’s worthy cause to get the Ice Cream Truck of Love on the road and spread the word about marriage equality. Adrian is raising money through crowd funding for the project which is estimated to cost $30,000 AUD. Your donations will help give Australians not just free ice cream but hopefully the ability to marry the person they love regardless of gender when the Senate votes on marriage equality.

If you would like to support this worthwhile project, please click here to donate. No matter how big or small your donation, you will be supporting the important issue of marriage equality and helping to change the lives of same sex couples all over Australia who want to get married. In the UK, City Connect also supports marriage equality for same sex couples and we will be responding to the UK Government’s consultation in support of this key issue.

To keep updated on what’s happening with the Ice Cream Truck of Love project, follow all the latest developments on Twitter or Facebook.

Matthew Jukes 100 Best Australian Wines Roadshow

The Matthew Jukes 100 Best Australian Wines Roadshow rolled into Cambridge on 31 March as Noel Young Wines held a tasting at John de Bruyne’s Anstey Hall. Tom Lewis, the Cambridge Wine Blogger, was there and shares his recommendations from the roadshow with City Connect.

Described by award-winning Daily Mail writer Jukes as “a legend in the wine industry”, Noel had selected 40 of Matthew’s 100 wines to present that evening and anyone wishing to get a sense of what Australia has to offer could do much worse than turn up at one of these roadshows.

Arriving half-way through the event, I speed-tasted my way through the wines and then had a chat with Matthew to find out more about how he chose his top 100.

Tasting 30,000 to 40,000 wines a year – that’s an average of 100 wines every single day – Matthew keeps a note of all those which he scores 18.5 or over and then whittles them down to 100 by focusing on what is available for the UK market.

He does not moderate his list in any way; that is, he does not put in wines he feels “ought” to be included or add in a few worthy, but underachieving, wines to round out the list of grape varieties.

Rather, he just lists his top 100, noting that each year there ends up being a small number of fizzes and stickies, with an approximate 50:50 split for the remaining reds and whites that simply represent his personal preferences and assessment.

There is not room here to record all the wines I tried and in any case you can find the full 100 list here, but after all the tasting what struck me was that it was the varieties for which Oz is known best that generally stood out – Chardonnay, Cab and Shiraz.

I asked Matthew about his thoughts on where Australian wine is, and should be, going.

Explaining that what he admires most about Australians is their open frankness and ability not only to take criticism on the chin but also to act on it, he told me he had been invited to talk at a marketing conference on Aussie wines not for any in-depth subject knowledge, but for his own plain-speaking no-nonsense approach.

His view is that Australia needs to continue turning away from the volume-driven supermarket turf war area and focus on its terroir and wines in the mid-range where it has huge potential – three-for-a-tenner wines, he explained, are now the preserve of South Africa, not Oz.

In short, then, Australia needs to grow up and become more serious, more European even – and whilst certain retailers’ shelves may currently be awash with cheap, overly fruity and sweet Aussie plonk, this could be a final hurrah before exchange rates and rises in duty make this cease to be an attractive area for business.

He also believes that Oz’s future lies in its most well-known, international varieties – he is not a fan of Spanish or Italian varieties being grown in Oz and says they usually end up being not as good as, but more expensive than, the styles they try to emulate.

However, he does believe Australian Pinot Noir is getting better all the time and is one to watch.

The full list of the wines on show that evening is here, but what follows is my condensed summary of the ones I liked.

Fizz

NV Jacob’s Creek, Blanc de Blancs, Australia – this was light, crisp and fresh with a good finish. Price not available as, bizarrely, Jacob’s Creek refuses to tell Noel Young the trade price.

Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc

These wines were lean and crisp in a cool-climate sort of way; not typically Australian at all.

2010 Shaw and Smith Sauvignon Blanc, Adelaide Hills, SA (£12.99) had a smokey, flinty nose, crisp acidity, a full palate and good length on the finish.

2005 Tyrrell’s Belford Single Vineyard Semillon, Hunter Valley NSW had a complex but restrained nose with hints of diesel and a ripe, linear and balanced acidity.

Riesling

There were a number of quite good ones here, but the 2009 Pikes Riesling, Clare Valley, SA (£15.99) showed perhaps the best overall complexity and balance between fullness, acidity and minerality.

Chardonnay

There were two very good Chardonnays on show – but neither cheap. Both were quite pale in the glass with great complexity and structure, toasty oak and impressive finishes; 2008 Yabby Lake Vineyard, Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula, Vic (£24.99) and 2008 Xanadu Reserve Chardonnay, Margaret River, WA (£38.95).

Pinot Noir

The two Pinots on show were pale, almost rose-like, mushroomy and pleasant enough, but I’m not sure I quite share Matthew’s enthusiasm for them at this stage.

Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot

Unlike the cool-climate feel of the whites, the style here is still mainly New World – soft, smooth and full of blackcurrant fruit, with the odd more seriously-textured wine thrown in at the upper end of the price range.

The 2008 Wirra Wirra Church Block, McLaren Vale, SA (£16.99) was good, but the 2009 Mitolo Jester Cabernet Sauvignon, McLaren Vale, SA (£12.99) made partially in the amarone style was ripe, mouth-filling and smooth with minty eucalyptus.

Also very impressive for its texture and tannic structure was a 2007 Petaluma Coonawarra, SA (£30.75).

The “weird and wonderful reds”, all lighter and more fruit-driven, were an enjoyable diversion into more affordable, everyday-drinking wines before the hedonistic delight that was the final run of Shirazes.

Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvèdre

2009 Glaetzer, Wallace Shiraz / Grenache, Barossa Valley, SA (£17.50) had sweet prune fruit and minty eucalyptus.

2007 Plantaganet Shiraz, Great Southern, WA (£24.99) had ripe prunes and plums, a soft-but-full texture and a toasty finish.

2007 Mitolo Savitar Shiraz, McLaren Vale, SA (£29.99) had a complex mix of mouthwatering fruit, dense texture, minty blackcurrant, a toastiness and good grippy finish.

Image reproduced from cambridgewineblogger.blogspot.com