For a unique Port experience don’t miss our unique Winter Solstice Feast at the Masonic Hall on Semaphore Road with a sumptuous menu, biodynamic wines and guest speakers Josie Agius, Dr Mike Bossley, Dr Paul Downton, Education Minister Jay Weatherill, Joel Catchlove, Kalyna Micenko, Bob Daly, Stuart Gifford and me — John Williams.

Auntie Josie Agius with Judith Nicholson

Whale and dolphin expert Dr Mike Bossley (left) and Dr Paul Downton

Get a reminder of our past with Josie Agius and a taste of our future with our other guest speakers and you, ranging across many topics including:

• The Christie Walk Eco Project and the big sustainability questions
• The health and wellbeing of whales, dolphins and the Port River
• Friends of the Earth and the remarkable Plains to Plate event
• Why Harts Mill should be given back to our community
• Garden cities, green walls and green roofs
• Leadership from the all-volunteer Semaphore Information Centre

All who can afford a $50 note, and enough for a drink or two, and attend this thought-provoking barometer of local feelings about our place can join in the conversation with their views as you enjoy:

Osso bucco from Lauren’s Kitchen and lemon pudding from Bay Area Bites

• Roast vegetable and baby spinach tart with Woodside goats’ curd and honey mustard dressing
• Osso bucco with roasted garlic mash, salad and vegetables (vegetarian option by arrangement)
• The best local cheeses from Woodside
• Backyard lemon pudding with Kangaroo Island honey, preserved lemons, Pirramimma sticky sauce and Haigh’s couverture shavings
• Biodynamic wines by Adelaide Cellar Door for tasting and purchase
• Cooper’s beer, including vintage ale for purchase

Kris Lloyd, manager and head cheesemaker of Woodside Cheese Wrights

Funds raised will go to the Semaphore Information Centre to cover rental and operating costs of our initial five-year tenancy.

One lucky person will win a mystery door prize and leave with an instant profit on their investment while everyone else will benefit from the continuing presence of our Information Centre which not only promotes Port Adelaide, Semaphore and Largs, but is doing an excellent job of helping to save our planet for all of you.

Please confirm your booking early with me by email and mailing of cheque for $50 per head made out to our not for profit Semaphore Information Centre or by direct payment to Semaphore Information Centre at Bendigo Bank Port Adelaide BSB 633-000 Account number 1388 50359.  Semaphore Information Centre ABN 27 140 858 519.

Postal address Semaphore Information Centre, Shop 64a, Semaphore Road, Semaphore, SA 5019. Tickets can be purchased directly Monday to Sunday early morning—early afternoon at Sandy’s Sea Change Café (Rick or Sandy) corner Jagoe Street and Semaphore Road. 

Tickets and receipts will be given or mailed to you promptly. Be early because we can only cater for 100 people.

The first Winter Solstice Feast was held at Stonehenge 4500 years ago and continues today, so Druid attire would be fun, or whatever your fashion sense dictates.

There is no truth in the rumour that I am old enough to remember, so don’t ask me for advice

Hope to to see you at 6 pm for 6.30 pm on Tuesday June 22 at the Masonic Hall at 66 Semaphore Road.

By the way, druidic holy sites included border places — the shore between land and water (seas, lakes, and rivers) Sound familiar?

Harts Mill by night from Portobello

Now his mill overlooks a 21st-century development along the banks of the Port River.

Born in England, Hart went to sea as a 12-year-old and in 1828 visited Hobart for the first time. 

Later he was involved in collecting seal and wallaby skins and salt from Kangaroo Island and in 1839 he became a partner in a whaling venture at Encounter Bay; he bought larger ships and was involved in many trading ventures before retiring from the sea in 1846 and settling in Adelaide where he eventually entered politics.

See the mill from Portobello — finely attuned to the laid-back “permanent holiday” lifestyle of Newport Quays in Port Adelaide, this stylish café and bar makes relaxation an art.

Newport Quays residents and visitors at a function at Portobello

The suave red and white bar offers fine wines and lavish cocktails and the interior and exterior dining spaces seat you right by the river — a calm, cool place to enjoy the suitably Mediterranean menu which includes tapas, pizza, grill and seafood delicacies, many featuring the namesake Portobello mushrooms.

Followed by fine Mediterranean food

Portobello is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday and weekend breakfasts from 9.00 am.
 
Waterfront 1-2 Wirra Drive 
Spinnaker North Building 
New Port SA 5015
Phone: 8242 4444
Or visit the Portobello website

Plans for a major new development around Dock One in Port Adelaide were outlined by Newport Quays spokesman Todd Brown at a Port Adelaide Enfield Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Portobello Food Kitchen Bar at Newport Quays.

A waterfront park and a 9.5m wide promenade form the centrepiece of a $110 million Newport Quays residential development of Port Adelaide’s Dock One.

With 275 two and three storey townhouses planned, the Dock One precinct is expected to bring 500 new residents to the Port town centre.

The 3.5ha site bounded by the southern edge of Dock One and Wauwa Rd, St Vincent and Jubilee streets will become the third stage of the $2.1 billion waterfront revitalisation project when work starts later this year.

The 1923 former customs clearing house, known locally as the Radio Shack, has been quarantined from the development as negotiations continue between the developer, council and the State Government over its fate.

Newport Quays Consortium spokesman Todd Brown said the decision to build on the Port Adelaide side of the Port River reflected difficulties in sourcing finance for larger precincts and a desire to speed up revitalisation of the town centre.

“It’s been recognised there is a need for more people in the Port and this will deliver 500 to 600 new residents over a 18 month to two year period, which will be a fantastic boost for local businesses,” he said.

Read the full story from the Portside Messenger:

More development news from the Land Management Corporation

The new ANZAC flag outside Port Adelaide Town Hall; and along Commercial Road.

Federal Minister for Veterans Affairs Alan Griffin and local member Mark Butler helped to secure a special grant for the flags, which will go up each year to draw public attention to the event and to ANZAC Day itself.

This year Light on the Water will commemorate all those lost at sea in World War II; 3000 candlelit cardboard lifeboats made by local school students will be floated on the Port River as a tribute to Army, Navy, Air Force, Merchant Navy, medical and rescue, waterside workers and other civilians lost at sea around the world.

The event will begin at 6.30 pm on Queens Wharf on the river side of the Fisherman’s Wharf Markets building near Birkenhead Bridge and will include performances by the SA Pipes and Drums, the Community Choir of Hope and Harmony and an RAN ceremonial unit.

The volunteer hospital ship MV Pacific Link berthed ahead of the historic vessel Failie

After committing a petty crime, Ken Mulligan’s great-great grandfather was sent to Australia in November 1818 on the sailing ship Morley which took 121 days to get here.

In Port Adelaide we found a vessel of a different kind — MV Pacific Link, a volunteer hospital ship Ken is sending on a longer voyage to Papua New Guinea via 16 Australian ports.

Ken Mulligan, organiser of the voyage to Papua New Guinea

Ken is CEO of YWAM-Marine Reach Australia which operates MV Pacific Link, now on a mission to provide clinical services, primary health care and health education in PNG.

In August 2010 the ship will sail to Cairns and Thursday Island then on to Port Moresby in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea. The Australian leg of the voyage will promote PNG’s millennium development goals.

Young and old, skilled and unskilled, health professionals, marine specialists, crew, businesses, churches, service clubs and schools will be called on to collect spectacles and supplies for PNG, where more than half a million people have low vision that could be corrected with glasses.

Port volunteer Keith Ridgeway talks with one of the young YWAM volunteers

Sustainability on board

MV Pacific Link is operated on sound environmental and sustainable principles.

Biofuels are used wherever possible, but remote locations cannot always guarantee this.

Operations and maintenance crew are all trained in sustainable practices, as well as health, safety and fire standards.

Built in Japan in in 1979, Pacific Link is 37m long and has a 7.3m beam,  50 berths and an operating theatre; its home port is Tauranga, New Zealand.

Find out more at the YWAMShips website

Gerrard Viergever and his famous moustache

We found 66-year-old age pensioner Gerrard Viergever on the dilapidated side of St Vincent Street in the old run-down Port Town Hall Café.

One of a growing team of people in the Port who are not constantly complaining and waiting for the government or the council to resuscitate our city, he’s turning the old St Vincent Street café into a first class but inexpensive French restaurant with a special purpose licence. He simply ignores all the negative thinking about the place.

Gerrard Viergever discusses his plans for his French restaurant 'Moustache'

It’s not the first time Gerrard has created a new restaurant and he admits he’s had “some elaborate and disastrous failures.”

“I’ve been through a very dark time and I could have just sat in the corner on the pension, but I saw this run-down cafe; it was a disaster zone, but I needed shelter at a reasonable price.

“The owner has a strong emotional attachment to the first property he bought when he came to Australia and I believe he called it the Town Hall Café; he agreed to let me live here and see if I could make a go of it.

He’s a bibliophile and has some extremely valuable books, the earliest of which was published in 1528 and he has reluctantly parted with some of them to raise capital.

Port people, including a number with trades skills, have rallied round to help, one a lady with three arts degrees working as a barmaid to get by who has offered to make ceramic wine pots. Gerrard will sell her the pots for her.

He has big plans for the opening on Bastille Day, July 14.

“In the days when I was rich and famous, I always celebrated Bastille Day with 35 friends and a uniformed guard of honour. My friends included prime ministers and many other well known people.

“This year I’m going to have all my current friends, we’ll have a guard of honour and at an appropriate time we’ll storm the Town Hall opposite.

“Someone suggested bringing a guillotine, but I’ve found the Council are quite reasonable to deal with, so maybe not.”

The name of the restaurant was staring me in the face: it’s the ornament on Gerrard’s upper lip — Moustache

Ruins of original Port Misery docks

Port Adelaide was founded on January 6, 1837, when the first Harbourmaster, Captain Thomas Lipson RN, took up residence with his family on the edge of Port Creek.

The new port, known as the Port Creek Settlement, was used for shipping later that month and passengers began disembarking the next. It was little higher than the surrounding tidal flats and it could be rowed around at high tide. Larger ships had to land at Holdfast Bay until the port was charted. 

The port lacked fresh water and was plagued by mosquitoes; a long way from Adelaide, it had few amenities and risked inundation at high tide.

By 1840 it was known in news reports as Port Misery, a name given it by author T. Horton James; “This is Port Adelaide! Port Misery would be a better name; for nothing in any other part of the world can surpass it in every thing that is wretched and inconvenient.”

There many today who say that of much of St Vincent Street, but don’t despair — help is on the way.