TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Bain Rotunda overlooking the Clare Oval where the Clare Classic finish line and after party was located. The historic town of Clare is located in the wine making region known as the Clare Valley, just to the north of the arguably more famous wine making region, the Barossa Valley, South Australia.

TET with $20.00 Mambo, Department Store Skateboard. In my previous post and video titled Can You Learn the Basics on a Cheap Skateboard? I began an experiment to see if basic, department store skateboards are at least good enough for beginners to get their first taste of skateboarding without spending a lot of money. (Spoiler - they are). Grrr Dog Popsicle  Skateboard See more deck shapes Just to reinforce my point I decided to film a follow up video a few weeks later showing that my cheap skateboard is still holding up to learning the basics. Admittedly I'm not the most hardcore of learner skaters when it comes to hours spent on the board. On average I manage around thirty minutes to an hour, five days a week. The point is that the board is still holding up to the tricks I've been learning despite my weight being about 16 kilos heavier than the maximum weight recommended for the board (50 kilos). Unlike those Youtube skaters that almost seem like their...

Back in 2007 my sister and I visited Martindale Hall , the authentic 19th century Georgian mansion, used as the 'Boarding School for Young Ladies' in the Peter Weir film ' Picnic at Hanging Rock '.

Clare Skatepark Rear Sign Art - Photo: TET There seems to be very little information about Clare Skatepark, Clare Valley, South Australia online, almost to the point that you wonder if it even exists. However it does and you can see its street view here on Google Maps . I was recently in Clare for a day, and made sure I brought my skateboard this time, so I could actually skate this park that I'd only seen on a quick drive through a few years before. The park, at one end, is bowled out with 5 and 6 foot high (approx) transitions, with an awkwardly placed hip about a third of the way around. Those bowled transitions look deceptively low in this photo but they're actually about six feet high. The centre of the park has a funbox with fairly steep-ish banks, hips, and handrails. On one side there is a 3-4 foot quarter pipe that is really the best feature of the park if you're looking for a spot to learn a trick before taking it to the more advanced bowled sectio...

Glamping is for those who want to experience the outdoor lifestyle of camping without foregoing the luxuries of basic motel accommodation. Bukirk (pronounced 'Buh -kirk') Glamping , located on a rural property, in the Clare Valley, just outside of Clare, South Australia, is by far one of the best accommodation experiences my partner and I have enjoyed to date. Although Bukirk's Facebook page says you could bring a family (I guess additional bedding can be arranged?), everything is more clearly targeted at couples, looking for a romantic getaway where the accommodation is a memorable part of the experience, and not just somewhere to stay.

$20, Mambo 31" x 8", Department Store Skateboard. Over the years I've watched many high profile YouTube skateboarders repeatedly create videos where they purchase a cheap, department store skateboard, ride it like they would their regular professional skateboard, until it breaks (usually within an hour or so), and claim that as a reason for steering clear of these products. ​Inadvertently what they're doing is creating less demand for cheap skateboards, meaning it's less likely department stores will stock them, resulting in no easy way for first time skaters to 'test the waters' to see if skating is really for them. Even worse, parents looking to get their children into a new sport, may not even see skateboarding as an option as they browse through the department store sports section. At the time of writing, Australian department stores have shelves filled with many different brands of scooters, alongside a small shelf or two of skateboards (and...

I'm not familiar with the book Ready Player One is based upon, and I haven't really played computer games since leaving my teens behind at the end of the 1980's - though that last point puts me in just the right demographic to enjoy the eighties nostalgia of this film. When I saw the trailer last year it looked fun, fast paced, and packed with so many references to other movies - on scale not seen since Who Framed Roger Rabbit . It felt like a movie I needed to see.