TRIVIA 12

Policemen in shorts and knee hi socks, as seen in Bermuda, was a common sight. I like the look!

A road train is 3-5 18-wheelers hooked together. They are quite common in the sparsely populated Australian outback and those trucks are really long.

Mount Lofty House is outside Adelaide, in the Lofty Mountains. It is a beautiful 150-year-old mansion, built 1852-58. Originally the house was built as a cool summer home for politician, lawyer, businessman Arthur Hardy and his family. The sandstone mansion had seen many owners before it was destroyed with only the massive stone walls surviving in the bush fires of 1983. An architect bought the estate and rebuilt the mansion to its former splendor. The new mansion opened in 1986 with eight guest rooms; the next 21 rooms in the Summit Wing were opened in 1988. Our room was huge with a large sitting area and French doors that opened out onto the manicured grounds. What a gorgeous place for a quiet, restful vacation!

From Mt Lofty one descends down into the Barossa Valley, which is called a hung valley because one end of the valley is 600’ above sea level while the other end is only 150’. The valley is a well known wine producing area with many small wineries and tasting rooms and where 16 varieties of grapes are grown. We ate dinner at one of the larger wineries and were served kangaroo which is a very lean meat with only 10% fat content compared to beef’s 25%. Because it is so lean it can quickly become tough, so is best if marinated and undercooked.

In Europe the toilet is exactly that or the WC. When we were hiking in England and was nowhere near a loo and needed to revert back to nature we used the green room, a rather nice euphemism. In China on long bus rides through the countryside we’d often stop for the happy room.

In Tibet at the Potala Palace we stopped to watch people making crushed gravel from boulders. There were people at different stations, first breaking the boulder up, then hammering away to make smaller stones, then another pounding to make pebbles. Incredible!

Ten resident cats at the palace keep a mice/rat population under wraps!

China’s money is called Renminbi (RMB). The basic unit is the yuan, pronounced Juan as in 

 Spanish, which is divided into ten jiao, which again is divided into ten fen. One US dollar

 was equal to 8 yuan.

Crusty hard rolls. Impossible to eat without making a mess but ohhhh so good.
 
All through the Alps on our Alps hiking trip we noticed an unusual structure over various 
parts  of roads. Some were log enough to simulate a tunnel, but were open on the down side
 of the road and supported by posts every few feet. The mountain side of the structure seemed to be built into the mountain itself. The roof slanted ever so slightly to the valley side of the road. After inquiry I learned they allow the avalanche to continue over and past the road with the snow dumping over the side. They kept the road clear in avalanche-prone areas. What a simple solution!
 
I often have a spitze at home. I picked up the half cola, half lemonade in Austria while bikeing and I really like the combination.

               China clay, a kind of clay not a Chinese clay, is quarried, but only
 a small amount of it is sent to the china industry. It is the paper industry
 that has a big demand for it, as it is the substance that makes shiny paper 
for all those colored ads.