A postcard from Cape Town
Australian cricket and the federal budget are in similar shape.
ICYMI, here's Alex Carlton's latest review for Rampart, this time of Justin Hemmes' new Narooma resort, The Whale:
Alexandra Carlton
Also don't miss Amelia McGuire's piece on Australian aviation's newest Qantas challenger, Vietjet, and its colourful local CEO David May. It's a big call, but this may be the funniest piece Rampart has ever published:
Amelia McGuire
A freak truck fire in Sydney's M8 tunnel last Monday morning trapped me in stationary traffic for 90 minutes on Qantas Drive between the domestic and international terminals, causing me to miss the QF63 to Johannesburg. My long-planned trip to Cape Town for the third cricket Test versus South Africa was in disarray just as it was to begin.
Of all the unforeseen logistical challenges to be struck by, international air travel is my favourite kind. Unfortunately, that missed Qantas flight was the most direct route by some margin. I rebooked myself on a Qatar Airways flight to Doha that afternoon, and 28 hours later, arrived at Newlands before lunch on the first day.[[In many respects, two long flights (with superfast Starlink wi-fi all the way) and a seamless Gulf transfer ends up being superior to a single long (and disconnected) day flight, then a gritty Joburg transfer onto a domestic Airlink service.]]
I was last in Cape Town for Australia's storied Test match victory in 2014, when in the dying minutes of the fifth day, lion-hearted Ryan Harris ran in on a disintegrating knee to take the last two Proteas wickets. Earlier, Michael Clarke made 161 with a fractured shoulder sustained in a fearsome spell of short bowling by Morne Morkel. My mate Jimbo and I sat in the blazing sun for five days murdering $2.50 pints of Castle Lager and marvelling at our good fortune.
In the evenings, we held up the bar at the team hotel with 13th man Phil Hughes, while spinner Brad Hogg regaled us with his wild conspiracy theories. Then we'd hit the town, where, on multiple occasions in the early hours, we crossed paths with the team's spin coach, Shane Warne, doing his finest work on the local fauna.
