SUSTAINABLE KIDS' BIG DAY OUT

Regular readers will know of DRINKSTER's ongoing fascination with the Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Curator Tony Kanellos won a new crew of admirers when he gave a full tour to the winners of McLaren Vale's admirable Sustainable Kids competition ... all photos Philip White

Sustainable Kids is an ongoing initiative of Dr Irina Santiago-Brown, designer of the McLaren Vale Sustainable Viticulture program. Local schoolkids were encouraged to keep diaries, recording an observation of some aspect of the natural world outside for 100 consecutive days. The winning books are all remarkable examples of how acutely observative young brains can be if unplugged from the digi ether and pointed in a richer more earthy direction. But once inside these remarkable buildings, which are full of outside, really, the Mums and Dads were just as overwhelmed as the kids ... big kids; little kids ... 

Tony Kanellos, centre, is the author of the award-winning book, Imitation of Life. His beautiful new work, Out of Past, presents an incredible collection of post cards featuring images of the Gardens in the 1800s and early 1900s. The messages on the backs of these inform us that post cards were the SMS messages and e-mails of the day: there's nothing new about fast abbreviated texting - they just did it with nib pens, ink, and stamps!