ANNABELLE COLLETT: MATE JUMPS SHIP

Today I had lunch with three really good friends. One, Annabelle Collett, is going to live in Vietnam for a while. She'll be doing swaps with artists of her ilk there via her arts residency through Asia Link.

Annabelle makes art from just about anything she encounters. Usually you can hang it on the wall.

That's a photograph I took of her hands on another day; here are some photos from today.

This is Mick Wordley, who records musicians and runs the best studio in the south: Mixmasters, which he literally built from scratch. Mick is a good friend. He makes great records. I took these snaps at the Cafe Bombora on the Cockle Beach at Goolwa. I think this is the best and most true seafood restaurant in Australia. DISCLAIMER: Of course it's not possible for me to visit them all, but I can't imagine anything better than Bombora.

And here's Robyn Wordley, who gets perfect lunches for a mob of really lucky schooolkids and does like vital groundcrew at Mixmasters. In her spare time.

Annabelle rocks. Very thirsty. She lives in the Murray Estuary.

Below's some folks checking out some of her preserves a coupla years back at Milang.

A snap I got in her backyard. She collects stuff and keeps it all sorted ... here's something I saw phasing away on her veranda:

More preserves at Milang ... photos Philip White ... click on 'em to make 'em bigger ... that's Annabelle dancing on Ngarrindjeri country under the full Moon at Point Sturt

... and here's chef Joel Cousins outside his tiny kitchen at Cafe Bombora ... the wine list covers many of the local Southern Fleurieu producers, but this time we worked on a spiky/icy Hahndorf Hill Gruner Veltliner which offered a brisk counterpoint to Joel's seafood chowder, with all its mussels and cockles... Jane Mitchell must eat there too: her Clare Riesling's on the list.

In sharp contrast to the absence of instructional signage on how to use Point Sturt, the local signage wardens have been hard at work at the Cockle Beach ... I spotted this malignant outbreak of instructions on how to approach a beach on a previous visit ... I was surprised there was no warning to keep an eye out for boat people ... Indians on horses seem to be cool but it looks like wigwams are out ... the savage turtle warning has since been removed as the Murray River's hardly flowing enough to wash them out to sea.