Renmark (North
of Adelaide) - Jan
14 - Jan 18
We
traveled to Renmark, Australia to visit Bart & Jack Williams, who run Footing
Fever Ski School. Renmark is located right on the Murray
River, which is one of Australia's longest rivers and playground for
waterskiers all around South Australia.
To get to Renmark,
you have to fly into Adelaide, then drive about 2-1/2 hours North
out into the country. When we landed, we found Bart waiting
for us at the airport. He insisted on picking us up at the
airport despite the long drive. It was a good thing too.
The roads in and out of Adelaide were just 2 lane all the way.
No interstates like we are used to in the states. The roads
were well maintained, but basically only the size that you would
find in any small town in America. Bart zigzagged through town
pointing out places of interest. He had grown up in Adelaide
and took us past some great look-out spots over the city on our way
out of town.
Pictures taken during our trip to Renmark
Pictures taken during our trip to Renmark
Pictures taken during our trip to Renmark
As we got closer
to Renmark, all we could see were fields of Orange trees and Grape
vines. The Renmark area is a major producer of wine, oranges,
and almonds to Australia. We passed one huge winery after
another. Bart informed us that dinner that evening was going
to be at a local winery. Michele as in heaven. We had
just come from a great wine tasting adventure in Sydney and the tour
would continue in Renmark. I was amazed by how massive the
vineyards were. They went on for miles, one after another.
Pictures taken at winery.
Pictures taken at winery.
Bark and Jack had our schedules packed with
activities. Bart was in the middle of his peak waterski
instruction season. He teaches everything from barefooting, to
slalom, wakeboard, and most recently had started the first ever
Australian Kneeboard Club. His new club was throwing their
first ever tournament the next day right on the river in downtown
Renmark. He asked if we would mind coming and watching and
maybe do a barefoot exhibition during the lunch break. It
ended up being a great time. The local radio station was out
at the site and interviewed us several times just so everyone could
hear and make fun of our ("MY") southern accent. We had a lot
of fun discussing the differences between Texas slang and Aussie
slang. I don't think I ever answered a question the first time
anybody asked it to me. My first answer was always; "What did
you just say?", or "Excuse me, I didn't quite hear what you said".
Pictures taken during day of Kneeboard tournament
Pictures taken during day of Kneeboard tournament
The next few days
in Renmark consisted of getting on the water each morning around 8 am
and barefooting till noon, breaking for lunch, then finishing the
day with sight-seeing, a quick nap, then dinner with Bart and Jack.
The Murray River is very long and winds back and forth. There
are house boats all up and down the river that people own or rent.
They come to the Murray to spend their holiday summer vacations on
the water.
Pictures taken during our day out with Sam, Craig, Mike, Grant and Lauren
Pictures taken during our day out with Sam, Craig, Mike, Grant and Lauren
On Sunday morning,
Bart introduced us to some barefooting friends of his that heard we
were going to be in town, so they drove 2-1/2 hours from Adelaide to
ski with us. Their names were Sam Lamshed-14 and dad Craig,
Mike Adi-50, and Grant Bullant.
Jack also invited their friend Lauren out to watch. So we all
piled in two boats and went out on the Murray for some double long-line fun and
crazy barefoot antic photo shoots. Bart came up with the idea
of each of us skiing on a separate boat, then he come over and
switch from his handle to mine, so we would then be skiing on the
same handle. Sounds easy in theory, but it's not so easy in
reality. We also did some side by side skiing as we each did
toe holds, front-to-backs, etc...
After the crazy
trick attempts were
over, Jack convinced Lauren to try barefooting on the boom. She did
a great job, and for that she gets her picture on our website and
can now call herself a barefoot babe.
After we got all
the photos shoots and instruction out of the way, we got serious and staged a barefoot race back to the
dock. I would be handy-capped by having the two girls (Michele and Jack) on my team,
while the other team was made up of the 3 guys (Bart, Sam, and Mike
Adi). I wasn't worried since I know what girls are capable of
in races if they are given the opportunity. So we would start the race on our feet (Bart vs
myself). Once our turn was over, the next set of skiers would
be on shoe skis, but as an added twist, they had to do a double long line. Then
we'd rotate back to myself or Bart on our feet. It was a tough
race, but the girls were able to pull out the victory and rub it in
the guy's faces. There was plenty of smack talk and cheating
accusations going on after the race, all in good fun of course.
On one afternoon,
we all decided to go golfing at the local Renmark Golf Club.
To avoid major confrontation between husband & wife pairings, we
decided to have Bart and Michele team up and Jack and I. We
would play skins to see who would claim golf superiority. Bart
and Jack are very competitive with each other and Michele won't pass
up any opportunity to beat me in anything. So I took it upon
myself to do my best to make sure Jack and I won. We played 9 holes
and at the end of the day, Jack and I were 9 and 0.
Michele wasn't worried about the score. She was excited
because she got to see a wild Kangaroo run across the course during
our game. Bart was
the most agitated about the defeat, so Jack and I were merciless
teasing him about it. Bart is not one to go down without a
battle, so he quickly challenged us to a game of table tennis.
Bart fancies himself a very good player and based on my experience
playing him the day before, he was right. We knew we couldn't
beat him, so while he was out in the garage wiping the boats down,
the girls and I concocted a plan to make sure that during our
doubles matches, anyone on Bart's team would make sure his team
lost. He couldn't figure out why we were all playing so bad.
He refused to play us in any more games after that.
Bart and Jack run
a fun and upbeat ski school in Renmark. They organize several
major waterski events each year including a Night Ski Invitational
that draws as many as 5000 spectators on the shorelines. When
they aren't doing something watersports related, Jack is a
Pharmacist and Bart is an elementary grade school teacher.
Since teachers get summers off, Bart is able to run the school full
time during the summer break. During the school year, he runs
it primarily on the weekends. Along with teaching others to
barefoot, Bart also teaches kneeboard, slalom skiing and
wakeboarding. He's an avid watersports enthusiast and is happy to
get people involved in watersports through any method possible.
He recently help start the first Australia kneeboard club and
organized the first kneeboard tournament in Australia, right there
in Renmark.
Bart and Jack are
well respected by all the business owners in Renmark mainly because
Bart goes out of his way to make sure he lives up to all the
commitments he makes to his sponsors either verbally or in writing.
Bart introduced us to many of the business owners they know.
One business owner that stood out was a guy named Nigel. Nigel
own's Nigel's Riverview Cafe. It sits right across the street
from the area where tournaments and waterski events are held.
Nigel asked us to sign his wall of fame and shared stories with us
of other barefooters that visited his establishment. Famous
footers from all over the world had been to Nigel's and signed their
names for his Wall of Fame.
We can't thank
Bart and Jack enough for their hospitality, We were originally
only going to stay a couple of days, but when we heard that Brenda
Groen's barefoot jumping accident that put her in a comma, we had to
make changes to our plans. You see, our next stop on our tour
of Australia was going to be Fred Groen's house in New Zealand.
Fred is married to Brenda and was now camping out at the hospital,
along with his family, waiting on the condition of his wife to
improve. We did not want to burden Fred with guests, so we
asked Bart and Jack if we could stay a couple more days. They
were very happy to help out and even helped us change our travel
plans. Gizie Halasz, who works for Qantas Airlines, also helped us
get our flights changed without incurring additional charges.
Our final plans have us still going to New Zealand and stopping in
to see Fred and Brenda, but only for a day. Fred
insisted that we still come. We will report on Brenda
condition once we are able to visit with her during our stay in New
Zealand.
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