Some of the Barossa’s earliest settlers were German immigrants and it’s still very German in a lot of ways.

I saw this handwritten sign in a local butcher shop and it baffled me. I had no idea what it meant so I asked the woman behind the counter if she could explain it to us. It is, of course, German and the literal translation is “laugh ham.”

It’s what Americans would call prosciutto. I’m not sure, but that might even be what it’s called by Australians who aren’t of German extraction.

The relationship between Australia and New Zealand is very much like the relationship between the United States and Canada. Good friends. Best of friends, really. But there’s always just a little resentment from the junior partner.

Americans don’t care if someone thinks they’re Canadian, but Canadians hate it if someone assumes they’re American. Same thing down under. Kiwis are insulted if someone has the temerity to accuse them of being Australian.

And that explains this Australian tourism video created by a Kiwi. No other explanation necessary.

This will be the final story I do about the Barossa’s Biggest Tree competition. I swear.

Have you ever heard of geocaching? I was only vaguely aware of the concept when the owner of the trophy shop asked me where Dr John and Scottie’s big trees were located.

“One’s out on Collingrove Road and the other’s just off Steingarten Road.”

“Oh,” she said, “He’s not the only one who thinks the one on Collingrove Road is the biggest. It’s a geocache location and there’s a note inside the box that says, “I think this is the largest eucalyptus tree in the Barossa Valley. If you know of a bigger one, let us know.”

What box? What note? What is geocaching?

Let’s start off with a definition:

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a GPS receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and sometimes a pen or pencil. The geocacher signs the log with their established code name and dates it, in order to prove that they found the cache. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) can also contain items for trading, such as toys or trinkets, usually of more sentimental worth than financial.

The photo at the top of this story is a stock shot I plucked off the internet. We didn’t see a plastic box around the Collingrove tree but then we weren’t looking for one. So who knows? One may have been hidden in plain sight somewhere very near the tree.

I suppose we should return to the tree off Steingarten Road, get its GPS coordinates, then return to the tree on Collingrove Road, find the box, write a note that provides those coordinates to geocachers who find this box in the future so that they can go find the Steingarten tree.

But that would be a lot of work for a hobby I’d never heard of until three days ago.

That being said, I may have to take up geocaching just so I can give myself a secret code name. I’m thinking it should be “Big Hunky.” Jamie thinks it should be “Big Dorky.”

Back in the days when I was an ad agency creative director I once interviewed a Madison Avenue copywriter. He showed me a commercial that featured a guy in a stomach costume boxing with a guy dressed as a carton of antacids. It was the worst commercial ever made.

Until now. Because here’s an Aussie commercial that features a talking large intestine named Gutsy and a turd named Nugget.

Seriously. I’m not making this shit up. But someone did.

We bought some very expensive trophies and had them hand-engraved in order to commemorate the recently-contested Biggest Tree in the Barossa competition. Money was no object. If I’m not mistaken, the trophies set us back $8 and $5 (Australian) respectively (engraving included).

The First and Probably Last Meeting of the BVBTESCCC&AC (The Barossa Valley Biggest Tree Executive Sub-Committee, Coffee Club and Awards Committee) was held across the street at John & Margaret’s house. Awards were distributed by the Official Girth Measurement Team (Jamie and me).

Scottie (left) was very proud to take home the award for first place in the Biggest Tree in the Barossa contest.

Dr John (right) was somewhat less proud to take home the “First Place for the Second Biggest Tree in the Barossa” trophy.

The good doctor seemed a bit miffed that his tree didn’t measure up. I don’t think the symbolism was lost on anyone who knows him.

Welcome to the greatest competition the Southern Hemisphere has ever seen.

Neighbor John took us out a few weeks ago to see what he called “South Australia’s biggest eucalyptus tree.” Neighbor Scottie took issue with that assessment and said he knew of an even bigger one.

I was tired of hearing them bicker back and forth, so I proposed that we round up a tape measure, then drive out and measure both trees to settle the argument once and for all.

Neither John nor Scottie trusted each other to conduct the measuring process with an unbiased eye, so I was invited to be the Impartial Arbiter of Eucalyptus Girth. It is an honor and I will do my best to live up to the trust they have placed in me.

Here are the competitors (Scottie on the left, John on the right). Both worthy. Both with outstanding credentials. Both girded for the greatest confrontation since Muhammed Ali met Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila.

First we drove out to Collingrove Road to measure the tree John claimed was the biggest in South Australia. As I’ve told you before, he was the Angaston town doctor for fifty years and visited every part of the Barossa while making his rounds. Hence his confidence.

Then we drove all the way across the valley to Steingarten Road to see and measure the tree Scottie insisted was the biggest in the state. Scottie was the valley’s leading realtor for many years. So he has visited, walked, and sold almost every piece of property as part of his duties. Hence his confidence.

The final measurements?

John’s eucalyptus tree measured a massive 31 feet 9 inches in circumference. Scottie’s measured an even more massive 34 feet 6 inches.

Game. Set. Match. Scottie.

Sadly, John has not taken his humiliating defeat well. He seems to have become a shattered, broken man since the results were announced, a shell of his once confident self. I fear for his mental and physical well-being.

Sad to see such a vibrant young man wither away in such a tragic way.

The series of Aussie tourism commercials I showed you the other day were made for the American audience. This one’s made for the Brits. And it features some great moments that speak directly to Australia and England’s long-standing love-hate relationship.

The whole commercial is written around Aussie icon Kylie Minogue who is proudly, unapologetically Aussie but has lived in England for many years.

Kylie sings, “You can play backyard cricket.” Followed by Aussie bad boy cricket star Shane Warne looking straight into the camera and saying, “But get ready to lose.”

Kylie sings, ”We speak your language.” Followed by an Aussie broke saying, “Except for the vowels.”

Kylie sings, ”Sisters and brothers.” The same bloke sings, “We know you think you’re above us.” And Kylie responds with, “But deep down you love us…”

Another fun commercial. Great job by Tourism Australia and its ad agency. (Although Jamie is not an aficionado of TV commercials, she seems particularly impressed with the shot of the lifeguards’ asses located, appropriately, as the back end of the commercial.)

We were FaceTiming with god daughter Stella the other day and all agreed on one crazy quarantine phenomenon. We have time enough to do everything, but just can’t get motivated to do anything.

When this whole thing started we thought we’d accomplish so much. All those long-delayed home improvement projects would get checked off the list. The garden would look like something out of Architectural Digest. And dining? We were all going to make Gordon Ramsey seem like an amateur.

So how’s that going for you? Probably about as well as it’s been going for Jamie and me.

Want to feel like a real slug? Consider what 23-year old Sir Isaac Newton accomplished while he was quarantined during the bubonic plague outbreak in 1665:

In the 18 months he spent in isolation, Newton laid the foundations for calculus, investigated optics, and determined that white light consisted of all components of the visible spectrum. The revolutionary law of universal gravity was also born at his home in Woolsthorpe Manor.

… Newton eventually returned to the university after the Great Plague, and he went on to become a professor. His discoveries during the quarantine, though, served as the foundation for some of the greatest scientific innovations.

Newton’s not the only one who accomplished more than I have during self-isolation. During later plagues William Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Mary Shelley created the entire sci-fi genre when she wrote Frankenstein.

Me? I write a daily blog item. Sometimes I take MLB.com’s baseball trivia quiz of the day.

What a loser.

South Australia is the driest state on the driest continent. And this lack of liquids has clearly driven our friend Ken insane.

Ken is the former owner of our little cottage on French Street. He claims that when he sold the cottage he retained the right to take water from its water tank. About once a week we find him in our back yard filling half a dozen or so half gallon jugs with water.

A brief word of explanation: Because South Australia is so dry, virtually every home has a big water storage tank like the one behind Ken. Elaborate gutter systems ensure that every drop of rainwater is captured in those tanks. It’s as if Frank Herbert’s famous sci-fi novel Dune had come to life.

What does Ken do with all the water he takes from the tank? This is where it gets crazy.

He drinks it.

He claims the tank water is the reason he is so healthy, that it’s full of vitamins and minerals that have made his immune system virtually indestructible.

But here’s the problem.

It may be full of vitamins and minerals, but it’s also full of lots of other stuff. Nasty, nasty stuff. When rainwater falls on the roof, it flows down into the gutters and then into the tank, taking with it everything that had been on the roof. Including bugs. And dirt. And excrement from every animal that’s ever lived in or migrated through the Barossa Valley.

And that’s not even the worst part.

There’s a hole where the gutter meets the tank. A small hole, to be sure, but certainly large enough for a possum or a bird or a lizard to crawl through, fall into the water and die. And rot. And then the whole noxious olio steeps under the blistering Australian sun until it transforms into a hellish witches’ brew.

It’s disgusting. Jamie and I wouldn’t drink that water if we were dying of thirst. Neither would Ken’s wife Sue.

I have given Ken’s unsavory sludge a name. An appropriate name.

Bugweiser.

So sad that the same mixture that has boosted his immune system has simultaneously destroyed his brain.

Our neighbor Scottie has me a bit worried. He admits that he’s quite smitten with Jamie and has told several neighbors that he has a foolproof scheme to do away with me and then take my place.

He has been understandably hesitant about sharing the details with me, but informed sources say it has something to do with stabbing me in the back with an icicle so that all the evidence melts away.

I’m pretty sure that the only thing that’s kept me alive so far is the Barossa’s temperate climate.

One day Scottie was carrying on about his future with Jamie when I said, “Hey, you gotta get in line, buddy. There are about eight guys in front of you.”

His response? “At least I’m in the queue.”

This is what happened when I handed Scottie my phone and asked him to take a photo of Jamie and me.