"Please come to Penola and open our new art gallery. We have named it Le Max - in honor of your father!" The year was drawing to an exhausting end and all I wanted to do with just a few days off in lieu of unpaid overtime was to lie down. But this was an invitation one simply couldn't refuse. I do a lot of this sort of thing - but in my role as Arts Editor of the metropolitan daily paper. This was different. I was being invited as my father's daughter - to the region where he is now hallowed as a literary son of the land.

( He - Max Harris - grew up in this part of the land - a precocious prodigy child who, through controversy, intellectual fearlessness and poetic brilliance, became a famous figure in Australia's cultural landscape - and was decorated by the Government for his contributions to the nation's cultural life. He died in 1995.)

They already have a collection of Max memorabilia in Penola and annually present a prestigious literary award in his name. Now an art gallery!

The town of Penola is in the South East of South Australia - about 4 hours drive from the state capital, Adelaide, where jubjub and I live. It is in an ancient volcanic landscape, a terrain honeycombed with caves and tunnels and graced with rich agricultural soils and magnificent pastoral vistas. The drive down to open the new art gallery was quite delightful. The moment I hit the open road, I realise how much I miss a real horizon - those vast expanses where you can almost see the curve of the earth against the sky. This sense of space is renewing - and I could feel the city tensions easing away as we moved south under that big sky. Across the meandering Murray River, big and muddy with its nestling colonies of houseboats, through the dry lands where the rain just won't fall, into the pastoral lands where great big gum trees dot the landscapes way into the distance and then into the vineyards which stretch, in parts, as far as the eye can see. Wineries, wineries, wineries. Finally to sweet Penola - a little township growing famous now because of Mother Mary MacKillop - the Josephite nun who, as an egalitarian educator and fiesty feminist, is becoming Australia's first saint. She began her work in Penola. Her schools are now national and international.

They had accommodated us in a glorious little pioneer cottage - little low-roofed 1846 house which looks quite crude from the road but is well equipped inside without spoiling its historic integrity.

I was totally blown away when I saw the Le Max gallery. It is stunnnnning. It is a converted warehouse. They have painted the exterior in the blue of the country sky and added the image of a gumtree across it - to reflect the great old gums which stand dotted in that vast pastoral landscape. Instead of a railing on the porch, they built a classic farm wire fence with old weathered fenceposts. Gorgeous. Inside it is huge and handsome. A perfect high-quality artspace with expansive polished wood floors and crisp white walls. Skylights from the lofty corrugated iron roof add to the sense of expansiveness. A large specially-commissioned portrait of my father, the poet Max Harris, adorned one wall and beneath it were quotations from one of his poems painted on a great slab of local wood. Paintings in various genres adorned the walls along with vivid silk hangings and garments, some draped on freestanding bentwood hatstands. The central floorspace was dotted with sleek sculptures in redgum - rich, sensual creations by sculptor Guy Detot. Further smaller sculptures and ceramic works stood on plinths, one of which was appropriated for my speech. I like to lean!

People flocked in and wonderful Coonawarra wines were served. Everyone mingled and scrutinised the artworks. A couple of red stickers went on the wall, causing artists to smile broadly.

I was I gave a rather provoactive speech and the people loved it. I read one poem of my father's and they asked me to read another. So I did. Then, rather than declaring the gallery open, I performed an old Greek blessing, producing some sugar which I sprinkled ritualistically in each corner of the artspace. That went down really well - everyone was charmed with the symbolism and I had to do it all over again for the photographers.

The hospitality was superb. They had wonderful dishes from the local trout farm and all sorts of fantastic wines from the surrounding Coonawarra wine region. which, with its magical "terra rossa" soils is not only one of the best wine regions in Australia but one of the top spots in the world.

I have always adored the people of that area and they make me feel very loved and welcome. There was much sitting out on the porch, smoking and sipping the gorgeous wines, talking art and literature and history. Lots of people to meet. Chewing the fat with all of them - until two came to me with a mission! A journalist is never off duty. So it was back into the car and out the other side of town to try to save an old semi-derelict homestead in the pine forests. The goverment wants to bulldoze it for new plantations - but it is history to the locals, surrounded by a wonderful old botanical garden planted by their ancestors and it is the last relic of what was once a flourishing settlement. So it was out with the Nikon for jubs - photos taken, notes taken, story in the can...and back to the gallery, pausing only to eat sun-warmed dates which lay beneath the old "his and hers" date palms planted by the first settler couple.

We had a beaut lingering evening meal at the town pub and then repaired to play petanque (a game rather like bocce I think) which is hugely popular in SA. I had never played before but, after a few glasses of sparkling shiraz, it was easy!!! Much laughter all around - playing by streetlight and moonlight.

The next day after breakfast with the artist Guy Detot, who is French and a former Ballet Rambert dancer, and some songs performed in the gallery, we visited other friends who have built a magnificent pole house in their vineyard - open plan and sleek so that from every angle one has expansive views of the acres and acres of vineyards and the clusters of ancient gumtrees in between. They offer it as a place to stay if I want an retreat and jubs and I reallllly like the idea. They off to a winery where sculptor Gabriel Sterk has created a huge new bronze of two horses. Of course we paused for a tasting of the Rymill wines there and Bruce bought a stash of Cabernet Sauvignon and I bought some lovely "stickies" (dessert wines). One can never leave the Coonawarra without a stock of cellar door purchases. At least I never can!

We bypassed the lobster and shrimp fishing beach towns on the way home, cutting overland - where jubs was charmed to spot kangaroos lazing about the place - to take the coast road so that we could walk in the sulphury exotica of the Coorong which is a shallow waterway between sandhills which stretches along the coast of the gulf. It is a very large feature, preserved from development and sacred to the local Nunga (Aboriginal) people. We love the Coorong and take every chance to explore new spots. This time we found the area which looks out onto the island where the pelicans breed. The little island was so covered with pelicans it looked as if it was wearing a black and white wig. We watched the pelicans' fishing ballet - they swim in rows, dipping their great beaks under water in almost choreographed synchronism. They are the most gracious of all birds - and my favorite of all birds. And we strolled the coastal paths examining native flora - with jubs giving extended expert discourses on each and every insect we saw, of course! If you ever want to know about the wingless wasp, just let me know.

An expedition to the South East is never complete without pausing at the fisherman's wife's caravan and buying the fresh catch of the day from the Coorong. It's just a red caravan permanently parked on a windswept curve of this inland coastal road. Many people miss it. Not me! Coorong mullet are one of the best fish in the world in my opinion - and I was sad that a windy night had meant only a small catch. However, she had enough for one meal as well as a larger quantity of mulloway which is another superb local fish. So we stocked up with enough spare for our fish-loving friend Koalamof.

And thus it was back to the city lights - and the speeding treadmill. It was only two days in the country - but I felt reborn!

- written in honor of the family and the inner sanctum of his friends (Peter, a theatre director/critic, Paul, his "minder", and Mary, the extraordinary pioneer educator whose achievements Max long promoted to the world in his national writings, although he was not of her religion. This was one of his last poems and was published posthumously by the National Library of Australia in the book, "The Angry Eye", a selection of his lyric poetry.