Once again the population was in fancy dress – the women in starched white aprons and mob caps, the men, according to whether they were intellectuals or businessmen, done up as bumpkins or landowners. We arrived in time to see the Federal Member handing out medals to the winners of the Open Male and Open Female Fun Run. ‘I think it would be quite remiss of me not to thank the people of Quorn for showing true country hospitality,’ he said, once he’d kissed Cindy Smith, the Open Female winner, on both cheeks.

This was not Tanunda though. There was no wine tasting tent and no Luftwaffe music either. Quite the contrary. In the presence of no less a person than John Bannon, the Premier of South Australia himself, the loyal schoolchildren of Quorn, dressed like little serving folk, stood to attention as the Union Jack was unfurled upon a flag pole and one of their number stifled her sense of ribaldry just long enough to deliver the original 1836 Oath of Allegiance. ‘I love my country, the British Empire – I salute her flag, the Union Jack. I honour her Queen. I promise faithfully to obey her laws.’

Sitting on a box covered in red material the Premier nodded his approval. On one side of him sat his wife, on the other the Lord and Lady Mayoress of Quorn. The Lady Mayoress was in period dress; the Lord Mayor might have been. ‘When I think of those pioneers trudging out into the scrub,’ the Premier said, casting his eye upon a far horizon so that there should be no confusion between the scrub and Quorn, ‘I’m lost in admiration.’

I was fairly far gone in wonderment myself. John Bannon looked about nineteen. Which was young for a Premier even by South Australian standards. And yet he remembered where he was – ‘I predict a great future for places like Quorn’; made only two mistakes with the names of the Lord and Lady Mayoress – one with hers, one with his; and even wove a little theme – that of transportation – into his impromptu speech. Ever since he had been transported in he had been transported back, and wasn’t at all looking forward to being transported out.

It was hard not to like him, he bore so strong a resemblance to the State all over which, for this interminable sesquicentenary, he had to consent to be transported. He and South Australia – they possessed the same buttoned-up juvenescence and humourless charm. You couldn’t help feeling that they would both be at their best in another 150 years’ time. In the meantime the State could not stop squeezing itself into period costume while its Premier kept his collar stiff and fastened tight around his neck and his black socks smooth around his ankles.

I bought a foot-long sausage on a wooden stick and drove eastwards past ruined villages – crumbling monuments to misplaced optimism – into the Flinders Ranges proper.