Miracle Mile Article 2

By the Adelaide Reader

Waterfall Gully, Australia – It's not much of a giggle to find yourself dealing with diabetes at 54, especially if you make a quid with tourists on bushwalking trails every day. I felt for 'John P.', who, after 20 years of guiding visitors around these hills, found himself dealing with trials no one should ever have to.

Then after four years of “nutritional supplements,” he went into Plympton Park to see a new doctor – and by the time he got there, his blood sugars were perfect. The doctor said that spontaneous insulin production is possible, and could revert back soon enough, but 'John' told the doctor that even the injection marks were gone.

Too mystified to tell his story to anyone, 'John' kept it secret until he revealed the whole unvarnished truth to the Reader.. Figuring he really had lost it after all those years in the sun, I said deadpan that he must have been cured by the “Miracle Mile” everyone's been talking about.

“That's fair dinkum,” he replied.

Then, a few days later, the plot thickened when I heard about a woman with a severe nut allergy working on Mt. Lofty, who got better after she visited a pub on “the Mile.”

The story is that she ate a whole counter lunch thinking the fish was crusted over with breadcrumbs – until she learned the truth to her horror.

“Nuts,” said the waiter,. “In fish sauce.”

The woman (name withheld) threw a wobbly and went right back home expecting the worst. It never came, and a few days later she tested it herself with a pack of salty pralines. Today she figures she's put on four kilos just enjoying the indulgence she was deprived of for years.

Maybe I'm not playing with a full deck for putting this all in print, you say as you finger the corner of the page? Maybe “the Mile” is just a helping of pork pie served to get the Seppos in the seats?

Well, I leave you with a thought from 'John' himself, who is back to giving tours five days a week.

“Thank God it's only one mile,” he said, “or I might've been cured of all my sins.”