The Green Bogey Down Under

Janitales

2012-01-29T19:38:00.017+11:00

January doesn’t bring with it the same depressiveness in Australia as it does in the UK, but that’s not to say it isn’t without its flaws. First, you still have to go back to work after Christmas. I would argue it is more frustrating being tucked away in an office staring at a screen on beautiful sunny days than it is to be comforted in a cosy cubicle with hot drinks and heating during bleak Dickensian winters. The fact that most other people are still on holiday is equally unjust. The other thing you have to contend with at this time of year is an annoyingly resurgent Australian cricket team, and with it, the return to sledging and arrogance. The tennis is less annoying, except in cases where Channel 7 decides to cut away to a match featuring some hapless local and you have no other choice because they haven’t figured out how to use their other digital channels except for endless re-runs of Escape to the Country. And the same old adverts between games begin to drive you mad by the quarter finals.

Anyway, these are clearly all first world problems and in reality January has general been genial, though I have felt restricted in my enjoyment of more recent parts of it thanks to some stupid illness or other. This has kept me mostly in and around Canberra, though with torrents of rain and gloom on the coast, that’s probably a good thing. Getting out and about has included enjoying the garden, helpless to watch nature take over before it is tamed as far as it can be, feeling less guilty about its wildness when wild creatures take a liking to it.

‘If only I had the time and resources of the Australian National Botanic Gardens’ I sighed as I walked along one of their always charming pathways, under cooling ferns and aesthetically pleasing eucalypt and flower combinations. Or even the National Arboretum, which seems to be coming along at great speed, though I’m not so fond of its very regimental lines of trees, preferring as I do the wild, rambling landscape of my garden.

Not helping my gardening woes is the precariousness of January’s weather. A few characteristically blistering days have been interspersed with cool changes, brooding clouds and occasional downpours. The plants love it, and I don’t mind it too...it’s generally been dry enough to do stuff and not too hot that all you can do is eat ice cream and watch annoying cricket in the dark with the fans whirling at level 3. This mixture of sun and cloud and general broodiness about the place has enlivened the random evening walks upon Red Hill and thereabouts, a place where even my garden is put in the shade by its wild bushland charms.

As the sun sets from Red Hill Reserve the silhouette of higher ground out west gives the Brindabellas more prominence, resembling a mountainous landscape in which are very Australian-style mountains. Now, along the spectrum of wilderness these are up the top end, more so than Red Hill; indeed more so than my garden. They remain pretty inaccessible, despite their proximity to the national capital, a thought I find rather exciting...a reminder of what a vast and untamed place this remains. There is a road, and it’s a road I’ve never been on before, slightly uncertain of how narrow, winding and rutted the dirt track would be. But with some dry weather behind me, and very little traffic for company, all was well on the way to Mount Franklin, with some stunning views from the ridgeline to the west. There are further roads to follow on this journey.

While it isn’t really true to say all roads lead to the capital, come Australia Day it does take on something resembling prominence. For it is here that formal ceremonies and parties and shambolic protests mix with the ever-enduring sausage sizzles and lamington bake-offs. Australia Day for me was spent in a reasonably patriotic way – watching sport, eating food, wearing thongs. I couldn’t resist mixing a little with the locals, pottering about around some of the national institutions, accidentally coming across Lamington bake-offs and fighter jet fly bys. The sounds of Waltzing Matilda echoing on the breeze from the citizenship ceremony across the lake, latte-supping among Australian hats and rising intonations. And a big bang on which to go out on, obligatory fireworks by the lake.

With Australia Day, the completion of the annoying test series, the culmination of the tennis, you could be forgiven for thinking summer was coming to an end. People will be coming back to work, thinking how depressing it is. But the sun is still setting after eight, BBQs are still entirely acceptable and shorts are still de rigueur du jour. The garden will not be dying off for quite some time.

Selection Pack

2012-01-03T20:49:00.025+11:00

Well, it’s good to have made it into 2012, without any falling in of the sky or earth shattering meteorites eclipsing even London’s New Year pyrotechnics. The first few days of ‘twenty twelve’ have continued as twenty eleven left off, that is to say with copious food, steamy weather and a supposedly resurgent Australian cricket team. The Christmas and New Year break was itself like one of those selection packs I probably devoured along the way – a bit of a twirl, occasionally crunchie and in need of a boost when at times it went all curly wurly, very fattening, but ultimately delicious.

It began last year in Sydney, symbolically at South Head, the entrance to a city in a wonderful yet slightly self-satisfied holiday nirvana. At this point it was surprisingly quiet, the blanketing cloud subduing smells of sunscreen and wafting prawn smoke, the fish and chips possibly reheated due to low customer volume at Watson’s Bay. Further down the coast in Bellevue Hill where I was house and cat-sitting, the next few days were spent trying to appease Ricky Ponting and find a suitable ham to cook. Neither was easy, Ponting typically aloof and full of swagger, miaowing in the early hours and only coming round with the juicy full toss of catnip infused treats. Meanwhile, the ham quest proved impossible, despite the likes of Nigella and Gordon showing us how it is done on the ABC every night. It just seems all the hams for purchase are pre-cooked here, one of the more subtle distinction between the British and Aussie Christmas. Nonetheless, pre-cooked purchased ham turned out to be almost as delicious and similarly never-ending, turning up in sandwiches all the time.

After one dreary pre-big day morning, the weather dried out just a little to allow a little jaunt on the harbour while here, the affluent enclave that is Rose Bay being just down the road from Ponting Palace, and suitably equipped with a ferry stop. Somehow I managed to turn left rather than right, away from the ferry terminal, missing the 3pm ferry by seconds, but left with an hour to potter about alongside million dollar views and properties with accompanying price tags. It also gave me an opportunity to suss out the local ham options to no avail.

So in the end it was the 4pm ferry which propelled me alongside more million dollar pads and bays, the cool wind in the hair all the way to Circular Quay, where the Opera House was still standing and the big bridge thing was still working and all was well with the world, albeit again surprisingly subdued. And after a small potter around I headed up the road to Martin Place, from where I took an almost empty train back to Bondi Junction. Here, another fruitless meat search was consoled by probably the best food court laksa you will ever have the opportunity to enjoy.

In need of a bit of a boost, Christmas Eve provided a great day as summer came back and was set to stay around for a while, perfect timing and perfect opportunity to head to the beach. Despite my iPhone almost melting on the sands, a few hours at Nielson Park were amply enjoyed – stunning views and foreshore walking interspersed with beach lazing, water cooling and music listening (until aforementioned iPhone melting). And the party was back in town, beautiful people and their annoying whiney children back in force. I think there was even the mirage like glow of BBQ fumes in the air.

If the day was as sweet as a Cadbury’s caramel, the evening turned into a finger of fudge that was just enough to give the kids a nightmare. As the sun faded on an evening walk to Bondi Beach and back, all was well as I headed up to Bellevue Hill. A cold beer just minutes away, cooling fluid to the sausage rolls and cheesy marmites to be baked in the oven. Only I locked myself out, Ricky Ponting nowhere on hand to save me, the mosquitoes taking every advantage of the situation and my salvation coming at a cost of $180 thanks to a locksmith who looked every part the dodgy burglar. And as the last, somewhat belated cheesy marmite emerged out of the painfully slow oven, the clock ticked over to Christmas Day.

All I got for Christmas was the two front teeth of a hungry mosquito, plus a slightly amusing-in-hindsight tale for the Christmas dinner table. Well, this is not all true, it wasn’t that amusing, plus I had more presents (thanks to those who were so kind) and, apart from increasing itchiness, a rather lovely day. Morning coffee and shortbread on Coogee beach, endless picnic food under a shady tree as the weather shined, and lazy end of day BBQ and salads. Washed down with a little fizzy grape juice and capped by a Guinness World Record sized cheesecake to take me into the evening. Who says Santa Claus isn’t real, for thus sat a fat man in a red top with a couple of days of growth around the chin.

I can’t really remember too much about Boxing Day, other than that more food was involved. More ham, more chocolate, more of that cheesecake, and more cheese of the non-cake variety. Plus more re-organising, re-jigging and re-loading of various bags and coolers and implements in and out of the car, preparation for the next bar of goodness in the holiday selection pack.

-------------------------

The sights of the M4 West improve only marginally as the road rises into the plateau of the Blue Mountains. Crossing the range, through traffic jams and construction, it’s hard to believe that just a stone’s throw north and south of you stand plunging cliff lines and endless canyons of eucalyptus. Today it was hard to believe even atop one of the cliff lines, the low cloud kissing the ground and filtering its ghostly blankness down into the Grose Valley. Still, the ham roll consumed at this stop was one of the better ones.

Thankfully, and predictably if you are nerdy enough to understand prevailing weather patterns, clouds parted on the western side of the mountains and things had turned idyllic by the time the car entered the Wolgan Valley. Approaching this valley was something of a delight, seemingly hidden as it is, spreading out and glowing before you as the road peaks and winds its way through a narrow gap in the escarpment. And thankfully it still has that ‘lost world’ air, off the beaten track and open only to rich sheiks (in the seven star Emirates resort) or cheap bums (camping in Wollemi National Park).

No prizes for guessing where I stayed, but I can’t honestly think how paying $2,000 per night would match the experience of camping on a beautiful meadow, surrounded by sunlit sandstone cliffs and wombat infested bushland. Plus you get that back to nature fulfilment, where man becomes forager, and collecting firewood is the aim on a late afternoon amble along a tinkling river.

While the firewood collection was paltry compared to the efforts of the nearby bogan tent – who appeared to be deforesting Wollemi National Park – it was sufficient just for the thrill of lighting a fire, toasting some bread and being mesmerised by flame. Plus there was more ham and cheese and other leftovers to comfortably make this a seven star dining experience.

I guess there may have been one or two times when the resort looked the better option – a fitful night of sleep disturbed by the bogan fire and wombat grass-munching somewhere beside the ear. And a morning shower wouldn’t have been turned down (neither would a spa or massage or cocktail by the pool actually). But a breakfast of another ham sandwich and cheesy marmites did the trick, with the mild weather perfect for bushwalking without gathering too much more in the way of bad odour.

The walk followed, for the most part, an old rail line that was used to transport oil slate from this area some hundred years ago. It’s amazing the lengths that were gone to in order to get this rail line through the sandstone and connected to the outside world. But I guess not much is different a hundred years later, as mile upon mile of new railway line is laid in the Kimberley to transport rocky treasures to the ports and overseas to China. The great benefit of a rail line is that a hundred years later it provides a reasonably flat walk, and the bonus of a long tunnel now colonised by glow-worms.

Back out into the light, and the sun had expanded its way over the Blue Mountains and down to Sydney for the drive back. This time, no low cloud to conceal the Grose Valley, there to stare down into abuzz with a fresh coffee and celebrate the joy of surviving a night without running water, lighting fire, conquering river crossings and generally sounding more adventurous than you actually were.

-------------------------

The final bars from our sweet holiday selection come via Canberra, where New Year events were amiable and pleasant, with hassle-free fireworks and friendly drinks. The first day of 2012 finally brought about the first roast dinner of the Christmas holiday season; ironically it was also the warmest day so far, a 33 degree roasting for chook and the trimmings. However I don’t think it will ever be too hot to enjoy Christmas pudding with huge dollops of not-quite-Cornish but Tasmanian clotted cream.

Gargantuan food requires gargantuan exercise to offset the dastardly deeds of kilojoules and fat, and a gargantuan setting can be supplied a few hours south of Canberra in the Snowy Mountains. What better way to start 2012 than from the top of Australia, safe in the knowledge that literally the year is all downhill from here! Okay, so the chairlift from Thredbo took out a great deal of the ascent and descent, but a 13km round trip to Mount Kosciusko was rewarding in every sense. Rocky crags and crystal streams, alpine flowers and leftover chicken sandwiches, cooling relief at altitude from the rising temperatures below.

But while this may be the physical peak of this land, a high point to start the year, I’m possessed of that hope and optimism that comes with a new year ahead. It helps that it’s accompanied by summer, by light, sun-filled days and BBQs and leftover Christmas chocolates. Promises of more trips and travels are just around the corner, pathways are there to be trodden, opportunities to be grasped, landscapes to be photographed and experiences to be written. A delicious array of treats to continue to tuck into.

Jingle Jangle

2011-12-21T21:41:00.021+11:00

In what is likely to be the last blog post of 2011 (barring any torrential rain days, which is always a possibility this summer), it’s good to reflect on the year that has gone with a feeling that I end it in a better place than I started. Well, geographically speaking that’s not true – I’m in the same place, pretty much, apart from the random meanderings, which have long been a feature of the last five years anyhow. The trips have been relatively sparse over the last month, jeopardising my frequent flyer status, but a recent diversion was divertingly refreshing and the entry into Christmas comes via the eastern suburbs of Sydney where, once again, it is at a knife edge as to whether Christmas Day will bring miserable weather or not.

Talking of the weather still, because I remain English at heart, it’s been the coldest start to summer for 50 years, making it so far akin to June days in Blighty. What this means is that shorts one day become redundant the next, brollies are all the rage, and planning any outdoor activity becomes subject to the lottery of nimbostratus and electrostatic discharge. Hence it’s been pretty good to stick close to home, making the most of days when the chance of showers remains just a chance rather than reality, and the longer summer nights beckon glowing evening walks with the wildlife for company.

Weekends at home have been invaluable for maintaining some control of a garden in constant celebration mode, plus the chance to catch up with good friends, to cook and eat what is cooked, and to get on top of Christmas. But I was glad to get away for a couple of days just recently, to open up the shoulders and rekindle the spark that is driving around random areas of Australia doing generally random things in a haphazard fashion. Not to mention finding myself in an area of fine, warm but not too hot weather, where golden, sunbaked Australia was still alive and well.

Thus I found myself driving along the Riverina Highway alongside golden wheat fields to the NSW town of Mulwala one Monday evening, enjoying the occasional glimpse of the Murray River as it seeped over the land and spread out into the gum pocketed expanse of Lake Mulwala. It’s great to end up in a place you know nothing about – had never even heard of – and find its existence is taking place in a fully functional and agreeable kind of way.

The heart of these places tends to be the RSL. I figure I have not talked so much about RSLs on this blog but they are a pervasive feature of Australian life. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they are so popular. Typically cavernous 60s style blocks of concrete and glass, sheltering expansive halls of poker machines, stale beer odours wafting their way under and over the revolting carpets, and endless rows of tables constituting the ‘bistro’. Now a bistro to me conjures up images of France, a little eatery on the high street serving up fresh and hearty fare on chequered tablecloths, the faces of customers glowing courtesy of candlelight and a glass or two of red wine. Contrast this with a crumbed bit of processed chicken served in an environment of glaring lights overhead, puke coloured carpet beneath, all washed down with caustic beer and the exploitative jingle of problem-gambling. Something lost in translation.

To be fair I’m not so sure this one called itself a bistro, and I neither had indigestion nor illness from the evening’s events. So all was well as I made my way alongside the river before daylight disappeared, nature’s lights an antidote to the yellowish tinge of the RSL. The noise was less calming however, as thousands of cockatoos wrought their nightly havoc, a cacophony of white flitting from tree to tree alongside the placid banks of the Murray. Despite being grating, a reassuring soundtrack to country Australia.

The following day allowed for some time to wander on the way back to Albury airport, and I spent most of it on the southern side of the Murray River in Victoria. There seems to be something rather charming about the small country towns that dot their way around Victoria with a typically more refined character and essence than those to the north. I think much of it has to do with gold, which made genteel towns out of nothing and provided sturdy Victorian architecture and, in places, relative grandeur. Today the gold is being pillaged in Western Australia and leaving a legacy of fibro shacks and shipping container housing. The new gold in places like Rutherglen and Beechworth appears to be fruit, wine, fresh local meats and cheeses, and passing tourists keen for some gourmet treats along with their bushwalking.

I stopped briefly in Rutherglen for a delicious pie from the local bakery and, further out of town, called by at a vineyard to buy some sparkly Christmas plonk. But most of my time was spent ambling in Beechworth, a former gold town situated on the edge of the Victorian High Country, which is of itself great appeal when time and circumstance allows. On this trip however, I was content with a walk around Beechworth, checking out various gold-related settlements. If it wasn’t about extracting and selling gold then it was about stealing and engaging in highway robbery of the bushranger variety. The local court and lock up preserved, with a roll call of once famous visitors to their wooden flooring and golden brickwork.

Which all in a characteristically roundabout way brings us back to Christmas, for I confess to stealing the occasional gold wrapped hazelnut encased in nutty chocolate in a way which is spoiling us confection from Mum’s stocks. I wasn’t put in a cell, but did endure three hours of Coronation Street followed by Emmerdale, then Eastenders, then Corrie again, followed by Enders. Oh and then a Holby City Christmas Special for another hour! Tis the season to be jolly after all.

Seasonal jolliness emerges in the most unlikely of places, a very affluent suburban enclave of ‘boring Canberra’ being one. For I leave you with the sparkling lights of the non-pokie-in-RSL variety from a house in one of those wonderful, sweeping tree lined circles of Forrest, not so far from the PM’s pad. Apparently it holds a world record for having the highest number of light bulbs in use for Christmas decorations. This is mainly achieved by using those lights you tend to see on Christmas trees. Heaven knows what happens when one of them blows and needs replacing! The display is sponsored by the local energy company ActewAGL. Happy Holidays!

Encompassing

2011-11-27T18:21:00.012+11:00

Recently, here in Canberra, like a flash in a pan, the rock star entourage that was President Obama came and went, turning prime ministers giddy and hard-nosed commentators all warm and fluffy for a few minutes. While the presidents and queens and clone armies of government come and go, like migratory birds without the sense of direction, the city of Canberra remains steadfast. Unfaltering in its provision of flowing circles lined with decadent green, balancing sweltering blue skies with somehow comforting gloomy days of rain, ever ready with an ample supply of floral Australiana. And here I sit, after five years, an attachment formed in comfort and familiarity, yet still delivering contentment and possibility.

At the centre of it all is home, the Australian home, where comfort and familiarity abounds with your own space and belonging. Outside the home, there’s both the annoyance and pleasure of its rambling garden, always keen to turn feral in the warming sun and soakings of spring, but delighting with the vibrancy of its callistemon scattered among the weeds. Both inside and beyond home there is work, and yes, I am forced to earn some money again after all this extravagant living! But even that is comforting for a while – the routine and expectation that you are somehow making a worthwhile contribution to something somewhere.

From home – and from work – Canberra and its surrounds have continued to provide a variety of rediscoveries and comforting familiarities. At its centre, the lake continues to look slightly murky and smell funny in places, but then with the right light and formation of aesthetically pleasing shapes and forms becomes somewhat pleasing in an aesthetic sense.

From this centrepiece of man-made curves and inlets, points north, south, east and west have offered chance and freedom to enjoy the emergence and occasional disappearance of summer. These compass points drawing together a series of disparate journeys, providing a contrived underlying theme to some wearisome prose. I really should write this blog more often as such tenuous connections are becoming increasingly difficult to thread together.

Heading east on our compass for some time and thoughts of stagnant but shimmering man-made inland lakes become a distant memory, replaced by crystal surf and golden sands. For all its pent up frustration at being inland, Canberra is blessed with its relative proximity to such a wonderful stretch of the NSW coastline. A visit was long overdue last Saturday, with my aim little more than to fill the day with archetypal south coast activities. Essentially this means brunch by the Bay, a wander through bushland and windswept sands, ice creams and lazing with a book on the sand, and fish n chips to send me on my way back over the mountain. Food of course always central to the plan.

That’s not to say I have continued to balloon following my exertions with food in the USA. Hopefully things have stabilised on that front, and the light evenings and mild temperatures have been conducive to at least some encouragement for exercise. North of home, and just across that lake, stands Mount Ainslie, my own nemesis for which I have a love-hate relationship. It’s a gorgeous piece of bushland, scattered with roos and rosellas, delightful at day’s end when the fading sun illuminates Canberra’s centre with a warming tranquillity. Such is my familiarity with this place that I know that with some discomfort you can march up the summit in 19 minutes and 58 seconds. Alas throw in a small child blocking the route and you can top out over the 20 minutes by 5 seconds. It’s not a second, seven seconds away.

Mount Ainslie, like so many lumps in the capital, offers that little piece of bushland in the midst of suburbia. But head south and these lumps become somewhat lumpier and decidedly less suburban, as the Australian Alps begin to rise. You can start a track from Canberra and walk all the way through the high country, into Victoria and probably end up drinking a pot of Carlton Draught in Melbourne while discussing the latest drafts for the Bombers.

While nothing on the scale of Alps elsewhere and nowhere near offering the rain shadow experiences of a Mount Rainier, it provides a little buffer for the capital, attracting the heaviest thunderstorms and low clouds. At other times it can be baking hot, an immense bowl of firewood ready for a lightning spark and fierce northerly to run amok. With five years on my account I’ve seen this area green up from the scars of the huge 2003 bushfire, yet blackened trunks remain among the vibrant foliage and cascading waters. A reminder that even with the fragrant menthol and lemon scent unleashed by recent heavy rains, this landscape can turn in a flash.

A less tempestuous offering sits just a little east from home, a consistent pleasure that always lifts and invigorates, without as much painstaking effort involved as Mount Ainslie. It’s one of my favourite places in the world, such is what happens when you accumulate hours in its company. To many it wouldn’t seem remarkable, just another patch of long yellow grasses swaying in the breeze and gnarly white gum trees pointing heavenwards. And, to be fair, they would be right. But it’s your little place, one that is more than a landscape, a place that has shared your thoughts, your joys and hopes and fears and peaks and troughs. And through it all it carries on regardless, flocks of cockatoos vying for company with galahs and rosellas as the sunlight sparkles across its horizon each eve. Kangaroos gathering in shady hollows with the passage of the sun. Runners and dog walkers following their carefully crafted routines to the letter. And random immigrants capturing the same photos over and over again with the comforting thought that familiarity breeds content, wherever one may end up on the compass.

The Return to Oz

2011-11-06T12:14:00.016+11:00

A couple of weeks before the flying kangaroo decided it wasn’t suited to flying, being a two legged marsupial and all, a Qantas A380 transported me from yesterday back to the future. Can there be any better welcome than a sparkling sunny Sydney Sunday morning to remind you what a great place this is? The sunshine continued down to Canberra, though after a few weeks in the Pacific Northwest it was noticeable how grey the green of the eucalypts appeared. Greener was the garden, which occupied my time and provided access to endless Vitamin D in the first week back, alongside a spot of reading, biking, walking, shopping, eating, and drinking.

While my return was somewhat eclipsed by the Queen being in town as well, it was great to catch up with friends, drink good coffee and avoid tall racist Greek princes bumbling through flower beds. After so long away I was particularly keen, despite its grey tinge, to go bush. The time of year especially appealing as winter turns to summer and life lurches forward at a tumultuous pace. Life which includes snakes and echidnas, all observed from a safe distance on a classic country bush ramble around Googong Dam one very warm morning.

In a now fully serviced yet still with dodgy exhaust car, the second weekend back heralded a return to Sydney and opportunity to glow by the sea, feel inadequate amongst the lean, fit, stylish people around me, and take solace in wonderful brunches and sand in the toes. With leisurely time on my hands I took the long way round, detouring via Kangaroo Valley and embarking on a thoroughly enjoyable amble amongst wildflowers to view verdant valleys and sandstone castles of rock. Ticking off one archetypal Aussie landscape, it wasn’t too long before another was in view, and the saturated blues, greens and yellows of the south coast provided welcome background to coffee and cake at Kiama.

Sydney itself provided that wonderful feeling of milling around on a beach with a coffee while still enjoying temporary retirement. The surprising thing is that there seem to be lots of people on temporary retirement or, more likely along the Eastern Suburbs, copiously wealthy to be able to potter around and watch investment returns pile up while the other 99% sleep in tents. Many of these people seem to partake in exercise as a means of filling their days, the multiple steps from Coogee to Clovelly providing a beautiful arena for their aerobic excessiveness. Others simply get someone to tell them to run up to a tree and back several times, oblige willingly, and pay them handsomely. For my part, I took the middle ground – a free walk with moderate briskness.

This exercise just about justified sharing a pizza and chips with a beer and chit chat in Bondi later in the day, and a non-American but equally impressive burger even later in the day. By the next morning, the revisit to Globe for breakfast probably tipped the food v exercise scales deeply out of my favour, so once more some time to walk it off around the sweeping sand of Cronulla and the northern bushland and sandstone cliffs of Royal National Park.

While there was some murk, a choppy ride across the Hacking River, and an unfortunate stumble to a lookout with views violated by a nude bloke with sagging appendages tanning his plums, the return journey to Cronulla was significantly plainer sailing and sunshine returned for what was a blissful hour on the fully clothed beach. How I have missed those Australian beaches, they really are the world’s best.

The remainder of the weekend embraced more in the way of eating and a little less in the way of exercise, though my final breakfast by the beach was followed by 217 steps uphill and back to the car for the return trip to Canberra. By now I was getting dangerously close to embarking on permanent retirement, but with some business related income on the horizon, the trip back started to feel a little like the end of another holiday. Still, there was significant diversion to stretch it out, quite literally diverting to the Wollongong freeway and a fine vista from the escarpment before the long haul home. And, back there, one final event which officially signified the return to Oz. Steak on the barbie maaaaate.

Specific Pacific Northwest Blogfest

2011-10-19T13:18:00.064+11:00

And so the mammoth 2011 trip finished in a suitably majestic corner of the world, where the colour green rules and imperious snow laden volcanoes remind you that this Starbucks caramel macchiato could be your first and last. It also brings to an end some mammoth blog entries, and the challenge of condensing 72 days and 3,239 photos into a few trite words and pretty pictures. That’s an average of 45 photos a day, which is pretty ridiculous but such is the modern age of mega memory cards and my haphazard digital shooting. For the record, and to prove to myself that I still have the old magic, New York unsurprisingly had the largest average photo quota of 153 spd (snaps per day), while Spain the lowest (a measly 5.4 spd...too many siestas and holiday waters methinks). The most photos in total however were from the Pacific Northwest, just topping out at over a thousand and an average of 62.8 spd in the 17 days spent there.

This particular photofest commenced on a flight up from Los Angeles, which itself looks best from the air, over the wonderful Californian Sierras and Yosemite, north across the vivid blue of Tahoe and ever onward until the characteristic murk and moisture of the northwest jetstream shrouds Seattle. A jetstream that was to frustrate in my pursuit of perfect blue skies and alpine meadows and glimmering mountain tops in the next 17 days. Still, it didn’t stop me taking that many photos did it?!

Oop north

Reaching this corner of the world was quite a trip in itself – a cross-country flight from New York, up to Seattle and then onward in a waiting-to-be-splattered-by-mud-and-flies white Toyota Prius to the town of Bellingham, only a relative stone’s throw from the Canadian border. The next day, the contrast from New York was all too apparent, deer crossing the suburban roads on my way to a little stroll through the town’s Whatcom Park and its pretty falls. I liked Bellingham pretty much immediately.

From here my mission was to hopefully capture sight of the first big volcanic mound of the trip, Mount Baker. It wasn’t to be (today at least) but the ride along Highway 542 was a good way to open up my journeying into Cascade country. The pounding mountain waters plummeting at Nooksack Falls were a particularly rewarding stop, before climbing up to the terminus of the road around Mirror Lake.

Here came the first of many mountain sighting taunts, some of which I won, but more of which I lost to superior elements. The question is, how much patience do you devote in a seemingly futile hope that clouds will clear and views will glow? One guy who I met along the short lakeside circuit indicated he had been waiting all day for a peek at reflected Mount Shuksan, which is supposedly one of the most photographed shots in all of America (seems there were quite a few of these most photographed places in the region!). I spent a less devoted half an hour and then a return visit an hour or so later, where there was at least some reward without getting the money shot.

The following day – as it so often seemed to do after a day trying to sight big mountains – was clear as a crystal and Mount Baker was hard to avoid from all around. I was back down at sea level, embarking on a ferry ride to the San Juan Islands, and its largest lump, Orcas Island. There is of course something very appealing about island life, and Orcas Island presented a great deal of pleasing diversity in its own square miles. There was pastoral wholesomeness juxtaposed with rugged forest and mountain lakes, placid bays and calm coves sheltering from isolated cliffs and frigid seas, and fine foods and fresh produce shining out from a world of processed twinkies and cardboard burgers. The pinnacle of all of this? Well, Mount Constitution, which is conveniently – albeit somewhat twistily – driveable and, on such sparkling days, offers a panorama across all of Washington and coastal Canadiana. Mount Baker abounds, but so too in the distance does Rainier and Adams, the Olympics jut up, and the waters of Puget Sound swallow up whole islets and lap into bays and crevices in every angle.

From such heights it was down to the water for my accommodation for a couple of nights, but this was no major comedown. I think what was so great about Doe Bay was that you were quite content to not do anything other than just hang out there – on a bench, on the grass by the water, in the excellent cafe, or looking out over the cove from your own yurt – a round dome of a tent that was home. Ideal for a nanna nap in the arvos and a read by the water, suitable for a forage on the beach or potter about in the woods and, with such perfect weather, what more could you ask for? A definite highlight and perfect place to wake up on my birthday and be treated to a breakfast burrito.

Despite this constant lure there was some motivation to explore elsewhere; not least Moran State Park in which Mount Constitution sits along with acres of pine forest and mountain lakes, all very accessible for a good hike and picnic lunch. Elsewhere, the main settlement of Eastsound provided more calming bays and very good eateries, the Mexican flavour of my birthday breakfast preceded by Mexican dinner and not just any old dirty taco and fajita joint, let me tell you.

Such fuelita was welcome on the trip back across the water to the mainland, propelling me to Anacortes and the very picturesque bridge across Deception Pass, before journeying south towards Seattle and its satellite towns and burgeoning suburbs. Here, as strip malls interfered with a pleasant drive, there were again brief glimpses into the Cascades, and, with them, future paths to be taken.

Blasted rain

It was with a little tiredness and emotionality that I awoke the day after my birthday in a very comfortable, homely bed in Sammamish. When you are travelling from motel to yurt, munching between Maccers and Fred Myer, nothing can be more wondrously comforting than home comforts and sincere thanks to Jon and Jane and Anja and Amelie and Mo for regular pitstops and rejuvenation breaks during my visit. But time, and tiredness and emotionality, waits for no man and it wasn’t too long before I dusted myself down once more and hit the road with the intention of heading in a generally southerly direction towards Oregon and then back again. A sort of circular road trip with lots of straight lines, wiggly curves and zig-zags.

First east a little, albeit at a slightly southerly slant, and just half an hour for the first stop at Snoqualmie Falls, whose torrent of water seemed to be generating all the misty drizzle around here. There’s a hotel up at the top which was the setting for Twin Peaks – not the first and certainly not the last kind of weird quirky show or movie to be set around this part of the world. Then it was truly off in a much more definite southerly direction on some quiet country back roads. Well, they looked like quiet country back roads on the primeval map I obtained but in fact turned out to be littered with traffic lights and crossroads and superstore after furniture shop after donut kiosk. The kind of place where you need one of those big wheeled black pick-ups it seems, just so you can tackle the drive through bank at just the right height.

Mercifully things picked up a little and the weather even threw in some ‘sunbreaks’ along a nice quiet straight southerly road to the small town of Morton, which I decided was to be my stop for the night. However, there was still quite a bit of day left, and Mount St Helens was just around the corner. I say round the corner but it was a fair drive, the conversion from Australian kilometres to more demanding US miles proving a bit of a struggle. After driving for about ten days through a twisty, bumpy stretch of tar which battled its way through shadowy forests, the slightly less white Prius emerged into the barren blast zone from the 1980 eruption. It was quite something really, and well worth the drive, as I ended up at the appealingly named Windy Ridge. Not so windy (no recent Mexican refried beans for me), but a steep little walk to look out on the empty volcanic landscape and across Spirit Lake.

Spirit Lake is possible best known for Harry Truman, one of those old codgers who gains infamy by refusing to leave his home despite impending and inevitable doom and repeated warnings of such. More interesting to a former top of year Geography student is how the blast changed this lake by blocking its outlet, raising it 200 feet in altitude and making it smaller and shallower. Other lakes were formed from scratch, such as Coldwater Lake, which I visited the next day on the western access road up to Johnston Ridge Observatory.

Up at Johnston Ridge itself, further geography memories resurfaced like pyroclastic flow emanating from a lateral blast, thanks to many colourful models and informative theatre presentations. The really clever thing about the short film though was how it started while a shroud of damp cloud encircled the observatory and ended, curtains winding back as the movie screen lifted, to reveal Mount St Helens itself, the clouds now giving a false illusion of steam and smoke (if you squint a bit). In the Pacific Northwest, I believe this categorically counts as a mountain sighting. As mountains go it’s a bit disappointing...no snow capped crevices, spiky forests and flowering meadows. But then what do you expect when it decided to explode off its north face across southwest Washington and shrunk 1,300 feet in the process? Fascinating.

Less fascinating is the I-5, but it’s pretty useful, especially when they let you actually travel at a reasonable speed limit. In what seemed like no time I was crossing the Columbia River and entering Oregon where, immediately, Portland hits. For some reason, there are a lot of bridges in Portland and I crossed one, missed my turn, looped back over another and tried to park near the place I was staying. I stayed here and struggled with parking a whole three nights, probably a night too many, but while Portland can definitely be described as one of those places it is better to live in than visit, it provided a good base from which to get a sample of northern Oregon.

I liked Portland a lot the first night I was there, wandering randomly as I did into Powell’s bookstore, losing my way in its voluptuous labyrinth of humungous aisles, flicking through books with an excellent coffee, and buying two for a tenth of the price they would cost in Australia. The next morning started off on the same footing with more good for America coffee and an almond croissant no doubt made with a whole block of butter. It fell by the way a bit from there, the gloomy skies not helping as I struggled to find anything resembling an ‘attraction’ for aimless tourists like me, nor a true big city style buzz. The thing I don’t quite understand about Portland is how it is continually described as a success in urban planning, management, liveability etc etc yet there are so many homeless people here, there and everywhere. Is it so good, even the homeless flock here? And in true US eat-my-shorts fashion, even Portland can’t offer much in the way of help or welfare, despite being the very model of urbanity?

Such places – and I should know having lived in Canberra for five years – tend to get by with attractions like rose gardens and coffee shops and, more often than not, events like balloon fiestas and multicultural festivals. So I took in the rose gardens and the nearby Japanese Garden and very pleasant they were too, especially as there were a few more afternoon ‘sunbreaks’ to enjoy them in. But I was almost relieved to be heading out of town for the day the next day.

It was a big day, an early start for a circular trip around Mount Hood – Oregon’s largest peak and another of those pesky Cascadian volcanoes – and back via the Columbia River Gorge. Would this particular mountain be out? It didn’t look too promising but at least the overnight rain had ceased as I made my way east, past a place called Boring, in which I did not feel encouraged to stop. Instead, my first stop was beside the highway and a trailhead up to a small patch of water called Mirror Lake, which reflected all the cloud perfectly. Again, it was a question of how long to wait to see if anything changes, standing there on my own, helpless prey to a hungry bear? I gave it ten minutes and got pretty lucky this time, as the white cover of Mount Hood battled to distinguish itself from the white cloud and emerged true and strong. And the bear thankfully opted for someone else’s picanic basket.

Down the trail, across the road and up and round a bit from here stands Timberline Lodge, a wooden palace of a lodge full of roaring log fires and moose heads and stuff. The exterior provided scenes for The Shining, though I don’t remember the cranes and building site which were about, ruining most photo attempts. Today it seemed a bleak spot in which to be working, as the snow line had descended, it was cold and overcast and those log fires were doing overtime.

Given all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy I descended and headed on, around the east side of the mountain and through a rather picturesque and much sunnier valley where Jack Nicholson would look a lot less scary. Here were the first real fall colours of the trip on display, dotted on steep banks in between rigid pines, flowing along the ribbon of road headed north to the great natural barrier that is the Columbia River.

The Columbia River cuts a huge chunk out of the mighty Cascade Range, providing a deep shipping channel and transit point for early intrepid explorers like Lewis and Clark and Ray Mears. Nowadays you can follow it by road, and what a beauty it is heading back to Portland...sweeping fast curves with river views, hemmed in by precipitous cliff lines that have been carved out by the power of water, and a reasonably generous speed limit.

The water continues to power down and shape this landscape, with a series of grand falls plummeting their way into the Columbia Gorge along the way. The most popular, and quite rightly so, is Multnomah Falls, a beauty of a double decker flume, with the most aesthetically pleasing arch bridge to allow bears to cross and come and eat you, or steal your camera. I would have been safe though, since I had by now developed a strategy for scaring off hungry bears. It mainly involved rattling change in my pocket and / or singing and whistling to myself like a deranged animal. Ultimately I had a 100% success rate, because I never got to see any bears , and even scared off a few humans.

There were something like five other waterfalls in close proximity to Multnomah, but with limited daylight left for my visit I plumped for a stop at Bridal Veil Falls. Yet another original and inventive name which quite nicely resembled – let me think about this – a wedding dress veil? It was a very serene spot – well, apart from the crashing of thousands of gallons of water – and the rain returned to blanket the shady woodland around and maximise use of my new waterproof. A reminder, often a constant reminder, that such beauty requires something really really annoying to be so beautiful.

Rainer and rainier, with some brighter interludes

The next day took me away from Portland and heading west towards the coast, with a plan to pivot north, re-enter Washington and gradually swing my way towards its highest point, Mount Rainier. The ride to the coast reminded me a little of an Aussie coast trip, climbing up and over thick forests, following waterways down to the point where they meet the Pacific Ocean. The town of Seaside was the Batemans Bay of this particular simile, but just a little down the road was Cannon Beach, where broad sweeping sands were perforated by giant clumps of rock and driftwood. Ideal for dog walks and wistful gazes out to sea, though these activities somewhat challenging in the freezing cold wind buffeting the shore. Nevertheless, it is always nice to be beside the seaside.

I followed the coast road south for a small stretch and was feeling in good road trip territory, as scenic viewpoint after scenic viewpoint emerged around every turn. This may, or may not, carry on all the way into California. For my part I stopped at Manzanita, which seems to be one of those places where you can pop in for a coffee and end up spending the rest of your life there because it is so darn nice. This was incalculably aided by the best sandwich I have eaten for a long time – it was all about the moment and the fact that I was very hungry and feeling a little lethargic. But thank you Bread and Ocean (http://breadandocean.com), which deserves a plug to my five readers who are very unlikely to be in small town in windswept coastal Oregon anytime soon.

The remainder of the day didn’t really peak beyond that panini, as it mostly involved clocking up the miles, the coast vanishing behind strip malls at Astoria and turning once more into the wide Columbia River as I vaguely followed this east. By time I decided to call it quits, I was almost running over a herd of elk outside the small town of Packwood, where a $30 motel room was surprisingly homely and comforting and provided shelter from the ever increasing rain...

...which I was hoping would stop, given we were now on Thursday which was forecast to be the driest day of the week. Maybe they misspelled and meant direst day of the week? Or maybe, I should not be so stupid and assume dry and sunny in Seattle means the same around Mount Rainier, which, as they frequently say, is so big it creates its own weather. Alas, for some reason, most of the weather it creates involves water moisture and vapour and ice, mixed perhaps with a little drizzle. This meant that Nisqually Vista was more like Squally Novista and Paradise was more like, well, Perisher. Early snows had fallen and, despite an obvious hidden beauty shrouded by this weather, there were to be no views of wildflower meadows and a giant white peak seemingly promised to me by the cover of my Lonely Planet guide.

Despite milling around at the visitor centre for a while, taking in a few precarious icy fogwalks, and eating a picnic bagel in the car, nothing cleared, there were to be no snatched views of the mountain. In fact it got a lot worse before the Prius descended like a golf cart through a freezing drizzle to a more comfortable altitude. At least here, things were more amenable and a short jaunt along the Grove of the Patriarchs provided some welcome colour and presented a certain grandeur through the ancient forest.

Still, I did have two days bash at Mount Rainier and awoke on Friday to the joyful sound of incessant rain drumming on wooden verandas and an outlook about as appealing as a front row seat at a Nickelback concert (who were inexplicably on the radio a lot and inexplicably more still around). Perhaps it would be better, at least there would be something, on the eastern side? Didn’t look too good as I parked up at what sounded like a rather wonderful walk around Tipsoo Lake and Naches Peak. There was simply no point whatsoever to freeze my butt off and struggle to see five metres in front of me, even if it meant getting away from Nickelback on the car radio.

I toyed with heading back to Seattle early, or going east to Yakima purely for some sunshine and warmth. One last throw of the dice before I get that desperate – the road to Sunrise in the northeast was closed because of snow, but how far up it could I go? As it turns out, as far as White River, which was flowing white, bubbling across pebbles and rocky debris and tree trunks as it fed its way down from Emmons Glacier. Whiter however was a rather large hill lurking round the corner and it was with some jubilance that I got to see that the mountain was out.

Leading up to this point I was feeling very annoyed and a ‘bad-luck-always-happens-to-me-mopey-whiney’ kind of mood, swearing at the rain with a ferocity worthy of Gordon f**king Ramsay. But not only was the mountain out, but the weather here was f**king tremendously idyllic, so much so that I could and very much did take my waterproof off. A walk through the woods in the general direction of a big f**k off glacier presented a series of crystal cascades flowing down hillsides and glistening as the sun filtered its way through the gaps in freshly scented toilet cleaner pine forest. There were rivers to cross on rugged wooden bridges, rocks to climb, bears to hopefully not bump into, mountain views and glacial lakes and cluttered moraine. Alas no wildflower meadows here, but considering just how utterly miserably lousy it was, f**k me it was f**king awesome.

I think equally as pleasing, in a roundabout kind of way, was that I passed once more the parking lot (as they call it) at Tipsoo Lake where I had been earlier in the day with the lads from Nickelback. It was still as miserable as sin and you would never have thought there was a hope in hell of enjoying a sunny walk with Washington’s highest peak alongside for company. Such is the genuine wondrousness of rainshadow and another Geography lesson experienced. This enjoyment of rainshadow – not just from Rainier but the whole Cascade range – was further embraced with a descent from the east, down and down and down a beautiful river valley reminiscent of the California gold hills and into a parched Nevada of a landscape around Yakima. In little more than an hour, freezing snow was dry and dusty shorts weather, and a thickshake was the refreshment de jour, rather than hot chocolate.

Time for some Seattle prattle

The next day and Rainier appeared to be well and truly out from all sides, keeping up with the tradition of being gorgeous the day after I leave, given I could glimpse it from some 75 miles or so back in Sammamish. In fact, Saturday turned out to be a rather splendid fall day, when lakeside walks and glorious Baconmaster burgers were capped off by pumpkin carving and beers in the neighbourhood. As ludicrous as it may sound, the pumpkin carving stands out as a highlight of my trip. I think in part this is because it encapsulated that neighbourly and family warmth that you so often crave when travelling alone for periods of time, along with a quirkiness that you often end up remembering more than yet another mountain or yet another bay. Plus my pear-shaped pumpkin was rather awesome and I grew very attached to him by the end of it.

While partial gloom returned on Sunday, the waterproof remained packed away for a trip into some offbeat Seattle sights with Jane and the kids. Most of this was centred around Fremont, a suburb to the north of the city with a slightly grungy post-industrial hipster air and some fabulous waterside views. There was, for instance, the very random Fremont Bridge troll, which sits under one of the many hard to find bridges and provides a beacon with drunks and hoboes everywhere. There were also some locks and a salmon ladder where, inexplicably, there were no salmon to be seen. I did see some later through, both heading towards my mouth at Ivar’s Salmon House and also failing to jump the weirs back in suburban Issaquah.

Later in the week, on another sunny non-mountain day, I headed into downtown Seattle itself, taking the fast and efficient park and ride. It was a rather pleasant day to wander around the city which is no New York but has a few more sights than Portland. There is of course the Space Needle, along with a cluster of other shiny and wobbly buildings and sculptures, looking resplendent among gardens and sunny autumn colours. From this literal point I walked along the water’s edge, past numerous piers hosting ferries and boats intent on leaving Seattle for places like British Columbia and Alaska. Eventually this brought me down alongside Pike Place Market, which was in full lunchtime bustle and very enjoyable too. I mean, not only was the giant hotdog followed by chocolate dipped cheesecake, but there was plenty of entertainment and people watching / camera-stalking opportunities.

From here, I ambled some more, down to Pioneer Square, which didn’t really seem to be a square, more a bigger district of pubs and underground shops. It was eerily quiet in the early afternoon, though bustle returned somewhat back up towards the end of my spontaneous walking loop and the bus back out east. It’s a nice city in general I think, a mini San Francisco with a solid Pacific Northwest grounding. Fairly refined and slightly bookish, the kind of place where someone such as Dr Frasier Crane would get on just fine, although no doubt suffering a series or intricate mishaps and clever bonhomie. But what shines (when the sun is out) is that bloody big volcano, and, in the other direction, the glowing caps of rugged Olympic mountains. Symbolic of the great outdoors that is on your doorstep here, and demanding of your constant attention.

Olympian finale

And so the last mini road trip took me to the Olympic Peninsula, a simply astonishingly diverse block of land west of Seattle. Bordered by water on three sides, rising up to impressive ridges and mountains inland, and with Vancouver Island lying just across the water in the north, this really encapsulates that edge of the world type landscape and atmosphere. What we have here are bucket loads of forest, lake, beach and mountain and, in the constant quest for natural, wild experiences, can we really ask for anything more?

Some sun perhaps? This is one of the wettest areas anywhere in the universe I think, measuring rain in feet rather than inches or teensy millimetres. It thus inevitably has lots of trees which get a lot of rain, which some bright spark called a rainforest. My first dabble into such a world was in the Lake Quinault area, in the south west, and encompassed a winding boardwalk through mosses and ferns and appropriately accompanying rain. This rain persisted all night in torrents that made it hard to sleep, and continued into the morning as I made my way through a trail fast becoming a stream to a big cedar tree. There are lots of these big trees here too. I kept bumping into the same people at them, obvious fellow big tree collectors.

Alas there was still no let up in the rain to allow me to eat breakfast on the decking beside the lake in the nearby lodge, but the undercover Eggs Benedict more than filled a gap as I journeyed north. Here, I was surprised to see the skies clearing, expecting as I was an incessant coastal drizzle akin to a February day on Whitsand Bay. This is not a world of calm, sandy, welcoming bays and beaches, but a fury of ocean and stone, of endless driftwood and perishing winds. A beachcomber’s paradise where the beauty is raw and the absence of coastal drizzle a bonus.

The west coast is a cacophony of these rugged, untouched beaches and relentless forest, punctuated only occasionally by the odd township or river. The rest of my day touched on both, with further stops at La Push and in the Hoh Rainforest. La Push was, in a landscape evoking the edge of the world, the very edge of the edge of the world, where human existence clings stoically in a constant bombardment from nature. Here, the imaginatively named First, Second and Third beaches provide copious driftwood and rocky sand scenes, as well as a rapidly incoming tide that gets your feet wet if you are stupid like me. Or intrepid as I prefer to call it. By the way, if you are into Twilight, you may recognise this landscape. I didn’t, but then I found out twilight happens to be a book and movie franchise extracting money from gawky teenagers. And there I was expecting to see a delicious mint chocolate that often pop up at Christmas.

The interior parts of this coast get the most rain of the Olympic peninsula, which possibly explains why Robert Pattison is such a drip. It also creates a magical world called the Hoh Rainforest. This is not like your steamy, tropical affair with giant ferns and snake-like vines, but a world where ancient trees creak and curl their way through dense autumnal undergrowth, all the time weighed down by giant beards of moss. It is, because of the incessant rain that annoyed me so much along the Hall of Mosses trail, entirely captivating, such that a one mile meander takes a good hour, stopping and inching forward ever so quietly, not wishing to disturb what has been put before you in such a serene, pristine land.

So, the Hoh was like ‘whoa’ that makes you go slow but I have to say that this jolly trip in Washington and Oregon has been defined by mountains. I have been a little obsessed by them, especially the volcanic brutes which just jut their way up out of nowhere like it’s nobody’s business. Fitting perhaps that my last proper wilderness day, on this whole overseas journey, was in the Olympic mountains. The big question, of course, was what would the weather do?

Well, it was promising in Port Angeles, a town on the northern side of the peninsula providing ample services and cheap accommodation. You could just about see Canada across the Strait of Juan de Fuca (I don’t know what Juan did to be so severely named), and the sunrise provided, well, some sun. But from this balmy sea level you climb up 5,000 feet along 18 miles of road to Hurricane Ridge and plenty can happen in that time.

At 2,000 feet, things were still quite clear and mountain tops were poking their way through some wispy cloud. At 4,000 feet, those wispy clouds were less wispy and just about grazing the roof of the Prius, which was coping admirably despite being a golf cart. At 5,000 feet, total and perishing subzero white out.

How patient do I be with this one? Partly that depends on how distracting the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Centre is and I dutifully watched the 20 minute screening of ‘Life on the Edge’, which showed all the wonderful views and colours and animals of this high alpine region, looked at the 3D model, which showed all the views and colours, looked at colourful pictures and read descriptions of unique animals in this place, and tried to learn the names of all the wildflowers I would not see. After this, if anything, the white out was worse, and, like an Everest climber, I descended a couple of thousand feet to the nearest car park with any kind of visibility.

The car park at least allowed me to observe the clouds and any potentially lighter shades in the vague direction of Hurricane Ridge. And it was some thirty minutes later that I climbed again, where Hurricane Ridge was still a white out, but I think with a faint disc of sun detected through all the white. In a very brief one mile of treading through a crisp, virgin layer of snow, things perked up unimaginably and once more I was experiencing the rollercoaster peaks of an obsessive life trying to photograph mountains. Not that it was all blue skies, but there were dramatic views and, thanks to the white out, a beautifully icing dusted landscape worthy of a Christmas card.

And what better way to end than with the Sound of Music playing in your head and then being very irritatingly stuck in it all day? For in the Pacific Northwest, the hills are very much alive and kicking, ready to explode at any time, a row of models waiting to be photographed by a slavishly ‘intrepid’ voyeur, ready to hide from view or kick off or just sit there supine and willing. Their veil the stream of moisture which makes this place captivating in its emeralds and jades and sapphires and teal shades. And who would’ve thought, after all this, after 72 days and thousands of photographs, you’d be left with Julie Andrews hollering in your noggin?

Spreading News

2011-10-06T01:02:00.049+11:00

As I sit on a plane crossing the whole of North America from east to west I am daunted by what seems to be an overwhelming task. There are an overwhelming number of photos from an overwhelmingly gargantuan city that is New York. And how do I write here about every overwhelming moment? I am overwhelmed. I also face the prospect of diversifying my vocabulary which is somewhat over...powering.

Baby steps...I cut down 750 odd photos to about 115...these can include the Facebook extras...and have now got to just under 50. Acceptable in the blogosphere, but goodness knows how line spacing and formatting will cope. As for writing...I could split it into categories, or neighbourhoods or emotions or foodstuffs, like the different toppings of a supreme pizza. But I’m going to keep it simple – slice for slice – and work along the lines of chronology I think. But like a walk though Central Park, it could ramble and meander in all sorts of directions. So let’s get on the A train and see where we go...

Bright lights, big city

I arrived in the US into New Jersey, where public transport propelled me into New York state. No glamorous approach, tunnelling under the Hudson River to Penn Station in Manhattan, rising up slightly to a chaotic concourse before plummeting once more onto the subway. Street level emerged at Lexington Avenue and 53rd, and successful passage to my hotel...or glorified closet which was actually rather clean and cosy, nice big shiny showers, and free wifi so that you can stay inside all day and browse the web.

It was about 8pm local time and, with jet lag, I could have gone to sleep, but this is the city that never sleeps right? So I hit the streets which were not at all intimidating or scary, but brimming with life and traffic and police* and food carts. It wasn’t so far to Times Square which was, let me tell you, a bombardment for a bleary eyed traveller in some kind of hazy frenetic dream-like state. But I managed to check more free wifi, pick up my NY pass and take a few schnaps.

* it turned out I wasn't the o nly important visitor in town - Mr Obama was popping by along with many other world leaders for a UN summit

The next morning, rested a little and sussing out the outlook from the weather channel I decided to activate my 3 day NY pass, with the challenge of seeing as many of the 55 attractions as possible. Well, I had to be a little selective, and first up was orientation via the Top of the Rock...though finding this in the midst of the complex that is the Rockerfeller Centre was easier said than done without any orientation. But it was relatively quiet at this time in the morning and, while hazy, the views were expansive and immense. I love how, hundreds of metres up in the air, you can still hear the honks of individual taxis, the sound of sirens, shutters being drawn up and the singing of Frank Sinatra. Maybe that last one was in my head, but you know what I mean.

Here we are in Midtown, while Downtown (and yes, another song that was in the head quite often) was hiding in the haze. However one way to get there is to take a trip out on the water, via two hour Circle Line ferry. Starting off along a patch of water that a plane landed in a few years ago, the trip takes us south, where the skyscrapers of Midtown disappear for a while in those New Yark neighbourhoods like West Village and Soho. The southern point of the island is where the financial powerhouses cluster to precipitous heights, and then it’s not far up East River to the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Back on dry land – well, kind of...a couple of hours on the aircraft carrier Intrepid which is now an air, sea and space museum with plenty of throttle to keep your pulse racing – the Brooklyn Bridge was there to be walked across. Such is its popularity for walkers, cyclists, joggers and any other clown out there, they have ‘Pedestrian Marshals’ dotted along its span keeping things in order. Assistance for pedestrians seems to end as the bridge ends however, and it took a bit of milling about through leafy Brooklyn Heights to get back down to the parks beside the water. From here comes a classic view of Lower Manhattan, best appreciated after queuing in rain for a takeout pizza from Grimaldi’s – a famous and popular pizza joint, where you can only pay in cash in order to probably dodge tax and fund various dubious enterprises. Authentic they call it and with the rain letting up and the lights coming on, who’s to argue.

Liberty City

You know, walking the various streets and avenues of New York did feel a bit like being in Grand Theft Auto at times, only without the senseless violence and murderous screams (it really felt amazingly safe). It was I think the horn honks and snippets of random conversation caught in the air that reminded me of times in Long Lane with that in the background. Anyhows, I made my way through said streets and onto the subway at the very convenient 51st street station on the Lexington Avenue line, heading downtown once more for a trip by boat to Liberty and Ellis Island. You probably don’t have to be a rocket science to figure out what is at Liberty Island, and you can tell when you are getting close to Shrek’s giant grandmother as the camera taking activity increases.

The island appeared to be crawling with ants, but it turned out they were visitors and I was worried it would all be a bit too much of a Freedom Fries theme park. And yeah, there is a giant gift shop with every conceivable Statue of Liberty trinket you could imagine. But there’s also a surprising amount of space, and a rather refined, genteel atmosphere among the trees and lawns surrounding her lady.

I was very pleased to find I had a ‘Pedestal’ ticket, which meant I could walk up to her feet and through the excellent museum which detailed the design, planning and building of the statue. Did you know that her insides were designed by the same bloke who did that big tower in Paris? And that originally she was going to be filled with camembert? All in all she’s rather impressive and can you just imagine voyaging to the new world, a migrant or well-heeled posh chick on a cruise, and this greets you as you enter New York harbour. It would make hairs stand up on the back of your neck I reckon.

Those hairs would likely have flattened dramatically on reaching Ellis Island, which was essentially an offshore processing centre for migrants. Usually (so it said) they were sorted out in about five hours and then sent on their way to New York and beyond, timeframes only Julia Gillard could dream of. Others however could spend a lot longer here for testing, checking, probing or sending back, which probably would have pleased Tony Abbott.

The centrepiece was the ‘great hall’, and it doesn’t take much to picture swarms of migrants queuing and waiting and jostling and scaring the white middle classes with their foreign talk and funny food. The beauty of it though is that the museum strongly recognises the benefits of migrants to the USA, and how they have made New York what it is (want a bagel, schmuck?). It also had a great view back to Manhattan, though I got in the way for some reason and ruined it.

Back on Manhattan I walked from the ferry terminal into the downtown financial heartbeat, taking in Wall St, Trinity Church, Starbucks, Century 21 and the mammoth, chaotic construction site that is the World Trade Center. Ten years on and a big tower is rising, but much remains behind closed doors. There is a memorial but this requires advance ticketing and, understandably, tight security. Round the corner though and a small site provides a sobering minute-by-minute account of September 11 2001, as well as a gift shop for 911 memorabilia. Everything but the gift shop was thought provoking... you have to say as an act of terror the attacks were audacious in their planning and execution – the timeline of that day reminded me of that. But they were just that – an attack of terror – and nothing can justify what was done to thousands of innocent people going about their normal, proactive, productive life, and the hurt to their families that were left behind.

The WTC area was a strange place, part memorial part construction site part nothing. On a much lighter note, the end of the day heralded magic that conjured up art deco 1930s magnificence of a city on the rise, glitz and glamour of a pearl studded age. It was approaching dusk as I entered the shiny marble hallway of the Empire State Building and, like a giant hairy ape, made my way up several queues and elevators to the 86th floor. Before me a spectacle like no other as the city turned its lights on and continued to never sleep.

One of the things about the New York skyline compared to some of the other cities I’ve been to is the relative age of some of the skyscrapers. It’s not all 21st century steel and glass in a race to be the biggest (in which China is leading the field), but solid bricks and mortar, albeit often with quirky flourishes and art deco trimmings. One of the more interesting snippets about Empire State that I learnt was that it was in a race with the Chrysler building a few blocks away to become New York’s mightiest tower. The Chrysler building had a top secret plan to be the biggest, an additional swirly glass tower, which is a rather splendid design. But the Empire State also has a sneaky plan for an additional radio tower, and topped out and still tops out as New York’s highest. Such is man’s insatiable desire to achieve the biggest erection.

Rainy brainy days

My initial confidence and success in negotiating New York via subway and foot dissipated over the next couple of days as trains went where they were not supposed to, lines were closed, and my internal compass went askew. But luckily I found myself at Grand Central station on Friday morning, grand being the operative word. A huge cavernous space making it the busiest, yet seemingly calmest, rail station in New York.

From here I wandered aimlessly at street level for a while, before jumping on the correct metro to the Upper West Side, where spots of rain were starting to hit the imposing steps of the Natural History Museum. Well, this had about as much natural history as you could cram into a huge, elaborate building, which is an awful lot. There were animals and people and space planets and tools and trinkets and trees and fishes, and everyone from schoolchildren to dinosaurs. There was a hall for a big whale, another for a big dinosaur, another for a big boat and another for a big planet. Some of the dioramas were especially impressive, a window onto the diversity of landscapes and creatures in the United States and other alien lands, like Australia.

After a few hours here I was feeling somewhat drained, so decided to head back to my little room for a rest. The timing was immaculate, as I managed to sync the walking from the subway to my hotel part with the biggest downpour possibly in the history of the universe. I did get a nap, but was it worth it? To be honest, the nap didn’t seem to help too much and I was in two minds to go to another museum and walk around looking at endless exhibits and rooms and generally getting lost in nooks and crannies. But conscious that my three days of NY pass freedom were soon to end, I embarked on a far easier and less wet journey to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or just simply The Met. It was one of my better decisions.

I don’t think you have to be too fussed about art to love this place. The building is magnificent and seems to be perfectly designed to complement and showcase what is on show. There are whole halls devoted to a particular reference point, from Egyptian temples to medieval chambers to confederation era houses. There is so much space that you can have rooms all to yourself and feel like they have especially opened it up to you and you only. There are, for those of you who can’t get enough titillation, women’s breasts and men’s butts on display. There is free wifi. Oh, plus about three million items of art or something – relics from prehistory right up to modern times from all over the world (including a Turner painting of Saltash, Cornwall). Some of the paintings even I recognised as being famous and invaluable.

You cannot, simply cannot, read every single display or even see every different thing in a few hours. But I found the place somewhat inspiring to indulge in what you could consider my creative outlet, i.e. taking copious amounts of boring pictures. Call it art, or call it copious amounts of boring pictures, but here some of the snaps I took along the way...

Such a cultured day ended with a less cultured but no less impressive end – a good feed for six dollars from the Halal Guys food cart. Apparently, and somewhat alarmingly, my Lonely Planet described their secret white sauce as making all the difference, but to be fair it complemented the rice and chicken and lamb gyro perfectly.

Village people

Saturday arrived, signalling the end of my NY pass, and all of a sudden I was at a relative loss of what to do. The answer always lies in ambling aimlessly with some general sense of direction, so I headed out to catch the subway south to a few different neighbourhoods. Only my subway fun continued with the F line operating on the M line or something unfathomable and, after trying several stations that were closed, popped into a nearby deli and consoled myself with an excellent BLT.

Eventually I made it to somewhere approximating where I wanted to explore – Washington Park in Greenwich Village. While it was nothing too exciting, it struck me how different New York was on a weekend, with people chilling, exercising, dog-walking, brunching, and even being neighbourly. It was, in fact, relatively calm and orderly.

Most hustle and bustle appeared to be directed at market stalls scattered around various squares and circles, as I ventured on to West Village and over to Chelsea. Here, what seemed to be something approximating a car boot sale was in full action. Just like my intimate memory of booties, it seemed many of the people there had been attending every weekend for the last 50 years.

I resisted multiple temptations on my way further east to the Flatiron District, because I had a perfect lunch in mind – one of the tastiest burgers put together at the Shake Shack kiosk in Madison Square Park. Reminiscent of Brodburger love, a perfect end to a good few miles of hard neighbourhood walking.

Saturday was proving a very grey day (almost fogwalkish), but it stayed dry enough for further ambles in the south as the clock ticked on towards dusk. This time it was down in the deep south, and a stroll alongside the Hudson River to the pointy tip of Manhattan Island. Again, here were New Yorkers in their thousands... walking, playing sacker with kids, rollerboarding on heelies, cycling at 60 mph, or just sat in many of the cafes and bars along the route stuffing their faces.

A few were, like me, heading for the Staten Island Ferry and a free ride from Manhattan to, you guessed it, Staten Island. I wasn’t going to Staten Island for Staten Island, but to get an opportunity to wile away an hour or so on a breezy deck watching the city skyline recede and returning into its fold all lit up with wonderment. Somewhat amazingly the cast iron clouds which had been omnipresent all day failed to block out a sinking red sun, a perfect accompaniment for the old lady.

That was my last sunset in New York, for tomorrow heralded a change of scenery and, somewhat wistfully, I wasn’t quite ready for it to end yet. Thus a convenient and reliable subway line took me back once more to Times Square...Saturday night fever abounding. Never a dull moment in New York village.

Nosey Parker

And so, the last day came and finally we are getting towards the end of this ramble. I’m not on the plane any longer by the way. It’s over a week later and I am sheltering from rain in Portland (but that’s another long-winded story). But back on that last east coast day it was a sunny start and plenty of time to soak up one final New York classic, Central Park.

My foray into the park took me around the southern edge, spitting me briefly out for some lunch in a classic diner close to Trumped up tower. Then it was time to walk off that burger (yes another burger) in earnest in the heart of the park. Undeniably there was lots of greenery – big lawns, colourful flower beds, meandering ponds, woody rambles – but there needed to be in order to have enough to go round for the population of Manhattan, as well as their epileptic dogs. Thus for me, the park wasn’t really so much a botanical delight, but a place to observe and embrace fellow human beings. Call it people-watching, stalking, whatever, but I’m sure I was being stalked on a few occasions by equally obsessive camera carriers. I guess I made for an interesting photo, hiding in bushes with my zoom.

Of course, I didn’t really hide in bushes with a big zoom. For a start, as I so often do on such occasions, I put my small fixed lens on. And you don’t need to hide in the bushes, for people come here to be seen. My favourite spot ended up a place called Literary Walk, which is just south of the big fountain beside the boating lake. This was pretty much my final resting place as I completed several miles within the park, and was full of people and activity taking place. I played my part and read a chapter of a book (and I caught someone taking my picture doing so, oh how cliché!), while others rollerbladed, sang, played with pigeons, and bubbles, and crayons on the floor. An opera lady sang (quite beautifully in fact), and while she was not at all fat, you know what it means when the opera lady sings. Time and circumstance was perfectly aligned to finish with New York and a change of pace and scenery beckoned. I knew I would like New York, but at the end of five days you can see why they produce so many of those I love NY T-shirts, hats, fridge magnets, hoodies, slippers, business card holders, cheese knives, torches, socks, snow globes, toenail clippers, placemats, stickers, laptop covers, bottle openers, pants, key-rings, musical pens, travel pillows... because you simply can’t get enough of its love.

Peep show

2011-09-23T21:48:00.019+10:00

When you have seen the highest mountains and paddled in the clearest seas, drank from medieval fountains and ate two tonnes of cheese, travel seems to become less and less about the places and more about the people who you share them with. With ten days in Spain you could pack in a lot of bays and villages and arid ranges. Or instead there can be siestas, swims and holiday waters with very special friends. I was very happy with the latter option... a few days calm and quiet for siesta catch up, followed by a week with Ollie, Jenn and their two young nippers, Hayden and Max.

So, I don’t really have any scenic photos to show you from Spain, as days were happily filled with splashes in the pool, natters with neighbours, multiple visitations of Consum for holiday water ingredients, and the odd trip to the seafront at Guardamar. More mundane was the casa cleaning and bazza bothering battery charging and replacement; but the real highlight for me were simple suppers out on the veranda, a holiday water beside me and two friends just as close.

Temperatures were halved on the return to England, and a final few days to spend with family down in the home town that is Plymouth. Plymouth is looking a bit jaded, struggling on the periphery of England, dependent on money the Government doesn’t have, and with a football team fading into obscurity. But I still love it very much...I think the familiarity and sense of home that still comes from being somewhere you grew up always comes to the fore.

Not that Plymouth was all doom and gloom – there was razzmatazz aplenty on the Hoe for the America’s Cup, and the sun was out some of the time. There was also proximity to mammoth cream teas on Dartmoor, and a roast dinner, and two nieces to alternatively play with and escape from. There was a roast dinner and another source of crumbly fudge discovered, although the pasties could have been better – I have to say I’ve been a bit down on the pasties on this trip, though it has been lacking a Pengenna moment.

But all in all I give Plymouth the thumbs up, which is handy. Yes, in the realm of travel disasters a lanced thumb is way down there, but it’s my own little incident, and one which required an over-dramatic dressing by the wonderful NHS nurses...

But that’s not the end of the story, as I have a little day trip to tell you about and – ahoy there – some scenic photos of this beautiful county in southwest England. This was pre-thumb lancing and you have no idea how painful taking photos were with the swollen pus-filled lump on my thumb. Anyway, let’s not leave you with that image but these images, from the South Hams area and across to the very English Riviera. It’s all part of what turned out to be a very popular ‘round robin’ trip from Totnes down the River Dart to Dartmouth, across to Kingswear for a steam train ride to Paignton, and then back to Totnes via the wonders of an open top double decker bus. If you want to capture the essence of Devon in one day, this would just about fit the bill.

I like Totnes a lot and, though I should probably wait until retirement, I could see myself happily living there. It’s only half an hour by train from Plymouth but nestled in the rolling green hills that yield so much fresh, local, yummy food and an above average quota of cake shops. The Dart here is suitably picturesque, broad and lazy and ideal for a cruise. At least, hundreds and hundreds of pensioners thought so, as they crawled laboriously onto the surprisingly spacious ferry.

It was an idyllic blue sky day for the meander down to Dartmouth, an impressive Devon town resplendent with its harbour and parks and cobblestones. With a well-to-do air there are plenty of expensive eateries to match, but there is also fish and chips and pasties and fudge, staples of the Devon day, and all off the diet itinerary for Mum. So she had salad while I wolfed down some deep fried battered cod and picked up some fudge to nibble on over the next few days.

We (well, I should say I) didn’t exactly walk it off – more a meander around town and along the river for a little while, before crossing that very river to Kingswear and onto the steam train towards Paignton.

I don’t get over-enthused about steam trains and engines and things in the same way many others do. Perhaps it’s too much Thomas the Tank Engine, or the acceptance that perhaps rail travel wasn’t really as comfortable as people like to remember it. But it was nice to get a seat and hear the steam try to drag us up the hill from Kingswear, through dripping green woodland and over to the red sands and cliffs of the English Riviera.

Such was the rhythm of the day there wasn’t much time to explore in Paignton, or to rediscover more youthful days like waiting for the train to pass at the level crossing, visiting the pier, and popping up to Nan’s old place up the hill. I do remember the drive from Plymouth to Paignton and back, and the crazy lanes to navigate. Perhaps because I was so used to them they didn’t seem so untoward back then, but now, the pure thought of trying to squeeze an open-topped double decker through the giant hedgerows and then downhill to Totnes seemed a bit ambitious. But we made it, and it wasn’t even too cold or breezy up top, though I did duck once or twice from marauding brambles.

Thus the round robin was done, much like the European travels, starting and finishing as they did in Devon. Despite having what seemed like record-breaking time to indulge, it felt like it went quicker than ever and there was so much I didn’t get to do. Like a trip for a Pengenna pasty for instance, though I probably made up for that in the cheese department. The signs were right to go though as, for once, Devon was gloomy and drizzly and cold as I left on the train to London and beyond. Like many before me, departing Plymouth – next stop the Americas and a return to the new world.

Advance to France with pants and no chance of nutritional balance

2011-09-17T01:13:00.038+10:00

My travels regularly include intercontinental transportation of various substances, all of which are entirely legal despite probably being as harmful to health as weapons grade plutonium. There is pork pie and clotted cream for the arteries, washed down with bags of crisps and nuggets of sugary fudge. There are noxious items for washing. More obscure are children’s pants and a sleep sack, all of which were offloaded in France for Al, Vero and Guillaume. While bag space can be freed up and subsequently replenished, the same cannot be said for my body, which takes on more and more and more without as dramatic a reduction, gradually expanding like an oversized suitcase until it can squeeze no more in.

That’s probably left you with not such a nice image, so let’s show you something far more agreeable, like some of the cake and cheese related products pumped into my system as I explored and ate my way through a little corner of France and Switzerland.

Of course the cuisine is just one part (albeit a substantial part) that makes this place one of the more pleasing little corners of the world. It is the perfect accompaniment to soaring Alpine peaks and chocolate box valleys, shuttered facades and sparkling lakes. Thus you can have a very, very good day out with bread and cheese and come back home and stuff your face with some more. And from whence comes the term Ç’est la vie...

You can even get decent world renowned spring water to wash it all down should you wish, courtesy of Evian, where we headed on the first Saturday. As a spa town it had the expected genteel air one would expect of such a place – the lakeside promenade on Leman, the grand baths and casino, and the oh-so-continental high street with its higgledy-piggledy narrowness and plethora of window boxes. Which makes the musical fountains all the more out-of-place, what with their bizarre C-list rock-jazz-operetta playlist and dodgy synchronisation.

The dramatic crescendo of this region is of course the Alps, from which pure spring waters trickle and rock-jazz-operetta blares out of Audi convertibles. They are great roads to travel on, dodgy music or not, and of course – if you enjoy pain – cycle on. The peaks and valleys and forests and clusters of chalets and mountain towns get you singing tunes from the Sound of Music or Heidi, which makes at least a welcome change from Thomas the Tank Engine, Night Garden and / or Pingu pounding constantly through your head. On a flawlessly sparkling Sunday the hills were well and truly alive, with the sound of picnics, carousels and bouncy castles around Le Grand-Bornand.

If that all sounds a little cheesy then brace yourself, for today as the cuckoo clock chimes, we take an army knife to a block of cheese, catch a mountain train, and follow it up with a dose of chocolate all in a suspiciously neutral kind of way. Is Switzerland some kind of paradise – I mean such breathtaking and manicured scenery side by side, excellence in two essential foodstuffs, and the freedom to abrogate any kind of responsibility by not taking sides in anything important whatsoever. As a nature loving, food indulging, indecisive Libran, it seems like the perfect place.

This is captured in the town of Gruyeres, in which everything is so deliciously, wonderfully cheesy and that includes not only the cheese. Perched atop a small hillock in the midst of bigger, rising foothills, the town offers all the flowerboxes and fountains, shutters and turrets you could ask for. Once you’ve had your fill of that you can have your fill of the other – for us it was fondue using of course some of the cheese in which the town takes its name (or is it vice versa?!)

Taking a passionate interest in food sourcing, Al and I decided to visit the local Gruyere factory, where quaint little notions of Swiss maids hand-milking cows and mountain men churning away to hand craft each individual wheel of goodness were quickly and obviously dispelled. Some cow told us about all the different things she ate, while some ingenuous robotic devices suggested the men milling about in white coats were primarily there for decoration.

The real question to address was how much cheese do you need to eat to weigh down a mountain railway so that it cannot ascend at stupendous angles and heights? Quite a lot I would say, since even Al and I could have no effect on the little carriage taking us from Moleson up to Plan-Francey. It was purely about the ride, which resembled more a rollercoaster down a mountain than the 7:47 from Surbiton to London Waterloo. And while a bit of cloud shrouded the tops, there was a lot of neutral ground to see.

Clearly then we needed to eat more, and if you can’t stomach any more cheese, then how about some chocolate? Not just any old chocolate, but apparently the oldest most traditional Swiss chocolate, the supposed saviours of chocolate from the French aristocracy about 200 years ago – Mr Caillers and friends. It was I suppose too much to hope for something resembling Charlie and the Chocolate factory but it was ten of Allan’s Swiss Francs well spent on a factory tour, and we could pass for a couple of Oompah Loompahs at least. The history of chocolate was there before us, followed by the sight of endless chocolate lines oozing out of machines to be processed, wrapped and packed, and eaten by me. Somebody please drag this man away from the chocolate degustation.

With such Swiss excess something had to give and it was exercise. It’s not so tough when you are faced with an Alp on one of those staggeringly clear deep blue days, where cowbells echo from valleys afar and mountains encircle the landscape. Our little climb was breathtaking in many ways, though a far lot easier than climbing the Col de la Ramaz in a bike, some of whom we passed on our way to Praz de Lys.

I think with our ascent of something like 400 metres it was quite justified to have a spot of lunch atop a peak as reward, providing a chance to once again re-engage with the world of local saucisson, cheese and bread. And while there wasn’t quite an ideal siesta spot among Alpine meadows, there was a perfectly acceptable hostelry to provide a cold beer alongside the Marmots. The hills are alive with the sound of them.

The sporty activity continued apace over the next few days, though I won’t kid you that it was impressively energetic; neither was there any great reduction in saturated fat intake along the way. The tiring rounds of par 3 golf were balanced out with Yvoire ice cream...a rather inspired idea by my brother and a very, very chilled moment to sit in the lakeside sun and be contentedly self-satisfied.

Then there was that majestic Olympic sport involving endless walking round a DIY store looking for a light bulb and keeping a two year old happy. We persevered, and even had energy for an afternoon cycle ride all the way to Switzerland, which is not as impressive as it sounds. I think however I had brake friction equating to a category 2 climb, or I like to think so anyway – it makes me feel less pathetic about my inability on two wheels. To be sure, the bike was pretty much a write off after an hour with me, which either says a lot about my diet or the quality of the bike, or both.

The next day it was a return to the mountain stages, and a short but steep walk with Al and Guillaume. For the first time in quite some time, the sun was only sparingly glowing, and the odd spot of drizzle was in the air. The legs could feel it on the way up following the previous day’s cycling endeavours, but a rewarding vista was once more the, well, reward. And it was great to see Guillaume making an early start on Alpine peak-bagging, as well as wearing a top I had bought him in Target.

Those efforts must have been a little draining on him as we followed lunch back at home with a jaunt into Geneva, via car, bus, another bus, and ferry. Here, the sun was back again and returning in warmth and strength, the lake sparkling and parks a-buzzing. We never did get to see some of the animals in the botanical gardens, apart from chasing a peacock and possibly some frogs, but it was nice and shady for a spot of playground playing, shady shade dwelling, and watery watering. Oh, and since I haven’t mentioned food since at least lunchtime, we had tartiflette for dinner, leaving a residual linger in the air for a night of cheese filled dreams involving cows and mountains.

I’m not so sure if we watched three hours of Thomas the Tank Engine that night but I know the next day – my last day – was spent marvelling at the marvellousness of the Swiss rail system. Okay, so it was railways in miniature but it was just so impressive and cute and on time like clockwork. It helps that it was in a magnificent Swiss setting, at the end of Lake Geneva where the mountains circle closer into the shore and the Rhone squeezes its way into the lake. And it also helps having the excuse of a train obsessed two year old to be able to ride on several different engines, through screaming tunnels and over impressive suspension bridges. I don’t know if it makes up for hours and hours of Thomas the Tank Engine, but it goes a long way.

And so, like the proverbial steam train chuffing into Tidmouth sheds after a day doing stupid things and engaging in sardonic mutterings with other engines, the time in France, and Switzerland, was coming to a close. A deluge hit, of rain and cheese and final cakes, and then all was dark. It was still dark when I took a ride on a big jet plane, but there was a big gleaming sun emerging on the horizon. It reminded me of a wheel of gruyere, and with that I dozed fitfully to Spain.

Middling England

2011-08-30T16:51:00.021+10:00

Well, despite remaining in England, the weather did pick up a bit. I mean, there was torrential rain on Tuesday, a morning soaking on Thursday and some spits and spots in between, but there was also some blanket white cloud and slots of blue sky in between. I even dabbled with the idea of wearing shorts at one point but thought the better of it. Before leaving this arguably blessed isle for a few weeks of continental shenanigans there were a couple of travel sectors to immerse oneself with a cup of tea in more well-to-do parts of England – the downs and heaths and cathedral towns of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire (all in one day!) and suburban niceties in Finchley N12 London.

Now if you want a nice town with a well-to-do air, a haphazard conglomeration of picturesque buildings and churches bordered by tinkling rivulets and Cafe Identikit Chainos, then the cathedral towns of Southern England are where it’s at. Basingstoke isn’t really one of them, but a very useful base from which to spend a few days with Dad and Sonia and venture out into the manicured wilds of the south. Such as Winchester, which is a place I like very much, and it was a rather pleasant and agreeable place for a Friday afternoon meander, enlivened by ice cream and a walk into the wetlands through which the transparent waters of the River Itchen lazily spread.

This has to be Dave Cameron’s Britain, where antiquated schoolboy uniforms intersperse with old majors and shooting clubs (those darn working classes are crossing my moat...load the barrels and unleash the hounds), and the closest thing to a riot is a non-linear queue for the Daily Mail. It spreads across through the crinkled bedsheet downs of Hampshire and Surrey and Sussex to other such well heeled places like Guildford and Farnham and Chichester. Despite not naturally being a conservative type myself, it’s really rather agreeable (if you can be rich and slightly intolerant of other foreign types).

Chichester is kind of like Winchester, just with a little less win and a bit more chi about the place. It also has a cathedral and a series of old buildings taken over by the likes of WHSmith and New Look. Mercifully it does have some shops which cannot be found in every other single high street in the UK, giving the place a bit more character and charm on a bustling Saturday morning. Plenty of places to eat too, including a number of food stalls offering sizzling off-cuts of meat placed at regular intervals in between buskers plying their variable trade. And giant baked potatoes, yum.

Like most British towns Chichester does have plenty of cloud but not too far away a sliver of blue sky lured me to direct Dad towards the Sussex coast and the retirement paradise of Selsey. Where, to be fair, the sun was out and summer briefly returned, but that was the sole highlight. It is hard seeing beaches and making inevitable comparisons to those wonderful sandy expanses in the antipodes. At least the British sands are enlivened by piers and machines for your tuppeny bits, but not in Selsey, with its one food van and smelly foreshore. But the sun was warming and welcome.

The drive back was significantly more charming, with the sun extending into the South Downs, passing through into Surrey and back on towards Hampshire. The next day, the sun did its best to hide once more, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom with the odd intermittent break back down in Surrey along the Devils Punchbowl. While I still don’t get the name – a little too dramatic for a series of cosy hillocks and heather downs – the punchbowl provided a very nice walk through forest and meadows and heath, with a few lookouts to boot. I always like lookouts, making a nice change from cathedrals. Even better when you are munching on a pork pie atop such a hillock.

Despite being all relatively tame and refined, there remain some wild critters around these parts. The lesser spotted small car for instance, and the lady chortle chortle, often found in the more common fourusby fouropianous. There were also some lizards of some type, that did not seem particular rare given their prevalence at another little heathy spot somewhere in Surrey. I am not naming where exactly so I can keep their presence protected, and not because I can’t remember or anything.

Changing tack somewhat, but equally secretive are underground nuclear bunkers don’t you think? I mean, you wouldn’t get one signposted or anything would you. Somewhere in deepest darkest Essex, the (now decommissioned) nuclear bunker was perfect quirkiness for a soggy day, a reminder of oddments and peculiarities encountered down under with Caroline and Jill, friends with whom I met both in the southern hemisphere, but with whom I now shared a northern hemisphere summer day on a depressing wet M25. The nuclear bunker was actually rather excellent – in part informative, scary, hilarious and, well, quirky. Just beware the realistic mannequins with dishevelled hair and no arms.

Elsewhere in Essex, where I don’t think a nuclear blast hit but can’t quite be sure, there was pub lunch with a scarily oily but quite delicious lasagne, random villages and more of the M25 and other salubrious roads. There were more pubs in Hertfordshire - if only a few of these hundreds of pubs could be lifted brick by brick and transported to Australia, along with the ales – and you know what happens when you mix alcohol with mannequins and the M25? No, well, I’ll tell you what, a trip to Asda like innit for some evening ‘mezze’ and container spotting. Yes, it really was a wild and wacky day out.

Most of the rest of the time in North London was spent fairly leisurely, revisiting shops and parks of Finchley with Melita and her little cute newbie, Orla, who I’m sure enjoyed the little walks out in the sometimes sunny weather as much as I did. A chance to indulge in people time more than spectacular and magnificent sights...although Finchley Tesco is possibly such a place. It got me thinking how wonderful everyone I see and visit is and how they make these trips possible – putting me up, feeding me, driving me around, trying to crack a smile on my face. It works, because just occasionally you may see me beaming.

Black Hole Sun

2011-08-21T07:35:00.028+10:00

And so here we make it to quaint little England, arriving via a brief and random stopover in Munich for some Bratwurst and lederhosen. I arrived into London City airport and breezed through the various check points in seconds (they can smell the Pommie blood), finding a London seemingly ordered and awakening for another day selling shares and making millions. I had time to spare before my train down to Plymouth so, seeing it was turning into a rather pleasant day, I waited out in Hyde Park at Lancaster Gate to read the Metro, telling me what an awful, dreadful, dangerous and callous place Britain had become in the space of a few days. It seemed hard to comprehend in that sunny park shaded by regal horse chestnuts and accompanied by a quartet of sparkling fountains.

In fact, it was an even more preposterous notion upon entering Devon, which put on its best fluffy white clouds and green hills dotted with sheep and cows winding country lane and thatched cottage wondrousness. More viable in Plymouth perhaps, but even here things appeared to be calm and pleasant. Later on however, flames started to appear from a council estate and a large cacophony of noise swelled: Neil and Steve were lighting the BBQ and grandmothers and mothers and clucky women were cooing over babies. Here I was, finally showered from Hong Kong for my niece Brooke’s first birthday. Burnt snags are better the English way.

The next day and any sense of anarchy was far from the Devon-Cornwall border, though those gangs of fluffy white sheep hanging around the stile in their fleecy hoodies looked a bit suss. The weather was picture perfect for a jaunt on the picturesque Tamar Valley branch line to Calstock, with its impressive viaduct spanning the gentle waters. In such days of austerity you wouldn’t see anyone building such monumental accomplishments just to get to a small village with a pub and some ducks. But back in the day, this area was obviously more than just a nice place for a pleasant amble, plus the Victorians just built stuff because they could. Now I’m not one for harking back to times past – sure the Victorians had nice bridges, but they also had slavery, gonorrhoea and a frumpy old queen, but Calstock does have 1950s type air, when looting was a form of music rather than a favourite pastime and the milkman said hi and gave you a wink.

Underneath the arches was a nice walk along the river to Cotehele House – more sumptuousness within steeply banked woodland and manicured gardens – and Cotehele Quay, with further evidence of that Victorian industriousness when this place was an active port shipping supplies down to Plymouth and the world beyond. A natural spot for the National Trust to care for and develop tea rooms and gardens and, oh yes, cream teas. There was also a little interpretative centre, ideal for the kids among us to fritter away some of the lengthy wait before the next train back to Plymouth.

From this point on the weather really decided to go downhill, more traditional English summer school holiday fare of drizzle and dankness and cool temperatures (though it’s true that it never feels quite as cold as the thermometer suggests it is). But deep down my Britishness means I don’t let a bit of cloud and wimpy attempts at rain get in the way, and my next excursion was spent with people soaking up such weather for their summer holidays in Teignmouth and Shaldon. Fish and chips and ice creams (both of which I soaked up) alongside deckchairs, beach huts and amusement arcades all attempting fairly dismally to brighten the gloom.

While Teignmouth was a tad tatty, across the river Shaldon was far more clean cut, with its little cottages and window boxes and quaint riverside pubs. It also formed a gateway to escape the summer holiday melee and attack a small but intense part of the coast path. The Ness – a rocky red outcrop at the southern entrance to the Teign estuary – was a small bump compared to the next hill south, which never seemed to end in its rolling creamy greenness. The rewarding views and ice cream reward back in Shaldon was merited, though a little more blue sky and a little less grey cloud wouldn’t have gone amiss.

In between little trips there was of course jolly old activities in Plymouth, with its ever depressing but still somehow lovable city centre, rapidly disintegrating but lovable football team, and the mayhem of lovable family and friends. Mostly, activities revolved around lovable food, such as scrumptious dinner at Dave and Sue’s and, the next day, feeling a little tired and emotional from the night before, a perfectly designed combination of roasted pork belly, roast potatoes, veggies, stuffing and the liquid gold that was Mum’s gravy. The roast.

Hark at me, anyone would think I was Rick Stein or something the way I am rambling incoherently about a bit of tucker. But Rick Stein I am not, since I don’t own an endless cash generating machine that is Padstow in August (though I do have an amazing skill at linking seamlessly to the next day trip destination). After a shortish jaunt on the train to jaunty Bodmin Parkway station, a wait for a bus (time productively filled with tea accompanied by coffee and walnut cake at said jaunty station), and an hour long churn through the Cornish countryside, Padstow was reached. And I was not the only one there, despite the incessant murk which, at least, had not turned to rain. Most were giving their money to Mr Stein, lovable chap that he is, or just standing around the harbour probably contemplating why on earth did we have our summer holidays in England?

Mercifully, markedly few walked beyond Padstow and out alongside the sweeping sands of the Camel estuary to the Atlantic Coast. Where it was still not raining...a small achievement rising that I had made it this far, out to the promised land of the North Cornwall coast without getting lashed by painful squalls and getting soggy trouser bottoms. It was, of course, as satisfying as ever, regardless of weather.

Out beyond Stepper Point, the classic images emerged around every corner, though the sea was surprisingly subdued, less in the way of dramatic crashes and rushes of pounding water echoing around. There were cows, and a few people, the odd foreign looking type enjoying their summer holidays somewhere cooler than home, and a friendly man walking the dog to get away from the wife who he left shopping in Padstow. He must have been worried, as I passed him again coming back in the other direction, in somewhat of a rush to get back to Padstow and rescue his credit rating.

I probably should have followed him but decided to follow a cross country signpost vaguely indicating the direction of Padstow, thus creating a perfectly formed loop path. Alas it was mostly along a country lane that was so typically narrow to the extent that I had to breathe in when anything bigger than a Nissan Micra passed by and you couldn’t see much because the magnificent hedgerows were like 200 feet high or something. It had also now decided ‘oh yes I will actually rain today like I was supposed to’, at which point your feet suddenly start to hurt and you have a mini losing the will to live type episode. This losing the will to live episode continues unabated as you wait for several buses to connect you back to Bodmin Parkway and its jaunty little station, and realise you actually spent more time today on public transport than being outdoors.

Without wishing to sound like an irate Daily Mail reader, I swear it is getting harder and harder to reach parts of Britain by public transport these days. I noticed the twice daily bus service to wonderful Noss Mayo appeared to have vanished. Train times rarely link up with bus times and some services don’t even appear to connect to any place or anything else whatsoever. It’s still a million times more navigable than in Australia, but when you have a double decker bus heading to Bodmin Parkway station which has a low bridge to pass under, you know things aren’t quite right. So it was a pleasure to jump in the car and be driven to the edge of Dartmoor, and the beautiful and captivating gurgling of the River Plym one afternoon later in the week.

England really does has an excess of chlorophyll, though one thing I don’t get is that if green is supposed to be a relaxing colour, why isn’t everyone here just sooooo chilled? I blame Eastenders or something, all that screaming and shouting about nothing in particular. Now if people watched In the Night Garden more then things would be very different, although perhaps that tune would get stuck in their head, driving people to despair and even increased murderousness. Oopsy daisy, as they say.

Ah, the children, what it is all about...each trip to Europe involves several bouts of peekaboos and getting beaten up by kids and reading stories about a blue thing with a red towel. Despite the tiny terrors it’s actually rather joyous to visit family and friends with little ones. I figure it’s something I don’t really get exposed to so much in Australia, what with my own lack of children and seeming inability to be serious and contemplate procreation on a reproductive scale. Anyway, a day at Paignton Zoo in the pouring rain with nine-going-on-nineteen Bethany is probably enough to put me off for life! Bless her, she’s a diamond, but I’m not so fond of her cheating at Top Trumps!

The day at the zoo was inevitably dampened by the tormenting rain, which can’t have been what the animals were hoping for when they got captured and told they were moving to the English Riviera... “Oh look at this Ming Ming, they have palm trees and everything there, and even a love nest for us to make out complete with Panda-cam”. There were no pandas by the way, but an elephant and rhino and plenty of monkey things and lovely giraffes and numerous other creatures. I didn’t see the Kangaroos but they were probably wishing they were back in Canberra, in the sun.

Of course, the day that it came to depart Devon this time around heralded splendid clear blue skies and warmth. Gliding through the countryside on the train things were idyllic once more. Glistening in the morning light, Teignmouth looked rather charming. Children were playing happily and without incident. Sheep and cows and other exotic animals were grazing contentedly. It always seems to send me off this way, Devon. I’m just glad I’ve scheduled a few more days in next month. If someone could schedule some sunny, warm weather as well that would be just super.

Bonkers Honkers Zonkers

2011-08-11T20:15:00.047+10:00

If I was to choose anywhere that was the antithesis of the place that I left I’d be hard pushed to look past Hong Kong. Okay, so Canberra and Hong Kong were both civilised by the British and have a few hills to climb, but that’s as close as it gets. What Hong Kong has is that messy, chaotic, smelly concoction that comes from people being crammed together, putting the definite hum in humanity in the sweltering midst of August. I’m not sure I could live in it, but it’s sure one hell of a fun ride to visit. Five days in which to soak up not just several hundred pints of water vapour, but funny writing, slick buildings, star ferries and crazy trams, Big Buddhas and little feet, hanging ducks and pork buns. A city insane in the making and constantly on the edge of insanity. Here are some neon blinking highlights...

I can’t believe it’s hot, Buddha

The first day in Hong Kong was spent getting out of Hong Kong, with a trip to Lantau Island, and a cable car ride up to the ‘Big Buddha’. Naturally, you’d find this would be the first thing on any Australian’s list, and it was infinitely better than the big potato or big cheese. Sure, there was a theme park feel to the place, what with the insatiable appetite for consumption in the air, but once you actually made it to Buddha and ambled around the nearby Po Lin Monastery, you got that serene feeling that seems to come with the smell of incense, vegetarianism, and repetitive monosyllabic chanting.

The Big Buddha itself sits atop many many steps, paying pilgrimage a chore in the midday sun. But he has a terrific view, along with an inside that is blessed with some of that spiritual air-conditioned comfort. While hot, the weather was in fact marvellous, a splendid day to take in the mountainous surrounds and many islands spread out afar. An introduction to a side of Hong Kong that is not all high-rise mayhem.

Up here, vegetarian fare seemed to be the order of the day, given all these Bok Choi loving Buddhists and one extra cabbage muncher called Jason who was with me on this day. Apart from the excellent tofu, it was gloopy fare for the most part, but at least it took us into the serenity and shade that was the Monastery and various temples and gardens.

City Life

The city is spectacular and crazy, though where the city starts and ends is virtually impossible to ascertain. A rather good perspective was attained from ‘the other side’ on Wednesday night – or Tsim Sha Tsui as I preferred not to try to pronounce it. Generally, the biggest, shiniest skyscrapers seem to broadly indicate the city, but then these stretch on and on along the narrow line of land between harbour and mountain. Still, whichever way you look, a stunning view to soak up and all for the price of about 25p on the Star Ferry.

Many an ambling was done in Wan Chai, where we were staying just to the east of the city proper. Here, the contrast between east and west is all around, from large corporate offices and Starbucks to the narrow lined markets selling lots of anything and everything. The caramel frappuccino may be slightly more appealing than the rows of fish and hanging intestines, but the latter is certainly more authentic...I think. But in true Hong Kong style it doesn’t matter, each can naturally exist in their own right...dim sum can be next to an Irish bar which can be next to a Thai massage long time happy valley ending which can be next to an electronics store which can be next to a fruit and veg stall which can be next...okay so you get the point. The thing is, the best approach as a visitor is to just go with it and lap it up.

Which is exactly what we did by jumping on a tram, or something very narrow and tall that looked as though it could topple over at any moment on rails. It was great to just sit at the top of the back deck, get some slight relief from a breeze and watch the city bustle its way along. Breezing past the shiny cleanliness of skyscraper world, where important people were no doubt doing important things like pillaging the global economy. On to Central, where designer boutiques and the occasional colonial artefact were interspersed with narrow alleyways stuffed with market goods. Heading deeper into a less anglicised world of Chinese shops and shoebox apartments and – yes that very very Chinese thing – construction sites. And probably a step too far, Kennedy Town, a pleasant enough neighbourhood, but one from which we had to return on a more crowded tram.

Things neither cool nor quieten down much at night. In fact, the place is so abuzz at night and at its neon best that darkness appears to be its most comfortable state. It’s a very easy place to have a big night or two, even easier when you are with Jason and Mat, who somehow made the adjustment from living in Canberra to Hong Kong. A quiet beverage in Wan Chai turns into a few more, and Friday night provides the splendour of Taiwanese Dim Sum followed by peanuts galore on the floor and 7-11 beers on the tiers. Yes, one of the cheapest and most entertaining ways to be cheap and entertain oneself is by buying cans of beer from the 7-11 and drinking them on the streets of Lan Kwai Fong. Now, it is important to note here, this is not the same as buying two litres of cider and drinking them on the street corner in Swilly and being a disrespectful and idiotic hooligan. There is no nastiness or aggression. Just many people enjoying themselves in a free and open way, even if that involves borrowing some devil horns once in a while.

Should one feel a little tired and emotional from all this, or simply overwhelmed by the excesses of humanity, I always find a city’s parks can be a godsend. Hong Kong has some very fine examples, true lush oases in the urban jungle, though it’s not so easy to escape those pesky human beings. Sunday afternoon in particular, when, feeling a little tired and emotional, I ventured along to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. Here, every single shady spot (and there were many) was cloaked by women aged between something like 15 and 35 enjoying a picnic, a natter, and the free wifi on their various technological gizmos. I wondered if it was some giant pick-up joint, and suddenly felt very conspicuous... white, greying westerner with big camera seeking happy ending. But no-one batted an eyelid and even threw in a few dance routines in the midst of the fig trees as I wandered along, big lens extending once in a while to capture the madness that is this city.

Peaking early...and again

They say one of the best places to get a perspective on the city is from atop Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island. I was a little concerned that we had not made it up here on two clear and sunny days previously, a risk in a city in which clouds and storms and smog can often blanket the panorama. But I need not have worried, another fabulous and hot day on Saturday made the walking and waiting for the Peak tram arduous but undoubtedly worthwhile. The tram is a tourist must do, and so being a tourist, I was very glad to let it take the strain.

It’s amazing just how lush and green a large part of Hong Kong is, thanks in no small part to its precipitous geography which limits the opportunities for more high density housing (for now at least). They have of course managed to squeeze a couple of shopping centres at the top of the Peak, but the air-conditioning they offer is a real crowd pleaser. As too is the top floor, offering substantial views in all directions, without having to pay for the privilege.

It doesn’t take quite so long up here though to leave the hustle and bustle, thanks to a number of tracks and trails. I guess in theory it’s a little cooler for leisurely pursuits such as dog walking, not that it felt any different to me. In between the welcome shade, more views can be had both across the city and out to other islands and mountainous horizons.

The road down from the Peak, in a very full bus, never seems to end, a constant winding freefall through the trees past opulent houses and the occasional apartment block. It does end though, and very handily close to the hotel. This made it extremely easy to return, via bus, the following evening to soak up the late day glow and shadows transforming into dusky twinkling lights and night time illuminations. Seriously unlike Mount Ainslie.

From one island to another to another

Sunday night upon the Peak was like the culmination of everything that had gone before and Monday was the day to get out of this place. To be honest, I was just about ready to leave, mainly to escape the almost torturous humidity, switching to something a bit more bearable, as well as resting the overloaded senses. But there was a whole day to go, with my flight late on in the evening, thus giving me the opportunity of a ferry ride to the compact island of

Cheung Chau.

The ferry ride was like all good ferry rides – naturally cruisy with a decent breeze, as the boat trundled its way alongside the islands, with bigger and more impressive ferries whizzing their way to Macao, mammoth cargo ships inching onwards to deliver their loads, and the occasional fishing boat extracting something from the water to turn pungent on a street somewhere nearby.

Cheung Chau is quite a small island, though still with 30,000 inhabitants packed somewhere in its midst. Unlike most of the other islands though, it is low rise and relatively unglamorous, narrow streets making the bicycle the standard form of transport. It was quite amazing to observe the riding skills of these cyclists, taking on narrow streets and shuffling pedestrians with aplomb as they somehow wove their way through gaps and angles that looked to be mathematically impossible.

The guide books described it as the most Chinese of the islands, this equating to similar mayhem to elsewhere but with fewer Engrish signs and a scruffier, earthier look and feel. The harbour in particular was a throng of activity and hubbub, packed with junk and junks and other vessels looking barely seaworthy, delivering fish to be salted and aired out in the open, infusing with the smell of incense from a nearby temple to create an interesting aroma. Nearby streets were crammed with shops and stalls containing seemingly dated and obscure electrical products, next to dried fish bits next to inflatable beach goods. With its maze of narrow streets and love of tat, it was like Polperro on Chinese gymnast steroids.

As well as Polperro, there were tenuous comparisons to be had with Manly in Sydney – a short walk from the ferry harbour along a square and small strip of shops taking you to the other bay side of the island in a couple of minutes. Here a stretch of sand lined with the occasional spot for a cooling drink, a clean looking beach not unpleasant at all. In the distant thundery looking haze was Hong Kong Island and the tops of skyscrapers peeking above surrounding hills.

Apparently it’s not surfing that’s the go-go here, but windsurfing. However, today there was hardly a breath of air on what was turning into the most humid day, the sunniness of previous days replaced by an indecisive greyness that could either turn into a deluge or break into watery sunshine depending on what mood it was in. This set the scene for a rather sweaty walk up from the beach and along undulating streets to the southern part of the island. Here, more substantial and leafy houses dotted the way, before giving way completely to woodland for a little while, into which the island’s cemetery gradually infiltrated. The final, downhill part emerged into the southern end of the harbour where, once again, a more chaotic and scruffy authenticity reigned.

Back around the bay a little to the ferry harbour I picked up some coke and an ice cream, an attempt to cool down a little. I thought about lingering on the beach but the dodgy looking weather and enticement of an air-conditioned fast ferry just creeping into the quay were enough to propel me back to Hong Kong Island. With still several hours to spare before my late night flight, and a few dollars left on my Octopus card (like the oyster card but with extra tentacles), I once again took the Star Ferry across to TST, a final opportunity to walk the ‘avenue of stars’, locate Bruce Lee, and gaze back upon the impressive city skyline.

Can I call this a relaxing start to a holiday? No way. Can I call it one of the most stimulating, consistently eye-opening and enduringly memorable few days? Without a doubt. A final discovery to be had was the pleasure of Japanese Ramen at the airport, putting me in a contented and relaxed mood for the long trip to Germany, and some decent airplane naps. From there, Tuesday’s sunrise accompanies me on the hop over to London City and anarchy in the UK. Out of chaos comes order?

Commence disseminating the data

2011-08-01T08:13:00.013+10:00

July has definitely been an eventful month, that much cannot be denied. Warming carbon taxes and icy cold gales have provided the backdrop to a life of incessant busyness suffusing into late nights in bed with the French Alps and a hot water bottle. It’s been a long old ride but I’m glad the month has now come to an end and it’s time to descend freestyle into August and beyond. In a few days the cool winter will become a distant memory as I cross to the north side of the equator and chase the setting sun into the west.

You probably read this thinking yeah whatever Neil, you’re in Australia...it doesn’t get cold you big wuss. Perhaps you’re right. I mean, my T-shirt threshold is a good five degrees higher than it used to be. On that calculation it goes up by one degree for each year in Australia. Goodness knows what will happen to it if I am here at the age of 50. Still, if I keep eating at current rates I’ll have plenty of insulation.

Such insulation was genuinely needed though on a little trip down to Namadgi National Park earlier in the month. Remnants of snow visible all round, dusting the hilltops and meeting the blue skies that seem to be at their very deepest in this icy cold air.

The walk through the woods was a remedy designed for chronic sinusitis, each step through the shady snow splattered trail infused with fresh eucalyptus and perforated with speckled sunlight. A breather indeed most welcome on the slug up to the top of the hill, where the minty emptiness spread out far and wide into the distance.

Now, while we may occasionally bemoan such frigidity and rightly so (see white stuff above), the people of Sydney clearly need to harden right up. Brrrr, they say, it’s down to 8 degrees tonight, brrr, get a snuggie and three hot water bottles, and an electric blanket, plus I might need to wear a balaclava to bed. Bless them. I am however somewhat jealous of their eight degree lows, and they do have a rather fine harbour, and some good beaches, and a fair few good places to eat, which is always a bonus. July included a little trip there, tied in with work, but with enough non-work to not work and play instead. This mostly involves hanging around the Eastern suburbs, eating and strolling, but for once I ventured to the north side, where I ate and strolled and took more pictures of my friend Jill’s behind. It’s not intentional it just seems to happen, me lurking at the back fiddling with my instruments as she forges ahead, both on a typically random pursuit for coffee and cake. For once, we actually found coffee and cake, down at Chowder Bay, and very nice it was too. Not so good for the behind, but very enjoyable.

Sydney was also a good opportunity to spend some time with some very enjoyable people connected to my not so very enjoyable work. A chance to lunch by the water and spend someone else’s money before departing to the north of the world. This lunching and dining theme seems to have continued apace in the last couple of weeks here, and I would like to thank those people that have both made and shared their warmth and nourishment.

In fact, as in the past it is not uncommon to feed upon a fair few good meals prior to going away for a while, taking the chance to eat some of those favourite things and sharing last suppers and the like. It’s really not the smartest move, given the amount of lard that greets me in Europe. Still, the other great tonic that the pre-trip countdown typically encompasses is a little exercise, soaking up the many fantastic bushland hills and lakeside trails of Canberra. That little wander around the English trees and glassy lake at Weston Park, the climb up among the roos and galahs of Red Hill, and, the granddaddy of Canberra institutions, the summit of Mount Ainslie. A classic place for a classic photo (again!).

The very final sign that I am due to leave is the flowering wattle and the final of Masterchef approaching, events which always seem to herald a trip. It has been historically proven that I will always miss the final of Masterchef due to going overseas, and subsequently return to find the winner has disappeared into obscurity. It’s as much a given as Alan Jones being angry with absolutely everything and everyone in his hateful life. As inevitable as the fact that I will have a cream tea and I will take an explicit photo of it. As undeniable as, er, climate change science. As unquestionable as the supremacy of the French Boulanger. The signs are most definitely there, and it’s clearly time to go.

Sublime Points

2011-06-28T21:04:00.016+10:00

Another half year down, and it’s not just noticeable for the obnoxiously irritating adverts flogging gear to dodge tax. The upside-down southern hemisphere has had its winter equinox, meaning that despite getting progressively colder at least you can enjoy the cold with slightly more daylight. It’s a year since nerds were out and political redheads were once popular. And it’s now just one month of work left before embarking on the annual quest for clotted cream, smelly cheese and – this year – a few extras like crispy fried chicken heads and nu yark bagels and maybe even Outback Steakhouse for that authentic Aussie experience good day mate, yes it is strewth of a billy mate. How is it going?

A genuine Aussie experience is dangling your legs off a sandstone precipice with a million and one gum trees coating the folds and creases of a landscape so vast and untouchable it is almost bewildering to comprehend. Despite not being blue neither technically mountains, the Blue Mountains are why Australia should be cherished and celebrated, not a cork hat or a stubby holder or cuddly clip on koala.

A working requirement for Monday planted a seed for a weekend visit, the clear blue skies encouraging the brain and body to point the Magna in the general direction on Saturday morning, and the Magna deciding to take an alternative inland route just for a change. It was an okay change, and there was tarmac all the way, so at least a solid surface to squeeze past logging trucks between Goulburn and Oberon. From Oberon, the landscape stepped up a mark, the road skirting the extremely lengthy Megalong Valley and climbing up the Blue Mountains plateau from the west, eventually spitting me out at Govetts Leap. A lookout! How I love lookouts. Even a road sign for a lookout is thrilling, the anticipation of, er, looking out and all that.

Sat here I had my lunch of leftover pasta and for once it seemed to do what pasta is famed for doing and give a rather uncharacteristic boundless energy. Useful for the walk around to Pulpit Rock, especially the first kilometre which was down slippy steps then up similar but slightly less slippy and more gargantuan style steps. You know the ones, where you have to raise your whole leg pretty much the height of your leg to get up it and pray you are not wearing skinny jeans.

The rest of the walk was bliss though, the sun rather warming, the path drier and with fewer gradients to get in the way of happy times. The regular views over the Grose Valley only interrupted by serene forest growth and lyrebird repertoires. Even the walk back along the same path was not too much of a chore, the steps somewhat less annoying but the finish a bit of a breathtaker that’s for sure.

Sunday was a huge day of transition, from the mountains to the sea, with a touch of the old food treat escapades chucked in for good measure. While most normal people would have a nice lie in and drink tea on a Sunday morning, I was up at 6am, driving to Sublime Point, so named because it is a piece of rock that sits out (a la point), and is undoubtedly rather amazing, sublime you could say. I was after some of those mist in valley, red sunrays on rock type of shots. I wasn’t so keen on the chill wind gusts that came with it, but the bellbirds and I liked it a lot anyway.

In the distance, the famous three sisters – Beryl, Ethel and Maude – were shining like three old dears after a few Sherries and a night out to watch the Chippendales. They were also, like a lot of their cohort, extremely windy, somewhere you didn’t really want to dwell but were intrigued to spend a bit of time with nonetheless. A fitting point to say farewell to the mountains that aren’t really mountains and head down their non-mountainous inclines to Sydney...

...Where second breakfast was waiting courtesy of that favourite little spot in Coogee. Here the blue skies were just as blue and the post-winter solstice temperature was inching its way up to 21 degrees. There is nothing better to do on such days in this city than to get out on the water, that rather well known patch of liquid that spreads its watery fingers in all directions. A regal way to travel on it via the ferry from Watsons Bay, alongside the blend of unattainable wealth and accessible picnic spots, to Circular Quay. Which isn’t technically circular, but what does that matter. The Blue Mountains aren’t blue or mountains, and they turned out okay. You gotta love a place where you can watch the sun come up in the mountains and go down in the sea. Slightly later than usual too.

A shorts interlude

2011-06-19T17:05:00.021+10:00

Is Australia still a lucky country? With its more recent lack of sporting prowess and demented politicians you’d say not. It also cops its fair share of crap, like fires and floods and killer plants and psychopaths. It still has – shock horror – winters. Where twelve degrees Celsius can generate a public parade of furry coats and scarves and communal huddling around wood-burning stoves...the ‘Big Freeze’ indeed. It also does not have as much French cheese as France. Or , a good frickin Pork Pie. And don’t get me started (again) on clotted cream. But it still has cheese. And it still has places where you can wear shorts in winter. This is undoubtedly a good thing. This makes it – if not lucky – reasonably fortuitous in the random lottery of geographical positioning and climatic conditions.

There can be nothing more pleasing than rising above freezing Canberra fog and a few hours later meandering along tropical rivers and plants in shorts. Sure, you may be in Rockhampton – hardly the tropical tourist paradise of Queensland – but you are in Rocky and it is 26 degrees and pretty much perfect. Even the wide brown terror that is the Fitzroy River is looking placid. All you need now to make it a perfect Sunday is a good XXXX.

I’m sure the wonderful locals of this part of the world would not disagree when I say Rocky is not the most appealing of tropical Queensland towns. But that’s part of its very appeal, the everyday bogan vibe of utes and raised wooden verandas and wandering slightly lost on to the ‘wrong side of the tracks’, people sort of checking you out as they mow their lot or tinker with their Holden. This sounds odd, and perhaps it goes back to my younger years perched on the edge of Swilly, but there’s something comforting about that. Anyways, my wanderings eventually led to where I was intending which was the very un-janner-like Kershaw Park, and a serene shady spot of tropical greens and a rather grand ornamental pond completed with waterfalls.

After a couple of days work I finished the final day just with enough daylight for a final XXXX beside the river and felt very content all of a sudden. Lucky even. And with that lingering beery glow I was off down south to Brisbane. The locals warned me it was cold down there and I was like...I live in Canberra! And then Thursday only goes and ends up being one of the coldest June days ever and a maximum temperature below that of Canberra. OK, so it was thirteen degrees, but you know that almost qualifies it as being a ‘big freeze’.

Mercifully the Friday heralded the return of the sun and, sure, it wasn’t exactly balmy but it made a huge difference. An early morning walk by the Brisbane River was almost idyllic. Hard to think this particular monster was swirling above where my head now was five months ago. In fact, as hard as I looked, I could not see much in the way of evidence that a brown tide had swept along this way. Perhaps the only indicator the whiter than white glow of riverside buildings, dazzling in fresh coats of paint.

Evidence of the flooding is not hard to find when you speak to people though, and this kept me fairly busy until the end of Friday. Keeping me busier into Friday night was liquid of a happier kind...several thirst quenching beverages with Brisbane locals, and a rather delicate disposition to commence the long weekend. Marginally helped by breakfast in West End (I at least felt less sick), it was time to gather up Queens Birthday Weekend mates Jill and Jason, and head on up to the Sunshine Coast. I’ve has mixed weather in the Sunshine Coast, sometimes blessed, others cursed with storms and chill winds streaming off the Pacific. This weekend had both. It really should be renamed Sunshine Coast With A Chance Of Heavy Downpours. Be a nightmare to update the road signs though.

While the remainder of Saturday was spent avoiding the rain, doggedly eating alfresco undercover, Sunday dawned surprisingly okayish. No rain anyhow, and progressively brighter as we took the Skoda down by the Big Pineapple, through Kevin and Wayne’s hood, and up the hills to Mapleton. The kind of place you come for Sunday coffee and cake, though don’t expect it anytime soon. We probably could have ordered the coffee then gone for our little jolly nature walk in and around Mapleton Falls and picked it up on the way back. The nature walk though was just as pleasant post-coffee, all the requisite rainforest type things, and perfectly suitable for Queenslanders in camouflaged pink thongs.

While the landscape is undoubtedly Australian hinterland, there is that decidedly peculiar attachment to Europe that comes with being slightly above sea level and ideally placed for day trips. A French restaurant with cocks everywhere (yep, just like France), a Scottish and Irish shoppe with Irn Bru and Daniel O’Donnell, a wooden chalet crammed with cuckoo clocks. And cheese, good delicious overpowering fromagey cheese. Dare I say too much cheese? Yes there is such a thing... my raclette literally a whole block melted in the oven on a few potatoes and garnished with token pickled onions. Sooooo good, but, as memorably quoted by Mr J Davis, “you do feel a bit dirty afterwards”. Cleansing in part was a late afternoon stop on a windswept ridge overlooking the Glass House Steve Irwin Australia Zoo Mountains. Not quite or not really the Alps, but equally distinctive in their own right.

More cleansing was a return to sea level, and the last of the day on Mooloolaba Beach. Not only is Mooloolaba a great name and much fun to say, its beach is really rather fine, and the crystal curls of surf glittering in the orange light marked an end to a day which under-promised and over-delivered. And it definitely over-over-delivered on cheese, thanks to Mrs Davis’ homemade veggie lasagne for dinner.

The last day on this trip to the Queen’s Land was supposed to be the Queen’s birthday or something. Official or real, I’m not sure, but regardless it’s a day off, so bless you ma’am. And like on all good public holidays, the shorts were back and the weather fine. A few hours in Noosa the perfect opportunity to feel hot for the first time since March. Feet in the water for the last time in a while... I suspect the next time they see sea may be Spain. And more food courtesy of the Surf Club. Okay, so maybe you can keep those Sunshine Coast signs the way they are. For me, it’s back to the big freeze.

Great Sunny Times

2011-05-28T21:40:00.021+10:00

All work and no play makes bogey a dull blog. And Jack want to shoot himself, despairing as he may at the annual disgust that is spend the taxpayer money-a-thon so we can spend it all again next year. I note the last entry on this thing that I spend hours on and no-one actually reads was from Easter, over a month ago. In some way this makes me feel bad, but also good about my powers of endurance and resistance, since I am only now just tucking into that Lindt bunny with a warm cuppa.

So what can I share with, er myself, from the last month? It’s not like travel has been scarce, although even this was mostly packed into one week... Wagga on a Monday, Ballarat on a Tuesday, Sydney on a Friday. And Saturday, which was a blessing courtesy of blue skies and breakfasts. And Canberra is still here, still charmingly beautiful as it descends into the freezer. Dry as a bone, cockatoos causing havoc, the usual. Masterchef is back, and – is it me – or is it just a wee bit too early for the sentimental backing piano and tears already malarkey? Too many cooks and all that... Still, it’s eminently watchable escapism that makes me hungry and gets me cooking lemon meringue pies, and crispy roast pork belly, and... I think tomorrow a nice warming Lamb Shank casserole.

Clearly sounding more and more like one of those grumpy old men, it was definitely time for some real life escapism today, and what a very happy day it was. This is what you live for... pleasant cruising, sun-soaked brunch by the water, beachside ambling, rock pool adventures and pebbly scrambles, flat whites and sand, and a little fish with potato scallops. What we are looking at is a quintessential South Coast day trip I reckon. As ever focused around eating opportunities in between gorgeous walks, the early-ish drive down spurred on by the fact that you can be eating brunch by the water at Batemans Bay.

No guilt trips on this trip, the creamy scrambled eggs with bacon and mushrooms and toasted sourdough fuelling the spirit and body for a walk in nearby Murrumarang National Park, the classic Depot-Pebbly express. Although not so express, what with taking snaps and exploring rock pools and reading books. Departure point is one of the world’s more serene car parks – a gravel clearing surrounded by mightily tall and straight spotted gums – and an initial trundle through a rainforest gully down to the water. The cool of late autumn all too evident in the shade of ferns and palms and creepy creepers.

But out of the forest and into the sand, the sun warms and turns things quickly into a T-shirt day. I reckon shorts would have been okay too, bearable anyhow. At Depot Beach, which looks nothing like any depot I’ve seen, it’s time to hit the shoreline and meander from sand to rock to pebble to sand to pebble and rock together and then the – yes – sand at Pebbly Beach.

Here, just a scattering of people for company and probably some of the cushier living kangaroos... sunning themselves, eating green grass, generally looking a bit stupid but not really bothered kind of thing. It’s a tempting proposition if you like grass.

I didn’t eat any grass while here, neither did I eat the small quantity of crackers and smelly French blue cheese I brought with me. Best save it in case I get stranded and have to eat my own arm. I think my arm would go quite nice with a bit of Fourme d’Ambert. Then again, anything would. Alas, I didn’t get stranded and the Arm-de-Gaulle lives another day; though with the incoming tide a few of the pebbly stretches back to Depot Beach were fast becoming intimate with the Tasman Sea and required some careful negotiation and luck.

Back in civilisation, I satisfied myself with a coffee instead, and it is without doubt hard to beat a sunny day, a flat white, and a beach. Tomakin Beach to be precise, just one of the many little populated bays south of Batemans where retired folk come to retire, Toyota pick-ups come to pick up fish, and dog walkers come to walk dogs. There’s something very appealing about this way of life. I sometimes wonder about moving to some random coastal town, but then I think I maybe need to wait 30 years so that I could fit in and play bridge and go to the RSL for a Senior’s Special Schnitzel. Still, nice coffee for a small backwater.

Being 4pm and almost winter (and still in my T-shirt oh yeah, suck on that UK), the day was nearing its end, and seeing as I had been so disciplined in refusing to eat my arm, I decided to have a little twilight fish supper back in Batemans Bay. I wasn’t going to, but, you know, when in Rome and all. Then it was all over, and I rushed back to write this blog entry and eat Lindt bunny. It’s nice to have something to write about, something enjoyable and refreshing to share with me. Let’s not leave it so long next time, hey.

Love Bunnies

2011-05-01T19:45:00.020+10:00

Guffaw chortle spiffing dress darling. Super day in the park, horsey horsey rah rah. Hot totty to starboard Harry. Whereto one’s fascinator? OK, that’s the discussion on the merits and demerits of the royal wedding out of the way, let’s talk in more common than an upper middle class wealthy commoner from an affluent Berkshire village terms about recent events in my life. I know, it’s all about me. Er, yeah, this blog is really isn’t it? Jeez, how vain am I?

We have been blessed with an Easter and Anzac Day public holiday fest providing five days off in a row. This offered a sedate if annoyingly not quite work-less start to the break, at times pottering around the leafy colours of Canberra once more to marvel in its comfort. A walk through Grant Street with a coffee in Manuka an adventure in yellow. A meander among the Botanic Gardens with a good book an episode in green. And a hike up Red Hill a multicoloured party of bush and burb.

The botanical love affair continued a little into Easter Sunday, an early drive up to Sydney interrupted by the Mount Annan Botanical Gardens on the edge of the suburban sprawl. A strange place, more like a country park than a garden, full of BBQs and picnics and gentle Sunday driving of Holden Utes and souped up Commodores. Closer in to the city, the sun was holding out down at Maroubra Beach, a place of sandy walks and cliff top reads before the day disappeared all too quickly, bringing a stream of endless overnight rain.

It was a decidedly dodgy start on Easter Monday for the main event of the break, a trip down south along the Grand Pacific Drive and beyond. The first part of the drive is not so grand, but you do kind of see bits of the Pacific... well Botany Bay at least, as you work your way out of the southern industrial fringed suburbs of Sydney. But such is the proximity of wilderness in Australia, this soon gives way to immense sandstone bushland in Royal National Park. At Audley, where the road crosses the river, a boatshed provides plenty of watery frolic options. The best undoubtedly a canoe paddle through a calm creek cutting its way through the sandstone. The photos etched in the mind rather than captured here for posterity, the camera remaining high and dry.

The road winds through the park and spits you out atop huge hummocks plunging down to the leaden sea. Apparently, a perfect spot to through yourself off a cliff with the aid of a hang glider. Many were and many more were watching.

More my cup of tea was a cup of tea, or actually a milkshake in a small seaside town further along the road, before the rain returns at Wollongong and the highways merge and snake their way through blue collar grit and surfside shacks. Home for a few days was Kiama, or actually, a B&B perched on a hill above Kiama.

Among many things, Kiama is blessed with a blowhole and places to eat. It’s also merrily positioned on the coast but with a lush hinterland of pasture and national park, a place where rivers plunge off the escarpment and make their way through crafty villages full of shoppes towards the wide sandy estuaries of the coast. Old favourites such as Morton National Park, the Big Potato, and Kangaroo Valley reside here.

The Grand Pacific Drive supposedly ends somewhere down here, yet the road carries on regardless, all the way to Melbourne. Kiama provides a fairly civilised stop, a chance for actually rather good Thai, and scrummy Mexican, additional weight to carry forth on the now more boringly named yet still with ironic royal connections Princes Highway. This stretch rarely touches the coast, but ploughs a few miles inland through Nowra and Ulladulla and somewhere in between this stretch is fast becoming my favourite secret coastal hideaway. So secret I am not going to name it, but needless to say it has pretty much the perfect sand, bushland and calm crystal water combination.

With the sun emerging and providing warmth, the shorts were allowed out for a little play, the feet bare and caressed with the surprisingly mellow water. It was idyllic while it lasted, but un-idyllically it didn’t last... a shower and scary seagulls further down the coast confining fish & chips to the car, a stop at Pebbly Beach thwarted by cold winds and clouds, and a final call in at Batemans to warm up with coffee and cake. Just the right combo to make the ride up and over Clyde Mountain somewhat queasy, but survivable nonetheless. Now chasing the remnants of day across the tablelands, the last vestiges of the holiday light disappeared upon entering Canberra, but this being Canberra, disappearing in a blaze of dramatic red flamed glory. A sight fit for a king. Or a commoner like me.

Red and yellow and pink and green

2011-04-16T21:00:00.013+10:00

No other time of year paints a picture that differs each and every day. The endless summer days would become monotonous if they weren’t so warm and radiant and full of sizzling snag aromas. The cool winter days test patience with their bone chilling frosts and winds blowing down from the peaks. But in between the two we have ever changing scenes of greens and yellows turning to blazing reds underneath still mild blue skies.

These are perfect days for perfect walks, and by golly have I pottered and ambled in earnest over recent weekends. Usually with a pre-walk flat white and a post-walk dose of comfort food, perhaps with a break for some leisurely reading somewhere in the middle. It’s a pipe and slippers kind of life, a contrast to working weekdays which are more 20-a-day and runners (don’t worry it’s an analogy, I’m not smoking...er, or running!). It’s like the contrast between snag filled smells of summer and icy cold winds of winter. And here we are somewhere in between.

So apart from ambles and rambles, emails and work travails, there’s not much else to say. I’m kind of racking my brains for something amusing to share, a jolly good Australia cliché or stereotype to throw around. I saw some kangaroos this morning! They bounced.

Food is naturally an ever present in the mix and I’ve been donning the Masterchef apron on several occasions... spicy pork goulash, butter chicken, and today a warming beef and Guinness filler slowly melting away for tomorrow’s pie fiesta. And with a work trip to Sydney came some splendid sushi and mighty Malaysian to feast upon. I love the quality and diversity of Asian food here.

There is also a girl with a dragon tattoo taking up my time, a plunge into populism so addictive it is providing pipe and slipper weekends and diversionary endings to wacky weekdays. I really should read more. Or more often. Or more quickly.

There are also plans to plan. I need to make a plan so that I make a plan for travel back to Europe in a few months. And in the short term, a plan for Easter and the Anzac Day holiday. I sense water and sand, and probably a flat white with a Lindt bunny in there somewhere.

So it turns out different things are still happening every day. Each sunrise brings with it something anew, a different conversation to cherish, a clean pair of pants to also cherish, a slight variation of some stupid political debate going on to cherish a lot less, another government department wasting a different lump of money that they don’t really cherish much, and a new sale to end all sales at Harvey Norman with cheap sofas (in cerise red). It’s an ever-changing picture, where greens turn yellow, and reds blush their way through the blues. And very rarely is it grey.

Here, there, and everywhere

2011-04-04T21:19:00.014+10:00

To capture the essence of the whirlwind weeks of March let’s keep this short. I mean, it’s not like I have time to type at any less than one hundrewd worsds per minut. It’s not liek the qualty suffers or owt. In many ways it is great to have been busy, weekend upon weekend of fun times happily counteracting week upon week of stuff far less jovial. And when the busyness and business stops, you finally come up to smell the roses and notice the roses are actually starting to wilt as April hits. Meanwhile the leaves are reddening with each hour of gorgeous autumn sunshine. Fun was the name of the game a couple of weekends past, a boozy Friday leaving lunch drifting into a boozy evening Aussie BBQ at Narrabundah Heights. It was a great night so a public thanks to those who came and brought a surplus of sausages, a battery of beers and a wonderment for wombats.

It’s not just because I think they actually read this thing that I would like to give special thanks go to my interstate visitors, Sophie and Jason, for providing a weekend of merriment in between bad singing, dodgy driving, snoring and Jewel of India. How do you show interstate visitors a good time in Canberra? Tidy up after them, drive them around, force them to go to roller-derby and then watch an Adam Sandler movie? Thankfully places like Mount Ainslie and the NGA make up for my mediocre attempts at entertainment.

Next up on the funbus we move very briefly onto Sydney, for a midweek training trip. The wonders of Office 2007 perked up by an evening in Coogee the night before. Time for a beach stroll, a cold beer in the Palace, and a yummy evening meal in the warming air. And then the next day some nervous excitement at the revelation of SmartArt, yum yum dim sum lunchies at Pyrmont and then back to Canberra, home of the photomarathon.

A few snaps later it was then off to Albury, a town on the NSW border next to the Victorian town of Wodonga. The trip on one of the smallest planes I have been on, mercifully calm thanks to the very fine weather and fact that Sophie Mirabella never made it on despite several final calls. I never made it to Wodonga, but did cross into Victoria one morning, crossing the vast inland artificial sea that is Lake Hume. Despite the challenges of fitting in sightseeing with work, it was good to at least see a little of this place... the Victorian High Country beyond still appeals. Yes, I am indeed a smart traveller...

It was back on the little plane to Canberra on Wednesday morning and finally things very gradually started to calm. I could detect the aroma of roses. The days, inching to the weekend, becoming finer and finer, the skies bluer and bluer, the trees redder and redder. A gorgeous weekend with food and walks and more half arsed hosting of visitors. Luckily the hosting is far easier when Canberra is at its best like this.

And so we have made it to a Monday night in April, the clocks now changed, the night time coolness edging occasionally into coldness. Slippers making guest appearances, hoodies back on the agenda. Comfort clothes and comfort food on the menu. And with this comes the calm, the stillness returning all around. The whirlwind has abated for now, replaced by the gentle wafts of autumn breeze flickering through the trees, delicately cradling the burnished ochre of a leaf gently back to rejoin the earth.

A Tassie kind of mania

2011-03-21T20:41:00.031+11:00

Bless Canberra Day. An opportunity to get a public holiday to celebrate its birthday by getting out of Canberra. Add an extra day of leave and a bit of travel planning and you can end up with something rather special. For me, this was almost four days in Northern Tasmania, where the landscape is diverse yet familiar, drives and walks offer thrills around every turn, and there’s a sense of olde time nostalgia stopping for food or drink in random Tassie timewarp towns.

So I arrived bright and early on Saturday morning in Launceston. Clearly, when they settled in this area they could see some resemblance to south west England. However, I think they had a few too many ciders at the time. Here it’s the Tamar River, not the River Tamar. Launceston, which is not pronounced proper like, is correctly on it but so too is Exeter, which itself happens to be to the east of Westbury and Somerset (which is a town not a county). Meanwhile, Devonport, which should clearly be on the Tamar is situated on the Mersey River (some hilarious Scouser must have gatecrashed the party). Mercifully Deloraine, the first stop on the road, was not geographically inappropriate and home to a rather amiable dose of old style country life, the river meandering, the high street dotted with the requisite trinkets and curios and homemade comforts of bread and cakes.

After Delo, the road and landscape becomes less cultivated and refined, pasture giving way to rugged ridges and sweeping bush, the Mersey somehow trying to negotiate its way into the Great Western Tiers, visible from following one of the great short walks to Alum Cliffs. Heading on further still it’s easy to think the rest of the population has been wiped out by some zombie style epidemic, the roads sparse, nature raw and often unforgiving, trees struggling to hold out amongst the moorland blasts of wind and rain. But there’s that baguette from Delo deli to bring comfort, and civilisation of sorts re-emerges around the entrance to Cradle Mountain National Park, a comfortable cabin offering the luxury within the wilds.

All this and three paragraphs within the space of a Saturday morning meant there was time for substantially more to follow. In what is proclaimed to be one of the murkier places in Australia, the gloom was lifting, the sun out and the raggedy ridge of Cradle Mountain displaying true and proud from Dove Lake.

Dumping the four wheels and taking advantage of the rather excellent shuttle bus system and my own less than excellent two feet, the beauty and drama of it all was open to be breathed in, absorbed like the pure water in the mosses and still pools of this sweeping landscape. The only logical way up, a few paces on the Overland Track to steps and planks and muddy patches, rising all the time to more lakes and rocks and that empty bleakness that is consistently so hauntingly beautiful. The final scramble up to Marion’s Lookout an exercise in exercise, and a rewarding panorama soured only slightly by the fickle clouds of Mother Nature closing down on the peak.

Of course, on the way back down the cloud dissipated only for the sun to be further blocked by the tangly trees and shadowy ferns lining a series of cascades and gurgles on their way down towards the buttongrass plains beyond. And so it was back out on these plains, with the sun now faded behind the hills, that the wombats came out to play, nothing if not ambivalent to the presence of a human watching them for five minutes.

The next morning and an early start brought many rewards. This time I drove in the pre dawn glow along the narrow winding road to Dove Lake, hoping no wombats would be sharing the small strip of tarmac with me. At its end, a glassy calm mirror, waiting itself to be bathed in the emerging light and, like me, revelling in serenity. Good morning world.

With that start, even a very feeble breakfast of an apple and, later, a five dollar coffee couldn’t put a dampener on things, and before too long it was back on the road again, leaving the mountains and moors for the North West coast. Cheetos kept the hunger at bay as the road descended through forests and along rivers and emerged back into the pastoral patchwork of Tasmanian creaminess. The coast was hit at Wynyard and, around the corner, Table Cape rose in prominence, a magnet drawing its own shroud of mist, blanketing the fields of pungent onions which even a Frenchman on a bike with a stripy top and beret may even find a little overpowering. Freewheeling down on his bike though the Frenchman – in fact any man or woman – would be very pleased to find himself at Boat Harbour Beach, bathed in warm sunshine and seemingly relocated from the somewhere far more tropical. An idyllic spot for chilling out after that early start, to refuel on something other than apples or cheetos, and refresh for the onward journey to Stanley.

Stanley sits on a narrow isthmus of land almost separated from the island and the twentieth century. But this is a good thing, and one I shall get back to later. For now, it offered up an ice cream in the blue skies and a launch pad for one final push of the day to the west coast. The aim, sunset, the location, a wild, windswept beach lashed by surf from a sea which stretches out a few miles or more to next hit South America.

In the end, sunset never materialised and the only place to eat anywhere nearby was full of annoying empty but reserved tables. The roast beef just a distant pang of memory on the tastebuds, replaced by a real life pizza back in the relative civilisation that is Smithton. To compensate for this it was yet another early morning rise in Stanley, in order to climb atop the Nut and watch the sunrise instead. The Nut is a giant lump of rock which sits upon the end of the Stanley isthmus, a former volcano and home to numerous pademelons taking flight from some crazy Englishman ascending its wickedly steep slopes. Atop, the sky crystal clear, remnants of blackness filtering into the indigo hue of first light, the sea flat and calm as the glowing red and orange emerges over its horizon.

Sunrise always signifies promise for what lies ahead, but that becomes promise with added bells and whistles when it starts in a way so clear and calm. For this is supposed to a stormy, wild kind of spot, one in which ships flounder and foolish tourists and lashed with horizontal rain. Signs that the day was a good one were confirmed with breakfast at Moby Dicks in Stanley, a place of monumental charm and generous food, an amalgamation of the best parts of English, Australian and American breakfasts...the HP of the greasy spoon, the flat white of cafe cuisine, the sunny side ups of a 60s diner. Genuine cooking from the heart, albeit not particularly great for the heart.

If I stayed much longer in Stanley I may not have left, and Moby Dick’s would have a lifelong customer and quite generously proportioned friend. But I tore myself away, taking one last little scenic drive around the nearby coastline, a landscape vaguely reminiscent of South Cornwall, where green fields end abruptly and plummet their way onto rocky platforms and calming coves. The Nut of course dominant, like a roasted macadamia in a sea of beer nuts.

Inland from Stanley are more examples of relative creaminess and dreaminess, a place where pretty much the best cheeses and dairy products in Australia emerge, a site for the Devondale creamery, the Devon element occasionally not far off. But it’s not too long that you are reminded you are in Australia, a vast country with land untouched and untamed, distant and remote and just about too much hassle for anyone to discover or develop or exploit. This is the edge of the Tarkine, itself an enigma with uncertain boundaries and characteristics, tracts of rainforest and pure mountain waters, buttongrass plains and rocky clumps, ferns larger and greener than any ferns that have gone before (with the possible exception of Fern Britton).

The Tarkine is never far out of the debate around environmental protection versus economic development and prosperity. Like many other areas of Australia, it’s only recently being seen as a potential cash cow... bursting with minerals and logging and opportunities for taking the unending supply of Chinese wealth. This may alarm and logic dictates we should protect this unique patch of wilderness, but listen to some of the locals and you get a different perspective... jobs to reduce unemployment, prosperity and security of the region, an opportunity rare on an island where 50% is already national park.

It’s a toughie, as was keeping going on the road back along coast heading east, through the industrial and commercial stretch of Burnie and on to a coffee and cake stop at Penguin. So named because of Lord Percival Penguin, a British aristocrat who founded the McVities biscuit company and developed the idea for a chocolate sandwich bar while hunting for wombats in Tasmania. Maybe. The other possibility is the presence of nesting penguins around the town, some of whom have been immortalised in fibre glass for endless enjoyment for locals and visitors alike.

The next town of note along the road was Ulverstone, an English style seafront town with gritty beaches, dunes and parks, a place for late afternoon exercise and picnics and beach cricket between the lifesavers and locals. Despite being relatively unglamorous, it seemed to be one of those places where it would be quite easy to fall into a comfortable lifestyle, walking the dog along the front, popping into the fish n chip shop on the way home and having a beer down the local club with a fellow head or two.

Arguably more glamorous was Devonport, a spot that I was going to bypass until the last moment, only to be drawn partly out of duty to Demnports everywhere and convinced the beautiful day was better spent outdoors than in a car. It is of course a port, and the spot where the Spirit of Tasmania links to the big island, threading through the mouth of the Mersey and calming down calming down into its dock on the eastern side. Like Ulverstone here too were people enjoying the outdoors... exercising, strolling, walking, jogging, cycling, skating, ambling and one or two driving around like chavish hoons. Once a Devonport always a Devonport.

My random bursts of spontaneity continued on the final leg to Launceston, the whizz back via the highway spurned for a B-road delight through more rural idylls featuring rolling haystacks, pretty cottages and leafy woodland. Was it any wonder the road finished at Exeter, a smaller but just as bland looking place as its English namesake with a football team to match? Exeter somewhat improperly lies beside the Tamar River, where the final soft light of day illuminated the rolling landscape around. Ending a day when the sun dazzled from start to finish.

The excess of sun was counterbalanced a little on my last day, a more overcast feel for the majority as I dutifully pottered about Launceston, Tasmania’s second ‘city’. It’s more a large town than anything else, a compact central district dotted with parks and pubs and a mish mash of old colonial chic. It’s a good size to walk around, with the Tamar River lapping along its fringes and sloshing its waters into little inlets and creeks and streams. One of the more notable inlets forces its way through steep sided bushland, forming probably Launceston’s most famous landmark, Cataract Gorge. While not as gorgeous as some other gorges, the fact that this is pretty much in the heart of the city is in itself quite spectacular. A veritable playground of Australia for people to celebrate the bushwalk, the suspension bridge, the pool and the cable car ride. The amble up the gorge was an amble, the hike back the other side a hike, a contrast which encapsulates Tasmania... the sedate against the rugged, the refined against the raw, the babyface against the four day old stubble.

Somewhat weary by now I was keen to end in the gentlest way possible, taking the final afternoon at old person speed along minor roads fringing the Tamar Valley. Here were strawberry farms and mudflats and vineyards and yacht moorings. In this land, cursed by distance, a small island off a big island miles from pretty much anywhere, I felt both closer to and farther from home than for some time. Despite some geographical errors, those place names do something very subtle and subliminal to the mind, something that could only be crystallised by several ciders I would imagine. But a pot of Boags it was, loyal to the local cause, to send me on my way back to Australia.

Febnicity

2011-02-20T19:13:00.018+11:00

In England I remember February as just about being the bleakest month, tempered only by its relative briefness and the promise of a changing of season around the corner. Here, while the February days and nights are the very antithesis of those gloom-filled memories, the same impending feeling of change gnaws its way at the back of the mind. The temperatures have (probably) peaked, the full green burst of summer leaves have fulfilled their ambition, the next step a flaming and browning and fall, the sunsets – a steady 8pm for many weeks – drastically hasten their shades on the day, and the awfulness of Australian politics returns in full swing. It’s not all doom and gloom though, since the delights of March and April are naturally delightful in themselves, but it’s a time to take opportunities before they depart until next spring.

Opportunities such as total and utter immersion in cooling ocean swells, perfect antidote a couple of weeks ago to the peaking temperatures. Following an absolute stinker of a week – hot and abnormally humid days and sweaty Darwin style oppression, occasionally broken by ferocious storms – the thought of an air conditioned car journey and sustained dips in the sea was a no brainer. Almost immediately upon hitting the east coast I was in it, the shallow and calm water of Long Beach a good way to work up an appetite of fish and no chips but greasy potato scallops with salt instead.

While Long Beach was a necessary coolant it wasn’t the absolute idyll. That came further up the coast, courtesy of Washerwoman’s Beach at a random place called Bendalong. Blink, and you’ll miss the turning off the highway. Stare wild-eyed like a drug induced maniac instead and you’ll find yourself at a wonderful beach, the calm clear water lapping the sparsely populated mass of bushland fringed white sand. I’m not sure if it’s like it all the time, but the ultimate blessing was the waves, which were very much of the non-scary variety, breaking gently close to shore and leaving a placid pool of clear water from which to scout for sharks.

Some aspects of Australian society would be particularly comfortable with the sand here, being all white and lacking non-stop boatloads of scary foreign terrorists set on conquering the Australian way of life. Canberra is one of the whiter places, but unlike others, full of bleeding heart wannabe lefties like me. It is also, somewhat bizarrely given its homogeneity of comfortably middle class public servants, the home of the national multicultural festival. This basically means you get to eat some food from anywhere in the world and see some particularly fancy dancing in funny costumes, which is surely as good a way of promoting multiculturalism as any. It is without doubt fantastic, mainly because Canberra city centre – a place with the soul of Watford in the style of Milton Keynes – comes alive, thronged with people bustling for a chance to shake their booty to the smooth Latin rhythms of some golden thong clad princesses. And here for once I mean thong in the non-Australian sense.

Despite the hordes of scary immigrants with their funny ways – surely this sentiment now being thrown around willy-nilly by brainless politicians was alive and well when Aboriginals spotted Captain Cook and co – Australia actually does remain a land of vast open space and untouched bushland. The open space is too much sometimes, like the drive up the Hume Highway which gets increasingly more boring on each journey, but it does deviate into some spectacular spots. One of those is now renamed Old Faithful, as it’s a place where I can head when I want guaranteed bushland surroundings and everything that comes with it – fragrant eucalyptus mixed with lemons and frangipanes and tea trees, cycles of black cockatoo shrieks and lyrebird mimicry, spider webs and snake potential, sheer sandstone and deep ravines. And Ol’ faithful itself, Fitzroy Falls, whose white veil never dries and consistently offers nice accessible bushwalking and lookouts.

While the falls plunge and force their way through the dense bushland visible for miles on end, eventually the escarpment gives way to a more cultivated and tamed land. Nowhere more tamed and cultivated than Kangaroo Valley, billed as Australia’s loveliest valley and who am I to disagree? What distinguishes this place – especially in years more usual than the last – is its very greenness, European-style with lush pastures and creamy cows. The narrow, winding, hilly road across to Berry the closest this place gets to Devon.

At Berry the landscape remains fairly lush as it nears the coast, the small town providing a good spot for people to graze, my particular cud being a quite yummy baguette with cheese and prosciutto only ruined slightly by the overpowering lumps of pesto. And with a baguette in hand, the feet finally hit the coast around Gerroa and Seven Mile Beach. Very less white but still no scary boatpeople.

It’s a big day trip, but this is the land for big day trips. Especially in February, while the going is good and opportunities are there to be grabbed. For who knows what is round the corner... cyclones, floods, bushfires, earthquakes, martians landing in the Brindabellas? Or more likely, probably just calm fine golden days as we slowly creep into a changing season.

Aussie Openness

2011-01-29T14:04:00.021+11:00

With Australia Day coming and going this week, it’s a time for the country to mull over what it means to be Australian. If Australia Day is anything to go by, it means mass eating of tasteless slimy sausages on greasy BBQs, a bit of chirpy singing and waving of a sometimes unsatisfactory flag, a little boozing and gathering in a thong-footed mass of happy families and bogan pride, watching fireworks explode over wonderful, modern, generally civilised cities. Thankfully though, it mostly means not worrying too much about what it means to be Australian and just getting on with things and being Australian.

Australia is of course quite a faraway, isolated place, perhaps only eclipsed by New Zealand in its off-the-radar ways. Occasionally a catastrophe or calamity will remind people it exists, or Oprah will come and visit and you’ll never hear the end of it. Then there’s the sport and while Australian achievements in sport seem to have dwindled in recent years (I think really the rest of the world has caught up), it remains a strong component of the nation’s psyche. Camm orn!

The city of Melbourne is undoubtedly the sporting heart of the nation and, while the ‘G’ fields lovely leg breaks and marvellous marks for the empire and colonial audiences, its one truly international jewel in the crown is the Australian Open tennis championship. And here, my very enjoyable sporting summer continued, not once, not twice (as originally planned), but three times. As a non-tennis watching friend memorably put it (perhaps somewhat ironically)...time to watch some straight sex victories.

It’s a good time of year to be in Melbourne and usually by now it is ridiculously scorching. We know the weather is different this summer and it’s been one of the coldest Aussie Opens on record, though more inconsistent and mild than downright cold. Certainly the Sunday I arrived was a good weather day, ideal for cruising around and chilling before an evening jaunt at Rod Laver arena.

The tennis that night was solid if unspectacular – Sharapova grunting along to a loss to someone with an unpronounceable name and an unpronounceable name happily beating Andy Roddick. I feel sorry for the unpronounceable names – the massive balance of crowd calls squealing out for the easier option – while a few mangle the syllables of Miss Wvyarwvekotfskiovanic. Alas, as well as unpronounceable names, I cannot bring you close ups of frilly skirts and backhand slices, Nazi style camera restrictions in place to desist stalking and encourage more spending of money on official photographs of player’s butts...

The next day, the zoom lens was back intact on a trip out of Melbourne to the very beautiful Dandenongs and Yarra Ranges. Getting there was not especially half of the fun... escaping the Europcar car park the first major challenge, although onward navigation was pretty impressive despite the best efforts of the satnav. Picking up late breakfast from a patisserie in Belgrave saw the day pick up, and eating that luscious apricot and almond slice underneath the tall mountain ash forest was quite probably the summit.

Coming off the Dandenongs (which I think sounds like something you’d find In The Night Garden), it was off into the Yarra Valley, through the rather chicken-less Lilydale and up towards Yarra Glen, where an obligatory tasting of grape juice was warranted. Then across to Healesville, where a rather scrumptious pub lunch was also warranted. And then up and over twisting unsealed roads in the high cloud of the Yarra Ranges National Park, where grape juice and lunch was swirling around in a generally unwarranted fashion. Despite this, the drive was absolutely awesome, through majestic forests and dripping wet ferns, a freshness and purity in the air, a paradoxical thrill and fear about being in the middle of nowhere, the misty clouds swirling among the ghostly white pillars of mountain ash.

Down out of the clouds, back on sealed roads and with one or two other cars for company, the descent zoomed the car down to the small town of Warburton, where, in the steep sided valley and white veils of the Yarra river, life is finer than sliced white bread. It’s nice to see the Yarra all clear and glistening – no doubt an angler’s paradise – before it meets the sediment and tide that turns it brown across the city of Melbourne.

Back in Melbourne, and dropping the hire car off a few minutes late, the evening was spent in Lygon Street. Welcome to Italiano-land, where the pasta is a fasta and just like momma used to make. The most touristy strip dotted with Mario Brothers offering you the not so exclusive deal of free Bruschetta and no corkage. They fail to tell you that they have run out of Lasagne and Bolognese. Whadda mistaka to maker! Still, the excesses of cheesecake and coffee on top of Carbonara made it a breakfast free morning the next day, and time for some non-holiday action via work. This rude interruption was rectified later with some more tennis action – this time watching Djokovic power on through against Tomas Berdych, to the dismay of his excellent backing group.

Australia Day emerged cool and cloudy, the weather being totally un-Australian, but dry enough for tennis to proceed with an open roof. This was the spontaneous day, with tickets just about still available to go and watch a couple of fine ladies quarter finals, followed by Andy Muzzzzzaaaahhhh Murray against Dogopopopopolovic. This time I took my extra long zoom lens, but was thwarted by the bag check man doing too thorough a job... again, very un-Australian. Still, it was a good old day, illuminated by random gun salutes and airplanes interrupting the tennis, and a fairly comfortable win for old Muzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaahhhhh.

Spending the daytime at the tennis allowed for some soaking up of Australia Day atmosphere in the evening. Of course, this meant random music and displays, lots of people just hanging about drinking, eating, playing ball, and the very Australian embrace of colourful explosions.

While the fireworks were there for celebration, there was a tinge of flatness in the air as in a way it symbolised the end of the summer holidays. No more treats at this point to look forward to. A ramping up of work and chores and even the occasional wearing of trousers instead of shorts. Possible healthy eating and / or exercise. And Melbourne was playing up to the occasion on Thursday morning as I took the journey to the airport... all sunny and clear and pleasantly warm... like it wanted you to stay and holiday on. Flying over the Victorian bush and Alpine country a little seed was planted for a mini-road trip come March... down there, amongst those trees, along those ridgelines, beside those rivers. I mean, the holiday times need to be dragged out for as long as possible, right?

Water week

2011-01-16T20:35:00.015+11:00

It’s a strange period right now, caught between continuous attempts to prolong the holiday period and knuckling down and doing some bloody work for a change! At the moment there is a bit of both, a full week back at work interrupted by more summer cricket, evening ambles and one or two BBQs. And then of course there is the oddness of this summer in particular, witnessed across the east as rains pound and waters rage, while in the west, the bushfires sizzle. La Nina is to blame, and apparently this is the worst one recorded in a long time. Even Garth the BBQ doesn’t know what is going on.

While things are as always relatively tame in Canberra, it has meant the usual scorching 35 degree days are yet to materialise and perhaps never will. The week was mostly cloudy and showery and remarkably humid, the showers easing off enough for the Prime Minister’s XI to lose to England on Monday, and the sun coming out enough to give me a red triangle between my neck and chest. The remaining days drifted as all eyes were often focused north of the border, the weekend arriving and signalling some light at the end of the tunnel.

Humidity of Cairns proportions, along with requisite biting insects, was the theme for Saturday as I headed down to Namadgi National Park for a morning bushwalk. Assuming it would be the coolest part of the day, it was like hiking through the Amazon rainforest on a walk part way up Mount Tennant. I was intending to go the whole way, but even Bear Grylls would’ve struggled (though plenty of insect nourishment for him).

The rare sound of gurgling brooks, reminding me of Dartmoor, accompanied my walk up to the Lone Pine Lookout where the view was not really much like Dartmoor, but offered a sign of increasing blue skies and summerness. It may have been the down part, but going back down felt a lot less humid and things were returning to the dry heat more akin to this time of year. In fact, what was a couple of hours ago a clammy mosquito infested Panamanian jungle was a delightful summer scene of grassy meadows and vibrant plants. The giant ants were now out in force though.

A sign of how things have changed over the past year from drought to too much water is indicated by the dam levels in Canberra which are mostly full to brimming. Evidence of this was clear at Gibraltar Falls, a dip in a usually small creek fed by Corin Dam, now powering wide and full and noisily, the spray a welcome coolant following the sweaty walking earlier in the day.

With summer back, at least temporarily, and the mercury hovering just above 30C it was definitely without a shadow of a doubt BBQ weather; alas, Garth has decided enough is enough and failed to ignite. He may be fixable, but I may equally end up blowing up the neighbourhood if I try to fix him. Anyway, steak in a griddle pan it was, walked off with something else which has been a rarity, a sedate dusk walk alongside a calm, tranquil lake.

Who knows what the next week holds. Sadly, a full week of work and I suspect it could be ramping up a little. Hopefully though more dusk walks by a calm, tranquil lake. And that balance between holidays and real life remains on a quavering horizontal knife edge, as Melbourne tennis, food and Australia Day celebrations await.

Plenty Eleven

2011-01-07T20:44:00.026+11:00

The last few days of 2010 were wonderfully relaxing affairs, an incredible peace and calm and warm summer breeze in Canberra accompanying cricket watching, gentle bushwalks among the local wildlife, and plentiful barbecue meats of the non-local wildlife. The kind of days that I could happily soak up all the way into March.

But the year has to end with a bang, right? The bang of car boots as they are loaded up again for the three hour breeze up to Sydney, just in time for lunch at a well recommended cafe in Maroubra. The pops of fizzy wine corks as they fly their way out beside Coogee Beach. The hoots and whistles of mildly drunkenly exuberant teens on the bus to the city. All building to the many bangs, pops, hoots and whistles of fireworks in the New Year’s Eve epicentre.

So on a warm night made even toastier by oodles of explosives, a melodic rendition of Barbra Streisand on cyclical loops and a glorious feeling from not singing in the rain, 2011 had arrived. The first day of the year was a great one to start, sunny and very warm, time for more cooling beverages and barbecue meats with Brits (here, an on the public record thank you very much to Jill, Jake, Louise, Jan, Ken and David for letting me win at Cranium... oh... and the food and company and accommodation). And the climax of the day, a mildly impressive interpretation of Sydney fireworks in the art form of trifle. Can you tell what it is yet?!

The next day travelling under a pile of blueberries and crossing into a custardy North Shore it was on upwards towards the Central Coast for a few days of classic Aussie summer beaches and bushland exposure, the icing on the cake being the icing of the cake and the batter on the fish and the vinegar on the chips and the cheese on the crackers and the chocolate on the beach. Mercifully there were some walks to offset slightly the abundance of food. The first a difficult easy walk through Ku-Ring-Gai Wildflower Park, just minutes from the highway but typical of the national park in which much of northern Sydney seemingly sits.

Rest and recuperation was provided an hour or so later at North Avoca beach, a lovely all Aussie sweep of sand and clear surf, backed by expensively modest homes mingling within the bushland.

A more extensive walk was on the cards the next day, along the Bouddi National Park coastline, this one a genuine medium grade over 14 kilometres or so, the south west coast path Australian style, complete with many ups and seemingly fewer downs. It was a grey old day in the end, but dry and cool, making for ideal walking weather without the searing heat. The scenery was quite hot itself, rugged and untamed, the curve of Maitland Bay providing a welcome flat stretch midway through.

Apparently the walk burned approximately 1600 calories, which isn’t quite enough to make up for Terrigal fish and chips followed by Terrigal cake the next morning. A little more sedate walking came about the next day (perhaps a biscuit’s worth) pacing out towards Mount Ettalong lookout, a quite exquisite spot overlooking the bays and coves of the Hawkesbury, Pittwater and Brisbane Water. You could almost hear the sound of Aussie wickets in the distance.

The road ends down this way in the waterside village of Patonga, a marvellous spot and relatively untampered and untainted by the world. There was thankfully enough tampering in the past to create a nice, almost British style pub with nice big TV screens showing nice big Aussie wickets. And a fish and chip shop next door with big British style chips and malt vinegar, a relative rarity in this great southern land. Simply irresistible and in a setting nowhere like Britain! If anyone ventures this way I think I would take them here, via the drive up the Northern beaches to Palm Beach, catch a ferry across the Hawkesbury for lunch, a little bushwalk, dangle a line, get the ferry back all in time for a sunset drive across the harbour bridge.

Back in Sydney it was justifiably soup for dinner, a sign that the indulgence and excess of the holiday season was almost over. Almost over, as there was one more day, a perfect ending in the sunshine and soaring spirit of the Sydney Cricket Ground. The second time in the Ashes series I have watched England bat the whole day... it would have been nice to see some bowling action I suppose, perhaps day four would have been even better, but I’ll settle for this.

At the end of the day the Ashes was all but sewn up, a remarkable achievement given the margin of victories and that very odd blip in Perth (Perth always was a bit different). There was a very contented Englishman driving through the darkness to Canberra, only tinges that the holidays were over darkening the darkness. Compensation abounding with bragging rights over the locals to kick off 2011, and more fun and sporting related shenanigans to come as the summer rolls on. All the happiness of new years to you.

Prawns, lobsters and cheesy marmites

2010-12-29T22:17:00.020+11:00

OK, so no lobsters apart from the British and Irish backpackers, but it’s been a partly sun soaked Aussie Christmas of immense proportions making my proportions immense. There is of course something totally and utterly wrong about an Aussie Christmas yet also something rather fine... mostly the two weeks off work at the height of summer when spirits are high, days are long and life is comfortable. The spirit seeped in during the week leading up to Christmas Day, with sunny Canberra days bringing with it a few holes of golf, pleasant evening walks and the commencement of indulgent eating.

With sausage rolls and cheesy marmites baked, $45 worth of cheese safely acquired, beers stacked and esky filled, the pilgrimage to Sydney on Christmas Eve was underway. It was murky and cool, the car heating peppering my chilly feet at times and a repeat of 2009 weather seemed inevitable. But in between a final shopping trip for yet more food in Randwick, the grey turned to blue, the mercury rose and things were looking good. Perfect timing for an afternoon lie on the beach followed with a couple of beers at the Coogee Palace.

Darkness finally enveloped Christmas Eve, again spent down at the beach eating that most traditional of Christmas Eve meals... fish and chips. And then the Christmas Eve TV... no late night episodes of Casualty where there is some miraculous birth in a barnyard and carol singers await outside A&E singing in a strong Bristolian tone; instead a terrible movie that was either so bad it was good or so bad I would like those two hours of my life back please Channel Ten.

And so, rather quite joyously, Christmas Day dawned with clear blue skies and pleasant warmth. Take away the sand and the heat and in many ways Christmas is the same... too much food, a few drinkies, some more food, board games and chatter, chocolate, a few more drinkies, all leading to a warm glow and overwhelming feeling of excess. There are of course a few quirks with this. Breakfast involves food on the beach, some broken Pavlova in fact, a good intake of fruit and dairy to start the day, with a shot of caffeine on the side.

Presents are opened in shorts and thongs, sparkling fizzy stuff laced with alcohol to keep hydrated. And then, just to keep going before dinner, a picnic lunch under a shady tree, resplendent with cheese and dips and prawns and pastry and salad to the sound of the surf. Scattered around in shady clusters are families and friends and backpackers and barbecues. Alcohol and cricketing endeavours seem to take hold, a cooling dip in the Bronte waves keeping the lifesavers on edge.

Later in the day it was – mercifully – a bus back up the mountain to Waverley and time for some pre-dinner games... a deranged Australian themed hunt for utes and BBQs and blue heelers, winning money by achieving a [insert drongo stereotype] from a [insert fair dinkum cliche] . I would be more critical, but given I bought the goddam thing and there were a few vino fuelled giggles from it, I shouldn’t [insert raw prawn style saying].

And finally, in a pretty toasty kitchen, the nod to the northern hemisphere with roast turkey and all the trimmings including brussel sprouts sadly. Despite this, it was very fine and capped off with my unintentionally broken Pavlova bits, cream, ice cream and oodles of berries.

The following days brought with them some rain and drizzle, accentuating the joy and luck of Christmas Day, but it wasn’t without a few sunny interludes and blue skies. Boxing Day meant a walk back to pick up the car, but when the walk involves a stroll along the eastern coastal suburbs it’s not too much of an ordeal. Facing more of an ordeal were the many yachts streaming southwards as they ventured their way from Sydney to Hobart. And even more of an ordeal, Australian batsmen.

Boxing Day mostly involved eating leftovers, but the next day it was time to eat out again, a last minute decision to head over to Manly for some scrumptious breakfast opposite the beach, the spots of rain failing to dampen the sweet potato and corn fritters. Being now northside, I decided to take the road up to Palm Beach, stopping at Collaroy for a pleasing read of Ashes disastrousness and coffee along the way.

At Palm Beach it was mostly cloudy and drizzly, but not too bad for a walk up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse, possibly spotted by some of you before in Home and Away.

A soaking soon followed in the afternoon but this abated back down in the north shore, and another little walk in one of the many pockets of bushland lining Middle Harbour ensued. Sydney really is blessed with a quite remarkable geography, especially when you are really in to geography and places and rocks and stuff. Much of the north shore seems to me to be one big national park, just with staggeringly expensive houses dotted precariously on sandstone cliffs and hovering in the midst of a lemon and frangipani fragrance. Not really the smell of Christmas but then that comes as no surprise in this topsy turvy land down under. As Roy Walker may have once said on a special Christmas edition of Catchphrase, ‘it’s good but it’s not right!’

A reasonable state to be in

2010-12-11T17:29:00.020+11:00

There were many significant milestones over the past week – temperatures, rainfall, food consumption, runs – but none more so than me completing the clean sweep of Australian states and territories. Back in 2000 I first dumped by smelly shoes in NSW, ACT, Queensland, NT and WA. Vic came about in 2006 and Tassie soon after in 2007. The absentee, South Australia, remained neglected for a few more years... no fortuitous work trips, no compelling reason to go there, snipes and sneers from the colonials about it being dullsville (er, like, I live in Canberra mate). I think in hindsight that’s a bit of a shame. For Adelaide and its environs has it all, as discovered in just under four days conveniently timed with the second Ashes test.

It has heat. I know about that. But this was proper summer heat like it should be this time of year everywhere else. The mercury hit 38.2 late in the afternoon on Saturday, a nice proper dry heat coming in from the desert, none of this stupid humid stuff. A good day to hit the beaches, which were really quite surprisingly nice.... wonderful beachside suburbs all laid back and full of happy people living life with a little entertainment thrown in thanks to cafes and bars and random shops. Glenelg is the undoubted queen of beachside suburbia, with its white sand, calm, shallow water, jetty and backdrop of fine eateries and cold beer handily available, linked to the city by the semi-famous tram ride.

The sand continues to the south and onwards to the Fleurieu Peninsula, the suburbs becoming rolling wine country and small unhappening towns and villages. Golden hills reminiscent of California are cut by twisting ribbons of road and silvery white gums, an almost time warp hallucination leading you around the next bend and the rather fine Shiraz producing vines of McLaren Vale.

By now things are hotting up and the best plan is to go for some air conditioned comfort and brief afternoon snoozes with the calming backdrop of English willow on Kookaburra ball on the TV. Still decidedly toasty as the evening emerges, Glenelg itself a hotbed of people and noise and tastes and smells, plenty of walks along the beach and dips in the sun as the sun dips. Saturday night here was far from dull, the full spectrum of life on display from toddlers splashing in the fountains, kids plunging off the pier, teens being like totally lame, young romantics and old charmers, lobster red Scots, ten kid families getting that first slightly bracing touch of the sea on their toes. This is a good place to be at this time on this day.

The Adelaide Oval was a rather good place to be all weekend really, including up until the tea interval on Sunday. Another balmy day for the Australian bowlers to toil, milestones overhauled at regular intervals and, just before tea and a huge thunderclap signalled the end of the day, a double century to salute. The ground itself was rather nice, one of the few remaining in international cricket with a grassy bank for the fans to stand, to roll out picnic blankets and foldaway chairs, to eat chicken rolls and drink copious amounts of overpriced but underwhelming beer on sale (for some reason the insipid XXXX Gold rather than the more excellent Adelaide brew from the Coopers Alehouse). I suppose you can’t have it all.

The next morning dawned with blue skies returning and the local beachside was again hard to resist for breakfast, the love of England clearly all around in Brighton and Hove, just south of Glenelg. Not really at all like the English Brighton and Hove thankfully... no pebbles, no tacky amusements, no men parading in budgie smugglers. Adelaide is far too respectable for anything like that.

Today was town day, a chance to explore the city centre of Adelaide itself. It’s a fairly modest city, the skyline less distinctive than the Sydneys or Melbournes of this world, the streets dotted with 1800s civic pride in between 1970s beige blocks. One of the more remarkable things about the city is it’s positioning which is effectively as an island in the middle of a sea of parkland. Some of this parkland is rough and ready, others green and refined, like the Botanic Gardens and strip of fountains dotting the Torrens River. Occasional wafts of celebration blowing downwind from the Adelaide Oval.

Again warm, solace was provided in the air conditioning of the Art Gallery but the art of beer and cricket was more on my mind. If you can find them, it seems as though Adelaide has some decent, traditional looking pubs. Alas some ludicrous decision not to be airing the cricket during the afternoon in South Australia meant the much needed cold beer and cricket in the pub scenario was delayed. Instead it was a snooze back in the motel as the commentary drawled its way forever onwards on the radio.

Luckily the last session of the day was on TV, so off to the pub in Glenelg it was. Cold beer ordered, stool beside one of the trillion TV screens, all set. For the heavens to open. Meh. Somehow Glenelg avoided all the storms around, so instead of watching cricket the other amiable option was to sit on the balcony watching the world go by. The cricket did resume, then annoyingly cut to the news while still playing (yeah, they do that as well) so a prized Aussie wicket of the useless vice captain was missed. In Glenelg, the day ended – still grey, still threatening, still quite muggy, but still dry – with fish and chips on the beach.

The last day, of Adelaide and the test match, started with a dilemma – pay and go the test with the risk of an early finish and / or rain, or go for a jaunt in the Adelaide Hills and eat lots of food. Sometimes you just wish you could be in two places at once! As it was, the prospect of bushland, lookouts, vineyards and, yes, food won out. And there was even enough sunlight around for the cricket to finish and the bushwalk to be had.

The Hills commence pretty much to the east of the city and rise up into suburban crescents and lanes until national park and reserve takes over. Over the other side, the bush dissipates into farmland and wine growing terroir. And a German theme park. Okay, so Hahndorf isn’t quite a theme park but there are plenty of oompah loompahs and sausages leading it that way. It’s actually a rather pretty little spot, a place built and cultivated by a close knit German community in the 1800s and now evolved into beer halls and sweet shops and hiding places for former dictators (possibly). If you stayed here a week you would, without question, leave with an extra twenty kilos and clogged arteries. While the German platter of sausages, pork, mash, pretzels and goodness knows what else was a sight to behold, I was rather pleased with my salted pork belly, creamy mash and onion relish, washed down with a fine wheat beer.

The only dampener was the oompah loompah music incessantly playing so that it was stuck in your head for the rest of the day. The other dampener, by now, was the weather, which was busy giving Adelaide its wettest day of the year and more than its average December rainfall in a few hours. Thank goodness we mopped up that Aussie tail pretty quickly! There were, in between lightning bolts, a few breaks in the rain, time enough to fill a couple of hours back on the coast near the airport. Here again were more rather fine beaches and a laid back, unhurried vibe, strips of low rise suburbia punctuated by a surf club or cafe or ice cream shop once in a while, and the Adelaide love for jetties continued. On most days of the year it is probably rather sedate and lovely. Today its skies as least were was a little more dramatic.

Since that bumpy ride through the clouds took me back to Canberra and mercifully a return to solid ground, the rains have been almost unprecedented. South Australia, Victoria and large parts of New South Wales were, at times, underwater. Travelling into work on Thursday morning was slightly dodgy, a usually dry trickle of a creek swollen and up to the road. Further down the road, the town of Queanbeyan was turning into a murky lagoon, washing its trees and dirt and rocks down river and into Lake Burley Griffin. Now we seem to be drying out, the sun is back and the garden is even more like a jungle. No doubt we’re into the customary settled spell of weather which will break just before the Christmas holidays. Until then, let the mangoes and BBQs reign!

Totally Tropical Taste

2010-12-02T18:16:00.038+11:00

Dear Britain, I am sorry to complain about sweltering humidity and tropical insects as you sit in a zillion inches of snow. But I’m sweaty and speckled with itchy insect bites, so have some sympathy! You see, as you are shivering in the latest once in a generation weather event since last year, I’m astride the tropic of Capricorn, visiting the good teachers of Queensland and discovering snippets of their palm fronded world.

The trip started further north in Cairns, which is best described as a bit like the Gold Coast on Lilt. Veering into the sweaty season, the rains were plentiful but a few breaks allowed early evening walks along the Esplanade, which is a nicely designed strip of exercise along the rather gloopy Trinity Bay. It was thirsty work in the heat, and a nice cold beer was perfect to look forward to... but being rather stupid I bought a non-twisty top bottle without any bottle opener around. A serious crisis saved by the Cairns crocodile available in one of the many terrible souvenir shops here.

On Saturday opportunity arose to become a tourist, hiring a car and taking it north to the end of the road. Not before yet another ridiculous early start. You see, Queenslanders tend to be pretty, er, basic and prefer sunrise at 4:45am rather than joining the rest of the country to bask in daylight saving and beautiful light evenings. So I took an early walk in brightening skies, the piercing sun hot already and making sitting out with a beautiful brekkie a bit more uncomfortable than was ideal.

It was nice to get out of Cairns, the first stop following a climb through dripping green rainforest up to Kuranda and the nearby Barron Falls. With all the rain I expected a pounding torrent of water here, but, like the local wildlife, the falls resembled a series of slivery snakes swirling their way around the rocks and into the murky pools below. Not that I saw any snakes, but they were always there, a potent menace in the back of my mind. All jollily reinforced by the presence of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda.

From here it was back down to the coast and a ribbon of road which must be up there with the best of them, thirty kilometres of the Captain Cook Highway hugging the coastline between World Heritage mountainous rainforest and World Heritage oceans and the very outer fringes of that reef. It was even better on the way back with the sun out, but for now it was on to Mossman Gorge in Daintree National Park, where the sun did come out and the lush tropical rainforest was getting very steamy.

As nice as this place was it was almost as nice to get back into the car, with its air con and (hopefully) lack of venomous creatures. Still pointing north the car and I breezed past fields of sugar cane, hills cloaked in deep green denseness, and over murky creeks until the road stopped at quite a big creek. The Daintree River no less, with its little cable ferry that you travel on at your own risk. The risks I believe including crocodiles, sea snakes, drowning, probably a few jellyfish, being washed up and skewered by a cassowary, swallowing spiders when sleeping with your mouth open, dehydration and merciless abuse from the ferry operatives for not having marvellous facial hair like them. Thankfully I was okay on that count.

The safe crossing of the river makes you feel almost intrepid, on the final, narrowing and flood prone slice of sealed road that begins in a better condition way down south in temperate climes. It wriggles its way over mountains, slides its way around plunging rainforest gullies, bumps over cassowary crossings and skirts its way across beautiful but very potentially deadly creeks and gullies spilling into the sea. With each kilometre it seems to get better, and then you stop. You get out and get bitten endlessly by invisible bugs, you feel spider webs blowing in the wind and crossing your skin, you hear twitches in the undergrowth in between deafening clicks of millions of insects. A palm frond falls to the ground in an almighty crash. At least you hope it is a palm frond. It is at one simply breathtaking and horrific.

There is some respite at the very end of the road, the last bit of tarmac, some of which is already washed away by flooding creeks, which brings us into Cape Tribulation. Named by Captain Cook for the trials and tribulations he faced up this way navigating the reef, even in air conditioned, sealed comfort of the twenty first century, getting here, especially if you started in a beat up combi in Kings Cross, takes some going. The reward is a bunch of hippies and some backpackers, but among that a very fine beach where the rainforest meets the reef.

There is nowhere to go from here, unless you get seriously upgraded by Thrifty into a Landcruiser, other than back the way you came. There is relief along the way though thanks to a sign pointing to Daintree Ice Cream, an obvious stop for Dougie’s Daintree Day Tours, and what’s good for Dougie is good for me. The pineapple ice cream is particularly recommended, as is the surroundings.

Back over the dangerous Daintree, civilisation becomes more pronounced and thrusts itself upon you in Port Douglas. Port Douglas is the slightly moneyed up in a trashy way American in a flowery top brother to old Cairnso. There is no other clearer way to describe it. What this does mean is some luxury, though for me a cold shower followed by a cold beer followed by a warm seafood basket was sumptuous enough.

The beach at Port Douglas is all coconuts and palm trees as I discovered the next morning, though I have to say I was expecting something a bit finer and whiter. So it turns out Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay really must have the whitest sand in the world then. Never doubt Norris McWhirter. Still, regardless of colour or granularity, it was blissful to wash the sand off in the palm lined pool of my reasonably bling hotel before checking out.

Back on the road to Cairns the weather, just like the cricket on the radio, was getting better all the time. This made it hard to resist stopping numerous times on that stretch of World Heritage road, taking in spectacular views and much improved golden sands. The beaches just to the north of Cairns are rather lovely, though I’d find it galling to have that on your doorstop and be unable to go in there for six months of the year for fear of being lacerated to death by the stingers. If the sharks and stingrays don’t get you first!

The beach stops were alluring, so much so that I was cutting it just a little fine for my flight out of there. Not much time to see Cairns airport that’s for sure. The check out girls were nice though, I think they must place the glam ones up this way, all part of the totally tropical taste. I wasn’t quite done with those tropics however, my next stop just north of that dotted line in Rockhampton... a different proposition to the Far North, but still with deadly bugs lurking invisibly in every hidden corner.

-------------------------------------

What can I tell you about Rocky? It’s the beef capital of Australia. Set on the broad murky banks of the Fitzroy River, the second (second no less!) biggest river system in Australia. It’s somewhere around the tropic of Capricorn but about 50kms inland from the coast. And it is pretty dead on a Sunday evening when you are searching for something to eat. In fact, wandering the streets on Sunday I decided it was Australia’s answer to New Orleans, only without the buzz and plethora of dining options...just the swaggering humidity propensity to flooding and undertone of murder.

Things in Rocky perked up somewhat with the advent of a new week and things being open. One of those was the Cambridge Hotel with its tasteless interior but bargain all you can eat buffet! Why do I see the words ‘all you can eat’ and immediately think the gauntlet has been thrown down. Of course, it did include several slabs of beef, being the beef capital and all.

Anyway I survived that and being a hardworking type beavering away at strange hours (usually very early thanks to the non-daylight saving QLD philosophy) I managed to give myself some free time midweek to potter about the area. Rockhampton does have some very fine botanic gardens, especially if you like all the creepy jungle creepers and palmy palms. And there is some nice bushland up on the Berserkers, clearly named by the locals for the locals (it’s actually pronounced Bursika as I was happy to learn...)

And Rocky’s really not that far from the coast, the town of Yeppoon being the biggest centre and appropriate spot for lunch beside the beach. In my head I had fine white sands pictured, shaped in no small part by the presence of Great Keppel Island nearby. This is one of those barrier reef islands which actually isn’t on the barrier reef but still tells you it is, and seduces you with those fine white sands and I believe a Contiki resort for wanton drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. Sadly I had missed the ferry! And the sands on the mainland weren’t white, more brown and gritty, no doubt thanks to the rain and the wide brown waters of the second largest river system spilling into the ocean.

I did learn that Great Keppel Island (which isn’t the only island out there) was formed from volcanic activity and remnants of this are dotted along the mainland coastal strip from Yeppoon to Emu Park further south. What this provides is a series of quite spectacular headlands, mostly national park which offer not only great views but diversity of bushland, rainforest gullies, grassland and rocky, er, rocks. The view from one volcanic plug to another reminded me of Rio... in miniature of course and without any beautiful people flaunting themselves, though there were at least some slums nearby.

So there you go Rocky... touches of New Orleans, Rio just round the corner, the beefiest river in the whole of Queensland and gateway to the tropics. It calls for a cold XXXX to toast it, so a cold XXXX I had, in a pub with maybe four people present. My time in the tropics drawing to a close, just sweaty clothes, insect bites and hairy memories to take with me. And, importantly, no crocodile bites or encounters with box jellyfish.

Seasoning

2010-11-21T20:23:00.011+11:00

So the barbecue has blissfully been engaged on several occasions now, and the shorts and thongs seem to be de rigueur. The garden is still a mess, but the things that count (i.e. BBQ area, table, shady tree and piece of grass) seem to be pleasant enough. It’s taken a little while, with days akin to April showers (just ten degrees warmer), and a ragbag of upper level troughs and cool changes. And in that paragraph I encapsulate the Anglo-Aussie me, talking about the weather conditions for a BBQ in my shorts and thongs. The Anglo-Aussie me is also significantly hairier, which is saying something, but my follicles seem to be bursting forth like the long grass and weeds at this time of year.

OK, shall we talk about the weather then? There have been showers and storms and dramatic skies, captured one night at Red Hill as the lightning forks zinged their way across the land. There have been clouds and winds, but, in the last week things have settled down and there have been steaks and sunsets, shorts and thongs.

This weekend was one of those beautiful Canberra weekends, so what do I do? Get out of Canberra for a bit, driving an hour and a half, via the very strategically placed and welcoming Goulburn Bakery, for a wee walk in the woods. Bungonia Gorge is home to bush and more bush and some scrubby bush land, some of which plummets down to the Shoalhaven River and Slot Canyon. You can walk down there and through the canyon, but that’s for the energetic and companioned. I stuck to the relatively minor ups and downs of the Green trail.

I wasn’t totally on my own, occasionally scaring poor souls with my psycho killer moustache bushwalker look. And then there were the two giant lizards I saw in separate spots. I really dig the way lizards move, they’re pretty cool creatures I reckon, and generally, as far as I can tell, non toxic unlike most other critters around here. Oh, hang on, I did see some toxic lizards earlier in the week, feeding away after Parliament had closed for the day.

So in my Anglo-Aussie way I’m going to bid you tally ho dear maaaaaate. Like the sporting calendar around here, things are set to pick up over the next few weeks, as we head towards that surreal shorts-filled Pavlova and mango fest that is Christmas. I’m really quite looking forward to it!

Muck a l'orange

2010-11-07T21:12:00.016+11:00

Back in Australian time not a lot seems to have happened of note. Julia is still holding on, the cricket team is still losing (hehe), and the relentless pursuit of a life dedicated to shorts and barbeques continues apace. The one big change is in the world around me, which was barely more than bare when I went overseas to one which is now flourishing green in e very direction. Unfortunately this applies to weeds and all, which are competing for attention with the newly planted herbs in the backyard. Perfect for numerous spiders and potential snakes.

I may open up my garden as an extension to the Australian National Botanic Gardens, displaying every single type of overgrown weed and bush that you won’t see at the verdant and diligently manicured sister site. Here, a little walk before a big thunderstorm thrust me back into the world of spring, a nice break in between jetlag recovery and catching up.

Back a week, I was on the road again travelling to experience further botanical highlights of the inland in between work needs. Mildura, situated 500 kms north west of Melbourne, 450 kms north east of Adelaide and 1000 kms west of Sydney is, it is fair to say, a long way from anywhere. With this comes its own self sufficiency, a regional centre supplying McDonalds and adult entertainment for miles around. It has its own brewery and celebrity chef, Stefano, but most of all, it has the Murray River.

Here, the Murray is substitute for the sea, the lifeblood for the area, giver of brownish water and irrigation for crops... thousand upon thousand of grape vine, orange groves, veggie patches and seasonal worker. Venture outside of irrigation land and its fruit fly free zone and really we are talking about outback here: arid and harsh and dusty, signature red sand emerging through the gnarled gums and shrubs of the interior visible at Hattah Kulkyne National Park.

The Murray, and its companion Darling, is so important to life out here and to the wellbeing of Australia in general that its never much out of the news. State shenanigans over water allocations come with the territory, and Mildura, Victoria is just across the water from New South Wales, while South Australia is an hour or so west. In New South Wales, the border town of Wentworth is a significant place, at the confluence of the Murray and the Darling rivers, a favourite spot for getting all punned up Blackadder style: clearly it’s the Murray, Darling. Such a landmark is, for once in Australia, understated, and it takes some persistent trekking through scrub and giant grass and reeds to reach.

Wentworth is branded the gateway to the outback, and you sure get a good taste of this just 10 minutes out of town. Perry Sandhills present an entirely different world, a world that spreads from here thousands of miles north and west, a world which awaits discovery, a world that prompts Wentworth to kindly request drivers dump their dust before entering the town streets. A strangely enticing world encouraging you to become consumed in its vastness. But there are other attractions pulling you back...

And so from orange land to Orange World, a celebration of all things oranges on the way back to Mildura. One of those only in Australia places where some enterprising farmer has decided to share his love of citrus, assemble a few wonderfully kitsch artefacts and impress us all with his freshly squeezed juice.

And just how can you beat a smiley orange? Yes, Mildura and environs truly is a splendid world all of its own making.