Winter at the beach

We have passed the shortest day of the southern hemisphere year which had got to mean summer is coming and it’s time to go to the beach, right? While not exactly balmy, after scraping off the frost from my car windscreen and driving through the morning mist, I found myself beside the sea and comfortably warm enough to parade about in a short sleeved T-shirt. My destination this time around was Murramarang National Park, just north of Batemans Bay. I’ve been here a couple of times, mainly because it is one of the closest nice coastal spots to Canberra, a mere two hours and well worth it.

After an early start I was one of the first to park up at Pebbly Beach, home to the characteristic sandy beaches, bushland and wildlife that is the east coast of Australia.

From here I took what was in parts a mildly strenuous walk through giant gum trees and patches of cool climate rainforest, cutting a swathe to the top of Durras Mountain.



Some website somewhere describes this as one of the most popular walks in the park and with spectacular views from atop, in fact it goes as far to say a photographer’s delight. I think the website must’ve been one of those niche sites for people who wear stilts or something since the vegetation up top blocked out most of the views and it was all tantalizing glimpses through trees and snippets of blue water here and there. It wasn’t all doom and gloom with the distinctive form of Pigeon House Mountain (named by our old friend Captain James T Cook) off in the distance.

My favourite part of the walk was back down at sea level and only 15 minutes out from Pebbly Beach, where another isolated bay typified the landscape around here. It really is how this whole coastline must’ve looked when James and Joseph and a few scurvy dogs sailed on by.

By this point I think I had earned a little nourishment and so I soon rejoined the Pacific Highway and headed to Batemans Bay for some fish and chips beside the water in my T-shirt in the sunshine. And then I sat on the beach in Broulee and read for a little while, distracted every few minutes by watching the surfers doing their stuff. And to complete the self-pampering I grabbed a coffee and slice of Hummingbird Cake (a bit like carrot cake but with diced Hummingbird… I mean pineapple and passion fruit and stuff) in the pretty village of Mogo, fuelling me as I rode like a cowboy in a black Magna into the setting sun.

Getting high

Women blocking the aisles in men’s clothing shops: stop treating your hubby like your own little personal teddy bear and get out of my way!! He’s old enough and big enough to buy his own clothes, surely! OK rant over, though I could start moaning about the challenges of finding summer holiday clothes in the midst of a southern hemisphere winter. And what’s so great about Fyshwick Fresh Food markets when half the ingredients you want aren’t even there!

Sounds like someone needs to cool off, and the best way to do this is to head to the mountains. While the Australian Alps may not measure up to any other “Alps” in this world, they are bigger than anything in Britain and pretty much begin to the southwest of Canberra, which itself is higher than the highest point on Dartmoor. I headed to Boboyan Trig in Namadgi National Park, which climbs to a lofty altitude of 1459 metres, greater than Ben Nevis. And a pleasant, if somewhat bracing spot it is too.



From a car park off a dirt road the walk leads through a variety of vegetation – a swathe of Peppermint Gum leading down to swampy grassland and then rising up through Snow Gums to a sparsely vegetated bluff, battered by cool southerly winds and opening up a view to the mountains all around. It’s a lonely spot… the kind of place where unwary British tourists go missing!! The only other life seems to be the numerous wombat tracks, although even these were in hiding.

Life and warmth returned back down in the valley, in fact, so much life that I had to stop the car a couple of times to let a huge flock of Cockatoos and Galahs pass. With all the noise and cackling it was like being in that clothes shop all over again!

Citizens orve Orstraylior

I’ve learnt a few things over the past few days, which is always a good thing as they say the day you stop learning is the day you stop living. (Do they? I just made that up but I’m sure someone said it once).

Lesson 1: Don’t let an Aussie ramble on about becoming a republic.
We have just had the Queens birthday long weekend, where everyone gets a day off and, in Canberra at least, has the legal right to buy fireworks and more than happily takes up this privilege into the small hours. So a day off and fireworks all for someone they claim to want to get rid off. Who are they kidding, sneaky Australians?!

For my part, I celebrated by eating some cake and swinging on monkey bars. I guess the monkey bars were a way of working off the cake and getting a fix of the outdoors. In between other weekend at home tasks I headed up the far southern peak of the Red Hill Nature Reserve at the end of a superbly sunny Saturday for some classical bush capital scenes.




Quick Canberra geography lesson (see, you can learn something too!): Red Hill is in the south of Canberra but the very refined la-di-da inner south. Further south and things get slightly more bogan in Woden, but still fairly respectable. Then you get to the deep south of Tuggeranong which, like deep souths everywhere, has the distant sound of banjos being played from sofas on verandas. There is a North side to Canberra too, signaled by the spray of the Captain Cook Memorial Jet on your car windscreen. It’s very much a reflection of the south, getting ever so slightly more dubious the further from civilized society you head. I think things were still reasonably civilized when I found myself on the algae filled shores of Lake Ginninderra in the North on a much greyer, more wintry Sunday afternoon. Surprisingly there is significant North v South rivalry and I tried to hide my southern roots on a stroll around the lake.


Now, Melbourne is a place in which the Canberra North v South rivalry pales into significance, especially whilst I’m in the midst of watching Underbelly, charting the gangland murders of the past ten years. It’s pure sex, drugs and violence but what marks it out for distinction is that it’s actually an Australian made TV series which is, well, good. It was with several murders in the back of my head that I ventured to Melbourne on the holiday Monday.

Lesson 2: You really do need a jacket in Australia outside of the national capital.
OK, hands up in England who thinks Australia is 365 days of sunshine, all singlets and barbies on the beach? Yeah, well, while some in the know will be aware of the 60 nights of frost Canberra experiences each year (more learning, see), it’s still hard to take ‘winter’ seriously. So hard that, once out of Canberra, you forget that you might just need that extra layer after all. So it was on a dreary English-like day in St Kilda, a beachside suburb a few miles from the centre of Melbourne, that I found myself strolling along rather briskly to keep the blood pumping and warmth flowing. If anything was going to prepare me for my trip to Blackpool in a couple of months, this was it.



Having said that, the fish and chips in St Kilda were pretty good and there is a strip of fabulous coffee and cake shops, perfect to warm the cockles of the heart – it’s just a shame there’s only really room in the belly for one cake out of the hundreds of options.

The air was slightly warmer in the city, away from Port Philip Bay, where I didn’t do much bar stock up on a few souvenirs (tat central) and got lost possibly in the most confusing department store known to mankind (Myers in Lonsdale Street… or is it Collins Street… oh, it’s both… how confusing…). Perhaps I should have gone to the footy down at the G, but really I didn’t fancy sitting, clueless, with a bunch of well watered Collingwood supporters for the afternoon, so I just walked along the river and took some pictures as the night came all too quickly.



My presence in Melbourne wasn’t purely out of love of the place or fascination with the gangland haunts of the Moran Boys, but, sigh, work. For the most part it was actually all rather fine, amazing how things can go when you expect the worse. Everything done and dusted… now off to the airport.

Lesson 3: Don’t assume just because you are in a large metropolis you can easily get a taxi.
Ah, you know, should be easy to flag one down on the street, I figured, this being the world’s 17th most livable city and all (they were actually up in arms about this and wondering how the hell Auckland came 5th and Sydney 10th. Meanwhile, Canberras were just up in arms that they got overlooked completely…you’d have thought they’d have got used to that by now). Thus it was with half an hour until my piddly Qantas flight something or other was about to take off I finally left the city. Thankfully there is such demand from the people of Melbourne to come to Canberra that plenty of flights take those pour lost souls to Capital City and I managed to weasel my way onto a flight an hour later.

I didn’t really learn anything else, apart from the fact that the snacks on board those flights are getting worse… they really just shouldn’t bother anymore. I don’t think my brain could have taken anything else in anyway, struggling as I was to utter a few simple words to the taxi driver on the way home. Actually, it’s quite a wonder I’ve been able to write such a brilliant, eloquent and oh so charming narrative of the weekend’s events don’t you think. I better stop before I lose all of those remaining brain cells, and end up in a shack in Tuggeranong with my banjo or something.

Yellow Mellow

It’s one of those Sydney entries again, where I ramble on about the harbour and go for another little walk around some of the shoreline and gaze upon the bridge and shade my eyes from the glaring opera house all while having a coffee and piece of cake. I really don’t know how to write it any differently and not use words like beautiful, picturesque, easy going, fair dinkum…

The weather was perfect – not always the case I have to say… honestly it is not all clear blue skies despite what all the brochures and TV shows have to say. But on Friday and Saturday it was, well, like I say perfect, and the pleasant weather was enough to bring out the yellow T-shirts, which formed the basis of a game which started off as a little time filler down at Darling Harbour and eventually dominated the weekend. I’ll just say now, I defeated my friend Jill, 68-66 at yellow top so am currently the world yellow top champion.

I was staying in Coogee, always a pleasant spot on a sunny day, and a great place to have a great Australian breakfast. By Australian I don’t mean kangaroo sausages and wattle seed damper, but just really damn fine breakfasts which they seem to excel at more often than not.

Fully loaded, we left Coogee to catch a ferry to Cremorne Point over on the North Shore, a land of identikit inlets scattered with boats and lined by alternating patches of wild bushland and more refined gardens of frangipani and other such gardener’s delights. From here we walked around the inlets of Mosman and onto Taronga Wharf, throughout catching iconic city views, passing happy, healthy people and their dogs, and spotting yellow tops.

It was, as always, a great way to spend a sunny day and by time we returned on the ferry to Circular Quay, a tiny part of my stomach was game enough for a spot of coffee and cake beside the Opera House. Have a taken this photo before? Oh, probably, but who cares? Occasionally, being here still brings about a pinch-yourself-moment, to be sat down there in the pleasantly warm sun having a coffee with the Harbour Bridge in one corner of your eye and the Opera House in the other.

From the whites of the Opera House it was more yellow top spotting on the bus back to Coogee, where the day was fading all too early and the faint chill of winter was starting to emerge beside the shoreline.

As darkness enveloped the beach and made yellow top spotting difficult, we retired to a restaurant for an early dinner of BBQ ribs before I caught my flight back to Canberra, fully satisfied on the food, the weather and the glow of victory.

Cooey

I’m thinking a breakfast consisting of a flat white and two Krispy Kreme donuts (for the record: caramel glaze and chocolate sprinkles) hardly comes as recommended by Mr. Motivator and his leotarded friends, but then earlier in the week it was a struggle for me to eat at all thanks to some annoying virus. I actually had some sick leave from work – the first in my time in Australia…can you believe it?! Anyway, you didn’t come on here to read about illness and sickly going-ons. Why did you come on here exactly, hmm? Bored? Some mistake when you really wanted to find out about golf course holes with treacherous greens leading to lots of bogeys? Or worse?

Now what you really want to read is that, apart from a few spots of rain last weekend, May has been dry and almost always sunny, though not without the odd cloud forming to trigger dramatic skies as the day closes at an almost horrific 5 o’clock in the evening. While recuperating earlier in the week I visited that jewel of recuperation, Red Hill, for some fresh air and general hearty fill of nature and those previously quoted dramatic skies.

As usual with Canberra, that drive to get out of town gradually builds and builds until you just have to cross the border lest you start to get too comfortable in your slippers watching the ABC news. On Saturday, I picked up Jason, a mate from work, and headed to Bungonia Gorge for a very hearty bushwalk. The highlight of course being the lookouts, and Adams Lookout in particular.

Not only serene as the day ends horrendously early but a natural amphitheatre in which to shout expletives and hear them echo around the valley walls. I have to say it wasn’t all expletives, but Australia has recently become obsessed with Gordon Ramsay (finally, f*@!&*! ‘ell) so they are used to it. For the most part, Jason was doing a fine impression of an opera singer warbling a very loud high pitched “Coooooo-eee” at frequent occasions. Hopefully, if I have been successful in my Internet protocol web transfer nerdage upload there will be a video clip of this exercise and, if the quality is sufficient, you can pick up the echo. Anyway, it was cool.

Now, a couple things of note on the drive back to Canberra. The first was I kind of hit my first kangaroo on the road. Now before all you tofu chompers despair, I only clipped the very end of its tail and it bounded back into the bush seemingly unharmed. And it’s not like I was deliberately trying to run it over, the stupid bloody thing decides to jump out onto the road. My car was unhurt and managed to click over to 100,000 kms just out of Goulburn (that was the second momentous event). It was so exciting, Jason managed to snore away as the radio blared out loudly. I guess all that screaming into canyons is pretty tiring business.

Random Ramblings

The fine autumn weather continues as May has brought continuously sunny days with temperatures in the high teens (…which means finally the UK is beating us). Such cool clear mornings are ideal for a bushwalk, however last week I felt the need for something a bit different with cravings of a stroll in a fresh needle covered pine forest. I could’ve just bought some toilet freshener but instead went to a pine plantation on the Eastern slopes of Mount Majura, where the Aussie critters didn’t seem too confused by the absence of gum trees.



The autumn also seems to be a special time for everyone’s favourite… sunsets! There must be something going on in the upper level atmosphere, the position of the sun and maybe just global warming or something. So it was that emerging from a carwash in the glamorous suburb of Fyshwick the sky was a glow and I popped to the nearby Jerrabombera Wetlands for a peek.


This weekend has brought a few more random ramblings with nature sightings, as I revisited Red Hill for the first time in a while.



The cool evenings are also fostering more homely, comfort food and on Sunday I cried and cried and cried in my efforts to make a big pot of Aussie Onion Soup. It was all rather hearty but a bit too oniony (Duh, I should’ve worked that one out from the name!). I could’ve cried. And now I smell like a Frenchman! Should’ve got that pine air freshener after all.

Flamin' Galahs

Ah, Canberra, the heart of a nation so often glossed over in the consciousness of half of Australia and pretty much the rest of the world. A small sedate city of suburban avenues and leaf lined circles, a paradoxical powerhouse of the Pacific where nothing much seems to happen (ooh, eloquent today innit). Yet for a few moments this week this glorified country town was feeling the power and playing out its role as the heart of a nation on the periphery of the world.

The Olympic flame, and all the nonsense which comes with it, trawled round the city streets on Thursday and it was kind of apt that, for a symbol which has brought chaos and unrest to cities around the world, nothing much happened here in Canberra. Sure, there were thousands of Chinese supporters bussed in so that they could stick two fingers up at the Tibetan supporters, a slightly edgy atmosphere, and a whirlwind of helicopters, police and random hangers on. But it passed without major incident. “Canberra shows the world how it’s done” proclaim the organisers. Yup, a great symbol of peace, harmony and freedom surrounded by dozens of police, crack Chinese paramilitaries, numerous official vehicles, and protected by miles of fencing. I don’t even think my weeks’ worth of ironing could be more ironic.



From symbols of peace to memories of war, and that most nerve tingling of unique Australian occasions, Anzac Day. Being un-Australian I didn’t feel too guilty for staying in bed and missing the dawn service but visited the War Memorial later in the day. Despite being un-Australian it’s hard not to get caught up in the eerie mix of solemnity, pathos and national pride when you see the thousands upon thousands of lost lives etched onto the walls of the memorial. These days we live in a lucky country for sure.

When Canberra isn’t at the heart of the nation, the ceremonies desist and it fades away in the national consciousness, it remains a special place for those in the know, a city of often captivating beauty, blessed by an exquisite natural environment and often stunning sunsets! Here we go again… this time taken from the northern shores of Lake Burley Griffin…

Going Great on the B100

Work travails have led to work travels over the past week, taking in Melbourne and the coast of Victoria, Sydney and Dubbo in inland NSW. For the most part it has been uneventful, from airport lounge to hotel room, via a coffee shop here and group room there. The highlight of all this however was the weekend which fell in between, in which I was ideally placed for a drive along the Great Ocean Road.

Work ended and play began in Geelong, home to the AFL champions, Ford Motor Cars and a rather industrial feel thanks to it’s positioning as a port within an hour of Melbourne. It seems the city is trying to shake off it’s dour image by sprucing up the waterfront area (a tried and tested method of urban regeneration), which is kind of pleasant and suitably quirky thanks to random pieces of architecture (you can picture the local council meeting…what does Geelong need… I know some random pieces of concrete and a few licks of paint).

From Geelong you reach the ocean at the town of Torquay, nowhere near as glamorous as the English Riviera, and then Anglesea, nowhere near as full of sheep as the Welsh one. With the day fading, the drive was sublime as the road threads it way along the coast, dropping down to the ocean on the left and bordered by koala infested ranges on the right. With nightfall I reached my destination, the town of Apollo Bay, also known as “paradise by the sea” (as opposed to the other paradise in the bush I suppose?)

A sure sign that I’m my father’s son, I woke the next morning with a 5 on the clock but instead of getting racked off with this, I ventured outside for a walk on the beach (I could hear the waves from my room) and soaked in the transition from the darkness to the light and the anticipation of a beautiful day ahead.

I was pleased to hear Apollo Bay has a lookout and naturally this was my first stop later in the day as I took my very hoonish Ford rental car for a spin.

From here I pushed further inland into the typically lush coastal ranges of the Otways, marked by the huge fern gullies, towering Mountain Ash and trickles of water filtering into reflective pools. It seems such a fertile environment is a breeding ground for all sorts of nasty creatures, though I didn’t see any apart from some screaming brats down at Erskine Falls.

This was a particularly dangerous place as the sign seemed to indicate some wild dancing going on which could lead to crowd surfing. Such hubbub apparently can trigger the trees to fall down and the snakes to infiltrate the party. Australia: is nothing safe?


The foray inland brought me out at Lorne, another cruisy coastal town and back onto the road I had taken in the fading light the night before, but one I was glad to enjoy again, stopping off at pristine beaches, looking out for koala’s bottoms poking out of the trees and veering across narrow inlets and over grand clifftops.

The B100, as this road is less commonly known, veers inland for a while after Apollo Bay, not that the drive is any less captivating, with the gums giving way to Mountain Ash and rainforest gullies. A diversion from here leads down to Cape Otway, comparatively speaking a rather unexciting scrubby headland complete with lighthouse. The road there is probably of greater interest, hosting a large population of those koalas and probably causing a few near misses as drivers look to the treetops.

Returning to Apollo Bay I took in some sand-between-the-toes therapy as the day faded, the waters definitely a wee bit chilly and the sun disappearing into a smoky mist. There was only one way that such a day could end… fish and chips and a bottle of Bundy Ginger Beer, ah.


Sunday morning emerged just gorgeous and I decided to take the old B100 as far as the Twelve Apostles… even though I had visited these before I figured it’s still a pretty spectacular place and given the weather it would be criminal not to. Along the way were a few other lookouts and beautiful beaches, before the giant sandstone lumps of the Apostles themselves.

And that was probably an appropriate high on which to leave the Great Ocean Road and head back inland towards Melbourne. There was one last stop to make and it again involved exploring more lush rainforest of the Otway ranges. Only this time the view was a bit different as I entered the Otway Fly, a surprisingly large complex of elevated walkways, bridges and towers rising above the forest floor.

Back on the road, the forest soon turned into the golden farmland, the small towns increased into suburbs and the road lanes grew as I entered Melbourne, only having to go round in circles the once to drop the car back and return to the life of what sometimes feels like a traveling salesman. After a few more flights it was nice to get back to Canberra later in the week, getting chillier by the minute but still looking great and all ready for the craziness that is the Olympic Torch Relay and ceremony and reflection of Anzac Day. Look out for me on Sky News!