Selection Pack

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.

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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.

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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

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

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

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.