Transition?

As I write this on a fine Sunday evening, it feels like we could just be on a crux between winter and summer, with a couple of days of spring in between. I hope I am not being too aspirational, dare I say, optimistic but I can feel it in my bones (which are less chilled than they were a few days ago).

The week started off and spent several days being mostly grey, damp, chilly…not too much of a drama during the working week, pausing sufficiently at times for a brisk walk in the evening light around some of Canberra’s landmarks. Even on Saturday a bright morning gave way to afternoon showers, which totally suited my arrangement of morning chores and afternoon walks!



Sunday morning was bright enough too, and encouraged me enough to head down to Tidbinbilla, which itself has undergone some transition. Most notably, an entrance fee, which seems to be funding signs for a few name changes from colonial Australian to Aboriginal and the odd new picnic bench. It seems as though they are putting in the effort though, and the money is going to some good uses, including a couple of new walks which seem to be on the map that haven’t been there before. The Cascade Walk took me to a little fern covered cascade and the Lyrebird Walk didn’t lead me to any Lyrebirds… the liars. It did find me stalking an echidna though, playing who dares wins to see which of us gives up first: me waiting for it to unfurl from safety or it waiting for me to sod off back to the car park. I was generally victorious and after finally getting a decent snap or too sodded off back to the car park.



My little victory had made me all heady and I went to celebrate with a coffee at Lanyon Homestead. It was an average coffee but the best thing about it was being able to sit outside in the sun without a jumper or coat! From then on, the day seems to have got better and better, seemingly symbolic of the week ahead. Such good news heralds only one way to celebrate. Finally.

Whale of a time

Since returning to Australia I have been itching for some nice weather and a trip to the coast. Eggs Benedict and coffee in the warm sun overlooking the crystal curls of surf… there’s nothing quite like it. My last time here was back in June, down on the South Coast at Narooma. I was reminded how much I liked it down there, so headed back on Saturday morning, nice weather not quite here yet, but dry, reasonably warm and classic South Coast.

My first port of call was the village of Bodalla, just for a brief stop at the Big Cheese which I had inexplicably bypassed before. I don’t know if it is indicative of the fate of big things during these hard economic times, but the cheese was somewhat dilapidated, with associated gift shop long derelict and forgotten. Maybe there’s a dream job for me there… reinvigorate the Big Cheese complex. Hmm, something to mull over at the beach.

The beach I stopped at first was around Potato Point, a place I couldn’t help saying several times in an Irish accent… I was Louis Walsh with tourettes. It was, well, a fine beach to walk along, backed by bush and pounded by quite a big swell, the seas churning up jellyfish and surfers in equal measure.





Things were going well… my leftover homemade pizza made for a nice lunch on the clifftops, the sun was coming out and I was going all spontaneous like, veering off the Princes Highway onto a dirt road for a drive with windows down, smelling the – not roses – but lemon myrtle, and happy to be back on random dirt tracks down under!



Following my arduous drive, it was eventually quite pleasing to get back onto tarmac and trundle into Tilba for a gorgeous coffee, keeping me going for the final few kilometres to Narooma. I like Narooma, it’s not too small or slightly creepy like some of those other out-of-the-way towns on the coast. Beaches on one side and the rather fine Wagonga inlet on the other. Excellent fish and chips. And whales – more of that later.

As it was, with the wondrous miracle of daylight savings, I still had a couple of hours before it became dark to enjoy Narooma. This gave me time to suss out a few lookouts, take photos at the ever photogenic ‘Australia Rock’, and chill out by the rivermouth where a seal or two were chilling out too.



Hmm, even after all that it was still light (I told you it was a miracle), so I moved on down over the golf course to one of the beaches. I’d been in this spot before, not three months ago but three years ago, sat on a rock as a pod of dolphins rode the surf. While history didn’t quite repeat itself, I still sat on that same rock and soaked up the remaining rays of sun.



The next morning I stayed around Narooma and its northerly neighbour, Kianga. It was a morning of more walking along boardwalks and beside shorelines, simply perfect in its perfect simplicity. While not a walk in the guide books, my route following the northern side of Wagonga inlet, turning up along three sweeps of sand and culminating in Anton’s in Kianga. This was the spot for Eggs Benedict and coffee, and the main aim of the walk all along. Though not the greatest examples of either I have ever had, you could forgive them the food purely for the ambience and view through sunnies on the front deck.

And so there I was walking back in the direction of the car, very satisfied with all that had passed over the weekend, only for all that to be capped by a distinct pounding of water and white spray caused by only one possible thing. Cue clutching for binoculars, camera zooms extended to 18 times and – finally – sightings of a whale and its calf on their migration southward. I don’t think anything in nature can compare to the sight of a huge mega-tonne creature launching its bulk skyward, flipping mid-air before pounding like a bomb into the water. But enough of Vanessa Feltz (is she still on TV? Is she still amply proportioned?? Please substitute with the current in vogue fat person joke, probably someone on X factor or something…)



What a way to go. Suddenly my car was looking small and fragile, my pale body inadequate. But it’s what I got, and it’s gotta get me over that mountain, back to that little capital, with its lake, and, quite possibly, in one or two little corners, some little fishies.

Rain stopped play

They say you get grumpier as you get older. I think it could be true, but it’s all Australia’s fault! Brief synopsis: arrive back, have a dust storm, have a freezing cold and damp first weekend, gets temporarily sunny and warm for one day when you can’t really appreciate it because you’re stuck in work writing about some rubbish or other, then it gets to the second weekend and it rains lots and isn’t particularly warm either! Pah, what happened to this famous Australian weather? Whoa is me and so on.

Despite everything pointing to the contrary (including possible snow in the forthcoming week) it is spring, time to plant some greens in the garden while the spots of rain are fewer and farther between. The apple tree in the garden is in beautiful blossom, not that I’ve been out there to appreciate its beauty much. And the BBQ is still awaiting its first sizzle of summer. Meanwhile, over in the Botanic Gardens where the plants are generally much better looked after, things are flowering all over the shop, and when the rain eases, the birds chirp and the fragrant smells permeate, things are that much better. Cue overuse of the macro button.







Saturday night the clocks changed, moving us an hour forward, only you can’t enjoy the light evenings much when it is so darn miserable! It was a long weekend to allow us to adjust to the time difference and by Labour Day Monday I was super keen to escape and get out to see Australia for a bit. The day actually started a bit brighter, so, deciding I’ll save the coast for warmer weather, I invested two hours of reasonably quick but boring driving to take me to the Southern Highlands. Where it started raining and thunder rumbled, cancelling my plans for an extended bushwalk along the east rim of escarpment around Fitzroy Falls. The falls were unsurprisingly functioning nonetheless, pictured many times before but I don’t think with my latest camera and its wider angle lens.

And so, having come all this way I was not going to just turn round and head back so I drove a little further up the road on a pilgrimage, where all Australians must go to fulfil their patriotic sense of duty. Bowral, the home of Sir Donald Bradman complete with Bradman Oval and Museum. The museum was full of cricketing gems, the kind of place absolute fanatics would love, packed with battered old balls and baggy greens, scathing comments about the legitimate genius English tactic of bodyline and not too much dwelling on the fact that the great man just missed out on his 100 average. The boy from Bowral done good.



It would have been lovely with the sun filtering through the blossom, watching a game of cricket on a warm spring day, but the reality is I drove back through rivers of water for a time and returned to one of the blackest clouds ever over Canberra to do some out of hours unpaid work (yes, on Labour Day), and eat a disappointing takeaway dinner! The forecast, beyond the potential snow midweek, is for sun next weekend. I don’t trust them though, those weather people, they’re sneaky. If I don’t get to use my BBQ soon I will go insane!

Adios

There’s been a certain symmetry in my travels in Europe, the last month a reflection of the first, though while the first is all about hellos and how are yas the last is mostly farewells and see ya laters. Sometimes the thought of impending farewells overshadows those last few days, as much as you try and you do enjoy them there is always that departure on your mind. You console yourself by looking forward to those things you have missed but know you are going to miss those things you have had.

It started in Spain and that is where it pretty much finishes, barring one last royal day in England. This time round, Spain was wetter but better in all the things that count. Mum’s cooking was around the same (it can’t be better) and in the week I think we managed lasagne, roast dinner, bakewell tart, various things with clotted cream, cheesy marmites and, on my part tartiflette and BBQ, representative of where I have been and where I am heading! The Spanish visit was also improved by having a hire car for myself and, despite the weather, being out of season. This meant things were less frenetic, towns were quiet and some of the beaches were nice. One such beach being at Torre de la Horadada which was getting closer to Australian standard.

The first couple of days were spent dodging thundery showers, alternating siestas and shopping trips with little jaunts out into the country or coast. This included a drive down to Mar Menor, which is a vast body of salty water separated from the sea by ‘the strip’, a Gold Coast like series of high rises and golf courses. We never made it onto the strip, but stopped at the southern end and Cabo de Palos before racing back around Mar Menor as a dark storm approached.

The rain in Spain was again on the cards the following day, though not when we left home or for most of the time driving. It was only when we had fortuitously navigated the signless inland town of Novelda and reached our destination on the top of a small hill that the heavens opened. Pitter patter on the car roof as we sat patiently in the car park waiting for a clearing, it could’ve been England, though there was a car of jolly Germans also waiting next to us. At times it stopped briefly only for a deluge a minute later, but finally there was respite enough to wander around the rather fancy façade of the monastery of Santa Maria Magdalena and the less fancy but historically top trumping older Moorish castle of Mola.





It really was a dash and snap occasion, quickly lapping the exterior and taking a few quick photos before further heavy storms rolled in. On another day it would be good to amble and just hang out round here, admiring the buildings and the views that surround, perhaps eating some lunch and reading a book. And even taking time to compose a photo rather than a quick point and shoot in between thunder claps.

Mercifully the weather picked up in the latter half of the week, enough for a dip in the sea and a nice day out in the mountains and back along the coast. This was our big day out, driving on the very empty toll roads around Alicante to the peaks rising inland from Benidorm. The first port of call was Algar Falls, which must have benefitted from the rain, though there is a strong likelihood the falls are activated by a pump, given the landscaping and development to make what was probably once a natural highlight into a tourist honeypot. Don’t get me wrong, the water was beautiful and the setting pleasant enough… it’s just the endless rip off car parks and cafes and admission fee and man made rocks and platforms. In Wales we have seen this is free and untainted. In Australia, you drive along a dirt track, park in a national park, walk through Eucalpyts and Banksia and see water plummeting off a massive sandstone cliff, just as it was 50,000 years ago. In Spain you get a dodgy portaloo, topless Germans on rocks, and the most expensive ice and lemon possible (anyone would think lemons are scarce around here!)

Beyond Algar Falls, the number of naked Germans disappears and you are left to very steep and winding mountain roads and villages mostly untainted by modern trappings. The road reaches its high point at Coll de Rates, around 800metres above the sea which is visible in several directions. Hidden also are the large tourist resorts, with just groves of olives and almonds surrounding market towns in the valleys.





Getting lost is easy to do around here, and we took a lengthy unintended detour back down in the valley taking us very close to Denia. Looping round though it was back onto the N332, the main (free) artery linking the many resorts on the Costa Blanca. One of these places is Altea which, though I’m sure has enough hotels and beach umbrellas to satisfy the Spanish government, retains a rather charming old town high up on a hill. It was a bit a walk up to here, but the coffee overlooking the bay and out to the rocky lump of the Penon d’Ifach was worth it, and it was a pleasure to amble around the whitewashed alleys and lanes, with not too much tacky touristiana on show.





And that pretty much caps it. Sights were set on Australia and the journey home, and it was fitting to light the BBQ on my last night there and of course, finish with one last helping of clotted cream with apple pie. My time in Spain this year has much been like Spain itself, good and bad. Thankfully, like the tumbling, whitewashed houses of Altea and the Salmon on the BBQ, the last week was good and I felt ready to return to Oz.

There was one last hurrah though before returning to good coffee and bad television. It seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition now to sign off in style, with a quintessential piece of England… last time white cliffs and this time the royal trappings of Windsor along with the salad bar at Harvester. Thanks to Caroline who picked me up at Luton and dropped me off at Heathrow and kept me entertained in between.



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And so that really is it. It’s been a long time, a rollercoaster journey but some magnificent moments and magnificent people. Thank yous and kisses and hugs and maybe a fart and burp or two, a poke in the poker face, a bounce on the trampoline, a chomp of cheese, and an afternoon nap to you all. I could complain about some of the weather you gave me but I am sat here in Canberra in several layers thanks to a cold horrendous weekend of weather I was not envisaging in my mind on that plane journey home, so really British weather isn’t that bad! Since being back we’ve had dust storms, sunshine, thunder storms, hail, winds and rain. It’s always tough coming back, tough starting work and tough being on the right time zone, physically and mentally in a no man’s land. Things are getting there though, and softened every day by a little pleasure that you remember… the coffee of course, but the mangoes coming into season, the smell of the bush, the roast chicken from Coles, the acceleration of the Magna, the free spirit and attitude of the youngsters with their hair and funny sayings and intonations. They kind of make you smile. Despite the weather this weekend, Spring has definitely been here and will come back, bursting into summer. It’s evident all around, with blossoming trees and colour bursting to life.



And all I intend to do, all I can do, is make the most of it.

A marmot flavoured suitcase?

In the time it takes to drive from Canberra to Melbourne I had ticked off four countries…Wales, England, Switzerland and France as I embarked on a farewell weekend at chateau de Stafford. After such a journey I was pleased to go to the beach, with sand and waves and everything, all in the middle of landlocked Europe, have a paddle and follow up with an afternoon nap and an ice cream. Leman-sur-mer.





It was back to business as usual over the following days, taking in mountains and food and mountains of food, commencing with a trip to the foot of Mont Blanc itself and the Mont Blanc tramway, an almost impossibly inclining old fashioned hunk of junk rising from St Gervais to Nid d’Aigle, some 2380 metres above la mer.



Around this way are rocks and goats and big drops below, not to mention the odd glacier, plummeting down the mountainside and fragmenting into jagged blocks of ice and water and rocks.





It’s wild country round here, which makes the arrival of a tram high up on a piece of rock in the middle of nowhere all the more surprising. Many use the stop as a starting point for climbing the mountain, meanwhile the less intrepid among us stop off at a little café in the sun to chomp on a stale baguette to recover from a little scramble across the rocks.

After such strenuous efforts (eating stale bread), it was little surprise that the downhill crawl on the tram should lead to eyes closing, slowly drooping and shutting before popping open at the occasional open vista.



Off the tram and into the car, we moved on to Chamonix and well, you guessed it, more mountain scenery and food. Ice cream followed by a scarily steep climb on a cablecar with the occasional gust of wind is not really recommended, but got us nonetheless to a point on the other side of the valley to old Mont Blanc itself which, by this time of day, was mostly obscured by cloud. The same cloud thwarted our attempts to ride in another thin metal box on a flimsy rope across a massive crevice, but hey ho, the views up here were good enough for the marmots so that’s good enough for me.

Every other shop round here stocks cuddly marmots, some of whom have been skilfully stuffed with a small speaker by a tiny woman in a Chinese sweatshop to emit a whistle when you walk past. Apart from underlining the futility of global consumerism, they are hardly an accurate depiction of what is quite a chubby, dour looking creature. The high pitched whistle when you stand too close, however, is not so far off.

Back down in Chamonix, avoiding high pitched whistles and souvenir shops, there was one final stop at Mademoiselle Cakeface, some takeaway for after dinner, the literal icing on the cake.



More mountains and mountains of food followed again the next day, though the ones made of rock were obscured somewhat by cloud for the most part. The town of Samoens provided a fine base for ambling and eating, what with its little parks and cosy streets and selection of local sausages.



Further up the road we took a jaunt around the wonderfully named and probably spectacular in clear weather Sixt-Fer-a-Cheval. This appears to be a magnificent valley enclosed by towering rock and jagged peaks, dissected by a number of waterfalls. Despite the peakless views for us, it was still a rather impressive place and one to come back to in the future I should think.



The final day offered a change of pace – the mountains of food continued but big chunks of rock were replaced by rolling Swiss countryside, fields of burnt sunflowers and vines and many flowers around the nearby agricultural college-come-park. It was a good chance to enjoy some warm sunshine and chill out, a sometimes rare opportunity over the last couple of months.





And that was about it, from my memory and recollection and sketchy notes about what I did on that final long weekend in France. As always, very well looked after and tour-guided around by the family. The only other vague memory was getting up at some godforsaken hour and being transported through a number of tunnels to a large bright institution to be taken away on a flying machine, a journey for which I will forever be indebted!