I Travel

End of the Road - For Now

2006-05-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

On May 16th just two days before I was due to fly to Hong Kong I fell off a dodgy moped and had to change my plans. I had broken my left collar bone and three ribs but was otherwise OK but in no fit state to continue travelling. Hong Kong was out. I got Wayan to drive me to Denpasar where I had the xrays and then to sanur where I changed my ticket to take me back to London - on the 18th the last valid day of my RTW ticket.
I had very little pain at that time though there was a worrying clicking noise from the collar bone.
So I am back in the UK. It is now nearly the end of July and still my collar bone has not grown back , nearly 3 months after it was broken.
Oh well one compensation for being back in the UK - I caught the end of the new series of Doctor Who with David Tennant.
Still I would much rather be on the road as currently I have been unable to relet my house and as I don't think it is wise to work till the shoulder is OK money is just going out out out.
However looking back I didn't do too badly - I saw and did an awful lot. I did learn passable Spanish, enough to get me around and hold a brief conversation and I still amazingly remember most of it as I found out when I was reunited with Rob Sarah and Fernando in Southampton the over weekend. I had no choice but to speak Spanish! Fernando is now over here and about to start English lessons in earnest.
New Zealand? As lovely as ever and I am so glad I went back to Golden Bay. I revisited just about everyone person I met the first time round - all of them are still there. I was sorely tempted to swap my London house for a 100yr old rimu villa near Collingwood with 10 hectares of land and various outbuildings. But it was just in the end just a bit too much of a radical move and I had wanted to keep m oving to see Aus and China.
I met lots of lovely people - some of whom I will stay in touch with and am in touch with now. I didn't exactly strike gold in the love department but then that was not on my agenda so no big disappointment. The only regret is that I did have to break off when I did though in hindsight perhaps it was good as I was on the spot to sort out my house- and also to attend an 80th birthday party.And of course catch up with friends and family.
But the plan is still to get back on the road as long as I still have some money left after this enforced sojourn.

Jimbaran

2006-05-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Not exactly in a blaze of glory

2006-05-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

Oh dear ..... a little miscalculation and I have had to cut short my plans - no HK - no travelling for 6 weeks min.

managed to come off moped on east cpoast of bali - only broken two bones but on my shoulder so cannot backpack. Im sure I need not elaborate how stupid I feel, it wasn't a great moped - had had zero problems up till then on very quiet roads. But still in one piece - looking forward to seeing you all!
London Hthrow 5.30am thursday 18th may - just one day before I left last year for s america.

xxxxxx

Louise

will probably post a few more photos once back - so keep checking! Also travel may not end here so ...........................

Amed - Bali's East Coast

2006-05-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Kuningan Ceremony Amed village
Snorkels and masks near the Japanese wreck

Typical bay on Amed coastline

Snorkelling at night under a full moon with torches
Hiring moped and riding out to snorkel the Japanese wreck
playing guitar with the 3 brothers staff
Coral in the bay beneath

Ubud to Tirta Gangga

2006-05-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

Tirta Gangga

2006-05-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

Ubud market

2006-05-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Goa Gajah & Yeh Pulu

2006-05-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

There arent garages as such in bali - you stop and fill up your moped from bottles at roadside stalls containing 'premium' like these recycled vodka bottles
Yeh Pulu bas relief - nearly all the figures have had their mouths chipped off - I have no idea why.
Rice paddies near Yeh Pulu
The pulu - or stone water storage jar in the purification bath - a bit low on water!

Holy lady at Yeh Pulu

Holy phalluses inside the elephant cave.

Goa Gajah- Elephant (Ganesh) Temple

View of the Purification baths

Goa Gajah, yust a few ks out of Ubud, was both a Hindu and Bhuddist centre for worship until it was destroyed by an earthquake in ????? which toppled the enormous stupa of the bhuddist temple down by the river largeections of ,moss covered carved rock lie where they tumbled and a stream smooths away their edges.The giant buttress roots of a banyan stand off to one side,. In 1954 archaeologists uncovered the baths , which had been submerged by earth and rocks discovering aset of baths fed by mountain springs which were divided into two sections- one side bhuddist one hindu with six statues representing the 6 major rivers and the 7th river the |Ganges represented by Ganesh in the centre (now removed as he was crumbling). Of the 3 statues on either side 2 are female and one male. I was persuaded to splash my face with water from the nearest fountain 7 times to ensure love(!). Also uncovered was the so called elephant cave - with the wonderful face of the boma or guardian peering out as if pulliong back the stone like a curtain - I visuted this temple in 1988 and drew that face. I still have it somewhere!Inside the cave are niches which my guide said were for meditation - but the look a bit funerary to me. At one end are the 3 lingams - phalluses dressed in smart sarongs for galungan.

Ubud's Sacred Monkey Forest , Padangtegal village

2006-05-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

Pura Beji - holy bathing temple
Pura Dalem Agung Temple

Monkey Forest Road

Tri Hita Karana Doctrine- Balinese Hindu philosophy
Peace and liberty are obtainable in our lives only when we respect and observe the 3 harmonious relationships known as the Tri Hita doctrine:
1. The gods blessed life and created nature and its contents
2.Nature offers subsistencen, nouishment needs and activities for human beings
3. Human beings have an obligation to establish traditionasl village structure, to build temples in which to worship to hold various ceremonies to make daily offerings to preserve nature and to solve problems together

The Macaques - long tailed or Balinese macaques

The Dukun - Trip to the Doctor - Balinese style

2006-05-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

I was in Arie's Warung and had just finished consuming my 12 hour smoked duck, and with little else to distract me I couldn't help overhearing the conversation going on behind me - from a group of people staying at the Sayong bungalow including a big contingent of Steiner school teachers from Australia on a "training" trip. It was very intersting listening to them discuss Steiner school methods v traditional with a conventional methods. teacher from Germany. I didn't know that the Steiner philosophy doesn't encourage children to read until 7 years old - if they start doing it by themselves that's fine but the idea is that there is so much else to focus on and learn before reading and focussing so intently on this skill is to the detriment of other areas of brain development. I thought it got harder to learn things like language after 7 - but perhaps reading isn't in that bracket.
Anyway th epoint of all this was that my ears really pricked up when April one of the Steiner school teachers said she was feeling a little worried about an arranged visit to see a traditional Balinese healer in the morning. Others in her party had been already and reported that it was not always apainless experience. However Someone with a sprained ankle had been 'cured '. So, intrigued,and with my foot and growing collection of musculo skeletal problems, I apologised for interupting and asked April if she knew how I could contact this healer. April promptly invited me to come too - she didnt know much more about it other than that people sometimes cried their eyes out or screamed in pain.
So next day I joined 5 Steiner school teachers and some Dutch women and we were driven out to Nogari village about half hour out of Ubud to the home of Cok(pronounced chok) Rai, the healer.
We sat around arranged in a semi circle on the raised platform facing the Dukun, an old thin wiry man in his 60s who satin a wooden chair andlooked into the eyesof each of us one by one nodding and smiling to himself. He didnt seem very scary - just a sweet old man. He invited us up one by one . Aopril went first- she sat with legs outstretched in front of his knees whilst he ran his hands over her head shouders and arms and from that correctly identified a chest/breathing problem. He got up and wandered around the compound garden then pickd some leaves from a tree , chewed them up in his mouth raised two fingers to his lips and then blew the saliva and leaf mixture onto April's chest - we were all a bit taken aback - but this was the cure!
Next the young Dutch girl, who had been very friendly and happy in the car , went up- the Dukun felt around her shoulders and then pushed a spot somewhere near her neck and she burst into floods of tears. He spoke softlyto her - turns out she has been feeling very fearful and he told her that she needs to realise these things are outside of her and she doesnt need to hold in so much fear (or something along those lines). Another Steiner school teacher went next- this time she lay down horizontal on the mat and he sat by her feet and needled the little toe hard with what looked like a twig from a frangipani tree- she was soon writhing in agony and I cringed in empathy and knew this was what my treatment would probably consist of - yup sure enough, after finding problems all down my right arm (tendonitis) I was laid down prone too and got the horrible stick screwed into the sideof my toes - I was rolling and writhing in agonyand yelled out 'is this pain really good for me?' Everyone laughed - and he said yes!
I didnt go expecting a miracle and I felt better immediately as soon as the pain stopped - well you would wouldnt you? We all pressed palms together and said our matur sook samurs - and left our 'donations' in the little bowl.
I'm glad I went but wasnt rusing back for more unlike some of the others. My treatment I'm sure was a kind of primitive acupuncture/relexology - but it did seem as if he knew what he was doing - so no, no miracle cures for my foot and poor old muscles and nerves - just plain old rest!

Ubud - Legong, dances and French coffee

2006-05-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Warrior Dance
Ubud Palace
Legong dancers
Everyone desperately wants you to buy things, transport, sarongs, tickets and you start to feel s if you really should be helping hte local economy a bit more- and in the end I gave into a seller on MOnday night and bought a ticket to see Legong dance at Ubud Palace which is 10 minutes away from Sania's bungalows.
It almost threatened to rain and show was late in starting; we were all frisked with a metal detector at the entrance which was a bit of a wake up call . The audience was a mix of Balinese, Indonesians, Japanese, Dutch, German and AMericans as far as I could make out. I was sitting on a crumbling concrete seat under a tree and it got a little uncomfortable and the mossies found me and bit despite full strength Rid.But eventually it all got underway to the accompaniement of a gamelan orchestra;the Legong dancers have very stiff mouths rigid smirks which make them look rather constipated rather than beautiful. THere were about 5 other dances included in the programme which was very good value - Warrior Dance was very impressive adn i was focussed on the bare feet which were flexing with such ease thinknig about my own worn down ligaments. It was about then that I noticed in little letters at the bottom of the programme Please do not use flash - oh dear! A little late - but I dutifully stopped.Other people in the audience seemed equally oblivious. I suppose it makes the dancers blink as their eyes are so wide open.
Afterwards I went to find the French cafe which the Dutch ballooning couple had told me about at the cooking school.
I thought it might be quite nice to have a real coffee . Thiery was very friendly and as there were no customers to speak of we talked and he asked me where I had travelled etc . I struggled along in my school french which he was very kind about for at least 10 mins before we lapsed into English as it was rather slow going!He used to be an editor and publisher in Paris but ended up bankrupt - with a business partner he has now opened up this cafe in the middle of Ubud which is well stocked with French books and books about Bali ( in all languages) which you can browse through. He also shows a non stop a fascinating B&W film made by a mexican in Bali in the 1930s which shows just how much life has changed and also how much has been retained. The women for instance are all topless but though not today I have seen women bathing in the roadside waterways naked - it is not considered shameful at all, just practical.

Galungan & Kuningan, Bali 2-13th May 2006

2006-05-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

Bali Bird Walk, Ubud

2006-05-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sumade
Ducks in the rice fields
Chameleon on coconut tree
Campuan Bridge
I had to go - I reckoned I could rest my foot completely once again after this . It poured with rain this morning for about an hour from 6.30 , the large droplets bouncing off the banana leaves outside my room. I got a ride on a moped down to the Campuchan Bridge which hangs suspended gloriously over the river about half a kilometre from Ubud central. Here I met Ni Wayan Sumadi, or Su for short who is unusual in Bali for three reasons - she has never married , she works independently and not for a tour operator and she is a female guide - men still don't believe that she knows anything about birds when they meet her. I was the only customer which I was very suprised at as there is a big GlobalHealing conference here from May 3rd- 10th( with Walter Cronkite and Desmond Tutu) and I would have thought attendees might fit in a bird walk or two. But business has been very slow all round says Su - down about 40% for the time of year. Only my bungalows seem to be getting fuller and fuller but anything on the outskirts is not filling up.She took a Japanese couple who only wanted to see the Javanese kingfisher on a special trip yesterday and they spent three hours in a hide with tripods and three cameras, digital and film, poking out of three sides waiting for the perfect shot(s).

We saw lots of Javanese kingfishers today - as we walked through the rice fields at the back of the Pura Desa Temple where I saw the kechak a few nights ago. About 8 of these birds all told, very striking large birds , brillant blue purple and darker shades of purple and a stunning thick red beak. In flight and in bad light all you see is the red of the beak and white wing patches and a flash of blue. There are more of them now than usual attracted by the water in the rice fields where they hunt for frogs, snakes etc along with the cattle egrets and java pond herons which had their ginger breeding plumage making them more interesting than usual plain white.
The rice fields were deserted today due to preparations for Gulangal- flocks of ducks in the rice paddies,some still with duckling down pom poms on thier heads , little tents where they lay eggs rigged up inthe rice fields. Lotsof different types and some deginite Daffys. T The water trickles through the irrigation channels which are grass sided - water comes from the mountains near Bedegul in the east.Lots of little crops growing as well as rice along the way- and four types of those - Balinese rice or red rice which gives 2 crops a year but very high in vitamins etc and hybrid white rice and sticky rice and black rice.In some fields the rice has been harvested and so the water has been drained out of them and the stubble burned off. In others the rice is still grwoing adn ripening the little seeds visible. There are Balinese scarecrows ranging from a couple of plastic bags on a stick to a stuffed Balinese man complete with headress and scarey facial features. Noneof these seem to work as the birds are there in abundance - not even the improvised metal sails of windmills which hit tin cans do much to scare them off. Perched on poles, and up on dead bracnhes of trees , on bending staves(?) of rice and in flocks in coconut trees they were everywhere. Lots of little scaly breasted munias.
Su showed me fruit trees - the jackfruit, the breadfruit with distinctive leaves ,the betel nut tree,( looks like a palm with string of \yellow pods round middle) picus fig, the wild hibiscus ( yellow flower ) and the introduced red hibiscus or chinese rose, the white star of bethlehem and mismosa with pinkflowers and the leaves which curl up when you touch them ,long green beans growing by side of the path trailing up bamboo poles, water spinach which is the green ingredient apart from beans in gado gado - the classic Indonesian dish - butterflies everywhere - the cholcolate soldier only one I can remember name of, and dragonflies - the wild blue dragonfly and a red bodied dragonfly.
I have the little illustrated book by Victor Mason who is the bird man of Bali - now in his 70's but his original love was butterflies - and now he has published a guide to the Butterflies of Indonesia- bit of a labuor of love - and Su's brother has done the illustrations - no one expects to make much mnoey from it.
We stopped for a drink of water on a small platform under a roof of alang alang ( grass matting) tied to bamboo structure with rattan , the bamboo held together with sisal cord which is also the grass which the roofs of the pagodas are made fromTthe shelter is the meeting place for the rice growers and there is a big wooden bell to call everyone to the meetings or as an alarm call etc. THe rice workers operate as a co operative with one person responsible for making sure that the water runs through the irrigation channels etc we passed the rice temple, Pura Degul, where farmers make offerings for a good harvest and later on by a field a small brick shrine on top of which a sheaf of rice had been offered to the goddess of fertility and agriculture.
Most amazing birds were the weavers - we passed a whole street of weaver bird nests, made in the banana trees . The yellow headed male makes several half finsished nests and then sings loudly to attract a female - if she likes his nest she will go into it and the male will then complete it -he will take as many mates as he can get. We saw lots and lots of nests in the coconut trees and a tree nearby full of females with the male doing a lot of calling from the top.

Saw the following birds:
Javan Pond heron
Greater Coucal
White bellied swiftlet
Zitting Cisticola
Bar winged Prinia
Golden Headed Cisticola
Brown throated sunbird
Javan Munia
Scaly breasted munia
chestnut munia
java sparrow
streaked weaver
olived backed sunbird

Bumbu Bali - Balinese Cooking Lesson

2006-05-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

We all took turns in twiddling a mnicemeat and herbs/spice mixture onto satay sticks - done with this method the satay is called lillit or wound - because you put a blob of mixture onto top of stick hold in left hand and wind the mixture down the stick with the fingers of the right hand. You can use a stick of fresh lemongrass as the stick as well as the more common bamboo.

With Nyoman in eth market - he's waving a bag of tempe -roughly squashed soya beans ( though not sure if these are also fermented as in tofu)
Chillis
Vegetables and fruit in the Pasar - Ubud Market
Salted fish
Well you'd think I would be feeling rather tired now as I've just had my lesson which lasted from 9-2pm but I 'm not in the slightest!
The lesson actually involved sitting down and watching the chef, Nyoman Sunarta, of Bumbu Bali 2 Restaurant prepare dishes which he explained as he went on with just occasionally the need for one of the class to mix, stir , grate something.Then we ate what he had cooked.
The class was held at the restuarant where I had the best meal I have had in a restaurant for ages last night:

This was what I ate:
Gedang Mekuah -green papaya soup
Bepasih Mepanggang - grilled snapper with Balinese spices and rice
Home made Ginger honey ice cream
( I might add that I didnt have lunch which is just as well)
and I drank a pineapple apple and coconut juice as unfortuantely I wasn't able to try an avocado and chocolate (!) juice as they had run out of avocados.
It was all absolutely delicious and cost me the princely sum of 89,000 rupiah which included the 15% tax and service charge.You really can't beat it 6UK for all that !

When I learned they ran a cookery class I immediately signed up for the next day. There were 10 of us this morning - the Aus family from Sydney who were also in the restaurant last night and a Dutch couple on their way home from visiting their daughter now married to an Australian & who are into hot air ballooning, a young Swiss guy just graduated in Physics who now wishes it had been food technology - a young couple on their honeymoon from Ljubnia, Slovenia, and another Dutch girl who is doing a RTW.
First off we walked short way up to the market - and Nyoman showed us our raw ingredients whilst the stall holders of course tried to get us to buy - don' think customs would like me sending back knives too much.
Baskets of little dried salted fish and seaweed, blocks of palm sugar, packets of tempe,fruits and vegetables, baskets, incence, offerings, kites etc etc. The sell can be a bit hard here - in the tourist bit though - I was grabbed by the arm by one diminutive woman.
Bumbu means spice aand a lot of Balinese cooking revolves around using a basic spice paste called Basa Gede - Big spice literally.
Of course its hard to replicate when you dont have access to fresh kaffir limes or leaves and there are a few other ingredients that it would be difficult or expensive to obtain in UK .
However we learned or rather watched as Nyoman made a Base Gede, Saur Urab - mixed vegetable, Tuna sambal matah( raw sambal) , tempe manis ( sweet tempe) and Opor AYam - curry chicken and sambal Udang - prawn sambal adn then ate everything together with a complimentary brem ( rice wine) and black rice pudding with coconut milk.
I took a lot of photos as there is a food photo comp coming up but really only took snapshots - will have to think and plan an entry.
The Swiss guy, Mark, emphasised how good Jimbaran is for seafood - seafood grills out on the beach. I have heard about this from another Australian couple- and I know exactly where to go - so I think I will have to add this to my agenda.

Ubud - busy but still beautiful

2006-05-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

This rather beautiful lady sold me at a vastly inflated price a string of wooden monkeys
Daily offerings by a river in central Ubud
Mendra - wood carver
Anjing - who guards a house down the street and doesn't like me much
Galungan the festival which is held every 210 days in Bali ( their year is 420 days) and its counterpart Kuningan, held 10 days later is just about to really kick off- it starts officially tomorrow on 2nd May.It's their biggest festival of the year and takes place all over Bali.
Everyone is busy making offerings and decorations for the penjor ( long bamboo pole ) which every house puts up outside on the street. The penjor represents the Holy dragon (NAga Basuki) as well as the HOly Mountain Gunung Agung. In my home in Ubud - Sania's House Bungalows - all the family have been doing nothing but making offerings in readiness for the big day - folding and pinning strips of coconut leaves into small containers which will be filled with flowers and fruit and topped with incence. Yesterday morning Wayan reached up to a jackfruit tree with a sycthe attached to a bamboo pole and knocked down 4 or 5 sizeable jackfruits - some of which will be eaten and some given as offerings to the gods.
Apparently tomorrow there will be a big feast - and lots of restaurants and warung ( the small traditional cafes) will be closed so not sure where I will be eating.
The shrine outside Sania's has been given posh clothing and is wearnig a black adn gold sarong and saffron tasselled miniature umbrellas are hanging from each corner; flower heads fill baskets in the market and are selling well - marigolds and blue hydrangeas and other flowers I cannot distinguish - but all bright.
So besides the usual tourist activity - small buses everywhere and constant offers of transport there are long bamboo poles being transported through the town and a general increase in traffic to the temples and shrines.
Suckling pig is one of the delicacies cooked for the feast on Wednesday- I know because I bought some wooden rings from a craftsman called Mendra who came to the bunglaows. There are about 3 vendors who seem to be allowed entry to the grounds - one guy with paintings - I didn't buy and warned him I wouldn't but he wasnt satisfied until I looked through them all, another guy who I so far have managed to avoid and Mendra who is a lovely old man from Tampaksiring and in fact he is the man I met in the little warung down the road where I had lunch one day.
He is very thin and wears an old black and red check NZ Swanndri and has watery blue eyes .He has a very endearing and patient way about him, different from the other younger vendors who are pushy and have little charm or instinct into how to sell.
I bought some rings from Mendra which I think are designed well and are made of wood called sonokling and inlaid with silver- and another almost black wood called kalukarneg which comes from East INdonesia. He makes them himself. I am inclined to believe him from all he told me about his customers and where he sources his materials etc but you never know for sure... selling is the thing. I couldn't bargain him down either but was relieved to find out that nor had the people in bungalow near to me. Here it is the norm to bargain - for everything except food in a restaurnat - the seller will usually ask double what something is worth and then you have to haggle to get to a reasonable half way point - except I really don't have the stamina for half hour hard bargaining for everything and I hate shopping anyway so I am probably a bit of a pushover. However I do always ask if I can take "portret" photo at end of the deal so I think I do OK.
After our business was finished Mendra sat and talked to me about Bali and how life has changed - he is 60 - I told him how I remembred Ubud with dirt streets and shops with a single light bulb hanging from a wire at night and hugepacks of dogs roamnig around. The dogs are still there but less of them - but shopfronts ar all glass and gloss.He told me how he remembers first going to Kuta to sell his work on the beach in the early 60s.
Mendra told me about the 1963 eruption of Agung Gunung which was a major disaster. Apart from human casualties he remembers there being very little to eat as everything was covered in volcanic ash and leaves and plants and trees just died as did small animals. Rocks from the volcano even landed in Tampaksiring which is 50 k away.
Ihave been reading a lot and only going out in the later afternoon /evening to eat dinner in order to cut right back on walking on my left foot - though the right foot has started to display same symptoms now.
Have read some great books:

Rabbit Proof Fence - a bit of a tear jerker and incredible insight into Aboriginal life from the early 1900s to about the 70's

Erewhon by Samuel Butler -1897 - old fashinoned style makes it a bit of a plow but very relevant satire re technology and social mores.

Free Love - short stories by Ali Smith - 1995 - wonderful and poignant - love her prose and human observation - made me laugh a lot

Tirra Lirra by the River - Jessica Anderson - 1976 - brilliant book brilliant author - want to read more.

Bluebeard's Egg - Margaret Atwood - 1997? - half way through and can't put it down

Germs Guns and Steel - Jared Diamond 1997 -non fiction- slow going with all the facts - but I didn't know that Neanderthals had bigger brain than homo sapiens plus other littel unknown facts- he then fails to suggest any theories as to why the Neanderthals disappeared.

Also read Ellen Macurthur autobiog no.1 - pretty amazing - certainly a problem solver!

My room is really a seperate little one bed flat - up a short run of stairs facing the swimming pool which is only just visible through trees and flowers. My room has an adjoining wet showeroom with hot water - and a flush loo. In the main bedroom there are windows on 3 sides with mosquito screens so it is nice and light and the brick walls are painted white. Through the windows I look out onto banana trees , bamboo groves, an adjoining bungalow where they recognise me and give me a cheery wave if i am sitting out on my verandah and on right side the roof of the bungalow below. The ceiling is lined with bambo mats and the rafters meet into perfectly joined semicircles at either end of the bunglaow. there is a sink and mirror to the right of the door , a double bed and a single bed where I can put a lot of things - and a simple shelf unit wide and deep enough to take books and with a small rail for clothes. I have a bedside table and lamp.
On the verandah I have a table and three chairs and the staff bring a fresh flask of tea every morning.
Sitting out on the verandah I look out onto a bungalow roof which is covered in yellow flowers which Mendra told me are called Yellow Trousers in Balinese.There are also large coconut and date palms and the jackfruit tree and flowers, pink yellow and white in pots on the verandahs of the house next to me, old stone pots covered in green moss. Sania seems keen on caged birds - there about 4.
But other birds visit the garden regularly - a pair of olive backed sunbirds visit for pollen in white flower heads twice a day, spotted pigeons fly back and forth and coo from the top of the roofs- huge butterflies flop lazily and deceptively slowly round the garden, blue and black and yellow.
Little lizards run up and down the timber column to my ceiling and I watched from my bed as one investigated my cup of tea out on the verandah.
Up above in the afternoon there will be kites flying and swiflets soaring in groups along with big insects - I watched but the big insects don't seem to be food - whilst outside in the little road boys and men play badminton and the moped traffic slows down a little.At 6am the dawn chorus is deafening. I have found out that at my last place, Oka Wati where I paid double what I pay now ( 100,000 rupiah a night which is roughly 7UK ) the birds I saw from the balcony there were - cinnamon bittern and ....lost my page will have to look for it again - but some finches and other common but interesting birds.
Sania's Home Bungalows are just off Dewi Sita on a little narrow lane called Jalan Karna which itself is just off Monkey Forest ROad. It's a great location for me as at the top of the road is the market and main drag and at the o;ther end Dewi Sita is a quiet road which leads you to the road parallel to mine where there are lots of cheap warungs to eat.

Sanur to Ubud by car

2006-04-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

Rules for entry to temple
Purification baths at Jungle Temple
I wasn't fast enuogh so you can only just make out the snake hiding with a frog in its mouth
Harvesting Rice
Baskets
Scoops Owl
HOrnbill
Crowned Pigeon frmo Papua
Lonely Cassowary
Monkey on back of another monkey?
Motif on decorated seats at Batubalan performance space
Gamelan player
Rangda - the evil witch
Gamelan musicians
Barong dancer

* 15,855 Ind rupiah = 1.00UK
*Nasi Campur - rice(nasi) with a bit of everything - egg, meat, satay, vegetables
*Mie gooreng = mie are noodles
Bali is part of Indonesia but it is the only island in the Indonesian archipelago that has Hindu as its main religon. The other islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Lombok , Flores and Timor are all Muslim. Recently there has been a large influx of Muslims from the other islands keen to cash in on Bali's relative prospertity. Not many Hindus are happy about this - it will bring problems - they say, rather guardedly and my driver Ketut went distinctly quiet and lost his laugh when I noted how there seemed to be mosques appearing everywhere. I think the Balinese feel invaded and worry about the future. Already the capital Denapsar is now 50/50 Muslim/Hindu. I need not say anymore about bombs and financial impact which is never far from a conversation with a Balinese person.
After three nights in Sanur and constant offers of transport whenever I went out of the hotel I thought I'd take up the offer of showing me round the rice fields and various temples and combine it with changing location to Ubud. So I bade a fond farewell to Segara Agung - lovely hotel - and they gave me a gift of a fan embossed with their name. Sweet.

I had a full day in the car with Ketut ( which means child number 4) Child one is called Wayan, number two is Made, number three is Nyoman and number four - Ketut. If you're a boy you are I Ketut if you are a girl you're Ni Ketut!
Some of these Balinese idiosyncracies came back to me over the last few days - including a few words - kuching is cat and anjing is dog. Arak is the island spirit and bintang is the not so great Bali Beer ( not after being spoilt in Australia where I developed a taste for South Australian Coopers- no preservatives or additives)
Of course the first thing Ketut asked was are you married and as we were going to be in the car together all day and I did not want to have to do any fending off I invented a husband called Tommy who stayed at home in the UK due to work and who I met at work. This almost fooled Ketut but he kept asking questions so I don't think he was convinced and made some bawdy jokes about snakes and my husband after we saw one in an irrigation ditch at laughed and giggled like a child at his own hilarity. He has one son and is building up money before having another. the policy which I saw advertised 17 yrs ago is still in force here - dua anak cucup - which translates as -two children are enough - in an effort to stem the burgeoning population.It seems to be working but I can only imagine the effect on Balinese culture where everyone is either a Wayan or a Made and there are no Ketuts or Nyomans.
Barong
Ketut asked if I'd like to see a Barong performance - 9.30am every morning - just outside of Denpasar - actually I didnt notice us leaving Denpasar as it has spread now to envelope Batubalan where the performance was . I thought OK why not - so paid out 50,000r ( or 3.50 UK) to see a performance laid on daily for tourists - which was wonderful! Colourful theatrical costumes and live gamelan orchestra and although I've seen the famous kechak I've never seen Barong - which features a witch figure, Rangda, with Strewelpeter fingernails and long hair which according to Ketut is made from dried pineapple plant fibres (?!)and females playing male roles in a nice alternative to the usual role reversal (apart from Panto I suppose and come to think of it some operas). Lots of eye and hand movements as in Indian dances of Kerala.
Birds
Ketut then drove me to Bali Bird park - which was a bit naughty of me as I walked rather gingerly around it on teh very slippery green concrete paths - but did sit for half an hour to watch bird flying display - amazing seeing macaws, hornbills and scoop owls in flight at such close quarters.
But seeing some birds so closely confined was a bit disturbing - and it was tempting to see if you could open the cage doors and let them out though not all are native Balinese birds so not a good idea of course.
Felt especially sorry for a pair of cassowaries - who were seperated by a metal door - one knew the other was just on the other side and kept forlornly going up to the door as if hoping each time that it would be magically open. THe other cassowary sat looking dejected on the other side, collapsed on its huge thick scaley legs, its yellow neck and blue head pointing towards the muddy compacted ground.
I saw the rare Bali starling - (white with a blue face) hardly existent anymore due to poaching - worth a lot to collectors of birds - who are prepared even to steal from the bird park - so it doesn't have a bright future.
Best part of all was the Papua aviary - no humans in there - but plenty of birds rooting away in the lush vegetation - birds of paradise displaying their colours and crowned pigeons bowing and booming in a most extraordinary way. I instantly wanted to go to Papua - were also birds whose name I didn't get who were miaowing above me. Next big highlight was driving through rice fields after a rather miserable buffet lunch at a deserted and overpriced tourist place - it is custmoary to buy your driver lunch too - teh guidebook indicates just a simple meal will do but here , with according to Ketut no other option for miles - I had to pay about fifteen pounds for both of us - which in is extortionate compared to other places - adn teh quality was lousy. Ketut to be fair persauded the management to knock off 10,000 rupiah as the food was cold and drying out but they then tried to sneak it onto the bill - but I caught them out! 80 and 20 does not add up to 110!They just giggled of course.It isn't the money - it's the principle - no one likes being treated just like an automatic cash dispenser and you also only want to pay for quality not rubbish!
More wildlife
Last time I was in Bali - 1989- I travelled round by public transport - bemo - and wasn't able to stop when I saw a photo so this was real luxury. We drove through rice fields near Jatiluhiwa , which means beautiful place or near enough. I had to pay a 10,000rupiah entrance fee which goes to the farmers according to Ketut. At this point Ketut turned off the air con and wound down the windows , suddenly he stopped the car - Can you hear that? I could hear high pitched squeaking - something in distress - Ketut went to the irrigation ditch - Look ! Snake! And sure enough there was what he said was a mamba - but beacuse of its beautiful colouring - red head and bluish body - was surely a coral snake? With two frog legs sticking out of its mouth. Poor frog!
But after that we heard that noise several times as we drove along. The snake swam up the ditch when it saw us, trying to hide in some weeds on the side- as did a man on a bicyle hung with different coloured plastic wares when we stopped for me to take a photo - he hung back and hid behind a bush - so we carried on. It's easy to get carried away in pursuit of photos - you have to set your own moral/ethical limits and boundaries and persuing a man who quite clearly didn't want his picture taken.
Ubud
We arrived in Ubud later than planned after a visit to a jungle temple and I got Ketut to drop me near hotel in Monkey Forest Road - which was a Lonely Planet ( LP) recommendation - Oki Wati. It was full of course - I should have known better than to try somewhere recommeded in the only book people buy - although this is low season - post Easter pre Summer holidays when Bali is inundated with American and Japanese tourists - but they did have a room in a building nearer Monkey FOrest Road but further away from pool - I got them to drop $5 off the price - but my initial feelings on arriving in a mayhem of cars and mopeds and westerners everywhere - was Quick Ketut! take me back to Sanur! ( also known as Snore accoring to LP) .
I didn't recognise this Ubud at all and at first I didnt like it one bit- where there used to be quiet dirt streets and little cornupcopia shops lit by paraffin lamps were now glass fronted European shopfronts with neon signs and white tiled floors and tarmaced streets busy with cars, cars cars - everywhere. A big a shock as going back to Kyrenia in N Cyprus in 2005 which has similary been transformed over the space of 20 years.

Food
It was growing dark - so I went out to try and find somewhere to eat without going very far ; it started to pour with rain - I went just across the top of the football pitch opposite , on the other side of Monkey FOrest Road and passed the first place - very posh looking then teh next place and then a young boy handed me a photocopied menu and I saw the handwritten white menu board and knew immediately this was hopeful! This was Arie's Warung- (warung is cafe in Indonesian) and the simple interior with check cloth tables and paraffin lamps reassured me that this was at least an Indonesian place run and owned place not a western investment restuarant - there were a lot of westerners eating there though - so there was some atmosphere - I had Nasi Campur for 15,000 rupiah - ( in Sanur it cost me 35,000 rupiah)and a bottle of Bintang for 11,000. Arie knows how to pull in the punters and keep them coming back - he handed me a succession of laminated reviews from Michelin Guide and other international eating guides all rating him very highly in the "simple" category. Then there were also 4 volumes of reviews by previous customers , most of whom raved about the Smoked Duck - Betulu - which is a classic Indonesian dish - so of course I had to book a smoked duck for the following night . Arie is a little man who if not a restuarnater would have probably liked to have been a stand up comedian - he liked to make little jokes in En glish and then fake a little laugh putting his hand up to his mouthas if he had said something naughty and then shading his shoulders with laughter - an affectation that was rather overused and so wore very thin by night two but I am sure many people find him charming and he freely writes out useful little phrases in INdonesian for dealing with the constant offers or requests to buy and helpful pointers as to what to see in Ubud. But I think it is his wife who does the cooking - which is worth every rupiah and the main reason after all why the place is so recommended - my Nasi campur was the first food apart from street stall food that actually tasted real - real food.

When I was last in Ubud I ate every night at the night market - the Pasar Malam - I asked Arie where it was as I thought it was on the main street near the main market but I hadn't seen it - he told me it was closed by the government because the tourists complained about the way plates were just dipped in water in between customers - I didn't buy this - far more likely I thought was the explanation that I got from someone else ,not in the restaurant trade I might add, that the restaurant owners complained to the government that they weren't getting enough business as all the tourists were going to the night market to eat beacuse it was cheaper ( and probably better) plus the fact that the government reaps 10 % tax on all restaurant meals and the restaurants also add 5% service tax. So poor old traditional night market was closed. What a loss! I remember it as a highlight of Ubud - but I think in other less touristy towns the night market lives on.
After my meal I repaired to bed - I can't help using that language -it still feels a bit like a colony here - although the Dutch finally relented and let Bali get its independance after the second world war. I haven't met or heard many Brits here - most tourists are French, Australian or Dutch and the Balinese aren't familiar with the term UK.
Sound of cicadas in the grass and frogs and mopeds beeping though pretty much everyone has gone to bed by 10pm. Thankfully clubs and loud bars which are the preserve of Kuta have not made it to Ubud which is the town of artists, music, dance and food.

Arrival in Bali 20thApril -Sanur

2006-04-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Soto Ayam - chicken soup

Sanur Beach crowded with Balinese on a Sunday

My brilliant One World RTW ticket allows me to change dates and routes and even to add stops as long as they are in the same direction of travel ie you can't go back on yourself. To give my left foot ligament ( fascist foot) a chance to recover so that I could better travel round China with my backpack etc and after discussing the idea with Mum and also Lisa - who very kindly offered to have me back to stay in Auckland (Rich was far from dismayed apparently at the prospect of reduced washing up !) But in the end a ticket back to NZ during Easter holidays was not a cheap option and a call to Qantas confirmed that I could add Bali as an extra stop as I was only using 5 of a possible 7. So for the paltry sum of $Aus 213 inc taxes I added a stop in Bali and here I am now in Sanur,north west of Denpasar, where it is hot and humid but lush, green and beautiful and right by the sea- this is my second time in Bali - of course I was lucky to see it in 1989 - I think a lot has changed since then - a lot more hotels , a lot more cars and a culture centred on money and tourism.But it is still lovely - I am staying in small hotel called Segara Agung - which is on a quiet side "gang "- or lane - in a bungalow with adjoining bathroom with cold water only- but it is so hot you don't need hot water anyway - I have a small verandah outside with table and chairs which faces onto beautiful gardens which are tended by a small army of gardeners all in blue hotel uniform. It's a small place only 10 or so rooms and mine is in the standard category - I am paying $20 US a night which includes breakfast ( coffee, fresh fruit and white toast) and the 21 percent tax - I managed to bargain $2 off the price - but I am sure Lisa would have done better!
It is going into low season now - Easter holidays are nearly over. From Perth it is only 3 and quarter hours to Denpsasar airport - and it is 5 hours to Sydney - so you can see why Bali is so beloved by Australians! I met a very friendly couple last night in a restuarnat by the sea - they invited me to join them - avid surfers - they gave me directions to the fish market - pasar ikan - in Jimbaran where you can eat the best seafood in Bali fresh everyday - there was apparently a bomb here last year which killed about 30 people - but really the risk is pretty low unless you go to the poshest hotels or hang out in the western style bars and clubs which is hardly my idea of experiencing a culture .......
I also choose to stay at the Segara Agung beacuse it was described in the Lonely Planet as having a large swimming pool and only a 5 minute walk to beach - pool is not enormous but at least I can exercise a bit adn try and do aqua aerobics - believe me it is not easy to stay still and forgo walking - I did do a short walk along beach and also up the main drag - and caught a ride on motorbike back to hotel. for about 70 pence.
You can eat in a restuarant marketed at westerners for about 50,000r - 100,000r - that's a main course , and a beer and perhaps a fruit salad or banana pancake too . exchange rate is currently 1 Uk = 15, 823Indonesian rupiah . Holly if you read this I think youand Antonio should really try to add Bali as a stop if you are heading to AUstralia or get Charlie to meet you here - it is very affordable and all sorts of good flight deals from London. You don't have to stay in main resorts- smaller personal hotels are better and cheaper and transport round the island is cheap.Dairy free food on the whole- lots of fruit and rice. But I would reccomend Segara Agung - you can pay a bit more for a room with hot water. You would love it I know .
The culture is so beautiful too - every home adn business has a shrine where offerings are given every day - it is beautiful to watch - incense burning and offerings placed and a little graceful handmovemet to waft the incense around. Balinese are Hindu - so there are little hints of India - but it's also very distinct and unique - you have the dances( kecak and barong) and gamelan orchestra - all of which I saw last time I was here - I stayed mostly in Ubud then, which is inland and the centre of the arts, woodcarving and painting - this is first time in Sanur . I would like to go back to Ubud but I know it will have changed a lot - it is still though surrounded by rice fields - apparently. I rememeber staying on Monkey Forest Road - and sharing a squat loo with other people - think that will have changed a bit now!
Sarongs,the headress worn by men, sandals, yellow umbrellas, trees dressed with black and white check material, stone statues also dressed in black and white sarongs - frangipani flowers in the hotel garden dropping into the pool and floating there, British guest wearing a frangipani flower each day behind her ear- more offerings on a shrine in the bar just outside this internet cafe - little green banana leaf boxes or dishes , containing bright red flowers of the japon tree( I htink) ,and cream and yellow frangipani blossoms and small pieces of fruit , mango, pineapple etc. At night I sit out on my verandah and write and watch the geckos that live upside down on the ceiling motionless by the light until a hapless moth comes by and then snap, gecko has mouthful of insect, huge wing still in its mouth. the other geckos move in hoping to get a bite - there is a scurrying and a tut tutting - the sound they make. Last night too I saw a frog in the undergrowth - but it hopped away before I could take a picture.
The birds start singing at first light at 6am - I coudn't sleep last night and at 6am went down to the beach - where there were lots of primary shcool children gathered for the annual beach clean - the bats were still winging across the sand and through the trees heading home to their roost in a beach umbrella made of some kind of grass.- or perhaps coconut matting
Little food carts everywhere on wheels - I ate gado gado - glutinous rice with green beans, chilli and satay sauce at a small beach stall under the trees yesterday - I was constantly hassled along the beach, massage lady? you see my shop? transport? Where you from? what you want? At last seemed to be past worst of it and this woman with face I just trusted caught my eye - her name is Rutini and she used to work at the Bali Hyatt which is just up the road but has been layed off as it is so quiet now - so she sells drinks and gado gado and hires out "canoes" - open kayaks - anyway she made me the most beautiful gado gado in front of me - pounding all the spices and chilli etc in a pestle and mortar in front of me - she speaks a bit of just about every European language there is and told me the correct fare for a bemo ( little minivan bus) up to the night market.
My biggest problem today is that I don't have correct adaptor for my battery charger - which means I cannot take any more photos until I can find one - no one seems to sell them here and I may be forced to get a cab/tourist bus to Denpasar but today is Sunday so no good. How could I have forgotten to check this? I assumed the addaptor I had would work but it doesnt fit my new camera's charger. Oh well - its's not really a drama - sen ken ken - no problem - in Balinese.

Fremantle

2006-04-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

From bottom : Kids with a blowfish, Fremantle harbour

Fibre balls on beach

Curry Laksa Lemka with baby octupus(x2) best value meal for $9 at Cafe 55, High St, Fremantle

Fremantle Pictures

2006-04-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Sundancers Hostel - fabulously decorated
Car Park
Buskers Festival
Blowfish

Busker playing the saw

Nandi

Charlie

/>

People - Suzanne - reading cookery book- note 1950s containers in background; Nandi - shame about that blue string - tiny photo of CHarlie - sorry CHarlie! Hadn't got the hang of resizing at that point! Fremantle Train station- note the white swans.

Stopped in my tracks

2006-04-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

The condition I developed in my left foot way back in November 05 - Plantar fasciosis - also known as heel spur - has still not cleared up and if anything feels more ingrained.
I have now seen two podiatrists about it . Nothing but time it appears will cure it , that and plenty of rest for the foot, which doesn't exactly fit in with my travel plans. I already gave up my planned series of walks in NZ in order to give it a chance to heal but now I am in the position four months on where despite having been extrememly conservative about my walking and feeling that I have lost fitness and gained weight as a result , I am still finding it painful to walk very far despite new custom made orthotics.
The Sydney podiatrist says that resting it as much as possible will help. I am therefore considering just stopping doing much for 3 weeks and putting China on hold whilst I try to give my foot a real chance to recover - but will it really make any difference? If it doesn't I will feel as if I have wasted time- though I would try to make sure I use my time as effiecniently and usefully as I could whilst being immobile. Any suggestions or comments welcome! However it feels awful not to be on the move and I am eager to get to China and Hong Kong. However Honkers is not the place to be static for a while - it is pretty expensive and right now of course it is extremely booked up for Easter and it is impossible to book anything online - so I would be arriving in Hong Kong and looking for accomodation on foot - not ideal. And it is hilly and walking uphill is now verboten. Staying in Perth is not a realisitc option because it is so expensive accomodation wise. In fact flying to Bali and staying in a basic hotel would be cheaper.
Breaking bones is far preferable to all the ligament problems I have had - I started the trip with bad case of tendonitis in my right wrist and went round Peru for the first two months with a cast on !At least bones only take 6 weeks or so to mend - plantar fasciosis can take from 6-18 months to resolve, according to my research on the internet and there is no proven method of treating it. I have bought new boots with steel flanges in the soles as advice is to keep the foot unflexed which look a little peculiar under shorts when everyone else is wearing thongs ( not string underwear I might add but in AUstralia thongs are what you wear on your feet!).

Women aged between 40 - 60 are more susceptible and apparently also my foot shape is partly to blame - there is very little swivel in my ankle as it goes down which means it doesnt absorb shock very well.

If you want to know more google ( but its hardly rivetting stuff) a good article under alternative medecine review by Mario Roxas - plantar fasciitis.

Grampians PHOTOS

2006-04-09T00:35:00.000-07:00

Kookaburra
End of the Great Ocean Road - Adelaide YHA - green food bags in the kitchen- practically a fashion accessory they are very popular and mean there really is a cut back in plastic bags issued

Shingleback in the (semi) outback
Halls Gap YHA

Mount Zero Olives cafe
Honeycomb near Aboriginal Rock Shelter
Hands
Gum Tree Bark
Gum
Regeneration of Grampians in evidence following fires in Jan/Feb 06
Grampians
Painted Figuresni rock shelter
Eucalyptus leaf
Corellas in trees in Halls Gap

Kangaroo Island - 3rd - 5th April

2006-04-08T01:31:00.000-07:00

Post Offices
I didn't find Adelaide that great - but maybe I didnt really explore it properly - I remember enjoying the museum last time around. I did like the main post office though - all the Australian cities have these fabulously grand post offices - huge behemoths of the envelope parcel and stamp - Adelaides was a beauty and quite clearly little unchanged. Perths is also good - Melbourne has lost its one - has been turned into little boutique shops.

Kangaroo Island with SunN'surf
Anyway I had swallowed the Astralian Tourism Boards hype re Kangaroo Island and booked to go on a tour as it was the only way I was going to get there without spending a fortune on hire cars and ferries.
Half the island is covred in farms - ie flat fenced off grass denuded of trees and native fauna and flora - but the other half is still pretty intact - the farmers of course want to cut down more native bush as they find it hard to make a living on what they have - very poor soil. But tourism is being heavily promoted now.
With my foot I had to forgo one or two activities - sand surfing and sea surfing -( the owner is a former surf pro) the trip is sold as an adventure - which means exhausting the clients I think as much as possible - I was quite happy though wandering the sea shore with camera at the ready - took pictures of fibre balls and other seaweeds and egg sacs of sharks that were washed up on the beach whilst everyone else got wet in wet suits and fell off their boards in the Pacific.

We had a private charter boat to the island and were joined by bottle nose dolphins at one point - very exciting and as it was a small boat we were all that much closer.
Best part of the entire trip for me was getting to stay outside at night at our base camp - a converted wool shed - in a swag - A swag is a tough canvas sleeping bag inside which is a foam mattress, your doona, sheets and a pillow , all rolled up and strapped together. There were dorms - of our 12 strong group - all younger than me - no one else took up the outside option! So i had the starry skies to myself - beautiful. And an owl call - and I did dream that a possum came and sat on my chest but I dont think it did really. ALthough the tour leader Lisa did warn me quietly not to park myself under the trees - lots of snakes this year!
We had a huge breakfast next morning - much hilarity in the group - 2 Israelis, Shaki and Raki and a very tall German guy, Daniel , made constant jokes as we were taxied around in a large 4x4 vehicle accompanied by a constant soundtrack mainly of UB40 which these youngsters ranging from 19- 24 all knew rather weirdly and Bob Marley , the Venga Boys ( "Heh! We're going to Ibiza" in case you didnt know)and varous other pop stuff . I was a bit worried that we wouldn't see much wildlife - but we did see an echidna in the headlights on the first night and I got a picture of its backside as it hurried off for cover. Poor old thing.
We saw a lot of seals in our 2 days - both NZ fur seals and Australian sealions who wer putting on a mating disply on the beach. Koalas at Hanson Koala sanctuary and kangaroos at FLinders Chase national park - where we had a lunch stop and a visit to the park info centre. I t rained on sunday so we instaed of our 9k walk - we saw more koalas and visited a cave - good ! Cos I couldnt have done the walk anyway!
I slept out on Sat night too and got absolutely drenched - unfortunately swags are not designed to be waterproof.
We also saw rare tamar wallabies , crimson rosellas, galahs, pacific gulls, lorikeets. Lisa told us a story about a great white shark and her surfer friend. He survived an attack - though knees are in bad way - he was lifted right up on snout of shark who was sycthing away at his legs which were on either side - the surfer then did what you are meant to do and pushed down on its nosewith both hands - and it sank back into the water pulling him with it he then managed to get the surfbaord and jam it in the sharks mouth but he was still attached by his ankle to the surfboard - his friends - very bravely - paddled out on their boards and came to his rescue. We all mulled over why the shark would have attacekd the surfer - the theroy is that sometimes they mistake humans for seals - their usual prey - they don't like us that much as we are too boney - but of course if there aren't many seals around then if they are really hungry we would be a snack to keep them going.Attacks are apparently becoming more common.

Indian Pacific - Adelaide to Perth

2006-04-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

The ghost town of Cook - this is the old school- there used to be an airstip and hospital. Now only 4 people live there and run a souvenir shop. The privatisation of the railways spelled the end for Cook
The old swimming pool

Climbed on board on a thursday evening - just before darkness fell - there was a bit of a speech on the platform with all the staff lined up before we were officially allowed on - but I missed most of it - train was chrome coloured - and corrugated with the eagle emblem emblazoned on each carriage - lots of oldies on board as they get either free or reduced fare travel on the railways.
Guage is much smaller than our UK guage.
I found my seat - in Red Kangaroo class - ie economy - and found my fellow passenger - Femke - from Holland - who is 6ft 3 ins - she was a great companion and we talked a lot over the following 38 hours or so of travel.She spent a year in China working for a stables just outside Beijing so I was able to quiz her al ot about China. She was teaching riding to mostly expats or rich Chinese and is going back there.
I had made a big tuna pasta in the YHA and bought a plastic box for it , lots of dried and fresh fruit, apricots, banana chips, grapes, apples etc and two egg rolls I also made up in the Y. Lots of water.
We had quite a lot of trouble sleeping - the seats arent designed for sleeping at all - at one point I got on the floor and put my head on the seat and it worked for about half hour then had to move again. Pretty awful. Imagine Femke had even worse time.We went to the dining car for some coffee and change of scenery - there was a commentary prerecorded which we missed as the loudspeaker didn't work in the dining car or the lounge car - but the Nullabor was not nearly as bleak or denuded of vegetation as you would expect - we passed an ex railway worker's house which he has copnstructed from thrown away bits of corrugated iron, and boxes where he lives with a retinue of dogs. We passed sign posts announcing stations - but all that was there would be a solar panel and a storage facility with a little fence round it. Low shrubs and trees at this stage. Frequently saw wedge tailed eagles.
To be continued - publishing now as have pics ......!

Great Ocean Road Australia Photos

2006-04-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Typical view along coast road
Watch out for snakes

Oysters in Port Campbell Hotel 6 for $12
Irrigation sprinkler
Strange knotted grass by sea

Crimson Rosella
The famous 12 (now more like 7) Apostles
Lake Elizabeth near Fforest - home to 6 platypus
Galahs
Ice Cream sign
Fungi in the rainforest - flash is too harsh but I forgot my tripod so these aren't very sharp

PHOTOS , AUSTRALIA

2006-04-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

Port Fairy YHA
Mrs Kathleen Gleeson, Port Fairy
Port Fairy, Griffiths Island. Pea Soup shearwater colony
Crested Tern
Wallaby no Griffiths Island
Tynagarah Lakes, near Byron Bay, NSW

Seed Pods, Tower Hill Reserve, South Australia
Roadside stall, Lemons for Sale nr Byron Bay NSW
The Giant Prawn - on Highway 1 near Byron Bay
Emus, Tower Hill Reserve, S.A
Bushrat, Tower Hill Reserve, S.A.

Melbourne to Adelaide via Great Ocean Road

2006-04-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

Whole cities in miniature

Lights on Squid Boat

Sorry - political statement!
Melbourne Cricket Ground - Closing Ceremony Fireworks
Surfside HOstel garden furniture detail

I think Leigh might have wondered if I would ever leave but eventually I booked a car, booked a place on the Indian Pacific Railway to take me on from Adelaide to Perth and thus had dates I could not change!
I left on the first grey day in two weeks of glorious Melbourne sunshine and negotiated my way out of the city and to the home of the AFL Cats, Geelong. This town has spent a small fortune on doing up their waterfront including a commission to an artist to paint series of bollards as people doing Geelong like things through history, such as life saving or sailing ships.
I drove to Queenscliff - which has a lovely harbour - lots of squid boats with their big glass lamps strung up to attract the unwitting squid at night. To my amazement whilst walking round the harbout wall I saw what I thought was a loose bit of black plastic blowing half in half out of the water - but it wasnt! ON closer inspection it turned out to be an enormous stingray - which was flapping its enormous wings underneath the boats making a big lap of the harbour - I asked someone about it - he told me that it hangs around quite often in the harbour - perhaps feeding on scraps from the fishing fleet when it comes in.
In the park I saw my first galahs - pink and grey parrots!
Frist stop for the night was Lorne - the Erskine River Backpackers where I got a 4 bed dorm to myself - heaven . Noisy hordes of cockatoos flocked in the branches of trees over the river , squawking throughout the evening into dark. It was cool and damp.
Next day the ocean road proper starts and it was spectacular - sunshine on surf , miles of golden sands - a snaking road following the coves and headlands, lots of butterflies mating and seagulls doing exhibiiting unusual behaviour - well I have never seen it - they were swarming onto a cliff face above the road and appeared to be pecking something off the bushes but they would up and leave if a car went past even though they were way above and safe on the bushes.
In the hostel I had been told that the place to go to see koalas was Kennet River so I did a sharp right when I saw the signboard for Koala cove Cafe - and asked in the cafe after I had bought my latte -where to go for koalas. The waitress anticipated my question - and smiled patiently - they're all up that road she said - pointing to Grey River Road where as we spoke a number of white minibuses with various travel logos started to pile up one after the other disgorging folded up tourists glad to get the chance to unfold again . You'll see thousands of them. As I walked back to my car I noticed someone with a camera pointed up at the tree next to the cafe - and lo and behold I caught my first eyeful of a real koala - sort of in the wild! Large and teddy bear like and clinging with forelegs and legs wrapped round the trunk it turned slowly and unconcernedly to look down at us. It continued to munch lesiruely on a twig of eucalyptus leaves.
By now the upright tourists were all necks back looking up into the trees just along the road which has houses on either side of it - and sure enough there were these grey lump shapes silhouted against the harsh sun. As I went to my car I saw a koala sitting in the tree beside the cafe - munching slowly and turning a fuzzy teddybear head to look at me.

KOALAS
I drove past the minibuses hoping I would be able to have a better koala experience away from the hordes - and I did see more though they were a bit far and few between - and mostly fast asleep and not really at their best for photos. Usually of course they were perched way up in a fork making it hard to take photos but if they were awake they would unwaveringly and obligingly turn to look at you . They are incredibly sweet and cuddly looking - they sleep for 20 hours a day and the eucalyptus they eat is actually toxic so they have to process it slowly. they have viciously sharp claws should you get too near and marsupial pouches , upside down , which the cub climbs into when born. They do come down from the trees occassionally to lick minerals - I seem to remember being told that they dont drink water - but not sure I have remembered correctly.
I did startle a koala by mistake - I trod on a stick which snapped and the poor thing jerked awake and nearly fell out of its tree!

Driving along the Ocean Road later there was even a koala on the tarmac - I ,m not sure what it was doing there abut it was in mortal peril! HOwever someone of course was taking pictures of it - she was pretty brave/reckless - out in the middle of the road just a fter a bend.

APPOLLO BAY
Arrived Appollo Bay , a buzzing place with another excellent tourist info place -at 2.30pm and booked into the Surfside Backpackers which was a great place - once again I got a 4 bed dorm to myself - nice laid back and homely place run by a woman in her 60s who was so unlike all the other hostel managers who are usually male and only interested in your dollars. I booked over the phone for a platypus canoe trip on Lake Elizabeth that evening - I was suprised that they were still running as it was a bit of season. This left from Forrest - a town about 40k inland and an interesting drive - I was a bit early so I looked for somewhere to have a cup of tea and ended up in the Forrest Country HOuse restaurant - a sign said open but it was deserted -I pushed the door open and it opened onto one room , wood panelled and a bit dark , with 50's style furntiure, one wall full of an old bootle collection, glass lampshades, a corrugated iron bar ,with a rusty childs trike atop the faux roof, framed old photogaraphs and music and theatircal posters , a piano covered with a lace drape and a mike stand in one corner. The Andrews SIsters were coming through the speakers.Glass vases dating from 50s 60s on a window shelf , sand a wooden hatch way onto a kitchen. I swung a fly door open to see if anyone was around outside - signs on the verandah indicated the direction of differently themed rooms, the Indian Room - only one I can remember - I was just on the verge of whipping out my camera to take a photo of this fascinating melange when , inevitably ,there was a gruff clearing of a throat behind me and someone in white T shirt and jeans manifested himself behind the hatch. No smile or anything. can I help you ?he asked me - cup of tea? I asked. He didnt seem very happy - Just the one? Yes - and perhaps a biscuit then. I felt as if I was seriously putting him out of his way. I felt like cheering him up - I noticed the dinner menu and having read the rave reviews from papers in the porchway was keen to try though it would have seriously dented my budget. I asked - On the platypus tour are you? Yes - I responded - well no we can't then. Oh I said disappointed - why is that? are you full tonight? We can't serve you after 9pm unless youre staying here as a guest. So that was that. I suppose they must do quite well in season as there was obviously no sadness invovled that I wasnt going to eat there - his abruptness could be read almost as malcious glee but I think it is just the country Aussie way of doing things - no unecessary unfelt emotions being demonstrated - just telling it how it is. Up straight. Though I get the impression that the owners, 3 friends, one woman who set up the whole place and two blokes are not locals but I could be wrong of course.

PLATYPUS
Yes, saw them - but only the shiny wet backs in the distance as they came up from the bottom to eat their haul of vegetation and insects. But the lake we canoed on was worth the trip alone - in the 1900s a landslide caused a bend in the river to isolate and spread out flooding the forest floor - the carcases of centuries old trunks, saved from logging but drowned instead, stand upright in the lake which is flandked on one side by steep side covered with forest , it is an eerie place , quiet apart from bird calls, set deep in a national park. There was no one else save us there - a small party of 4 , and we spent an hour and a half out on the water , looking at the reflections of the trees in the water and trying to spot the platypus as it came up for air - there a re 6 territories in the lake - and they are time terriotires - with teh biggest male getting prime time spot to feed , followed by the younger males and females. they have been around for millions of years , literally. They are along with the echidna , the only egg laying mammals in the world. the male carries venom in spurs on his legs during mating season .They need to surface every minute - for air but when diving can swim incredibly fast so that we wer e nearly always looking too close for their resurface point.
I was back in town by 9.30pm but everything was closed up for the night - I finished up some bits of fruit and dried fruit I had for dinner as i was trying to avoid eating bread and particulalry cheese sandwiches and hadn't bought any groceries.

Adelaide 2nd April

2006-04-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Adelaide at 7.30pm last night - cold, dark and deserted city. NOt very beautiful either from first impressions. Although it was Saturday night it was as if an unofficial curfew was in place. Where were all the people?
I navigated my way to a recommended hostel only to find it full - Annie's Place on Flinders St. No wonder, it was very friendly, free internet, spacious courtyard, lovely old building with wonderful old kitchen and beacuse the kitchen was quite small the staff were doing a meal of help yourself baked potoatoes, beans, sausages, mushrooms and peas and a bottle of beer for $5 ( 2.50UK)so I had that before leaving to find a bed for the night. I ended up round the corner in a bit of a dive- My Place- in the last bed(top bunk) in an 8 bed dormitory with no room to throw a possum, bags covering every inch of the floor, no quiet place to talk - I started a conversation with a young Dutch girl but it was so hot in the windowless dorm that I suggested moving to the kitchen where 2 girls very ungraciously and slowly moved their feet so we could perch on small stools. It really was a bit horrid. I spent a sleepless night as the woman underneath me was a wriggler ,just my luck, the only one in the whole room and tossed and turned throughout the night with much rocking of the bed and squeaking of the framework. Even my earplugs were no protection from the intermittent shaking . There was an ensuite bathroom which really was a curse not a bonus as the door tripped an automatic light as soon as it was opened shining brilliance onto everyone's faces.
I decided I was moving. When I was asleep I dreamed of returning to work at Peabody and meeting everyone there again.
The clocks went back overnight so we gained an hour here in South Australia . I got up at equivalent of 7am and showered - there was at least hot water! But no free breakfast which is part of the deal - in fact the office wasn't open at 8.30am even though it was meant to be which meant I couldn't get out my stuff out of storage room ( it wouldn't fit in the dorm) to take to another hostel in the car before it was due back at the rental company headquarters here.
I went for a drive to locate the Youth Hostel ; it was on the other corner of the square where revellers were still partying in a nightclub - some people just arriving by look of it - 3 girls staggered along the street in their skimpy black dresses and high heels at odd angles heading for the bouncers and the door. A very long line of hopeful taxi drivers waited from the front round the corner.
I booked a room at the hostel where I knew they wouldn't have jammed in as many beds as possible and I paid exactly the same price. I 'm now in a 4 bed dorm on the lower bunk. There are lockers and a table and chair and mirror - all luxuries missing from My Place.
Returning the car I got beeped and I got very annoyed - there is absolutely no hurry at 9am on a Sunday morning!!
I think my blood sugar was low.
Then my Hyundai Getz got a very thorough going over by the mechanic and he found a tiny dent in the passenger door - only visible in certain light - I certainly wasn't aware of it and I got very upset that they might charge me for this especially as at the pick up in Melbourne I had to insist that someone did a vehicle inspection with me before I took it out and was suprised that this wasn't automatic . This bit of foresight saved me $300 as the supervisor could tell from the booking sheet that the things I had made sure were noted on the car when I took it were added to the sheet as an afterthought - they should have been noted on the main contract - and so as a scrape - had been noted on the sheet she changed the wording to "dent" for me - what a sweetie ! She wasn't supposed to and she could easily have insisted I paid - but she didnt! Thank you!
However things then got difficult again - the Adelaide Festival finished just last week but there still seem to be huge amounts of travellers here or interntaional backpackers whatever you wish to call them /me and Adelaide just can't cope - especially on a Sunday when everything just closes down. The demand for services is huge. I had to wait 2 and a half hours to find out about the best way to get to Kangaroo Island - which is south Australia's wildlife mecca. I had visions of going indepcendantly and concentrating on the best bit which is Flinders National Park - but it proved impossible to book a plane flight with anyone on a Sunday let alone book a car on the island and whilst the flight compared very favourably with the land and ferry option - working out in fact cheaper - the car hire was a different matter - I would be stung for $90 a day plus huge excess and a free kilometre limit of 100 thereafter 25c per km. What a rip off! And all the small economy cars were fully booked. I decided to opt for a tour. A presribed route with people half my age but there you go - I have booked the INdian Pacific train to Perth on Thursday 6th April and that cannot be changed. So I am off tomorrow am! However am anxiously awaiting my memory card to be burnt to CD by the internet cafe up the orad where a poor woman is working flat out with queues of travellers wanting to book tours/use the internet /burn CDs. She looks very stressed!
I tried to burn my memory card to CD en route to Adelaide in Port Fairy but in the only place it was possible, the Pharmacy , their machine crashed jsut before they started my card.
It is at times like this that my thoughts start to veer back to film cameras and I wonder if I am experiencing problems here in Australia - then China will probably be as bad. Perhaps I should try to pick up a back up film camera? I loved the Canon EOS 100 I picked up in Peru but the shutter was starting to stick and the lens looked as if it might have some fungus starting to grow in it so I sold it and got $80 for it in Sydney. the pictures I took with it have c;ome out brilliantly - the colours are wonderful. Hard to tell with digital until you can get to see your pics full size on a computer screen which isn't that often - time and money to use computers.
I walked around a bit of Adelaide today but I am not impressedits not exactly pretty. Melbourne is definitely the place to be.

Great Ocean Road 2 - Apollo Bay to Grampians

2006-03-29T03:59:00.000-08:00

Walked to Shelley's beach - no shells - v high tide!V interesting weathering and eroding of the rocks - like desert landscapes , desert cities - in mircocosm.
V hot day, harsh sun.
Maits Rest - Fabulous place - a boardwalk through rainforest - I went photo crazy - and a prescribed half hour walk took me an hour and half. People streaked through at speed of knots and I wondered what they got out of their experience. Fungi - frogs, birds, light on plants, spiders, smells. Rainforest has got it all going on - most exciting environment bar cloud forest.
Castle Cove - stopped for view
Lavers Hill - lunch at Blackwood Gully tearooms. Signs up everywhere indicating the past presence of backpackers - "We canot serve tapwater" "Toilets for patrons only" "Not drinking water" - sevice was ultra slow but they did a great seafood salad and had rosellas swooping down to eat from a bird table so I was able to take some good shots.
Melba gully - Maits Rest was a lot better.But apparently they have good glow worms here - which would explain the huge car park marked out for coaches! I was only car there at 4pm. Lots of rosellas by the BBQ area.
Princetown - Marshland - walked along boardwalk on marshes as wind got up with a carboard cup of latte- didn't see the Aus bittern as the info board implied I might - and began to scout around subconsiously for a place to park car for a freebie overnight - unidentifiable bird of prey circling over the lake and reed beds. Interesting marshes - black swans and ducks.Couldn't make interesting picture of it though.
12 Apostles - the climax of the Gt Ocean Road! It was about 6.30pm the sun going down,but still loads of people there pouring into the purpose built car park. Beautiful cliff top plants and shrubs, lots of honeyeaters darting about and sea birds nesting on the crumbling pillars the colour of cotswold stone. There are actually only about 9 apostles now as progressively they wear away. It is a beautiful sight though even if it has been photograhed a gazillion times . once the sun went down it went down very quickly and it got quite chilly - I drove further on to Loch Ard Gorge - named after the ship that went aground on rocks nearby. Mutton Bird island is there too , and the birds( shearwaters - which both Maoris in NZ and Aborigines feasted on) fly in in the evening to roost in their burrows after a hard day at sea - but no one was there waiting for them and I had no idea what time it would happen - I waited perhaps half and hour and no show - so gave up and drove on to Port Campbell which is described in the guide books as a sleepy fishing village - it was seething with coaches and vans and people when I drove in - starlings gathering in the ubiquitous towny NOrlolk pines , making a collosal communal noise and peeling off in whirling balls like like schools of anchovies form a ball in reaction to a predator. The one and only backpackers was full- so I tried the campsite for cabins - full! HTere was a hotel out of town which could do me a bed for $90 but I considered that was beyond my budget. SO I considered driving off and parking the car somewhere quiet but I like a shower in the morning and I needed to charge my camera battery so I asked the campsite office if I could sleep in the car on a tent site - $12.50 - which they agreed to - so with the money I saved not staying in a backpackers I headed to the Port Campbell Hotel - rushing as they stop serving at 8pm - and ordered 6 Tasmanian oysters, natural as opposed to Kilpatrick style - $12.50. They were divine!They were huge! They tasted so fresh! I took a picture which I will try to post here when I can find a cafe with some photo software - not many places do. Australian pubs serve the best value for money food and as most of them are coastal if you go for fish you are in for a treat - I also had grilled barramundi - which is just a bit nicer than the snapper that is also always on offer - which came with mash and salad - $18 - splashing out a bit there but the camp site kitchen was a wholly depressing place and it was the pub or sit in the car so I reckoned worth it for a night.At 8pm precisely the shutters came firmly down and even local fishermen who came in in their wellies couldn't persuade the chefs to make and exception. Rules are very much rules in Aus.
THere is a great coastal walk from Port Campbell which takes you from the beach over headland but I couldn't do it because of my foot which is giving me more gip than it was in NZ now.I have my custom made orthotics from Sydney which are permanently in my steel shank boots ( so I cannot flex my foot much) but have since read that custom made orthotics are not terribly effective - but then nothing else is either-.
I slept rather badly - the car seat was brilliant and reclined right back so I was more or less horizontal but a mossie got in around 4am as I had a window slightly open for air. I couldnt see it and swiped ineffectively in the direction of the whine for about 20 minutes before it found my ankle bit me and went silent. I got up early - two men beside their vehicles and tents watching me make my way to the shower block and back as they stood and talked hands in pockets.
There are brown signposts to the various coastal scenic sights - from POrt Campbell to Port Fairy my target for the night. London Bridge has fallen down,Bay of Islands - more exciting in NZ - I stopped at Warranambol for lunch - a big town with a huge carpark in the centre with warnings to lock your car and look out for your valuables.I bought noodles to take away and drove down to Sting Ray Bay - I didn't see any but I did see crested terns. There was a large aboriginal centre on the way through the town down to the sea - with the aboriginal flag, the black earth the red sky or is it the other way round, with the yellow sun bisecting both in hte middle - its a wonderful flag , emblazoned on the corruagated roof. Austalians are now discussing along with ditching the royal family whether they should adopt a new flag - everyone gets confused about which is the NZ flag and which is the AUs one - apparetly the NZ one has the stars of the southern cross outlined in red instead of just pure white - but can't agree on a design - my friend Suzanne suggested a tinnie - a beer can - how very apt but they'd never decide if it should be Fosters, or VB or Coopers........whereas NZers are more or less clear on a silver fern- the emblem of the All BLacks which appears everywhere already.
It was very very hot with a bright blue cloudless sky. Windy though. Pairs of Honeyeaters chased each other through the low scrub - zooming right past my ears at speed - I think some mating might have been going on .A family was picnicing on the sand, plagued by seagulls of course.A bridge leads over a sea inlet to another bit of headland- from the bridge you can see fish and stingrays in the sea. As soon as they heard my car door open they were wheeling above looking down with beady eye and the boldest coming down to land on a post about a foot from me. Eyeing the noodles. But I didn't encourage them.
Next stop, Tower Hill Reserve - I had high hopes of seeing wild and bird life here but in the end I didn't see that much - but it is an interesting place - the whole park is inside an old crater .I could only manage a short walk so perhaps if Id gone further afield would have seen more. You drive down the rim and onto a flat plateau which contains a few shallow lakes. I did see a small bush rat - and some emus who hang round the car park scavenging - and one koala - also near the car park high up in a tree - fast asleep - its bum balanced on a branch.
Drove into Port Fairy in the late afternoon and followed signs to the fab YHA hooray! $20 a night. Lovely old building, lovely kitchen with big central island , well equipped, old tiled floors, clean, plants everywhere , very homely - shared a 4 bed dorm with one other. I didn't hang around and went straight out to find Griffin Island which has a mutton bird colony -known locally as the Pea Soup colony- a rare mainland breeding area. Puffinus tenuiroslis the short tailed shearwater . Some very nice locals I met coming towards me , in fact two of them independantly stopped to tell me that they had seen some wallabies dining out just up the track - a man on a mouintain bike , all in lycra with fitting helmet came hurtling towards me as I got nearer the place they talked about and I thought darn it bet you just made them jump away - but no ! They were there oblivious to bikes obviously , chewing mouthfuls with their short forepaws held up , limp at wrist, the occasional twitch of an ear the only other movement unless they moved on to a new patch bending over and taking weight on forepaws and levering themselves forward.they let me take lots of pictures before I moved on to try and take a good picture of the lighthouse with crashing waves - no crashing waves on cue - butthe sunset was jsut strking the lighthouse - but too late I found the best angle so didnt do too well there.Beaut spot though. Also saw white faced heron on the grey rocks.
Made friends with two travelling lady friends in the Y , in their 60s and travelling as much as they can in their retirement.They are off to Turkestan and Iran in a few weeks in a truck.
Decided I couldn't miss out on Grampians as the 2 ladies talked it up so much - there was a big forest fire there in February which has put off a lot of people going there which just encouraged me more. Spelled a big pay out to rental company though - $70 extra a day as I was extending an original contract - they get you every time. I almost had to pay $150 for a dent I didnt make which you could only just see in the right light which the overly thorough mechanic found - thank god I made the people at the melbourne end actually do an inspection - when I returned the car in adelaide the admin person could tell that they hadn't done one themselves and that they had only added on the existing dents and knocks etc after they had hired the car out to me - ie at my insistence. Remember that if you ever hire a car!
I got a late start from Port Fairy as the only place that could burn CDs from my memory cards was the pharmacy - and their machine broke down in the middle of doing mine. They said they could fix it but after 2 hours it was patently untrue. I restorted to buying a new memory card at vast expense in order to be able to take more pictures. It poured with rain all day. I had no raincoat or umbrella. I got a bit wet. Gave money for a raffle held by old lady istting outside behind a card table on the main street who I talked to - asked if I could take her pic and promised to send it to her - she said at first - O No it'll break if you do that ! It didn't though.She said she would like to travel but she never has as her husband never wanted to.
I liked Port Fairy - but so does everyone else - a small fisherman's cottage was selling for $499, 000. There is a famous music festival here every year now which helped put it on the map and lots of smart cafes have sprung up.Had wonderful latte outside under an awning dripping rain and wrote to the property agency who supposedly look after my house. My foot!
I drove to Halls Gap via two Aboriginal art sites. In Dunkeld, which is desperatly trying to attract more tourists, a rather batty voluntary info person gave me a map of the area which gave me an idea where the art sites were. Aboringial sites? Not much to see she said. Weather was still wet and overcast. I checked my emails and found I had messages from Dan and NOme, Holly , Clare, Hanna, and Jenny godmother - what a bumper haul! Fantastic to read and all of them made me feel I really miss my friends and family and would love to be with them - but not homesick. It's people I miss of course and laughter and familiarity.
I veered off the main road to follow unsealed red roads into the bush to the art sites. It had stopped raining by now. AN hour down the road or track I suppose it was I found the first one - no other cars - and made my way up to the site through the bush - very quiet and still. Most of the sites are what is termed shelters , rock overhangs usually high up with view of suuroundings, and archaeology uncovered evidence of habitation. The Manja site was heavily fenced off to protect it from vandalism which it suffered from badly in the 70s-sandstone wall is decorated with ochre stencils of hands - these were childrens hands and always the left hand - of 100 odd sites in the area the local Aboriginal or Koori tribes have agreed that 5 should be made publicly accessible.
Smell of the gum trees and the red earth that turned to yellow sand as I climbed up higher, on way back I thought I heard mens voices, coming from the direction of the car park - but if I stopped they would cease. I kept hearing them as I walked - by the time i got to the car I was convinced I would find other people another car - but there was just me. Was it just my imagination? There was no wind rustling the trees. It was a spooky eerie place , but I didn't feel afraid.
I drove to the next site, Billimina, no one was here either. the vegetation was completley different though only 3k from the other site, lusher with trees and grass, ferns and moss, lichens and I saw a kookaburra who must be used to people as it didnt fly away until I was just a few feet from it.
Only 20 minute walk uphill to a spectacular rock formation which looked like a big wave about to break or a shell on end, a natural sound shell. The paintings weren't as impresseive - tally marks - the knowledge of what they were has been lost now - thanks to the massacres in the area and the spread of disease.
I returned to the car and promptl;y got lost - glen Isla road should ahve been Asses Ears Road according to my map but it wasnt - so I erred on side of caution as it was getting late and headed back to the highway - passing fields where huge herds of kangaroos grazed and when they saw me standing by the fence with camera ,looked as one towards me , almost looking like humans, then turned and hopped off one by one in huge bounds along the horizon - an amazing and almost surreal sight - Up and over the burned out Grampians which were on fire in late Jan/Feb of 06. The smell of fresh rain on the grey ash forest floor. Blackened trunks on either side of the road and leaves withered brown by the heat. But green shoots already sprouting on the charred trunks as if spring were already taking hold ( its not until September) . Forest fires are natural and only now are govt agencies starting to realise that they should manage burn offs htat need to take place to prevent wild unamangeable fires taking place.
I stopped to take photos of a vivid green of ferns beside sizzled charcoal trunks. Raining again. Misty gloom. No other cars and many roads closed off to traffic.Finally I reached Halls Gap and headed to the new Eco YHA - opened in 2000 to showcase the YHA's commitement to sustainable buildings and lifestyles. Grey water recycling, compost, herb garden, passsive solar gain. Lovely lounge with wood buring stove, big sofas, new coffee tables , it felt more like a hotel. Spacious. $25 a night for 4 bed dorm ( only 2 of us - hooray!)
Had a pub dinner - steak the size of a dinner plate - not very good. I should have tried the kangaroo which is apparetly very good but very rich. Foot was fine today until late afternoon - sharp stab of pain. Damn it.
Saturday
Halls Gap in the morning sun reminded me a bit of the lake district but with squawking of corellas it could only be Australia and the buildings are not much to get excited about.
I Went a few k's down the road just before 9am to the aclaimed Brambuk Aboriginal Centre and National Park Centre but was very underwhelmed by Brambuk which the 2 ladies in Port Fairy had also raved about. Mostly shop and loos I thought. You had to pay to see films of Aboriginal Dreaming etc. ONe of the rooms was still locked and I had to ask to see in it and the helpdesk assistant rolled her eyes and unwillingly dragged her feet up the stairs to unlock it.
there were no CDs of bird song for sale in the National Park Centre - just didgeridoo music set to orcestral music and country and western style stuff about the outback - a Perth souvenir shop keeper told me today - no one wants them ( bird songs) any more - we used to stock them but they just want didge music and Australian songs.Boo!
Biggest enjoyment I got was from long tailed corellas in the trees in Halls Gap - screeching in flocks. ALso saw New holland honeyeater, AUs magpies, currawong, silvereye.
Other birds I saw on this trip :
Red wattlebird, galahs - at Queenscliffe, little pied cormorant, eatern yellow robin, either wedge tailed eagle or little eagle, yellow plumed honey eater, superb fairy wren ( blue) .
Headed off to the North Grampians - to Gulgurn Manja shelter first - not much painting to see under the shelter, but again very atmospheric and no one around- amazing rock formations and also honeycombs in a hole in the overhang - I followed a loud noise to another hole in the rock where wild bees were crawling in and out - and there was a terrific din of humming- the flash on the camera revealed it was a swarm of bees in there.The most famous site , Bunjil shelter was closed due to the fire. Also saw Ngamadjidj shelter- shaped like a giant clam shell- after stopping at Mount Zero Olives which has a cafe open on saturdays - good as I was dying for a coffee! Drving there I saw something slowly crossing the sandy track in front of me- it was bigger and thicker than a snake , it had legs I stopped as fast as I could and whipped my camera out of its bag and rushed to take photos - it was the most unwordly thing - a creature with the scales of a croc but a the mouth of a goanna - it saw me and headed for the bush. I later found out it is called a shingle back or bobtail.
The cafe was wonderful - housed in old wooden school building which the owner bought and transported out here after Jeff Kennet had a lot of the country schools closed down. Stillhad old fittings - old cast iron radiators , blackboards old gas light fittings etc.Unfortunately their food although it sounded good wasnt up to much - homemade gnocchi and sage with tomato sauce- but everything is biodynamically produced - the olives and everything else they farm. Also grow grapes and make a decent biodynamic red - franco merlot.
Aborigines prefer being called Koori - their own word for themselves - it was pretty awful contemplating what happened to them once those first ships landed - practically all the coastal tribes were wiped out. The Koori women were press ganged into helping the whalers who set up stations all round the coast, as they could teach the white man how to survive and also of course were useful for sex.Then in the 50's there was a govt programme which took Aboriginal children away from their parents and to schools where they were forbidden to speak their language in an attempt to force assimilation - not suprisingly the Aboriginals you do see are often in alcolholic stupor , bandaged up , hanging around in lost little groups by train stations or round the back of warehouses. They had everything taken away from them. As far as white Australia is concerned they hardly exist - and there has never been a formal apology from the current govt led by John HOward which many AUstralians think is the way forward to reconcilation and making peace with the past. It is weird to think about it - even stranger to see these lost people . THere was a poignant cartoon published during the bicentenial year - which was when I was here last though I really didnt do much thinking about such things then - which shows a big group of white AUssies running about with banners proclaiming 200 years! and underfoot trampled by them a small group of Aboriginals one of whom manages to feebly wave a little flag which reads 40,000 years. That's just how long humans have been traced back so far on the Australian continent.

From here it was a question of putting in the hours to reach Adelaide by night.

Writing workshop, Easter, Balingup Bhuddist retreat

2006-03-27T02:29:00.000-08:00

Perth

2006-03-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

Australian fear of terrorism - very strong
Boris in Science Fiction bookshop
Bhudda's birthday, Treasury Gardens Perth

I caught up on some films too in Perth and Fremantle - the l;atter in particular as the Luna SX gave me an adult ticket for just $9 on production of my international YHA card- a reduction of $5!
I saw:
Tsotsi - much better than its unpromising trailer
March of the Penguins - I felt strangely cheated by this offering- perhaps it was the saccharine voice over and lack of Attenborough style attention to detail
V For Vendetta - I am a sucker for this type of film- adaptation of graphic novel of same name by Alan Moore who detests the celluloid version and does not wish to be associated with it. I still loved it.
The Squid and the Whale - very funny
History of Violence - not intentionally I have to say - it was only film I hadn't seen in one cinema- a David Cronenberg film - predictably gory "thriller".

Banksias

2006-03-27T02:23:00.000-08:00

Even More Melbourne Photos

2006-03-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

The George, St Kilda
St Kilda, sandcastles

Leigh

Leigh and Megan

Owners of Earth Canteen, St Kilda

ACDC Alley

Melbourne Arts Festival

2006-03-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

Big Rory

Popeyed

Airborne performer at night in Alexandra Gardens

Arts Festival at the Games, Melbourne

2006-03-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

Federation Square
Baraana hut

Part of Makeshift's piece at New 06 at ACCA

Banquet by Jacquelyn Greenbank ( Single Currency Exhibition)
Outside the NGV
Irish dancers
Cone dancers
Born in a taxi

Commonwealth Games - Marathon

2006-03-23T23:31:00.000-08:00

Tanzanian Samson Ramadhani Nyoni on his way to victory in the mens marathon

Roast Duck Dinner at Aggies House

2006-03-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

Aggie has had six ducks from when they were chicks but never meant them to be pets however he found it very hard to despatch them for the pot. But we all enjoyed eating them immensely - around the table starting fromAggie and going anti clockwise are Aggie, Bavita , Dick, Salila, friend of theirs forogtten name sorry!Tanny, Shirley, John, Daniel.

Melbourne PHOTOS

2006-03-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

Australia PHOTOS

2006-03-20T21:06:00.000-08:00

IN no particular order as the photos will not publish logically(!) ie as I input them - but roughly from top snail in service station on way to Cobargo, 2 shots of Tilba Tilba ( Windy windy in Aboriginal language)- post office letterboxes and the Hill/AUnt Shirley in Bikers Cafe in Cobargo drinking a "spider" ( ice cream with lemonade) /Salila's house/Party at Salila's house ( Salila standing) /possum on Salila's verandah/fish/fishing party near Bermagui/view from Salila's house at 7am/Dick sawing ( the work horse!) Aggie with yet another fish!/Aggie's original house

Australia - Dorrigo National Park and Bellingen PHOTOS

2006-03-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

From top currawong, log,fat skink, southern angle headed , fat cat( Bellingen) flying fox flyout, Viv Jones and a few of her poodles

St Kilda - Sunday 19th March - 24 degrees and sunny

2006-03-19T23:34:00.000-08:00

Leigh and I both went swimming in Richmond's 50m indoor pool - I find I have to drink lots of water before and during lengths or I get terrible cramp but I managed about 15 and inspired by the swimming on TV tried to think elbows high out of water and tumble turns and bilateral breathing as I ploughed rather slowly down the slow lane attempting a rather feeble approxiamation of a dolphin kick on each turn ( think the " Man From Atlantis " whatsisname the actor - something Duffy also in Dallas)
Then down to St Kilda on the tram , an old style tram with old brown seats and wooden fittings. An old style tram featured in the opening ceremony of the Games. A bizarre choreographed storyline, which no one understood, played out in the Melborne Cricket Ground ( seats for the ceremony were $500 a pop so hardly anyone went unless they were corporate sponsors) which I saw with Leigh about half way through on the telly ( I photographed some of the earlier fireworks over the city but missed the bigger display) . For some reason it featured a boy, who flew around an aerial rig on a skateboard , a duck he befriends and a flying , and the full size tram which descnened from on high and disgorged some cartoon characters who rushed about in a simulation of Melbourne rain. This storyline was somehow linked to the Yarra River show which was free and where everyone was, where 71 fish representing the 71 ( or is it 74?) Commonwealth countries glowed with lights and spouted water to music.

The marathon both mens and womens came through St Kilda and we stood with our cameras underneath the famous Lunar Park rollercoaster watching the road for the front runners. They run so fast I couldnt focusor keep up when panning so resorted to simply zooming in from far away even then hard for the automatic focus to keep up!
The women's was won by an Aussie Kerrie McCann - I m not sure who won the men's - but Ihope I got a pic of him going by.
The best coffee is made in Melbourne - I cant tell you how many cafes there are - and most of them serve the most exquisite lattes etc. Coffee really is the drug of choice here - distinct lack of pubs and wine bars. I would like to know the secret.
We had what is probably the best coffee yet in City Racer - a cafe on Beach Road which is frequented by cyclists in full kit who hang up their bicycles to keep the pavement clear on specially designed hoops on the wall. I also had some wonderful poached eggs on toast with some ham and tomato - lightly grilled. Delicious.
Then along the beach to sand palaces - famous Melbourne buildings fashioned from sand - and the St Kilda market then onto the recently rebuilt peir which was burned down by a care in the community member, complete with rebuilt favourite landmark the Peir kiosk. From the boardwalk we stopped to take photos and look at the fish - much to my suprise there are starfish everywhere! And I saw a ray nonchalantly skimming over the bottom together with big shoals of small bluish fish. Then up Fitzroy St where we paused for ice cream ( mocha and raspberry - still not as good as Argentina but close) and to take photos of The George a wonderful old wine bar and hotel now residences with wonderful stucco decoration and peeling white paint which looked great against a polarised blue sky.
Over to the light railway for the return trip to the city - stopped to talk to to cafe owners , ANdrew ( AUstralian ) and his partner from New York on the platform - they have an organic and recycling philosophy which is their own - lovely cafe , open and bright well laid out . I took a photo of them both toghether as they both had striking blue eyes.

Immingration museum for a photography exhibition , the southbank of the Yarra ,more pictures, then with one of Leighs friends, Megan to Yamamoto for Japanese meal - miso soup, mixed sushi, curried eggplant , deep fried tofu - both Leigh and Megan have spent time in Japan - Leigh worked in a hotel there for a year and Megan who works for travel company Intrepid,was based there for two years teaching English.

Leigh and I walked back to the 75 tram stop through Treasury Gardens where I could hear the chattering of flying foxes high up in the canopy of the avenue of trees and possums boldened by coachloads of tourists who come to feed them at night approached us hopefully instead of running away.

We are Geelong! Australian Rules Football or "Footy"

2006-03-19T22:38:00.000-08:00

You'd think that what with the Commonwealth Games and the Grand Prix to come Melbourne would be saturated enough with sport - NOt so! Not even the Games could put a dampener on the Aussie Rules Football NAB Cup Final which took place on Saturday in the midst of everything. Leigh who I'm staying with is a lifelong supporter of the Geelong Cats and the previous Saturday, the day after I arrived she took me to see them play Fremantle in the semi final in the new Telstra Dome near Docklands. I really enjoyed it - it's a furious paced game with a lot of action and plenty of goals and Leigh explained all the rules and who the flouresecnet yellow shirted people were - (messengers who run onto the pitch to pass on instructions from the coach) . It's nothing like the other football which can be really boring just as Boca v River was , with everyone faking injuries and playing defensively.
Geelong won that game only because Leigh and I were shouting out to them telling them where they were going wrong -we could clearly see from our vantage point high up in the stands that the Freo dockers had a whole unmarked wing to make their serious cohesive attacks down. the Cats were seriously lagging in the first two quarters - and their passing was as Leigh said "shocking" . But they managed to pull up their stripey blue guernsey and white socks,( optionally worn properly at knee height or alternatively at modern ankle length) stopped dropping the ball and passing it straight to the opposition and scored several " supergoals" - a new kind of goal that puts about 6 points on your score- just in time. So I was all geared up for "Super Saturday" on the 17th with Geelong playing the favourites to win the Adelaide Crows over in Adelaide. Although Geelong have been in 9 grand finals since their last win in 1963 the final prize has proved elusive.
We watched the match on Leigh's tiny little colour TV getting more and more excited as good Barossa red wine flowed and we ate a thai red curry with green beans and snapper that Leigh cooked.
Again the Cats got off to a slow start with the Crows dominating the field with strong play and passing but just when we thought there was no hope with the Crows standing strong with 36 to geelong's paltry 7 they warmed up and started to work together like a well oiled machine.
The final score Geelong 92 ,Adelaide 84 , sent Geelong supporters wild and Leigh almost regretted not placing a bet on them - an historic win and I witnessed it ( well same country anyway) .
The GeelongClub Anthem a catchy ditty is played rousingly through the PA ,when they run onto the pitch and of course very loudly when they won - to the tune of the famous march in Carmen :

We are Geelong, the greatest team of all
We are Geelong, we're always on the ball
We play the game as it should be played
At our home or far away
Our banner flies high from dawn to dark
Down at Kardinia Park!

(Second verse - hardly sung)
So stand up and fight
remember our tradition so stand up and fight
it's always been our ambition throughout the game
we fight with all our might cause we are blue and white and from when the ball is bounced
to the final bell STAND UP AND FIGHT LIKE HELL!

Art - ACCA - New 06

2006-03-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Saturday March 18th
Beautiful day - perfect for the women's triathalon which Leigh and I watched on and off over toast and coffee - Australians came first and third over the blue mat on St Kildas High Road with a new zealander filling second place . Leigh headed off to Flemington Races once more to take bets from the boys on stag days out and other punters. I made $4.50 on my $10 bet last week but was not tempted back!

I took a number 70 tram absolutely gorged to the brim to Flinders St; I dropped in briefly to see two N Kenyan Borana huts in the garden of the National Gallery of Victoria - grass huts made by the nomadic Borana tribe who are rapidly finding they have nowhere to go as land goes under development for houses and agriculture. These grass huts look like overgrown hairdos with their outer covering of dried grasses with a door of sisal cords ; inside they smell sweet and the frame is revealed as acacia sticks tied together.

In Sturt St behind the NGV is the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art - www.accaonline.org.au with its angular sylish rusted iron construction a bit of an eyeful itself. Several "smurfs" - the Games blue and brown uniformed visitor helpers - had no idea where it was or what it was even. Signage to it was even worse but meant I saw another gallery on the way - (Art Gallery of Victoria) with a full knitted afternoon tea complete with wooly cream eclairs and cocount buns. I started to wonder if it was worth the trek. I didnt know what was on if anything. I am so glad I made the effort to get there-best show I have seen for a long time-

First in is Helen Johnson's " Centre for the Study of Adhocacy - Producing Singularities in a more and more standardised world" which consists of floor to wall pencil and acrylic drawings on four walls. A student sits on the floor joining coloured pencils with blu tack into what looks like a chemical model behind her a bookshelf with books - some of the titles - Practical Idealsim, Hardcore worship exchange, Rugged Long Lasting Productive and Versatile, two boys playing table tennis one of whom is pugged into the mains via his trainer laces , one t shirt reads DIY another Survive- I 'm not sure if I got the whole gist of it -I'm only giving brief idea of what was there but it was fresh with lots of ideas and stuff to ponder and I liked it.

Natasha Johns - plywood and mirror scupltures - very clever very thought provoking playing with perspective , large constructs which you can duck under and into or look into or which lead through a wooden conduit into another area beyond sight. Never quite sure what is real and what is not - what is projected and what is mirrored. The general gloom of the gallery helps. There was other work in this room which I cant say anything about beacuse I just glanced at it - I really dont get it - neon lights and a glowing red reflective panel.

Neatly following on from John's work you could almost miss the carboard lined high sided passagewhich is the start of " Welcome to Merrylands" ( Makeshift) that snakes away from the main space. A little like undertaking a diversion down an alluring dimly lit alleyway you are suddenly confronted with many choices in what turns out to be a labryinth of cardboard passages, tunnels, stairs and atriums which lead to several different tableaux. I was immediately intrigued and enveloped into the game which taps straight into childhood enjoyment of finding hidden treasure mixed with an adult feeling of slight misapprehension, following music up a staircase to a room with 2 cardboard telescopes jutting from the wall which showed grainy footage of an animated boat at sea, a warship and a periscope which showed another cardboard room beneath. A little cardboard rowing boat magquette sat on black cut out cardboard waves in a theatrical box on another wall. You are totally enclosed so it's not for anyone who gets claustrophobic - luckily there was hardly one else inside at same time as me although it's a big piece the corridors are narrow and the section where you have to crawl - there is no room to turn round.... I reached a jucntion with a honeycomb vaulted roof made up of smaller cardboard boxes . At that moment I realised that it was also like being Lara Croft in a computer game and instinctively I wanted to make a map - but I kept retracing my steps and getting lost again - I came across the train room - a model of a train from cardboard with a light projected onto it so that it makes a picture of a train travelling beside telegraph poles and a building and trees at night.
ROund another corner there is a booby trapped room with a huge wooden ramp - at the top a huge plywood ball sitting in a depression the ramp leads down to a door which has a cord attached to it which is inturn attached to pulleys and more rope which is attached to a pole situated direcely underneath the ball - ie if the door is pulled open from outside it will casue the pole to life the ball from its seating and hurtle down the ramp to the door - no doubt a reference to INdiana Jones and temple of doom - tombs that should not be raided . Back to the tunnels (constructed from double thickness fruit packing cases) and first time I didn't find this room - I asked hte curator if I had missed anything - more shadowy sillhouettes this time of sheep which backlit look as if they are wolflike, menacing a kangaroo with roo in its pouch - wild trees loom high up the wall. A tent sits in the middle of the room but there doesnt appear to be anything inside.
A big plywood puzzle with silver balls and ramps can also be played in one alcove. Im still trying to work it all out and fit the puzzle together but as iwht all art I m not sure if it is wise to attempt to do so! THe references are numerous. It made me laugh and shudder a bit but mostly it delighted me particularly as I came upon the exit , a passage lined with a forest of fir trees of differing heights ( Christmas trees) which lead from the gloom to the main hall once more. Brilliant, humorous, playful, tantalising, confusing - a test.

I also loved Laressas Kosloff's Spirit and Muscle which made me laugh out loud too. She has constructed a giant diamond suit which covers everything but her legs - she choreographs this - like a piece of live animation. I probably missed any deeper meaning but it was wonderful to watch - an Ive never seen anyone else doing anything like it - starts to border on performance art though and Makeshifts piece you would definitely call theatircal - stage scenery that you partcipate in , with tableaux - a bit remenisient of Clink St Exhibition in London - work of a lighting designer definite theatrical links. Very entrancing and intirguing.
Darren Sylvester was there again - saw his exhibiton at NGV as well - photographer - and video stuff - again its the humourous side of things that pulls you in. Performance art. Giving away ice creams to people in a supermarket. The recipeicnts unaware they are being filmed do not acknowledge their free gift , or the giver , they just take and eat - assuming I suppose a promotion but they dont actually ask ! It's very funny to watch. But why?

These are all Australian artists dealing with larger universals - in the other gallery the work was focussed on Australian idientity - what it is like to be Asian and Australian - what has happened to the dispossessed Aboriginies , colonialism, modern Australiana - Steve Irwin etc - Aborigines dressed up in Koala suits accepting drinks in a bar etc. One of the pieces is called Erewhon
-
I keep seeing and hearing references to Samuel Butler's "Erewhon" ( nearly spells Nowhere backwards) I will have to look it up on wikipedia!

Time is nearly up - this is the expensive internet cafe - I just couldn't bear the smoke filled alternative which is half price and last time people kept spilling thier drinks over themselves and the computers making it all just a bit too hazardous.

Melbourne part 2

2006-03-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Leigh's house is typical Australian suburb circa 1930s - very pretty and compact with corrugated roof , weatherboard walls , verandah and small backyard with a heavily laden lemon tree and picket fence. It's great to stay with people rather than in a hostel but makes me want to stay longer - thats the problem.
The pub down the road , the Central is hosting Russell Crowe and his band in April - you buy dinner and watch him. Bridge Street , 10 minutes away has a plethora of coffee shops, and cafes, only the odd pub none of them very enticing. Organic bakeries, botique ice cream parlours, Vietnamese restuarants,( mostly on Victorian St anothe block away) Indian curry houses - serving up fresh food not British style . Everythnig has an air of affluence with people drinking coffee out on the pavement at all hours of the day - coffee is generally very high standard -nearly always I get my latte in a glass with a leaf decoration inscribed in the froth - and it costs about $2.80 (@ 1.30 UK)
The streets are wide and there never seems to be that much traffic though people dont use public transport enough apparently.

Surf Fishing at Bermagui and Camel Rock

2006-03-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

I went fishing twice with Aggie and Dick which meant early morning starts. Dick',92 who saws up all Aggies firewood for him - about 2 hours work a day - thought my presence and keenness might mean extra trips to the sea - he loves fishing - but we just managed to make the two.

John, Salila's partner very generously lent me his Ford Maverick 4 wheel for the duration of my stay which was wonderful and meant I could also go fishing as Aggie's ute will only take 2 comfortably. We set off at 7am just as it was getting light - a wonderful mist gradually lifting over the valley with treetops peeking through though I still had to drive through mist making visibility very hard following Aggie on the road to Bermagui. Suspension in the maverick is shot so it was a thrilling ride round the corners but thankfully very little traffic. Still a bit nippy in the morning but you could tell from the sun's already penetrating rays that it was going to be a hot one.
We took a left at the Bermagui Cobargo junction and another right shortly after to take us to Camel Rock and the most beautiful bay of golden sand stretching for miles along the coast round to Bermagui. Aggie was looking for dips in the beach , troughs where fish might gather but there didn't seem to be any. Aggie baited up all our rods plus a few spares and stuck these in lengths of plastic piping to anchor them upright . Dick was safely in a chair with rod in hand. -Aggie cast out for me as he said I didn't have enough "grunt"to cast out far enough. But I can cast perfectly well - just not the distance. He uses a rig with two hooks and a weight on a swivel. Yóu just hold the rod and watch the tip trying to distinguish a bite from a wave - hard at fast but eventually I realised the little tugs were nibbles. I struck when I felt some obvious playing going on but the initial exciting bow of the rod, which gives you such a primeval burst of adrenalin, and the weight on the other end just went and the line was slack but the hooks were bare and light when I reeled in. Possibly crabs. But Aggie had much more success and bagged three australian salmon about 3-4 pounds in weight each. He ran up the beach when pulling them in and despatched them forthwith by disloacting thier necks. The bodies then went in head first into a hole in the sand to keep cool. Their tails kept flapping on and off for hours later though. I don't know if I could kill a fish myself but I feel if I catch one I should be responsible for dealing with it. BUt I didnt have to worry this time.
The salmon are good eating fresh but do not keep which is why they and other fish like brim are not fished for commercially. It was getting very hot by 11am when we packed up , Dick gamely walking up and along the beach with his two sticks. He is really pretty incredible for his age and hates being helped - I m perfectly fine"" he will remonstrate if you offer to help and he tackles the steepest inclines without a murmer. Aggie was all agility and efficiency organising all the kit and dealing with the fish. I felt a bit disappointed that I hadnt caught anything. But it was just a warm up for the next trip.

Dinner was at Aggies that night - I drove John and Shirley over from Salila's house up the incredibly bumpy track to Aggies place - wallabies scattering in front of us and making for the bush ( Salila had left that morning for work in Sydney) we were also joined by Daniel - a friend of Aggie's - he is not a sanyasin hence the conventional name! He had wonderful twinkly eyes and curly hair and beard and looked a lot younger than he is. I thought he was in his 20s but he is in his 30s. John and I both have a bit of a penchant for pinot noir - so I had bought a Tyrells Pinot'from the local bottle shop ( always attached to a pub) - screw top which is very usual here even for wines costing $19 ( which is nearly 10 UK) adn John brought a pinot marketed by the Ozzie wine chain CCC from Tasmania which was much better than mine - you need a climate with a bit of chill in it for a good Pinot I have learned. NZ's Old Coach Road isn't bad. Aggie is a dab hand at cooking - and filleting fish - he served up a ceviche ( raw fish) of salmon in tamari with lime and garlic - I found the tamari too overpowering but maybe the salmon isn't good enough to be completely unflavoured. Still wonderfully fresh and so much better to eat what you have seen caught the same day. We then had crumbed fillets of salmon with veg and salad - all from his garden.

Saturday - another early start but the tide and moon tables indicated a slightly later high tide so we were there about 8am to catch the water about 2 hours before high tide which is supposed to be the optimum time. 'This time we were quite a party , Shirley joined us as did Daniel and another bald headed keen fisherman sanyasin friend of Aggie and Salila's - Shirley fell asleep in her chair with my akubra as she had no hat of her own - Salila, who is constantly rushing around and busy commuting between two jobs in Bega and Sydney is amazed by Shirley's propensity to sleep - but actually the heat and a lack of routine does that to you - I know all too well and I'm considerably younger. In fact I was the youngest person in all group gatherings - except when Daniel was there.'
This trip we were fishing closer to Bermagui but on the other side of it from Camel Rock( right at teh junction) - I drove Shirley - we saw crimson rosellas all lined up on the telephone wires - Aggie picked up some bait from a fishing shop - small fish which smell like anchovies. It was quite a walk to the beach this time> Aggie rushed around like a madman setting up rods and casting them out by wading right out into the waves - though he was pessmimistic about our chances - water's too flat, and no troughs - but he was proved wrong - the fish were there! Aggie swamped by waves several times knocked down and
drenched but never deterred he just kept making sure our chances of catching our dinner were maximised. I was ecstatic when I hooked my first salmon - a really heavy pull on the line and a real battle to bring it in pumping the rod and reeling in manically and secure it beyond the surf - by running back up the beach with the rod in one hand and my shorts , a bit loose , in the other doing their best to trip my up by falling down ( seems I have caught the fashion bug).
I caught another two fish , one a brim - which was catch of the day as they taste a lot better than salmon - but I know I lost quite a few too. Aggie had a field day - 13 fish , Daniel caught two, Dick two. I was too much of a coward to deal with my fish - Aggie came running over and did the business and Daniel the third one - but I did carry it b ack to our base with fingers in gills . Still it is a very unpleasant business, killing. But I like to eat them. Aggie ran around so much in the sand that he aggravated an old ankle problem and was pretty much bed bound for next day. Probably wasnt good for my heel either ( sand is a no no) but I couldnt have missed it and I did cast out when Aggie wasnt there getting drenched in the process so could not have worn shoes.
We then drove into Bermagui for lunch at Cafe Beyond - where a large group of sanyasins were gathered and I split the bill with Dick.
Dinner was at Aggie's of course - with fresh fish on the menu - he was kept very busy - filleting the catch for the freezer - we were joined by another sanyasin from Poona days - Ta----y and Daniel and Bativa - Aggie's Dutch girlfriend , Salila and Shirley and John.
I didnt realise that Dad had been out here but they all fondly remember him - he smoked some weed when out here so I smoked a pipe in his memory! A "cool ,cool man"
was the word on Dad.
As you can imagine the stars are wonderful in the southern skies - you can see the milky way very clearly - and even the black holes in it - the only familiar constellation being Orion.

Melbourne

2006-03-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Melbourne by bus overnight from Sydney - just under 12 hours. Not bad journey - $60 - usual terrible food options on the way - chips and fat and not a vegetable or fruit in sight - but food is banned on coaches so you end up buying something(sugary) usually. The whole system seems to be supported by backpackers - there was not a homely soul in sightwith handbag and sandwiches or kids in tow - just goes to show how important tourism is here. Aus is currently feeling the backlash of the tourism campaign gone wrong -aka "" Where the bloody hell are you? "campaign - apparently it has been banned in UK because of that word. Over here that word crops up all the time on news commentary , sports commentary etc so they obviously feel at home with it - but has fallen foul of UK "standards"".
Honestly the South American bus system is much better - they at least give you the option of a cama or semi cama (bed) seat - usually with a free meal , a drink , a pillow, a video a game of bingo ....... Australian is pretty basic in comparison and the seats are no wider.
But enough moaning. I liked Melbourne straight away - a good quality modern cafe( stripped floorboards type) serving wonderful coffee, open and friendly at 6.30am is a wonderful first step into new territory.
Negotiating the tram system wasn't quite as easy - the machines on board only issue cards in exchange for coins - quite a lot of coins - but I guessed the best way - which was to pre purchase a ticket in a newspaper booth . Many of the onboard ticket machines are also non functioning so I think Melbourne will loose a lot of money over the period of the games.
I left my stuff in a locker at Southern Cross Station (once less glamorously known as spencer st) and witnessed straight away on arriving at FLinders St what a trasnformation Melbourne has undergone in the 17 years of my absence. It is a bright vibrant modern city with wonderful old buildings ( The Forum - a kitsch Moorish concoction) well preserved and visible - a new focus Square opposite Flinders St - Federation Square has a wonderful mix of modern buildings - museums and restaurants and bars and info centre in a well landscaped public space bordering the Yarra River.
The best tourist info centre I've encountered anywhere with incredibly fríendly and helpful staff in contrast to the sometimes brusque sales people you will encounter in Aus. Not everyone automatically smiles here ( you are spoilt in NZ )- in fact sometimes the shortness of response will leave you feeling personally undermined - but I don''t think it's personal - just a way of operating for some people and if you persevere you will get a smile out of them if that's important to you ( it is to me)'.
Big screens were set up in the square and in fact all over Melbourne to screen the games live to audiences.
Later that afternoon after calling my friend Leigh (who I met in Peru on the Manu Amazon trip) at the YMCA where she works, I split a taxi with an Australian actor who is about to relocate to London - to Richmond the Melbourne suburb where Leigh lives and where she had kindly said I could stay.
Leigh's house is typical Australian suburb circa 1930s - very pretty and compact with corrugated roof , weatherboard walls , verandah and small backyard with a heavily laden lemon tree and picket fence. It's great to stay with people rather than in a hostel but makes me want to stay longer - thats the problem.
The pub down the road , the Central is hosting Russell Crowe and his band in April - you buy dinner and watch him. Bridge Street , 10 minutes away has a plethora of coffee shops, and cafes, only the odd pub none of them very enticing. Organic bakeries, botique ice cream parlours, Vietnamese restuarants,( mostly on Victorian St anothe block away) Indian curry houses - serving up fresh food not British style . Everythnig has an air of affluence with people drinking coffee out on the pavement at all hours of the day - coffee is generally very high standard -nearly always I get my latte in a glass with a leaf decoration inscribed in the froth - and it costs about $2.80 (@ 1.30 UK)
The streets are wide and there never seems to be that much traffic though people dont use public transport enough apparently.

Cobargo - Sydney - Heel Pain Clinic

2006-03-13T22:09:00.000-08:00

Salila put me onto an ad in the paper which professed to heal heel pain. So I called up and booked an appointment and jumped onto a bus next day to Sydney. At the NOrth Sydeny clinic ( Heel Pain Running Clinic, 3rd Floor, 26 Ridge St, everything seemed professional and I had some imprints taken of my feet.
I have no idea whether it will work but I will get a pair of vinyl orthotics ( as opposed to cheap foam shoe insoles) sent onto me in Melbourne. Anything to sort it out. The condition is known as plantar fasciitis aka heel spurs and apparently is due to my foot type though its also a degenerative thing.

Shirley and I in Cobargo

2006-03-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

Shirley and I had scrambled eggs for breakfast and then drove down to Cobargo later on for lunch and diversion. Cafe '59 never knew what hit them. We rolled into town in our battle weary, compost laden detritus carrying 4x and all heads turned. Shirl and Louise had come to town. Cafe '59 didn't know whether to run or serve but thankfully, for them, they just served us. Just as well as there were only 3 other people there. Shirley took the bacon omlette, I had their plain old avocado cranberry chicken sandwich on sliced brown ,no extras, for $8.90. Yeehah. Shirl took them out of eggs and bacon and then ordered up a fine bowl of mud pie. Sunk a heavy spider ( ice cream and lemonade) to my caffiene laden pint of iced coffee . Those guys were shakin' I'm tellin ya man.
No bank to rob so we checked out the secondhand "second leg" ha ha shop with a real artificial leg in a suspender outside - " Not for Sale" yeah - funny. Shirley copped a nice blue blouse, $3 , I eyeballed tin signs. Paint dried. Shirl did the pharmacy while I leaned back 'gainst a nice ol' telegraph pole bid'n ma time.
We sunk some ginger beers then headed back to the station , burn'n gas as the pie shop was mighty hot and the chocolate ice cream needed some cool attention real soon.
On the wayz back we dropped by on the ol' trash palace to dump our party fall out n stuff. Cost me 3 dollar. Sure is neat the way our folks charge us to recycle our shit.

It's a bit like that, Cobargo.

How to make.........Aunt Shirley's Flummery

2006-03-03T06:47:00.000-08:00

Take a can of evaporated milk
Whip the milk in a basin with sugar
Meanwhile melt jelly cubes of any desired fruit flavour
Prepare fresh fruit of desired flavour
Mix in all ingredients and leave to set in the fridge
Serve in glass bowl

Hint: You will find lemons good for this recipe. ( Does that mean you grate the rind in?) Of course. But remember to wash all non organic fruit skins thoroughly before using!

How to make .......Metro Pudding

2006-03-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

This is my Granny's recipe which she copied wholesale from an advertisement in between the main feature in the cinema in Calcutta, India, during The War.

Take one can of sweetened condensed milk
Boil in a pan of water with the lid opened so the tin doesn't explode
Place the tin in the fridge or freezer for as long as your forbearance will allow
Miraculously ( Granny could do this but I cant) turn out the whole sticky confection from the tin whole and tin shaped
Place it on a plate
Sprinkle glace cherries to decorate
Lather with cream, double
Serve on a white plate and cut in slices
Hey Presto! Pudding! ( and fillings)

Fortunately sweetened condensed milk survived the war and you can still buy it in good shops near you.

Flying Foxes, Bellingen

2006-03-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

I emailed Viv Jones and asked if I could meet her to talk about flying foxes and wildlife photography. Viv designed and produced the leaflet I picked up about flying foxes which I found in the Old Butter Factory when I was staying with Julie. I was very impressed with it and the website that Viv put together.
I was thrilled when Viv emailed me back and seemed very happy to talk to me , a new flying fox enthusiast and so I extended the hire car for an extra day and drove back to Bellingen.
I arrived about 5pm a couple of hours before fox fly out time. There was Viv with her large white poodle who is the son of a champion but whose name I just can't remember now; standing out on the corner to greet me. There were 5 other poodles to meet - (Vulpina and Graziella I remember)including a tiny little bundle who was a puppy so I think I can be forgiven for not getting all the names! One large living room on the ground floor with an open plan kitchen towards the back with cool stone floor tiles was filled with books, mostly literature which Viv studied and mounted photos of Viv's work and a baby grand piano covered with a throw. A table with work in progress and various camera stuff strewn over a table nearby. Large comfortable sofas and floor to ceiling sliding windows onto the garden which is full of trees , a lot of them rare or endangered .She wasn't always a wildlife photographer; she started off as an English teacher and has been married twice but now prefers to live alone with her dogs persuing her second career , specialising in flying foxes. She has been involved with the foxes for about 20 years now , working closely with scientific researchers and photographing the flyers copiously for ID purposes and her own collection and looking after young who become orphaned in a purpose built cage in the back garden.
The BBC approached Viv to help them as their consultant when they filmed a programme here on flying foxes - Viv had to launch foxes at peaches for the camera and has also been on Creature Features hamming it up for the cameras too. She is a wonderfully laid back person and has a great and generous laugh She wasn't too impressed with one of the cameramen from the beeb - she called him a "wet prawn" but she had fun with the other two crew.
She grew up in Coffs Harbour so has known the area all her life, living in Armidale before Bellingen.
We instantly hit it off and I quizzed Viv with all the questions I could think of about foxes. I started to throw glances out at the diminishing light and Viv, noticing said "Don't worry I've got my eye on it." On Viv's word we jumped into the car and down to the bridge to see the nightly fly out over the Bellingen River. As I slapped off the vigorous onslaughts of mossies as if I was performing some bizzare German dance, caught in the last rays of blue light a classic bat silhouette appears, circling over the camp on Bellingen Island . It is joined by another and then another until there is a small group in the air , they circle together being joined by others constantly and one group heads off in one direction but the larger group heads straight over us, the air noiselessly full of these wonderful shapes, some swooping down low to the water before the bridge and banking steeply up over our heads , appearing as if from nowhere. It was Viv who after taking pictures of the foxes skimming over the water by standing in the river established that this is how foxes get their water - they don't as everyone assumed ,including eminent biologists, dip their tongues in water as micro bats ( bats who use sonar , are smaller and carniverous ) - instead they get water trapped in their fur coats and lick this off later. It makes you wonder what other animals have had assumed behaviours put upon them.
Viv pointed out nursing mother foxes from their slighly bulkier shapes - they carry their young out , clinging tightly to their undercarriages. You can even pick out the young new flyers who are not quite so steady in their wingbeats and the body smaller. The wing span of an adult is impressive - the wings stretch over a metre.
There are flying fox camps spread out at about 35 km distances all along the coast but Bellingen is a unique place to see these creatures as you can walk on the island through the trees underneath them. They are really quite low and close , hanging shrouded , Vincent Price like , with their black wings in the day time , not far above you, their little red faces and black eyes following you with interest .Photography with a powerful zoom is really quite easy. They chatter to each other loudly in the daytime in their camp - sometimes this signifies male mating behaviour which consists of screeching loudly in a female's faces - if this turns her on, they mate but if she is not impressed with his discordant array of noise she turns away and spurns him and it is impossible for him to progress any further. Carpet pythons will eat young foxes and other predators include the sea eagle which flies inland up the river.
The population of the camp changes as foxes move in search of food sources - no one knows how they know where the food is or how they communicate this to their groups. However it does seem to be from Viv's research that the females are a lot more mobile than the males who largely seem to stay in the same camps. No one knows exactly why.
Flying foxes have had to to adapt a lot as their natural habitats have been logged - that's why the Melbourne and Sydney Botanic gardens famously both have their own colonies - they still have the trees and as they have been relatively undisturbed in Bellingen the camp is large. But it can fluctuate from between 20- 60 thousand says Viv. We watched a relatively small fly out that night. SOmetimes the air can be thick with foxes. They fly out at dusk and return at dawn to hang from their toes upside down in the trees fanning themselves to keep cool in the summer heat. One summer it was so hot , (2003) that 7,000 foxes died.
Of course not everyone likes them. Their camp is right above a council owned camp for humans . The current leasholders are not at all keen and complain of the noise and the smell. However the lease expires in November this year and given the foxes fame it would seem likely and sensible if the area became a designated nature reserve. Viv certainly hopes so.

Cameras , House Party & Fishing near Camels Head, Bermagui

2006-03-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday evening there was a big party at Salila's for Shirley's leaving ( back to UK on 8th March) and for John's birthday. John is an ex fashion photographer and we had a good photography talk - he has got the best digital going - the Nikon 2dx ( I think that's it - circa 2006 ) anyway the most expensive body on the market with 16 megapixels. I 'm really happy with my Panasonic Lumix FZ30 which is 8 megapixel with a 12x optical zoom. I bought it in NZ to replace my stolen ( in Argentina) Canon A95 but am taking so many bird shots that 12x optical zoom is just not doing it. Even with a tripod I can't get the kind of shots I now know that I want to achieve. I am starting to think long lenses seriously but for backpack travelling they are just not practical so I will have to hang on. Viv Jones the flying fox photographer uses a Canon D20 - and a 400mm lens which on a digital body gives her 600mm. She says there is no way round it - you just have to shell out on equipment for some types of photography.
I made it to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition in Sydney which tours the world now - so probably seen it ahead of London where it is usually on in March/April. Most of the photographers seem to use Canon and film ( the EOS1N keeps appearing) . But I'm sure the switch to digital will be apparent next year - also I think they are opening up the competition - not sure who has been excluded up to now but will find out . Hungarian Bence Mate's photographs just keep winning - and stunning - he was entering the junior section about 4 years ago. I love his stuff and I noticed an entry by Andy Rouse who is a UK wildlife photographer - I've got one of his books . I need to make a hide! Winning shot was a bit controversial - even for me - a flock of (cant remember rather embarssingly) starlings? in a flock mobbing a single hawk. Very dramatic - but not much colour - strong on form and composition though and also strong environmental message - but they all do now. ie this is happening less and less as both species involced are endangered.

John lent me his Ford Maverick x4 which is fantastic as I was worried about walking to and from Aggie and Salila's with my dodgy plantar foot. I love driving and the freedom it gives.No suspension ( after driving it once John asked me how did you find it ? and I said yes you move around a lot in the seat when you turn corners) which is interesting ie it feels like you are coming off the road - and it also smells strongly of organic compost which is giving off a healthy pong sitting in the heat. But I don't care I've got the road and tiger in my tank!

Party was good fun, lots and lots of food , Aggie made saag paneer ( with his own homemade paneer and spinach) there was smoked fish also courtesy Aggie , flummeries made by Shirley who makes mean puddings, chicken, rice, beans and peas, salads , homemade ice cream, fruit salad - lots of wine - and I met lots of local people , some of whom are sanyasins some not.
The possum came despite the people and we sat out on verandah and watched as it scoffed a huge bowl of veg bits, apparently less concerned with us than something we couldn't see off in the dark which it kept casting nervous glances towards. Apparently they live in holes in trees. I don't know if it is possible for a possum to gorge too much and not fit in like Pooh. Probably.

Next morning I was up at 6am in the mist of the morning, trying hard not to wake Shirley and Salila who had to drive up to Sydney , to join Aggie and Dick on a fishing trip. This is a bit of a highlight for Dick and we reminisced together Aggie me and Dick about Rupert's Beach on the Gower somewhere near Muntt , where they knew all the crab holes and went lobstering and flat fishing. According to Dick Shirley was a queen when it came to flounder - she could spike them like noblody else. Everyone stood in a row and advanced with their spears pronging down in sync and they would leave the beach with at least 40 in a bag. It is the one place Aggie says he would go if he ever went back to the UK and he's not that keen. I remember being taken there as a small child - probably a bit whiny and annoying as it was a steep steep walk down ( in fact I can remember begging my Dad to carry me) to the cove and not known by many people. But in my imagination and obviously in everyone elses very very special. I think it may now be private access only as it may well have been back then. I t's not far from Muntt(?) I will ask Shirley for more exact details or Dick. In fact I know I have directions filed on paper somewhere from Shirley but have no idea exactly where now.
I drove over to Aggie's in the 4x and we set off towards Bermagui actually turning left at the main junction and setting up on the beach not far from Camels Head Rock ( on our left) with Bermagui to our right. Dick made it down a steep descent over dunes with his two sticks all under his own power refusing any help - which he detests of course determined to be independant to the last which I really, really, admire. The beach was breathtaking. Just gorgeous especially at that time of day - much cooler.Wilds dunes, wild clouds and clean clean yellow sands. Needless to say deserted. We were there early to be two hours before high tide - best time for fishing and Dick had checked tide and moon tables which indicate which days are good for fishing. The day before he seemed very unsure of my ability to rise early but I hope I put him right on that account as they were only just having breakfast when I arrived.
After a drive of about half and hour Aggie took 5 rods and set Dick up in a chair on a hillock of sand casting out for him well beyond the surf and then the other rods setting the handles in the sand or in plastic tube holders and running like crazy between them if there was anything like a bite but lying back in the dunes in between when there was little else going on . He's a good looking and fit cousin. We baited up with small anchovies ( ?) on two hooks and a sinker but I couldn' t cast out as far as where the fish were ( what Aggie called not having enough "Grunt "much to my chagrin and wounded pride) but at least he recognised that I knew how to cast and in a straight line , just not far enough. Aggie was concerned that the sea was too flat - not good for fish - as they know they can be seen easily by birds from the air, and there were no troughs in the sand where fish might gather. But despite this Aggie pulled in 3 Aus salmon and 1 tailor ( latter is good eating) but lost 2 on the way in. I caught nothing and was a bit disappointed. Though despatching fish is always a bit brutal and their reflexes continue for so long after their heads are off - the best bit for me is the watching and waiting and being there and the setting up of the tackle . But the grim death bit , the bit of reality at the end ( of the fish) is not where I get my pleasure nor Aggie or Dick I sense. Aggie buries them head down in wet sand to keep them fresh whilst we continued to fish.To kill them he straight away inserts his fingers on either side inside their gills and pulls their heads clean off. John admits he just cuts their heads off which is what I reverted to in my teenage fishing years. They will continue to thrash around , decapitated , for up to an hour of more afterwards. And yes I am sure they feel pain. So I am glad that we are definitely eating these fish which mostly I used to do when I fished in a freshwater lake at home for perch. The tailor you have to watch out for because they have very sharp small teeth - Aggie showed them to me - they are just like piranha teeth and they like to use them on anyone attempting to decapitate them. Quite right too!

That night Aggie invited Shirley round for dinner and I went to collect her in the 4x ; another of his friends, daniel , came too. So it was Dick , Shirley Aggie , John, Daniel and myself - and we dined sumptuously on salmon and tailor pan fried with rice and beans and zucchini - all apart from the rice , DIY.
Dick kept offering whisky to everyone. I think he thought he could out drink all of us and I think he probably could. I took Shirley and John in his own vehicle back home under a clear and very starry southern sky. The possum was out adn noisily nibbling and I shot a lot of pictures.

Cobargo - Salila's Place

2006-03-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

Actually it's about another 13k to Aggie and Salila's places - along the Yowrie Road out of Cobargo.
Aggie dropped me at Salila's in the evening for dinner - it's about 5 minutes drive or 15 minutes walk away. Shirley ( my aunt who used to be married to Dick) is staying with Salila her daughter ( my cousin) . Her place is quite a contrast to Aggies' - it's a half finished brick built villa containing an entrance area with cupboards, a large living room ,beautifully finished and furnished, a bedroom and utility with flush w.c (Aggie has a traditional dunny built of corrugated iron with a resident huntsman spider and very grand golden modesty curtain) and a lovely verandah surrounding what is already finished. The slab for the rest of the house is there but Salila is doing it bit by bit and as she is away working in Sydney or Bega a lot ( she is a very experienced nurse and alternative health carer now) I suppose the pressure to finish it isn't so great as if she was living here full time. There are 25 acres of land and the original shed where she and John her partner( ex univerity of sydney art lecturer) lived as the house was going up is still there and that's John's place now.
The house is ontop of a rise with a great view over to the hills of the natinoal park and with some lovely large old trees - perhaps 200- 400 years old - all angophoras - ( still have ato check that spelling )- the gum trees that survived the forest massacre.
A resident possum comes to eat from a dish of anything leafy left over from dinner put out on the verandah . Funny that in Australia possums are sweet ( no not puddings) and can be indulged because they are native and in NZ they have contests to run them over and you see them slung over barbed wire fences because they are not indiginous and all that is not native is evil with a capital E and must be destroyed. There is a message there somewhere or a book along the lines of Watership Down.

Salila looks well not at all 54( I think that's her age I'll check when she gets back from Sydney) and it's funny how you can see people very little in your life and yet still remember them very well - down to their voice and mannerisms. I last saw Salila and John I think in 1990/1 in London. Salila took me and Rachel on our first ever train trip from Colwall to Ledbury through the tunnel when she was aobut 15 and we were just wee little bairns. Very, very exciting. She bought me a small plastic Indian figure with a tomahawk , proably in Tilleys - which I adored. R and I must have been about five and three years old - I think??? - perhaps a little older. but anyway it is a journey engrained in my memory. - and I still find train journeys exciting .
John for dinner, talked global warming and hortoscopes - birth charts scorpio family traits - me similar to aggie.
Rocks outside , big dam - Salila works in hospital in Bega and treats private patients in sydney - always working. Kitchen in metal container outside - have to be careful with water - big dam with resident kangaroo -
The creek - just down from the house is the creek - in the valley of course - it's beautiful in a haunting way . You can see the history there in the eroded rocks , the channels and funnels worn by fast rivers in spate with force enviable to humans. Deep runnelled, channelled where roaring torrents raged. Now quiet pools. Dry channels. Sculptural forms. Whirlpool back rests. Small birds with red head and tail splashes. Skinks dropping into the water at my approach. Water rippling refelcted on granite rock projection screens. Pine needles in the water. Pink gravel mounds. Serrated green water weeds and busy blue water insects. Complete calm and remoteness. No intimation of people but look closer - a pipe, a pump, a shampoo bottle. We are here.

Cobargo - Aggie's Place

2006-03-02T16:05:00.000-08:00

I was briefly in Sydney and stayed at the same place as last time - The Big Hostel - www.bighostel.com in Elizabeth St near Central Station. If you are on a budget and have to stay in a hostel this is one of the best I have come across. It's very well thought out clean friendly and efficient.Best of all they give you real cotton sheets - proper heavy crisp and clean and ironed down the middle- wow! Breakfast is included as well and unlike other places there is enough for everyone and they give you cereals and toast.

Premier bus cost me around $60 for the 7 hour ride to Cobargo south of Sydney, arriving at 10.40pm. The nearest place of any size is Bermagui, which was a sleepy seaside place until Billy Connolly made a film set there and now it's on the map with house prices to match. Agneya ( my cousin now in his early 50s) picked me up in his truck, it was lovely to see him again and drove me to his place though as it was dark I didn't get the full picture till next morning though the bumps going uphill to his place from the road gave me some impression. Dick Marsham , Aggie and Salila's ( other cousin) dad, now 92 , was there and straight away offered me a whisky which he reckons keeps him going! Bativa , Aggie's girlfriend was also there and we had a beer and a chat, ( global warming, America etc - I've just finished John Ralston Saul's the End of Globalism and Aggie has just finished Tim Flannery's the Weather Makers so we swapped) before I went to bed in the guest room which is a caravan which opens into the house. Dick's room is the other caravan which also ingeniously opens into the main room which is open plan with kitchen and living area . All painted in cream and supported by varnished eucalyptus pillars it's a lovely space with fly screens on the windows and doors recently installed which keeps the blowies out. There are skylights in the roof which get covered over when the sun gets too intense and a pantry with small fridge. A faded picture of Osho hangs on the wall ( Aggie and Salila are sanyasins and both lived in Poona and Oregon on the ashrams. ). This was the first place Aggie built and as everything was built straight onto and into the ground he does have problems with termites. The other buildings are on concrete footings ( but termites love concrete as well) and the wood pillars are mounted on metal plates that sit on these.
In the morning I woke up to the sound of Dick sawing wood which he does every day for at least an hour. He is quite incredible. He is pretty mobile and speedy on two sticks , very sharp and on the ball and also washes up. He brings his saw tooth adjuster out from the UK when he comes to stay to open up the saw teeth which close up beacuse of the volume of wood he gets through. He still enjoys life and doesn't want to"pop off" yet.
Cooking and heat provided by the woodfuelled rayburn which has a wet back to heat the hot water for the bath and shower , sectioned off from the kitchen by a wall.
Aggie is very proud of being practically self sufficient - he has solar panels set up on the roof of another house set up across the yard with a battery room underneath and these provide electricity for lighting and TV ( for watching cricket and rugby only) . No computer. He has built dams ( ponds ) all over the 100 acre property - some of these for veg garden water some for fire fighting. Fire is a big worry - and each year less rain falls - there are metal shutters for the windows and doors and a cellar to retreat to if this should happen - Aggie has also set up a sprinkler system as yet untested. A lot of trees died in a big drought a few years ago but Aggie was Ok for water with the various tanks he has everywhere. He tries to avoid pumping water as much as possible and has a gravity fed water system from a bore.
He grows tomatoes, spinach, carrots, beetroot, celery , brassicas, zuchini etc etc and buys in bulk items such as organic flour and rice. There is a large apple orchard, but walnuts failed and the apples have a problem with fruit fly this year. There are a lot of opportunistic birds who feed on the figs and the peache. He told me he used to make his own wine and bottle fruits etc but to do everything by yourself is just too much. His main focus is building... ( Dick says "Aggie's building mania") there are really two houses , a huge garage/workshop with a self contained flat on top and a cellar, and now a tractor shed which he has built all by himself -with wood milled from his own land - very ambitiously and maintaining everything plus keeping the garden occupies him pretty much full time. A lot of work has gone into everything and all this done in aoubt 14 years.
I had a walk around the property on my first day there - it was blisteringly hot though it is nearing the end of summer now , it must have almost reached the 40s. The scent of the gum trees was wonderful and very strong. THere are some lovely old trees left standing which is unusual but they are angophoras ( not sure of spelling) or apple gums which were ignored by loggers on account of being a" useless "wood - thus ensuring their survival.
I saw splended fairy wrens,- malurus splendens - the females with bright red beaks , eye stripe and legs and the male with irisdescnet blue on his back, flitting around the log piles and from tree to tree.
In the evening the kookaburras really get going - they sound just like manic monkeys with their penetrating mad whooping laugh ooo oooo oooooo ah ahhhh aaaahhhhh . Then there are also the rosellas - parrots - lots of crimson rosellas here - they like the peaches! Also caught a glimpse of yellow faced honey eaters in the fig tree but they hid behind the fig leaves so hard to get a good photo. Have yet to see the enormous indiginous eagle which hangs around hoping for some duck or chook - Aggie has both - the chook with chicks. I starled a group of russet coloured three wallabies not far from the house - they made such a racket thumping away from me in to the undergrowth with their wonderful hopping. A wombat lives near the track too but I haven't seen him - nocturnal.

Fish and Chips and Tyragarah Lakes

2006-02-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

To get there: head out north from Byron on Pacific 1 over roundabout to Tweed Heads direction turn right at sign ot Tyragarah Airstrip go straight ahead up gravel road for about 2k until you reach sign for nature reserve.
I am indebted to a couple who live in Glastonbury but were staying at Belongil for alerting me to these lakes. Really Byron itself is nothing special. You need to get out further away to enjoy the coast, Byron is big has huge supermarket and cinema and a crowded main beach. The lighthouse is nice to wander up to in the evening. Good fish and chips though at Fishheads on the front. Much better than any fush n chups I had in NZ - they can't get it right in NZ for some reason ( with perhaps just the one exception of Waiheke island in the main town) In NZ you get a TINY piece of fish more like one fillet broken in two , funny tasting animal fat batter, usually too thick and soggy , not crisp and independant of the fish and uncared for chips, in meagre portions , hardly ever hand cut, badly fried and soggy again. They charge you a fortune for a tiny bowl of ketchup and wrap teh whole lot it in so many layers of paper that it's like pass the parcel with the ever diminshing prize inside. Price around $9.50 and no satisfaction. The only little saving grace is that you can for a little extra get kumara chips which are delicious and seem to be les of a cullinary challenge to cook.
In Australia by contrast the fish was substantial , barramundi, tasty, not overcooked , firm and flesh white not yellowish so obviously FRESH. The chips were not soggy they were plentiful and tasted of potato not animal fat. In an easy to carry and more seagull proof ( highly important) single thin cardboard carton was included a large tub of tartare sauce and a slice of lemon. This cost me $7.50.
I issue a challenge to NZ - come on Kiwis up the ante ! Beat the Aussies on the fish and chip front and I will .......... move there???

Tygarah Lakes
The lakes sounded like a great place to get away from usual coast stuff , though you can walk along the beach about 7k from Belongil and walk up a track to them but I drove because of my foot problem . A slightly worrying sign just before the path reads - " Sexual harrassment will not be tolerated" . However there was only one other person around when I got there , a naked man who couldn't decide whether to keep his orange sarong on or take it off. and he didnt look very harassy.
I gradually realised as time went on and single men kept arriving and sitting down in amongst the trees with very little interest in swimming that I wasnt going to get any trouble here.
There are two lakes as far as I could tell on e on each side of the road. The nicer, slightly smaller one has tea trees all around it which is supposed to be the reason for the dark colour of the water but I think it just is the colour of deep lakes. Further back are ecucaluypts and on the water itself round the edge are water lily pads with serrated edges and purple flowers on long stems with yellow insides. They smell heavenly. Red and blue Dragonflies were darting round the flowers and over the water. I stepped down via the roots of a eucalyptus growing on the waters edge and the water and was blissful - in the shallows it was warm and in the deeper parts refreshingly cool. It was a big lake and it took me a good 15 minutes to crawl to the far side but it was just just indescribably perfect. No one really around , birds flying overhead and calling, no lanes no waves no whistles no chlorine. JUst clean fresh unpolluted unspoilt swimming . It is a site sacred to The aborigines - I know nothing about why or whether it is part of a dreaming - there is very little info if you just chance on these places - a big difference from NZ where every sacred Maori site will have an info board and request for respect for their culture. In fact I haven't yet seen a single Aborigine and I have been here for 3 weeks now. A couple arrived and were the only other people swimming - they swam to the far side and covered themselves in pitch black mud from the bottom - maybe it is infused with tea tree oil and good for your skin?

I had a hard boiled egg sandwich for lunch from the back of the car and then drove out down the highway towards Bellingen where I was going to meet Viv Jones the flying fox lady - I think she is probably a bit tired of all the usual puns so I wont try any! I emailed Viv from Belongil and asked if I could meet her to talk about flying foxes and photography and she responded very positively.

Everybody Surfin Now......

2006-02-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

Except me. I did try . I had a half day lesson with Miles , a pro boarder in Raglan, NZ. Miles is tiny ,I towered over him, dark caramel colour skin from the sun , curly hair, intense bright green eyes, one tooth missing and scars everywhere ( worn like badges of honour I think) . He was confident that I would "stand up and surf" though secretly I was sceptical. We started off practicing in the privacy of his front room rather than in public at the beach- good! We established that I am goofy footed ( I think from memory this is Left footed - ie when I stand up, sorry - pop up - my left foot leads) and then it was learning how and where to lie on the board and then rehearsing the three moves to standing - all easy on carpet.
Down at the beach the waves looked comfortingly small. I lay on the 8 ft board whilst Miles held it steady and picked the waves I would go for. He had ommited to tell me you had to paddle with your arms to catch the right moment but having tried this lark once before with Candy in Cornwall I did know that much - my first attempt was my best and I at least got to a semi standing position Ok. After that it was all downhill , either I lead with the wrong foot , or the effort to pop up had me diving head first into the water. I went round the washing machine a couple of times too. I gritted my teeth and stuck at it for a good hour by which time I was exhausted. I felt I had made my best endeavours to mount the board but I was quite clearly no natural. Stamina plays a large part - the next day my upper body really felt like it had had a good workout - which was really nice and I'd like to keep that bit up! But for now I 'll stick to body boarding which you can get quite a thrill on anyway - the waves are very powerful here and you can travel a long distance in. Some people body surf really well - no props just technique.

I found the Australian surf much more powerful. Those east coast waves knock you off your feet and are really fierce - I don't think Byron Bay would be a good place to learn. Surfing mags lie around in the hostels and I am fascinated by the language ........
Barrels and pipelines , sick waves, a'grom' ( I think this means an inexperienced surfer)' stoked' ( as in ready to go) it was 'macking" - I dont know what this means ..... the surf magazine stories are something else - I'd love to try and write an account of my expereince in surf speak.
Australia's Surfing Life is the most tacky tabloid one - it has headlines and stories like " Confessions of a Surf Groupie" all about "Screaming Eagle " which is about 4 pages long and very detailed. The other stories usually consist of grisly details of terrible accidents where the awful injury inevitably seems to make the surfer think his scars will make him more attractive to girls ( and they probably do ) , expeditions to do ridiculously impossible waves ( eg Cyclops in W Austalia ) and obituaries for dead surfers ( mostly in their 20s) who never reappeared from a wave.
Some choice examples ; " Pipe Local Gets Metal in His Melon" - "his head opened like a tin can - it required 19 stitches" "Yerin Brown , Byron Bays favourite Pizza chef has a head like a toe punted rissole and a shattered snot flute " "I was in the lip ( of the wave) and just had to jump. But it was bone dry. I could actually see the dry rock and that's where I had to land . "He landed from 20ft up feet first onto a dry ledge before being pummelled across the reef for 90ft. He ended up with 16 stitches. " " Defending champ Mark Mathews slammed feet first into the bottom bending his toes up to meet the top of his foot " and so on and so on. It's a wonder anyone still surfs after reading that. Statistics also matter , the height of the wave, the number of stitches etc etc. Many stories also keep the badboys mythology alive - surfing in the philiipines is all about the number of girls the boys get , how much beer they drink and how stupid they can be with scuba equipment and whose trousers they pulled down in the airports - usual target being Japanese businessmen. It makes you despair! But I bet it sells copies and I do love the action packed inventive language.

Belongil Travelling People

2006-02-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

The beachhouse was much quieter and far more laid back - instead of didge lessons there was free yoga on the grass every afternoon which I did and felt wonderful afterwards very relaxed with people- we did some of the ultra trendy now I think Tibetan 5 ways or 9 ways or some number of ways which if done every day are supposed to keep you healthy and alive for longer and the cafe next door did wonderful long lattes which probably knocks a few health points off but you do need a little vice. We were taught by Jules from somewhere in the west country - she wants to set up a business somewhere warm offering yoga retreats with her sister doing diving - she is a dive master. Lots of young Brits here escaping the British winter or doing their 12 month working visa in Australia.
There were a few interesting people here who I would have liked to get to know more - there was the UK woman called Carol who runs her own personal development compan y - she had a laptop with a huge amount of adaptors and power surge stoppers on it which I couldn't help commenting on - and we started talking. She organises life coaching etc for corporate companies. She loves finding out what makes people tick. I told her my problem was always having too many ideas and not being able to stick and focus on one but she said the most common problem she comes across is people who have no ideas at all of what they want or want to do. She comes to Australia or other nice beachy places for inspiration and fresh perspective - good lifestyle. Hanna and Holly ! Become life coaches!
The other person it was nice to talk to was Ivan who was hanging out with the Brit group but who seemed to want a bit more stimulation than they were giving him. He was born in S Africa but with his parents moved constantly all over the world living in AUstralia , UK , US a real international boy. He is training as a yoga teacher now in Byron Bay ( Yoga mecca) but has just spent the last three years in Japan where he worked on an English language newspaper taking photographs - so then we were really talking! We talked about taking photographs of people mostly the how and different photographers. A young Canadian woman with just a sliver of a body joined in - she was making big eyes at Ivan and totally ignored me and everything I said . Eventually she stood up showing off her flat exposed stomach to its best advantage, lingering for a while before leaving, softly whispering to Ivan but with not even an acknowledgement of my presence. Hmmmph! But that is the way some people operate.

I had a bad night in the 4 bed dorm when the two American girls came back at about 1am having done Saturday night in Byron and turnedon the lights. One of them was promptly sick in the wastepaper basket and therest of the night spent going in and out of the room slamming the door moaning and crying and barfing. Her friend totally ignored her. So it was me that had to get out of the top bunk and let her back in when she forgot her key. O dorm joys. But at least no one snored.

There was a little boy staying there who thought very sincerely that he was batman. He was certainly super charged and was climbing up every tree in site and jumping out of it and holding his hands up in front of him like a little mouse or perhaps like kangaroos do as an indication of his batmaness and was very clever with the hammock which he ran into at first not seeing it but was totally unfazed and leapt up and said "O no you don't, I'm batman" and put the netting over his face like a mask and grimaced at me - "I'm Batman. "He drove the tanned young man lying in the next hammock away - he got up and walked off in his de rigeur designer low slungs - "Your bottom's hanging out " Batman yelled with little appreciation of modern fashion after the clearly embarrassed man . I nearly fell off my bench laughing.

Byron Bay part 2 - Community Radio

2006-02-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

After two days the Arts Factory was too much for me. Everyone was perfectly pleasant but there were just too many people in their 20s and early 30s with their perfectly tanned bodies and impossibly tiny waistlines ( and the boys with their designer mussed up hair and jeans slung somewhere below their hips showing their cheek line so you are dying to pull them down or hope they will just fall down and trip them up- perhaps that is the whole idea???) having a big party. There is no need to leave the complex as there is a cinema, bar and restaruant small swimming pool internet didge lessons etc etc so its always busy. Interestingly no one seemed to get that drunk and most were in bed by midnight - strange- I don't remember it that way at all !
The staff were all really friendly though which isnt always the case in these places and were happy to reccomend somewhere else to stay - so I went to Belongil Beachhouse further down the road. They had a nice quiet internet room with connection for $4 an hour so I spent a lot of time in there writing three short pieces on South AMerica for Live!Travel guide. There is no guarantee that they will accept them and not much money in it even if they do but at least it got me focused and writing which felt good though I now find composing stuff longhand quite hard I am that used to the computer.

Community Radio
In the days of the social welfare state when people actually cared about other people and people were people not consumers there was a flowering of community radio stations in Australia and in New Zealand too. ( Nicola Wooding told me about the Takaka station , and Grant said he helped set it up - Nicola had a programme on late at night and she and her friend played whatever they felt like but got so nervous that they always drank before going on air and it got more and more outrageous and they were having a ball until her friend went one step too far and got fired but Nicola carried on by herself for a bit longer. It is still supposedly a community station ( Fresh) but now commercial and its DJs are professionals not locals. I wish I had been around for the original version.

Byron , being a bit of an ex hippy place though it seems perfectly mainstream in the centre with millions of shops though apparently the local community has made a stand against the big name fast food operators so you will not find a McDonalds or a Starbucks here) has a community radio( 99.9FM) station which I kept tuned in to in the car - it played great idiosyncratic and highly varied music and the presenters had a nice authentic amateruish air so maybe its still got an element of the homemade and indiginous about it - hooray for that I say! I really noticed it driving out of Byron as the transmission started to cut in and out and I kept hanging on to the last snatches of some obscure funk band before Bonny Tyler and Total Eclipse of the Heart and others of that ilk took over on Triple J for the remainder of the journey.

In Bellingen too they had community radio and still do but the lack of government funding means that the transmitter has a very weak signal and only a few houses can pick it up. They were overtaken when Coffs Harbour got a commerical station 2CS . But in its heyday many of the locals were involved and had their own programmes - Viv Jones ( more on her later) did a Saturday morning classical music programme and would tell people about up and coming concerts locally and play that composer and give some background info. the old crew now say that the programming is all boys who don't talk playing back to back rock music. There should be a mix surely. As we drank coffee in the cafe strip of Church lane the old hands were getting excited about getting involved again - we'll get a better transmitter somehow- and I hope they do.

I have always liked the idea of community radio and did a short training course in Edinburgh ages ago . Then last time around in NZ I went on Plains FM in CHristchurch and talked about travelling in AUs and NZ as my friend Jo(anne) Kearns had a Sunday pm slot and basically made me do it although I was petrified beforehand. But I loved it really. I'd love to find Jo again but internet search gave nothing and Lisa went through all the Kearns in the Aucklandphone book for me but also came to a dead end. Thank you Lisa!

Bower Birds

2006-02-26T15:21:00.000-08:00

Julie and Zi had one in their garden this year , just behind Julie's outdoor sculpture studio in some bushes. But I was too late for the really exciting bit which happens around November. The male makes a bower, two opposing walls of grasses arching almost to reach an apex at the top and then and this is the interesting bit , he goes off and collects anything blue to adorn the bower. So around a bower will be things like blue water bottle caps, blue toys that have been lying around sandpits, blue bits of cardboard or paper , a little blue rake, bits of plastic, anything as long as its blue and the bird can manage to carry it in its beak! He also carefully selects yellow petals to intersperse with the blue objects! The boudoir all nicely decorated the male then starts warbling out his mating call to attract females to admire his handiwork. If they are impressed and consider him home decorator of the year they will enter his bower and it's love. HOwever they make a nest off the ground to lay eggs but I don't know who makes the probably more prosaic nest. I now want to see the whole thing myself of course! Nothing remained of the old bower but I expect they come back to same area. THere are satin bower birds and Regent green bower birds.

Bellingen to Byron Bay

2006-02-21T03:53:00.000-08:00

I said goodbye to Julie and Zi today -I really enjoyed my stay ( it was lovely being in a room on my own again after the tedium of dorms _and seeing Bellingen and Dorrigo- I took pictures of Julie's rehearsal for Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - she plays Miss McKay the headmistress at Coffs Harbour community centre. She is still touring with the Vagina Monologues - which I haven't even seen - and I thought I might try and catch one of the last performances in Armidale but apparently there has been a cock up( sorry) over publicity so may not happen. I was very grateful to Zi too who did my laundry for me and folded it so that it was creaseless - thank you Zi!
I hired a cheaper car to get me to Byron as I reckoned that the bus - which takes twice as long to get there - isn't that cheap anyway.

It was straight up Pacific Highway with very little traffic for a main route in another Hyundai though a two door manual this time. Unlike New Zealand I was able to tune into several radio stations - NZ - it's almost impossible to get decent reception for any length of time. Not very interesting en route though there were koala signs as we went through dense eucalputus groves.

I am staying in a dorm with bunk beds 3 high, 12 to a room. Luckily I managed to get a ground floor bunk though I had to pipe up quickly. It is very young and groovy here , with digeridoo lessons every morning at 11am - ( not compulsory) and a lounge cinema with cushions and some accomodation in tepees - this ensures it is always full. The arts complex of which the backpacker accom is only a part has been going for ages apparently. I think I must have left out Byron last time or Im sure I would remember it. Where I am now is exactly like a university bar/common room. THere is a Doctor Who pinball game in the corner and several pool tables and other video games.

More Dorrigo and Dragons - 20th February

2006-02-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hired a car yesterday in Coffs for 24 hours initially , not cheap at $68 but Europacar who are much cheaper were either having lunch or at the airport- their cabin though it had an open sign was firmly closed, so it will do. It's another automatic and a Hyundai this time smells plasticy new and drives well.
Before I hired the car Julie took me to see the water dragons who live in a bend in the creek overlooked by the Clog Barn - a Dutch themed cafe and sort of amusuement park ( on a very small scale). We had coffee and hot chocolate and raisin toast and leaned over the low wall to observe them - however the owners seem not to be particularly interested in them and couldnt tell us anything more about them . I found out that they lay their eggs Nov- Dec and the young hatch in Jan feb.
[21st - Actually I am now in Byron Bay, staying at the Arts Factory and I overheard a young man in khaki overalls, bare feet, and bracelets and necklaces made from a large carniverous animal telling a group of young 20 somethings all about them as there is a pond here and a huge male water dragon , even larger than the Coffs Harbour specimen. He was saying that the Aborigine group local to this area say that the water dragons place of origin is very near here and it is a sacred creature for this area.]
There were lots of them about 50-60cm long from head to tail - spotty and bar markings long long tails which they used like crocodiles do in the water just their heads sticking out, then they would climb up the concrete wall to find a sunny spot to dry off, static except for the occassional twitch of a claw or slight raising of a scaly arm. Suddenly there would be a bit of a tiff and a scurrying as one of two would vie for positions favoured such as on a log uduslly ending in a loud plop as one hit the water in not too sophisticated fashion.
Then the daddy of them all appeared , head way above the water, making for the main hang out - a huge thing maybe 80cm long, with an angular jaw , massive head and reddish underbelly and much more pronounced horny crest running from his head to his neck and a saggy throat pouch too. He had to be the male. Julie fed him bits of raisin toast but he was a bit slow or dim and the other smaller female or young dragons got the morsels from under his nose - chomping them with big pink fleshy mouths - I couldn't see any teeth but they are carniverous so perhaps they just have acid juice stomachs like the carniverous plants.
I caught a glimpse of a turtle in the water too - hanging around an aquatic plant of some sort I saw a flash of white belly and four brown paddles at each corner , but it was gone just as quickly.
They are Gippsland water dragons.

I drove back up to Dorrigo about 3pm and walked through the park slowly , taking photos with the camera on a tripod.By 5pm there were hardly any people there. By 6.30 pm I was the only one there - I had the rainforest to myself apart from a house phone somewhere which I could hear ringing! THere must be a house further up the road on the way to Never Never ( a real place) whichitself is in the Promised Land!Really, this is what the area is called.
I stayed till 8.20pm when it was pretty dark but dusk fell about 7.45pm and I had been reading a book in the car and eating licorice and when I looked up I realised there were shapes out on the grass area through the trees - I think they were pademelons - a type of roo - or else they were potoroos but I think these were too big - must have been pademelons. I approached as quietly as possible and one took off with a great thumping as its feet hit the ground but suprisingly not everyone was scared and after a while just accepted my presence as long as I didnt get too close and I took some photos grateful for the infrared light which automatically comes on so I could actually see what I was taking - just. There were also some mousey/rat type of animals who were very active for a bout 10 minutes rushing round my ankles on the path but then suddenly decided to be quiet again and disapperared back in to the bushes. Slightly unnerved me as they didn't seem scared of me at all at first and I thought about four of them were going to run up my ankles.

I ventured down the ramp into the rainforest proper to try and see the fireflies which a ranger had told me were there but I couldn't see them and no matter how calm I felt it was a bit spooky to penetrate the forest even further.The only torch I had was the illumination on the alarm clock which doubles as my timepiece. Actually fits well in my pocket and has survived a washing machine once.
I stayed out until 8.20pm - I had thought I might also see the flying foxes but I think there were actually micro bats ( ie the sonar insect eaters) in stead.
Poor Julie and Zi had started to get worried about 9pm that something must have happened but it took me much longer to drive back than I thought and also to find the right turn off the main road - not much street light.
As I was leaving Dorrigo the thunder started to rumble and the sky to be lit up periodically with electric light. That night I didn't sleep well - a huge electrical storm , wind and rain and a power cut. The bedroom kept illuminating with the lightning and it felt just like a tropical storm should be - in the morning the oppressive heat of the last few days had dissipated and it felt comfortably cool.

Daleks Dragons and flying fruit bats - 19th february

2006-02-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

The rainforest mists greeted me this morning and it was much cooler than yesterday. I spent the night dreaming about fleeing from sleeping daleks by organising my small group's escape via a small aeroplane which I would be flying though they were very slow to move and I was increasingly worried that the daleks were that moment stretching out their gun sticks and sleepily intoning the first exterminates of the day. But Zi and Julie ( complete opposite of Daleks) weren't back from their walk for another hour at least so I had a shower and breakfast and watched a pair of brilliantly coloured lorikeets and a lone honeyeater taking the pollen from the yellow flowers of the grevillia out on the verandah which has a wonderful view of the Dorrigo mountains about 29 k away.
A kookaburra , enormous bird , perched on a eucalyptus branch and eyed me whilst I tried to get the automatic focus to focus.

Socks
Zi and Julie came back from their daily walk -Zi had stubbed his toe and it was bleeding through his sock - I later got a bloody sock when a leech latched onto my ankle in Dorrigo NP and got behind my sock to have a good long suck - it let go reluctantly when I first pulled it then flicked it clear but all day my blood has been running because they dilute it with their saliva to water it down as neat is obviously not to their liking and they like it fast flowing. This really makes me feel as if I am in the jungle - even in Manu , Peru I didn't have leeches as well as mosquitoes and sandflies appreciating my blood.

Julie drove us to Dorrigo National Park where I was in heaven. I love rainforest second only to cloudforest - the enormous range of animal insect and botanical life , the colours the sounds - all wonderful.
We walked round the 2.5 hr Wonga Walk , mostly in the shade due to canopy which was just as well as the heat , well up into the mid 30's. There were lots of birds, often hard to see in the canopy but could make out a currawong which has a song reminiscent of the NZ tui - Julie pomnted out the bowerbird's song and we both saw rufous fantails which migrate to New Guinea. There were also scrub wrens, yellow thorated and white browed. We didnt see unfortuntaley any pademelons ( which look like relation of wallaby) or poteroos - also look like small kanga type thing but we did see the rare southern angle headed dragon - and I took photos. It isn't really the size you'd expect of somehting called a dragon - no komodo this - but nethertheless it was an impressive little reptile. Huge butresses of stangler figs , giant stinging trees with their enormous hairy and naturally very stingy leaves, cedars, coachwoods, rosewoods, tamarinds and lots and lots of short 2m or less walking stick palms with many strings of red berries dangling from their branches . We rounded a corner and there on the path was a wonderful large goanna - wearing wonderful yellow spotted trouser legs and white polka dot shirt on his back - and forked tongue waving in the air - for insects or smell ? I don't know which. Famously they sometimes mistake humans for trees and run up you to hide on your head when they sense danger - doesnt seem too bright a creature but it wouldnt pose for me like the angle dragon did nor as the interestingly named land mullets did - I saw two of the latter, pretending not to be there , but standing out rather well for a photo on the lower reaches of a tree trunk. They are a milk chocolate brown and look plump and well feed little lizards.
- We walked behind the Crystal SHower Falls at which point my camera battery failed - of course - battery having been used a lot to focus on small things at which it is not very good and even macro function is not very reliable but difficult lighting in the rainforest so I shouldnt be too harsh.
We had lunch in the information centre's cafe - A Dorrigo potato each -and sat right next to and almost on top of the only fan inside as it was really baking by now. Dorrigo potoato is a baked potato with cheese and salad. A quick visit to an art gallery in Dorrigo ( which is apparently a little more red neck than laid back Bellingen) finally had me digging for my card - I didnt buy any souvenirs in NZ but here bought some very modestly priced objects - just the two. There was no one else on the streets of Dorrigo at all.
Back in Bellingen we went to see the famous Bellingen fruit bat colony on Bellingen Island which is right next door to a ( human) camp site. There is supposed to be a bad smell but I smelt nothing untoward and was amazed by the sight of hundreds and hundreds of bats or flying foxes hanging by their legs , black robed with wings folded across their chests, vampire like, occassionaly fanning themselves with one wing to keep cool. Flying Fox is a more accurate appelation as they are mammals and don't hunt for insects by sonar. Instead they hunt by night for pollen and nectar from gum trees and also but not exclusively fruits of the rainforest. When there are no rainforest trees beacuse they have all been chopped down they will feast on the fruits of domestic gardens and orchards which has made them rather unpopular with farmers and councils etc. They rather liked Melbourne's Botanic Gardens but were culled as they were stripping all the trees. However despite being shot and killed in numbers they persisted in roosting there and I think the MBG have now relented and they , as native inhabitants have been allowed to stay- the ones that have survived. THey are close to featuring on the endangered species list beacuse of shortage of food sources , persecution and slow breeding - the females can only breed at 3 years old and gestatation seems to be from what I can make out about 8- 9 months. A female only has one baby a year and the young stay with their mothers too for many months before becoming independant. The population has halved in the last 20 years.
They don't eat in the day. At dusk in Bellingen,every night , from a viewpoint by the bridge over the river, you can see the most spectacular sight as noiselessly thousands upon thousands of flying foxes leave their camp and follow the river to their feeding grounds for the night. Roughly 20,000 foxes live in Bellingen but they are nomadic and may spend time in Queensland .
They are very beautiful - with little red bodies and jet black wings and legs and keen little eyes which observe you from their upside down perch as you wander beneath - it was obvious that some had babies snuggled up to them. They have fox like little faces and really are very sweet and fascinating - how on earth did they evolve? - they do look like a cross genetic experiment- the wings are enormous. We saw them climbing around trees using the claws on the ends of their wings.

At dusk Julie drove us out to see the bats flying out at dusk - we got there just before they flew - the sky was clear one minute then I could make out about 20 flying figures rising above the trees in the distance downriver - in a matter of minutes a fully fledged convoy was on its way - the evening sky filled with clear bat winged forms , making no noise at all save for a very occasional chirrup , all heading down river towards the sea. We stood for about 20 minutes watching before the sky was almost clear again.

For more info on flying foxes try www.bellingen.com/flyingfoxes/. Vivien Jones, a wildlife photographer has taken some wonderful photos of the bats , the next best thing to actually seeing them.

I might be able to post some blurry pics of the bats later on plus slightly better ones of the reptiles - hopefully.

Coffs Harbour

2006-02-17T01:31:00.000-08:00

It poured with rain all Thursday and the air was so heavy and muggy that I fell asleep after breakfast reading "The End of Globalism" . It looks as if a US led invasion of Iran is just a matter of time, Tony Blair will back up his friend of course .
Friday - three Uk young ladies staying in the dorm with me - they are here for the wedding of their Australian friend who they met back in blighty. THey were all very sweet and polite and communicative and totally restored my faith in British people.
The YHA is brick and new - piped soft rock in the corridors which I hate. But it is squeaky clean apart from the showers in the mornings and there is a walk in freezer for a fridge. Great for cooling down!
Spoke to a Taiwanese woman called Sherry who is here on holiday to improve her English - she is a primary school teacher back in Taiwan - she wanted me to write something for her about what I read in newspapers for an assignment she has to complete and I explained the meaning of "shot in the dark to her" and "cat on a hot tin roof" where these have been used as subheadings with double meanings for stories. I asked her how to say Thank you in Chinese - it is "xie xie " - (thank you for putting me right on the spelling, Patience!) Sherry speaks Taiwanese and Chinese and English.
10.30 pm - all the UK girls tucked up in bed and asleep!
Friday - blue sky few clouds - very very hot.
Jetty Beach to swim - fish jumping clear of the water close to the beach. Don't know what type they are but look silvery and long and they seem to jump in a line.
Julie Fuad picked me up from bus stop in Coffs and drove us to Bellengen. I haven't seen Julie or Zi her husband since I was last in Australia 17 years ago.

Pacific Highway to Coffs Harbour

2006-02-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

Bus trip from 7am to 4pm to reach Coffs Harbour. The road, considering it is a main highway is in terrible condition bumps and patch repairs the whole way - absolutely awful.
YOu have to wear a seat belt in the coach. On the whole I have been more comfortable on S American buses!
Coffs Harbour drizzly and not terribly inspiring , the YHA a bit antiseptic with piped pop music - urggh.
Big Hostel , 212 Elizabeth St where I stayed for 4 nights inSydney was best hostel I have stayed in so far very very friendly adn helpful staff who remember your name incredibly. BIg clean dorms with max 6 beds in room, lots of storage, clean bathrooms and a roof garden with BBQ and they give you a very adequate free breakfast as well. Free internet ( 10 mins at a go) - 9 out of 10. At no more cost than other hostels.

Sydney Australia

2006-02-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

At 4.10m on Friday 10th feb the alarm went off.
Kate , Lisa's cousin who was flying to Nelson for a friend's wedding drove us both to Auckland Airport.
Non eventful flight but someone coughed heartily behind me all the way and I hoped I wouldn't catch anything. I havnet been ill at all since Argentina back in October.
Flying over Sydney harbour was quite emotional - seeing the busy harbuor with the white trails of ferries and boats everywhere , the opera house and harbour bridge just reminded me what a wonderful city it is.
I am staying at the Big Hostel in Elizabeth St. I am amazed at how well I remember the city and how little it has really changed. The bookshop where I worked for 3 months is still there just opposite Central Station- the University of Technology CO op Bookshop - and in fact it has even got bigger! But I doubt anyone I know still works there -Rose and Mark and the guy who used to bring us all croissants for breakfast.
I also took a walk down Crown St just off Oxford St - still the same - even the house I lived in has the same rather grungy look and the Dolphin Hotel is still open. I couldn't see the Maltese bakery though and one of the other formerly grungy pubs has gone upmarket.
I went to see Broke back mountain which is apparently based on an E Annie Prolux short story but I dont remember reading it.
Sydney has cheap internet - hence the ability to catch up a bit!
Very hot and steamy here. Dormitory of 6 - all but 2 of us Koreans studying english. Maria is a model from Germany, only 20 yrs old and out here to model for a while with a different agency. She is worldly wise beyond her years very intelligent and good fun - we walked and talked around the harbour area this afternoon.
Sydney siders are much cheekier than their Auckland counterparts - I have been called Darling about 5 times so far - not once in Auckland- hate it because it's so patronising but no longer have the energy or patience to engage in objection .
The hostel is very friendly - although there must beat least a hundred staying there the woman who checked me in remembers my name and all the staff are genuinely friendly, its also clean and well organised even nice pics and photos on the corridor walls and a roof garden. Bit pricey though at $27 a night though this does include breakfast if you get up earlier enough for it. It is also thankfulluy not a party hostel which is why I chose it quite frankly. Some of the hostels are full of organised groups of young things after a "good time" and I want to be as far away f rom them as possible. Look at how old and fusty I am getting!

Napier to Mahia Peninsula and New Plymouth

2006-02-11T04:27:00.000-08:00

I made an unscheduled stop in Wairoa due to a puncture. I noticed the car handling strangely and pulled into a petrol station. Once out of the car I saw that the tyre was completely flat. As it was nearly 9pm and almost dark I decided I might as well stay the night. Luckily Wairoa is awash with car mechanics and tyre fitters for a town of its size . The breakdown guy affiliated with my car rental company was with me in 5 minutes even though it was a Sunday evening , he put the emergency tyre on and he directed me to the campsite. I decided not to put up the tent and slept in the car which was actually very comfortable as the passenger seat alm ost reclines horizontally - a lot more comfortable in fact than the Peruvan semi cama ( half bed) buses! - but the mossies got me at dawn.
Everyone was still in bed when I went to the showers. 50c for 5 mintes of hot water. Very clean with soft rock playing from a big speaker. Oddly no music in the kitchen and no one else there.The walls were covered in photos of the owners dressing up for carnival and posing with water skiers. There was an article about their camp bbq which is a model of the backend of Chevrolet. The boot lifts to reveal the grill. The numberplate is BBQ natch. They installed it in response to an inspectors report that the site was in good order but rather dull!
I boiled 2 eggs forlunch in the camp kitchen and talked to Stu Brown -who appeared aftera few mintues - ex army he had been married 3 times , has 5 kids but now single , drives trucks and stays on the campsite when in town - no longer has a house - he was very friendly and spoke to me first. No one else up which was a relief as I didnt feel like weaving in amongst lots of people. Stu spoke about his life , his trip to Japan at the age of 21 which sounded like the highlight of his life, and his failed marriages. He seemed a sensitive soul who enjoyed meeting travellers and the water skiers who come to Wairoa , proud of his children's achievements and fond of conversation - I was quite happy to let him do all the talking.
I dropped my car off to get a new tyre and walked round Wairoa - Marine Parade just one long straggly row of shops parallel to the river. I spoke to the guy in the DOC office. He gave me a start when he suddenly appeared behind the counter as I was engrossed in leaflets. I confided to him about my problem heel and how the very thing I most wanted to do in NZ I could no longer do ie long 3 or 4 day walks. He said well it will give you something to do when you come back next time!
I drove to Mahia Beach. Main beach rather bleak with a cliff up above on which waving long grass ripped as if alive in the wind. Even after a swim it didnt feel like the place I had come to visit so I drove to another beach further north - Mahanga - which was much much nicer - a proper bay with shells and small hidden private baches furhter back from the shore. Someone had hung a sprig of lavender in the ladies public loos. The beach was covered in beautiful shells which went all hte way up above the tide mark and clinked together to make very pleasnt sound. I made a little driftwood windbreak and ate lunch and then read on the beach. A man in a car with two small children arrived in a car and they loaded the boot with driftwood of which there was plenty.
Read about the whale that swam up the Thames but has now died. Meanwhile the Japanese are narrowly missing harpooning Greenpeace inflatables which are trying to disrupt their cull of 95 minke whales for "research" . No one except the Japanese now believe the cull is for anything nore scientific than eating.
Camped in a huge motorcamp back in central Mahia as the other campground which was nicer and on the beach has gone the way of so many council and private sites and been sold for private development. Camp managers blame the government which gaves no rates relief whatsoever to campsites - and they simply cannot make their business work. This and the high values for property and land have meant that a way of life for Kiwis is rapidly disappearing.
Started reading Lyall Watson's 1970's classic SuperNature.

Next day it poured with rain.
I stopped at Nuhaka on way back out to the main road and asked in the shop about seeing the local Marae ( Maori meeting house) - yes I ve got a key said Jan the owner who it later transpired is a Mormon but also a marae board member. She took me over after shutting up shop . The marae was built with mormon money . The figures all round the room are individuall y carved out of single blocks of kauri and each tells a story. Natural wood is stained with red ochre. This is only marae in NZ with a stage.
Still raining. I drove to Lake Waikaremoana , via Mokau Falls but it was still raining heavily. A family chatted to me when I stopped to look at falls and wished me luck on my trip. The rain really set in then and I considered continuing onto Rotorua as the family were to avoid any possible landslips.
instead I found the campsite - beautiful - right by the lake - but the rain was unremitting and the car became my home for next 12 hours.

Dreamed a lot in the night but rain had cleared up by morning . Drove on through beautiful country along SH 43 the Lost Highway as the tourist office calls it.GOes through beautiful stretches of rainforest and beside roaring rivers. Camped on top of range of hills - the only person there. Cheese sandwich again as no kitchen facilities.
Next morning stopped in Whangamoana which is a collectoin of old wooden buildings and 43 inhabitants. A sign at the entrance to the town says "pop 43 - Join Us!" there is even a little border crossing booth - a remnant from the day in November 1989 when they declared themselves a republic in protest at a proposal to remove it from Taranaki county. On htat day there were passport checks and a toll for passing through the town. Apparently it is frequently used as a film location. The butchers shop was up for sale.

I arrived in New Plymouth in the afternoon and set up my tent in the YHA Ecolodge. A young woman flashed me a big smile as she pulled in in her car - she was also camping. I went over and said hello and she was as friendly as her smile had indicated. Sylvia , a former tour rep from Germany and I talked for most of the next morning which meant I didn't do half the things I intended but as the weather had been increasingly hot and I hadn't really talked to anyone for about 4 days it was very nice to chew the fat with someone. I told her she must drive back to Hastings ( where she is based picking apples )via the lost highway.
I then met Eileen from UK who inspired by her son is travelling in NZ. SHe is a retired special needs teacher and she talked about the alarming rising number of cases of children who seem to have no moral sense and enjoy inflicting pain. Her school has been closed down due to withdrawal of govt funding so these children now have very little options for edcuation.
I immediately asked if she knew Doris Lessings book the Fifth Child and of course she did. I often wonder what experience Doris L had to inspire her to write 5th child.
I cooked Eileen and myself a cauliflower curry as hte kitchen was wonderfully equipped.

Saturday - Sylvia and I went to the beach just round the coast from New Plymouth - very rough and powerful waves, great for body surfing and lovely water temperature. Eileen Sylvia and I made a big pasta salad and had this with wine - all very civilised in the backpacker kitchen. Place was swamped later by cyclists taking place in race round Mount Taranaki ( aka Mt Egmont) which was used as a stand in for Mt Fuji in film The Last Samauri. Though of course I am not in the least interested in the current craze for seeing locations for films such as Lord of the Rings and Narnia though plenty of tourists are and you can even buy road maps with the sites marked on or pay a pile of money to be taken on a tour. But I do wonder where they filmed TV programme Xena Princess Warrior which in more escapist moments sitting at my desk at work I would imagine running away to work on in some capacity!

Auckland again - Julian and Sue Godwin & Dim sum

2006-02-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

I was due to fly out to Sydney on 9th February but decided to extend one more day to squeeze in some admin stuff and also to make a visit out to Howick to visit Julian and Sue. I got a bus out to Howick which was very painless - buses are all very clean and efficient but they are not terribly plentiful and don't have that many stops ( which makes them fast) adn Julian picked me up at the Howick shops.
I was amazed at all the sewn together dinghies in various sheds around the house - there is a lovely looking one called Sew Long - picture when I get access to fast internet.House is simple and comfortable and covered in wonderful paintings and drawings - . We discussed the state of the world over dinner with homegrown green beans and tomatoes and Julian told me how he'd been involved in his engineering capacity with the restoratoin of the Pupu Springs power station which generates some 10% of Takaka's energy and also the restoration of another water powered energy station on private land at Onekaka.
I stayed the night and caught a bus back to central Auckland and met Lisa for lunch near her work place at Viaduct Harbour - the best dim sum I have ever had! A rather smart Chinese restaurant where waitresses bring round bamboo steamers full of dumplings of all different types to the table and you just choose which ones you want and they are ticked on a card to be tallied up at the end. The trouble is things just keep on coming and it is hard to say no to some of them.

Napier & Hastings Art Deco NZ style

2006-02-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

More buildings in Napier and Hastings. The handsome clocktower is in Hastings. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and the town was all but deserted. That's a very noticeable thing in NZ - shops all close at 5pm and at lunchtime on Saturday and everyone goes home or out to fish,surf or walk. Towns are completly dead - cities a little less so.
In Napier after the art deco walk of the morning a woman seemed to be chastising herself loudly on the grass outside the Sound Shell on the promenade. However as I drew closer it transpired she was sermonising to some checkshirted people, heads bowed in misery at the extent of their sins. Our passions lead us astray she was saying.
I decided not to have a coffee in a cafe and instead I wrote postcards on the grey shingled beach pausing to eat half a water melon in between . I had rung Lisa the previous day and she had asked whether my diet included any fresh fruit -she seems to sense these things and as I was having quite a run on cheese sandwiches I followed her advice to buy some seasonal fruit - aproicots nectarines and cherries and the water melon and of course felt much better though a large bag of plums went rotten in the intense sun on the back ledge of the car before I could eat them.
I was taking a picture of a cafe called Paxies when a man came rushing out and yelled "O no you dont- this is my cafe - No Photographs - I own it!" The cafe was totally deserted and I couldn't help thinking that if he'd made a photograph conditional on buying a coffee he might do better business but maybe he enjoyed having the cafe to himself.
A man in a shop where I bought a tripod for camera showed me a camera I asked to see in the second hand window - a Olympus Pen E - a compact camera it takes half frame pictures so from a roll of 24 you get 48 photos. Obviously today it is hard to get anyone to develop films like this but he offered to lend me the camera for a day and then develop the film for me but unfortunately I didn't think I could justify another day in Napier just for the camera but it was kind of him all the same.

There was a great museum in Napier - I tried to draw some of the Maori wood and bone carvings .

The old Newspaper building. Now owned by Bayleys the estate agents ( I am gusessing but their flag flys from the mast - which Lisa works for in Auckland)

Castlepoint and buildings in Napier

2006-02-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

On left the New Zealand Shipping Company, which my father worked for before it was subsumed into OCL and subsequently P&O. This building is actually later than many of the Napier buildings and only dates from 1950's.
Napier suffered a massive earthquake in 1930 and was pretty much razed to the ground. It also gained in size as the sea went out ( not in - no Tsnaumi) leaving previous marshy land high and dry. A progressive town council decided to commissoin young recently graduated architects to rebuild the town in the style of the time . There is now an Art Deco week in Napier with associated events. All the motifs associated with Art Deco, fountains, ziggurats, stylised flowers etc can be found on buildings around the town. Some have incorporated traditional maori patterns into the buildings too.

Castlepoint lighthouse: after dropping in on a friend I met in Ecuador at his parents' house in Masterton I headed for Castlepoint for the night. David's parents told me how just the week before Peter Jackson had been spotted on the beach taking photos of seagulls. He has a huge mansion nearby apparently. All hte local builders are thoroughly fed up of working for him because he keeps changing his mind about the decor which is constantly being redesigned.
There are some nice dunes here and I had my cheese and beetroot sandwiches hidden away looking out to sea and playing guitar until it got dark.

Leaving Wellington

2006-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

On the left" State Highway 2 which winds up through Lower and Upper Hutt from Wellington to a summit called.................................................

Nautilus shell in Te Papa museum.

Wellington

2006-02-08T22:29:00.000-08:00

I stayed at Rowenas hostel which was about 15 minutes walk from centre of town. Dropped off Very in Newtown for a Mcgillicuddy party - before this he gave me a quick tour of his Wellington ie the square where he used to secrete pigeons which he would then release from his cloak to impress the office workers .
I would have stayed but was just so pooped and didnt feel up to vibrant conversation so excused myself and cooked some pasta and brocoli before bed, a book and glass of wine in the tent. In the night the tent flapped violently in the gale force winds which took a huge toll on Christchurch. I wedged my tent in between a flax bush and a hebe which gave it some protectoin even so I didnt really sleep well as the door was constantly flapping against my head.
Walked to town and went to Te Papa ( Our Place) the National Museum to find out about earthquakes and giant land snails.
Strolled along water front. very pleasant city. Saw The constant gardener which impressed me and also King Kong which premiered at the restored art deco cinema The Embassy at the bottom of Kent and Cambridge. In fact a lot of impressive buildings in Wellington. surrounded by lots of hills with wooden villas and white dairys ( corner shops) .
King Kong was excellent film much better than I expected. Also went to see a so so play in fringe theatre.
Good second hand book shops.
Best thing was taking cable car up to Botanic Gardens one evening to watch live music - funk band - teh Hairy Lollipops in the sound shell . Lots of people , families kids wonderful music a picnic and the magical lights. Great night.
Met Duke of Wellington aka Tony for a coffee and he drove me a round to see a bit of Wellington - the municipal beach with imported sand .
Met up with David King as well after a job interview for a coffee and watched outdoor jazz at Te Papa. A nice city.

Left: Painting of Fay Godwin and her sister by Ruth ANgus, NZ painter who I greatly admire. I m sure I wasnt supposed to take picture with camera but that didn't occur to me at the time. There is a wonderful gallery on the 5th floor of the Te Papa museum which has a thrilling selection of NZ painting.

The Tattoo museum ( not actually very good or educational) in Wellington - on a wet and windy day.

The lighting installation in the Botanic Gardens - really magical! There was also a sensor in the trees which operated a follow spot which had little children and adults having great fun jumping in and out of the limelight and having it follow you up the (garden)path!
Live concerts were playing nightly in the 1950's sound shell next door to the gardens.

This is the famous corrugated car which the artist drove round NZ - it is now installed in Te Papa museum as part of the NZ ingenuity exhibition.

The other painting I just really liked.

Rowenas Backpackers Wellington

2006-02-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

I met some nice people in Rowena's which in a way was a typical old style hostel . It was a huge rambling building with rather worse for wear carpet in the grungy common room which had stained formica tables and plastic office chairs which were loosing their rigidity. Nothing looked terribly new or clean .
If you have never stayed in a hostel these pictures will probably give you a bit of an impression ( not to mention put you off for life!)
The "mother" sign is international and appeared in shared lodgings in Peru Bolivia Ecuador etc , in Spanish of course with various variatoins on the theme usually along the lines of " I am not your mother"

Photos NZ

2006-02-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

Left: the ladies who work at Trash Palace - Takaka's clothes recyclingshop.

Above: Martyn Milligan, jeweller

Far left: Karst stone : the top of Takaka is one great karst landscape with a large marble quarry just off the main road.

Left: Very Impressive, Shaman of South

Golden Bay photos

2006-02-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

Below is the view from Martyn Milligan's kitchen window over the Para Para inlet - I think it is gorgeous! I used to live just a bit further up the same road, but without the view, in a Tipi close to the Para Para river, which still has a lot of gold in it. Last time I was here Cirrus, whose tipi it was took me panning for gold and I still have some little flakes in an old film container.

To the left is a painting by an artist who works from a "hobbit house" at Jester House.

Near left:Very, Stripey and Alex

Far left : a huge cave on Wharareiki beach where 11 of us went for a picnic - it is always very windy here and the cave gives a bit of a relief and is a good place for a picnic without the added sand garnish. It has also been used as a wedding venue!
The man on the left is Chris Bone ( not his real name) who carves bone and teaches people how to carve in his workshop behind Commerical Street in Takaka.
His workshop is in true Golden Bay artistic style with every inch of wall covered in fascinating bits and pieces.
He showed me a piece of very rare gold coral that he had hidden away in a draw which he will use as inlay for a piece.
You learn on cow bone - I made a cow bone Hapu or fishing hook first time in NZ, but the more expensive pieces are always made from much sought after whale bone.
No one is supposed to dig up the beached whale carcasses so I m not sure where it all actually comes from!

Pupu Walkway

2006-02-08T21:53:00.000-08:00

Dan and Nome on the Walkway

Pupu Springs, near Puramahoi, Golden Bay

2006-02-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Pupu Springs is the largest freshwater spring in the southern hemisphere.... DOC have built a werid upside down periscope to enable you to view the "dancing sands" - agitated by the power of the water welling up directly from beneath the ground. There is some impressive statistic about how many gallons emerge every second but I can't lay my fingers on it right this minute. Big salmon swim about underneath and ducks love paddling around on the top. It is prohibited to swim in the water as it is a site sacred to the Maori adn this would amount to pollution but for some reason divers can "drift dive" which means float around in the current.

Whoops! Somehow managed to get multiple images again! HOwever if I press delete on any of them I will delete all of them as that is the way this programme seems to work.

View of the Anatoki River, near Takaka NZ

2006-02-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

From Takaka you drive over a bridge over the Takaka River and then turn off towards the Anatoki Valley The unsealed road then follows the river up to the Rainbow community where the Kiwiburn was held . There is a beautiful swimming hole near the site, deep and clear and icy cold. Everyone is worried about the rogue water weed didymo getting into all the NZ rivers.

Sun Blocks and Creams

2006-02-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Eidelweiss Sun block?? No way is some flower extract going to protect me from the sun! This is what went through my mind in a heath food shop in Nelson. I bought instead a huge bottle of sunblock SPF 30 with a reassuringly long list of chemical ingredients from a conventional pharmacist.
I thought I might just make a note about this topic as it is a hot and slippery one.
Everyone knows that you need a good sunblock now that in these days of ozone depletion the sun is so much harsher and noticeably so in New Zealand where even Lisa's cousin who lives in Sydney says she thinks the sun is actually stronger here and she is right - there are large and plentiful holes allowing more UV light in here than nearly anywhere else. Burn time is 10 minutes.
However many of the sun creams especially the higher factor ones( SPF - Sun protection factor) -contain very toxic carcinogenic ingredients so it is worth checking the label before buying. Of course I read this in Organic NZ magazine just after I had just bought a large bottle of suncream, factor 30 , which contained nearly all the villains!
The things to avoid are:
PABA
Oxybenzone
Titanium dioxide
Padimate O
Octyl diethymol PABA

HOwever most skin damage caused by exposure to the sun happens before the age of 18 - so chances of getting skin cancer somewhat influenced by exposure to sun in childhood years and it is probably not worth using a reallly high factor unless you are of tender years.
Sun cream also only protescts you for so long and the main message of the article is not to spend too long out in the intense sun in the first place.

So what to use?
Mineral based sun blocks such as zinc oxide tend to be less irritating than chemical sunscreens. Try those based on aloe vera, evening primrose oil and other natural oils. Zinc ointment is good.
Other ingredients which are safe and efficacious against UV and also mositurise are, jojoba, african shea butter, hemp seed oil, neo heliopan, bees wax, mimosa flower wax, lecithin from soybeans and vitamin E oil . Weleda are a good make to buy and in the end, having po pooed Weleda's product I had to eat my words and now I have my eidelweiss cream handy all the time - though needless to say they are more expensive than any of the conventional creams.

So slip on a hat and slap on some flower extract for your own good!

Windy Wellington

2006-01-17T19:39:00.000-08:00

Yes it is! It has done nothing but blow gales here for the last 4 days. But despite this I like Wellington -but let me qualify that with I like it as long as my tent hasnt blown away when I get back to the hostel. I t is looking alarmingly unstable and wobbles violently like an electrocuted jelly. And apparetnly it is not uncommon for tents to end up in neighbours gardens.'Bit worried about the wind AND rain combination. I think I may be sleeping in the car tonight.

Te Papa is the new waterfront museum and pride of Wellington - a huge and rambling museum - free admission -with a big art section which introduced me to some of the excellent art there is here - Rita ANgus and Colin McCahon. Tim Armstrong and photographer Anne Noble and self taught artist Jeffrey Harris - wonderful pencil line drawings .
In other sections there is an earthquake simulator similar to that in the London Earth Museum - it recreates the quake I experienced in 1987 at Hamner Springs which was 6.3 on the richter scale. Also an earthquake catcher - a chinese seismograph built in 132 AD it is a casing with a pendulum inside which when a quake hits knocks against a lever causing a dragon on the outside to disgorge a ball which drops into the open mouth of a toad sitting beneath indicating which direction the waves are travelling - ingenious and very beautiful!

I have just been to the National tattoo Museum - Maori moka - or body tattoos are different from other countries tattoos as the skin is actually cut into to make the tattoo. THere has been a big resurgence in tattooing traditionally or at least with traditional designs rather than techniques - and these Maori tattoos actually signify something deeper than western ideas of what should go on the body ( butterflies, tigers, fluffy horses DAD MUM) as they start to have tattoos at puberty starting on hte leg . The tattoos tell the life story of the person , which tribe htey belong to , how many sisters brothers etc whole mythology of spiral and natural based motifs. But I won't be getting one . But made me think of the film with Ewan McGregor in it -The Pillowbook - where he becomes a living book - and htere is another famous film - The illustrated Man - but I have never seen it so don't know whether its about tattoos and stories or not. The Maori explained their moka (full face moka reserved for only the very special;women traditionally wear moka on chin and neck) as signatures.

Last night took the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens to see free music concert in the soundshell - old 50s construction within the gardens - the Hairy Lollipops were wonderfully funky and very cool too was the lighting installation on the flower beds and palm trees.

Planning next move out of Wellington as time running short now - but this city with its inviting waterfront has a lot to offer , beautiful deco buildings and lovely wooden villas surrounded by green hills, trendy cafes and retro clothing shops, lots of museums and very lively arts scene.

Afghans and Muffins

2006-01-17T19:10:00.000-08:00

New Zealanders are mad about muffins -( Note to Patricia WO :Have you seen the muffin man the muffin man have you seen the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane??) my favourites are the savoury ones - usually and most famously these are spinach and cheese. The best in Christchurch came from the Colombo St cafe which is still going after all these years.

This is the Takaka Wholemeal Cafe's recipe for cheese and avocado muffins:

3 cups white flour (!)
1 tbs baking pwoder
hlaf cup bran
half cup wheat germ
quarter cup flaky yeast
1 tsp paprika
half tsp slat
half tsp dried oregano
2cups grated cheese
1 large onion
1 ripe firm avocado
2 eggs,
50g butter or oil
2 cups mild
200g youghurt

Combine all dry ingredients chop onion and saute with oil ;beat eggs , milk and yoghurt
Add onion and diced avocado to dry mixture then melted butter and egg and yoghurt mixture.
Stir slowly until blended , do not overbeat.
Bake for 30-35 minutes at 170 degrees C.
Makes 6-12.

www.wholemealcafe.co.nz

Afghan Biscuits -another Kiwi classic
Dee Hannah makes the best ever as well as Anzac biscuits. But Afghans are the best. Have nothing to do with dogs and I really can't guess why they are so named - lots of chocolate, cornflakes and a walnut on top of chocolate icing is the authentic way. Dee used Aunt Daisys cookbook an NZ institution - however everyone here cites the Edmonds cookbook as the bible.
The best commerically made Afghans I have had so far on this trip came from the Northcote shops bakery - for $1 you can buy a deliciously wicked and rich concoction the size of large bisucit tin lid. Batch made or packet Afghans are simply not worth buying.

Farewell Spit Tour

2006-01-16T00:51:00.000-08:00

I shelled out for a trip from COllingwood to Farewell Spit with Farewell Spit Eco Tours which was established by two brothers just after the second world war. The company still uses converted troop carriers to take you up the beach and out onto the spit.
Black swans converge on the area to breed and feed on the eel grass - they are immigrants from Australia - some 30,000 live here now.
Big scalloping industry as well harvesting from the estuary flats to supply Japan and the US.
On the spit reserve we saw fur seals and were advised not to get between them and the sea - then they get scared and they are so big you would not want to tangle with them.
We scaled one of the dunes - thedark colouration patches in the sand are caused by moisture from underground streams seeping up - the wind then erodes the sand unevenly where it is wetter and denser giving rise to interesting shapes - must try and post another pic here when time allows.
At the top of the Spit is a lighthouse - now unmanned and a research station where the keepers used to live- with interesting collection of shells and Spit paraphenalia - old lighthouse lenses ,nautilus shells etc. No one is allowed onto the spit except in the tour - very unspoilt and wild - constantly changing shape and size though. Fairy terns and oyster catchers.

Stayed that night at Farewell Spit camp site - very few other people there but spoke with nice English couple - Quenie a landscape gardener and Ian- poured with rain during the night and I woke up with a start as my toes were wet - a bit of a leak at the feet end of the tent - ned more pegs! A few days later the beach opposite the campsite was filled with the beached pilot whales.

Return to Golden Bay - 13th December 2005.....

2006-01-16T00:18:00.000-08:00

I drove over the hill from Nelson having driven most of the day from Havelock where I stayed at the Rutherford YHA and ate a very mediocre Mussel chowder. Nelson was throbbing with people and i recognised none of it.
I got more and more excited as I drove through Motueka, now grown from a few shops to a long sprawl of consumerist opportunity and strewn with Backpacker hostels full of youngsters on work visas picking kiwifruit apples and boysenberries. Traditional crops of hops and tobacco are grown less and less. From the bottom of Mot it is a long long haul up Takaka hill to the weird karst outcrops on top. A sign points off to the right towards Harwoods Hole. I haven't heard anyone really report anything about this place except that it is a big hole in the ground - a sink hole I suppose where water has collapsed the limstone. There are various lookouts as you snake down into the valley - views across the Takaka valley ( I made that up as not entirely sure what it's actually called )- in the right weather it reminds me strongly of the sacred valley in Peru- not quite the Andes but the hills are very big.
I didnt actually remember the approach and the land seemed very flat , I passed a sign to the ANatoki Valley which was vaguley reminiscent but didn't remember at all Paynes Ford which is where one of ALf's Imperial Army is based and where climbers camp in order to scale the limestone escarpment.
I stayed first night in Ok hostel would have been nicer but there were some surly and arrogant Austrian boys who took over the whole lounge .
the next night I went out for dinner with MOrag in Old Plain Road which I realised was the road to the farm where I used to take to prune Kiwifruit when last here.
Morag has just moved back from Nelson after 8 years away from the Bay and bought a house, rimu throughout and a decent sized garden. I bought her a purple asparagus plant for the garden.
I had set up camp earlier in the day at Pohara Beach Top 10 campsite and went for a swim further along the coast at the beautiful and pretty deserted Tata Tata Beach .
I also revisted the Grove -out at Clifton and remembered this place and some of the houses on the way. The A frame that had pumpkins outside and a goat grazing on the verge is now up for sale- as are many of the properties all around. the Grove - limestone hillocks have immense trees growing up on top of them as you squeeze through the narrow walkway beneath them - limestone rocks which are full of fossilised sea shells indicating that this whole area was once under the sea - there are weird shapes in the rocks, scalloped out holes and a nikau palm bent at right angles to get at the sun. I startled two stoats out of their lair but failed to get a picture of them in time - just enough to see the black tips of their tails disappearing into a pile of rocks. It was wonderful to have a car this time - last time I cycled to see some things but inevitably missed a lot and I think there are more signposts up now as well - certainly more businesses along the way - restaurants , the Sans Souci ( without worries) near Pohara which is made of adobe with turf roofing) and various galleries and alternative therapy places.

I drove down to Onekaka Wharf as well - and took lots of pictures - it will be interesting to see my original pics as I think there was much more of it still standing 18 years ago.

Driving out to Para Para I was startled by the distance from Takaka as I used to hitch in regularly to buy supplies when staying at the tipi - and there was also a long long walk from the turn off - must have been very fit!

Wharawheriki Beach

2006-01-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

On Sunday 8th January Grant decided that we all could do with a bit of an outing so in my car and his Tribull Drums van we all took off , a party of 11 of us to the beach driving past Puponga where the pilot whales beached just before Christmas.

[There is a piece in the Wellington Dominion that suggests that the Japanese whalers currently hunting minke in the pacific for "scientific purposes" which everyone knows means eating - should hunt the pilot whales instead as they seem to be suicidal in their beachings. Latest theories are that beachings are either due to seismic activity or that sonar use disrupts whales' own directional apparatus. ]

This beach locally known as Freaky Beach , is wild and wonderful adn usually deserted. It takes a good 20 mintues or so to walk across farmland dotted with cabbage trees and across huge sand dunes to reach the beach . I had been there a few weeks before and the beach had a big fur seal every 20 metres or so and the tide was well in. Today it was right out and we could reach the caves around the corner. It was incredibly windy and we were literally sandblasted until we reached the respite of the caves . We ate a picnic lunch at the back of one cave , where Grant said a couple he knew had got married , everyone dressing in fancy dress and then swimming in the sea afterwards. Grant seemed disappointed that two dim shapes at the back of the cave turned out to be rocks and not seals.
As it was a bit cold in the cave Dan and NOme suggested a game of zombie tag outside in the sun before we lay down to a laughing meditation. One person plays the plague infected monkey who turns you into a zombie so you can only moan and move at zombie pace helping the monkey to trap the remaining people.
Laughing meditation - lay in a circle with heads all pointing in and Dan started to laugh to get everyone going. However I just couldn't get into it at all especially as Very and 18 yr old Caitlin from US were having over the top hysterics and tickling each other and Ananda beside me aged 9 was pretty much the same and turned to me and said this is boring as the hooting and guffawing kept on. When everyone stopped laughing and started to Ommm instead I at last started to find things funny.

We walked to the other side of the beach - Caitlin's straw hat blew off and Caroline who had been very quiet absorbed in a book much of the day burst into action and sprinted to recover it. Grant held firmly onto his pith helmet ( part of his new look) and Very's sarong kept threatening to fly off though that wouldn't bother Very much as he prefers to be au naturel where possible.

Grant Nome and Dan ventured into a little slip of a cave asI was taking photographs of seals surfing in on the incoming tide close to the rocks. I heard shouts and turned to see all 3 charging out of the cave shouting "Its after us!" and I briefly imagined a big green dragon but what emerged close on their heels was a large bull fur seal , much perturbed sand all over his muzzle making his large brown pool eyes pop out. Ha ha ! They had distrubed the poor creature's sleep and he wasn't happy - they really are quite big close up , move amazingly fast and have sharp teeth. APparently Nome had gone ahead - "no no seals in here - its just a big rock" - when the rock that was really a seal suddenly roared and started to chase them.

Amrita, Grant's partner showed up as we were leaving the beach with Macunda, 3, Grant's second son. We had fish and chips , kumara chips, rill ( shark- a lot of shark is sold under the guise of fish ) and blue cod ,hash browns and onion rings and lashings of tomato ketchup in Collingwood , sitting on the grass of the park in the town which at one time was proposed as the capital of New Zealand due to its size during the Gold Rush. But it burnt down three times and so was much diminished in size and by the third fire the gold was pretty much gone so it became a backwater.

Back at Happy Acre Caitlin and Nome got the fire baths going - 2 old enamel baths out in the garden built up with bricks so that a fire can be lit underneath to heat up the water -and you enjoy the warmth with a view of the stars - but there was a bit of a queue so I opted for a conventional shower.

Pupu Springs

2006-01-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

Also known as Te Waikoropupu Springs - the full Maori version - the springs are just outside of Takaka and along with Farewell Spit and the takaka hills made this area very sacred to the Maori.
I hadn't seen the springs last time being dependant on other people and hitching to get around but did see the impressive Pupu walkway which has now been extended into a full 2 and half hour walk.
But back to the springs- they are the largest freshwater springs in NZ and supposedly the clearest in the world. About 14000 litres of water a second is thrown up from a number of underground vents , one of which is called Dancing Sands as you can see the sand displaced by the power of the water pouring up from underground. the water comes from deep somewhere in the Takaka Hills. There is a weird DOC devised contraption which is a bit like an upside down telescope to allow you to see under the water - we spotted freshwater salmon as well. Bizzarely although you are not allowed to swim in the water as it is considered disrespectful to the Maori , I wasn't too tempted after feeling the temperature , you can drift dive - and we saw yellow and red blobs splashing away across the water.
Ducks seemed to love the water though and there were several different groups ( is there a special collective word for ducks?). Lots of gold digging went on around here and there are some terrible display boards with indicernible old photos which have been coloured in to make them more distinctive but are in fact a terrible mess and confusion. We came across some weird paper like water fungi covering the rocks further downstream and hoped it wasnt the dread didymo the latest biohazard threatening to kill all life in all NZ rivers. It came in on the boot of a fisherman they think. However at least NZ gets its own back with milfoil weed which is now thriving and causing damage in the US.
Didymo is so bad that we were all individually questoined by MAf workers before boarding the ferry for Wellington whether we had been in any forests or rivers recently. APparently didymo was known about 12 yrs ago but nothing much was done and now there is a real crisis on.

We drove and walked up to Pupu walkway -on a hill high above the Takaka plain - no one else there as about 8pm - Nome spotted and recovered a 1962 NZ florin in the water race which the walkway follows -must be a sign of great good luck I would think! Wonderful views of the Bay and wooden houses hidden deep and high in the bush , which I immediately coveted.

Takaka - Wholemeal Cafe etc

2006-01-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

Although the turning is just over the Takaka River bridge just out of town it was only in the last few days of life on Happy Acre that I managed to get Dan and Nome into the car for a trip to see some local landmarks -including Pupu Springs. Having done a lot of weeding in the morning we all felt we had earned our buckwheat pancakes hummus and salad for the day and set off into Takaka for a quick ice cream stop at the Wholemeal Cafe. This has expanded about 500% since my last visit and is now housed in the old second hand shop which is a huge wooden building two stories high. the food in the cafe is good traditional fare not delicate but large portioned rich tasting and filling. They have things like fish pie, spinach bacon and cheese pinwheels, lasagnes, curries etc plus wonderful coffee properly made and fresh juices with magic spirulina in them. Plenty of seating some of it outside looking straight out on to the garden centre plants make this the only place to meet and eat in Takaka. They also make fresh fruit ice cream- eg boysenberry, raspberry, mixed berry. Everyone raves about it but mine tasted as if it needed more fruit and less cream. But I do love their fish pie and spirulina rush drink and will miss both. I have compeltely forgotten to mention the Dutch Apple cake which is heavenly.

The other must see in Takaka apart from the artisan outlets where both Nicola Wooding and Morag Dean have their work on show is Trash Palace - which actually promised more than it delivered on our visit. Basically a clothes op shop run on voluntary basis where you can buy old clothes shoes etc for $5 a plastic bag. This was of course heaven to Very who on another outing bought 20 soft toys and strung them in a banner across Grant's verandah as an art installation. The bone carvers studio is just round the corner in a peaceful little courtyard of little wooden studios with a pergola of kiwi fruit vines and old sofas out on the walkways. In Chris Bone's (not his original name)studio you can carve under his beady eye whale or cow bone or even stone to make your own fish hook or other maori design at the long bench. The walls are covered with cuttings and bits of bone and other vegetatoin, paua shells postcards, beaded bags dried flax pods - all sorts - hope to post the photo when i can afford the time on the computer - he rummaged in a drawer and produced some gold coral for us to see- very rare he said. He defintely up there with the characters in the GB list of players.

Also noteworthy on Commercial St are the cinema - which I am sad I never made it to this time - upstairs and often with not enough seating for everyone so they sit on the floor - in summer they have two shows a day and there was also an al fresco screening of Strictly Ballroom on the village green opposite and Sara McCreadys studio ( not there 18 years ago)- beautiful drawings of local places and scenes featuring native birds and agricultural elemnets ( I suppose I mean tractors) with Sara sitting in the front window painting on certain days.
I suppose I should also mention Fresh Choice or as some people call it ONly choice the huge new supermarket which opened a few days before I arrived and was discussed in the letters page of the local paper for weeks afterwards the majority feeling being that it is a good thing and makes more food available for cheaper price.

Very also showed us a gallery /workspace behind the main street near to a shop I dont like much - its a dance rave shop thingselling expensive fashion shoes and glowy things but you have to have something for the youf I suppose. Caters too for the annual raves dance parties which are now held on top of takaka hill. Phat 06 and Visions .
The gallery was wonderful with artists working and selling from their spaces in a large light airy light industrial but tasteful as old warehouse.

Founders Park Brewery, Nelson and Mussel Inn, Onekaka

2006-01-13T20:07:00.001-08:00

Dan Nome and I set out for Founders Park which was just a short walk down the road from Izzy's house whilst Very went off to town to find a Green Party member who sells crystals.
It was a glorious day but before we had lunch we were given a tour of the organic brewery which is family owned and run - relatively new only in 7th year so far but they are finding it hard to keep up with the demand . It was on ly us on the tour as its a tiny brewery. The brewery has NZ bio organic certifcation, all ingredients complying. Only one grain , the pilsner is grown in NZ and the rest are imported from Germany as there is no grower yet who can supply constantly and consistently in NZ.They don't use sugar at all in the process but carbonise the beer at a later stage. There are only 2 fermenting vats. The whole operatoin takes place in just one shed and there is a bottling machine which only does 4 at a time and the labels are just gummed and applied with a rolling machine out the back which is the job no one wants to do. All of us suggested straight away that they get some Wwoofers in to help out in exchange for learning the art of brewing.
The brewery recycles bottles on principle even though it would be cheaper to use new ones. However they are now facing a bit of a prob lem with the bottle washing factory in Christchurch closing down - they didn't find out until they realised the pallets with used bottles for washing were going out but not coming back. One phone call confirmed the worst. All 3 of us were incredulous that there isnt more pressure on other bottled beer producers to recycle - you can still buy wooden crates of larger size bottles such as DB and Red Lion and on return recieve a deposit back. Immediately I thought Aha! business opportunity - but of course if one is closing down it's because they can't get more breweries to buy into recycling and that takes you back to the government who should be applying pressure in areas like this. Dan and Nome did a Wwoofing stint with Jeanette Fitzsimmons of the Green Party( they sent out Green Party Chrsitmas cards from the wellington parliamentary offices as part of their work and ate in the parliamentary canteen!) and are meeting up with her again at the Green Party picnic on the 21st Jan so have promised to raise the issue of bottles with her.
After the tour came the tasting and all this for just $5 each. The beer tasted so much better having seen how it was made and we sampled all four. Then we had MEAT pies for lunch - all home made and organic ingredients with pints of our favourite beer - red head for me. We spent the next hour talking aboutAmerica - and how a country so vast and with such diversity within states for eg poverty sticken Maine to rich New England could stay united for so long. The McGillicuddy line is that the American colonists plan is obviously a failure after 200 years and they should return to a monarchy as soon as possible. All the wealth is concentrated around the seaboard states and the interior on the whole is poor - sweeping generalisatoins but there you go. Most of the Americans living or visiting NZ are very distrustful of Bush and his cohorts though I didn't realise until recently that the US has a spy sattelite base here in Waihope which must ahve been allowed as a concession to NZ under Lange deciding to go nuclear free. It is only just coming out now in the newspapers how the US threatened NZ about this.
But back to beer:
Golden Bay now has it' s own brewery in the form of the Mussel Inn which is in Onekaka about 10 mintues drive from Happy Acre. The Mussel is a wonderful place fully in keeping with the Tarcadia way of life -( Grant helped build it he informed us) ; there are compost loos with magazine cuttings on the wall and a no mobile phones policy and plenty of live music nights. Quite a few beers are brewed there and they cannot make enough to bottle it so you have to drink it there - the clear head above all the rest is the star beer Captain Cook's Manuka Beer , Captain Cooker for short. Though there is also a golden goose and an oxen ale and the homemade lemonade is also stupendous. However I have also been enjoying the occassional Monteiths Summer Ale - only made in the summer months which is a bit spicy but very refreshing and no horrid aftertaste - it says on the label brewed in the tradition of 19th C beers. Wine in NZ is very expensive though the Duke of Wellington ( who I will meet up with tomorrow) should be able to recommend some good vintages as that is what he does for a living.

Wellington

2006-01-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

Now in Wellington, which is a lovely city , full of life cinemas and art - International Festival starts here in feb with a fringe alongside it.
I saw King Kong, another labour of love for Peter Jackson which I enjoyed immensely. I had dropped of Very at the home of another McGillicuddy , Barry , and bowed out of a party as I felt I had just had about all the excitement I could take even though it meant I would miss out on a chance to talk to Lily Tomato , the leader of Aunt Fanny's Sewing Circle and a reunion with the Duke of Wellington in his home town having recently returned from Morris dancing around the south island. I have been wearing my smart town outfit ( pink silk jumper and shaped trousers which Lisa helped me find - ) and Very in a generous and kindly gesture gifted me an amber necklace which goes very well with the ensemble.
It was actually a great relief to be on my own and make my way to the cinema through the rainy streets after some non vegan food.
When I got back to my hostel where I had pitched my tent earlier I found it completely in a state of collapse. Windy Wellington was really living up to its name and I had to relocate between some bushes and managed to sleep though the sound of heavy rain woke me shortly after 5am. However today - Saturday 14th - it is lovely with just a slight breeze. I will see another film tonight.
Wellington is full of wonderful deco and older buildings - a very good museum called Te papa which I will visit tomorrow. Cities are always expensive and I will try to get away by Monday to make my way up coast to Taranaki/Ne wPlymouth which sounds like my cup of tea.
It is tempting to think I could revist the south island for the Green Party Picnic at Waihope where dan and Nome will be but I think I just have to keep moving slowly north now or I really will end up staying here and using far too much money.

I did look at a property in Golden Bay , 7 k out of Collingwood , a 1900s 4 bed villa ,in good condition, made all of native rimu -outbuildings & with 10 hectares of land , 400 fruit and nut trees,m 2 mature walnuts already mature, a small wood and pasture with lots of potential -for growing to make an income. Currently the owner is making @$20k pa from sale of seedlings grown in poly houses though there is enormous potential to grow a lot more. On good flat alluvial soil surrounded by impressive mountains. All for $395k NZ. A bargain. Grant knows the people, one of whom i s from the Midlands. I am /was sorely tempted. Ive just checked London house prices and htey look like they have slipped a bit. It would be a really close thing to buy though it could be done. But would be a very close thing and I would need to recruit lodgers and a wwoofing workforce tout suite.It somehow lacked a complete wow factor for me too and made me think of Uk and everyone there. Hard decisions to make. And I still want to see China.

Raising the Man plus an exodus from Golden Bay

2006-01-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Kiwiburn ( there must be a better name for it than this but it is supposed to be a regional version of the US Burning Man festival in Nevada) left all of us who had volunteered to help Grant pretty exhausted. Over a period of six or seven days we had cleared gorse covered land, built a bamboo man over 30ft tall, dug latrines set up tents and helped collect koha (donatoins) on the gate, performed in ceremonies in clay paint and stood around roaring bonfires under unrelenting rain , made bamboo structures and eaten endless rounds of peanut butter sandwiches. Dan and Nome , fellow Wwoofers, desgined and built a water woman pond as we all felt that without a 'she' he was rather unbalanced.
My tent withstood the torrents that came down on the very day the man was to be torched ( this was interpreted as the water woman demanding her own day - everybody duly got into hte spirit of Glastonbury and covered themselves in mud around the fire though I just took pictures) but we were allowed an extra day by the community whose land we were on and with 20 litres of kerosene the burn was unaffected though the man toppled very quickly. His bamboo frame was stuffed with newspaper and left over paper swords from the takaka battle and covered in cheesecloth. .
Raising the man from the ground to standing postion took place over a few nail biting hours thenight before the official start of the event . Everyone forgot for those hours the horrid & vile sandflies which consumed us, though particularly me, most of the day( though baby oil and dettol mixture DOES work if you dont mind being very unattracitve to everyone and everything else) and it took 24 people ( I posoitned myself on a ladder to take photos) the first raise gave rise to a terrific crack which was the torso pulling away from the spinal cord.( bamboo lashed together) and the body was carefully nd promptly lowered again for a rethink A good straight and more substantial pole was found and this did the trick - the second raise was successful and an American sailor by trade co ordinated the raise and the tethering with wires. This did the trick and the man withstood howling gales which came roaring down the beautiful Anatoki valley but devastated, we later learnt, the east coast from Kaikoura to Christchurch.

NOt as many people as was expected acutally attended in the end perhaps due to the very mixed weather - there were just over 200 or so , a very modest affair really which made it seem much more like a big party than a big festival, much more intimate.
After a day or so of clean up , dismantling the bamboo sound stage and a yurt it was time to think about leaving.

I took myself off one afternoon to visit Martin Milligan in his jewellry studio up the Para Para Road where I had lived 18 years ago in a tepee for about 4 weeks and he recognised me too which is good. Look at his website to see his jewellry and also Friths work I think on www.rinopai.com I tried adding this as one of the links on my main page but the blog is ignoring my template rewrite.
I remembered that Martin had just bought some land as I was leaving and was very excited about having somewhere of his own. It has been hard building up a business from scratch but now he has a beautiful house with a fantastic view over the Para Para inlet and a studio and a partner, Frith Wilkinson who is an artist and young son. Martin told me about a swimming hole furhter down the road which I never found before probably beacuse it had been winter then - and I swam alone in the Para Para - which still has gold in it if you pan for it - surrounded by native bush and the song of tuis.

I have now managed to catch up with just about everyone I knew in the Bay except Cirrus who I know is living in Nelson but a search through the phone directory didn't give me a contact nor did google work on this one . Every single person too apart from Cirrus has stayed in the Bay and is now either a jeweller, musician or artist.

Dan and Nome caught a lift with me and helped out with petrol too as we headed to Nelson. Mr Impressive and Caroline went ahead and we caught up with them at Jester House, just over the Motueka Inlet.
However I was determined to see below Takaka Hill - On the cool and often misty summit which is riddled with caves there is one cave which you can pay to see - just above the marble quarry we paid and entrance fee and entered a huge cavern which has galleys with bones of moa and kiwis who fell into holes in the ground and were trapped . The name of the discoverer of the cave , a 17 year old surveyor from London is inscribed on one of the stalactites along with countless other visitors in elegant Victorian script.

We had coffee at Jester House , home to another of the McGillicuddy clan who has a cafe and guesthouse ( shaped like a boot) and home there .his son Pip was out rehearsing a Shapkespeare play but we had hoped to see him having met him at KiwiBurn adn hte battle of Takaka as he is also of course part of the Clan McGilliccuddy. Mr Impressive, clad in frock and cloak showed us around , waving his staff, which is called Stephen, regally and greeting everyone he met( Lisa says he looks more Unusual than Impressive) gardens filled with sculpture, art, a maze, orchards, and a small round house inevitably compared to a hobbit hole built of rammed earth with a grass roof which functions as an artists studio for .............

Another hour driving and we in convoy reached Nelson - the rush hour traffic snailing out - the other way thankfully - only to find all the backpacker hostels full. Very tried to make contact with a friendly McGillicuddy Greg who lives and works in Nelson but we had no reply- . We finally hit on the idea of visiting Izzy, the Californian who visted Happy Acre at Christmas and New Year and found his house pretty quickly. He came home to find all 5 of us waiting on his porch but was unperturbed and seemed in fact overjoyed to have us invade him. We set up tents on his back lawn , went down a storm with a prospective flat mate who came to see the house ( and is moving in so we didnt put her off) and admired his lovely house which is a period villa with rimu wood floors with old claw foot bath and large clutter free rooms which wuickly became covered in Very's voluminous' luggage'. Installed we headed out to Nelson to eat and met Greg in the Victorian Rose where I shared a huge meat filled plate of nachos with Very ( which was actually wonderful after our pretty much 100% vegan diets). We walked through the botanic gardens which stay open at night - deserted and quiet - with trees of great girth spotlit - Japanese redwoods - and a lake full of huge eels who flipped over and smelt the air as we walked over the little wooden bridge.
Dan Nome and I all in agreement to stay 2 nights and next day after making a communal breakfast we 3 went to Founders park for a tour of Founders Brewery and lunch.

Kiwiburn, Anatoki Valley 2-5th Jan 06

2006-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

Some pictures from Kiwiburn 2006 a very small gathering of about 200 people organised largely by Grant - as wwoofers we were heavily involved in thewhole thing from making the man out of bamboo and cheesecloth to raising him to performing the ceremony to burn him and less glamorous jobs such as digging a urinal trench.I made front page of the Nelson Mail in full claypaint! More commentary to follow.
Pics: Festival goers, Very Impressive ( his legal name) shaman and artiste, the Man shortly after being tethered with wire guy ropes, me just before the torch ceremony, a reveller covered in mud the night the burn was abandoned due to a whole day of unrelenting rain, a light installation on the blackened burnt trunks of gorse, lighting the man, Grants son Ananda setting the rush boat containing ashes of last years man afloat.

the last 3 weeks have just been the most exhausting but also exhilarating time. From working in Grant's garden at Happy Acre on state highway 60 about 10 mintues drive out of Takaka fellow wwoofers( WWoof = Willing workers on organic farms) Dan &Nome ( from Peterborough New Hampshire, USA)and I have been given some very untraditional wwoofing experiences. One of these was helping Grant set up for the annual Kiwiburn festival which was held this year on Rainbow community land up in the anatoki valley - the most beautiful backdrop you could imagine with the anatoki river running nearby and nikau palms and treeferns and regenerating native bush stretching up the hills of the valley to mountains further back which on one morming were dusted with snow .
To be continued.

The Battle of Takaka and New Year

2005-12-31T03:58:00.000-08:00

Well Ill start with New Year as it has only just begun - CLan McGillicuddy have just returned from the Mussel Inn which was too packed and nowhere to sit so have joined the wwoof group and Grant for another game of dictionary - Izzie, the animal rights activist is also here to join us for the night.
It is cool outside but all the stars are very bright outside adn the garden is filled with tents.
An unfortunate wwoofer is trying to sleep in the barn but I am typing which sounds very loud.

Battle of Takaka
ALf's Imperial Army versus Clan McGillicuddy ( aka Freisan Vegans) with Aunt Fannys Sewing Circle providing tea.
There is so much to say! I hope downloading a few pics will help.

To see the McGillicuddy Serious Party 1999 Manifesto use this link to Grant's Tribull Drums website - you can also find pics of Kiwiburns past and present there.
www.tribulldrums.co.nz

Coromandel Peninsula 5th December -

2005-12-28T12:01:00.000-08:00

Set off after a few more days than I had anticip[ated in Auckland - its very easy to get sucked into staying just that one more day especially with Lisa encouraging this. Also was talking a lot ot UK and hte estate agent managing my house - who were completley ignoring my requests for information. Met up with Helen Moody who I met on the boat out to Tiri Tiri Matangi on my second day in NZ and we went to see the World's Fastest Indian with Antony Hopkins which is set in Invercargill (and US) ( I suppose it must have come out already in the UK?) the cinema in ..................
But I was anxious to get away and further motivated by becoming a victim of crime in the normally pretty tranquil suburb of Northcote - someone or somebodies spray painted my car with a red tag ; fortunately Richard discovered that it came off easily enough with turps. I dont know why they singled out my car in particular as it blended in well with all the other white japanese sedans in road adn I had parked the right way - it's illegal to park in opposition to flow of traffic and another strange rule of the road- you must give way when turning left to cars turning right from opposing direction! The Harbour Bridge which you drive over from Northcote to get to CBD of Auckland has had to be extended - so many people live there now - they added another bridge to the one existing - and a japanese company got the job- it's known as the Nippon clip on.
Drove first day to Miranda which is at the bottom of the Coromandel peninsula and a favourite haunt of birdwatchers - there are shell ridges called cheniers - which have built up in the estuarine waters which migratory waders use to rest on after feeding on the rich shellfish supply. I sat in a hide for 4 hours watching barred godwits and wrybills - their beaks twist to the right. Flowers on the grassland around - bachelors buttons , sea primrose, glasswort and mangrove - which you see everywhere in North Island.
TBC........

Christmas/ Solstice at Happy Acre

2005-12-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

25th December
A vegan feast - curried tvp, salad all fresh from the garden, rice, new potatoes from the garden, pickles and buckwheat pancakes eaten outside in the garden . Grant ,45 Amrita,31 their children Ananda (9) and Macunda (3) Dan (30) and Nome from Peterborough , New Hampshire doing the wwoofing thing, Alex from Wahsington State (18) also wwoofing, Andrew from California 51 living in the caravan in the garden, trance dance ( as in doof doof doof) organiser and mixer and Dew an ex pilot from US now resident in NZ, Izzy -from US - animal rights activist and applying for residency in NZ.
It wasn't a nice day and it started raining so we went inside for coffee and puddings - a carrot cake trifle and summer pudding which I made and cream ( not very vegan but cant have summer pudding without cream) Fay who lives in the house bus was at her Buddhist group christmas party so came later to join in a game of dictionary in the drumming barn - find an obscure word in the dictionary adn everyone has to make up definitions and guess the real one - we had some great words - pother - and selcouth - which I am now using - meaning rare, strange, marvellous!
26th , 27th December 2005
Work is progressing on the bamboo man who will be burned at"Kiwiburn" a festival Grant is organising to be held up at the Rainbow community land on Kotinga Road - I remember this community as the place where I went with Grant 18 years ago to an alfresco theatrical performance - The ......Plague.
The festival is based loosely on the now famous Burning Man festival of teh AMerican Nevada desert- but this is of course - much smaller scale (200 people expected) and apparently we have to deal with some of the worst sandfly infested land in Golden Bay. I have however found that Lisa's recipe of dettol and baby oil does work! But it keeps everything and everyone else away as well!

Today is Tuesday and people are arriving for different events ( the garden is beginning to fill with tents!) plus Tuesday nights drumming session - but tomorrow the McGillicuddy clan will start arriving in force for preparation for their campaign - The Battle of Takaka which kicks off on the 30th at 4pm. Aunt Fannys Sewing Cirlce will be joining in , holding their tea party in the midst of the proceedings. The enemy are Alf's Imperial Army but after battle is done we will all join in a huge feast in Grant's garden - it is not known at this point whether the Wizard of Christchurch will attend the proceedings or not. A large iron homemade catapult arrived in the garden this morning and was tested for effectiveness in releasing water bombs - it works quite well after being oiled a bit but would be instantaneously impounded if used in the streets which is why hte battles are not publicised! Really all about street theatre. There are rules too - paper swords can only be made with no more than 7 sheets of newspaperfor eg.
More American wwoofers have arrived - I'm waiting for the full 52 states to be represented before I leave and am sure I will pick up an Ameriken accent and not a Kiwi one before I leave! I am only Brit around.
We spent the afternoon digging a urinal and making a rush boat to take the ashes of last years burning man down the river to open the proceedings for the Kiwiburn which takes place on 2nd 3rd adn 4th of Jan 06. (There is a website for further info.)

In between all this I have managed to get away to see other old friends , Nicola Wooding who still lives around here and still makes jewellry -I spent a very pleasant day with her talking about the past and what has happened in her life over the last years and met her daughter Mahla , now 16 , who Nicola was pregnant with when I left.
Went over the Hill to see David King who was spending Christmas with his family in Richmond near Nelson - met David in the jungle in Ecuador - we pored over an atlas together and he thinks I should try and make it to Tibet if I can.

Have to go as drumming workshop imminent around me..........it's going to be a selcouth couple of days I think.

Saving the Whales!

2005-12-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

22 December 2005
I'm now staying at Grant's home - Happy Acre - which also houses his business - Tribull Drums! It's about 10 minutes drive outisde of Takaka in Puramahoi. Last night , Andrew the tanned 51 Californian living in the caravan next to the blue house bus ( where Fay from British Columbia lives) came into the main house where we, Gnome and Dan, from Peterborough, USA, ( Grant likes to have people around!) were chatting to say that the news had just reported a stranding of about 130 whales at Farewell Spit ( about 30 k up the road) ... we decided against going out at night - as in fact the Dept of Conservation had advised people already there to go home - too cold .
Early next morning we all plus Ananda, Grant's 9 year old son ( whose birthday it was - what a birthday present - let off last day of school to save the whales! )- hopped into the Tribull Drums van and zoomed up to Puponga beach where I had camped just four nights before to see the black bodies of the pilot whales stranded well up the beach, the tide right out and the sun beating down. There were only about 60 or 70 other people there ( 8am) and we parked right opposite the mass of the whales - and just immediately got down to the business of keeping the whales cool with buckets of sea water - we dug pools around the whales to keep their tails in water and covered the bodies with sheets with a hole for the dorsal fin where the heat concentrates. Some of the juvenile whales were whistling and calling out in distress and all around you could hear the blow holes opening to expel water poured over them. We had to keep digging new water holes as old ones quickly got really sandy - not good to pour sandy water ideally over the sensitive whale skin. A lot of them were really deeply scarred from old battles etc some had nothces in their dorsal fins - soime were big and there were quite a few young juveniles and one little baby - only a few months old. Some had fresh wounds and were bleeding - one theory that they had been chased ashore by orca whales. pilots are relatively small - big bulls probably about 9 or 10 foot long - distinctive white patterns on their chests and backs - the skin feels rubbery.By the end of the day some were getting bad sunburn - skin wrinkling and peeling off so tried not to touch those areas or pour sandy water over blow holes. Occassionally a whale would open an eye - very eery - small mammalian eye - brown with pupil. But for most part they were kept closed. We were all getting more and more anxious as the whales got more and more distressed with the heat - ireonically day before had been cool with lots of rain today the sun just kept shining and we all prayed for the grey clouds to gather to try and cool things down a bit. I felt the dorsal finsof several and found them very hot which made me bucket water fast as I could.
The media arrived and a helicopter buzzed above - despite the solemnity people took photos of their children pouring water on the whales and a school group arrived ( last day of school!) and there was quite a buzz - friends ran into each other - I met the 2 Brits who had taken me Kayaking from Tata beach ( another post I will have to catch up on!) a group of volunteers wearing orange amnesty international jackets worked on keeping a whale cool ' we were all talking to the whales and telling them to hang on for the high tide at 2pm - it seemed as if the water would never come in but sudedenly I looked up and saw that the wtaer was coming into the bay - we could now get fresh water by walking a bit of a distance , the water in the pools got colder, and before we knew it we were up to our knees in the water and the whales perked up and started to thrash their tails - I stayed until I was in danger of getting soaked - and went back to van which I couldn't find at first because there were now thousands of cars and hundreds of people - DoC staff handing out sandwiches and muffins to people from cardbaord boxes, sightseers - people who had come from as far away as Nelson to see the whales , and a digger which was digging a big channel from the beach furthest away from the water so that smaller chaneels being dug by (hand !) could connect to it and people could float whales down the channel and into the sea.
I changed into swimming costume and ran/swam back - people now supporting each whale to help it regain sense of bouynacy and to help it move head up and down to breather - we all got showered in whale spit! then we were asked to move forwards up to chests in water with whlaes , bunch up and then finally after an age we moved to one side , being careful to avoid the tails, to let the whales go free but formed a human chain to stop them heading straight back to beach - theya re exhauseted and disorientated at this point.

But they got hte idea and headed out eventually and were followed by two dinghies to make sure they kept going out - 2 days later only 10 rebeached the rest , the 120 odd all made it to swim again! What a fantasitc experience!And only happens every 7 or so years. Farewell Spit and other large sandy land masses are particulary dangerous for these pods and they have been going aground here for thousands of years - .

Happy Christmas and New Year to everybody.... I hope I shall be on the beach!

xxx
Louise

New Zealand PHOTOS

2005-12-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

Tiri Tiri Matangi

Above: Bayleys Beach - bach

Giant Kauri - Wairoa Forest , N Island

Trees - NZ

Old Friends

2005-12-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

The thing about Golden Bay is that people seem to make an emotional investment to the land here - just about everyone I knew then is still here now and most of them havent moved~!
I went for dinner with Morag who lives nearer to town than before which was Ligar Bay - a beautiful spot.
Have also now met Grant , in his sarong and barefeet , who immediately invited me to stay - his place where I WWoofed is much expanded and he has a huge outbuilding where he makes drums and holds drumming workshops - had a wonderful meal of veg and herbs all from his gardens. Other woofers there now - and Grant as usual is at the centre of all the action - he helps organise the annual KiwiBUrn - equivalent of Burning Man festival in Nevada - and tours with his band , plays at local events etc etc. There is a lunar module at the bottom of the garden and a wind harp just to give you more of a flavour!
Will be 30 people staying over CHristmas etc. Not sure if thats not a bit too much for me but am keen to stay for Kiwiburn and the event " battle of Takaka" where clans fight it out with flour bombs! Grant also has a family now - two sons of 9 and 3. He has done a lot in the years I was away and I was reminded of the life I could have had if Id decided to stay in the bay.

Grant was able to tell me about most of the people I remember and I will look some of them up in the next few days.