This is the story of a trip around the world which I undertook in 2004. I have just uploaded it here, and so it is, at present, in rough form with a few dates and pages missing. I will try and bring it into line in the next few days. Please bear with me.
Thanks
Peter K
Monday 5th January 2004
Flight to Singapore
The evening was as cold, rainy and grey as I could ever have hoped for as I made my way into the bright lights of terminal 3.
A large number of armed policemen with body armour Hechler and Koch machine guns cradled in their arms, strolled about amongst the amazing cross-section of humanity milling about and this show of force only added to the general aura of chaos. Flying is a different game post “9/11”
Singapore Airlines check in had already opened and a long line of elderly, wiry Orientals, young and overloaded backpackers and middle-aged overweight people, rather like me, formed an impatient queue.
At this point the realisation that my inspired decision to ask the travel agent “Just for a joke - how much extra would this trip cost if I were to travel in business class” (the answer – not a lot!!) was going to contribute hugely to the pleasure of the next few months.
The check in for “Raffles Class” was completely empty and formalities were concluded almost in seconds. Raffles Class also meant “fast track” security which meant I was in the departure area within 10 minutes of arriving at the airport.
Duty free was a hurried affair, determined not to get bogged down in unnecessary expenditure (hopefully a hallmark of this trip !!) before making my way to the Kris Club lounge which was an oasis of calming marble, dark wood, leather seats and lots of free sandwiches and booze, overlooking the airport apron.
A few hurried calls of goodbye and before long we had been called to the gate and the first sight of our 747 Megatop – and stunning behemoth. I had been allocated a seat upstairs so it wasn’t long before I was trying out the renowned “Skyseat” – a multi- function” seating experience” seat which I reckon doubles as a rocket launcher in its spare time It folds in every direction, and even has a telephone in the armrest (£6 per minute if you please) and when required folds flat into a bed.
As we stood at the end of the runway awaiting take-off I finally felt the huge sense of anticipation and child-like excitement that had been strangely lacking, as the reality of this enormous trip finally took hold.
A fabulous dinner – complete with Grand Cru St Emilion wine - which would do justice to any London restaurant was served and thereafter, after pressing every button I could find on the seat control until I was lying prone, I drifted off the sleep for a full six or seven hours waking up about 2 ½ hours out of Singapore.
Tuesday 6th January 2004
Arrival in Singapore
Formalities into Singapore were efficient and minimal (Xenophobic and paranoid USA please note) with every arrival filmed and scanned for temperature (a SARS precaution where everyone with an elevated heat profile is stopped and “looked at”) talked to kindly and wished a pleasant stay.
The weather was sunny, warm, humid and breezy as the taxi took me along the airport road which was lined on both sides by stunning bougainvillea and immaculate plane trees. The whole place looked extremely pleasant and organised.
The Albert Court Hotel
I passed a fantastic array of shops selling almost exclusively either luggage or electronic equipment (I assume the 2 are closely linked if you are that way inclined). I was not (though pressed by my nephew, nearly bought an Ipod but decided to make do with my Philips MP3 player instead)
There were other shops selling clothes, shoes, food, toys and it all happened in the street. As the weather was so good everyone was out and about but there was little traffic. Singapore
After a return to the hotel to deal with the strange effects of time change (I slept for 2 hours) I trotted downstairs and hailed a taxi which I asked to “show me round town”
Firstly we went to Favely “ Mountain ” – a hill in the middle of Singapore Singapore
We then went on to Pondosa Island (and for any pedants reading this I have still to check the names of the places I visited – all done within the constraints of a 18 hour stop-over - so don’t tell me if there are mistakes!!) which is a small island devoted entirely to tourism.
It is quite, quite stunning, with immaculately manicured lawns, shrubs and trees in every direction. As it is Christmas time and Chinese New Year as well, many of the trees were decorated with white fairy lights. The myriad of fountains were lit up and there were many locals wandering about enjoying the spectacle.
I was then taken to the night-time flower market which is near the Chinatown area. Hundreds of mock-orange trees, and bougainvillea shrubs as far as the eye could see was a really lovely sight and there were many people buying flowers at 10 at night!
I then watched some energetic Chinese dancing at the local outdoor theatre – there is as much movement in the face-muscles of the dancers as in their feet, with colourful and exotic costumes, as they move manically around the stage to melodic if rather “twangy” music.
Next I chance on a street lines on both sides with pavement restaurants. I chose one with more locals than tourists sitting around, and order a delicious meal. You go and point at pictures and is then freshly cooked for you. I chose 6 huge (I mean huge !!) barbecued prawns, some delicious spicy beef rice and vegetables - the cost was £10 (and remember Singapore
My taxi driver met me again at 11.30 and took me back to the hotel, via a circuitous route to take in further sight and sounds of this colourful and spotlessly clean town.
Wednesday 7th January 2004
In Singapore – Breakfast at Raffles Hotel – Departure for Bangkok – Visit to a tailor – Dinner on the river with lots of Russians
Unable to sleep beyond about 7 in the morning, despite wanting to, as jetlag had kept me awake most of the night, so I got up and got a taxi to Raffles Hotel which I felt I had to be “done”.
As I secretly suspected from similar visits to other landmark hotels, it was something of a let-down and its topography is basically designed to keep us riff-raff at arms length. There are the usual over-blown shops in an “arcade” and some lovely gardens. The building itself is however quite beautiful and very colonial.
I had driven past the more understated Fullertons Hotel and decided I would stay there when Econotest finally makes it into the FT100 and despite being the grand old dame; Raffles has not changed that view
The breakfast was very, very good, but as half the tourists who come to Singapore
I caught a motorised rickshaw (called a Tuk Tuk) from Raffles (rather non U, I suspected, as it left a cloud of pollution in its wake in the driveway on the way out!!). To add to the comedy the driver told me his name was Kwak so there I was on a Tuk Tuk with Qwak Qwak as a driver………… (Oh have it your own way!!…. I am on my 3rd beer and listening to Dire Straits…)
Qwak Qwak couldn’t take me to the airport so I hopped into a taxi and once again was through customs in record time and it wasn’t long before I was sitting on another Megatop, this time with Bangkok
2 hours later, and after another meal of stunning quality, with a pudding which I am tempted to class as the best I have ever had in my long-established pursuit of gluttony (Panna Cotta of sesame and cinnamon cream with a compote of red beans) we descended into Bangkok.
Crikey, what a contrast. Again, we were through customs in record time, but there the similarities with Singapore
I was back in Delhi , Madras , Lagos , Cobham, Sao Paulo
On arrival I was asked whether I wanted to take the Toll Freeway which would not take as long to get me to my hotel as the normal way. I elected for the “slow route” (much to the drivers disgust) – but needless to say it was not long before we joined the marginally less congested toll-motorway into town.
The Royal Hotel gets it’s name from being located close to the Royal Palace and it is also the oldest hotel in town, so it takes little brainpower to conclude that whilst “with character” (somewhere…. I am assured) it is fraying genteelly from the edges to the middle. Still it is a place to sleep and is full of activity and hubbub. My room is large and the shower works well.
I unpack, shower and rush downstairs to do something. I take a taxi to a temple. Mmmm…..OK. A fat Buddha (not dissimilar to my figure I observe) and a few bits of fruit and plates attached to him. Seen this… Delhi
We backtrack to ….. another temple. Another Buddha, apart from this one has eaten a little more. Seen this….. in Bombay
A visit to a Tailors
I give up and ask to be taken to a tailors (it was always planned to buy one suit here) we arrive and I am quite taken by the place. I chose a lightweight summer suit in a fetching shade of beige. I also chose a Oxford blue shirt to go with it at which I am amusingly elevated to a man who “might order more” as I am allocated the manager who takes my measurements (No - they did not ask which side I “hang” – probably “felt” it irrelevant ….) as the couple of German fatsoes ordering a suit in a fearful shade of mauve tweed with a green striped shirt were left to be measured by, oooooh……the janitor!!
Returning to the hotel – we sat in a traffic jam for an hour on the way.. quite absurd and really spoils the pleasure of the place completely.. I sat on the porch outside with a beer as I considered the place as a whole.
It really seems a destination ideal for 2 types of people – dopey-looking backpackers with their pretty but rather anorexic girlfriends, on a budget of about 10p per day, or, judging from the alarming number of elderly men (oh, much older and sadder than even me) here on their own and looking furtive almost the whole time, for those old boys are looking for cold sex.
The people here are however fantastic – so friendly it is almost painful to turn down yet another generous offer to buy a plastic something probably made in Taiwan. The women (frankly not at all as stunningly pretty as I had been told) all have grins as wide as the Thames on their faces and there is nothing too much they can do for you. (Que..? Ed)
But what to me has certainly ruined Bangkok is the traffic. It stinks, keeps you awake at night and is no unregulated that is invades every aspect of life here.
So, what’s on tonight -??
I had with a heavy heart signed up to a “River Cruise avec Diner.”
I was picked up at the hotel by a cute little tour guide called (amazingly) Tuk Tak (She should marry the Rickshaw driver in Singapore - they could form Kwik-Kwak n’ Tuk-Tak Tuk-Tuk Enterprises Limited” and live happily after) - who took me to………….a real, modern, fabulous Bateau Mouche straight from the Pont D’Alma !
Dinner on the Rivver
Oh, things are looking up.
Tuk Tak must have taken pity on me and had decided allocate me a beautiful table outside on the main deck of the boat (one of only 2 tables on their own – the others being benches and tables inside). As the weather was fantastic and the evening warm I was delighted.
We set off down the river (no I don’t know the name yet) and had an absolutely enchanting evening.
The passengers were largely Russian tourists which contrary to Tuk Tak’s forebodings were delightful. They all seem to have absurdly pretty and wives mostly dresses in undersized Prada or Dior and were impeccably behaved throughout. After the dinner inside, they all came out onto the deck where I was seated and had an impromptu party. I was allowed to join in (as my table was a good vantage point for photos) and we had a great time.
The rather tough looking leader of the group – who I am quite sure were all of Mafia origin – had a delightful and fearsomely precocious little daughter of 4 who insisted I was the only person on the boatshe would dance with (I surreptitiously fed her chips when no one was looking, so no wonder) and she ended up giving me a red rose from her table. Aaahh
I have never danced with someone who only came up to my knees, but we managed a version of the Bebop which consisted of me sitting in my chair and her eating my chips and hopping about at the same time. We were however the stars of the show!!
The riverside was lovely, enhanced as it was by a full moon, with the temples, palaces and other buildings beautifully illuminated. The architecture is wonderful, colourful and exotic – a little like The King and I (A banned film, still now) a true story, which was set here in Thailand, when of course is was Siam)
The evening ended with a high speed Tuk Tuk chase through the still clogged town back to the hotel which was most exciting and which I was able to film by hanging precariously out of the side as we sped crazily through the Bangkok traffic and commentating for my video a la Murray Walker!! I had had a few beers by this time.
I went straight to bed with the light on. A couple of hours later I woke up………staring at a mouse which was sitting on my pillow. I don’t know which of us got more of a fright, but once I had asked it to bugger off (which it did with no second asking) I slept well for the first time since my arrival in the east. The mouse was found the next morning by the chambermaid (I only called reception as I thought there might be a whole family of mice in my room – honest) who bless her heart, was too soft to launch it out of the window, so……….. put it in the room over the corridor. Maybe someone called Tom was staying there !
Thursday 8th January 2004
Visit to the Royal Palace, Bangkok – Trip on a Long boat – Thai Dancing show
I woke extremely late so had to hurry off for the fist fitting of my new suit, which fits very well indeed, thank you. I had begged them to take an inch off the waist “en cas de” but they had not, so I was disappointed.
I had hired a private driver for the day (and before you say it…….. it costs “£13) and he took me off to look at some fake watches – which were complete rubbish – before dropping into a roadside hovel where we had lunch of Tom Yang Soup (herbs, coconut and prawns) friend chicken and a Pepsi. V. good indeed and …. £3.
Royal Palace
I took a guided tour round the Royal Palace in the afternoon. Crikey…. What a fantastic place. All gold leafed Buddhas and statues, Bonsai trees 200 years old, colourful mosaics and tiles, fabulous paintings and of an opulence which can only be of orient.
Here are a few little vignettes.
There are 3 different types of “towers” connected the temples. Cambodian – which look like Ice Cream Cones (upside down of course). Sri Lankan; which look like an upside down bell and Thai which have a square base.
There are the stylised monkeys which are happy and clever. Happy because they are smiling and clever because despite the fact that they look as if they are assisting the demons to “hold up” a structure they are infact not!! (Bloody typical of monkeys, I say) They also do not wear shoes on their feet.
The Demons (cross faces) are doing all the work and wear shoes!! What am I on about? (Now on my 5th beer)
The other thing I learned was that the Thai habit of coupling the hands as if in prayer when greeting someone is not as the Japanese do (i.e. – palms flat together) but the palms are held apart to replicate the shape of a Lotus bud – the national emblem of Thailand.
The last thing I learned is that “The King and I” is largely a true story but was banned in Thailand as the King (Rama 4th) was ultimately portrayed as weak and that was not the case.
Thailand has also never been colonised.
Every male Thai must undergo religious training before his 20th birthday. The minimum period to be a monk is 15 days – though the average is 2 months – during which time they rely on others to provide them with food and dress up in silly costumes. They are excused work by their employers.
The Palace compound (which is no longer used as a palace – King Whassisname lives up the road in another, even larger palace) is also the site where various former kings practised their penchant for architecture. The most noteable, and very successful example of this is the state guest-palace (where that loon George Bush stayed accompanied by a few thousand security goons) is an amalgm of the Trianon Palace and a typical Thai palace. The main structure is French classical and the roof is oriental. Most attractive.
My guide and I get on well and so he invites me to take a walk outside the palace grounds and before long we are near the river. He asks me if I have taken a trip on a boat yet? Other than my from Russia with love experience, no, I say.
A ride on the canals
He takes me down to a landing stage, relieves me of a few notes and a huge canoe-like boat zooms into sight with an enormous engine mounted on what look like an outsized metal pole.
The pole in fact doubles as an engine-mounting, a propeller shaft, a steering wheel, and, I am sure if required, a particularly effective deterrent against pirates.
The propeller is dipped into the water, the engine is gunned furiously and the things shoots off at frightening speed. I cant see a bloody thing as it has a huge bow, so I ask the driver if I can join him on the end of his stick. We whirl up and down canals – slowing as we pass other stickboats not to upset them – and I get a wonderful of backwater Bangkok.
There are some horrible shacks placed right next to exotic and obviously very expensive houses. There are some fabulous gardens, and some dead cats in the river too.
There are kids taking an afternoon swim, who wave manically at me, and Mums and Dads doing very little. Rather like Surrey on a Saturday afternoon.
Thai Dancing
After returning to the Hotel for a short nap, I was taken off into the Bangkok traffic (I will stop going on about it, if you promise you have got the message!!) to see a Thai Dancing show. It was held in a slightly dingy hall and we were seated first. In fact we were made to almost lie down on the silk benches and then fed a meal consisting of, amongst other things soup. Eating soup lying on your side is only good for the dry-cleaners and nothing else.
The dancing itself was very interesting and extremely colourful and full of hidden angst and drama (the English commentary was being provided by a Ryanair Stewardess – i.e. incomprehensible) but exciting it was not. A couple of (admittedly stunning) women pointing hands and feet in different direction at the same time, and a couple of what looked like (and probably were) transvestites ambling about the stage in a lugubrious manner.
It all got a little more exciting when one of them fell over, but that really was the highlight of a rather disappointing evening.
The rest of the evening spent in the hotel lobby writing up this rubbish
Friday 9th January 2004
Visit to the floating Market – Visit to the Thai Elephant Centre and cultural centre
Up early for a busy day. I have hired Mike again for the day and we off to the Floating Market which is a 2 hour drive out of Bangkok. We set off on what turns into a perfectly good motorway (I feel another traffic rant coming on!) and we fairly speed north.
The motorway is built up on both sides by the usual collection of dilapidated factories and in particular over elaborate car-showrooms. Many (almost all) of the companies have up huge sign declaring their approval to ISO 9002/2003 standards, which I fear may expose the thing as something of the sham it was for many as I cannot believe that their boasts are correct.
The last few kilometres the road becomes a building site and so we bump our way into a car-park where I am to join a boat to go to the market which seems set in the middle of the country. In the event I am allocated my own boat (another one of those engine-on-a-stick boats) and off we roar down the rather narrow canals.
We stop at the obligatory rip-off sites on the way (one making coconut sugar or something equally not of urgent need) and another where they wanted to drape a rather anorexic python round my shoulders – not bloody likely – but ere long we rounded a bend and came across the floating market.
Floating because most of the “stalls” are in fact boats paddled by the vendors. There is every conceivable type of produce on offer, though a great deal of the market is also given over to tourists, as there is a great deal of tat on sale as well.
Little old ladies paddle boats about with their Thai “mandarin” hats as protection from the sunshine – a brilliant design which keeps the sun off, but still allows air to circulate - run a small gas stove from inside the boat as well as cooking fresh food when required. Given the amount of traffic on the canal, as well as all the people milling about on the shore shouting the odds, their control of all their tasks is quite remarkable. And in addition the food tasted fabulous - I know as I tried it. The Health and Safety Executive however would have kittens in they saw it !!!
There is an incredible peacefulness about a market where there no engines, cars and tractors around, and at one point the atmosphere became quite serene as we headed into a lesser crowded area, where there were a lot of trees and greenery overhead the boats.
Given the amount of water and the heat, it is quite remarkable that as yet I have not been disturbed by mosquitoes at all (so far) but as the sanitation seems to have been very well organised suppose it is not surprising.
I float around for about 1 ½ hours but soon it is time to go back as my boatman – who has not uttered a word to me so far – seems to be having a problem with a stalling engine.
Once back in the car we begin heading back to Bangkok. On the way I visit the largest temple in Thailand, which, apart from its sheer size and is of the eh….Cambodian style (upside ice-cream cone, if you were paying attention!) is nothing really very remarkable.
I decide at this point to boycott future visits to temples as basically they are all rather the same, populated with a number of gold painted (or is it solid gold?) Buddhas, a few plastic trinkets and some food and people becoming rather self-conscious and pious as they perform their routine in front of him. I have always been a little suspicious of people who compulsively visit churches whenever they are abroad - particularly in Tuscany !! Do they visit churches with the same keenness when, say, in Redditch ?
One of the nicest things done so far come on my next as we visit a couple of “tourist centres” – one of which is an elephant centre and the other a Thai cultural centre and garden.
National Elephant Centre and Crocodile centre
Thailand cultural centre – The Rose Garden
There is a truly impressive display about the history and development of the elephant as a working animal from an animal used primarily as a means of carrying important soldiers.
They bring on a couple of huge Thai (Asian) white elephants in full military regalia and re-enact a battle with most impressive sword-fighting as a sort of side show. It must have been a little like seeing an Elizabethan warship in full sail when the enemy saw these huge beasts appearing on the skyline dressed up to the nines !!
There then was a short display explaining the logging elephants (which still contribute to the industry today in Northern Thailand)
They then explain how the elephant has also become an adjunct to the entertainment industry and bring out a whole team of elephants dressed as footballers (our is David Beckham – who else?) and proceed to have a football match. The baby elephants (Portugal and Brasil) steal the show by ducking around everywhere and generally getting in the way.
The most exuberant “footballer” is some German who I have never heard of who does handstands as he scores goals – very funny (so rather un-german) and the crowd go mad, particularly the kids. A really lovely couple of hours, as I am then allowed to feed the elephants and am photographed with them along with all the other kids !!
There is then a display of 2 people doing dreadfully dangerous with Crocodiles, like putting their heads inside their mouths, and pulling them about by the tail.. The “pit” is surrounded by a viewing balcony and once again the crowd go wild and are “milked” brilliantly by the 2 actors – who are of course expert but exuberant crocodile keepers.
A new baby elephant has been born recently and there is a competition to “name” her. My suggestion of Miss Anna, after the film and the actual person is met with utter incredulity, as apparently no one else has suggested it, and so it is put in the book which appears to contain only about 3 names (David Beckham, Princess Diana and Niel Armstrong maybe?) thought worth of mention. There is a prize of 30,000 Bhats to the person to chooses the right name, so we shall see !!
The keepers obviously adore their charges and vice-versa and there is a wonderful rapport between the 2.
The Rose Garden is a sort of Butlins resort, but also a classical heritage centre and we watch a wonderful display of small vignettes of Thai life. Dances (one involving clacking 2 huge bamboo poles together with the dancers stepping in and out with amazing speed to avoid getting their ankles whacked) a short exhibition of Thai boxing – an “anything goes” form of boxing which looks very painful and a hilarious exhibition of sword fighting with an actor of great humour beating the pants off a very “serious” looking opponent by ducking and diving and pretending to be hurt etc.
Saturday 10th January 2004
3 days on a converted Rice Barge – Koh Island – Riding in the country
I am up at 6 to be ready at 0730 to catch the coach to the Rice Barge which will my home for the next 3 days.
In the restaurant before I leave the hotel I meet a pretty little English back packer who asks me rather earnestly what “that green stuff” is next to the marmalade (How the hell do I know ? Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole !!) I am afraid I tell it is the “famous” Thai Crocodile jam. The look on her face…!!
The Rice Barge is moored just down the road from the hotel and is a wonderful looking wooden boat which has been converted to a small cruiser. It is made of teak wood and has a huge lounge area under the awning.
My fellow passengers are a nice German couple and 4 Aussies.
The Germans are pleased when I start to talk to them, as their English is a little hesitant. They have travelled all over the world – and boy, like to tell you about it – but are very nice and quite useful as they have returned from Bali (been there 7 times…..) so tell me where to go and where not (Not Kuta apparently – I wonder why…..)
The trip is clearly going to be wonderful as our hostess “Lucky”, the very enigmatic captain who when not at the wheel, goes around draping everything in sight with flowers and then prays to it, and Lek, a fizzy little fellow forever smiling greet us with the customary Thai greeting and a dreamy looking girl (who turns out to be married with a baby she introduces to us) look a charming crew.
The sleeping arrangements are “communal”
The weather is warm and humid, but the sun stubbornly refuses to make an appearance.
The Mv Thanatharee has a width-wide canopy which funnels the breeze as we motor along. It is entirely made of wood, with teak decks, comfortable sofas, an upper deck for sunbathing, and a small but very functional kitchen at the back.
Downstairs there is the communal sleeping area, where we have no hot water (plenty of cold) but which is air conditioned in the evening.
Koh Island market
Our first stop is at Koh Island, about 2 hours out of Bangkok and which is a tourist destination for Thais. It is made up of a series of small lanes and
alleyways, with no cars, littered with small stalls selling everything imaginable. We visit the obligatory pottery where we film potters potting pots, and then carry on fascinated by the fact that less than 10 miles from Bangkok (we are on a slow boat remember) we are the only tourists apart form a couple of very pretty American girls who suddenly appear on bicycles looking rather shocked. They
As we progress through the island, chatting to the so-friendly people we meet, our guide Lucky buys a never ending assortment of little food titbits, all extremely sweet (almost sickly) but very tasty. We have to go on strike in the end, otherwise we would never manage the dinner we have been promised !
There is a stall selling fabulous silk flowers at 10p per stem, an exhibition of painting by one of the Royal Princesses (she seems very talented, but one does wonder…..) and lots of high quality wood carvings. The Thai equivalent of the National Lottery seems also very popular and the ticket seller peddle around on bicycles selling tickets.
At one point we are serenaded by a remarkably sober looking Dean Martin wannabe, who sings us his version of “Too young” (for what !!)
Back on the boat, we head off up river again and stop after a couple of further hours at a marketplace. There is a fantastic array of food – better than all the other markets so far, of which there seem many – again the freshness of which is fantastic. There are also stalls selling clothes, toys, electrical goods, CD’s, DVD’s – everything needed in life. The only thing that looks a little suspect is the meat which not only consists of every conceivable part of the animal, but also look a little ragged to say the least.
I have not noticed any “butcher shops” greengrocer shops” as we have in the UK and make the assumption that all that is bought in the way of food is bought “dans la rue”
I buy a couple of medicaments I need, and am delighted that I can get them without any form of prescription, though at not much less than the cost in the UK.
I also manage to get lost and am a little late back to the boat, but no one seems cross which is nice.
Lunch is served on the deck and eaten on laps. It is a chicken soup and some roast chicken. We drink water (though beer is available) and I am beginning to feel quite de-toxed. Maybe I will lose some weight after all !!
We stop again soon and the bicycles are downloaded from the boat and we head off into the countryside. In Thailand traffic drives on the left – an relic from King Rama 5th visit to England in 1890 or so.
A day of intermittent cycling
The countryside is beautiful and very peaceful. There are a number of monks in their orange robes walking around and as we visit a local temple we observe 3 girls being preached to by a monk.
They are required to perform some ritual with a small bowl of water, at which point a beautiful orange and white cat (the reincarnation of Poie (aminal) ?)
ambles onto the scene and drinks all the water and then beautifully curls up in the lap of one of the girls, all of whom dissolve in fits of delightful giggles, as, eventually, does the monk. I have managed to video the lot and have already spent the £250 I will be sent by Jeremy Beadle or that huge woman on the telly !!
We have it explained to us that there are 2 forms of Buddhism – Mahayana and Hiragana (My MSWord spell-checker suggested this as a correction to my typed word but accepted Mahayana, so if Hiragana is the name of Bill Gates’ mother-in-law I apologise!)
The former believe that Buddha will reincarnate and come back to earth as a person. Their spiritual leader is the Dalai Llama (Yes, I know!!) and their religion is practised in Tibet, China, Vietnam, Korea, Walsall and Japan.
The latter believe that Buddha has had enough of spiritual life and all that remains are his teaching, as he has no desire to return to earth (wag that I am, I suggest he has had enough of the Bangkok traffic !)
How the 2 versions correlate I have no idea, as the difference seems rather fundamental to me, but what is religion if you cant have a bloody good argument about something to do with it?
We return to the Thanatharee and relax on deck, looking at the fading sun and drinking beer..
I volunteer to help with cooking dinner and am allocated Lime Slicing. Of course I louse it up and am told off for dropping pips from the limes into the bowl ! With huge effort they manage to rescue the situation however and produce a delicious meal, again served on deck under the stars.
Night descends and this brings out the mosquitoes. We all withdraw to various parts of the barge to read, write or listen to music. A very memorable day, with 2 more to come.
Sunday 11th January 2004
A meeting with the monks – We meet a typical Thai family – a Harassing visit to an Orphanage
Dawn breaks to the crackling of the local public address system in the village on the riverbank, with Radio Thailand News. Today is Children’s Day, and Thai children are encouraged to work hard, be kind to grown ups and respect their parents (I suppose in the UK it would be to stop stealing cars, taking drugs, eating so much and to stop watching telly for more than 4 hours a day!)
It is a little innocent but nice. It is also announced that Thailand is planning to become the world’s largest Microchip maker, the world largest producer of animated films and also are planning to ban ALL illegal drugs. Very laudatory, but all is planned in time for the King’s birthday in October…. Nothing like a modest goal !
We congregate on deck at 6 in order to watch the monks leave from the pontoon to which we are moored, in a small 2 man canoe to visit the local communities in order to receive food, upon which they are dependant in the monastery.
2 monks duly appear, a little bleary-eyed, and with little fuss, row off through the mist. The effect is a little spoiled when they arrive back an hour later being towed by a motor boat !!
They are however laden with bucket-loads of plain rice (I wonder out loud if they ever yearn for a good old fry-up) and we add to their load grovelling stiffly on our knees to the apparent mild amusement of the other monks, some of whom have turned up with cameras !! They seem very pleased however and trot for breakfast. It has all been a little surreal but good fun.
We trot back indoors for our breakfast – toast and coffee – after which we are off on the bikes again (It
is only 7.30 by now !!)
Our visit to the Monastery to listen to the monks chanting is cancelled at the last minute. No reason is given so I assume it has something to do with a surfeit of rice. Would you feel like chanting after eating half a ton of rice?
We visit a couple of temples – at one we are allowed to do more grovelling and place some incense sticks (crikey – a temple stinks like a 6th formers study at public school !) a lotus flower and some small gold-leaf pieces (actually golden coloured tin-foil) which is for some reason stuck onto the Buddha.
A visit to Acacia Avenue
We next visit a “typical Thai family” in their small-holding farm. As it is Sunday they are all lolling about doing nothing which is rather comforting. There is granddad, 94, enigmatic and wizen who utters not a word, even when I accidentally knock him half-senseless with my camcorder, mother who smiles a lot, husband who busies himself with our visit, youngest daughter who also smiles a lot, and loafs off to sleep in a hammock, and teenage son – good-looking and vigorous I give him my Panama hat and talk to him about David Beckham. Well, I don’t, I just say “David Beckham” a lot and smile. He seems to love it.
2 stunning teenage daughters make a late entry (it is midday, so in keeping with teenagers everywhere) and giggle at their brother in his new hat. He is unamused and obviously teases them about their appalling taste in boyfriends or something and a huge row erupts! Great fun.
The area we are in is very green. It is a large rice-producing area and as the rains are quite reliable in the area, produces 3 good crops a year. This makes for quite an affluent impression with some lovely houses, almost of European style, but, bizarrely with blue roofs (Piers and Barbie please note !!). These are however often located close to, or next to houses of rather a downtrodden nature. John Major would love it here !!
Visit to an orphanage
We then visit a basket weaving lady (boring) after which the supposed highlight of the day arrives. 2 hours at the local Orphanage, helping to dole out dinner to 1200 orphans.
The orphanage is huge and beautifully run. There are bands of volunteers who have come to assist in the feeding of the children and we all stand around the huge vats of (delicious) food.
There is some time to go and so I head off into the compound. I am immediately struck by the fact that there is little attempt at contact from the kids. I go and quietly sit watching an impromptu game of football and take pictures.
Occasionally the ball heads in my direction and no one follows it, so I kick it back. A few small smiles but no one comes and talks to me (which is unlike the other times when children will almost jump off their parents motorbikes to have contact with us) – an orphanage is after all a sad place with children who have drawn the short straw through no fault of their own.
Feeding time is again rather subdued – with a few joyous exceptions, the children take little notice of my juggling the fruit we are detailed to hand out, or pretending to drop it, or eating it myself etc. I stop it pretty damned quick.
Is it me? I ask myself and others. I am only trying to provide a little light relief. It ALWAYS works elsewhere with kids. Always !
I don’t understand, but of course I do. This is an orphanage, where every child that passes in front of me has never known his parents, has never known the name she might have been born with and has no future as part of their own family. They know little about their past, and know only that their future is uncertain. Their hopes and ambitions rest on the shoulders of others.
I am depressed. No one sees it, but I cry. I suppose you are meant to cry when you visit an orphanage. It is that sort of place. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr……... I have never visited an orphanage before. Amen.
We return to the boat where we are given a lesson in Thai cooking. Green curry using eggplant. Delicious.
The Aussies turn in at about 8 and the Germans and I spend the evening playing dominoes. Very colonial with the lights of the barge, the noise of the crickets on the banks, the mists on the river and, eventually the mosquitoes. We turn in at about 10
Monday 12th January 2004
Visit to an early-morning – visit to a local school – visit to Ayodhia – Visit to a load of temples – Out for dinner in Bangkok
We are up again at 6, but it is pouring with rain. We are supposed to visit the local market and in order not to ”miss“ anything I agree to go with the Germans. The Aussies have decided to miss this one. I am afraid of my shoes getting (and thus remaining) wet so I go barefoot. We arrive and frankly markets, which include pigs’ entrails and split-open heads, fried locusts and other such delicacies do nothing at all for me at that time of the morning and so, and a strict toast n coffee person, flip-flops bought I head back for the boat and leave the rest of them to it. They arrive back after 5 minutes as well.
The others then leave after an hour or so to visit a drum factory (I decided I don’t do drums on a Monday) but we all get together again after an hour to pay a visit to the local school.
Visit to a local school
Kids and I re-establish our normal idiocy and as we are asked to write our names on the blackboard, I am afraid I write “David Beckham”.
This causes uproar and hilarity (I rather suspected it would - Manchester United and in particular David Beckham are utterly HUGE here) and I spend some time drawing maps on the blackboard locating every premierships’ club location for the class.
The Aussies do a wonderful rendition on Waltzing Matilda and even the Germans talk animatedly to the kids, (they wont sing – I suppose Deutschland ueber alles would not go down too well!!) who I think believe the latter have come from the moon !!
We chat to the class at length and have a great time. I decide to go and get my laptop off the boat, and download some photos from my digital camera I have taken. This goes down very well, especially when I bring up the photo I have taken of their teacher !
Soon it is time to leave and we are all mobbed for our autographs. I find this rather embarrassing and return into one of the classes and write my real name on the board and suggest they copy that down which they earnestly do. There is then a great deal of handshaking and saying goodbye and we are all sad to leave.
We get back on board and conclude this wonderful three days in Ayothia (the old capital of Siam) where we visit another couple of excruciating temples (where one of the Buddhas in lying down – a sensible move I reckon) but the highlight of which is when one of the lovely Aussies describes the view from the top of one of the temples as “Arse Puckering” !!
We arrive back by minibus in Bangkok where it is also pouring with rain and we all decide to prolong the tour by going out for dinner. The Germans elect to go back to their hotel (The Mandarin Oriental…) but the rest of us go to a fish restaurant near the river which turn out to be staffed by transvestites !! Charming and very flouncy !!
The meal is quite good but by now I am felling decidedly unwell and I return to the hotel and find I have a temperature and am showing the signs of flu. I think I have been in too many temperature changes to be good for me, and I retire to
After another battle with “that” traffic I return to the hotel and swear my next car trip will be to the airport. I go and have a haircut and end up have a complete makeover, with a toe and nail cut, an ear and nose haircut and a good normal haircut as well. I am well and truly ready for Lombok !!
I drag myself out of my room at about 8pm feeling dreadful and head round the corner to a little roadside restaurant I have seen. It is called the Smile Café and provides the most authentic and tasty Thai meal I have had since I arrived. It is also an internet café and so I get on the net after dinner and do some research on Lombok.
Wednesday 14th January 2004
Journey from Bangkok, via Singapore to the Indonesian Island of Lombok
Up early for packing and am on the way to the airport by 8 with Mike. We arrive in quite quick time and customs formalities are completed quickly. The flight to Singapore is uneventful and the transfer onto Silk Air’s flight to Lombok is no problem.
There is however no time to update my Travel Log onto the internet so I am going to have to do it from a remote computer somewhere in Lombok.
Just before take I notice we are being followed to the runway by a completely unmarked, huge 747. No airline or ID on it whatsoever. I have asked the captain what it was all about and she has promised to get back to me. Watch this space. Update - Nothing terribly exciting I am afraid. Only a SIA airplane being flown to Arizona as it is being decommissioned and left to rot in the desert!! What a way to end the career of such a piece of technical wizardry !!
LOMBOK – Indonesia
The airport of Mataram is a tiny affair, a little like the ones Kenneth Moore used to fly into in his films set in exotic countries in the 1950 ! A few shacks scattered about here and there and a single storey building which acts as arrivals and departures – probably both at the same time.
There is a huge crowd of colourful locals in saris (this is a Moslem state whereas Bali is Hindu ….ooops!!) with their noses pressed up against the wire fence which separates the field from the rest of the world - one cannot help thinking my old pal Bin could have a field day here !! – and I am led into the arrivals area where a nice lady stamps my passport. Baggage reclaim is over in a trice and I am met by a young chappie waving a sign with my name on it.
He is from the Internet agency where I booked my accommodation, and he is helpfulness personified, carrying bags, asking me how I am (bloody awful still and getting worse).
We get into his Toyota and hurry out of the airport. My guide goes into information overload, as he produces maps, booklets and other touristy paraphernalia. I am ghasted with flab, and wish he would shut up, but he is of course trying to induce me to book other tours with him, before I get to my hotel and find that they will do it for me for the half price !!
We speed though what seems a countryside so green and lush it is quite breathtaking. There is also, or so it seems, amazing poverty here (which I never really saw in Thailand) with locals bouncing around on bullock carts rather than cars.
I am informed that my hotel is located on an island off the coast of Lombok and that we will be driving for 40 minutes, after which we will be transferring to a Speedboat !! A speedboat ?? A little James Bond, no?
I remember that I have no Indonesian Rupiah and casually mention that I assume there to be an ATM machine at the hotel? (no) or on the island? (no) or near the island? (no!!) – so we hare back into Mataram and I fish extravagant amounts of Rupiah – there are 13500 to the pound, so a million about buys a beer or 2 !! - out of a dilapidated ATM which makes 7 attempts to return me my card (I can assure you a mild sense of foreboding sets in at about the 5th failed attempt to spit it out !!)
We hug the coast-road which roller-coasters along what, in the half-light of dusk, looks spectacular. Beaches with miles of sand edged by palm trees stuck out a crazy angles. Very tropical, very green and very beautiful.
We pass through Singiggi which is one of the main tourist resorts on the island and it does seem populated with Oberois and Holiday Inns and sea-side little shanty-cafes. What strikes me is the complete lack of “tourists” in this tourist resort, but I assume they are all having dinner.
Thai karma has obviously found its way into my veins as our driver manages to stall the car on a 45 degree hill. Hill starts are not his thing and I encourage him to remain totally calm as we keep trying to move forward, but kangaroo backwards at each failed attempt.
I also gently suggest he might consider stopping talking on his mobile phone, as 2 hands are better than one when heading backwards into the South China sea !!
We finally manage a form of hill-start and plough on towards out hotel (or our speedboat, but as it is now completely dark I am sceptical as to whether he is telling me the truth !!)
Transfer to hotel by Speedboat
After a few more minutes we veer off the road and stop next to the sea, on a sandy beach. In the distance twinkle the lights of Gilli Trawangan (Gilli means island in Indonesian). In the foreground, a few feet offshore, stands a lovely speedboat with a huge engine on the back.
I wade into the water in my trousers and hop aboard, and ‘ere long we are skimming across the sea at high speed - no lights but the spectacular night sky which is filled with stars. What utter joy !!
We take 10 minutes to reach the Vila Ombak hotel which, at least at night, looks a fabulous place. A 2 story teak structure, largely open to the air, with tropical gardens.
I am welcomed at reception with a revolting “welcome cocktail” (oh dear) and then shown to my room which is actually a bungalow.
The room is about the size of a tennis court, with marble floors, a high ceiling, armchairs and tables and………….. a bathroom “au naturel”
The bathroom, whilst fully enclosed from prying eyes, is actually outdoors, with a small garden of Bamboo trees and a rockery which I can look at as I sit on the loo !!
The shower is under another tree (though with a canopy to protect the showeree from falling tree detritus) – I really feel I have escaped from a scene from Dr No (I have always fantasised about stroking a cat and doing something truly evil as I stroke !! (So what ? Ed))
Dinner is a rushed affair as I want to get on the net (there is no ADSL here – and yes the Blackberry has been working wonderfully well, thanks) and then to bed, so I share my chicken and rice with a sweet black cat, and get bollocked (nicely) by the waiter for risking attracting ants !!
I am soon in bed and reading the Rough Guide to Bali and Lombok. It turns out that the Ghillis are a mecca for backpackers and Ghilli Trawaganan in particular. That explains the young couples sitting on benches along the road watching Eastenders….!! Oh well, I intend to enjoy it and certainly shall try. Goodnight.
Thursday 15th January 2004
Ill in Lombok and little else
Today is a complete washout as flu has taken hold and I have a high fever. I decided to sweat it out doing nothing, lie reading books about Australia and sweat like a pig as today of all days the electricity goes walkabout. Oh well – can’t be helped.
Thanks to my lovely nephew in England who cleverly advised me to buy anti-biotics in Thailand as a precaution – available without prescription - I feel the road to recovery will not take long. Better not anyway – I want to get out and see things.
Update on this one !! I only half listen when people tell me things that are good for me, and this must have been the case with Geoff !!
I find there is a fully equipped clinic in the hotel and a check-up quickly follows. I am still alive – my blood pressure is fine, tongue in the right place, eyes puffy and bloodshot as usual etc etc. My temperature is off the scale, but it will come down and I am prescribed some anti-biotics.
“Oh, I am taking some already” I tell the doctor smugly
“Ah, what are they are called” he asks
“Metronidazol” I reply. That’ll impress him
A long look ensures, followed by laughter, not only from the doctor but also from the rather serious nurse
“Mr Peter, you had better take these. Mertonidazol are prescribed for serious cases of diarreah!!”
Exit one Mr Peter, red-faced but much amused.
I decide enough is enough, go and shower under my tree and decided I am no longer ill. Can’t waste time like this.
I leave the hotel and trip over a man and cart, with a horse attached to it. (There are by the way no cars at all on the Ghillis) who offers to take me on a trip around the island for 3 quid. I don’t argue and get on board.
It is really like going back in time to the time of Robinson Crusoe here. No cars and only horse-drawn carts. Driving along a sandy path which run beside the white sandy beaches with Palm trees and a blue sea beyond with fishermen in outrigger canoes darting about is, in the words of the average backpackers – the ones here are much more mature and relaxed than those in Bangkok - …awesome.
It is really like going back in time to the time of Robinson Crusoe here. No cars and only horse-drawn carts. Bumping along the sandy path which runs beside the white sandy beaches with Palm trees and a blue sea beyond, with fishermen in outrigger canoes darting about is, in the words of the average backpacker – the ones here are much more mature and relaxed than those in Bangkok, mainly due to their being either Aussies or New Zealanders - …awesome.
The entire trip around the island takes about 40 minutes by horse carriage, and is pretty much the same all the way around. It is a definite “touristy” destination, but this is all relative. It is cheap tourism, as other than the Vila Ombok, there are few hotels of any standing.
But the people attracted to places like this are extremely laid back in the first place and therefore there is no-one and nothing that in any way sticks out. People (locals and visitors) go about their respective business, no one is hassled (other than the competition to draw you into a bar for dinner) and one is left to ones own devices.
There are a couple of small communities on the island, where the inhabitants live is shacks – all raised off the ground on stilts – where mother and children remain indoors (this is after all a Moslem island), whilst husbands and sons busy themselves with the visitors, play beach football (offside becomes the edge of the sea) and generally have a good time.
Dinner, but feeling awful still, so am in bed, after assorted chats on MSN, as soon as I can,
Friday 16th January 2004
A Robinson Crusoe lunch – An introduction to Peter – A SWIM WITH TURTLES
I wake up late and as I feel better bound out of bed with vim and vigour and prepare to go snorkelling. I rush outside…….. and rush straight back in again. Bloody hell, it absolutely boiling and humid. Oh dear. Maybe energetic ideas are to be put off to Manana or maybe after Manana !
I do amble, slowly to the PADI registered “Dive centre” in the hotel and hire a snorkel and flippers for the day ($3 – I was going to learn to dive with bottles, but am a little dubious of the people and it turns out their boat is bust anyway) and go and find my man with a horse and cart again.
We trot off to a new and rather quaint hotel overlooking a clear stretch of water clear to the horizon which has a single beach-front Bali-type cabana set up.
I sit down in there and order a Chicken Sandwich (absolutely delicious) and a Bacardi and Coke. My horse (Blazer) and cart wait in the shade whilst I read more of my book about Oz, and then we amble (slowly) to another spot which is meant to be good for snorkelling and where – sometimes – you can observe wild turtles.
May I introduce you to “Peter” (I will not bother you with his surname in case The Inland Revenue, Interpol (Stop Press – Interpol are having a Symposium on the Island of Bali….!) or Don Sandro Corleone of Palermo is reading this). Peter is a man of about 48 who seems to have done most things in life (illegally that is). He is rather short, good looking, covered in tattoos, and is, at first sight, a hell of a nice fellow – if a little…..eh, shifty !
He tells me about his friend who will take me to see the turtles (if I buy him a drink) after which he and another friend will take me for dinner in a good restaurant (if I pay), and another friend (this one called “Pink”) who will take me for a boat trip tomorrow around the island of Lombok if I buy him a beer) etc. You are maybe beginning to get your head around this chap.
Apparently he runs a bar in Kuta, Bali (the bomb went off under his left arm but of course he survived with only a small scratch …..), sells (by his own admission) “fake” Rolexes (maybe he is not all bad!!), sends “fake” designer clothes to Germany and is what one can only call the Del Boy of Bali (he is here on holiday)
After a few minutes we are joined by his stunning Balinese girlfriend (he says she is 22 – I reckon she is about 18) who seems totally devoted to him, in a disarming sort of way.
I talk to her when he is gone and she is quite straightforward about her relationship with him. Of course she is “too young” for him, she says, but she comes from a very poor family, he looks after her well, and he buys her nice clothes (she proudly shows me her “Cinderella” high heels and she has some simple jewellery on) and pays her family money. She is Intelligent, honest, funny and she loves white wine. Mmmmm…….
“Pink” (yes, he did exist!) arrives and off we go in search of fish and turtles. There is a Coral reef seemingly about 5 feet offshore and it is not long before we are swimming thorough shoals of fabulous exotic fish, of every colour and type imaginable.
The coral is not fantastically colourful (there has been a lot of dynamite fishing here) but it is still very much alive, as the snap, crackle and pop of the reef
proves.
proves.
There are yellow and black striped fish with a fancy tail and a hooked mouth, there are green and yellow striped fish, there is a larger fish with a shiny silvery half in contrast to the other, jet black half, there are silvery fish that look like sticks and always swim about in twos, and there are even small barracuda fish where the reef peters out and the deep begins.
However beautiful this may be, there are no turtles and we come out after an hour and head back off to our respective hotels.
However, a little like my sailing adventure in Saudi Arabia all those years ago, something makes me first decide to take one last trip back into the water. I don goggles and flippers and head out again. I swim around in vain, still fascinated by the colourful fish around. I stop and take a long look around and suddenly…. heading out of the deep….towards me are 2 large turtles with dark brown mottled shells make their way towards me.
I can hardly believe it. They look as if they are flying as they use their 2 front “flippers” to propel themselves forward about halfway between the seabed and the surface of the water. I watch, transfixed. This – for a simple soul like me – makes this whole trip worthwhile.
One turtles swims a short distacne up the coast, but the other one has obviously come for her (or is it his?) tea, and settles down on the seabed and starts pulling chunks of coral out with her mouth and then using her front flippers to “shovel” the stuff in.
She is obviously hungry and I watch her for at least half and hour. Occasionally she pushes to the surface where she seems to take a single brief gulp of air, before descending back to the same place and continuing her meal.
I notice there is a small green and black striped fish in constant attendance (as there was with the other turtle who has also started to feed a little distance away and which now and again I swim over to take a look at) and I wonder if this is the turtle equivalent of the “valet” fish that attend to sharks.
After a while “my” turtle pushes off and we begin a lovely little swim together around the bay for about 10 minutes. Of course I am being absurd, but it seemed to me that the turtle would pause for a few seconds while I caught up (there is a fairly strong rip-current along the beach) and then we would swim side by side for a few more yards.
This went on for a few minutes, before the turtle looked round at me and smiled, told me she just can’t float around like this for ever as she has to get back to the kids as it’s their bath-time soon !
Unforgettable and we have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.
I meet up with Peter and some others for dinner, and pretty soon decide he is actually a complete Nong (he is in show-off mode bossing all the locals about) and when he begins to show naked pictures of his girlfriend around (to her and everyone else’s obvious embarrassment) I make my excuses and leave
Saturday 17th January 2004
A trip around Lombok
Today I have negotiated a car to take me round the island and we catch the communal ferry boat from the beach at 08.00. I fall into conversation with a young couple from Stockholm who are here on holiday
She is a little mousey type (what a bitch I am today. I wonder what they write about me. “He is the big fat type”) and he is Swedishly huge, all legs and floppy hair. He is a software engineer writing a programme for Swedish horseracing and she is… I can’t remember. I also can’t remember their names, but we chat away about everything for the 40 minute journey. I Lovely
I am met by the driver on the mainland and we set off as he shows me the route we are going to take.
We begin to climb into hills as we head away from the sea and I am delighted to see a large troop of monkeys by the side of the road. We stop to take pictures and they are joined by more monkeys and before there is quite a party going on, as they all chase each other about the car and scratch each other, the car etc. Very amusing. It is a rather more real life version of Longleat but I notice they have not been trained to go for the windscreen-wipers.
We arrive in Mataram – a complete disarray of random streets and buildings which is rather unattractive, made worse by a cacophony of motor-bikes, cows and other minor forms of transport. I withdraw a few more million Rupiah to pay my driver and to make provision for souvenirs, before heading out of town again.
The town is in chaos as a state visit by the deputy president of Indonesia (I make a joke asking if his name is Miniwatty which goes down quite well) in planned for 12.30 so I am pleased to escape.
Our first port of call is the Banya Malek pottery with a dazzling display of pots, ashtrays, pots and more pots. They are of good quality and I catch sight of some rather nice eggshell place mats, as they turn out to be quite transportable buy 6 of these. They are actually very nice indeed and cost me £3 each.
We then visit a weaving mill where I buy a nice tablecloth with gold thread, we then visit a glassworks where I buy absolutely nothing and that gets all the “tourist” rubbish out of the way….
We soon head off into to real inland of the island which consists almost entirely of rice fields. We stop and film a troupe of rice-pickers coming from the fields and they seem very pleasant but demand money for having their photo taken. Fair enough.
As this is a Moslem I notice that all the girl children beyond the age of about 13 seem required to wear the burda. The law is that in school-uniform they are required to wear veils, but are allowed to take it off once in civvies.
We stop and visit a “Typical” Lombok village where I am showed round, in something of a hurry by one of the so called locals. He is a man, and I have to say that maybe women in the particular village have got it about right...
The first thing he shows me is the village Rice store – a sort of upside down washing basket with a hole in the side – and tells me that only women are allowed in there to help themselves to the rice.
He then shows me the washing facilities for the village, and again tells me that only the women are in fact allowed to use it, and that the men have to use the stream a few hundred meters away (I cant help wondering if someone the men have drilled a small hole in the women’s wash-hut just for fun !!!) so I get the impression men are somewhat de-trop in this environment (on a more serious note this is after all a Moslem country, so maybe there are religious reasons for all this)
As we are about to end the tour I come across a mother giving her baby a bath – I find the process rather charming. The baby obviously finds me totally lacking in any charm whatsoever, as the photos I take of him portray. I am rather relieved that the mother finds the episode amusing too as I was a little worried of ending up up to my neck in the rice store for upsetting the locals!
We soon are on the road again, and heading through the main rice producing area of the island – and where the new airport is to be built and completed by 2006 which it is hoped will bring about a Bali-like transformation in Lombok’s tourism industry – and arrive in Kuta Lombok. It is beyond doubt a lovely areas, but not that lovely – not a patch on the area where I am staying – but there is a stunning French-built Novotel.
Novotel in France is a chain of hotels you only stay in if rushing through France to get to the Cote d’Azur on holiday, and then only if skimping hugely – but here on Lombok (and I have heard in other areas of the Far East) they have constructed some of the most beautiful around.
I head for the restaurant for lunch and find once again that the place is almost entirely deserted – so to amuse them, and scare my wallet witless – I order a Pimms which I don’t think has been served in Lombok since about 1936 !It comes, if a little light on the “garden”, strong…. and neat. They are a little surprised when I pour Sprite into it!! (Ze filthy eenglish and zer disgusting ‘abits!!)
By now I feel completely boiled and slightly tipsy, not a good combination – and wonder what on earth induces people to come on a beach holiday to a place such as this where they have to cower out of the sun for most of their time as it is so hot and strong.
I go and lie down on a chair (partly to relax and partly to recover from the bill) and watch the surf for a few minutes, find it utterly boring and head back to find my driver, who totally depresses me by telling me he had a lovely lunch of chicken and rice for about 1 /10 of my bill (bet he didn’t have a Pimms though!)
We start to head back to Trawangan and I am pleased that the journey is not too long. The impression that the area around the north-west of the island is reinforced by our journey and I am pleased when we reach the ferry to take us back to the island.
As my driver and I amble through the throng of porters, hawkers and fakirs at the beachside I hear the sound of an unmistakeable “stressie-Bessie” giving her porter utter hell for daring to load her bags onto the ferry in the incorrect order. I catch sight of the rather nice looking “Bessie” (who turns out to be a Veronica) and find myself sitting next to her.
We fall into conversation (she is from Essex and has spent 5 months on Lanzarott’ay working as a lap-dancer) and is very nice indeed, fascinated by the prospect of swimming with turtles, talks a lot about her mother and apologises profusely to me (why I am not quite sure) for having been so stressed on the dock. She has not eaten all day….
She asks me all about the island – I am of course a complete expert having been there for 3 whole days – and so I ask what she is looking for and what her budget is. She tells me, and feel obliged to suggest she sets up her bedroll under a Palm tree….She’ll be fine! The last I saw of her was disappearing in a horse drawn carriage for a tour of the island… maybe Palm trees are cheaper the other side.
I am offered a cigarette on the ferry and accept out of curiosity. It turns out to be a new experience as it is one flavoured with cloves. It is a lovely taste and it is not long before I am cadging another one (you know me – only smoke OP’s)
We talk (social ferry this) to one of the guides and ask what the 3 names of the Gilli islands are – Gilli Air – means Water island, Gilli Trawangan means Cave island and Gilli Minu means Small Lake island. So now I know it all
Sunday 18th January 30, 2004
Departure for Bali by Fast Boat – Ubud - Fire Dance
I leave the hotel by speedboat (it is part of the arrival and departure process) and am delighted when the drives agrees to let me drive. We open the throttle a little (OK – a lot) and are haring over back to the mainland. The driver looks a little worried but soon relaxes as we crash headlong through the waves. Great fun.
A taxi is waiting for me at the other end and I find we have 1 hour to do a 1 ½ hour drive to the port of Lembar where the “high-speed” ferry leaves for Bali. I need not worry, as I find that Michael Schumacher is taking a few weeks off and is honing his skills as a taxi driver on Lombok and so we arrive in plenty of time.
The high speed ferry terminal looks a pretty slow speed and delapidated place, but soon our luggage loaded onto the high speed ferry in a pretty high speed way.
I am quite certain from the amount that goes aboard that there is absolutely no room for passengers but we are loaded on in the end and (oh god – here I go again) I head straight out of the back and sit on the (completely unprotected) outside section where I am soon joined by some young Australians here on holiday with their parents.
They are utterly delightful, have just been to Bali (to where they are returning to catch their flight back to Oz) and within 5 minutes – with a little too’ing and fro’ing to their parents - have completely sorted out my stay on Bali.
I am to stay at Ubud, in the Ubud Bungalows. I am to eat at the Lotus lane restaurant, where, according to their young son, the chocolate mousse is” awesome - the best in the whole world” – a young man completely after my own heart !
I am soon introduced to their parents and they invite me to come and see them somewhere at their house in Mermaid Beach, south of Brisbane.
The high speed boat leaves the harbour and ‘ere long we are belting across the straits and on the way to Bali. The boat is equipped with 6 (repeat 6) humungous outboards so the speed and wake is impressive.
We arrive at Bali International Ferry Terminal (i.e. a beach) and by this time I
realise that as I have sat in the blazing sun for far too long I have a serious case of sunburn. I go ashore and cannot even be bothered to haggle the price of the taxi to Ubud, and go off in search of a gallon or two of water.
I return with my stomach squelching and heave myself into the taxi. It turns out the AC is not working. I remain incredibly calm, and resign to sweating a great deal.
Ubud turns out to be the Carmel or Portofino of Bali (apart from it is not by the sea) as it is an artists enclave and, by Bali standards, rather laid back and calm.
Monkey Forest Road is the main drag and the Ubud Bungalows Hotel (E-mail – w_widnyana@hotmail.com) is a stunning, bijou little hotel with a lush tropical garden. I am shown to my bamboo bungalow and find the hotel pool – complete with Balinese fountain statue – is right next door. It is heaven and staffed by gentle, constantly smiling men for whom nothing is too much trouble. It turns out the room has no AC (heard this one before...) so I am resigned to a lot more panting before my time here is out. No worries.
I go for a swim and am soon joined by another, very chatty Oz family from Darwin. We chat about Bali. They tell me the fire dance is worth seeing; I tell them my head hurts a lot. I have been a very silly Peter I think.
I go back to my room, have a long chat with my head and we reach a compromise. I undertake to remember to duck before walking through low doors and it promises in return not to hurt too much for the next 48 hours. A good all round agreement I feel.
This done, I buy a ticket for the Fire dance and go to the theatre – actually a patch of dusty ground – as it starts at 7.30.
A huge group of men troop out and sit down in the dust in a human circle, about 5 layers thick. In the middle is a rather elaborate candle-stick like the sort they sell in most Conran shops. Some musicians’ troop in and tune up.
Suddenly all the men start shouting “Yakk Yakk Yakk” at the top of their voices and I can’t help laughing. Come all this way and end up with a Male Choir singing Chas n’ Dave seems a little incongruous.
Of course Yak means something mystical and probably fearsom in Balinese and the show turns into a real bravura exercise in excitement and mystery as they continue to chant Yak Yak Yak – faster and faster – throughout the evening. Occasionally they get up and dance around or lie down on top of each other.
Some women dressed in wondrous dresses come on and wiggle about a lot, and do utterly impossible things with their fingers, and the men positively Yak Yak Yak at them as loud as they can, and once again all collapse in a heap on top of each other.
A huge man in a mask and feathers now appears and shouts “Oi” at everyone a few times and stamps his feet in a fearsome manner as he stamps around the candelabra, inside the ring of chaps. They of course don’t like this at all, and therefore “Yak Yak Yak” even louder (almost in protest on would imagine)
In the mean time the music rises to a crescendo and all get up and leave and that is the end.
Is has been a very impressive performance and I have enjoyed it enormously.
Next a lone man walks onto the stage and very solemnly empties a sack of coconut shells onto the ground, pours a bottle of White Spirit over the top and lights them. We all manage NOT to clap as he walks off!
A few moments later a wiry little man of about 70 prances in on a sort of over-indulged hobby horse (which also happens to be wearing a grass skirt!!) and we all just KNOW what he is going to do….don’t we?
He prances about a bit on his hobby horse and then, with great drama, kicks the pile of now glowing coconut shells, in an apparent ft of mystic pique. They scatter and he starts walking about in the middle of the ashes getting his feet very hot in the process. The other end of me knows how it feels.
He continues this most impressive performance of coconut shy and I study – and film – his feet very carefully and he really does get them extremement chaud as those nice froggies would say. The horse which is still attached to him also gets quite hot and a little singed in the grass skirt department.
After a few moments of this our man throws his hobby horse awat, suddenly sits down, appears to say a prayer drinks some water and shows us his feet – they are extremely black. A foot bath and some camomile definitely on the cards tonight!
It was a very enjoyable evening, very well presented and exciting. As the whole 1 ½ hour’s entertainment cost only £3 I went home pleased.
Monday 19th January 2004
Scooter Ride around Bali – Visit to an Elephant Sanctuary – More BalineseDancing
I get up feeling a lot cooler in the head and decide to hire a motorbike for the morning. This cost the princely sum of £4 and I head off out of town to find the real Bali.
After a few miles of interminable handy-craft stores I decide to find out where I am by looking at a map. This proves harder than expected as the map turns out to be one of Bangkok. I have bought the wrong map, but in my defence they are of remarkably similar colour (one orange and the other green)
Still I decide to carry on and before long come across a small road heading off to the right. I follow is and before long I am in a different world, one which to me at least seems more like the real Bali.
I pass rice fields with mainly men as opposed to Lombok where it was mainly women working in their funny hats - which sit high on their heads so as to allow air to circulate as well as keeping off the sun - and calf-length trousers.
IN Bali there exists a superstition that the rice harvest has to be constant otherwise the gods will be upset, and so a new rice harvest is sown before the old one is harvested.
IN Bali there exists a superstition that the rice harvest has to be constant otherwise the gods will be upset, and so a new rice harvest is sown before the old one is harvested.
Many of the rice fields are terraced steeply up the side of hills, and it must be a back-breaking task to attend to these on a constant basis, especially in the hot season.
I notice that rice shoots are a very different shade of green – much more vivid – than almost all other forms of greenery.
I pass through villages which are extremely neat and tidy, all with beautiful displays of flowers and shrubs in their gardens. Each house has a very tall structure covered in leaves and plants in front, which appears a form of offering to the gods to ward off evil spirits. In addition there is always a small bamboo-platter in front of each house as a further “daily” offering to the gods. This consists of flowers, herbs, invariably an incense stick and sometimes biscuits.
This is changed normally on a daily basis, but sometimes on a ½ daily basis.
It seems strange to me that for a people that to me seem so remarkably “normal”, relaxed and laid back, there is nevertheless a strong undercurrent of religion and what we might (but they certainly do not) consider “mumbo-jumbo” but it is maybe this that keeps them sane, considering the number of La La visitors they have from Europe and the United States.
The friendliness of the people in the villages in remarkable, as almost everyone I pass calls out hello) and smiles (I mean who wouldn’t smile – in pity – as a man in white trousers, a pink polo-shirt to match his pink face and a helmet half on and half off his head because of the heat, rides by on one of “their” motorbikes. The kids repeat hello, hello hello and chase me until I am almost out of sight!
I see a sign which points to “Bali Elephant Safari park” and I decide to pay that a visit and head off through jungle until I enter the safari park. I am immediately stopped and asked to give a donation which I gladly do. I sign my name and have to enter how much I donate. I pass over the money and head off down the road. Soon I reach a sign saying “Entrance”
I thought I was in already and when I am asked to pay an official entrance fee I wonder whether the man I just gave a donation to was not pulling off a quite remarkable example of a free market fraud. I suppose the signing in was his way of ensuring his tax return carried all the correct supporting documentation.
The Safari park itself has only been opened for a couple of years but has attracted the attention of a number of celebrities, including David Beckham and his wife. In the photo of her pinned on the wall she looks about as superbly gormless as she does in all her other photos in Hello, apart from in addition she look extremely hot and bothered !
Beckham looks like he is having fun and there are pictures of him sitting on
elephants. Steve Irwin (Croc Hunter) has also been there as have a few other Aussies I have never heard of.
I am allocated an elephant called Raum (Ra-.um) who I am informed is the same elephant that David Beckham had. Much to my surprise the elephant leans over to me and whispers “Complete bollocks – they tell all Englishman that”. I smile at him amazed and he looks away wistfully.
Raum then politely suggests I stuff vast quantities of bamboo shoots into various parts of his anatomy (mainly his mouth and trunk) which he seems to enjoy, shows me his tongue – v. pink – and with great ceremony is given a small mouth harmonica which is placed at the inlet to his trunk (elephants breathe through their trunk) and proceeds to play it, or actually to breathe through it.
Making sure I have cleaned the harmonica of all ele-snot I then play a little tune back to him which – to be serious – he seems to listen to intently. I play it again and he begins to shake his huge head about and flap his ears, which amuses his Mahout. Clearly a musical elephant. I am the garlanded from behind by the elephant which has to suffer the indignity of having its photo taken with me.
It is time to move on and so I say goodbye to Raum (who whispers “bet you say that to all elephants”) and I get back on my bike.
It is now getting rather hot again and so I try and find my way back to Ubud (my map of Bangkok is still quite useless) which takes some time.
I spend the rest of the day by the pool before venturing out in the evening to another dance performance this time by women doing the Lalang dance. The music is excruciatingly repetitive, played on a 10 bar xylophone and the dancing, whilst certainly extremely colourful is also a little repetitive as all the women wear expressions of surprise on their faces which makes them look like they have a banana stuck in tender places. As the other night though they still do amazing things with their fingers, and their colourful costumes and masks are amazing.
I return to the hotel, have a swim and go to bed.
Tuesday 20th January
I buy a Rolex watch – Visit to Kuta – Return to Singapore for transfer to Sydney
I decide to do very little today – there is no point in trying to see everything in 3 days – and so proceed to the pool where I am joined by a delightful, but very lesbian (and I mean the “but” in the politically correct, non-judgemental sense) who flop about for a while before going and cuddling up on one sun bed together.
They are stewardesses and are here on a 4 day holiday using their staff discount. They have had a lovely time, the highlight of which was a visit to the local Dolce and Gabbana fakes shop up the road and they show me a lovely Rolex (why at the D and G shop I don’t know) they have bought themselves (or each other..) I am afraid I am intrigued and am pushing the door open ‘ere long!!
It is a faker’s delight and they have on offer the most extraordinarily high quality Rolex watches I have ever seen. I am doubly amazed when the lovely watch I buy comes complete with a wooden Rolex box, an embossed Rolex guarantee and an embossed Rolex instruction manual in 212 languages.
I return to the hotel delighted and even remember to take my new diamond studded Submariner Day/Date Certified Official Chronometer off my wrist before I jump into the hotel pool………
I have tried very hard to lose things on this trip, and so far have been singularly unsuccessful. This is not saying I have not tried – even tried hard at times. For instance the other night I had to be run back to the Fire Dance theatre as I had lost my room key. Only I had not, and found it upon my return in the 12th little pocket on my camera hold-all. I even try hard to lose my sunglasses, but they stick resolutely to my forehead.
Only now I manage to succeed. I know perfectly well I have put down the keys to my hotel room whilst in the internet café up the road. I even moved them to a more secure place whilst there, but still manage to leave them behind. I return to claim them immediately and to my surprise am told they have not been found.
Quite absurd but my hotel seem quite used to the idea and produce a new
key immediately for me.
key immediately for me.
By 4 I am on the way to the airport for the transfer to Sydney. I feel I have to take a look at Kuta, the Mecca for most tourists to Bali, so we leave the hotel early and head into town.
Kuta – which was of course the target for a terrorist bomb in 2002 – is quite the most dreadful place on the island, and once again reaffirms my belief that there exists a strain of human being which is quite beyond my (quite liberal) understanding.
The town looks like an amalgam of Calcutta, Blackpool and Marbella and seems populated by an underclass of tourist whose only interest is the pursuit of hedonistic superficiality. Why exactly they don’t save themselves, and the Balineans, the trouble I cannot understand. My friend Peter from Lombok and his views on life are brought into sharp relief and it is easy to see why he thrives here.
My driver – actually the sensitive and intelligent owner of the hotel I was staying in Ubud – is visibly and verbally distressed at being in Kuta at all, and we head, post haste, for the airport, where I sit waiting the departure of my flight to Singapore and watch a magnificent Bali sunset.
Lombok and Bali were very different, and not only for reasons of religion. Lombok is a quiet island which is waiting (hoping) to become the next Bali, though I do not think it will ever happen, as the Muslim faith and restrictions will not allow it.
It is supremely poor mainly, with some areas of political tension where a tourist is advised not to go. It is green, and in some parts stunningly beautiful, but I was glad I stayed in the centre of things and whilst sad to leave such a lovely area, quite ready to move on to something new
Bali – surprisingly for a nation ruled for centuries by the Dutch of all people – is, as one already knows, an island of superlatives. The people pour their charm and guile (Yuk !! – Ed.) over you from the moment you arrive and make you feel the whole reasons Bali exists today is because you are the one person that has never visited the place, and now everything is OK.
People walk about with a smile the whole time, and whilst I have heard stories of people being hassled, I never felt it a problem, at least not in the relative sophistication of Ubud.
The countryside and the real Bali still exist – and I did not come close to finding it properly – and so far it is the one country I want to return to take a good look at.
Wednesday 21st January 2004
Arrival in Australia
After a quite appalling flight from Singapore, made worse by a selection of passengers from hell and beyond – the steward on the plane, seeing my discomfort only mildly for myself, but more for him and his wonderful, polite and infinitely long-suffering staff – reminded me gently that the flight from Singapore to Sydney is regarded as the M1 of the air. Not as many flights as from Europe to Singapore
I mean would you tell a passenger sitting on the right hand side of a plane which is heading more or less due south, 8 times that he wont be able to see the sunrise and so please would he close his window-blind so the rest of the passenger can sleep, so POLITELY or just belt him ? Grrrrrr….
We soon arrive over the azure blue waters of Botany Bay outside Sydney and head into the airport along the wave-strewn coast, and into Kingsford Smith Airport
After the exotica of the Far East it is strange to see once again the likes of Air France, Continental and British Airways aircraft lines up one next to the other at what is a thoroughly modern, beautiful looking airport.
We disembark into the arrivals hall and are lined up for immigration. A relatively painless process, apart from being ticked off sternly by a very stern looking woman for using a mobile phone – half the arrivals are on the phone by now – as it is pointed out to us that as we are in a secret, secure area we are not to communicate with anyone, let alone our friends and worse there IS “a notice” (the size of a postage stamp) which tells us so.
I am sniffed by a cute little Beagle, frisked by a guard and then allowed without further ado, into Oz.
I am delighted to see Audrey standing there, looking much the same as when I saw her last some 2 years ago after the funeral of my father.
The weather is roasting and humid and I groan a little when Audrey tells me we are to go to their house by train. But it turn out to be a good and practical choice, and is a train ride with a difference as we head right through the centre of town, over the harbour bridge - which Audrey tells me she has arranged for me to climb as a 50th present - past the stunning, fabulous, amazing etc etc Opera house and on to Gordon station where Audrey has parked her car.
The first impression of Sydney suburban streets is that one is in California
The traffic is heavy but not too bad and soon we are at
Televera Street – located by the looks of the companies operating in the area - including Microsoft – as theSydney equivalent of Palo Alto
Televera Street – located by the looks of the companies operating in the area - including Microsoft – as the
The house, though small, is perfectly adequate and I unpack and try and sleep for a few hours to catch up.
Audrey’s sister – a research Scientist and Nurse – whose house this is, soon joins us from work, and after a short visit to the local shops, we are sitting down for dinner, a good long chat and an early night.
Thursday 22 January 2004
First acquaintance with Sydney
I sleep badly – it is very hot and very humid - and finally fall into a deep sleep at about 5 in the morning so I get up very late. Everyone has gone to work so I set to the Cappuccino-maker and the Mango in the fresh fruit bowl.
I fiddle about a bit on the internet and at about midday decide I will head into town and have a mooch around. I am at present car-less and so manage to find the number of a taxi company which finally turn up after 20 minutes.
I ask the driver to take me to the nearest station – I cannot remember the name Gordon and keep repeating I want to go to Gibson station (which of course doesn’t exist) and so the taxi takes me on a wild goose chase, during which I become ever more furious and frustrated, but we eventually end up I am told “somewhere near” a station, at which point I tell the driver to stop, hand him the fare and tell him I didn’t enjoy the journey at all. Bloody ungrateful Poms !!
In actually find myself about 2 miles from the station, so walk, in the very hot midday sun for about 30 minutes before I can catch the train into town.
Arrival in Sydney Sydney
The sight of the Opera House just takes your breath away – it is, at least for me – a truly amazing piece of architecture which confirms the vision of Sydney as a city you seem to have been to many times before, despite it being your first visit.
I have assiduously been reading Bill Bryson on Australia and do agree with his assertion that it is in fact the Harbour Bridge
There is nothing pretty about Sydney Harbour Bridge
It does not appear to float in the sky like the Pont de Normandie, nor does it mesmerise you with its orange majesty like the Golden Gate Bridge Tower Bridge does… but it is the absolute centrepiece of Sydney
I head over to Circular Quay and as I have bought myself a 7 day Sydney Rover ticket I decide to investigate the harbour area. I get onto one of the solid looking, green and yellow ferries that provide the backbone of transport into the city centre from the suburbs, and head towards Darling Harbour.
We pass under the harbour bridge and nothing makes me change my mind as to its beauty. It is as ugly as sin, but still all eyes on the ferry (including mine) constantly swung back to take yet another look at it. It serves maybe as an affirmation that you ARE actually in Sydney Europe . The sight of 2 huge Australian flags, with the Union Jack parked in the top right hand corner, perched on the summit of the bridge also makes a strange impression on me. There is still a strong republican movement here, and after reading the various bits of news from home, I am tempted to enrol as a member.
The harbour bustles with activity, but the ride to Darling Harbour Darling Harbour
I return to Circular Quay and hop on another ferry which takes me over to the Southern Suburbs of Kirribilly, which seems a very posh place. We pass right in-front on the Opera House, the Governors’ mansion and assorted expensive real-estate. Commuters are beginning to make their way back from work and so the ferry takes on a rather different air as office workers, like their counterparts all over the world, fall asleep with one of the most fabulous views in the world under their noses. Oh well, for them it is just another day.
I return to Circular Quay and begin to make my way back to Gibson (no, Gordon) in the rush hour. The trains, triple deckers, are mostly air-conditioned and very modern and comfortable. I buy the Evening Telegraph and have to read the depressing story of a family with 4 daughters between the age of 6 and 15, three of whom are killed, along with Mum and Dad in a head-on car crash. The poor little mite who is left on her own, is also the youngest.
I return home and dinner is prepared as Briony (Audreys daughter) and her bright eyed Sri Lankan fiancée are coming for dinner.
We then all end up watching a truly amazing game of 1 day Test cricket (India India
Friday 23rd January 2004
Another trip into Sydney – Tarango Zoo – Our for dinner
Again I sleep badly so get up late and spend far too much time chatting with assorted people on Msn, so it is 1.30 before I arrive back at Circular Quay. I have decided to pay Sydney Zoo a visit and take another ferry, passing the Opera house, to Taronga Zoo.
The zoo has a cable car system that runs up to the main entrance and so I join that. The entrance cost is 12 dollars and I start walking. The zoo is quite modern and the enclosures, whilst not huge are perfectly adequately set out.
The Koalas are the first thing they show and they are of course in an enclosure of their own. They do look like stuffed teddy bears as they lie in the branches of their gum trees eating leaves almost all day. They say they are drunk from the alcohol in the leaves, but this turns out to be false. They are in fact lying with tummies in the breeze to stay cool !
Most of the Koalas are fast asleep on their perches, apart from one who appears hyper-active and shoots up and down his tree in a sort of manic fashion. He scratches himself a great deal and looks very endearing.
The rest of the zoo is most impressive with lots of animals on good display and my video camera works overtime. Strangely I appear to completely forget about the existence of Kangaroos and therefore omit to see them (I am quite convinces there were in fact no Roos there at all, but the locals disagree with me) as well as the wallabies.
I see assorted animals Lions and Tigers, Komodo Dragons, Seals, Giraffes and Zebras all against the wonderful backdrop of Sydney Harbour
I catch the ferry back to Circular Quay and walk along the front to pay a visit to the Opera House. The approach is most impressive along a pink-brick piazza, where, as a single person, I am asked 3 times to take photos of Japanese Tourist with the opera house as a backdrop !
The Opera House itself is also as impressive from upfront as from a distance. It is mainly a concrete structure (and some of the concrete does look a little worn in places) with the roof made from cream coloured tiles. In the sunshine the tiles take on an almost luminous, pink hue, and against the backdrop of an almost cloudless blue sky, with the harbour beyond I cannot think of a more impressive location.
It is a strange thought that Joern Utzon – the architect of the never saw his dream in finished form due to the fact that he was deported from Australia on a visit as it was found that his luggage contained mainly pornographic material of a graphic, and highly illegal nature !!
He did design and see the Lotus Temple north of Delhi
In any event it does everything that has been written about it justice, and I am now doubly looking forward to my “official” visit on Tuesday where we are to see a performance of La Traviata.
I take a walk into the Botanical Gardens for about ½ hour before returning to Circular Quay where I sit and drink a couple of beers and listen to a street performance given by a group of Aborigines on the Didgeridoo. A rather monotonous sound, but one which grows on you in the end as it is a very exciting sound, and one which is very different from any other type of musical instrument.
I return back to Marsfield where I have been detailed for the cooking and enjoy making my fish pasta, here made with fresh ingredients, including Monster prawns, smaller prawns, green-lipped mussels and loadsa garlic.
Saturday 24th January 2004
Manly Beach
A beautiful, warm and sunny day dawns and we decide that a visit to the beach is the plan for the day. We set off at about 11.30 am for Manly beach which is about ¾ hours drive away. Briony has joined us for the day which is nice.
We head towards the beach where we find that an interclub life-saving jamboree is going on, with life guard and guardesses (is that what they are called?) are haring about the place, rowing back and forth into the water and round in circles with a Murray Walker type commentator doing his best to drum up enthusiasm amongst the beer-crazed crowd on what is a very hot day indeed.
The men from Manly are all walking about in swimming costumes with “Manly” written across their bottoms. I am rather surprised though that the girls are also walking about with “Manly” written across their, rather more attractive, bottoms as well.
I venture to suggest to a passer by I fall into conversation with, that maybe someone should design a new swimsuit for the girls with “Womanly” or even “Woe-Manly” across their bottoms. He seems quite taken by the idea, but maybe just liked the idea of the design and production process, than the actual end result.
I film the comings and goings for a while, but soon we decide it is time to head off for lunch. We walk towards the western end of the beach and sit down at an utterly delightful restaurant right on the beachfront.
A narrow path separates our table from the beach and whilst there are no overwhelming crowds it is a pleasure to watch the healthy, fit and relaxed world going past our tablecloth, which is soon burdened by a cheeky little bottle of cold Chardonnay and a plate of 4 GIANT prawns (I cannot overemphasise the size of Australian prawns – they are seemingly the size of what passes for lobsters in Sainsbury’s) with chilly salsa, with a pea and mint risotto and a small dollop of mash. Total heaven, which was followed by a quite wonderful cappuccino.
After about 1 ½ hours we continue to the end of the promontory where there is a little beach, where I go swimming, whilst Audrey and Briony sit and admire my amazing physique (or at least that is what I think – the fact that they were giggling and shielding their eyes I put down to the strong sunshine!)
We return home and Audrey and I immediately head off into town for a free open air classical concert in the public park known as The Domain. We arrive and find that there are only about 70,000 other people with the same idea, but find a place and sit and start to listen.
The performance is by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with a female soloist I have at least heard of – but cannot remember her name right now – both playing beautifully. The acoustic experience is enhanced by a sudden clap of thunder which is the forerunner of a downpour of Hyde Park, London
We have the brilliant idea of cowering out of harms way under a lighting / sound tower and remain relatively dry as we listen to a performance of Ravel’s “Tzigane” – almost my favourite piece of violin music – and a rather excruciating piece of modern music by an Australian composer, which sounds as if it has been lifted, at least in part, from Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra”
The finale is (of course) Beethoven’s 1812 overture which is performed by fire-spitting cannons and a firework display of stunning proportions from a very tall sky-scraper strategically located right behind us, affording us a spectacular view. A truly memorable evening and one to be repeated next Saturday with (another free) performance of Bizet’s Pearlfishers in the same location.
Sunday January 25th 2004 -
A day in a fog-bound Blue Mountains and a picnic in a children’s climbing frame
Briony and Sulo arrive early, as today I am to be taken to visit the Blue Mountains which is a spectacular range of hills, mountains and villages about hours drive West of Sydney. I am rather dubious about the weather as it is already grey and cloudy, but the Australians if nothing else are an optimistic lot, and so we set off, even having packed a picnic.
The weather deteriorates fast as we head out of town and by the time we arrive at the bijou little town of Luera
There are an extraordinary amount of fellow-optimists who have all made the trip, including a huge crowd of Japanese tourist who are rushing around in their usual fashion rather absurd taking pictures…… of the fog. I content myself with taking everyone’s word as to how beautiful it is, and take photographic photos displayed in the visitors centre wall, which come our remarkably well. It is a good trick to fool people who have been somewhere you haven’t.
I have at home a remarkable picture of the Sea of Tranquillity
Our thoughts turn soon to lunch and I fear we are about to have our picnic somewhere very wet and foggy. I keep quiet, but we eventually pull up by the side of a lake where a group of grown men are getting very wet sailing their remote controlled sailing model sailing boats.
In mad-dogs-and-Englishmen style we head into the and take over the lower storey of a 2 storey children’s climbing frame where we proceed to lay out and eat out picnic. It has tables, a couple of benches and above all is dry. Beef, Ham, Tomatoes, assorted dips, cheese. Wine, glasses et al make their appearance, and a jolly time is had by all.
A few children come along and give us hostile looks, but we are not deterred until 2 very small girls come along and start stamping about on the 2nd floor of our “ship” and start eating the remains of our picnic. I tell their parents I have just returned from Bangkok
We soon return into town and head back to Marsfield where we spend the rest of the day doing not a lot, before cooking a wonderful Thai green curry for dinner.
Monday 26th January 2004 - Australia
A day in the city and a climb up Sydney Harbour Bridge
I have just undertaken to stop using so many “!!!!” in my ramblings as I am told people like to decide for themselves what merits !!!!’s and what does not, but Australia Day from the best vantage point in Sydney Harbour
We get up early and join the trickle of folk heading on the train into town. Those that are on their way are clearly in their way to a party and there is a great atmosphere in our carriage. The kids, who have all been slathered in factor 200 sun-block and then had assorted Australian flags slapped over the top, are lugging their Koalas, Kangaroos (stuffed) and parents (eh… part stuffed) along in their wake.
I have decided to move into Sydney for one night as I will be climbing the Harbour Bridge until 11.30 at night, and also feel it right to leave Audrey and Jenny to their own devices for one evening and so have found an absurdly chic hotel for very little on the internet.
We head first for the Sebel One hotel at the Quays which is located right under the Harbour Bridge
After amusing ourselves with the peanuts and the bathroom in my room we head around the corner where things are beginning to happen in the harbour. The area is packed, with half of Sydney
I see a small stone pier right on the edge of the water which is packed with people. Beyond that there is a small promontory which, almost unbelievably, is totally unoccupied. I have to use a degree of diplomacy to step rather precariously past the people sitting on the pier, but this is taken in very good grace (I massage peoples' back as I pass) and soon I am on my own on a ledge with the whole harbour laid out before me.
There are even shouts of “good on yer, mate” from the crowd behind me, so I still have a few friends left! I am soon joined by a young American, but his 2 girlfriends, despite encouragement from the crowd, chicken out. Someone else tries to joins us and promptly falls in the water, to the ecstatic delight of the crowd, after which people give up and Yank and I are on our own.
The ferry race is the first item on the agenda and we see them haring towards us (we are sitting, by the way, right by the Harbour Bridge
They are neck and neck as they hurtle towards the bridge, surrounded by a flotilla of small motor and speed boats hooting their horns and making a terrible din.
At the last minute the ferry with the Lotto bunting on it inches into the lead, and it wins the race as they pass under the bridge. I am unsure what the prize is, but it soon makes a reappearance with the crew shouting and screaming and wishing everyone a Happy Australia Day.
A Sea-king helicopter is hauling an enormous Australian flag underneath its fuselage – a sort of formal reminder that this is not just a good day out, but is also the day when Australia
There is now a procession of Tall Ships under the bridge and towards the Opera House which are, well, very tall! They do not have their sails up which is a little disappointing, but I am told this is because they would not be terribly controllable in the confines of the harbour and so could be expected to go around crashing into smaller boats. The crowd seem disappointed.
It is worth mentioning at this point the one huge downside I have noticed since arriving here, and that is the quite absurd intrusion into every-day life that different “authorities” make.
Everywhere there are signs that remind you that if you are mechant and are caught you will be arrested, fined and probably debagged. You can’t put your feet on seats in trains, you cannot drive remote-control cars in parks, you must ALWAYS keep your dog on a lead, and so on. The fact of reminding people is maybe not so bad, but it is the implied threat that if you transgress you will be severely punished which takes the spontaneous fun out of most things. To be a young person in Australia
Mayhem and fun continues in the harbour. Boats come and go, some huge Sunseeker gin palaces (all blue and white which is the ONLY colour for a boat – it looks so smart) with huge Sunseeker-type people on-board sipping chilled Chardonnay, some tiny little day-boats that you feel will be swamped by the waves made by the larger boats, where beer and a raucous time seems the priority. There are sailing boats – one has G’day written on the sail – catamaran ferries and cruise ships, all vying for space in the sunny, blue waters
I am delighted to see a Riva Aquarama amongst the throng which adds a little extra class to the proceedings. As there are no reports of drownings all must have returned safely. It is a little dangerous and certainly not in keeping with the normal restricting elements of Australian life I have just described.
Soon the good-natured crowds begin to move on as lunchtime approaches and I rejoin Audrey and Jenny and we walk down towards The Rocks where we plan to eat. I have sat in the direct dun for about 2 ½ hours with no sun-cream so am feeling the heat a little, so I go and buy myself a bush-hat and some sun cream to take – somewhat belated – precautions against getting completely frazzled.
We wander along the promenade, together with a few thousand others, and chose a fish restaurant where we sit down. Immediately I leap up as some RAAF planes roar overhead, but I have missed them.
We order a delicious bottle of un-oaked Semillon Blanc (all Australian wine is delicious, froggies please note…) and settle down to an hour or so of people watching. Some grilled Barramundi arrives on a sweet little bed (the fish swam a long way this morning) of spinach (yuk!) and a tomato salsa (Is that not a dance? - everything is worded so nicely here – no “cod n’ chips with a dollop o’ ketchup and mushy peas”)
As we eat our exhausted, latino dancing fish, and drink our chilled wine, the whole gamut of Australiana wanders by our tables. They look at us (wankers – sitting in posh restaurant posing like that, spending all that money) and we look at them (wankers – how could they dress in those red pants, yellow T-shirt and use a plastic chair as a sunshade!) but both seem to enjoy the experience.
A troupe of parachutists descent in dramatic formation, each carrying an Australian flag tied to his ankles and trailing yellow smoke. The effect is slightly spoiled as they splash down into the water and seem to flounder as they try and gather the parachute and flag in at the same time. There is now a huge warship standing by, and they are hauled out of the water.
Overlooking all this is the quite majestic sight of the Opera House which glistens in the sunshine. If is of course not the white "white" we see in the pictures, but is a rather fetching translucent cream / pink to avoid blinding everyone that looks at it. There are hundreds of people gathered on the various piazzas that surround it, and with total justification, Sydneysiders are hugely proud of this stunning building.
To me the proof that it is so attractive, is that almost every time I look at the Opera House I take – yet another – picture of it. I will hopefully have to definitive photo before I leave.
There are still hundreds of boats milling about as we rejoin the throng after lunch, and we head off towards Circular Quay and catch a ferry to "anyoldwhere" (Tarango zoo as it happens) just to be able to be out on the water.
There is now a stiff breeze on the harbour and this only adds to the beauty of the experience as the waves are whipped up into frothy caps. Everyone squeals as they get soaked – strange trait that – but seem to have fun. My Camcorder runs out of battery unfortunately.
Briony and Sulo have arrived in the city and so we meet them and return to my hotel for a sit-down and a drink on the terraces overlooking the harbour.
It has been a wonderful day – probably not explained too well here – but the best is yet to come.
For my birthday, Audrey has given me a voucher for the Harbour Bridge Climb and, to my, and everyone else’s’ amazement, there was a spare place for the 19.45 climb, which will take me onto the bridge at night.
I go to my room and have a short rest, and then leave for the assembly point which is just down the road.
We are a group of about 12 and we are made to change, take all our watches, rings, hair-bands etc off, given a special suit to wear and generally put through an utterly absurd set of hoops, which I have to say is annoying and petty.
Our tour leader than arrives, and gives us even more absurdities, including a handkerchief which we “must” take onto the bridge, a fleece – in case we are cold; we have already been told it is 21 degrees at the summit, a 2 way radio with some special earphones which transmit sound through bone (there is a frightfully technical word for them, but I cant remember it), a lamp we are required to strap to our heads, which serves no discernible use at all, and other annoying stuff.
We are then led to an area where we have to practise walking up and down a ladder, and then get a whole lot more irrelevant drivel from our guide. Quite awful and I nearly lose my temper as I am told of, in a matey sort of way – quite the worst – that my ladder climbing abilities are too fast.
We head out onto the bridge, and are annoyingly, photographed in our group and then head across the lower areas of the bridge, with the roads and the trains rushing through below us. The whole structure looks like a giant Meccano set, and there are apparently “6 million rivets, guys” (or was it 60 million) holding the whole thing together. Our guide constantly calls us Guys over the radio, despite our group having 6 women in it. Dreadful fellow.
There are a few easy ladders to climb – we are not allowed on one before the person ahead is off the next and there are ladder monitors who boss you around – but soon we are on the main span of the bridge itself.
Of course the whole experience changes gear as we see the quite breathtakingly stunning views below us. Boats, with little lights on in their cabins, flit about the harbour, the ferries ply back and forth, cruise ships, with lights all along their mastage, move sedately about with Australia Day revellers on board having dinner.
There are lights everywhere you look. It seems that the great gaggle of skyscrapers around Circular Quay have all left their lights on despite being, assumedly, empty. In many of the harbour-side apartments below us in Kirribilly we can see groups of people on the terraces having parties. The tail and headlamps of cars scamper across the bridge and the noises of the trains, also on the bridge, provide us with a heightened sense of excitement.
Below us the Opera House is lit up (badly in my humble view, with no lighting to mention at the front end) but still looks incredible, and clearly the centre of attention for the whole celebrations.
Fireworks erupt from Darling harbour at 9pm but most of these are unfortunately obscured by a tall sky-scraper but we see a host of other displays all around the city. A particularly good one in Paramatta.
In the harbour below us small boats dart about as they make their way to or from Darling Harbour for the fireworks, and in the middle of them all is the most enormous Willenius Wilhelmssen car Transporter (surely larger than the QE2) which is almost as impressive to look at as the buildings around, as it is also lit up white.
We can see right down to Manly in one direction and to Parramatta Sydney
We continue to climb up the outer side of the bridge – we are not attached to each other so as I have wangled my way to the back of the group before we left – I can take my time to take a good look at things.
Halfway up we are individually photographed – there is a camera wallah who seems to spend all his day sitting up the bridge waiting for the groups to come along – against the backdrop of the Opera House. Unfortunately as my face is so burned and I am sweating so profusely as a result, I look like a monster with an absurd headlamp on his face, but no matter.
At the very top there are 2 huge flags – one the Australian flag and the other the NSW flag. We pass underneath them and then begin our descent down the inside flank.
The bridge is supported by 4 huge limestone pillars and these have only recently been lit up, and so we are photographed again with these in the background.
We finally reach the bottom again after a truly exhilarating couple of hours. We are abused again by the organisers – it is truly awful this – made to wipe our headphones with stupid little alcohol wipes, etc and are then handed a customer feedback form which, as you may imagine, I have great fun with…..
Much to my surprise I am tapped on the shoulder and asked to come into a side office (Am I about to be arrested for fast-ladder climbing?)
It appears they have read my form and agree with everything I say. HOWEVER – and in brief – it is explained to me that there are SUCH stoopid people who undertake the climb, who want to do SUCH absurd things – Japanese and Americans mainly - and who are SO un-coordinated that they have to reduce the tour to the lowest level of competence of the sillies who pay them money. I point out that fact that they still leave room for stupidity, and explain I had an overwhelming desire to kick one shoe off the bridge from the top. They laugh; I laugh and actually end up seeing their point of view. American tourists… don’t ya just love ‘em
I collect my photos and return to my hotel exhausted and drop off to sleep after talking for hours on MSN to various people.
Tuesday 27th January
The day after - Fish market - Sydney
I take full advantage of the fact that there is a wireless internet connection and download in excess of 100 songs from Kazaa and since this took me until 2 am to set up I take full advantage of the check out time and sleep late.
I take a bath – the first one since I left England
I head into town and am struck (ouch!) by the fact that you would not know that yesterday had been the party of the year. Everything was back to normal, with immaculate streets and the Sydneysiders all on their way to work. It was if they had put to good use their excuse for a national celebration, but now were somehow ashamed of it. Or was it just the efficient street-cleaners of the town.
I walk around town a little and catch a glimpse of various little churches and harbour buildings that form part of Sydney and Australia
I opt to take the “Round Sydney Bus Tour” which shows all the highlights in a 2 hour trip. I did not realise that Captain Bligh, after he rather irresponsibly lost the Bounty, found his employment status somewhat reduced, and therefore was appointed the Governor of New South Wales here is Oz.
We plough on through the Kings Cross red light area, onto Elisabeth Bay
We pass the Café de Wheels which is to Sydney what the Café half way across Chelsea Bridge is to London
I stop off and take a look at the Victorian Store which is a huge old building in the centre of the town which has been converted – and converted extremely well – into a large shopping area a little like an overgrown Burlington Arcade. I am amused to see a shop called the “General Pants shop” but the rest is given over to the usual designer shit you would see in any other capital city.
We pass the Sydney Museum which I give a miss, but we are told that there is the original Rotary Mower (an Australian invention) as well as a NASA space station (one assumes no longer in full working order) but I do hop off the bus at the mention of the Sydney Fish Market, as it is time to put one’s snout in the trough, so to speak.
The Fish market is a short walk and is rather small considering. There are a huge number of small stalls, but these are mainly selling food for consumption on the premises.
I am sorely tempted by the prospect of a dozen oysters and a glass of Chardonnay, but intrepid traveler that I am (not) I opt for something more exotic and have fried octipussies in a Chinese sauce. I know as soon as I see them ladling these rubbery things onto my plate that I have made a huge mistake, but I smile serenely and make my way outside and sit down.
I actually manage to down 10 of them but then decide enough is enough as it is like eating something made of fried play dough. Quite disgusting. I swear in future to eat sensible stuff, and go back inside and buy ½ doz oysters from the oyster bar where a very bored looking chap is doing whatever you do to Oyster (peel, pierce, slice – I don’t know)! Very nice too.
The fish-market looks more like a retail outlet to me and I note that the fish prices were not a lot less than those in the local stores in Marsfield. There are many people sitting outside enjoying a meal en famille, as most of the schools are going back on Thursday.
I overstay my allotted time and have to hire a taxi to take me to the bus stop where I catch a bus (please note !) back to Marsfield. I arrive back and barely have enough time to change into a suit, before I am leaving for town with Audrey for the next treat of the week – we are off to see La Traviata at the Sydney Opera House.
The prospect of seeing La Traviata ( a wonderful story of a girl – Violetta – falling in love with a Man - Alfredo - being told it is a bad idea by Alfredo’s father - Germon – almost marrying a baron – cant remember – and then having a reconciliation with Alfredo but dying almost immediately of, one assumes, consumption !) is exciting enough, but to see it at the Sydney Opera House is… well.
We walk to the Opera House is itself a lovely walk along Circular Quay and the esplanade that fronts the Opera House ( I observed that despite being dolled up to the nines we were not accosted, looked at oddly or were not, in other words, taken the mick out of) and took about 20 minutes.
We collected our tickets (90 A/dollars which was a bit of a shock) and headed for the loos. I only mention this because on the way I saw a small sign which says that the foyer is being refurbished to the original design of Jorn Utzon which, considering his chequered contacts with the town of Sydney
The Opera auditorium is a little on the small size and I am a little disappointed that out seats are very much towards the back. We can however see the stage but are rather disconcerted (in an old persons sort of way) when about 150 Japanese schoolchildren fill up the rows in front of us.
The performance starts and I (together with my fellow neighbours) am obliged to ask the little girl in front of me – in the nicest possible way – if she would mind not sitting on the edge of her chair as all I can see is the outline of her head. She smiles at me in a very sweet manner and does not move an inch for the rest of the evening. I am completely disarmed !
The performance is stunning, with the most wonderful stage sets. The scene in the country house has a lot of autumnal leaves on the ground and bare trees and I am amused to note that there is someone sitting above the stage with the clear instructions to throw a leaf or two onto the stage every 10 seconds! It is however a nice touch.
The interval arrives and we head for the bar. Ohmygosh !! The bar at the ROH in London has a few roofs of London New York has bugger all to look at, The bar at Teatro Alla Scala in Milan
At the SOH you have quite the most stunning view of the harbour, the bridge, the bay, the boats, the lights – all lit up and surrounding you. With the weather as balmy and warm as one could wish it is, without any doubt whatsoever, the most stunning theatre in the world.
At the end of the performance we walk back to the station, but there are still the ferries running. The prospect of returning home after an evening at the opera on a ferry is almost too much beauty for my brain to image.
I am beginning to feel that I want to return here for a longer period of time. There is no question of staying here now, but the idea is fermenting in my small mind that come October I might consider it again. I understand in England
Wednesday 28th January 2004
After 2 days of ceaseless activity I take more or less a day off and get up late, do very little, so washing, ironing and boring stuff which needs to be done.
In the evening I am invited to go with Briony and Sulo to go to a “pub” with a difference. The place is a steak house, but instead of cooking the steak for you, you collect your raw, and very good quality, steak, and go and throw it on a barbecue which they have on their premises.
It is a brilliant concept as you cannot complain that your steak is under or over done and they also provide you with as many steak-sauces as you can imagine to add. There is also a salad bar and baked potatoes available.
My baked potato is hijacked by someone else which is a little disappointing, but as I am not in the mood to start WW3 I let it go on consideration of a little off in the avoirdupois stakes.
Thursday 29th January 2004
Beaches – Part 1
Another day of comparative inactivity until lunchtime. I make myself 2 sandwiches for breakfast. One Banana and one Banana n’ Vegemite (isn’t it interesting that both “Vegemite” and “Marmite” are in the Word for Windows spell-checker – though “Maggi” – a similar but revolting, liquid concoction from Switzerland
In the afternoon I filch Audrey’s car and try and find my way to Manly Beach
The waves look enticing, it is very warm and so I decide to risk a shark attack and head to the beach. I lay my towel on the beach and stamp off to the water’s edge. I stamp straight back as of course I have forgotten to take off “that” watch. I find a locker for it and restamp my steps.
The water is wonderful and I soon join the throng of people standing in the water waiting for the perfect wave to come along, at which point we all turn and hurl ourselves in towards the beach. Of course I cover about 3 feet before the wave gets fed up with me, and concentrates on the others in its midst, most, but not all, of whom cover about 50 feet.
There is a knack of course and it is not long, by keeping my head down and “crawling” furiously before the wave arrives, that I am expertly covering…ooh… about 7 feet. I am of course delighted.
Next I decide to walk to the end of Manly – about 1km. There are lots of others Manly males (and some Manly females) who also feel “in need” of this exercise and I soon note that one does sneak a peek at another mans’ “middle” as you pass each other, and they sneak a peek at yours. This is of course done with the greatest of discretion, but there is a feeling of elation when the other person’s is “larger”, and utter dejection when “smaller”. I sense myself about 60/40 on the elation/dejection scale. “Which way” do I hear you ask?……not telling!
Friday 30th January
Beaches – Part 2
Today is again perfect. Sunny and warm and so I head off for another day of beaches. His time I head towards Sydney ’s northern beaches and in particular to Palm Beach
It is about a hour away, and once out of the urban sprawl, is a quite spectacular drive along beach after beach, and past endless modern houses set in spectacular locations. I have done the California beaches around LA and San Francisco
Whilst beautiful and very large, what strikes me about most, if not almost all the architecture is the complete lack of ostentation, Whilst the houses belong to extremely rich, and in some cases famous people, they are almost to a fault understated. This is something I have noticed elsewhere here, in the people and the way they do things.
I park the car under trees and head off for a little more wave hopping, but it is too hot to be in the sun too long, and soon head for the shade and observe beach life from a distance.
It seems there are some faintly interesting observations to be made in the complicated science of “beachology”. Here are a few suggestions –
Men approach breakers head-on or back-on, whereas women approach them as if they are about to be hit by a hard object. They shy away from the wave, draw one leg towards the other and put one hand out, Canute-like, in the hope it will go away. It does not…
Men allow a wave to wash over them, whilst women do a little (but very cute) jump, however small or large the wave is. This may be because…
Women are obsessed with the fact that their bikini-top may have slipped in the action of jumping, pushing or generally trying to dispose of a wave.
Men are obsessed with sneakily checking whether the women’s’ fear may have actually become reality !
All teenagers when in the water squeal regularly every 10 seconds. It is awful…
It soon begins to cloud over – OH MY GOD, THERE IS THE MOST ENORMOUS SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN ON THE WALL IN MY BEDROOM WHERE I AM TYPING THIS. 8 LEGS AND ABOUT 3 INCHES WIDE…….. ANY SUGGESTIONS GREATFULLY RECEIVED… - so I head off towards other beaches back towards Sydney
I soon find a beach which for me is even more perfect – Bilgola Beach
Bearing in mind my connection with Italy
School is out and the car park – which overlooks the beach – soon fills up with Mums and cute kids – all Aussie kids look clean, well-cared for, seem very polite and are usually absurdly suntanned - coming for an ice, a chat and a tumble around in the surf. They all clutch their body-boards as they scurry down to the beach and hurl themselves into the waves which is some cases are higher than they are tall.
I leave after an hour or so and head back towards Sydney
I return in the rush-hour and get hopelessly lost and end up, so it seems, almost in Melbourne
Driving here I have noticed many amusing signs on roadsides advertising various commercial and social enterprises, but one in particular which catches my eye advises that the “Mosmans Ladies Probus club” (I note that even my spell checker is very suspicious of the word “Probus”, underlines it in red and suggests “Probes” as an alternative….) “meet at the Mosmans “Returned Servicemen’s Club” on the second Wednesday of each month at 10 am” certainly takes the biscuit. I hang out of the car window and take a photo of the sign, much to the alarm of my fellow rush-hour drivers.
Dinner and bed, but sleep ? Will the spider get me? Read tomorrow’s thrilling installment to find out !!
Saturday 31 January 2004
Bizets “The Pearlfishers” in The Domain Park
The day is devoted to sloth and indolence as I lie about with my tongue hanging out and my artificial limbs discarded for most of the day. There is no real reason for this other than it is an activity I enjoy now and again and reminds me of my immediate, middle and long-term past where many days have been spent doing the same.
I reattach those bits of me which work best towards the end of the afternoon as we are all planning to go into town to The Domain park where a performance of Bizets’ ‘Les Chercheurs de Perles’ is being put on by Opera Australia.
“The Pearlfishers” is not my favourite opera (it admittedly has little chance of that particular accolade as I have never seen it before) but I know the duet from it fairly well. It has one other “famous” tune and a lot of loud screeching and thrashing about towards the end so it isn’t too bad as operas go.
We prepare a picnic (including is a large Pork-pie so I am to be in heaven whatever else is served) and head off. There are a number of other people at Gordon Station with the same idea, judging by the number of men with ill-matching shorts and shirts and sandals, and tables, chairs, kitchen sinks and picnic hampers slung about their persons, so it is likely to be fairly sweaty when all the others all congregated together.
The park is packed so I am afraid I veto the suggestion of hurling ourselves in with the rest of the crowd and head off towards a much clearer area where the sight of the stage is unobstructed and the proximity of the concession stands around the perimeter of the park are not so smelly. Luckily the others follow me otherwise my cravings for pork pies would go unrequited.
The setting is really lovely, but I am a little dismayed when the opera starts that the chatting, laughing and drinking continues as if there is no opera on at all. Oh well, I resign myself to this rather startling fact, film the men’s duet – performed admirably by 2 Aussie singers – and lie back and watch the bats flapping about overhead.
They (the bats not the singers) are huge and strangely beautiful. There are hundreds over the central area of the park, and sometimes a stray one heads in our direction so one gets a good look at how they look and fly. Their webbed wings are very strange, and they are large – the size of a crow – and very black. I film them and then continue listening to the conversation of the people next to us, aware that there is also an opera in full swing somewhere in the distance. I am pleased to have taken my Blackberry telephone with me as I am also able to e-mail assorted friends in England
Sunday 1st February 2004
To Briony and Sulos for dinner
Today is decision day and I decide to do very little, though I do hire a car for tomorrow, as I am leaving for a 3 day sojourn around New South Wales as I have been in Sydney
I come across an excellent and apparently quite famous B and B one road back from the harbourside where a single costs 50 dollars. I make a spontaneous booking for Wednesday night as I will be late back into town anyway.
We are invited to Briony and Sulo’s for dinner in the evening which is very nice, as Sulo cooks a mean chicken Byriani with lentils.
Well that was an exciting day, wasn’t it? I hope it at least goes some way to prove the veracity of this journal as it cannot be sex, drugs and rock and roll every day, now can it?
Oh – one last thing. I bought a bottle of wine in an oOffie this evening and wish to share the thoughts of Mme Lily Bollinger with you, as they were writ on a wall behind the till
“ Wine
I drink it when I am happy and when I am sad
Sometimes I drink it when I am alone
When I have company I consider it to be obligatory
I trifle with it when I am not hungry and drink it when I am
Otherwise I never touch the stuff
Unless I am thirsty “
Good, eh?
Monday 2nd February 2004
A 3 day trip to the Hunter Valley
I have decided to take a look at the area to the north of Sydney Hunter Valley
Pacific Highway .
Pacific Highway .
I soon come across the “Australian Reptile Park
It is privately owned and I read has been significant in the development of Snake Serum. The owner, whose name escapes me, after 4 glasses of Tyrrell’s Semillon Reserve, was personally awarded an honour by the Queen in recognition of his work.
There are reptiles of every sort, including, I am delighted to see, a Tasmanian Devil which, even if I went to Tasmania
My first port of call is a huge lake where Alligators lurk menacingly with just their head out of the water. I am lucky to find one close to the bank, and he and I stare meanly at each other for a few minutes. He turns and swims off lazily – obviously scared stiff of my “look Ali, don’t mess with me” .mien. That’ll teach him to be so……….submerged.
There is the obligatory Koala enclosure. Koalas are really very cute, cuddly teddies and apparently, apart from being somewhat rank at times, have few deadly habits, which is quite unusual for an Australian animal. They don’t do a lot as the gum-leaves they chew have very few nutrients (obviously no one has thought of giving them Alpen for breakfast) and so they have little energy to do much more than masticate and sleep most of the day. Sounds like a 6th former at school but he has a few more “b”’s in his pastimes !!
Koalas, however would like it known that they are NOT half “cut” most of the time from the alcohol which is present in gum-tree leaves. Apparently this is a popular myth which severely pisses Koalas off as it gives them an undeserved reputation for being a bit dim. Apparently they sit all day doing bugger all, so that the breeze can “ruffle the fine hair on their tummies” thus keeping them cool – and that is a fact. My own frequent bouts of inactivity are of course for similar reasons.
I am then delighted to finally have the opportunity of meeting a Kangaroo. The park has a picnic area where the Kangaroos roam wild and to see them hopping about is an absolute delight.
Kangas are very pretty animals, with a very cute head, enormous ears which they appear to love having tickled like dogs, tiny front paws (which look like an afterthought) and enormous, long back feet/paws. They also seem to have a constant quizzical frown on their faces.
I did not see any of them bounding (running) properly and to see them sort of loping about at slow speed makes them look extremely ungainly. They have to pull their back paws through to the front as they balance in a somewhat ungainly fashion on their small front paws.
I sit with a Joey (a baby) for a while and am reminded of Megan as it (how on earth you tell a he or a she?) squirms about in the grass as I tickle its ears. They are very friendly here, but I are told they can be complete bastards in the pub.
I zoom around the rest of the park – there is absolutely no doubt that the Australians like to scare people witless with the simple fact that just about every animal that lives and breathes in Australia, and whose natural habitat, it appears, is the suburban washing basket or underwear drawer, has one purpose in life, and one only, and that is to kill YOU.
I come face to face with a Funnel web spider, a tarantula of massive proportions and a Diamond Ridgeback snake. The latter comes from the USA
I leave and continue up the coast. and pass right by Newcastle – a coastal town of unmitigated awfulness, populated by the living dead (some of whom appear male and wear white knee socks) which looks like Hastings
There is a large notice I see hung on the side of a rather dilapidated church which states
“ In Life there are many choices. In Eternity there are only two!”
Don’t ask me !!
“Ice & Lemon ?”……….
“Flame-grilled or Boiled?”….. …
completely barking !!
I try and ignore Newcastle and head towards the village of Port Stephen in the Nelsons Bay
The area of Nelsons Bay
I decide to hire a bicycle and set off to Fingals Bay
I head on foot from one end of the beach to the other – in this instance about 2 miles each way – with enormous breakers crashing onto the beach. It’s wonderful.
There are a few elderly men fishing – the worlds most absurd pastime – with their lines extending into the crashing surf. What on earth they expect to catch is beyond me (and probably quite beyond them) but they seem to enjoy it, as they stare intently at the top of their lines and re-cast endlessly into the waves.
There are also a few young boys in the surf practicing their surf-boarding. As all surfers, they are complete optimists as they always seem to ignore the best waves on the assumption that an even better one will come along soon. One usually does and they all jump on their boards and are soon upright.
The weather is pretty overcast so I return to Port Stephens in order to decide what to do next. As my hotel is equipped with a kitchen I do not to go out for a meal and purchase an exquisite bottle of wine (see above) and a take-away portion of fish n’ nochips n’ salad, and sit by my front door watching a marvelous electric storm over the bay just beyond.
I am told there are over 150 dolphins who live in the bay, but unfortunately the daily Dolphin watch cruise leaves at 3 pm by which time I will have unfortunately departed for the Hunter Valley
Tuesday 3rd February 2004
A sighting of Dolphins after all and an evening in the Hunter Valley
I leave Port Stephen at about 10 and on the way come across a small harbour where they are advertising a dolphin watch “cruise” at 10.30.
I sign up immediately and board a rather quaint old diesel-engined steamer with about 15 other passengers. We are delayed while a huge troupe of Japanese tourists decide whether or not to join us. I am on my knees praying hard, and after various forays of inspection onto the boat, they decide against annoying us (there is a huge sigh of relief all round) on the pretext that the boat is not “new” enough. They are a collectively mad race of people and I coming to utterly detest them.
We head out of the harbour and before long are joined by three quite large dolphins who are playing around in the bay. I am able to film them fairly successfully though the rules governing the dolphin-watching boats are, rather typically, severe and so we can only stay “on” this particular pod (a pod of dolphins !) for about 5 minutes as they have been “attended to” for 20 minutes already by another boat earlier in the morning.
We soon pick up another pod and stay observing these a little longer. They appear to be playing around as they launch themselves into an arc and breathe out (or is it in?) at the same time. Dolphins so I am told live to maybe 45 or 50 years old, and if female remain in the same family all their lives. Only the males go off an do their own thing.
Towards the end of the cruise the captains informs us that we can go and “swim” on a sort of net arrangement that he lowers beside the boat. This looks a great deal of fun and I am rather disappointed I was not told about this when getting on board, as everyone gets quite soaked.
We return to the jetty at about 12.30 and I head off towards the Hunter Valley
There is a distinct change to the scenery as I head inland. Firstly it becomes less coastal, which I am glad about as it indicates to me that I am on the right road, and then the area becomes greener, flatter, with long vistas in every direction. I see a lot of dairy or beef farming stock, with huge black or brown and white cows lying about in the fields (yes, it looks like rain !)
There are still huge clumps of gum trees around though, and signs on the roadside asking drivers not to mow down koalas and Kangaroos, which point out that last year 263 koalas were killed in the area – do they just fall out of the trees in a stupor or do people shoot them and they then fall, and bounce into the road? – and a lot fewer Roos.
Soon the countryside changes again as I head into the Hunter Valley
I stop at the tourist office on the outskirts of the wine area and take some advice on where to stay, and head off again to make my own choices. It is a truly beautiful area. Lots of new and modern wineries (t use the American phrase – here they quite rightly call them Vineyards) One in particular catches my eye – called Tempus 2 it is the newest and most “whizzy” vineyard here. The visitors centre looks a little like a NASA space station, all built from black marble and with fountains and wood all over. I take a look and am impressed by all the lovely “au jour” bottles of wine they sell, though decline to buy any myself. The car park is full of BMW’s and AUDI’s which says a little for the area and a lot for the Tempus 2 vineyard. Wine has become a statement of aspiration, rather than something that accompanies a meal….. Still, this is not a criticism by any means, it is the same all over the world.
I carry on for a while and for some obscure reason turn into a rather remote and amateur-looking vineyard called Tintilla. It is an utter delight, family owned, with huge fat grapes on their vines. It has a lovely old visitors centre which is manned by the daughter of the owner, who in a rather harassed manner tells me that she is cooking a meal for her family tonight as a fore-runner to a large dinner party she is having for friends in a few weeks time.
I ask her what’s on the menu and she tells me it is that she is trying to concoct a pate starter and a beef main-course with a risotto “bed” and is a bit worried by the risotto. Enigmatically I say “Saffron” with a cruel smile playing around my lips and a…… (Cut it out !! – Ed) which she thinks is rather a good idea!!
I buy a bottle of Semillon and am on my way. A few hundred yards down the road I come across a B and B which, the guidebook mentions, own a couple of Labs, and as I am suffering badly from doggie withdrawal symptoms, book in. It is a great place set in 25 acres and owned by a single man – he has a friend staying – who seems a welcoming sort of chap.
There is a pool and even a small golf driving range, both of which receive my attention and I take a short walk around the grounds.
Our “Host” a single, 60 year-old former teacher called David produces a rather good bottle of Red sparkling wine and regales us with tales of his times as a teacher at a boys school on the Island of East Timor, and how he used to bring back boys from his school in the Hunter Valley to help him in the construction of his house ! I make a note to lock by bedroom door…..
Dinner venue is recommended to me by the rather lah-di-dah couple who are staying in the room next to mine. They are expatriate Brits who live in China
“Amanda on the Edge” is a bijou little restaurant where the food really is very good indeed. They operate a policy of “Bring you own” bottle for which they charge you $3 corkage. I opt for an excellent Mushroom thooooop and a lobster and scampi pasta which is also excellent.
On the way home – after practicing my photographic skills on an illuminated gum tree – I return back to Splinter, drink a glass of port and go to bed.
Wednesday 4th February 2004
Rain – so back to Sydney
The Hunter Valley IS very pretty but the whole place is designed for Trendy Wendys and partners from Sydney
I return to Sydney via what is known as the
Putty Road , which takes me towardsWindsor and Richmond , via the Yengo and Wirratombi National Parks
Putty Road , which takes me towards
It turns into a truly beautiful – if rather windy – drive through valley and hills and even a couple of mountains. The weather miraculously improves and before long it is a warm and sunny day. Normal service restored.
The views on every side are fantastic. The valleys are lush and huge, with cattle ranches with absolutely huge homesteads, interspersed with tiny little wooden huts, and houses which are obviously owned by “eccentrics” – lots of wrecked cars, rubbish and notices warning doom and destruction to would-be burglars.
As I head through the National Park the road begins to climb through Eucalyptus forests (I only see, to my regret, a Kangaroo run over by a car) where lots of Koalas live. There are uninterrupted vistas from both sides of the road,
to a point where I have to concentrate hard to keep my mind remembering that I am driving.
I stop for lunch at a roadside café - called “Gobblers choice” – having already dismissed the only other alternative which is a steakhouse called “Mooers choice” (promise – and got a picture of both) and gobble a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of coffee. I had tried to order a few other items on the menu, but they were “off” – in fact I think Peanut sandwiches were the only thing “on” – but they were very good and 50p each!
I pass through a small town called Hope (and am amused to see another town further down the same road called “Beyond Hope”) and, after about 3 hours driving, arrive in Windsor
It has been a wonderful drive, well worth the time but am glad I left the Hunter behind when I did.
I return into Sydney
Thursday 5th February 2004
Kirribilly and Watson’s Bay for lunch’
I get up and leave the hotel at the earliest opportunity and head towards the Ferry Terminal where I find a truly remarkable little café – 7 tables and chairs max – in the tiny Kirribilly ferry terminal, owned and run by a delightful a lady, assisted by her daughters’ boyfriend…. who bakes fresh and delicious little cakes on the premises and sells them, still warm and soft served with either with tea of Cappuccinos – for absurdly low prices.
I order a piece of carrot cake and watch as the grey-suited and BLACK-shoed commuters (!) – imagine crossing Sydney
I leave my rook-sack at the café for a while and head off into Kirribilly to take a look around. It is a very, up-market part of town – after all the Prime Minister AND the governor both have their official houses within 200 meters of the ferry landing stage – and such I am afraid is the only place I would consider living!! And having said that I might as well tell you now that I plan to return to Sydney
There are little, tree-lined streets tumbling down to the waters-edge, with a mixture of old colonial-style white-washed houses and modern apartment blocks vying for space. The view from the smarter end of the area is quite stunning as it is from Kirribilly that the Harbour Bridge
I venture down one street and arrive at the entrance to the Royal Sydney Yacht Club, so walk in and am met by a white-uniformed flunkey, who of course chucks me out pretty smartish, but with very good grace. I had told him I wanted to admire the view so he directs me to an area right next door which is for the proles like me to watch the nobs of the Yacht Club and share their view.
I return to Circular quay on the ferry and am amazed to see, moored right up alongside Circular Quay itself an ENORMOUS cruise-liner called “Deutschland” Subtle it is not, and as it is moored slap-bang in front of the quay where every “smart” restaurant in located, totally obscuring their view, I mention to the person sitting next to me on the ferry that it is surely the most blatant version of the game so beloved of Germans in Tenerife called “getting nearest the water” I have ever seen!!
He roars with laughter……… and then tells me he is a German!! Oh Peter, why don’t you shut your trap sometimes. !! Anyway, he quite agrees – he left the Fatherland some years ago – and I ask him what he would recommend I do for lunch.
He suggests a ferry trip to Watson’s Bay and lunch at Doyles fish restaurant. Sounds like an excellent idea.
I head off on the high-speed Catamaran ferry which turns out the best ride in the harbour so far. We pass along the various creeks, and I am delighted to be able to observe, and film, a flying boat circling over the sea and landing at the Catalina flying boat base. The weather is just perfect, with a light breeze on the water, no clouds in the sky and lots of sailing boats on the water.
Have you got the message yet that Sydney
I arrive at Watson’s Bay and decide immediately NOT to have lunch at Doyles. It is firstly absurdly full, and over-priced for what is essentially a fish and chip shop. I walk further down the waterfront, and see the “Tea Garden Restaurant” which has a garden overlooking the water, and has only 20 people in it.
But what 20 people !! They are largely made up of …eh, rather nouveau “lunching women” and I overhear a few truly bitchy conversations that would do similar women at San Lorenzos in
Beauchamp Place proud.
Beauchamp Place proud.
Mothers boasting about their children’s exploits – one gets so desperate to “win” in the conversation as to whose son is the “best” that she suddenly volunteers that her particular son has “won absolutely everything” – a stunned silence at the table as there seems no argument to that one !! There are others showing off to each other about the size of their houses – Watsons Bay is rather “nouveau” so it seems – and their cars etc etc. Wonderful stuff.
Lunch – and writing this update – over I head back to town on another ferry.
There has been a “major” gas leak at Circular Quay station, and so there is utter chaos in town. I finally manager to get a bus back to Marsfield where we are soon tucking in to Audrey’s famed prawn and tomato Pasta (infinitely better than mine) and a few glasses of grog.
Friday 6th February 2004
An encounter with chocolate body paint – then a wonderful meal on Manly Beach
As tomorrow I leave for the centre and as today it is extremement chaud (and 40 degrees is forecast for the weekend and ALL next week), and as soon as I return from Alice I go straight to Brisbane
I also purchase a couple of T shirts in the local supermarket as I am told the red sand in the centre stains clothes irreversibly.
At the check out I see in the place where normally supermarkets in the UK
It is doubtlessly manufactured in anticipation of Valentines Day and of people wanting to smear each other in strawberry flavoured chocolate spread, and then get very nefarious and emotional in 35 degree temperatures licking it off. Yum Yum.
The jar carries the instructions to “Warm chocolate to room temperature, dip brush in chocolate …. and apply your imagination”
You can just imagine the scene at the check out
Mummy, Mummy, can I have some Nutella please” For it looks like a Jar of Nutella
“No, Hercules, put that back at once… I’ve told you before, you can only have Nutella on the days you don’t bunk off school… (or something like that maybe)
But Mummy, look…. It comes with a free paintbrush..” Mummy does a double-take and faints.
A few seconds pass as Randy kicks mother, and examines the paintbrush….. then the chocolate and tries to make 2+2 add up.
Mummy……mummy……..eh, Mum….. Why do people paint themselves in chocolate?
That was written at 2pm – it is now 4 pm, and I did go back to buy a jar and I swear to you – there were 2 small boys with their mother at the next checkout who were fascinated by my purchase and mother just didn’t walk to know!! I wink at them as I walk out.
OK – now, any volunteers? Elaine......?........ Celia?........Sally?.........Barbie?
In the evening I have invited Audrey and Jenny for dinner as a “thank you” for having me to stay and we head out to Manly, where we end up at a rather posh place right ON the beach itself. It is grandly called the Manly Ocean Beach House, and is run by a delightful Austrian who constantly sneaks off to watch the cricket!!
We have a delicious meal, including wine for £50 (that’s for 3 people…..) and sit and watch the full moon rise over the Pacific Ocean .
The picture of the surf breaking on the golden beach, a few surfers beyond, the full moon shining a “moon-path” through the crashing waves – you might be interested to know that you can drive a boat DOWN a moon-path “towards” the moon, but when you turn to come back it disappears and all is pitch black – an occasional swirl of seagulls as they fly through the spotlights onto the beach below, and with a Hunter Valley Chardonnay and a good meal on the table - is an very positive experience which I cannot describe adequately.
I am in little doubt that I to return to Australia Watsons Bay
Before returning home we take a walk along the beach. There are a few huge sandcastles people have built and lit with candles, in preparation for an upcoming “Sandcastle competition” on Manly Beach There are many enjoying a simple picnic on the beach, playing Volleyball by floodlight, walking their dogs, and generally enjoying a wonderful Friday night.
Whilst Manly cannot be compared to St Tropez or Copacabana in terms of vox-pop “life-style-sophistication” – and I have been to both and can vouch for their utter awfulness – there is a vibrancy about Manly which makes it an exceptional beach.
There are the lifeguards in their (to women) hugely attractive uniform, the constant movement of swimmers, surfers, body-boarders moving in and out with the crashing surf, there are good (and one quite outstanding) restaurants on the front which is frequented by a quaint mix of hippies, sportsmen, city slickers, old people and tourists, all in little or no hurry to do anything other than enjoy a day or an evening out.
Saturday 7th February
A trip to the Outback - Alice Springs - Curtin Springs Guest House - Mount Connor – An terrifying encounter with a King Brown snake - A sleepless night thereafter !!
We are picked up by a shuttle bus rather too early in the morning and deposited at Sydney Airport before my eyes have been offered the choice of joining me or not. Luckily they are still there from the night before and so all three of us and Audrey are soon on the excellent Virgin Blue flight to Alice Springs .
The Australian airline industry however have taken a leaf out of their Americans’ counterparts “bullshit-speak” (You know – “At this taahm we would airsk you” etc etc”) and refined it somewhat.
I am thus relieved to hear that Virgin are proposing, indeed even confident, of taking us “all the way” to Alice Springs. (“Welcome aboard flight No. DJ 581 all-the-way to Alice Springs ”) The alternative, maybe cheaper option does not bear thinking about !
As we head…..eh…. east, there is a remarkable change in the landscape and one realizes soon why 80% of Aussies live on the coast.
Before one hour of the 3 ½ hour flight is over, we are flying over a desert every bit as “deserty” as a flight over East Africa , or the middle East. It is just mile upon mile of red barren emptiness. What then makes it more remarkable is when you occasionally catch a glimpse of a remote homestead.
As you raise your eyes to the horizon (which at 35000 feet is some considerable distance away) you realize that that homestead is quite, quite alone in the vastness of the outback. We are to learn more about this in due course.
We land (more by luck than by judgment maybe!!) at Alice Springs and as we head out of the aircraft we are hit by the staggering heat of the midday sun. It is however a dry heat, so once the shock of the heat itself wears off, it is not too uncomfortable. A hat and bottles of water however are an obvious necessity.
We pick up our rental car and head into a town called Alice (or The Alice as Alice Springs is known in Oz). The earth is ochra red and the landscape is barren and rocky, with steep chasms and hills on either side. The sky is of a blue I have not often seen and there are lots of small fluffy clouds in the sky. There is a great deal of vegetation, plants and, more artificially, gardens and parks. I cannot say however that it makes a particularly pleasant impression. More “functional”.
After a horrid lunch (for some unknown reason we decided to go to KFC) we head off down the Stuart Highway (which eventually leads, after 1522 kms to Adelaide) towards Curtin Springs roadhouse and cattle station which is "near" (200 Kms) Yulura (the Aborigine name for Ayres Rock)
I am delighted to see my first road train – made up of 4 BP petrol tanker trailers – which comes bearing down on us from the south. We had been warned that these huge Road-trains take no notice of anyone and head straight down the middle of the road and it is up to you to take avoiding action… I see no evidence of this whatsoever. The worst drivers (by far) are the tourists.
There is not a lot to explain as the road is almost as straight as a die, well metalled and signposted but extremely monotonous. The only distinguishing feature is the occasional change in the barrenness of the countryside. What looks like a moonscape is lightened a little by the odd clump of trees and grasses.
But I am fascinated to be here at all and so take endless pictures as I drive, most of which I delete as in 250 kilometers they all look more or less the same. Road, red earth, blue sky and clouds.
After kilometer 256 we turn right onto the fabled
Lassater Highway . This is the original trans-outback road, and was only fully tarred some 13 years ago. It is however pretty much the same as the Stuart so I cannot add a lot of detail for you !!
Lassater Highway . This is the original trans-outback road, and was only fully tarred some 13 years ago. It is however pretty much the same as the Stuart so I cannot add a lot of detail for you !!
We carry on here for about 200 kilometers (these distances sound daunting – but as the road is almost dead straight and in 87 kilometers we passed 9 cars and a few coaches and road-trains, it is not too bad)
We need petrol, and so we pull into the single pump petrol station which is manned 24 hours a day. There are a large number of Aboriginals standing (mainly lying) about, and no other “whites” like us. There is a terrific stench of sweat and god knows what else, and so we head off as soon as we can.
One has to be careful when assessing fuel requirements in this area, as one petrol station can be up to 150 kilometers from the other. We roll into this one, having passed one already, with our gauge almost on empty.
After Kilometer 203 we finally see “Curtin Springs” Guesthouse on the right-hand side. We pull in, and head, through the rather dusty path to the reception area.
At this point I should point out that all those who decide – for whatever reason – to come and live in a place some 300 kilometers from Alice Spring, itself already totally remote, in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere have a jolly sound reason for doing so, and that reason has almost certainly nothing whatsoever to do with a love of their fellow man or their need for a frothy cappuccino and a chat.
However, terrible droughts have taken their toll over the years here, and so those 2 or 3 cattle stations that are lucky enough to find themselves on the Lessater highway have turned their hands to “tourism” en route to Ayres rock.
We are met by a monosyllabic oaf who shoves a piece of paper towards me which I sign, asks me to pay for everything immediately, cannot get the card-swipe machine to work, swears a bit, apologies once, and shows us to our rooms. Sebel One Sydney it is not !!
However just before exiting the “reception” area – which doubles as a shop and a rather rough bar, the most amazing sight enters through the plastic curtain.
An extraordinarily pretty, immaculately over-dressed, blonde, petite girl, complete with designer hand-bag and designer sunglasses perched atop her immaculately coiffed hair enters the bar. She looks like Grace Kelly.
The whole place goes quiet as this quite extraordinary spectacle is considered. She turns out to be a Swiss Air-hostess traveling alone. Her name is Barbara and the three of us actually end up spending a lot of time together. I believe any dislike people may have had for us, now turns to rampant jealousy for me !!
My room is pretty rudimentary, and is in fact a shipping container, painted red and which has a window and a door and an essential air-conditioning machine let into the side. There is a shower and so it is quite sufficient.
I soon head back to the central area and meet Peter Severin, the owner the ranch. He is a delightful and very funny old man who is full of stories of his life in the outback. He started the ranch in 1957 when he arrived with his wife, and over the years has grown it to its current size of 4000 Square Kilometers – 200 Kms x 200 Kms – think about it) with some 8000 head of cattle.
He tells us one of the worst bush-fires in memory destroyed some 80 percent of his land some 2 years ago, and, as before that things we pretty bad anyway, (farmers do always seem to complain) he decided to turn his hand to tourism.
His station, in season, caters to many coaches en route to Ayres Rock, and he has some 25 rooms, all as basic as the others. But people seem to like it.
We head off with one of his hands into the bush in a 4x4, to watch the sunset on Mount Connor
Our guide - “Uncle” as he is known - is another rather morose but perfectly pleasant guide, who teaches us a great deal of the fauna of the outback. We are bombarded with statistics about the protein percentages of different grasses which the animals eat, the types of grubs available in the event of being stuck in the desert on your own, and how to wrap yourself in a damp cloth to keep cool while sleeping in the desert.
It turns out he is a recognized expert on survival and runs training courses for the Australian army. We seem in good hands.
The sunset over Mount Connell can only be described as disappointing – a sunset in my experience is almost only worth watching if there are some clouds to catch the colours - and soon we are heading back, past a watering hole which a Crane (bird variety) is sharing with the cattle.
“Uncle” suddenly screeches the vehicle to a stop and hops out. In the middle of the road is a “King Brown” snake and he invites us to come and take a look at it.
You can give me any animal you like and I will do anything you like to it, but snakes. Uuurgh ! I am terrified of snakes and make no apologies for the fact. I nevertheless watch – from a safe distance – as we were shown the snake and filmed it being put to death. The best snake is a dead snake as they say!!.
A King Brown is a deadly, deadly snake – probably the most deadly snake of them all – and will kill you within 2 hours. We are told if bitten by one, it is best to put a crepe bandage around the area of the bite and wait for help. If you cannot be transported somewhere where you can be treated, your nervous system will slowly close down and you will die a hellish death.
“Uncle” takes a stick and, in typical Crocodile Hunter style, get the snake by the tail and starts talking to us about it. He shows us its markings, how it squares up to an opponent, how it is eaten by desert animals, and above all how deadly it is. I am quite horrified by the whole process and cannot remember a word detail of what was said.
Before long he cracks the snake on the head and it convulses into a small ball. He cracks its head again and then tells us it is now dead. I am very glad indeed.
We return to the car and head off into the dark. Before long we pick up a family of Kangaroos running around in the road which is delightful, especially as I am able to film them. Kangaroos almost only come out at night when it is cooler, and this family seem to be having a great time as they bound about the place with their Joeys. Maybe they are all off to McDonalds for the evening.
On return to the Curtain Springs we order dinner and I return to my room. I take a shower and am on my way back to the eating area. As I pass over a grassed area, there are a couple of dogs who suddenly all start barking together very loudly, just to my right. 2 people shoot round from the kitchen, grab the dogs and shout “snake, snake”.
I see “Uncle” grab a stick and, with something of a shocked looked on his face, rushes round to where there had been a movement a few seconds earlier and flays with great energy at a huge King Brown snake, about 6 feet long, which had been lurking in the grass. He then picks it up by the tail and nonchantly walks over to the dustbin and dumps it in with the coke and beer cans. Everyone – apart from me – go and take at it.
This whirr of activity has taken place within about 8 feet of where I was walking in the dark and all I can say it that I was scared and extremely shocked. It is apparently rather rare for a snake of such venom to come into the compound !
At greatest danger were the dogs who wanted to attack the snake. If they had been bitten, they would have died instantly due to the intensity of its venom in their small bodies.
There is definitely a subdued air in the station, and it is not long before everyone goes to bed. I sleep in my clothes, with my lenses in and every light in the room on. I am convinced there is a snake in my room – and yes, I DID check under the bed…and behind the shower curtain.
As I write this, back in the (relative) safety of Sydney
My Blackberry telephone just got a message whilst we were at the dinner table, and thus vibrated in my pocket. I almost jumped out of my skin, much to the amusement of both Audrey and Jenny. So much for the intrepid traveler !!
Sunday 8th January 2004
Drive to Ayres Rock – The Olgas – Sunset at Ayres Rock
Barbara – the Swiss girl – has joined us for the day and we leave at 9 o’clock for the 200 km drive to the rock.
After a couple of hours of uneventful driving into an increasingly hot day, we head into the Ayres Rock National Park
We had already seen Ayres Rock in the distance. It is hugely impressive as its red mass rises almost vertically out of the earth. It is really coloured bright red in the sunshine – but then so is everything else in central Australia - and set where it is, with hundreds of miles of flat country around it, against a bright blue sky which also seems to go on forever, it is an astonishing sight.
One can drive right up to the rock by car and with it looming above our heads it is visually even more stunning. I read it is covered in a thin veneer of a hard stone, but with a fragile red sandstone underneath. People are allowed to climb it, via one route only, and we see a small group of people trudging up the side in the midday heat of about 55 degrees in the sun. Barking mad, and definitely tourists!!
We visit the Aborigine Visitors Centre which is located nearby.
Where does one begin to consider the Aboriginal problems. As far as I can see, and looked at quite cynically, the Aboriginal people that remain outside the wide-ranging net which has been set up to care for them, are a form of underclass who, were they to form part of the statistic, would be those simply termed as “unemployed and unemployable”
They are the conscience of Australia
Political hand-wringing was an unknown phenomenon and it seems wrong to apply it retrospectively.
The Aborigines have been nominally handed back the ownership of Uluru (though I did not notice one single Aborigine working or otherwise in the area) and so we are asked to respect it as a sacred place. We are asked not to climb it, but of course we are asked to part with lots of money for the pleasure of seeing it.
We take a break from prehistoric times and go for lunch at the Sails in the Desert Hotel in the Alice Springs “resort” (apparently an Aboriginal company owns it) which is packed with an eclectic mix of ghastly mass tourists all dressed in nylon clothes with those awful open-toed sandals with white or grey socks and who all seem to be called either Elmer and Franz-Josef or Cody-Ann and Brunhilde !! Urrrgh !! (Stop it !! – Ed)
Lunch over, we take a drive over to take a look at the Olgas. These are a series of slightly smaller rocks, but as they are linked together they are of course massive anyway, and almost more impressive than Ayres Rock.
The flies here are appalling and I had heard that if you smoke while walking amongst flies it helps a little. I light my pipe before heading off to the Olgas on foot, and find it really works. Audrey and Barbara follow in my wake, relatively flyless.
To our horror we see 3 large coaches approaching at the same time as us, and of course we are soon swamped by about 75 people, all walking up to the viewing area.
In my normal, egalitarian manner I engage some of the more interesting-looking ones in conversation and of course they are delightful. It turns out they are from the U.S.
A couple of them are also wearing a all-enveloping fly-net around their heads which makes them look like a cross between a bee-keeper and an astronaut in the Australian desert, but when I admire it, they assure me it works and I resolve to buy one for myself, as, even with a pipe, the flies can be trying. They get used to tobacco quite quickly so it seems !
A further advantage of mass-tourism transpires, as once we have viewed the Olgas from one viewing station, we buzz off in the direction of Ayres Rock thinking that was all there was to see. In my rear-view mirror though I see the coaches heading in the opposite direction and we hare back and follow them to 2 further viewing areas, one better than the other.
Before long the heat does get the better of us and so we once again head back to the Sails Hotel. I consume what appears to be an absolutely revolting “strawberry and nappy contents” flavoured milk-shake and sit in the relative cool until it is time to depart for Ayres Rock once again and the famed sunset.
We arrive back at Ayres Rock and enter the designated “Sunset viewing area” car-park and find that half of Germany
The view is perfectly fine, and so we unpack cameras, binos and mobile phones and prepare for this stunning spectacle.
Slowly the sun goes down, and slowly the rock begins to remain pretty much the same shade of red as it had been all day. It does get a little darker, and then, rather strangely, seems to get a little lighter, before, quite quickly turning into a rather dirty shade of red as night falls.
I do not wish to denigrate the spectacle of the sunset on the rock as just looking at the rock becomes an irresistible habit while in its vicinity, but I have to say that for those who have flown to Alice Springs, paid for another transfer to the airport at Uluru and then paid for 2 nights at the Sails in the Desert , I would seriously question whether I had had value for money.
We were told the next day that “our” sunset had been a especially good one, but to me it seemed the rock did NOT change colour beyond getting darker as the sun went down.
We decided to wait a little to let the coaches and traffic disperse back to the resort, and before long were able to observe the rock in total darkness, with a few stars overhead.. To see this giant monolith silhouetted against a darkening night sky WAS worth the trip and we felt rewarded for out patience (and for being solo-travellers)
We headed back to the
Lassiter Highway to Curtain Springs. Along the way we stopped a few times to observe the most spectacular heaven of stars, as the blackness was almost total. Patrick Moore would have been in…. heaven !
Lassiter Highway to Curtain Springs. Along the way we stopped a few times to observe the most spectacular heaven of stars, as the blackness was almost total. Patrick Moore would have been in…. heaven !
We could have counted the number of stars in the Milky Way it was so clear, had we not been occupied explaining to Barbara that the southern cross had only 5 stars in it. She was convinced it should have six, and in particular one HUGE one as it appear like that on the Australian Flag.
We had to disappoint her by explaining that the HUGE star represents the island of Tasmania
We arrived back at about 10.30 and ordered a couple of bottles of wine, before retiring to bed after an exhausting – I was doing all the driving as well as the planning – but truly exhilarating day.
Monday 9th February 2004
Return to Alice Springs - The Ghan train - Visit to an Art Gallery - Visit to the Outback School
We leave in the early morning, and I have to say I am quite pleased to see the back of our hotel. It has been perfectly adequate as far as budget accommodation is concerned, but I do find the staff there rather rude. They are all like that and I am sure there are some which are considerably worse.
It takes us about 2 ½ hours to drive back to Alice
She soon appears – once again looking as if she has just walked off the Rue Montaigne in Paris
We firstly find a hotel and book in, after which we take a stroll around the shopping Mall of Alice
As one walks around Alice
Our next port of call is the Outback School Alice Alice Springs .
We hear a sample lesson and a lot of group singing of Happy Birthday to one child, whom we hear singing rather tunelessly in the background “Happy Birthday to me!!” Very cute.
The books and other class materials such as books are dispatched by Australia
The kids are required to follow the Australian school curriculum and it is a requirement of the school that a parent or someone on the farm supervise the lessons and homework. It seems to work very well, but I feel could be improved by the arrival of the Internet, which seems a dirty word in the outback !
I happen to ask our guide if he know what day of the week the new Ghan Train leaves Alice, and he tells us it is today at 4.10pm (it is now 3.30pm)
The Ghan is one of the world’s most famous trains, and travels right across the outback from Adelaide to Alice and now, since a week or so, continues on to Darwin
I herd Audrey and Barbara into the car and lock the doors as we hare across town in search of the Railway Station. This is one thing I want to see.
The carriages are all made from a shiny steel with the Ghan Kangaroo crest on the side. There are 2 massive diesel locomotives at the front and I stagger all the way down to take a loot. The station is a pretty fly-blown place and therefore one can wander as close as one wants to the train itself.
Suddenly the loco emits a very loud whistle and slowly chugs out past where I am standing. It takes a full 5 minutes for the whole train to pass by. I film the train passing and the passengers who wave as they go past on what must be a very interesting and romantic 2 days or so.
After the Ghan had departed for Darwin and Audrey and Barbara had finished telling me what a child I was wanting to go and look at the thing in the first place (OK - they didn’t, I made that up !!) we went to take a look at the place where Alice Springs essentially started.
It is where the telegraph which relayed news and information all the way from London was set up, some 10 kilometers outside Alice
To think that the main lines of communication across the globe was by morse code is almost unthinkable. A man would sit in London, and pass messages to Gibraltar, which was passed on to – in order – Malta, Alexandria, Aden, Bombay, Madras, Penang (Malaya), Singapore, Batavia (now Djarkarta), Bonjoewangi (Where the %!!*^ is that !!), Darwin and finally Alice Springs (after which a link to Adelaide
Henry Blomfontein-Slagheap - HM Master of spin, Ice Cold in London
“Charles !! Pass a message to Jack out there in Alice
“OK boss” – Dot Dot Dot Dash Dot Dot (enough dots – Ed!)
Tempus fugits madly for about 24 hours
“Crikey” cries Jack Hottentot-Swimming-Pool, head DottDasher, Hot n’ Steaming in Alice
As I walk into one of the larger rooms which was at that time the dining, I see sitting there a rather imperious and grave looking Aborigine. He is enormously tall and well built and must be about 70 years old. For his age he looks amazingly fit.
He begins to chat to us and tells us that in the 1930’s and 40’s, the then Australian government passes a law requiring the forced removal of many Aboriginal children from their parents.
They were brought together in places like where we are now, looked after by whites and “forced” to be educated, as their parents saw little or no need for this in their communities.
This is one of the “Aboriginal issues” which are greatly exercising the Australian people these days, but to this man it was, without any doubt a “good thing” as it provided those that wanted it, an opportunity to have a decent education.
This was apparently (and some do disagree vociferously) the catalyst in ensuring that very many Aboriginals WERE able to integrate themselves, and subsequently their families, into mainline Australian life. Some of these families have gone on to provide Judges to the Judiciary, eminent businessmen, university lecturers and the like to Australian society.
Of course the detractors of the policy argue that to remove children from their families was scandalous etc etc – but……
Anyway, towards the end of his talk, our friend (to my shame I did not get his name) pointed to a photo on the wall opposite of a group of children, dated 1935 and told us one of the children was him, and asked us to guess which one.
We all failed to guess –and so he went on to tell us that, after his education (for which HE was eternally grateful) he became a professional boxer in Sydney (!) but then went on to work all his life for Sydney Council, sending his children to school and university, before returning to Alice Springs 10 years ago to take up a part-time job here.
A quite fascinating personal encounter which has been all too lacking in Australia
Thursday 12th February 2004
Flight to Brisbane
An early start to take another excellent Virgin Blue flight, this time to Brisbane
I pick up my hire car and join the motorway heading north towards the Sunshine Coast
The weather is boiling once again – about 32 degrees with very high humidity– but the sky is the clearest blue I have seen yet, and the lush greenery everywhere is beautiful. It is clearly not for nothing that Queensland is known as the Sunshine State
I want to go and take a look at Australia Zoo. It is owned and run by Steve Irwin, known as the Crocodile Hunter, who jumps about in tight shorts on TV saying “Crikey” at everything.
As I head north, I leave the motorway and head onto the Glass Mountains Scenic road. A sign to a place called “Mount Beerbumba Lookout”, which seems to indicate a good view. I turn off onto a dirt track which peters out in a car-park.
There is a sign that the summit is 700 meters away, but is a steep climb. I take a bottle of water and head off up the path. My God, it is steep. I would an average angle of incline of about 35 degrees.
I start dripping profusely and start thinking about King Brown snakes and the like as the path is very narrow and bordered by bush and stones. DID make the summit (quicker than the average time advertised of 20 minutes) despite having started to head back at least twice. The view from the top was disappointing, but, small things for small people, I was a little proud to have forced myself to make the top.
The way down – at one point during which I was chased, quite literally, by a rather large and speedy spider - was almost worse as the knees and legs begin to buckle on such a steep descent. I aim to do it again tomorrow
I join the main road and arrive at Australia Zoo. The entire Australia Zoo experience makes a fantastically organized impression – they advertise everywhere, provide free roadmaps at all the service stations en route, and once there have car parks which are beautifully landscaped. The place closes in an hours’ time, so I decide to come back the next day. Apparently Steve Irwin has been under absurd media pressure since feeding his baby to one of his crocodiles or something. Can’t see the problem myself.
I carry on and soon arrive in a place called something like Moolooboocoolabma where, after a great deal of comparing prices, I book into a hotel at the Alexandra Parade right on the sea-front.
My “room” unbeknown to me at the time, turns out to be a modern 3 bedroom apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean , complete with dishwasher, washing machine and 3 bedrooms, for which I am charged 50 pounds ! Australia
I have to admit to beginning to wonder whether the fact that this trip – despite being interesting in every respect so far, is maybe becoming a little too “soft”, what with one beach after another. I will have to stick it out as there is little else in Queensland , but I am beginning to look forward to moving on to New Zealand
Friday 13th February 2004
A visit to an Aussie Dentist - Australia
My toothache has got worse in the night and so I knock on the door of a dentist down the road, and am flabbergasted when he agrees to see me immediately! His appointment book seems packed out as far as I can see for the next 2 weeks, but he tells his waiting patients that I am an emergency as they are all very kind about it.
I have a cracked filling which has caused a problem (he takes an Xray so seems quite confident of his prognosis) fills the offending tooth and prescribes 10 days worth of Anti-biotics.
Dr Edwards is a delightful, rotund, elderly man of about 60, with white hair and a huge white moustache. He is wearing shorts and long white socks befitting of any dentist in a holiday resort, and makes a very “paternal” impression. He tells me that for many years he was an itinerant lecturer on dentistry in the South Pacific islands, and would spend most of his time touring around the area, teaching and lecturing to local dentists. I appear in good hands. He hands me an absurdly large bill though, and I am pleased I have taken a good travel insurance with me!!
I head inland and am at Australia Zoo in about 15 minutes. It seems a huge place
More like a theme park than a zoo. I is quite crowded, especially as it is a Friday, but it seems well organized and can obviously cope. It’s very clean, has lots of, toothy staff of the American have-a-nice-day variety, and the enclosures for the animals seem large and well maintained.
It’s again a very hot and humid day and most of the visitors are congregated in the food hall stuffing themselves, and their children. As it is only 10 in the morning this seems a little extreme and I content myself with a coffee.
As I walk around I see a varied selection of Alligators and Crocs about the place – not literally, silly, I mean in their cages - and a few other Australian animals such as Wallabies, Kangaroos, Koalas (of course) an Emu (Emus from up close look quite demented and have a mad look in their eyes) and a rotund looking brown animal whose name escapes me but who spends his time rubbing his arse up against a tree - and of course lots of horrid snakes.
I am relieved to read that despite being the most poisonous snake in Australia – and Australia is home to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11thand 12th most venomous animals in the world - no one since records started (probably last week – Ed) has ever dies from a King Brown snake bite.
I head off to one of the “shows” in the massive central grandstand called a Crocothon (yuk) – sponsored by The Animal Planet with their logo all over the place – but am very disappointed.
A man walks in with a rather bad-tempered looking python around his neck, chucks it on the ground. It slithers about obediently but I feel rather half-heartedly.
He proceeds to tell us some boring facts about snakes, lectures us a bit about conservation and then tries to educate us by asking a little boy to come into the enclosure and pretend he has been bitten by a snake. He wraps a bandage round the little fellas arm, unties it again and tells him he should drive (he’s only about 8 for god’s sake) or walk to the nearest hospital. The young bitee is given a cheap rubber snake as a momento and wanders off looking a little puzzled.
What he does tell us which is faintly interesting is that the trick – seen mainly in cowboy films - of someone else sucking out the snake venom is, as I always suspected, a nonsense, as now 2 people have got venom in them….
No – I am unimpressed. Steve Irwin and his bossy looking wife – she was the type who kept tame leopards and would pose with them, before she married - are nowhere to be seen and I feel they rely far too much on their own, admittedly deserved, reputation to draw the crowds. As this works extremely well, and most people are a little less demanding than I am for 23 dollars, all parties seem very happy.
By far the most crowded areas are the souvenir shops full of the usual crap. Irwin has also developed a gruesome range of “Bindi-wear. His very cute and obviously extremely precocious 6 year-old daughter is called Bindi – I won’t order a Bindi-Bhajee again without thinking of Australia - but this apparently has also been a blinding success over here, and in the USA (surprise surprise) as well.
I go take a look at the Kangaroos – and see a mother and Joey both resting, with Joey in Mum’s pouch. I watch another couple of Crocodile shows – all rather lacking in interest really – and leave. I remember the efforts they made at the Australian Reptile park a few days ago where they showed us at least 15 types of snake in the snake show. It was much more personal, and yet the place is much less successful.
I head back to Mooloomara and am offered a boogie-board to go and play in the waves with. My aerodynamic shape is not given to actual body-surfing, so something smooth underneath me will probably help a great deal. I stagger into the surf and wait for the first wave to come along. As soon as it does I hurl myself furiously at the board and go nowhere. I have forgotten to turn round and face the shore. I get a few pitiful looks from fellow boarders – almost exclusively young kids of about 12 (Almost? Totally – Ed) but try again.
Much better this time and after a few more attempts, and the kind words of a young girl who decides I look like I need her expert coaching, I hurl myself at the top of a wave, and remembering to move forward on the board so weight distribution is right, and aiming slightly across the wave I crash and bang my way right into the shore at great speed.
I return to my coach who tells me, rather disgustedly, that only babies goes ALL the way into the beach. COOL people like her (and, she hints, me, if I try harder) roll off their board about ¾ of the way in and in one deft movement, turn and start walking out for the next wave.
After a while I look around and notice that all but the babies have gone home – so I decide to do the same. There is always tomorrow.
Saturday 14th February 2004
A day mainly indoors but also on the beach.
It is hot and the sun is scorching, so I go down to the beach and practice a little more in the surf. It is however Valentines Day and, whilst not wishing to berate the meaning of the day at all, it seems to have attracted the most appalling kind of person to come to the Sunshine Coast
I have also confirmed to myself once and for all that I detest spending time on or near a beach, however majestic and “sweeping” it may be and thus having now been here for 3 hot and sultry days, cannot wait to move on.
It is the utter banal superficiality of a place such as the Gold Coast, coupled maybe with being alone, that has made me decide to return to Brisbane tomorrow and if there is nothing I can do there which does not involve a beach and does involve something a little more constructive, I will either return to Sydney or, better still, leave for New Zealand as soon as I can.
Sunday 15th February 2004
Return to Sydney - A night out in Brisbane
I return from Mooloolaba to Brisbane along the rather crowded Pacific Highway and find my way to Avebury Road which is one road back from the Brisbane river and in a nice tree-lined suburban street and is Audreys real home and where she has lived for many years, whilst not in Sydney or England.
The house is a wooden structure over 100 years old and rather quaint, with wooden floors and walls. Debbie and her husband Dimitri live there for the time being, and keep it in immaculate condition. We are even asked to take out shoes off at the front door – which I always forget to do !!
I meet her daughter Debbie and her granddaughter, a 6 sweet-old bundle of smiles called Sophia.
The weather is sultry and hot and extremely humid, so after the obligatory 2 glasses of water I set about finding a hotel on the net. Wotid.com come up trumps as usual and I book a “boutique” hotel in Kangaroo Point, again right by the river and under the impressive Story Bridge
I soon head off to take a look at the town. The Skyline of Brisbane is almost as impressive as Sydney
The catamaran trip up the river is wonderful as one can stand outside on deck. There are 4 or 5 truly impressive bridges in addition to Story Bridge – which looks like the City-side span of the Harbour Bridge
I have arranged to meet everyone at a riverside bar, before going out for dinner, and when we do meet up, it turns into a game of “hunt the restaurant”, as whilst it is extremely well sign-posted, we never actually manage finding it ! We end up instead at a Greek restaurant., near the open air lido, which promises a lot, but delivers vile quality.
I am struck that whilst Sydneysider do have style, the majority of people walking around Brisbane Brisbane
After dinner we take another Cat trip in the other direction and the view is even more interesting as we are able to look into and observe life in the upmarket houses which line the river at that end of town.
A great deal of money has been made by some Brisbaners on the Gold and Sunshine coasts, and so some of the houses are on a truly massive scale, and the mega-yachts at the bottom of their gardens are almost as large as the houses themselves.
It strikes me as a little strange to build a house by a river, so as to enjoy the views, only to have that view obstructed by an ostentatious yacht. I suppose if it is yours, and you are that way inclined, it is a self-satisfying sight. I will let you know!
Monday 16th February 2004
A trip to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise
I have heard awful things said about the Gold Coast, and am advised to avoid it in general and Surfers Paradise in particular, so I am in the car and on my way by 8 in this morning ! I am in strange need of a bit of kitsch. I take along Barbara, the Swiss-miss of Alice Springs fame who has unaccountably arrived in Brisbane
The Gold Coast in a 50 mile stretch of high-rise hell some 50 miles south of Brisbane, and Surfers Paradise is the central jewel in the Crown. It started off some 30 years ago as one hotel, called the Surfers Paradise, and has grown into a holiday and gambling Mecca for all Australians and lots and lots of appalling Japanese.
As we head south on this viciously hot day I can see the slow encroachment of high rise buildings in the distance, but they do not look that bad. They are all of ultra-modern design, all dotted one next to the other alongside the beachfront, and look rather imposing.
Soon we are in Surfers Paradise itself, and whilst a paradise it is not, the beach is absolutely stunning. It is a wide, wide ribbon of blindingly white sand, beautifully maintained, with a turquoise sea, whipped up by the stiffening breeze into white capped waves, with white rollers crashing onto the sand.
I am going to have to buy a T shirt and a cap to wear in the waves, as sunburn would otherwise do me in within a few minutes, and, as we drive around town, I am delighted to see a Charity shop, where I buy both items, both in appalling Surfers Paradise taste – red and blue cap and red T shirt – for 3 dollars.
We park the car – plenty of parking – and head to the beach. I hire a boogie-board and head off for some fun. I am soon zooming in on the waves, and even manage to attract a few envious glances from Japanese tourists, all of whom seem quite incapable of co-ordination sufficient to enable them to jump onto their boards.
The wind begins to strengthen considerably and the waves get bigger and bigger. Soon the ride into the beach becomes something of a roller-coast ride, as the board, with me on top, plunges in and then out of the surf on the way in. A couple of times I seem to take-off which is great fun.
It soon becomes too rough and thus too hard work to push against the waves AND push against the undercurrent as the waves recede, and so I decide to call it a day.
Barbara, who has been acting rather strangely, prancing around on the water’s edge like a small child, decides it is time for lunch and so heads off for an Ice Cream and some chocolate, whilst I head off for a McDonalds Toasted sandwich (quite excellent and good value) and an orange juice.
We then head off for a coffee – where Barbara bizarrely quizzes the waitress rather aggressively as to the make of coffee they use – the poor waitress hasn’t a clue and has to go and ask - before agreeing to go in – and a drive around town.
You know, it really is not as bad as some people like to make out. It is clean and tidy, and there are plenty of trees and shrubs, The shops are mainly tourist shops, fast food outlets and Estate Agents set up by different developers to sell the latest million-dollar apartments with sea-views.
As with most such resorts, the thing that completely spoils it are the punters. They are for the most part appalling, whether native Australians or tourists.
I am accosted by one in McDonalds who informs me if I do not let him into the queue in front of me he will do something extravagantly violent – I suggest he has a “Good day” on the way out which seems to enrage him even more – In general they are of a standard which makes one wonder where they actually come from, as I have not observed this sort of person anywhere during my time in Oz. They are dressed-down versions to those who frequent cross-channel ferries in England
In late afternoon we return to Brisbane
We go back to Audrey’s house and decide to all go out for dinner in a Thai restaurant up the road, which turns out to be really excellent. It is a restaurant where one is permitted to bring one’s own bottle of wine – they open it and give you an ice-bucket – and so we get rather carried away in the wine shop next door.
I will not go into finite detail, but I am afraid Barbara is beginning to get on everyone’s nerves. She is so hopelessly “Swiss”, so self-interested and seems to live in a pink n’ fluffy fantasy world of her own – she has moved hotel in order to sleep in a pink-coloured bedroom….really ! - that Audrey and I have to hatch a cunning plan to get rid of her. Cruel, but necessary.
Wednesday 18th February 2004
Thursday 19th February 2004
Return to Sydney
Once again it is in the high 30’s if not the low 40’s (which has been forecast) and it becomes increasingly difficult to do anything worthwhile other than sitting there drinking water and complaining about the heat. Since
Friday 20th February 2004
Transfer to Christchurch
Saturday 21st February 2004
In and around Christchurch
Sunday 22nd February 2004
Departure for Akaroa
I am pretty fed up with my hotel in Christchurch
My camper seems also quite old but has everything it should have, including a heater which will come in extreme useful the further south I head. It is a Mazda with a petrol engine – which will pull it up hills a little easier – and I am delighted with it, especially as it is costing me £30 a day as opposed to £100 or so from other companies.
After traipsing round in circles for about 20 minutes trying to find my way out of town – I head south on Highway (ehhm…) 1 towards the general direction of Dunedin.
The roads here are well-metalled and very light on traffic other than round the main cities but soon I am speeding south. The countryside becomes what one imagines New Zealand
Not too far from Christchurch I see a sign to a place called Ankara Christchurch
When has anyone ever had tourist advice from an immigration office before – I remember once arriving in the USA on the day Terry Waite was released in Lebanon and, unbelievably but true, the guy signing me into the US was called…. Terry Waite ! I said to him something like “you must be very happy today!” He in turn asks me, in a sullen sort of way why that should be and when I try and explain… I am nearly arrested for insubordination.
I take the road to the Akaroa headland and at once the traffic subsides and I am almost alone on the road. I am afraid I have yet another Petrol moment when I notice my gauge is almost on empty, so I gingerly drive back about 15 miles and find a petrol station just as the van is about to stutter to a halt and fill up. I turn and head back again.
There are a few touristy sort of cafés and antique Shoppe type places which are rather disappointing and so I carry on until I reach Akaroa at the end of the headland.
Akaroa is a holiday destination for posh New Zealanders judging by the number of Porsches and BMW littered about the place, but the most striking thing is the fact that just about every guest house and shop is named in French.
I go to the local tourist office to try and establish why this should be and have it explained to me that the French arrived in New Zealand about ½ hour after the English (typical !!) but that as they made more of an impression in Akaroa than we did (probably bought their bloody poodles and underarm hair with them or something!) Akaroa has remained slavishly French.
I am quite amused to see the number of French visitors to the place and the comments in the guestbook at the tourist centre confirm that they are indeed pleased to be able to pretend that they are in France
I unload my bike and head off into the town which clings to the beautiful bay of Akaroa, and am accosted by a couple of local urchins who ask me in am accusatory sort of way why I am not wearing my helmet ! I tell the I have forgotten it and they tell me to go and get it. I just begin to get cross when they smile and ask me where I am from, and we cycle around town a little back to the van which they pronounce as being “cool” – I am flattered.
There is a shop on the seafront which sells provisions and I have to start giving thought to the idea that I am about to spend my first night ever in a campervan. I go in and spend what seems a fortune on food and other stuff and head off the find the Top 10 campsite which appears to be on a headland overlooking the bay.
I arrive and am asked whether for 2 dollars more I would like to rent a “site” with a view. I agree and am shown to the best site on the campground with a 180 panoramic view of the Akaroa Bay
I gingerly reverse into my spot, connect the electricity and hey-presto all the lights go on as well as the heater which operates on a thermostat. The fridge whirrs into life and before long has cooled down sufficiently for me to put my wine-box into in preparation for a nice meal I have planned for my first day of independence.
The campsite is immaculate with every facility you could wish for. The loos are immaculate and there is an internet room, a games room a TV room and library full of old Readers Digest books for campers to read.
I fire up the cooker and start – with only ONE pot to prepare dinner. I have bought a small piece of Monkfish down in Akaroa harbour directly off the fisherman and add this to some tomatoes, some garlic and a little white wine and Crème Fraiche and produce a passable sauce which I then add to some pasta. I sit on a (new) chair outside with a nice glass of wine and feel the world is a rather nice place at a time like this.
The campsite is full of young and old and of all different nationalities. Mainly they have rented Britz or KEA campervans which are of course a little newer and in some cases a little posher than mine, but on the whole they look a very civilized lot and judging by the equipment they unpack are not short of a bob or two – though I think I am the only one with a Blackberry !!!
The sun sets over the hill and the lights of Akaroa go on one by one. With the mountains in the distance silhouetted against a dark blue sky, the bay and the lights below me, a good meal and a nice (by now 4th) glass of wine I feel 4 pounds has been money well spent.
Tuesday 24th February 2004
Omaru to Dunedin
After breakfast on the Seafront in Akaroa consisting of an excellent Cappuccino and some toast I head out of town and return to the main Highway heading south. The weather is absolutely glorious but there is a wind getting up which only makes things even nicer but threatens for the evening.
The Canterbury
I pass through the turn off to Chertsey and see on my right a huge Cattle Auctioneers, so pull on the anchors and turn in to take a look. It is auction day and there is a huge crowd of good-natured but rugged looking men loafing about all looking rather furtive.
There are also about 200 pens – about 40 feet square – all filled to the brim (almost literally, but not cruelly) with rather cute sheep and lambs and the odd family of sheep which contains a black brother or sister. !! The black sheep and I give each other a nod – it takes one to know one !!
The auctioneers leap from one pen to another and go through the same routine each time. They seem surprised when no one starts the bidding at the high price they suggest one should start bidding - around 60 NZ dollars a head - and then make another, more realistic start at around 40 dollars a head.
The auctioneers of course go into their usual frenzy of speech and arm-waving, despite there being only about 10 people interested in each “lot” but at the same time are able to hold a conversation – at normal voice level – with some of the bidders.
There is one auctioneer in particular who seems aware of the fact that I am filming him, so he throws himself about a bit amongst the sheep in his pen, and auctioneers so fast that no one can make out what he is one about and he is made to start again and told to stop showing off (“Stop showing off, you bugger” !!) Not particularly subtle, but it works.
I am extremely careful not to pick my nose or scratch my Arse at the wrong moment as I feel I would be unable to fit 150 sheep and my bike into my camper van.
My next port of call is a Museum – actually called a Moo-seum – which boats to have the world largest collection of Milk Separators on the planet!! It is obviously run as something of a joke by an old man, but the collection of separators and other old mechanical scrap is truly impressive.
For any technical pedants reading this here are some of his inventory.
27 x Alfa-Laval 150 Separators
11 x Lister Cream Separators made y Cherry and Sons of Gisborne
A beer flagon filler
A Carsons and Toone 40Lb Cheese crush
Lots of old Wellington Boots – don’t ask I have no idea….
I head back on the road and take a look at some of the house names – a couple of good ones catch my eye. One is called “Works End” - though I am not sure that particular one was not at the end of small section of Road-building – and another one was called “Succulence” Better than Mon Repos and Dunedin etc. I also pass an area on the road which advises it is a place for “Animal effluence disposal area for Stock trucks – in other words when you are driving sheep around the place and the smell get too much, you stop at one of these stops, get ya shovel out and…. Well one can imagine the rest. Tough breed these New Zealanders.
Some inner voice makes me pull off the road at a point further south and I find myself at the entrance to the Shag Point Nature reserve. It is utterly glorious, with rocky promontories jutting out into the blue sea. I park and get the bike out of the back, load myself up with cameras and binoculars and head off. The idea of renting a bike to take with me in the camper will prove to be a good one,
There are a few other people there and one of them tell me that just over from where we are standing there is a large seal colony sunning itself on the rocks. I head over and am delighted to see about 30 seals all lolling about on the rocks in the warm sun.
One is curled up very cosily on a rock just below me and doesn’t budge. Another one, on another rock a little further away, turns out to the a natural performer, as every time I point my video camera at it, it begins to pose for me. At one point it starts flapping it flipper out to one side, at another it stands as if waiting for a ball to be balanced on its nose. Delightful.
I carry on a little further and see a colony of small penguins out to sea perched on another little rocky outcrop. I stand and watch, fascinated by the fact that I am seeing this at all but they don’t do a great deal and they are rather small, thus difficult to see. There are about 100 of them, and considering the day before I was asked to pay to look at some Penguins – which I refused – feel a little vindicated.
Wildlife apart, the views alone are stunning. To one side, gentle grassy hills with a stunning array of wild flowers of every conceivable colour, and to the other a
seascape of majestic proportions, with white rollers coming in from the Pacific, crashing onto golden beaches and reddish rocks, each wave carrying a spume on their peaks whipped up by the wind which is getting stronger and stronger by the minute.
The wooden houses which are perched beside the access road to the park – all holiday shacks – have beautiful gardens and I am particularly impressed with the huge number of Red Hot Poker plants which proliferate in the area. I manage to take a few rather artful photos of these as well as some of the gardens in general.
I see one of the house is for sale and stop and talk to the owner. She tells me that house is for sale for the equivalent of £70000. So, with one of the most breathtaking vistas I have seen on this trip so far, with seals at the bottom of your garden and Penguins just around the corner, it seems a good deal. You are however 12000 miles and about 40 years from home.
A few miles down the road I once again head off the beaten track and take what is knows as the
Old Road toDunedin Long Beach
Old Road to
The wind is now at gale level and I get the bike out once again and head for a blow around the beach. I am looked at a little disgustedly by a young couple of backpackers who appear to have hoped to have the beach to themselves, probably for rather sweaty and nefarious reasons, but soon I am being propelled by only the wind down the beach. Coming back of course is much harder.
The sand on the edge – the tide is out – is being blown towards the sea by the gale, so steering and indeed seeing anything is difficult. I film a little bird trying to fly against the wind – unsuccessfully – and before long of course I am blown off the bike… I return to the van a little bed-raggled, but am pleased to see both cameras still work.
By now the gale has really taken hold and begins to make its presence known on the radio – who are predicting 100 mph gusts for the evening. The sun disappears and I head into Dunedin
I head for another Top 10 camping site and am allocated another nice site. Campervanning is really beginning to grow on me for here – it is not something one (by that I mean I) could do in a hot country – too sweaty without AC.
I head into the local tourist office and ask what there is in the way of entertainment tonight. They tell me there is a performance of Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckborn at the Globe theatre. They tell me it is on
London Street , so I hot foot it at once.
London Street , so I hot foot it at once.
I can’t find the bloody place – it seems like a road full of rather smart houses. Finally having driven up and down about 4 times I stop and begin to walk. I finally see a tiny, rather dilapidated sign – “Globe Theatre”
The Globe Theatre Dunedin is actually in a private house, which has been enlarged over the years to seat about 60 people. It is a delight – totally amateur, even the performers, and staffed by an enthusiastic young people, who are chaotic – they have forgotten the float and the coffee for the machine etc. All with an innocent smiley attitude. Whilst I am trying to buy my ticket the phone goes with a punter. The young man on the phone asks the caller to hand on for a moment and asks one of the other helpers, rather sheepishly “What are we performing tonight!”
The play itself is great – 3 amusing families of differing backgrounds and their marital trials and tribulations - and considering they are amateurs, very proficiently performed. The coffee is good in the interval and I am back in my wind-blown camper by about 10.
Wednesday 25th February 2004
I am provided with a Laptop connection and a monitor at am Internet Café and so decide I will try and retrieve the journal. This takes some time as I also take the opportunity to update it a little and so by about 2 in the afternoon – spent a lot of time chatting to people on Msn as well – I decide I will remain for another night in Dunedin
I am allocated the same bay on the caravan park and head off to take a look at the Ortago peninsular which is apparently one of the must sees of the area.
The first place I see it Larnach Castle UK and Italy
I next head out to the end of the Ortago Peninsular where there is an Albatross colony which was opened by Princess Anne in 1989 and is apparently extremely popular. I am afraid once again it is a complete rip as they want to charge me the best part of 15 pounds to be taken on a one hour guided tour around the sanctuary in the hope that we MIGHT see some Albatrossessseses !
This time there are a number of people complaining about that high charges – it was the in Omaru where I refuse to pay 10 pounds in the hope of seeing some Penguins – and I add my voice that we do not charge such sums in Europe for people to come and take a look at some of the natural wonders we have. This resistance if obviously new to the girl on duty who calls her boss.
In bluff New Zealand
There is also a film area in the centre where they show natural history films, so I wander in. I am rather taken aback that the film they are showing is all about the sex habits of Whales ! It is rather amusing to watch to begin with as all the huffing and puffing in slow-motion is well photographed and entertaining. There are a group of young Swiss girls who giggle at all this. Unfortunately the film then goes on to show the “steamy” bits with a rather saucy commentary which includes the information that the Great Big Whale – I didn’t get the exact type of whale – has the larges Willy of any mammal in the world.
I find there is a certain embarrassment listening to this type of graphic information surrounded by complete strangers !! I assume however that these Whales are truly able to read their “Willy Enlargement” emails on their PC’s back at “Dunbonkin” in evening and say, with conviction “not me, mate”
On the back to Dunedin
I see a little islet offshore which is covered from on end to the other with Seagulls. I am afraid I am taken by a rather childish urge and head off over the rocks, Video camera in hand and off course they all take off at once which makes for an amusing piece of filming !!
My last port of call is the Carrisbrook Cricket stadium in Dunedin where South Africa is playing New Zealand New Zealand New Zealand
It was rather interesting to see the crowds dispersing as it enables one to take a look at L’Homme dans la rue so to speak. I am unsure where cricket fits in, in the social strata of New Zealand in general and Dunedin
They all look as if they definitely live in a cold and forbidding land – to be fair the weather was pretty awful but had improved: the sun was even shining on and off - and they had just slaughtered their opponents – but most were dressed in cheap jeans and anorak and seemed hunched and terse.
It is interesting that New Zealand
My last port of call in what is turning out to be a very busty afternoon / evening is a visit to the local cinema to see “The Lord of the Rings” There is a huge multiplex cinema in Dunedin
I watch the film and try very VERY hard to understand what the hell is going on, but I am afraid I give up completely after an hour, and leave.
I mean really !! It is not a story is it? It is more like a marvelous demonstration of what the new technical wizardry in cinematography can do. There seems no sequence to what is going on. I am a little relieved as when I walk out I meet the attendant. I tell her my problem and she smiles, and says quite a few people do the same as me, and she thought the film was a load of unintelligible rubbish !!
Sally in England
I return to my campervan and go to bed. Sleep like a log as usual.
Thursday 26th February 2004
The weather has changed completely and it looks like it is going to be the perfect day.
The beginning to my day is somewhat spoiled as when I come out of the shower – we campers do wash on occasions – I mix up my Gillette shaving gel can and my Gillette Deodorant can and spray myself with blue shaving gel !! I right mess ensues and I am obliged to go wash it off again in the shower, much to the amusement of the other campers. Old Man they think needs new glasses !
I head out of Dunedin
I head a little further south into the countryside and stop by a rather pretty lake and cook some porridge and honey on my stove and make a cup of coffee. I am limiting myself to one small saucepan for all my culinary needs – good practice – and it works very well. First I make the coffee with boiling water and then I make the porridge, using some of the boiled water to keep the metal plate warm !!
The storm we had in Dunedin
I have already mentioned the fact that the New Zealanders seems a little remote, and this is reinforced for me when a group of schoolchildren walk right past my window, and you know, not one of the them looks in to see what I am doing, despite sitting in the window.
I don’t think they have been told not to – they are just absorbed in the effort of walking, and talk quietly to each other. I see them later and they were on their way to a Kayaking outing, so I would have thought their spirits would have been up and excited. In any other country some of them would have made cheeky remarks and in Bali I would almost certainly have been left lying in a ditch somewhere with most of my bits missing. Very strange.
After a very decent breakfast I head off again onto the
South Pacific Scenic Route which takes me along the coast. Once again, huge vistas and amazing scenery, with lovely beaches and white waves. I wonder though how long it would take to get a little fed up with the monotony of this sort of thing. There are only a few, rather dilapidated shacks here and there and the villages I pass through, even some of the larger ones are of the one-horse variety, though I do notice than many of them have KFC outlets.Kentucky
South Pacific Scenic Route which takes me along the coast. Once again, huge vistas and amazing scenery, with lovely beaches and white waves. I wonder though how long it would take to get a little fed up with the monotony of this sort of thing. There are only a few, rather dilapidated shacks here and there and the villages I pass through, even some of the larger ones are of the one-horse variety, though I do notice than many of them have KFC outlets.
I finally turn off the cost road and head inland to take a look at the centre of the South Island . The form of the scenery doesn’t change a great deal but it is very different. There are huge fields of yellow Dandelions, rolling hills with scrub and gorse and a few bushes and trees here and there. Of course the huge number of Sheep multiplies tenfold. There are thousands and thousands of them herded into enormous pens or let loose in fields. I stop and film one lot and then determine that despite being very cute it is the last sheep filming I am going to do! You cannot get more remote than here – and whilst in brilliant sunshine it is visually stunning, in the winter with rain and fog it must be unimaginably desolate and lonely.
I arrive in a small town called Tapanui and stop to check email at the local public library. The library must be a must-go for the locals as it is very large and well stocked with rather old fashioned titles from the 1950. I have actually noticed that New Zealanders are great readers as one sees many in Cafes and Restaurants, their heads immersed in a book. I suppose in winter there is little else to do.
I buy a sandwich in town – which despite being tiny and made up of one street, has an enormous White Goods emporium (Dishwashers and Washing machines etc) in the high street. How they sell more than 10 machines a year I cannot imagine, but they have at least 100 machines on display – and head off and stop the van in the country for lunch. I pull onto a side-road and head up a little into the hills and stop.
The day is now boiling hot and with brilliant sunshine, so I get my folding chair out, and, feeling a little like the people you see parked by the side of the road in England
I do wonder where all my fellow campervanners get to during the day, as whilst I see hundreds of them in the camping sites I stay in overnight, during the day I see very few indeed. It is true that I do tend to try and keep of the main, main tourist routes, but nevertheless the “spirit of adventure” which is meant to infuse a campervanner must occasionally surely take them off the beaten track.
I begin to pass into a semi-alpine environment as I approach my next overnight destination – a place called Te Anau which is the jumping off point for Milford Sound and Fjiordland beyond. There seem few sheep and more cows in the fields around and the grass seem a lot lusher. I notice enormous watering devices in the fields – the spray-arms of some I would guess to be 120 feet across at least. They are located in the areas where the cows are not, and serve to make the grass grow faster so the cows can return and eat the grass etc etc. A clever system. What happens when there is a water shortage – which apparently there just has been – I dread to think. This country to my mind – and what do I know ? Nothing – relies too much on its dairy industry. If mad cow disease or mad sheep or whatever were to arrive it would soon be on its knees.
I arrive In Te Anau and am struck that it does look rather like some of the mountain lakes in Switzerland
I am immediately struck by the urge to go a rent a Kayak for an hour or so, and am soon paddling about the lake, which really is very attractive and pretty. I take my camera with me and am able to film a sea-plane which takes off right past the kayak – I wonder if he actually saw me !! – as well as a helicopter which takes tourists – rich ones I assume – on flights over the area which must be very pretty indeed.
I find an internet café which is provides me again with the possibility to connect my lappitoppi computer to the net, piggy-backing onto one of their monitors so I am able to bring this journal right up to date.
Friday 27th February 2004
Milford Sound
I leave the campsite at about 9 o’clock and head of in the direction of Milford Sound. It is a lovely day and I stop after about an hour and cook breakfast (a plate of porridge and some coffee) and sit and enjoy the scenery – which is pretty much like the scenery was yesterday !
I pull up into a side-road where there are no other cars but as soon as I park there a constant stream of cars that poke their noses into my breakfast. I shout rudely at them – under my breath of course – and they soon disappear deciding I look too wild and dangerous for them to tangle with !!
The next stop is a place called Mirror Lakes
I next stop at some falls called The Chasm which is quite famous and thus interesting. To get there one has to pass through a form of rainforest – only thus from the humidity – and this has enables a whole host of huge plants to grow. The ferns in particular are enormous – some with leaves up to 4 feet across. The access to the falls is rather narrow and a lot of people wanting to go to the same place makes for some rather bad-tempered exchanges between people on the busses ! I am amazed that some people ever want to leave home, let along come all this way just to pick an argument with someone. !!
Milford Sound is I have to admit a very impressive place indeed though it is not a sound at all but is a Fjord ! It is explained to us that there is a difference – one is caused by Glacial erosion (Fjord) and the other isn’t (I cant remember why – but will get back to you !!)
The only way to look at the Sound – and indeed the only thing to do when you get there – is to take a boat trip from one end to the other and back. I chose one of the smaller boats which do not cater for the masses of coaches that are parked full of Japanese and English. In the event there are only 13 people on the boat which is rather nice and we have a friendly skipper with us to explain things.
Unfortunately the weather has taken a change for the worse and it has become very cold and rather grey, but I suppose it is not a bad way to see a Fjord. The first place we pass is Bowen Falls
Next we pass through the widest part of the Fjord which is where the cruise liners come in and moor – they are very proud of their cruise liners and tell us of all the liners that have come in !
We then head out to the Tasman sea , but as it begins to pour with rain we are obliged to go inside and drink coffee. The rain persist with unrelenting power and everyone on the boat begins to feel a little dejected. The weather is very unseasonable, and even the guide apologies to us profusely.
We are on the boat for about an hour and a half taking in the spectacle of the Fjord, but I have to say in the end looking at the same thing for 1 ½ hours in the pouring rain is a little monotonous.
I return to the camper after the boat trip as there is literally nothing else to do in the area, and am obliged to drive back for 1 ½ hours to the caravan site, where I cook a wonderful Penne Arrabiata !
Saturday 28th February 2004
Te Anau to Wanaka via Queenstown
I leave Te Anau at about 9 and head off for Queenstown, with the intention to stopping there for lunch before continuing to the West Coast and Fox's Glacier (Mints - ha ha).
Just out of Te Anau I see some men practicing their sheepdog controlling skills They have placed some sheep at the top of a hill and are trying to take it in turn to drive the sheep down the hill and into a pen. A little like that programme "off the telly".
The spectacle doesn't seem terribly proficient as the dog and the sheep rarely meet. The dogs seem more intent on charging about in ever decreasing circles, and the sheep seem more interested in staying out of the way of the dog ! The dog occasionally lies down in the grass for a little nap and the sheep stand there watching the dog !
The 2 (or five - 4 sheep and 1 dog) do finally meet and promptly disappear over the horizon in the direction of Te Anau, which confuses the handlers down in the valley somewhat. They all jump in their cars and go chasing after them. I suppose the sheepdog in on remote control or something.
I decide not to wait any longer for the sheep and dogs to return and I carry on. By now the weather has closed in completely. There is low mist and cloud on the edge of the mountains and hills, and it is raining once again with a temperature of about 8 degrees.
I arrive in Queenstown at about lunchtime and am immediately struck by its utter awfulness. It is a pseudo-macho sort of town (the main street is called
Shotover Street and even the local building company is called Eastwood!) where people congregate to play at being rough and tough. It has a sort ofKlondike feel to it (or at least probably cultivates such a reputation) with everyone walking around looking butch.
Shotover Street and even the local building company is called Eastwood!) where people congregate to play at being rough and tough. It has a sort of
The butchness tends to fall down a little when one takes a look at the majority of the punters, who are largely particularly dozy backpackers - mostly from England
The place is stuffed with 4-wheel drive cars - it has been refreshing to see so FEW overgrown SUV's in New Zealand
There are of course shops all over the place advertising ridiculous "adventure experiences" - like a trip in a jet boat, or a ride on a sort of aeroplane attached to a long wire going round in circles or the opportunity of throwing yourself off a bridge on the end of an elastic band, or white-water rafting (which is fun - but not macho !) insinuating that to take part is regarded as being "on the edge"
I suspect real adventurers would not be seen dead in Queenstown !
I continue towards the West Coast. However the weather is by now really dreadful and it is getting lake - it is a knack to organise oneself to get to a camping ground before the hordes - wherever they materialise from - as it means a good "pitch" near the "facilities" and I thus decide to stop in a place called Wanaka which seems a terribly upmarket version of Queenstown with million dollar houses - and book into the best campsite so far on the trip. It has a Sauna and a whirlpool and is immaculately clean and I even get my own table and chair and little piece of lawn outside my camper !!
Wanaka is located next to a lake (Lake Wanaka
The campsite has a barbecue area just below my parking space and so I go down to grill some bacon (Penne alla Carbonara tonight !!) and.... am engaged in conversation by a real live New Zealander. He seems a nice fellow, but tells me little about himself - other than he has just taken his daughter to Dunedin University
I try and ask him a little about New Zealand and what it is like to live there, but all he wants to talk about is the "Maori issue" (a little like the "Abbo Issue" in Oz and how awful and ungrateful they are) and the weather. Oh well..... At least he takes me for a lawyer so my daily wash and shave must be paying dividends, or maybe he just likes my British accent and casual appearance.
Actually that is quite amusing. I have arrived from Oz where is was very hot, and were I really want to dress "pour l'occasion" here I would have to spend a great deal of money. I thus walk around the campsite in Polo Shirt and pullover with a pair of Italian loafers. I do get some very funny looks, but as I am planning to leave for hotter climes as soon as decency allows, will remain thus dressed.
The Carbonara by the way was excellent - especially if you add a few Chilli peppers to the sauce ! And New Zealand
Sunday 29th February 2004
Wanaka to Franz Josef Glacier
Pick up 2 delightful hikers - I would not insult them by calling them "backpackers", as their walking boots are worn and "used" - called Fred and Chantal (my favourite girl's name – well, for today anyway) who are from Holland.
They are on a 7 week trip to New Zealand and are doing the place properly, by taking 3 and 4 days treks through the mountains - at one point they have a mild argument as they cannot decide on whether their next trek is 2 nights or 3 days - and have just completed a 4 day hike - of that they were certain - through some of the mountains near here.
They have the most enormous rucksack with them I have ever seen and they chuck that in the back of the camper and clamber aboard. He is, I would say about 27 and she is a little younger. They are taking a whole year off and are visiting New Zealand , Australia and Thailand - a slightly awkward combination - before returning back to Europe , where they have bought a Fiat campervan which they are having converted, before heading off for another 6 months or so.
The weather has not really changed from yesterday. it is still extremely grey and cloudy and most of the time it is raining. The cloud is low and the atmosphere is rather forbidding and chilling as we set off from Wanaka towards the West Coast of South Island and the 2 Glaciers.
I cannot repot that we achieve or see a great deal and most of the time is spent chatting about out mutual love of food and where they are going to go when they get to Thailand
We stop - mostly for the sake of stopping - at a couple of waterfalls along the road which are pretty and wet as one might expect.
The surrounding countryside as soon as we hit the "West" coast changes from the usual sort of scrubby hill-county to a rather bizarre form of rainforest, with thick clumps of trees, ferns and other greenery in thick profusion.
The highlight of the journey is out stop at a Salmon Farm where we buy some salmon for dinner.
We continue for a while, indeed for many miles periodically along the coast but mostly a little inland. Now and then the sun will come out for a few minutes, but in the main the day is grey and dull.
Unfortunately the Glacier is hidden in the mists and I drop off my 2 hikers in Fox's Glacier township and carry on to the next town - Franz Josef's Glacier - where I book into the Camper park. I cycle into the township, but as usual it is only a small little community with a foodshop, a couple of restaurants sellling Fish, Chips and Beans - and Cappucinos. They are seen to lend a glorified transport caff a certain pizzaz, and a pub. I buy a bottle of wine to go with my Salmon and cycle back to the park through the rain.
I cook my Salmon in the communal kitchen and am given rather jealous but perfectly friendly looks by the others who are cooking their usual filthy concontions of over-boiled spaghetti with tinned tomatoes or Noodles with broccoli, but in the end a rather nice couple, also from the UK come in and we have a bit of a chat about where we have been ann what we have seen. She is FAR too young for him (lucky bastard !!) with her being about 20 and he being about 35 or so.
She treats him like a fawning puppy, but it is quite cute and they are nice. They spend the evening poring over maps and periodically asking me where I have been so they can decide what to do next. Amazingly they haven't been to Milford Sound, so I think they are heading off that way tomorrow.
I have taken the decision to drive straight back to Christchurch tomorow.
I have impetuously booked myself on the train (yes train !!) all the way from Christchurch, over the Cook Sraits (on a BOAT silly !!!) to Wellington, and then, on Wednesday, to continue on the Auckland. I am determined to give this place the best possible chance !!
Monday 1st March 2004
Franz Josef Glacier township - Christchurch
The drive over Arthur's pass (Arthur Dudley Dobson - a surveyor !!) has an incredible diversity of flora and landscape. They range from eastern beech clad hills and tussock valleys to the luxuriant rain forest in the west.
Highway 73 runs through the park, giving easy access to the alpine zone. The highest mountains have glaciers and surrounding them are tussock basins, flowering herbs and alpine grasses - was truly quite spectacular. In the winter it is the ski-resort for Christchurch. Wonderful Alpine scenery with mountains soaring on all sides. The road is well maintained and very twisty, but for once I see a fair number of the elusive Motorhomes which I had not seen on most of the rest of my journey.
I arrive back in Christchurch about 7 in the evening and return the van and the bike, before heading off for a rather poor Indian meal in a largely deserted restaurant in a rather deserted downtown Christchurch. It is about 9 pm !
Tuesday 2nd March 2004
By Train to Wellington
The train is already waiting when I arrive at Christchurch station at 7 in the morning. It is bright blue and made up of about 10 carriages, and, amazingly, an open-air observation carriage. I find my seat and we leave promptly at 7.30.
We are addressed by a rather harrassed-sounding train manager called Victoria who gives up an endless and rather ill-tempered diatribe on the fact that we are definitely not allowed to smoke a cigarette anywhere on the train. If we are caught we will be shown off the train WHEREVER we are - even if it is in the middle of the country and then infers we will be eaten by wild animals just to be taught a lesson for our disobedience. We are also asked to sneak on anyone we see smoking, and for good measure she goes through the whole routine all over again just to make sure we undestand. Not a good start.
A rather more relaxed man then comes on the air and tells us we will be travelling 374 Kilometers to Picton, passing through 21 tunnel, and then starts on another diatribe as to how dangerous it is to lean out of the observation carriage because we can have our heads cut off.... thrown to the Lions etc .......God I am fed up with this already !! (In another Internet cafe - have you noticed the older the person using a computer the more they FROWN at the screen. Over 50's like me positively glower !!)
I go and buy myself and very good Egg n' something sandwich and a coffee and settle down in my seat.
Victoria, who obviously has calmed down from her last effort comes on the loudhailer and starts telling us some statistics about the area. You know, how many hectares of this, square miles of that, how many vineyards there are etc. I am fascinated to hear her speaking in normal tones but pay little attention, fearing she will once again revert to type and start hectoring us about the evils of drink or something.... weak minded bastards the lot of us etc !! She doesn't.
Actually it is quite a good commentary and as we are passing through the Marlborough wine district she tells us the the formation of the clay ground which is very good for winegrowing, he fat that the valley shelters the vines, an these combinations, in addition to the genius of the wine growers themselves is the reason that New Zealand wines have become so famous, so quickly. I do not disagree in any sense. New zealand wines are fantastic. Cloudy Bay (as unobtainable here as in Unwins in Cobham)and St Clair wines are 2 I have tried and they are utterly superb.
As we pass from Wine country into sheep country again it is amusing to see the sheep who scamper sweetly away from the train as it passes. There is always the one or 2 in each field who seem made of sterner stuff and remain steadfastly where they are, but mostly they run away at great speed. Cows and Deer do the same.
The countryside seems gentler than what I have seen in the south of the Island, with more rolling hills and greener grass. All good for sheep I suppose, and very beautiful but rather monotonous.
I am amused by the fact that so many people on the train are fast asleep or are reading their books. They seems to make no effort at all to look out of the window, or better still to go and stand onthe observation carriage.
I and a few others do make the effort and it is great fun. There is a safety rail to keep us from leaning over, and whilst it is breezy it is not too cold. We all talk to each other, compare cameras, ask about each others experiences so far. Rather nice - I aimagine a little like a cocktail party in Billerriccy
We finally arrive in Picton - a sort of one horse town whose main claim to fame is that it is where the Inter-island ferry leaves from. Victoria bids us goodbye, and reminds is that she expects to see us all at church on Sunday or else she will personally come after us with a pitchfork....weak willed child-molesters that we all are.... etc !!
The ferry is standing about 1/2 mile away and we all wander down there and are given a pink plastic boarding pass. The ferry itself - named "Interislander" in a bleedin' obvious sort of way - is a drab affair. Dover-Calais circa 1970 and not decorated since. There is nothing worth doing, and as it is once again pouring with rain (the sun HAD come out on the train) I go to one of the lounges not frequented by backpackers and fall asleep for an hour.
After an hour I wake up and go for a short walk around the ship to make sure I hvae missed no secret corner of depravity - find none and so return to the lounge and sleep for another hour.
Suddenly pandemonium breaks out in my lounge as everyone rushes to the window. Apparently a couple of dolphins have been sighted playing in the bow-wave, but by the time I get myself together and put my teeth back in, they have apparently gone. Oh well.
We arrive in Chirstchurch and I take a taxi to my hotel which is a pleasant sort of affair and,after some confusion with my booking amd shown my room. Perfectly adequate.
I wander into town and am unimpressed. It is a rather sullent sort of place, with rather old buildings that have been given a paint-job and plonked into a admittedly very wide and bustling pedestrian-precinct.
I am immediately struck by the number of shops advertising flights to everywhere. It seems Wellington is a town everyone want to get out of.
I walk down to the business district which is rather deserted despite being only 6 in the evening - even the skyscraper here look tentative and timid, being small as skyscrapers go and mostly with black glass which make them look rather gloomy - and continue in a loop until I get to what is obviously the smart end of town where there are a couple a very nice and quaint looking restaurant. I supress the temptation to go in to one, though the next one has a Bistro attached to it. I go in, but am told that the kitchen has already closed. By now it is 8.30 pm
I continue in the hope of finding something nice. Upon rounding a corner I hear fantastically loud music, of the nice variety, blasting out from a coffee bar. As I approach I notice that the place is deserted other than for the cleaner - an intelligent and pleasant looking man - and he has highjacked the stereo whilst working, has plonked a Mario Lanza CD onto it and is cleaning and listening to this wonderful music at the same time.
I at once realise what has been missing in the whole time I have spent in NZ, which is the complete lack of music for more than 8 days. Nowhere that I have been to has had any music playing (unless you count the appalling sounds they play for the "young" in internet cafes which is not music at all). It seems to the cleaners delight, I sit down and listen for a while and immediately feel alot better. He is an Italian....
I continue into the main part of down and do find one street - Blair Street - which is a riot of activity and liveliness. There are mainly cheaps restaurants for travellers, huge "food courts" which serve a variety of Asian dishes. I stop at one and eat a plate of assorted chinese food for 6 dollars.
As I continue to walk down Blair street I come across the Hummingbird Bar which has a live Jazz band playing and is NOT for backpackers and the like. I go in and order a beer and engage in a brief conversation with some of the Wellington Yuppies about wine and Whisky. The all seem very much the worse for wear but are prefectly pleasant. I then find a wall of books and amuse myself looking through them, especially one about cars.
After spending a few minutes on the internet I take a taxi back to my hotel and give myself a fright when I realise I have left my Blackberry in the Internet Cafe. I hot-taxi it back and, being New Zealand, they are busy trying to find out where I am staying so as to return it to me !!
Arrrgh - I have tried so hard. I have travelled some 1300 kilometers in 6 days (and have at least 500 to go !!) trying to like this place. I am afraid I have given up. It is soul-destrying (in the literal sense) dull and dreary.
OK - so lakes, mountains and big scenery is nice, stunning and but mile after mile after mile of the same thing with nothing but sheep and cows and the odd deer to break the monotony is wearing, at least it is for me.
I know it is raining cats and dogs, but I still have the distinct disadvantage from the point of someone wanting - and I want very hard. After all I chose to come here. No one made me !! - to like NZ, of having all this, with the addition of culture and a little Italian "pizzazz", in my doorstep in Cannobio. But "culture" like one is lucky enough to have seems to have passed by here. I noticed the highlight of March in Dunedin is a visit by Michael Barrymore.
Also this is the first country I have visited, not only on this trip but on others as well, where I have been quite unable to make any form of meaningful contact with "local" people. I look for smiles. jokes, liveliness, interaction - here I have experienced none of that. Flat capped people with apparently flat-capped lives. People stripped down to their bare essentials. A G'day here and smile there - c'est tout. Even in restaurants - I have not once been asked whether I have enjoyed my meal and have so far not been served with apparent (or even fake) pleasure. This is what you ordered mate - good luck !!
Helen Clark - the androgenous Prime Minister of NZ, was on a Cable channel travel programme last night in the company of an effusive and inquisitive American, accompanying him around "her' country. However hard he tried, he was quite unable to get the PM to open up about anything. She squeaked out the odd humerous comment ("well done, you didn't fall down that cravasse, ha ha"
Wednesday 3rd March 2004
By train from Wellington to Auckland
I present myself bright and early at the Station in Wellington and am pleased to see I have been allocated a seat in the carriage which has the observation lounge at the rear. There is no outdoor observation carriage as there was yesterday - which was great fun - but the glass lounge looks very comfortable and I plonk myself down next to a lanky looking American and a very attractive and - I assume -middle-aged couple from Holland.
There is a tendancy amongst people who are travelling to ask each other what they think of they place they are currently in and we all agree that New Zealand is over-rated and rather boring.
I am beginning to form a concensus that there really is a feeling amongst people that what we have expected of New Zealand has not come close to being realised, and we conclude that this is because it is grossly oversold as a destination, especially for people who travel around Europe with their eyes and ears open to observe the many similarities and the even more advantages.
We are soon engaged in lively conversation and obviously are going to get on like a house on fire. The train is an hour late in leaving - they have "forgotten" the need for an engine and then when they go look for one, they realise they are fresh out of engines, so have to pinch one off the next door train (you think I am joking... I am not !) but soon we are on our way.
The countryside to begin with is all rather the same and so we spend an hour or so talking. The extemely amiable American - aged 72 - and from San Diego, California is CYCLING all around New Zealand and looks and acts as a fit 50 year old (as opposed to yours truly, an unfit 50 year old... but hopefully still amiable). He has a daughter who appears to run a highly swuccessful security company in the US and Dad travels around the world spending the profits and having a good time. Great fellow.
The dutch couple - Willem and Anneke - are 62 and 57 respectively and look and behave in their 40's. She is quite quite stunning, vivacious and interesting and he is laconic and has a wicked smile. They are ALSO cycling around the island camping and have been doing so for about 2 months. They are now returning home from Auckland.
The atmosphere is suddenly spoiled by the arrival of 2 quite, quite appalling men - one "perma-smiling C&A dressed" New Zealander with a beard, and one "train-spotter nerd" type Englishman with cheap specs who come and plonk themselves down amongst us and start talking to each other in loud and stilted tones.
I politely suggest we should all swap places to enable us to continue talking without disturbing them, at which point they launch into a diatribe to the effect that we have been "hogging" the observation area and that the "WHOLE train" think we are a bunch of loud mouthed tossers.
A red mist descends over me and only just in the nick of time am I able to force myself to get up and briefly leave the scene, before I physically take out the frustrations of the past 2 weeks out on these 2 pathetic individuals, and I leave the others to sort out the situation which they do with admirable aplomb. Willem is as outraged as I am and we spend the rest of the journey making these 2 feel as uncomfortable as we possible can. They certainly get the message.
The American deals with the situation with amazing good grace, apologising if his voice is at times a little 'loud", and before long we have all regained our joie de vivre, with the 2 complainants sitting looking rather self-conscious in the corner ! In the event they spend longer in the observation area than we do....
The scenery is stunning and the weather has turned glorious. There are a good supply of sandwiches on the train and we keep ourselves fed and watered.
For a while we head along the sea before turning inland and heading through more sheep n' cow country once again. At one point, as the track runs alongside the road, we have the utter misery of seeing what is the worst car crash I have ever seen.
A huge tanker has hit a small car head-on. There is absoloutely nothing left of the car - it looks like it has been in a car-crusher - and the tanker in lying on its side in a field adjoining the road. I fear that as the car was a white one - the normal colour for a rental car in NZ - it may well have been a case of a tourist unused to driving on the left hand side of the road had become confused and had, without doubt, been killed for their mistake. Dreadful.
We are now joined by another couple - John and Janet from Gloucestershire - who are visiting their children in Auckland. Janet is becoming a little restless - as we all are given the fact we have been on this train for close to 8 hours and have another 3 to go. We discover that we can pay for things at the bar using a credit card so I am afraid we begin a descent into a Chardonnay-enduced stupour.
Willem it turns out is a brilliant guitarist and singer. We are now joined by a hobo-looking NewZealander and his young son who for some reason brings a guitar into the lounge, and lends it to Willem.
We all sit there singing Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and Black Sabbath songs (well, they do as I - having had a rather sheltered youth - have never heard of the songs the latter 2 wrote)
I then render them a version of There is a House in New Orleans and we are then joined by a young girl and her 3-year old sister (who I have been flirting with every time I go to the bar lifting her up onto the luggage rack etc as she is as bored as the rest of us ) who show us how to do the Hakka. We all now sit there with out tongues out and I fear the place is beginning to turn into a loony-bin.
I can still muster one more trip to the bar and ask the barman whether anyone has complained about us. Apparently there have been no complaints but numerous questions as to whether people can change seats and come and join our carriage! I am relieved..
Our Hobo man and his son (7 years old - and so I try and engineer a romance between the 7 year old and 3 year old - he seems quite interested and prods her about a bit, but she is only interested in me!) turn their hand to playing the guitar and are excellent as well. This time is it Dire Straits and The Beatles.
We reach Auckland at about 10 o'clock in a disgraceful state having drunk the bar dry of wine. All I remember is debagging Willem, who is wearing a rather fetching pair of shorts over some lycra longs, and riding their very expensive and hand-made bicycles up and down the platform much to the amusement of the station staff and the doubtless terror of Willem and Anneke.
I do sober up a little and manage to find a taxi and go to my hotel, but I wake up in the morning with a dreadful, dreadful hangover. Luckily however Nurofen is on hand and I am soon bounding out of bed and ready to go and take a look at Auckland.
Friday 5th March 2004
It is a little difficult getting up in the morning having gone to bed at about 2.30 in the morning by the time we had got through customs, been taken on the longish trip into town and checked into the International Dateline Hotel.
However I am up and about by about 9 o’clock and head downstairs where I have breakfast in the rather sparse dining room. I am given Papaya, Melon and Pineapple with a mediocre cup of coffee which I dispose of fairly quickly and head outside.
The weather is exactly what one expects of the South Pacific. It is quite hot and humid, but with a blue sky and a few fluffy clouds here and there. I decide I am going to head into town and take a look around.
The town consists of a main road with a few side-streets running off it. The contrast between Australia and New Zealand
Nukalo’fah High Street is an eclectic collection of small traders and slightly smaller traders and absolutely tiny traders. There is not a sky scraper (or for that matter any house above 2 storeys) in sight – This is not going to be a very coherent entry as once again this Internet Café is playing the most ugly music and I am having difficulty concentrating – and it is rather reminiscent of a small town in a nicer part of India.
There is the usual collection of dilapidated old Japjobs driving about the streets, and a couple of minibuses which act as buses for the people wanting to get from one end of this rather small island to the other.
There are lots of people meandering about the place and I have to say the Tongans are absolutely HUGE people. They are not particularly fat, rather just massive from one end to the other !
As the youngest son of the king has recently died (a drugs related matter – but don’t tell them !) the place is in mourning. It is the ladies who signal the country in mourning as they are dressed in black and then wear a form of grass or raffia skirt over their clothes. This only serves to make them look even larger but at the same time quite sedate and impressive.
I am in urgent need of a pair of sunglasses – to date the only thing I have managed to lose on this trip so far – and so I go into a rather dingy looking general purpose store and am rather startled when an Englishman shuffles from behind the counter.
He name is Renton
He tells me that he came to Tonga 30 years ago on holiday and at that time was quite terrified of the locals and so would walk down the middle of the street trying to avoid them, but managed to bump into a Tongan lady (not difficult given their size – Ed) and went on to marry her.
I now decide that I want to hire a motorbike and wander about the place asking everyone whether they know of the place that rents them. Of course they all do and give me instructions as to where the innumerable places are in town which rent motorbikes and so I go on a fairly brief wild-goose chase before giving up and trying to find a taxi instead.
I wander into a hovel which has a rather skewiff sign over the door saying that amongst being a garage, a dog grooming parlour and an ice-cream parlour they are also a taxi service and ask what the chances are !!
A few call later a white car with the most enormous crack in the windscreen turns up and I am invited to get in. The driver is another humungous Tongan and I feel a little safer as in the event of an accident he will act as an Air-bag for the whole car.
I ask HIM if he knows anywhere I can hire a bike and so we hare off to find somewhere (oh, get on with it …Ed) - Well we never do but there are lots of places that hire them…….
I give up and suggest the driver takes me on a trip around the island instead. He tells me it will cost $50 (about £18) and so off we go.
The vegetation is extremely lush with lots of bougainvillea and frangipane bushes all over the place. The houses are on the whole rather dilapidated (with a few impressive exceptions which apparently belong to people who have family in the US and who, so it seems, send houses packed up in boxes home to their poorer relatives !!) and colourfully painted.
The gardens – again with impressive exceptions – are rather messy and full of old cars, coke cans and piles of earth (a little like Cobham one might conclude)
I am also struck by the enormous number of Schools on the Island all of whom make the average English state school look like the dilapidated hovels they are.
The ones here are all paid for by the myriad of churches that have stuck their noses into these people’s lives – particularly the Wesleyan church who have built innumerable absolutely beautiful schools and churches around the island – and whatever ones opinions may be of those who come as “Missionaries” here (and there are still many) if they put their money where their gobs are I don’t object at all..
I take a quick look around one of the State schools (rather more run down but more in-keeping with the island) and am smiled at by the little children having their English or math’s lessons. The teachers walks around the classroom with a huge stick which she raps down on the desks of the children who do not get their answers right! The kids seem to think this quite funny, and I do not think it is meant too seriously.
Our next port of call are a series (and I mean an entire stretch of the coast about 4 miles long) of “Blow-holes” by the sea. They are absolutely spectacular. The huge waves of the pacific roll in explode against the volcanic cliff and the erupt over the edge shooting spumes of water high in to the air. The water is also forced out of a series of blow holes nearer to where we are standing. As the weather is so perfect I stand filming for a while and one can see a similar thing happening almost as far as one can see up the coast. It is fantastic.
It is like watching a moving theatre as one is never quite sure where the next eruption is going to come. I could stand there for hours watching, but after a while I climb back and we head off to take a look at the next Phenomenon – Flying foxes.
These are in fact bats but as this is the South Pacific they have been rather seductively renamed Flying Foxes. There is not much flying going on at the moment as it is the middle of the afternoon and all the bats are resting. They are however making a fearful squeaking noise and occasionally one will launch itself into the air. They are very large and the noise they make when flapping their wings is quite loud.
We carry on driving around the island for a while. One cannot say that Tongatapu – the main island in the Tongan chain which stretch hundreds of miles to the north – is in itself is a holiday destination. It is really rather run down and they have made no real effort to attract tourists in any large scale.
I am staying in the best hotel on the island for 2 nights and whilst I am staying in the cheap wing for £30 a night it is a bit of a dump. There are no real holiday resorts on Tonga
I return to the hotel at about 4 for a rather long siesta (a combination of a late night and the sudden onslaught of heat and humidity keeps me asleep until about 7.30) at which point I head down the road in search of something to eat.
I wander into a Chinese and see Reto (the Swiss man) in there on his own. I join him and order a fresh lobster (£8!!) and salad with infinite tins of Sprite. The lobster is excellent as far as Lobster goes – I always think it is a little like eating an inner tube – and of course a good deal for the price. I have some rice and some salad to go with it.
Reto seems a little lost, with no fixed plans and moans about missing his girlfriend (I put him right on that one) and so we decide to meet up the next day and take ANOTHER tour of the island, this time together. Aaaaahhhhh !!
Saturday March 6th 2004
As I was given a mattress to sleep on (did I mention when I arrived at the Dateline I had to sleep last night on bed with no mattress) I slept extremely well and remember dreaming vividly.
I am rather disappointed to see that it is overcast and actually raining when I pull the curtains. As it is the cyclone and rainy season here at the moment I suppose I cannot complain.
I meet Reto at 10 and the tour bus picks up. It turns out we are the only 2 on the tour and so we spread ourselves around. The driver, who seems rather tired (it turns out he has been our fishing for crabs for most of the night) is very pleasant but his English does not impress poor old Reto who finds it hard to follow what the chap is saying. I am also a little lost at times.
We are shown some rather old “stones” (they call it the Stonehenge of Tonga) which represent an area which apparently was the Ancient capital (and we are talking 10C here) of Tonga
Nearby is tomb which apparently was used by the Tongan Royal Family until some 200 years ago. This has been rather neglected over the years and is nothing more than a large area of what looks like black concrete but am sure it is something much more interesting. It is “absolutely hurling it down” (as the radio announcer solemnly says), but I show willing a go an climb on the thing which from the top is about as boring as it is from the bottom.
After visiting the blowholes for a second time – and I have to say they are not quite as impressive in the rain as in the sun, but still worth 20 minutes of starting at – we head off for lunch to place called the Good Samaritan Inn.
It is a simple little place right next to a huge beach with a sort of reef offshore which protects it from the huge waves. There are a few plastic tables covered with cloths outside, and few more plastic tables inside and a few women sitting doing the ironing.
The restaurant has apparently a reputation for cooking. Reto who seems to have cheered up a bit, but constantly needs leading, and I agree to share a lobster Mornay between us (it costs £12) which comes with boiled potatoes and a salad.
There are a group of men sitting in a separate room off the main area and we are told that this is the Minister of Education (who also doubles as the Crown Prince) and Deputy Prime Minister who is having a meeting with a load of Japanese and who comes to this restaurant on a regular basis. We are quite impressed.
I ask whether I can go and take a look at the kitchen and the lady in charge agrees. I take the Camcorder and find one man – a delightful individual – doing the cooking. He is a chatty sort and so he and I carry on a sort of video conversation.
The kitchen itself is what one might call sparse, but there is a pan of Mornay sauce on the go, and an exquisite looking and rather large Lobster on hand which is tossed into a frying pan and covered with aluminium foil.
He is in the process of melting some lard in another pan in which they then fry Reto’s Fish and Chips which also looks quite excellent – Crikey! There is a young teenager of indeterminate gum-chewing intelligence downloading Porn off the net next to me on his computer !! If this narrative becomes even more unintelligible than usual, it is because I will be taking a quick peep now and then just to be sure that he knows what he is doing -
I add my oar to the cooking process of the lobster by topping the it with a few Chillis before the Mornay is poured over after which we put some grated cheese on top and place it under a rudimentary but quite effective grill.
I take my lobster to the table and you know, it turns out to be one of the most idyllic meals I have had in years.
Homard au Sauce Mornay avec bloody chaud Chillis, Pommes vapeur, Salade avec une dressing a mourir pour et Champagne Krug 1976 (OK, so I made the last bit up – it was Sprite 2004!) sitting on a terrace overlooking the South Pacific (the sun made a brief appearance) pounding the beach below our table with the Crown Prince of the country I am in just a few away ….! Couldn’t be better. (Well, it could.. but we wont go there !!)
After lunch – and a bit of a bowing and scraping session with the Japanese who come out and take a look at the sea. The Japanese seem to bow at anything that moves, but I am impressed that they have though of putting on a black armband at this time of mourning – we line up as the Crown Prince leaves the restaurant.
He is friendly, says goodbye, even to us, and ignoring his Mercedes completely, which leaves with a rather forlorn chauffeur at the wheel, jumps into one of his bodygyard’s Toyota
