haverodentwilltravel

2009-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

8th December 2009 Bangkok

‘Ra-Ra-Rasputin! Lover of the Russian Queen! Ra-Ra Rasputin! Russia’s greatest love machine!’

They just don’t write them like that any more – thank God! Life just can’t get any more bizarre. I am on a cruise boat on the main river in central Bangkok. The buffet has been disappointing. I think they have toned down the ‘Thai’ flavour of the food for the tourists, so I feel a little cheated. There is a live band who have played throughout our meanderings up and down the river. They have given us fine renditions of ‘White Christmas’ (in Thailand?) and ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas ( it’s a Buddhist country) , when they launch into a medley of the Carpenter’s hits, followed by ‘By The Rivers of Babylon’. I find myself saying out loud ‘It’ll be Ra-Ra-Rasputin next’, and almost before the words have left my lips…..I did say it could not get more bizarre but they top this with ‘Delilah’! And to really make my evening complete I buy the crap photo I had been conned into as we got on the boat. Tourists! Who’d be one?

I think I remembered I was in Bangkok when I woke this morning. My phone was buzzing as a message had been left by the tour company checking I was still alive and asking me if I wanted to buy any of their tour packages. I have one of those half-awake conversations with Ms Mam, and I think I agree to smuggle three kilos of heroin into Singapore. Either that or I sign up for the evening boat tour. Get done either way I think. I am suffering excessive tiredness after arriving in Bangkok 14 hours after leaving Christchurch –was I ever there I feel! I had whittled away the morning with breakfast and another laze by the River Avon but had resisted a pint in the Bard of Avon pub by the punt bridge. I had picked up the paper where I had breakfast and had been amused by the story of someone wanting to start some fairly intensive dairy farming in the region where I had been gliding. The plan is to keep the cows indoors for eight months of the year. An opponent had done some maths on cow poo, and worked out that they produce five times as much faeces as a human, so having this many cattle in one place would be akin to getting together 250,000 people and asking them to ‘crap in the outdoors’. I just love the directness of NZ and Aussie statements – this was published as written in the paper. I also received a shock given what has been said about the good citizens of Christchurch and their tardiness at accepting cultural change. Imagine my surprise when in a Pharmacists I overhear an elderly foursome talking and one of the women says to one of the men ‘Have you still got your Bitch?’ I know there is a prevalence for LA street talk amongst the young but surely not the over 60s. I just had to listen to the reply. Sadly it did not begin ‘Yo ass mother!’ but instead explained that they had had to sell it as they did not use it much. Then I remembered. Of course. Kiwis call their holiday cottages a ‘bach’ (pronounced ‘batch’ or ‘bitch’). It’s the sort of mistake could get you into serious trouble. On the plane I had sat next to an Aussie going to do some work in Bangkok. He had not been there for over thirty years since he had been in the navy. He had only ever been to the UK for a couple of days in 1966, but he said he had heard that a lot of cities and other places in the UK had been named after places in Australia. I liked him!

What a shock to the system in more ways than one. Bangkok – city of 10 million people, 3 million cars, and goodness knows how many motorbikes (ignoring the ‘tuc-tucs’), and they are all on the road at the same time! I have been on a tour to the Grand Palace and left the hotel at 1pm. I returned just short of five hours later and I estimate that half of that time has been spent in Bangkok traffic jams! They are unbelievable! But credit to the ‘karma’ of the Thai people because they just don’t seem to let it get to them. I heard a handful of horns and saw very little ‘road hog’ type of activity. The one incident of ‘almost road rage’ petered out in a plethora of head bows and apologies. The motor cycle riders all wear the regulation head protection but there it stops because they weave in and out of the traffic at will, and this seems to be accepted by the car, bus and ‘tuc-tuc’ drivers. They carry passengers – the most I saw was three – and goods and chattels. I saw piles of boxes precariously balanced, rolls of carpets, bunches of flowers. They head off the main thoroughfares to little side streets and then appear as if by magic further ahead of the static traffic. Head-shaking! It even made London traffic look quick! But when the traffic jam loosens up – beware – do not be in the way! The ‘tuc-tucs’ are named after the sound they make as they are motorised rickshaws. They have no meters so price depends on how much you are willing to pay or how much they can ‘con’ out of you!

The Grand Palace was built by the direct ancestor of the present King Rama IX, who happened to be King Rama I. theme developing here I think. On a whim he shifted the capital of the country from one side of the main river of Bangkok, the Chao Phraya river, to the other, and ordered the building of a new palace in 1782. Since then the palace has grown under each successive King Rama, except the present one who only lived in it for a year then decided to build himself a more modern palace, and much bigger one elsewhere in the city. The palace grounds contain residences and government buildings and the Royal Monastery to the Emerald Buddha. The buildings are something to be seen, elaborately decorated with gold leaf, pieces of glass which reflect the sun and in places precious stones. The temple to the Emerald Buddha is very elaborately decorated, and the Buddha statue itself wears golden clothing which is changed three times a year to correspond with the three Thai seasons – Spring, Wet, Winter. At the moment it is winter gear – but it was very hot today! One problem is that it is not emerald at all – it is jade – but no one seems too fussed about that little point. It is one of Thailand’s most sacred religious icons and when I was in it there were Buddhist monks praying and lots of the visitors too. It reminded me of the Greek Orthodox church in Rhodes – both very elaborately decorated. Christian churches are generally simpler but I have yet to visit the Vatican!

Now to the King. Thailand was an absolute monarchy until 72 years ago when the present King’s uncle changed to what the Thais call a ‘contributory monarchy’. Quite what the difference is between this and our ‘constitutional monarchy’ I am yet to discover. It has been the present King’s birthday this week and the city is teeming with royal fans from all over the land celebrating in a week long party of noise, colour, music and fireworks. They identify themselves as royal supporters by wearing pink shirts. There were thousands of these pink shirts in evidence today as we toured the city. Pictures and posters and shrines to the King are everywhere. They certainly revere him. I now know what King Rama IX looks like – or rather I know what he looked like when he was about 55, because he is an 82 year old invalid now and the poster pictures do not look like that. Still, Thailand is not the first and won’t be the last to stylise pictures of its royal dynasty. From what our guide said today there’s going to be one hell of a party when he turns his toes up starting with a 100 day lying in state in one of the palace buildings we visited today. We also saw the Royal Coronation room with its golden throne.
Bizarre thing number whatever is the conversation with the guide on our tour. He was the one who brought up Taksin Shinawatra, the ex Prime Minister of Thailand and the ex-owner of Manchester City FC. He was clearly a supporter as he said the case against Dr Frank (as the city fans called him – Frank Shinawatra – geddit?) was not proven and was created by the opposition and besides what harm is there in him allowing his wife to buy some Government land cheaply? How public spirited of him. He said Dr Frank, now in exile in Dubai, was still very popular amongst voters. Watch this space.

Wednesday 9th December The Bridge Over the River Kwai

‘Forgive but not forget’ is the message on the sign above the entrance to the JEATH ( stands for Japan, England, Australia, Thailand, Holland) museum in Konchanaburi, Thailand below which is the warning given by the Japanese commander in charge of the work on this area’s section of the infamous Burma Railway – the Railway of Death – which included the Bridge Over the River Kwai:

‘If you work hard you will be treated well but if you do not you will be punished’.

When the Japanese suffered a major naval defeat against the Americans at Midway they need to build a supply line through Thailand (then Siam) and Burma. Ironically the British were the first to think of this earlier in the century and to survey the route but they abandoned the idea as not feasible. Double irony that so many British servicemen lost their lives in the Japanese enterprise. Some 30,000 British, 18000 Dutch, 13,000 Aussies and 700 American prisoners of war, and around 200,000 forced labourers from China, Thailand, Burma, Malaya and Singapore were drafted in to build the railway that no-one thought could be built, and which the Japanese were determined would be built in half the time their own engineers expected. The railway was completed in 18 months at the cost of 13,000 Allied dead, and some 70,000 Asian dead. The museum, which was established by the abbot of the nearby monastery of Wat Chaichumpol, tries to show the conditions under which the prisoners were kept, and the privations and cruelty to which they were subjected. Many of the artefacts are evidence from the prisoners themselves in the form of drawings or photographs or first-hand accounts. You cannot help but be moved and angered at the inhumane treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese and their Korean allies, as many of the camp guards were Korean. From fit prisoners they were systematically driven to their deaths in many cases by brutality, starvation and the jungle diseases of dysentery, malaria and cholera. Anyone who tried to escape was mercilessly executed; men were bayoneted for theft; barbaric punishments were common. The Japanese paid no heed to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

‘Forgive but not forget’

The war graves cemetery at Kanchanaburi, which at the time of the building of the railway in 1942/3 was a gathering and transit camp for the other work camps further up the line, contains the remains of 5,000 Commonwealth and 1600 Dutch servicemen who lost their lives. And is the biggest of the three cemeteries in the area. Most of the men who died were in their twenties, and those that were older tended to be officers. Each grave is named and dated and in most cases the regimental crest is attached. A few have got family messages on them. Some are not identified. Each one of them not just a victim of the brutality of war but particular victims of a particular type of brutality that those subjected to it found very hard to forget and even harder to forgive. There is a quote from an Australian survivor who went on to become a Head Teacher in Canberra after the war. When he returned some years later to visit the area he was struck by the silence in the area in which he had worked and memories of what he called the ‘sadistic Japanese engineers and Korean guards’ came flooding back to the point where he ‘experienced a deep hatred and revulsion for the Japanese and their Korean counterparts’.

‘Forgive but not forget’

And what of the forced Asian labourers, some of whom ‘volunteered’ to work on the railway for a few months and were never let go home, or those that went to ‘free’ cinema shows advertised by the Japanese and then found the doors locked and themselves forced at gunpoint into lorries and spirited away. Their lives were of no less value but they died in their droves. I don’t know if there is a memorial to them.

‘Forgive but not forget’

And what of the Japanese, who had the temerity to build a memorial to those who had given their lives to the project so in some twisted and bizarre way to comfort their souls and their spirits. Built in 1944 it stands somewhere near Kanchanaburi, and is said to contain remains of labourers. It is not on the tourist track. Where are the Japanese signatures in the book that has comments from those who visited the war graves?

You can stand on one of the two bridges that were built to cross the River Kwai at an important railway and river junction two hour’s drive north-west of Bangkok. This is the metal and stone bridge that was built at the same time as a wooden bridge a little further downstream. The wooden bridge has not survived and there is little evidence it was ever there. The single track metal bridge was brought on barges from Java pre-built to be assembled on site. The bridge has become a symbol of the project even though it was not the only bridge on the line and was not the most difficult and dangerous part of the project. The Allies tried repeatedly to bomb all bridges on the line and hit the Kwai one successfully. The River Kwai area was one of many along the line that stretched for 415kms, but it is the most famous because of the book and subsequent movie. As I walked across the bridge which is at the edge of a vast tourist complex that contains shops, restaurants etc, I was behind a group of French tourists who once they stepped on the bridge started whistling ‘Colonel Bogie’ – very bizarre. Even more bizarre was a Thai violinist ‘busking’ half-way across the bridge who commenced playing ‘Colonel Bogie’ as soon as I got level with him. What those who built this thing and saw comrades lose their lives in doing so would make of this I don’t know. It isn’t a war grave – the atmosphere was completely different there – it is actually a working bridge and you have to stand to one side to let the ( very slow) train pass, but I suppose some of the visitors might get a sense of achievement and sacrifice from the experience. No sign of Alec Guinness though! Whilst I was there I just took some time to sit on the river bank just beyond all the tourist hubbub and ponder it all for a while.

In the morning we had set off from Bangkok at 7am as we had some serious driving to do. Our first destination was the famous floating market at Damnern Saduak 110kms south of Bangkok. We witnessed Bangkok waking up and travelling to work or school. The roadside stalls and shops were already opened – perhaps they never shut! – but the transport system has to be seen to be believed. Lorries, busses, vans, pickup trucks, bicycles, motorbikes, ‘tuc’tucs’…in fact anything people can get into or hold in to or get on top of is used for transport. Alf n Safety! Who’s he? And it gets worse the further you get from the city. Families on motorbikes – dad with his helmet on, and mum on the pillion with toddler standing between them with hands on dad’s shoulders …on the motorway! Eventually you just say ‘there’s another one’. We soon leave the built up areas and hit countryside and the salt and sugar and rice fields. We call at a shop that specialises in coconut products and orchids – not as silly a combination as you might think as the coconut shells are used to grow the orchids in! There is a café of sorts but it is aimed at the locals. They are serving Thai breakfast –lovely hot chicken curry – and I get the guide to help me order some. It is gorgeous compared with last night’s fare. I gobble it up and end up a little ‘sharp’ around the lips because of the spices but that soon goes. We stop next at a riverside depot for long-tail speedboats, which featured in one of the James Bond movies – Roger Moore in ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’! These are to whisk us along the rivers and canals to the floating market. Off we zoom with me in the front –wet again!

The floating market must have started as a way of locals selling their produce but has now turned into a major tourist attraction. That said it is still fabulous. The market fills a series of linked canals which are awash with small craft peddling all sorts of goods and spills over onto the banks where there are more traditional market stalls. You name it you can buy it. One of our party was after silk shirts -,and got them. We transfer on to a row boat which will take us down the centre of the market. You end up surrounded by boats selling wares. I spotted a butcher, some green grocers, a fruiterers, people selling drinks, souvenirs, hats, shoes, clothes. As you are rowed by, a stall holder will produce a hook and pull you across so he or she can show you what they are selling. It is great fun. I bought a mortar and pestle set and did a bit of tourist style ‘haggling’. Now we have to know the rules for this. The price they ask is always vastly overinflated so there is no guilt in ‘beating’ them down – except you are not really beating them down because they know roughly what price they can sell for and still make a handsome profit so it is all a bit of a game. The set was offered to me at 600baht – about £15. I said 300, he said 400, I repeated 300 and he said deal! Easy as that- except he would have bought it for less than 100baht, but we were all happy. I didn’t haggle for the mango pieces I bought for 40baht – they were gorgeous. The place was heaving. Tourists everywhere. Boats, sides, bridges. The food boats and stalls looked very attractive but hygiene is not uppermost so I avoided these. The usual rule is you only buy stuff that is boiling! I did see flies on the meat and dried fish! Colour, atmosphere, energy – and they really did try to sell me postcards!

Thursday 10th December Bangkok

To the barricades! Or rather to the Pai Bai School of Thai Cookery for a morning’s cookery course. In the mini-bus that picked me up from the hotel was Adam, an American chef! How intimidating Can that be? Here’s me thinking that I am on the Thai equivalent of ‘Ready Steady Cook’ but I am sitting next to Gordon Ramsay! Adam was very nice. He worked for a yacht owner in the Mediterranean for sxi months of the year and for the rest was paid to travel and pick up cooking tips. Nice life. Hey? When we arrived at the cookery school we were joined by eight other ‘students’ only one of which was a professional chef. He and Adam sat exchanging cooking tips during the breaks. Our hostess was Miki, and our demonstration chef was Wat ( Thai for ‘monastery), a student at the school. We learned and cooked ( and ate) four dishes in three hours. It was great fun. Most of the ingredients were pre-prepared for us which saved a lot of time, and apart from putting too many chillis in my Hot Prawn Soup I did very well. For some reason Miki thought I spoke very ‘posh’ English and kept imitating my accent then apologising profusely! We soon got into the swing. Miki or Wat would say ‘What tine is it?’ and we would chorus ‘Tasting time!’ or ‘Cooking time’ or ‘Eating time’! At the end I bought one of the cooking knives I had used in the class , and asked for one of my fingers back. They very kindly wrapped it in an ice pack so that I could it have it sewn back on in the UK.
Adam had signed up for every class that week so we left him waiting for the afternoon group to arrive and headed back into the bustle of the city. I arrived back at my hotel just in time – traffic again – to be picked up for my afternoon sojourn on the river. I had signed up for a trip to the old ‘capital’ ( see above) abandoned by King Rama I – a place called Thonburi. It was only down and across the river so was an easy ride. I was with an Australian lady and her teenage daughter. Despite my efforts to be sociable the woman treated me like a potential predator, so in the end I gave up. We travelled the first part if of the journey by ‘James Bond’ boat as our guide proudly informed us. The canals are directly off the river opposite the Royal Palace, and for the most part are where the less well-off Thai people live in the city. I saw three youths fishing off a pier and one was wearing the latest City shirt! I shouted and pointed at his shirt. He responded with a huge grin and pointed proudly at the crest! Bizarre! People waved at us as we sailed by their lives. Back on the main river we transferred to a ‘rice’ barge for the return trip – very, very, very slowly. We were given a fruit buffet and as my companions were still playing dumb, I got a Singah beer and sat in the prow with the sun shining down on me and just relaxed into the journey.

The return to the hotel left me with about four hours to kill before I was picked up for the airport run. I decided to take a trip to China Town. Bangkok’s Chinese community is huge, and so is China Town . I decided to take a ‘tuc-tuc’ and negotiated a price of 100 baht – I had checked with hotel staff about this. I told the driver to take me down the main street of China Town and my intention was to walk back up it and explore. He could not understand why I wanted to do this and kept trying to persuade me to let him take me to ‘really good Thai massage’ and such related places! When eventually he realised that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ he settled into pointing out restaurants that sold sharks fin and birds nest soup. I enjoyed the walk which also took me off the main road into the bustling side streets. The place has to be seen to be believed. So much activity, so much on sale. Hardly a space to walk on the pavements. Food stalls selling everything imaginable, lottery ticket sellers – people eking out a living by any means. Isaw many ‘doubles’ – Sean Connery sitting on a chair smoking, Russ Abbot sweeping the street, Dev Alahan with a shirt stall. Lots of dogs, mostly asleep on the pavement so you can fall over them. I fancied the ones next to the food stalls were reserve supplies but perhaps that’s only in Korea! If they were they were very relaxed about it. I went so far down one side street that I felt a little claustrophobic and slightly intimidated by the unfamiliarity of everything. I took a ‘tuc-tuc’ back to the hotel and called it a day on my Bangkok experience.

Captain’s Log. Stardate - Friday 11th December Home!

If Dr Frank doesn’t mind me quoting him…..

‘It’s very nice to go travelling, to London ,Paris and Rome….but it’s so much nicer to come home’

I was about ready. I had been away just short of two months and it had gone very quickly. I was now looking forward to being back with the ones I love. Christmas loomed but in a very inviting and comforting way. However I still had a long flight to face .. but there was a twist in the tale. Being my first time this far from home and on this side of the world, I had got my time zones a bit twisted and everyone was expecting me back on Saturday 12th whereas I actually arrived on Friday 11th! So 12 hours, three movies, two meals, and some sleep later I emerged a day early into the cold fog of a London December morning, blinking not with the brightness but with the realisation that it was Winter and cold. Christmas Day would be cold and not 35 degrees as it would be in Darwin or 27 degrees as in Sydney. It might even snow the radio said! Lovely!

And reflections on my trip? Difficult to add to what has already been said. Glad I went? Yes! Go again? Yes! When? Already planning!

And to end? A final tribute to where I started in Oz. ‘Tie me kangaroo down, sport!’

There's an old Australian stockman, lying, dying,
and he gets himself up on one elbow,
and he turns to his mates,
who are gathered 'round him and he says:
Watch me wallabys feed mate.
Watch me wallabys feed.
They're a dangerous breed mate.
So watch me wallabys feed.
Altogether now!
Tie me kangaroo down sport,
tie me kangaroo down.
Tie me kangaroo down sport,
tie me kangaroo down.
Keep me cockatoo cool, Curl,
keep me cockatoo cool.
Don't go acting the fool, Curl,
just keep me cockatoo cool.
Altogether now!
Take me koala back, Jack,
take me koala back.
He lives somewhere out on the track, Mac,
so take me koala back.
Altogether now!
Let me Abos go loose, Lou, *
let me Abos go loose.
They're of no further use, Lou,
so let me Abos go loose.
Altogether now!
Mind me platypus duck, Bill,
mind me platypus duck.
Don't let him go running amok, Bill,
mind me platypus duck.
Altogether now!
Play your digeridoo, Blue,
play your digeridoo.
Keep playing 'til I shoot thro' Blue,
play your digerydoo.
Altogether now!
Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred,
tan me hide when I'm dead.
So we tanned his hide when he died Clyde,
(Spoken) And that's it hanging on the shed.
Altogether now!

2009-12-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

Friday 27th November Nelson to Kaikoura

Sandwiched between the snow-capped peaks of the 2610m high Seaward Kaikoura Range and the South Pacific Ocean, the small town of Kaikoura (pop 3850+1 ie me) is one of the few places in the world where the awesome mountains come so close to the sea. It produces a place where wildlife abounds. Whales, dolphins, seals, penguins, and (I hope) the Albatross! Whale watching etc tomorrow but for the moment it’s settling in to the motel and thinking back over today.

I calculated that the trip to Kaikoura would take about 4 hours. In the end it took six but that was because I kept finding reasons to stop on the way. My first stop was to answer the phone as Tess rang to tell me she had broken her toe by crunching into something in the study. I thought it was me that was supposed to be Mr Clumsy! A call in for my morning coffee, and off again. My second stop was to pick up a hitchhiking couple. I was going to drive past but the guy gave me such a pleading look I gave in. They were from Canada – French Canadians; Les Quebecois – and were ‘tramping’ around the North and South islands for three months sleeping in tents or the huts provided in National Parks. They both worked as National Park guides in Canada so this was a bit of a ‘bus man’s holiday’ but they were loving it. They said they had picked up lots of ideas for home. We chatted mainly about the scenery, and I said the parts we were going through reminded me of Scotland – hills, pine forests, gorse and broom – no surprise as the first settlers tried to recreate ‘home’ and imported all these plants and trees. They had not been to the UK so were very interested in this. I told them they would probably find the south of the UK too crowded but it was less so further North. I thought it politic not to chat about my current reading material and in particular the fall of Quebec to General Wolfe with Captain Cook’s assistance. They did say they found the Kiwis nicer than the Aussies. I dropped them an hour later at a place called Kawatiri Junction as I was heading off into the mountains of the Mount Richmond Conservation Park. If you want to imagine what Kiwatiri Junction is like think of the scene from North by North west when Cary Grant gets dropped off in the middle of nowhere just before he is attacked by the crop dusting plane. They seemed happy enough. ( Excuse moi, ou est Le Metro? ) I hope they are not still there.

Continuing the French theme, the road from here climbs steeply to the village of Saint Arnaud – whoops, just missed it – then takes a long descent to the Wairau Valley. Now in NZ a valley is a valley! The road stretches out almost straight in front for nearly 80kms, only taking the occasional twist to cross a river or stream. Farm after farm is soon replaced by winery after winery. I have hit Marlborough territory, South NZs most productive wine area. Just who drinks all this stuff I think! I am not exaggerating when I say that vines stretch as far as the eye can see in all directions. Yes there are mountains on both sides but they are so far away across the valley that I cannot see where the vines end and the hills begin. An occasional figure is working in between the vines, snipping here and there. That in itself must be a full time job. It is still late Spring/Early Summer so the real growing season has not yet started. Someone somewhere is going to get really sloshed! The wineries give way to more farms as I reach Blenheim – which I think is linked to Churchill – and I turn South to Kaikoura. I still have about 130kms to go, so refuel, toilet stop etc.

The first part of the next stretch cuts much of the coast out, and I am just thinking that the terrain reminds me a bit of the Lake District when blow me if I don’t see a sign for Lake Grassmere ( UK spelling is Grasmere) and Lake Elterwater. They are both some kms out of my way so I reluctantly have to give them a miss. Soon the road starts to cling to the coast and the rolling surf of the Pacific Ocean is continuously ringing in my ears. The mountain ranges press in from the West so the ‘corridor’ is quite narrow and a bit hair-raising at times. Needs all my focus, so I put my I-pod away. I stop at Ward for a cup of Earl Grey, and check my map. I note that there is seal colony just before Kaikoura at Ohau Point. The guide book says very smelly and noisy but really easy to get close to the seals. I decide to lunch there. The guide book understates the impact of the seal colony in that it says as well as smelling they laze about wondering why everyone is looking at them. There is a lot more to it than that. This is the closest to seals you can probably get without getting attacked – they can get nasty if you get between them and the sea or near their young or if the bulls are sorting out the mating. This time of year it is mating that is going on, and there was certainly as lot of ‘sorting’ out amongst the bull seals. There seemed to be about a couple of hundred seals spread along a 2km stretch of rocky shoreline. The road runs right next to some sections so you can be within twenty or thirty feet of them. This I like as it means easy photos. Yes it smells – a bit like a group of navvies waking up after a hard night on the drink – but seals have yet to see the benefits of deoderant. The bull seals are huge! Forget the little sea lions you may have seen in a circus or the small seals off our coast. These are New Zealand fur seals and they is big! Think a combination of Grant and Phil Mitchell. Now put Basil Brush’s snout on this. Then imagine it naked except for a body covering of thick fur. Then imagine it on its back with its (arms) flippers stretched out sideways. Throw in some heavy snoring and six empty cans of Stella – and you have got your picture of a bull seal at rest on the rocks. But when they move the rocks shake! They roar at each other and at the females in their ‘harem’. They chase rivals away – I saw this happening. They transform in the water – I saw this too. Females and young seals get out of the way when a bull starts to move. I saw young males – big but not yet fully grown like the bulls – play fighting in a pool. There was a bit of a bar-room brawl between four bulls that resulted in one fleeing into the sea. I did notice when I was trying to take photos that a number of bulls had wounds on their sides from battles that had taken place. This early in the season there was sure to be more of that to come. I stayed for over an hour just watching them. The stretch of rocks they occupied was crashed upon repeatedly by some pretty big waves – not a bother on the seals. They just lay where they were until they felt it was time to move. I did see some in the water where they move completely differently. One thing they do is to roll them-selves over so that one flipper at a time is exposed out of the water. It’s almost as if they are waving, not drowning!

Next to the seal colony was a breeding colony of NZ Red billed gulls. As you can imagine very noisy. As I was looking I saw one gull casually stroll up to its neighbour’s nest, help itself to some nesting material , and ignoring the fuss and pecking that went on, took it back up the rock to his own nest. He would be in Mrs Gull’s good books for that! Just up from the thief were two Terns who had clearly misread the directions to Tern City. Mrs Tern was sitting on her nest while Mr Tern stood guard and pecked violently at any gull that got within pecking distance. It was clearly going to be a long night! As I move on back to my car I pass a Japanese family edging along the cliff pathway to the seal colony. I’m almost sure I heard one of them say ‘Nice doggy. Good doggy.’

Heading once again for Kaikoura, I saw the evidence of a sense of humour I can appreciate. The road signs for ‘pedestrians crossing’ is a walking stick-figure that if you added a halo to would be the figure from ‘The Saint’ with Roger Moore. Someone had taken the trouble to stop and add one so it made me smile as I went by.
(Neighbours again!) ‘ Cray-fish! Everybody loves Crayfish! With a little salt and lemon! You can have a better day!’ Food-wise, if you are not keen on crayfish ( a mini lobster) then you are going to struggle in Kaikoura. This is a crayfish mad plaice (sorry, couldn’t resist). But they is very expensive, even though they are caught nearby. Restaurants, sea food outlets, caravans, chippies – they are all trying to get you to eat the flippin things. In a restaurant you are likely to pay $50 for half a crayfish – that’s about £30! They are cheaper in chippies but not by much. I had to have a go and got half a crayfish, salad and half a scoop of chips for $35 – about £20! Ouch! Tasted lovely though and much, much easier to eat than lobster (or mud crab for that matter). Taste a bit like chicken! I sat near the beach to eat this delightful feast and was immediately surrounded by squawking gulls shouting ‘Mine! Mine!’ I told them in no uncertain terms to fly off, but they just stood and stared me out. I am getting good at not being psyched out by them and so they got none of it until I had finished. I then tried one with part of the crayfish leg – it wouldn’t miss one! The leg had a bit of meat on it. The gull? Took one sniff at it and flew off complaining. Not everyone likes crayfish it seems.
Walked back along the beach and watched a shore fisherman land his catch. It looked like a small ray rather than a flat fish as it had a long tail which was still thrashing as he put it in his box. Supper! Continued along the beach looking for as place to get back on to the road but found only an outlet for the river which was flowing quite fast. Found a bit that was flowing slowly and just plunged in up to my calves. The current was noticeable, but all I got was wet feet and home a site quicker than if I had gone all the way back.

Kaikoura does feature on Cook’s journals but he did not land here. He passed by on his third voyage, and locals went out in canoes to give the traditional Maori ‘gritting’ ie throw spears at the ship. Cook tried to persuade them to come on board but as they did not understand him, Cook just cleared off. That was in 1778. Fifty years later the Maoris saved everyone the trouble of dealing with them by slaughtering each other on the beachfront in an inter-tribal war. Then came the bad news for the Maoris and even worse news for the whales – a whaling station was established and stayed here until they had killed virtually all the whales in the area. Hopefully I will see some of the descendents of those they did not get tomorrow.

Kaikoura is famous for one other historical thing. Before the Europeans arrived and started slaughtering the whales and the Maoris, the Maoris themselves were busy slaughtering the moa, the biggest flightless bird ever to walk this planet. It is now extinct of course, as it had no defences against the onslaught except its manners which the hunters ignored. It is a pity that it did not fly even a bit as it could have dropped its gigantic eggs on its pursuers, giving them one hell of a headache. At a site near Kaikoura, near Fyffe House ( no banana jokes please) the biggest ever moa egg measuring 240mmx178mm was found buried. How Mrs Moa forgot something that big I don’t know unless it was buried by some gigantic prehistoric squirrel we have yet to discover! For the mathematicians amongst you there are ten mm in a centimetre and 2.5cms in an inch, so altogether now it was……nearly ten inches long and about six inches wide. Some chicken that!

Saturday 28th November Kaikoura

‘Whale meet again, don’t know where don’t know when!’

It’s whale-watching day today so as you would expect when I wake up it is tipping it down. Had a disturbed night as I got a call at 1am from one of my Burnley schools to say that they were being inspected next week. ‘I know you probably don’t give a rat’s wotsit at this point,’ chuckled Martin the Head, ‘but it says on my instructions that I have to let the NCA know , so now you know!’ Thanks Martin, I will find a way to get you back for this! When I say rain it is raining cats, dogs, sheep – the lot. I roll over and try to go back to sleep for a while but no dice. The whale trip is scheduled for this afternoon at 3.30pm so with a bit of luck it might clear. I am suppose to be going on a two to three hour walk along the headland this morning, but I have nothing that will keep me dry in this for long so I mentally write this off. I had trouble loading my blog last night so I try again and this time it works. I sit and read my guide book and the books left by the motel for visitors. They are very useful if it wasn’t raining because all the activities are outdoors. Walking, kayaking, ski-ing, snowboarding, riding, swimming with dolphins and seals and birds if you wish. Kaikoura is outdoor city – not today, Jose. I twiddle my thumbs until after 10 o’clock when I start to feel pressure from the cleaners who keep pausing outside my door despite the fact that I have put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign out. Eventually I think blow it, I will risk the rain. Outside it is now drizzling so I kit up and head off down the Esplanade towards the headland.

The road sweeps around the end of the town which is situated on what used to be an island many thousands of years ago, but which was joined to the mainland by debris swept down from the mountains by rivers and storms. So Kaikoura is effectively built on a promentery and stocks out into the Pacific Ocean. Its main roads are quaintly named Torquay, Scarborough and Brighton, but apart from the rain the similarity ends there. The road at the end of the Esplanade leads to Fyffe House, the home of the first white man to live here and he who set up the first whaling station ( boooo!). Not only did he do that but he built his house on foundations made from whale bones, particularly the vertebrae from their spines. Remnants of the old whaling station can be seen along the road past the house along with ancient black and white photos of whalers and their catch. As I said before they killed the whales until it was no longer economically viable to do so. That was the only reason they stopped. Today all marine mammals are protected in New Zealand and Kaikoura is making up for its rather bloody past .

On past the whaling station is another large Fur seal colony. This one is very popular with tourists as you can get very close to the seals. There are notices advising people not to get within ten metres of the seals, but when I was there people were ignoring that. They were following the advice not to touch the seals or poke them to try to get them to move, but apart from not putting their arms around them and saying ‘smile for the camera’, they got pretty close. The seals really did not seem that bothered. There were huge numbers all around the headland, but at this first point the seals were predominantly males. At first I thought I had wandered into an outdoor branch of Kaikoura working men’s club. Weighty males were lolling about in large groups, puffing out their chest to each other and no doubt bragging of their latest conquests, whilst at the same time downing copious amounts of Seaweed Ale. The walk up onto the headland was semi –strenuous and when I got back three hours later I certainly felt it. The views were worth it and the chance to see more of the seals was good too.

The story of the New Zealand fur seal is one of success against the odds. The local seal population is largely transient - but some do breed here – so there are a lot of males. They don’t have blubber but have thick fur – hence the name – for warmth. Males can be 2 metres long and weigh 200kg! You don’t want that falling on you, especially of you are a female and weigh just half that! A bull seal’s ‘harem’ can be up to 30 females! That keeps him busy, in more ways than one. But in a sense he is lucky to have a harem at all as the fur seal was hunted to near extinction for the sake of hats, stoles, coats etc. The statistics are just mind blowing. In 1824 one expedition killed an estimated 80,000 seals! When the killing was at its peak no less than 400,000 seals were killed in one group of islands, the Antipodes, alone. It was just not sustainable for the seals and in 1946 the NZ Government stopped the trade.

So, on to the whales. I was not feeling optimistic as for the whole of my morning walk I could not see the mountains behind Kaikoura as they were shrouded in mist, and similarly the sea horizon was not visible. Although the rain had stopped for most of my walk it was drizzling again when I arrived at the ‘Whaling Station’ meeting point. The notice board said that the 3.30 trip was still ‘pending’ and when I enquired about this I was told they were waiting on a conditions report from the captain of the boat out on the earlier trip. So it was a waiting game. The notice board also said that there was a half-metre swell in the sea, and that it was a bit blowy. It recommended sea sickness tablets for those prone to it. It said the earlier trips had seen between 4-5 whales about 12-15 miles from shore, so that was encouraging. There is no 100% guarantee of seeing whale – after all this is a wild creature with its own agenda – so they would refund 80% of your cost if that happened. While we were waiting for the decision yea or nay, they played an information video about the whales and their link with Kaikoura. It’s down to the geography of the surrounding ocean floor in that some of the deepest ocean canyons that can be found are very close to the mainland at Kaikoura. Whales like these depths so they pass through on their way to other breeding grounds or they stay a while – sometimes for years – before moving on. The largest of all whales, the 29metre Blue Whale is a passing visitor, and not at this time of year. Humpback whales, Right Whales and Orca ‘killer’ whales also drift on by. But the one we are hoping to see today is semi-resident – the Sperm Whale. These are the third largest whale in the world, and the ones that are here tend to be young males ‘fattening’ themselves up over many years before undertaking huge breeding journeys to other parts of the Ocean. Its head contains the largest brain in the world – about the size of a basketball – and you are advised not to play Trivial Pursuit with sperm whales. They dive to depths of 1000-2000 metres and can stay there for 45 minutes to feed. They are only usually on the surface for between 10 -15 minutes so this is why spotting then is not guaranteed.

The clock ticks by and then suddenly the notice changes to ‘Check In’. We are on! I make the decision to buy one of the anti-sickness tablets on offer as a safeguard. I have not been sea-sick since I was a teenager on a very rough ferry crossing to Ireland, but I don’t want to take chances. It proves to be a wise decision. We get a safety briefing and then are put on bus to take us to the boat. The group of Japanese tourists are double-checked for harpoons. A solitary Norwegian protests as his bag is searched that he is member of Greenpeace! There are no Icelanders on board. The boat itself is a bit like a luxury coach – very plush seats. We are instructed to remain in our seats for the outward journey. Given the sea conditions I think we would do very well to get out of them whilst the craft is moving. It speeds off, skimming the tops of the waves and crashing down into the troughs with great swathes of spray dashing against the sides. We are well protected from the elements inside thank goodness. Our guide gives us a running commentary, including advice on avoiding feeling sick – keep looking at the horizon – and what to do if you have to be sick. The girl beside me is clearly uncomfortable but is not sick, whereas a few others are. We pass some Dusky Dolphins but only get a glimpse, and the boat is shadowed by all sorts of birds but it is hard to see what through the spray. After what seems like forever but what is in fact only about thirty-five minutes, the skipper revs back the engines and we slow down. That does not mean the boat stays still. Quite the opposite – it now starts rolling quite strongly from side to side in the swell. There is bit of panic amongst the female passengers when it is announced that the skipper is about to get out his personal ‘whale sonar’ – but relief when this turns out to be a long stick with a microphone at the end and headphones. He dips this in the sea, nods seriously then climbs back into his seat, seconds later we swing round to the right (starboard I think!) and our guide informs us we are off on a whale hunt! She tells us to keep a lookout but not to shout ‘thar she blows’ as most likely we will spot a male! Spoilsport! A few moments later and we see our first whale. The boat stops dead and we pile outside on deck. It is about fifty to a hundred metres away and travelling away from us but we can clearly see it ‘spouting’ and see the dorsal fin and parts of its back. It looks big even from this distance. People are trying to take photos but I decide just to look through my binoculars. After about 3-4 minutes it just slides under the waves and does not resurface. We have to return inside the boat and the skipper heads off in another direction. About ten minutes later the lookout reports more ‘spouting’ and we swing to port. Again when we stop we see the ‘spouting’ the dorsal fin and parts of its back. After a few minutes it disappears. We are all feeling pleased having seen two whales, and the seasick people are hoping it is time to go back home, when the cry goes up again ‘Whale ahoy, Cap’n Ahab!’. Ok I made that bit up but the excitement was getting to me. We had found a whale that was not travelling like the other two but was on the surface ‘oxygenating’ in preparation for a dive to feed. It looked like it was just floating and nothing much happening but the guide said lots of activity just below the surface. We remained watching this one for 10 minutes at least. The guide felt confident that this one was preparing to dive so she told those who wanted photos to have their cameras ready. I had gone up onto the top deck this time for a better view but decided that the photo was not what I wanted. I just wanted to look and take in the moment. The boat was heaving from side to side quite strongly so there were only brave few on the top deck. But it was worth it. The guide suddenly said ‘Get ready, he’s arching his back’ and the whale did exactly that, then up came the tale in that classic picture image and down he went. Amid all the camera clicks and ‘wows’ and ‘fantastics’ it was moment to savour. I found myself saying, ’Just look at that! ‘ We were no more than fifty metres away. The return journey began in an almost reverential silence at what we had witnessed. The power, the grace, the majesty of this sea creature! I have heard people say they felt it was a quasi-spiritual experience witnessing such a magnificent creature in its domain. I can see why some say it is a privilege.

As a bonus we had seen lots of Albatross, the most travelled bird in the world, the biggest of which have a wingspan of over 4 metres – as our guide said this is wider than this cabin! We also saw some more of the Dusky Dolphins and this time they were leaping in and out of the water alongside the boat. The sea had decided to calm down so the return journey was less hazardous. Tired but contented we were deposited safely back at Sea Bay.

I have mentioned Sperm Whale before when I was writing about Australia. They were given their name because the whalers thought that the whale’s head, which contained a semen-coloured substance, was where the whale’s sex organs were. It was only when they killed some females and found the same stuff in their heads that they realised they had got it wrong but the name stuck. Their oil was used for lamps and another substance, Ambergris, was used for perfumes. Everyone wanted in on the act and in less than 200 years after the discovery of New Zealand the whale populations had virtually been wiped out. Although we can level blame at the Maoris for the extinction of the moa, they had not hunted whales before the white settlers arrived. However they did join in with gusto!

Sunday 29th November Kaikoura to Fox Glacier

I am facing a long journey today as I am crossing from the East to the West coast, and will cover around 400kms. On the M1 this would be a doddle but here the roads almost force a slower pace with the scenery to take in and the twists and climbs. It’s all mountains in between start and finish and no road goes straight across. In addition you have no choice about which route you take – there is only one road. So knowing I could have between 8 and 9 hours on the road I set off early just after 9am. I have mapped out the route and looked for likely towns that have petrol stations. It is overcast as I leave Kaikoura to take the R1 for a short while and then off on R70 to go over the mountains. I have a request from my travelling companion to stop at Mouse Point where the R70 meets the R7 which will take us to the West coast. The first couple of hours is fine as we travel increasingly steep roads but they are all sealed so the going is easy. It’s I-pod time and I put it on random so it brings up a selection which includes the soul-aching ‘Dolphins’ by Tim Buckley (Jeff’s dad), the deep base driving rhythm of Jefferson Airplane, and the tear-jerking poignancy of Tom Waites’ ‘Burmah Shave’. The music is a constant companion and certainly helps the long drives. When I get to Waiau the fuel gauge is showing less than half full so I follow the sign for petrol. I arrive at a sort of square and spot the toilets so pop in there. Mine is the only car around. When I come out there is very little activity apart from a sun-wizened man sitting smoking outside the café across the street. I enquire about the garage. ‘Oh you won’t get any petrol here on a Sunday, ‘he says, ‘everything is shut on a Sunday.’ He can see the panic on my face. ‘You could try Kaikoura,’ he suggests, ‘there might be some there.’ I am beginning to think I have picked the town lunatic when he goes on, ‘But there’s always Culverden. They have it 24/7 at Culverden.’ With some trepidation I ask where Culverden is. ‘It’s down there ,’ he says pointing in the direction I wish to go, ‘ on the way to Christchurch. Not very far.’ I tell him how much fuel I have got and he says ,’Yeah, that should be ok to get you there.’

I set off for Culverden after a quick check on the map. To get there will means going past the point I was to join the R7, but needs must. I have already said that nothing is near in NZ. Well going to Culverden was the equivalent of driving from Nottingham to Mansfield and back – twice! – just to get petrol. When I reached Culverden there was a garage offering fuel 24/7 but on card only. It would not take my card! Panic, panic! I looked at the map and estimated I could probably make Reefton and hope that it had an open garage. I was turning round and looking up and down the highway where I could see shop etc in the distance when I thought that there must be an ordinary garage here! On spec I drove further down the road. If I was wrong there was vital fuel being used up. At the other end of the town there was another garage! So, fuelled up I headed back to the R7.

Mouse Point was interesting. It consisted of two signs about half a km apart, one junction, and lots of fields. We paused for photos and then went on our way. The next section of the route followed the trail of the Lewis River through the Lewis Pass. Huge mountains surrounded a very deeply cut river valley. The road took a route West, then North, then West again as it wound through the mountains. After Springs Junction it clung to the Inerungahua River to Reefton where it swung south West towards the Tasman Sea, where the land began to get a bit flatter. All in all the mountain roads from Mouse Point to Reefton had covered around 185kms. On the route down from Reefton to the coast at Greymouth, I passed through Dobson and Kaiata. Once I had got to the mountains the sun had shone, but as I neared the sea it disappeared. It was dull at Dobson, cloudy at Kaiaita, and yes you’re ahead of me, grey at Greymouth! I am sure the honest citizens of Greymouth do a stalwart job in selling their town, but take it from me don’t go there on a dull Sunday! I was out as quick as I could, but had to stop soon after as I passed a sign for ‘Gladstone’. Well, you just have to don’t you!

The coastal road is called the ‘Glacier highway’ as it leads to Franz Joseph and Fix Glaciers. In itself it is pretty featureless until it leaves the coast and heads inland through forests. I stop at Whataroa for another coffee break and see a Maori Art Gallery across the street. I pop in and no-one is about. The owner appears about ten minutes later and says he didn’t hear me come in. I have been looking at some Maori weapons in a display case that says they have been carved by the owner from some whale jaw-bone that has been carbon dated at 3462 years old. There are lots of other whale bone and teeth items on display so I ask the owner if he has to have a licence to use these materials. He says that as a Maori he does not – he can freely use them. I say I think a British artist would have to have a special import licence. He asks me if I liked the weapons and would I be interested in buying them. I know he is only toying with me when he tells me the price - $800,000! I say he will have to find an American billionaire to get that sort of money. He replies that he has sold single items to Americans for $80,000. Make way Charles Saatchi! At that point I politely leave.

I am heading for Fox Glacier where I have booked a guided glacier walk for tomorrow morning before heading for Queenstown. This will certainly be a hectic couple of days! There are two big glaciers in the area and the other one is Franz Joseph Glacier, named by its Austrian ‘discoverer’ after the Austrian Head of State of the time. Both Fox and Franz Joseph settlements are small and are only there because of the glacier activities. As I pass through Franz Joseph I see a sign for the glacier 4km to the left. I ‘chuck a leftie’ in true Aussie style, and head down the track. The car park is quite busy and parties of guide walkers are heading to and from the glacier. I follow the signs for the glacier lookout, a ten minute steep climb. But it is worth it. There are two other people there and I am just getting out my camera when a familiar voice says ‘Oh, hello. What are you doing here?’ It is the Plymouth girl ( still haven’t asked her name!) and one of her travelling group, a Belgian lad called, rather improbably, Denis. He had been on the catamaran too so we acknowledged each other. They had tried to get on one of the heli-trips which take you to the top of the glacier but it had been cancelled at the last minute because of the weather closing in. They were a bit cheesed off as they left for Queenstown early tomorrow. Half jokingly we both said ‘See you in Queenstown’, and they left me to take my photos. Even from the distance I was the glacier is magnificent. Explanatory boards give a ‘glaciers for dummies’ explanation. Thousands of years ago both glaciers reached to the sea but since then it has been a tale of retreat , apart from odd flourishes such as in the 18th Century when the world had a mini ice age ( the Thames regularly froze over then ). The glacier can advance or retreat at one metre a day, and this depends on the balance between the amount of snow that comes in at the top to be compacted into ice and the amount of water that runs off as melted ice at the other end. At the moment they think the Franz Joseph glacier is advancing slowly. Even from a distance you can see the power and enormity of it. Through my binoculars I could see the tiny specks of the guided glacier walkers on the edges of the glacier front. They really did look small in comparison. Tomorrow I will be doing that!

When I return to the car park a mini bus driver is ushering a group of Korean tourists into the bus. I know they are Koreans because when the driver suddenly shouts ‘Kia, kia’ and points past them, those not yet in the bus turn and look at a small white car parked next to the bus. They in turn point and start chattering to each other. ‘No!’ says the obviously frustrated driver, ‘Kea! Over there, look, the only Alpine parrot in the world!’ and yes, further along the line of parked cars the dark brown parrot was happily feeding on some scraps from another car. ‘Get in! Get in! We’ll drive by it!’ While he was pushing the last ones into the bus, I took the chance to have a good look at the bird through my binoculars. By the time the mini bus got there it had gone.

Two exhausted looking boys from Belgium cadged a lift from the car park to the turnoff for Franz Joseph. They had not got enough cash for a guided walk on the glacier so had gone as near to it as they could. Glaciers can be dangerous – they have crevasses, and debris can fall on the unsuspected so access is restricted. They had tired themselves out with a long walk. We chatted about the territory and they baulked at my suggestion that they would not be familiar with height coming from ‘flat’ Belgium saying that here was some height in the Ardennes region! Excuse moi!

Monday 30th November Fox Glacier to Queenstown

‘Is that Mount Cook?’ This is the New Zealand equivalent to ‘Are we there yet?’ The trouble is that there are so many big mountains with snow-capped peaks that as far as a novice mountain spotter like me is concerned any one of them could be Mount Cook, and the journey of nearly 400kms to Queenstown passes so many that by the end of the journey I am burbling like a mad-man, especially when I look at the maps and see that I was nearer to Mount Cook when I started my journey than when I finished it! But back to the beginning of the day.

I began another long day with a three hour guided walk on the Fox Glacier. We were told to bring 3-4 layers of warm clothing as it would be cold on the ice, and the company supplied waterproof coats, boots and crampons. A coach took us to a drop-off and then it was a half hour walk over rocky terrain to the front face of the Glacier. It just got bigger and bigger the close we got. We did not go on the glacier from the front as this would be too dangerous as the ‘terminal face’ is the most unstable part of it. Unfortunately earlier this year two people on an unaccompanied walk had gone up to the face and had been killed by falling ice! So the warnings given were not just for show. Our journey was into the forest at the side of the glacier and onto it at a higher more stable point. The climb to above the glacier took us 45 minutes up over 700 (!) steps through the forest. That is more than takes to go to the top of Cologne Cathedral. Our group leader Alice made us go slowly and take off several of our layers so that we did not get too hot. It was a bit hard on the calves but we were soon at the point where we could descend on to the glacier. We were to spend about an hour on the actual ice following a defined track – including more steps cut in the ice – that the company has to re-do each day as the steps melt overnight! Once on the ice we fitted crampons to our boots and followed the leader. At this point we are about 300metres above sea level and the ice is about 250metres thick. The glacier stretches up into the valley above us and we cannot see the start of it as it is round a curve in the valley. Snow-topped peaks loom above us bit none of them is Mount Cook – so Alice says! We walk over the ice for a while, take photos, then head back which takes us an hour. It leaves me a little frustrated. I would have liked to go further up the glacier but this is only done on a day walk during which you spend four hours on the ice and do some rope-bridging across a crevass and go inside some ice caves. Another time perhaps. There is no doubt the glacier is impressive. The area of the glacier that collects the snow ( the ‘neve’) is bigger than the city of Christchurch! And it is 13km long from top to bottom. It is slowly growing by about a metre a day at the moment. One of the ironies is that precipitation that causes the snow that is compacted into the glacier is caused by hot air that comes from Australia, so that by a curious twist it will benefit from global warming! Back down all those steps did not do my knees any good! As we returned Alice told us that the firm doing the guide tours nearly went bust in the 1980s when the glacier retreated right up to the ‘turn’ of the valley, but luckily over the next 20 year it built up again. In the car park I was a little puzzled by a sign consisting of a stick figure that seemed to be trying to ‘lob’ basketballs into a net – was this warning us to beware of Harlem Globetrotters? Silly me! It was warning of the dangers of rock-falls!

It was 2pm before I set off for Queenstown. The route would be very scenic but I knew I would have to keep the stops for photos to the minimum. I also knew that I would have no problems with fuel! One thing did make itself obvious very quickly. The local possums had clearly had too much of the lush vegetation and beautiful scenery because they had hurled themselves lemming-like in front of the traffic on R6. Squished possum were everywhere. Lots of mess on the tire I’m afraid. Mountains, mountains everywhere, and none of them as it turns out Mount Cook. I will get there by the end of the week. I made haste through Haast, wandered alongside Lake Wanaka (careful with the spelling there, soldier!), hugged the shore of Lake Hawea, avoided Cromwell like the plague by cutting across the spectacular Cardrona Valley road, and then suddenly found myself in the Scottish Highlands! Signs for Glencoe and Ben this and Ben that abounded. I felt I might meet my old friends Ben Doon and Phil McCraken, but no they were ‘awa’. The scenery too was Scotland with more snowy peaks. I burst into an impromptu ‘Scotland the Brave’ but realised very quickly that I knew none of the words and even less of the chorus, so ended up ‘da-da-diddling’ the lot! A brief visit from Corporal Fraser of Dad’s Army – ‘we’re doomed, all doomed!’ – and then I reached Queenstown but not before passing signs for roads that would take me to, amongst other places, Invercargill, Dunedin and Invercockyleekie!

Queenstown’s resident population is only 8500 but during the holiday season it is fit to burst. It calls itself the ‘Global Adventure Capital’ and as I arrive there are hang-gliders swirling over the town from the nearby top of the Skyline Gondola – a chair lift that takes you above the town. I catch my breath as I see one swirling out of control but of course it is only the operator getting that extra buzz. This could be Adrenalin City Arizona! No chance of getting bored – if you have the cash that is – as you can bungy-jump, cave, white-water raft, sledge, jet-boat, ski, sky-dive, hang-glide. You can do more sedate things. It is the major starting point for trips to Milford Sound where I go tomorrow. To the West of Queenstown is the massive Fjordland National Park, practically all of which is not accessible by road. Even Milford Sound is a four hour drive! The weather for the next few days is likely to be coolish – no more than 20C, so sunbathing is out! Good driving weather though.
Queenstown is here because someone discovered gold in 1862, but there was not much and by 1900 the population had dwindled from thousands to just 190, two dogs and a parrot called Hamish. After the Second World War it developed as a holiday destination and of course has been boosted as being right in the middle of ‘Lord of the Rings’ territory. It reminds me of a big Aviemore. I noticed that one of the firms that does bungy-jumping offers it free to the over-65s! I’ll be back then! If you are really mad you can spend $425 on a multi-ticket which will allow you to do the 43m jump from the Kawarau Bridge where your head goes in the water(!), the 47m high Ledge Bungy after dark (!), and finally the 134m Nevis High-wire in which you jump from a pod suspended over the Nevis River! As I said, if you are mad!

Tuesday 1st December Dunedin

It is pouring with rain as I limp back into Queenstown after a 645km round trip which has taken me just under 12 hours to do. This place is more Scotland than Scotland is! Rain, rain, rain. I have become something I said I would never become and that is a ‘twitcher’. I have driven across New Zealand to the East coast and back again to see a bird. Not just any bird, mind. The Royal Albatross, a colony of which nests on the NZ mainland at Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula. It is not a large colony, about 150 birds, but it is the only nesting colony of Albatross on any mainland in the whole world! The next nearest nesting colony is on the Chatham Islands which is over 1000kms out in the Pacific Ocean. So this place is a bit special and was well worth the effort. The colony established itself on the peninsula in the 1920s ( they think from Chatham Island juvenile birds that had wandered off course) but did not actually breed until the 1930s – people got too close to them. The birds only actually breed after they are about seven years old and then only every two years. They spend a massive 80% of their lives at sea, and really do circumnavigate the world many times. With a wing span of three metres it soars effortlessly over the waves in search of food an travels huge distances. When a pair mate they stay together for life in most cases, and miraculously find their way back to the same spot each time they need to breed. The rest of the time they spend on their own. They are magnificent birds and I was lucky enough to see them on the nest and flying over the peninsula. I had already seen them when I went whale watching, and their flying skills over the sea were awesome. They really are huge birds and I had my photo taken next to a life-size replica to demonstrate this. Whilst the group I was with were viewing the colony from the special observatory so they are not disturbed we also saw a resident colony of Chatham Island Shags ( like cormorants) and a relaxing fur seal doing synchronised swimming amongst the rocks below. As usual there was a down side in that all 21 Albatross species in the world are under threat in one way or another. 11 of those species are in NZ territorial waters. One huge threat is from commercial line –fishing for tuna etc Birds come after the bait and get snagged on the line hooks and drown in their thousands. Conservationists are working with the fishermen to find a less damaging way of collecting the fish and there is a willingness on their part to co-operate.
My calves still ache from the Fox Glacier walk/climb, and so a twelve hour drive is not the best thing for them! My original plan was to go to the colony, which is near Dunedin, then go along the coast top Invercargill which is about the southernmost mainland point in NZ and then swing back North to Queenstown. As it happens if I had done that I would still be out there somewhere even now. It was a mad plan and would only have succeeded if the albatross colony had been at the junction of the Dunedin/Invercargill Road. As it happens it was an hour’s drive beyond Dunedin so once I realised that I restructured my plan! I can’t avoid Cromwell as the route goes through here to the Cairnmuir Mountains through Clyde and Roxburgh (very Scottish) to Milton (very English). Before I reach Cromwell however I pass the bridge where the really mad bungy jumpers go headfirst into the river – it is too early for the action and when I return it is pouring so again no action – and a little further on the place of my dreams ….a combine winery and cheesery! Noted for a visit! Milton is curious place. There is a Shakespeare Street, a Gray Street ( ‘Elegy in an English Churchyard’) and Cowper Street ( ‘ something about cows in the bower’). I really do see a schoolboy sloping across the road with his satchel looped over his shoulder, and try to remember the ‘Seven Ages of Man’. I did have this beaten into me at school – we learned a lot of stuff that way – but my memory lets me down. I get as far as …

‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
and each man in his time plays many parts.
First there is the infant, mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms,
…..the schoolboy…..reluctantly goes to school…..
( and then the end bit – old age…)
Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.’

I am really cheesed off with myself for not being able to remember more. Homework, boy!

Dunedin is massive, over 100,000 people and has a bit of a motorway into the town centre, which is actually quite nice. This is a pity as I am only here to find out about the colony and get some lunch. It houses NZ’s oldest university which is no surprise given that the first settlers were hard working Scots including the nephew of Robert Burns! A statue of ‘Rab’ takes pride of place in the city and Dunedin residents get their bagpipes out at the drop of a haggis. Links with Scotland include a plethora of drinking establishments. Well worth a revisit! The Albatross observatory is an hour’s drive down the Ortago Peninsula along a very slow winding road that almost tips you into the bay. So doing the maths I spend 3 hours getting to Dunedin, about an hour in the town itself, then an hour to the colony, and hour at the actual colony, then do it all in reverse but missing out the hour in Dunedin again. Soon adds up! You either need a better plan or a light aircraft to get around more easily. As a matter of fact I am off to Milford Sound tomorrow. It will be a 5 hour drive followed by about 3 hours at Milford including a boat trip down the ‘Sound’ , and then 5 hours back. If I was made of money I could go there by coach and fly back in a light aircraft, or if I was really made of money I could fly both ways! There is no other way to get there. The coach trips that are advertised form Queenstown promise to have you back in 12-13 hours!
Finally for today there is actually a Willy Wonka (Cadbury’s) chocolate factory in Dunedin. Our guide at the Albatross colony used to work there as rather oversized ‘oompa loompa’ handing out free chocolate and a life-time’s dentistry and obesity problems to visiting children. He had got fed up of dressing up and eating too much of the ‘goodies’ himself, so he ‘retrained’ as a colony guide. His grasp of the facts etc was impressive seeing as he had only started the job this season, and only once did he offer to dip an albatross chick in chocolate and give to the two little German children who studiously ignored the real albatrosses to play with some furry replicas and all the time shouted ’ Shokalade’ to their bird-watching parents.

Wednesday 2nd December Milford Sound

Another long day and a long drive but oh so worth it! Started from Queenstown at just after 7am and returned at 7.45pm having travelled approximately 600kms. Milford Sound is the only of New Zealand’s stunning fiords that can be accessed by road. At 16km long and 400m deep it is in itself worth seeing for the magnificent scenery that surrounds it including the 1695m high Mitre Peak – so called because it is shaped like a bishop’s mitre. Most visitors come to Milford by coach and an attendant told me that in full season there can be as many as 45 coaches a day, plus all those who like me come by car and camper van. So in high season it is a loaded place. The actual spot where the cruise boats leave for trips down the fiords is quite small and there are no facilities (shops, petrol etc) apart from the café and the trips centre. One road in and one road out. The ‘sound’ is in fact a fiord which has been created by the actions of glaciers over thousands of years. It leads out to the Tasman Sea, and is primarily salt water but there is a permanent top layer of fresh water from the massive 7metres (not inches!) of annual rainfall. Today turned out to be a rare dry day but you would not have thought that on the way over as it rained almost constantly. When we think of fiords we think of Norway, and the lower part of the West coast of NZ is exactly like the west coast of Norway in that it is fiord after fiord after fiord, backed by very dramatic mountains from which the glaciers originated. An anomaly of the ‘sound’ is that the fresh water layer creates conditions where creatures that would not normally live at shallow depth do in Milford Sound.

All the leaflets warn about the convoys of coaches that head down the road to Milford on a daily basis , all aiming to get their cargo on one of the mid-day sailings on the sound so that they can hawk them back (usually to Queenstown) by early evening. I don’t have much choice about timing unless I wanted to leave in the early hours of the morning, but I have booked on a smaller, longer ‘nature’ cruise so hopefully this will avoid the coach ‘rush’. It is not long before I run into a mini convoy alongside Lake Wakitapu which runs from Queenstown. I know it will take me up to five hours pt get there but in this time is time for stops, photos and petrol on the way. I do not hurry to get past the coaches but there are lots of opportunities once we leave the lake behind. The half way point is Te Anau where I get petrol, have breakfast and get some insect repellent – sand flies are the big problem if the weather is dry, and they will make a beeline for me! After Te Anau the 119km highway to Milford really gets spectacular and becomes alpine in lots of ways. There are so many things to photograph that it becomes hard to know where to stop. At breakfast I read a guide leaflet which warns drivers to stop to take photos not swerve all over the road in the attempt, and so am on the lookout for ‘Mirror Lakes’, ‘Pop’s View’ and the ‘Homer Tunnel’. I get as far as ‘Mirror Lakes’ when I run into the first ‘conga-line’ of tour busses. I should have heeded the warning but I pulled up in a space at the roadside between three busses. ‘Mirror Lakes’ is a place of calm and literal reflection so you can imagine my when it is awash with my favourite tourists – yes, the Japanese. I have been thinking about this as I don’t want to come across as racist. Just what is it that annoys me? I suppose the fact that I cannot understand the language doesn’t help. But it is also the sheer noise and energy. They pour off the coaches, not pausing for breath as they swarm along the walkways photographing absolutely everything – and I mean everything : flowers, trees, signs, me (!), water, sky……there just does not seem to be any order to it. If it is there it is photographed amidst lots of chattering and pointing. They also pay no attention to anyone else and can push past quite rudely to get where they want to be. I suppose it spoils the peaceful moment for me. That must be it. One particular group was being followed about be a man carrying a professional-looking video camera and he was one moment leaping into the grass to film a flower and then filming the group taking photos and chattering. I will have to bury this ghost somehow. Perhaps I will have to go to Japan!

There are lots more stopping places along the way, and anticipating that the coaches will stop at them too I find one marked ‘no busses’ and swing into it. I am the only one there for a few minutes then a couple in a camper van join me. As I get back into my car I jump as a large Kia lands on my bonnet with a thump! It then pops down to the open door, clearly looking for food. I think I have nothing but find a choc-nut bar and give it the nutty bits. It eats happily from my hand. Other cars arrive and they start taking photos of me feeding the bird. It is a big bird! Even when I try to leave it sits on my wing mirror as I manoeuvre around the car park. I keep bumping into the couple in the van as we seem to stop for the same views and photos. At one point we both get ‘trapped’ in one stop-off by three tourist coaches, and as I try to manoeuvre out I have to nudge photographing tourists out of the way – as I do so I catch the eye of one of the coach drivers who just raises her eyebrows in sympathy. At the next stop-off the van couple speak to me and say they are trying to get ahead of the ‘Japanese busses’ so it is not just me! I decide to go to the ‘Mirror Lakes’ on the way back when it will be quieter!

The Homer Tunnel is something else. It controls access to the last twenty kms to Milford and has been cut through the mountain for 1207metres. This is no Mont Blanc. This is a ‘carved out of the granite by Scottish hands’ tunnel. Rough and ready is an understatement. It is allegedly the highest tunnel controlled by traffic lights, is one way (thank goodness!) and inside is dark, rough looking and dripping with water. You don’t want to hang about in it. It is shaped on the outside a bit like an empty can of ‘Duff ‘ beer. Notices tell you that the lights change every 15 minutes, and that you are to use your lights. Even with my lights fully on I can hardly see and I am half way through the tunnel in a panic before I realise I have still got my sun glasses on! Doh! The tunnel slopes down as if it didn’t we would come out half way up the mountain! On the other side we are greeted by a posse of Kias who have heard that the Japanese coaches are following. The road then winds down to Milford and my rendezvous with the boat.

The ‘sound’ is made even more spectacular by its isolation. This is what you come here for. I am going to spend the next three hours taking in the ‘sound’ and its surroundings. I watch the planes and helicopters land and take off against the background of spectacular cliff faces and towering waterfalls. On our ‘nature’ cruise we will crawl along the sides of the fiord to where it meets the sea and back again. When I get to the loading area the coaches have already arrived and the loading area is heaving. Luckily most are getting on another larger ship for the one hour ‘rush’ cruise. My boat meanders along and we get close to all the best bits, see seals and penguins, get soaked under a 150m high waterfall, and then I get dropped off at the underwater observatory part ay down the ‘sound’ where I spend half an hour ‘beneath’ the ‘sound’ watching the wildlife before being picked up by another boat for the return journey. The observatory has had seals and sharks – including a Great White come floating by as it has been showing guests around – but not today!

I hope that my plan to leave after the bulk of the coaches will work and when I reach the car park there are just a handful left, including one I followed out of Queenstown this morning. I set off for ‘home’ at about 4.30pm, and amazingly when I reach Homer Tunnel the lights are on green and I shoot straight through, remembering to switch my glasses this time! My guess about ‘Mirror Lakes’ is good too and I have a ten minute repose there. The sun is only partially visible through the clouds but some reflections are good. My return journey takes me back down the shores of Lake Te Anau which is 67 kms long and the second largest lake in NZ. At 417m it is as deep as Milford Sound.

It has been remiss of me but I have not really given any time or space to two other serious features of the South Island – cyclists and camper vans. Camper vans first. You would be forgiven for thinking that almost all the populations of NZ has upped sticks and taken to the ‘vans’ as the roads, beauty spots and car parks are heaving with them. They range from the incredibly luxurious – master bedrooms, showers, servants etc: I call these the ‘Tess’ range – to the very basic ie a VW with a couple of sleeping bags and a surf board attached on top: I call this the ‘Tom n Ali’ range. They can be a bit of a bug on the roads but mostly they will get out of the way to let you past. They are a good, cheap way of getting around so I am not knocking them. A very NZ feature. Now the cyclists. I have nothing but admiration for these people for they are clearly mad! NZ is just distance, distance, distance! Driving it is bad enough but it really takes courage or a loss of marbles or both to RIDE hundreds of kms with all your worldly needs attached to the handlebars and in saddle bag. Us softy drivers salute them as we go past or else knock them into a ditch with our slipstream! I never look back when I pass a cyclist just in case. If it is not a puncture then it is the saddle bags slipping for I see more of them at the side of the road than actually on it. On the way out of Milford Sound this evening I saw a couple – not young by any means – heading for Homer Tunnel. They still had about fifty kms to go to Milford. Have they made it yet I wonder? And then they have to so it all in reverse! Avant mes braves!

Finally, the Wong family from Singapore. They were with us on the Fox Glacier walk. When we started we all introduced ourselves so the guide could try to remember our names. Dad was called Wong Wong, and mum and the kids all had ordinary Christian names eg Jane. Mr Wong clearly found his double name funny, as he kept repeating it and laughing and Alice found it easy to remember. Poor Mrs Wong struggled with the 700 steps and her knees gave way on the way back. Mr Wong kept apologising to me for her slowness. In contrast his son tried to go too fast and ended up colliding with a tree trunk. He acted as if he had not and hoped no-one had seen! Mr Wong had a super-duper digital SLR camera and he asked me to take some photos of the family on the top of the glacier. He was very patient when I could not work it at first. At the end he thanked me for my company on the walk. I mention this delightful family as a contrast to some of the behaviours I was complaining about earlier.

Thursday 3rd December Queenstown

My calves are just about recovering from the climbing of the Fox Glacier when I decide it is time to aggravate another part of my body – or two to be precise: my shoulders and upper arms – or is that four? Who cares! They still hurts. I decide to go White Water Rafting with the Queenstown Rafting Company through the Shotover Gorge and along the namesake river ( described in a very low key way as ‘choppy’ in my guidebook!). This is no punt along the Cam on Sunday afternoon. Although the company’s safety record is exemplary this qualifies as a high risk activity so I have to sign away any rights I might have to sue the company if I end up dead or worse! Legally of course it is not worth the paper it is written on if there is negligence involved but this is little comfort as we approach our first set of Grade 4 rapids ( Niagara Falls rapids just before the big drop are grade 5!). ‘Hold on!’ screams our team leader above the roar of the water. Of course I am at the front of the raft with Dutchman Jens, and we put into effect our ten minute training and throw ourselves towards the centre of the raft and at the same time hold on to the line in front of us, and also our paddle. The raft dives into each hole in the rapids and spray is thrown up into our faces and into the raft. We are immediately soaked, but this is ok as getting wet is what it is all about as our team leader keeps telling us. The raft dips up again for a moment and Tom, the team leader yells ‘Forward’. This is the command for everyone in the raft to paddle furiously despite the fact that we are not yet out of the rapids. We dig deep into the water as the rapids continue to throw gallons of water at us and into the raft. The raft bucks and dives again, and I have no time to think about anything except keeping on digging in my paddle until Tom gives the command ‘Stop!’ and we are through the first rapids into calmer water. This is relatively speaking if course as the Shotover River flows pretty rapidly all the time so we are constantly on the move except when Tom takes us deliberately into the bank which he does now, as we are to wait for a couple of other rafts to come safely through the rapids.

It all began rather calmly in Queenstown with a pick-up at 8.15 and a ten minute drive to the area where we were to get changed and briefed and where we would return at the end of the trip. We were fully equipped with wetsuits – either commando beneath or swimwear, but watch out for holes they said – waterproof boots and jackets, protective helmets, and finally lifejackets. There then followed a rather hairy 40 minute drive to the starting point high up in the Shotover Valley which involved us having to travel in a rickety bus along the old miner’s road through Skipper’s Canyon which believe me went alongside some very sheer drops and was one vehicle only wide. One of our team leaders entertained us with local info, safety data and Kiwi jokes, which were all bad and of the standard of….

‘ Q. How does a Kiwi find sheep in long grass? A. Very exciting. ‘

When we reached a particularly dangerous part of the road, he said this was called ‘bad joke corner’ and asked if anyone had a bad joke to tell. I offered one I had seen in a booklet entitled ‘Favourite Kiwi Jokes about Aussies’.

Paddy emigrates to Australia and ends up in the middle of the Australian Desert where he proceeds to build a pier. A traveller passing by says ‘ What are you doing this for? There’s no water! Only an Irishman would be daft enough to build a pier here. ‘ ‘Ah, well, now d’ye see’ says Paddy,’ that might well be the case, but only an Australian would pay me for the privilege of fishing off the end of it.’

The Kiwis on the bus liked it; the Aussies didn’t! Still, these moments got our minds off the danger of the road we were on! At the launch point the rafts were already at the edge of the water, and we were issued with our paddles, had our life jackets tied by a crew member (a legal requirement), and then sent to be briefed by ‘The Chief’. He was leading the trip, and was an entertaining character of Maori descent with rather wild hair and an infectious grin. He took us through the ‘what to do if the raft goes over’ bit, then allocated us in teams. There were going to be ten rafts on this trip, each one holding seven ‘trippers’ and the raft leader, except the one I was in which only had five ‘trippers’. This meant harder work in managing the raft! Tom, our raft leader was probably in his late forties, and had been doing this sort of thing for twenty years, ten of them in NZ and the other in the USA where he was from, including Alaska. Seemed like he knew what he was doing.
‘Forward, forward. That’s it now, good.’ The only way to keep the raft in position is to face it upstream against the current and paddle forward gently. This is what we are doing waiting for the other rafts to come through. The Chief is the trip leader but Tom has the responsibility of ensuring everyone gets through the rapids so we have to be the last raft as much as possible. Occasionally the current takes us past another raft, thus we have to wait. ‘OK now, back.’ Tom’s command has us paddling backwards and the raft suddenly swings into the current and does a 360 degree turn so we are still facing upstream but now going downstream. Tom has prepared us for this during slow moments and issues the command ‘Forward left!’ that means for me and the two behind me to paddle forwards, whilst Jens and the one behind him paddle backwards. This turns the raft to face forward and when Tom is happy with this he says ‘Stop! Forward! ‘ And we are off again. ‘Stop!’ We just let the raft float along on the current. ‘OK. Well done team’, says Tom,’ Now we will get to some more rapids in about ten minutes. So relax. ‘. In quiet moments he entertains us with stories and information about the gorge which was a big gold mining area. A couple of the team are interested in how often the rafts overturn. ‘Oh they can easily overturn,’ Tom says casually,’ But it doesn’t happen often. Just remember your drill and that we are here to keep you safe. If you do go in the water the rescue kayak will get to you quicker than anyone, but if you are near another raft just grab on tight!’ He points out a rock in midstream. It is shaped like a shark’s fin. ‘That’ll turn this raft over soon as look at it!’ We glide by eying it suspiciously. ‘OK. Rapids coming up in 300 metres and then there are another bunch about 300 metres later.’ We get in position as shown, feet firmly placed against the side of the raft, but sitting on the outer edge as this balances the raft properly. As we approach the rapids Tom shouts ‘Back left!’ as we are getting close to some overhanging rocks. I give it all I have got knowing that Jens will be pulling in the opposite direction. It works and we slide by the overhang with space to spare. Of course we know that Tom and his colleagues know this river backwards but as he says it is its own master and the water continues moving whether you do or not. We also know that he is trying to put the raft in the best position each time we come to the rapids, but he is still partly dependent on our responses to his commands.

‘Forward! Forward! Hold on!’ We crash into the first of a double set of rapids, the raft bucking and rocking like a see-saw. Water pours over the front of the raft and the weight of it knocks me backwards a bit. I have a firm grip of the rope so it does not take me very far. As we emerge from the rapids, Tom shouts again, ’Forward! Forward! Stop!’ We just about have time to take our breath when he again says ‘Forward!’ and we approach the second set of rapids. Down the raft heads into the spray and we hear Tom above the noise shouting, ‘Forward! Forward! Hold on!’ and with another bounce or two we are through! We keep looking at each other feeling pleased that the team is working well and enjoying the thrill of the ride. We have at least ten minutes before we hit the final stage of the journey which includes another two sets of rapids and the tunnel. The tunnel? ’Oh, didn’t they mention the tunnel?’ Tom says casually. No they didn’t. ‘Well, the tunnel was built through solid rock by the miners in an effort to partially divert the river to speed it up so that more gold would be washed downstream. It is very tight and dark so I will need help from one of the two of you at the front. Paul? Jens? Who will it be?’ Jens volunteers! ‘Ok Jens, you will have to sit on the prow of the raft and listen for my commands. I will steer it through. Keep your head low as the rock can give you a nasty bump!’ So glad Jens volunteered! ‘ The rest of you just keep your paddles in the raft and keep your heads low. Oh, and by the way the tunnel pitches us straight out into the final set of rapids so as we come to the end of it I will give you all commands. OK?’ Ok we whimper in reply.

The last but one set of rapids were a breeze compared to what we had done and what we were expecting at the end of the tunnel. We pulled in to the side to await one raft and then Tom said ‘We need to be on the other side of the river. So, forward! Forward! Hard! Hard!’ We pulled against the current which was trying with all its might to take us back to the place we had just left. In fact we were concentrating so hard on moving across the river that the tunnel entrance was upon us before we could even remember that we had to go through it! And then we were in it. Jens leapt up to the prow and I leaned in behind him, as did everyone else except Tom who I assume remained upright in the stern of the raft. There was precious little headroom and given my predeliction for head banging on any low object I was glad I had not volunteered for the prow job! Tom was shouting instructions to Jens but all I could think about was where does this end and what will the rapids be like. I found out soon enough as the light at the end came in sight and Tom shouted to us all, ‘Forward! Forward! Hold on!’ The tunnel emptied us into the rapids like someone filling a bath with a bucket of water. Down we went, front end first, under the raging waters and bounced up and out again, rolled and rocked for a few moments and then all was calm, the raft righted itself and we floated to the gathering point just downstream from the rapids. We were drenched but we were also exhilarated. Shouts of ‘Wow! Fantastic!’ broke the silence. The team after us bucked and braved their way through and then all clattered their paddles together in celebration. Once every team was safely through we ‘mosied’ on down to the collection point and got the rafts out of the water. If they had asked us there and then if we wanted to go back and do it all again there would not have been one dissenter! Great! We could hardly believe that we had negotiated the river, five sets of rapids and the tunnel in one and a half hours. Bring it on again!

I mentioned Jens quite a lot as he was next to me but Jonny the Korean lad was behind me and having a bit of trouble with his co-ordination at first as his paddle kept colliding with mine – yes it was his fault! There was a Kiwi girl, Janine, and Karen from England who occupied the back marker positions just in front of Tom, who as well as giving us every confidence in his professionalism, told some very entertaining yarns. I particularly liked the one about the flying sheep. The sides of the gorge are very high and sheer. Goats cope with this - we did see some – but sheep don’t. As Tom was guiding a party of Brazilians down the gorge a sheep came tumbling over the edge, bouncing off everything as it fell and landed with a thump and a splash right next to their raft. It was certainly dead, and proceeded to float downstream, legs stiffly up in the air. The Brazilians in the raft, men and women, burst into hysterics over this and nothing Tom could do or say would calm them down for quite some time, especially when they had to pass the sheep’s corpse again which had now got itself entangled in some overhanging trees and was hanging there like some crucified figure! It remained there bloated and bloody for a couple of months, a reminder of the agility of goats and the stupidity of sheep!

The afternoon was a bit more sedate. I had spotted heaven on the way back from my visit to Dunedin – a winery and a cheesery combined! But first I had to get past the bungy jump! They say that bungy jumping originated in New Zealand, but what they actually mean is the commercial version of it. Young men have been proving their courage by leaping out of trees and into gorges with only vines tied to their ankles in places like Samoa for probably hundreds of years. In the 1980s two young NZ lads, one of whom was called AJ Hackett, got permission to create the world’s first commercial bungy jump from the hundred year old Kawarau footbridge over the river of the same name. it is a 43metre leap over the river and you can if you wish have the ‘rope’ extended to dip your head in the water! When I was there I saw a couple jump together. Was I tempted? For a millisecond – but it passed. I will come back for the ‘freebie’ when I am 65! I forgot to mention that there is a canyon swing over the Shotover canyon and we went underneath when mad people were being launched into space for a 6om freefall and at speeds of 150kph! Lunatics, yes but it has made AJ Hackett and his partner very, very rich!

Into the cheesery then, and within a very short time I am a babbling wreck. There is just too much choice and once I have sampled I just have to buy. Hard cheeses are given export licences so I can have an ‘Edam’ type, a hard goats cheese, and a ‘blue veined’ cheese. I also but a Brie – but this will not get back to England! Then it is over to the winery for a tour of the ‘caves’. I am actually the only one taking the tour at this particular time so I get solo treatment. My guide is actually the owner so this is another bonus. The winery is most famous for its Pinot wines, so she takes me up to the vines area and shows me the stage they are at. Remember that the seasons are upside down so at this time the vines are not yet in flower but have lots of buds on them. Everything has to be done by hand so it is a hugely labour intensive operation and seasonal workers will be required at harvest time which will be next April. The 2009 crop has already been harvested and is either in barrels (Pinot Noir) or steel containers (Pinot Gris and the Chardonnays). She takes me to the cave where the 2009 Pinot Noir is maturing in seasoned oak barrels, each imported from France and costing in the region of $3000 each! The cave has been hewn out of the rock behind the winery and naturally retains a constant temperature of either 14 or 17 degrees – I cannot remember which – which allows the wine to mature correctly. There are 400+ barrels in the cave all containing only Pinot Noir. Each barrels will fill 300 bottles, and each bottle will retail at about $40. That’s over $5million doillars! And that’s just the Pinot Noir! As part of the tour I get to drink some Riesling ( dull!), some Pinot Gris (interesting!) and some 1988 vintage Pinot Noir ( loverly jubberly!). I come over all Gilly Goolden and think of rubber mats and pink daisies with hints of garage mechanic’s mate with a residual taste rugby sock! This has nothing to do with the wine apart from the bit about it making me a bit squiffy! I think also my cheeses are beginning to hum so I thank the owner, make my own contribution to her wealth by a purchase of some of the 1988 vintage (from a lad who’s mum and dad live in Bingham!) and head for the car park, where I spit copiously as I had forgotten to do this into the spittoon on the cave!

After a well-deserved bit of ceiling watching, I head down town in the evening, my last in Queenstown. I have in mind ‘Ferg Burger’, highly recommended by many on the rafting trio, but first a trip on the ‘Skyline Gondola’ to the hilltop viewing area, and a walk to the beach to catch some sunset photos. The ‘Gondola’ is like an elaborate ski-lift. Think Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton in ‘Where Eagles Dare’. You pay $21 for the privilege of being suspended in mid air on a thin wire as you travel to the top of the highest hill in Queenstown. Once you are up there though the views are magnificent and I take copious amounts of photos. If you go a bit further up on a chair suspended on a wire you can pay a further $10 to come part way down on a metal tray – they call it a ‘luge’, and in some countries it is an Olympic sport as well as a form of punishment. I have a go but as it is my first time I am put on the ‘scenic’ track which is luge-speak for ‘kiddie track’. I am humiliated by a number of five to six year olds who speed past me as I constantly brake to reduce my speed. On the way up in the ‘Gondola’ I chatted to a young man who was going to the restaurant at the top to work. He was a university student doing a holiday job as part of aMaori Cultural group who would sing and dance for the restaurant patrons. He told me this included getting dressed in traditional costumes and doing the ‘haka’. I have explained the ‘haka’ before ( see Rotorua), but not its origins. A Maori king has to flee his enemies and hides in a well. The well opens and he thinks all is over and he is to be killed but it is a friendly tribal leader that has found him. He climbs out and in his joy he sings and dances the first ‘haka’.
The translated words are a bit odd, but……

Kai mate! Kai mate! Kai ora! Kai ora! (It is death! It is death! It is life! It is life!)
Kai mate! Kai mate! Kai ora! Kai ora! (It is death! It is death! It is life! It is life!)
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru (This is the hairy man)
Nana nei I tiki mai whakawhiti t era ( Who causes the sun to shine again for me)
A upa…ne! Ka upa….ne! (Up the ladder! Up the ladder!)
A upane kaupane whiti te ra! ( Up to the top where the sun shines!)
Hi!!!

Once down I head for the town and try to get past a heaving small brewery pub but get caught in the current and soon find myself inside ordering a pint of Speight’s beer. It is cross between lager and bitter but is nice. Most people are outside the pub and under 25! Nearly everyone is smoking. The outdoor life, hey! Beer down, I go to the beach. Lots of other people have the same idea, but this does not spoil the sunset for any of us. Then it is on to ‘Ferg’s’. Our driver on the raft trip had told us that not too many years ago this place was a dive that no-one wanted to go to, then the new owners hit upon the simple idea of one food type – burgers – but making them really special and with lots of varieties and each coasting not much more than ten dollars! So the back-pack travellers flocked there. Tonight it is not quite so heaving but it is still early - it gets really busy once the pubs have shut! They do allow over 25s in so I order and plonk myself in the window next to a couple of similar vintage. They seem relieved to see me and start chatting. Peter and Pam hail from Woolagong which is between Sydney and Melbourne. They are here for three weeks and have stayed extra nights in Queenstown because they like it. When our burgers arrive they approve and Peter says it is good though not quite as good a Paul’s Burgers of Woolagong! They seem to spend half their life on holiday – Bali, Phuket, Vietnam – and have just recently done a 12000km tour of OZ in two weeks. ‘That’s a long way, ‘ I say in my lilly-livered Pom voice. ‘Not to an Aussie it isn’t’ crows Peter proudly while Pam nods her approval. Nice people but mad.

Friday 4th December Queenstown to Mount Cook

‘Is that Mount Cook?’ Gavin turns the glider slightly so that we are facing more towards the mountain range on the horizon. ‘Yes, that’s it at the end of lake.’ This is my first actual view of Mount Cook, and it from a height of over 2000ft, from the front seat of glider piloted by Gavin. It looks a long way away – in fact it is about an hour’s drive – but none the less magnificent. How could I have possibly mistaken anything else for this? Gavin wheels the glider to the left and I lose sight of Mount Cook, but I know – or at least hope – I will be going there after this flight. The bleeper now begins to sound rapidly, but I know that this means we are in a thermal and we are ascending rapidly, the bleeper getting more rapid and loud the faster we ascend. At first I had been alarmed by this , but Gavin quickly reassured me about its function. I cannot actually see Gavin as he is sitting directly behind me but I can hear him clearly.

So how have I ended up in a glider, whirling and sweeping above the hills and floodplains of the Omarama Valley. I did have sky diving on my list when I left England but I had to cancel in Port Douglas because of the Barrier Reef sunburn! Since then I had other things as priorities in each area I visited so I thought I had better get it sorted at Queenstown. I had read somewhere or at least I thought I had read that you could get a tandem flight in a micro-light aircraft and so it was with this in mind that I went to the tourist centre in Queenstown. Nope, they had never heard of such a thing but offered me tandem hang-gliding, and tandem para-gliding, and that was when I spotted the glider flights. So that was it. I checked out of my hotel, and headed for Omarama, but first stopped at Arrowtown. I really don’t know what I was expecting but it was not what I got. It is an old gold mining town and still looks like one. It has two signs on entry – Chinese Settlement one way and Main Street the other. The Chinese were the main mining nation so this is a remnant of that. The Main Street could have been a Hollywood film set. Hotel and shop frontages were well preserved museum pieces – but with 21st century technology behind. I had come principally to breakfast at the Arrowtown Bakery which came highly recommended. I ordered a breakfast bowl of muelsi and fresh fruit with yoghurt, followed by poached eggs on toast. Bong! Big mistake. The breakfast bowl was in fact a bucket size! I looked at it and wondered how on earth I was going to eat it! I was about to cancel my second dish when it arrived. Whoops! I counselled myself by saying that this would be the meal of the day. Nothing else except fruit and perhaps a bit of my brie. Then with a shout of ‘Geronimo!’ I tucked in. admittedly I took a little of the help offered by the crowd of birds that swept to my table once they saw the gargantuan feast on it, but mostly I managed it myself. I only hoped it wouldn’t put me over the weight limit for the glider.

Gavin was great. He met me in the car park, and I helped him get the glider out of the hanger and set it up. The Southern Soaring Company is based at a private airfield so I have to ‘join’ the gliding club for the afternoon to fly. As with the rafting it is classed as a high risk activity so I have to sign a ‘waver’ and declare next of kin! The other thing I have to do is wear a parachute! Gavin fits this on me and shows me how to release the rip cord – ‘But let’s hope we don’t have to do that’ he adds reassuringly. I am to sit in the front seat of the glider. There is only the canopy between you and the outside air so it is a very different flying experience. It is a tight fit. I am shown how to release the canopy in the case of an emergency so I can get out and use my parachute. It has taken me ten minutes to get in! Once set, the glider is attached to a ‘tug’ a single engined plane that will tow the glider up into the air. While we have been getting ready I have watched the white ‘tug’ launch a number of gliders , but then there is a problem. As the ‘tug’ lands one of its wheels goes awry. It is ok but this means it cannot launch any more gliders until it is fixed. Gavin says ‘Oh bugger!’ and goes off to see what can be done, returning a few minutes later with a grin on his face. ‘They’re going to use the CAT’ he says. The CAT is a bright red bi-plane that looks not unlike that flown by Baron Von Richthoven the WW1 flying ace. It has been purchased by the company a week ago and is only available today as the pilot is trialling runs for the tourist season. They are expecting a good response from the public once they advertise the flights in it. We are quickly attached to the CAT, and Justas the line tightens I see the pilot give us the ‘thumbs up’ and I am sure he mouths ‘Good luck, Tommy!’
And then we are off. The bi-plane wobble its way into the air and we follow as it banks to the right and climbs towards the nearby hills where Gavin had pointed out to me the clouds indicated there would be thermals. Very quickly we had reached the required height and Gavin released the cord, and the CAT banked away from us and returned to base. We were on our own. It is weird being in a plane without an engine. The only sounds are the bleeper ( already explained) and the rush of the wind. To gain height the glider has to turn very steeply within the thermal, and this is what Gavin does. I feel totally at ease. The main risk with gliders is them crashing into each other or another aircraft. They do not just drop out of the sky. There are a number of other gliders seeking the same thermals, so Gavin asks me to report any other aircraft I see as his view is a bit stifled by me being on the front. I spot a couple of other gliders as they sweep past us at safe distances. We also note the CAT launching another glider form the airfield. The views are fabulous. There is no distracting noise. The sun is shining, the sky is blue etc! We climb and sweep and fall and climb again! All too soon the half hour flight is over. Gavin expertly guides the glider in for an amazingly smooth landing. The ground comes rushing up, but the grass landing strip is hard and so we come quickly to a halt and the glider tips slightly to one side to rest on its wing. The only problem I have is what I usually have when descending – my ears go funny. It quickly clears though and I thank Gavin for making my first glider flight so enjoyable. I have been taken by the CAT and so enquire about a flight. The price quoted for me alone is prohibitive, but it does take two so they are about to take my number so they can let me know if anyone else wants to fly when Gavin says that someone who is here from the UK on a gliding course would like to have a go and within minutes it is set up. 10.30am tomorrow!

‘That IS Mount Cook!’ I am standing open-mouthed at a viewpoint called Peter’s Lookout part way down Lake Pukaki which feeds directly from the Tasman Glacier just below Mount Cook. It is a classic photo spot and there are many others enjoying the view. I decide to climb down the twisting trail to the lake shore to get a better angle - less trees in the way – and it is worth the trouble. The weather is glorious, the lake is ice-blue and clear, and Mount Cook looks as magnificent as I have been led to believe it is. I take so many photos that I can hear myself saying ‘And this is another view of Mount Cook. And this is Mount Cook from another angle.’ I am staying one night at the Hermitage Hotel, which has been servicing visitors to Mount Cook and the surrounding mountains for over a hundred years. It is a newer version of the original hotel – that burned down at some point – and is right at the heads of the valley below Mounts Cook and Sefton. Everything that is here is to service the visitors to Mount Cook, whether that be the coaches that drive the length of the valley for a brief photo stop at Mount Cook, or the day trippers in their vans, or like me an overnight visit, or the climbers and high hill walkers who will spend days or even weeks in the area. Winter of course it is skiing and ice climbing. There is also a museum to New Zealand’s most famous son, Sir Edmund Hillary, or ‘Id’ as he is known to Kiwis, who climbed the never before conquered South Face of Mount Cook in 1948 and then 4 years later went on to be one of the first two men on the top of Mount Everest. History books tell us that ‘Id’ was first to the top, but Sherpa Tenzing always claimed it was him. ‘Id’ was suitably vague in his biography and would not be drawn on the question for the rest of his life. At the time, 1952, it would have not been politically acceptable for a British sponsored expedition – led by Sir John Hunt – to agree that a ‘non-white’ person reached the top first. ‘Id’ was ok as he was ‘technically’ British! Amazing isn’t it! The museum is fascinating, and has climbing artefacts that belonged to Hillary and other famous climbers. A film about ‘Id’s’ life was showing and I watched part of it. Very sadly as his professional life was ‘top of the world’, his personal life fell apart as his wife and sixteen year old daughter were killed in a plane crash as they were coming to join him in Nepal. He never really recovered from this although he continued to climb to a ripe age and was walking and climbing Mount Cook well beyond pensionable age! Part of the entry to the museum was the showing of a fifteen minute 3-D movie about Mount Cook. Fabulous footage, including some animated footage of the Maori legend as to how Mount Cook or Aoraki ( Cloud Piercer) as they call it came to be. When I went in the audience from the previous showing had all stayed to see it again! Unfortunately for me it was the last show of the day.
Everywhere you looked from the hotel or walking to my chalet, Mount Cook dominated. ‘Id’ had described it in his film as the most magnificent mountain apart from Everest. It certainly looks dominating and powerful. I decided to take one of the valley tracks to get closer. The Kea trail goes for an hour to a lookout below Mount Cook and the Mount Sefton snowfield. I thought that a two hour round trip would be just enough for me. It was not difficult, but was tiring in the end. The views were magnificent and I stayed for a good twenty minutes just taking it in. While I was there I could hear what sounded like gun shots but presumed that there must be avalanches somewhere in the valley - I looked through my binoculars but could not see any. There were more ‘shots’ while I was walking back. I thought about people who climb these peaks and what drives them to it. This is no stroll in the park. It is life threatening, and physically exhausting. The Mount Cook film had noted that there had been over 200 people killed climbing in the National Parks of NZ in the last century. Despite this, I can understand what they must feel like when they reach the top!

Back at the hermitage I am disappointed to find out that the ‘star gazing’ I had signed up for had been cancelled – too much cloud cover! Mount Cook is only 45kms from the Tasman Sea and so the weather can change very quickly. Pity! I still go to bed feeling fulfilled. It has been a really good day. But when I wake up it is so, so cold! Mountains hey, who’d have em?

Of course you want to know, why Mount Cook? If it is 44kms inland then ‘Cookie’ could not possibly have seen it. Well, he did not name it. That was done by Captain Stokes of the survey ship Acheron, but I don’t know when.

Saturday 5th December Mount Cook to Christchurch

Busted! Dammit! I have just been busted for speeding by the Highway police. Full of the joys of my flight in the CAT, a wonderful flat valley vista in front of me, Jefferson Airplane blasting in my ears – well it just had to be didn’t it! – I am heading up the R8 to Lake Tekapo at approx 140kmph. The road is empty, the view ahead is clear for miles (or kms), but I still don’t see the police car until I am right on top of him. What I have gathered so far is that the national speed limit of 100kmph on all roads unless designated slower is routinely ignored by NZ drivers, especially in the areas outside the towns and in the valleys where the roads are flat and straight. I know this is no excuse for breaking the law, but usually the drivers slow down when they see another car coming from the opposite direction just in case it is a police car, then they speed up again if it isn’t. Yesterday I had followed a BMW motorbike across a long flat valley. He got up to 160kmph. I know because I tailed him from a relatively safe distance!

I see the police car late and hit the brakes just slowing my sped slightly. Instinctively I know I am done for even before I look in the mirror and see his flashing lights come on and see him start to turn in the road. I find a suitable spot to wait for him and pull over. The officer is very polite and when he asks me how fast I think I was going I rather pathetically suggest 110-120kmph. No, he says, it was 139! A couple of kms more and it would be an automatic loss of licence! Whoops! In a bit of a tiz I hand him my EEC Health card instead of my licence. The right card in his hands he asks me to wait while he completes the paperwork. It is a $400 fine. Ouch! That’s about £250. He asks me if I have been stopped for speeding before in NZ. When I say no he says that two such offences brings a three month driving ban! Whoops, again! Lastly he asks me if I have been drinking as there is a vague whiff of alcohol. I say that I had a glass of wine the previous night and then he spots the grapes on my passenger seat fermenting in the mid-day heat. I thank him for fining me and apologise for the speeding offence. I say that I got carried away by the moment, and that I will ensure I do not do it again. I drive the rest of the way to Christchurch at 100kmph. Cars pile up behind me wondering what is going on. I need a sign for my rear window that says, ‘Just been busted! Please pass!’
The morning had gone so well. I had arrived at the airfield at Omarama at just after ten for a 10.30 flight in the CAT. I was introduced to the pilot, Darren, who told me that he had been flying the plane for just over a week as it was new to the company. He asked if I wanted to wear the proper flying gear – leather jacket, helmet and goggles and of course I said yes. I forgot to ask him about the wet celery! My flying partner was Martin, a gliding instructor from the South of England who had been at the airfield for a week on a gliding course focussed on gliding in mountainous regions. We did a photo shot in front of the plane and then climbed aboard. It was a tight fit but we were soon strapped in. Strangely enough no parachute! I didn’t ask. Darren sat to the rear and we were supposed to be in contact with him by intercom, but as soon as the engine roared into life we could not hear a word he said! The airfield has a grass runway so we taxied out and off we went. It rose into the air very smoothly and with less of the wobble than when it was towing a glider. The windscreen protected us from most of the slipstream, but it was an effort to take photos as the wind tried to tear the camera out of your hand. Darren had not told us where we were going but we were to be airborne for about half an hour. In the end it was more like forty minutes. We headed along the valley in between the Saint Cuthbert and Glenmore ranges, circling over Lakes Aviemore and Benmore and flying closed over the Benmore Dam. Darren tried to get us into position to see Mount Cook , which he did but we missed his comments , and the photo opportunity was missed too. We then circled once more round the valley and headed back to the airfield. All the time I was in the air I was very comfortable, and felt secure and safe. I could look out over the side of the cockpit to the ground below. I could imagine dropping bombs on the trenches below. I could feel the aircraft responding to the wind changes. I could see the strut supports vibrating with the tension of holding the wings in place. We held our height at around 200ft for most of the flight (Martin told me this), and at the end the landing was amazingly smooth – hardly a bump! Would I do it again? You bet!

Sunday 6th December Christchurch

I have gone to bed and woken up in England a week earlier than I expected to. Either that or I am in Christchurch, New Zealand with its Anglican Cathedral in the main square, its rickety old trams, the River Avon winding its way through the centre of the city, gentlemen and ladies with parasols being punted along the river by straw-boatered ‘punters’, brushing their hands lazily in the still waters, and gazing at the sunshine through the overhanging weeping willow and horse chestnut trees, passing beneath elaborate arched bridges from which other folk are throwing bread to the mallard ducks below. Hang on! New Zealand is the land of volcanoes and earthquakes, of storm-tossed seas and occasional typhoons! What has happened? This city of just over 350,000 souls is the most quintessential English city you can find in NZ and probably the world! Very kindly, my guide book says that Christchurch has been ‘slower’ than other cities to embrace NZs new multi-ethnic culture. This is code for watch out for racists! Its conservatism is now has a cosmopolitan ‘tinge’. I will look out for that! The Church of England was the main driver behind the settlement of Christchurch in 1850, and the idea was that it would be a model of the English class structure transferred to the colonies – not another barbarian gold-diggers town! They built churches not pubs! And the Christchurch elite grew very wealthy from wool. It still is largely a ‘bi-cultural’ society ie white Europeans and Maoris. Funnily enough the few Maoris there are (only 5% of NZs Maoris live in the South Island) are pretty wealthy and own more land per family than their North Island counterparts.

This is my last full day in New Zealand as I fly to Bangkok tomorrow afternoon. I pick up a guide leaflet from the tourist centre , then breakfast at a street café just off Cathedral Square. Preparations are being made for the afternoon Santa Parade which will shut down the city centre for two hours – no trams will run then either. People are already staking their places at the roadside with deckchairs and sleeping bags. I long to tell them that Santa is not real but fear the shock may be too much for them. As well as the parade there is a cycling event around the perimeter of the square. I hope the organisers have got together with the parade organiser or else there will be some damage to cyclists or elves or both. I take a half hour ride on the tram which circles the city centre, the drive pointing out the sites. Back in Cathedral Square I am brave enough to ask a police officer what the consequences of my speeding ticket are likely to be. I had looked at the paperwork and seen that as well as the $400 fine I had been given 50 demerit points. The traffic officer had not explained these. ‘Well, ‘ he said,’ if you get a total of 100 demerit points you automatically lose your licence for three months. How fast were you going?’ I told him. ‘And where did you get caught?’ I told him. ‘Yeh,’ he mused,’ those long straight highways. You just have to put your foot down don’t you, and hope you don’t get caught.’ He could clearly see the look of puzzlement on my face, so added, ‘Of course, now that I am in the police I have to be a bit more careful.’ As a final point he told me that the demerit points stay on my licence for between three and five years! Aggh!

With this wonderful piece of news on my mind, I wander the tourist shops for a while as this will be my last NZ chance to pick up a trinket or two. Amazingly most of the souvenir clothing appears to be ‘designed in NZ’ but ‘made in China’. Is this supposed to make it seem more authentic? I head for the River Avon for a relaxing punt. It is too. I share the punt with three Aussies from Perth who are heading the way I have just come. The more I tell them the less time they feel they have allowed themselves in Queenstown. People wave at us from the bridges and some throw bread to us thinking we are a big duck! I then head for the Art museum, and spend an hour on the guide tour. A walk through the Botanic Gardens follows, and about an hour later I flop into my hotel room and promptly fall asleep! Too much English fresh air obviously!

A final message from New Zealand. I have traced the Shakespeare ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech from ‘As You Like It’. Here it is below.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167)

Coromandel to Nelson

2009-11-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

Thursday 19th November Coromandel

(To Neighbours tune) Lay-ers! Everybody needs good lay-ers! Because good layers will keep you warm. I am at Coromandel Town (pop 1870 – sorry 1869 as Old ‘Digger’ at the General Store has just died at the age of 143) and have been persuaded by the nice lady at the Information Centre that the half hour climb to the ‘pa’ lookout is worth the effort. It is windy at the bottom, warm on the way up, and blowing a gale at the top. I am layering and de-layering like a demented onion! No way can I avoid breaking into a sweat. But she is right, the view is worth it. Right at the top I stumble upon what at first I think is a ‘wino’ but in fact turns out to be a tourist from Devon supping ‘vino collapso’ taking in the view and not wanting to go home! We briefly discuss the relative merits of views in OZ and NZ and conclude that there is more tranquillity in NZ. I leave him to his thoughts and the last of his wine and head down to the Harbour road. The ‘pa’ by the way is a Maori fortress – like our castles up high to dominate the surrounding countryside. Lots of these about but not much use against cannon fire from ships – step up Captain Cook et al.

I have driven for six hours to reach Coromandel, and have had to come back through Auckland. New Zealand trunk roads are not quite what we would expect in the UK, but we have to remember there are only 4million NZrs in the whole country. In the UK you expect a service station every 30 miles or so. In NZ you are lucky to get one every 200kms or not at all (c/f return from Cape Reienga). So careful planning and filling up whenever you get a chance are the watchwords of the day. The journey from Paihai (Bay of Islands) to Coromandel is about 400kms, but this is right down the Northland Peninsula, around the bottom of the Firth of Thames, and most of the way up the Coromandel Peninsula. Once you get away from Paihai the scenery is pretty dull until you hit the flat land at the bottom of the Firth of Thames. Then there is a long, long stretch of straight road with the Coromandel Range rising spectacularly in the foreground. These are the highest mountains I have seen so far. They are on a par with Snowdonia and parts of Scotland. Once across the Firth you reach Thames. Captain Cook had to dig deep for this one, noting that the river bears ‘some resemblance to that river in England’ – er, that it was wide and had water in it! The road hurries through Thames – well who wouldn’t - and then rather spectacularly winds its way along the coast for about 40kms, clinging to the edges at points for dear life, and then shoots off into the foothills which are more than a little Alpine and cause some spontaneous yodelling on my part, before descending past the oyster beds into the small hamlet of Coromandel.

I know what you are expecting! Some disaster stories re the local population once ‘Cooky’ turned up. Well, things went really well to start, even when gold was discovered first in Coromandel and then in Thames. Somehow the local Maori managed to get the gold-diggers to buy licences to dig for gold on their land. But you will also know it did not last. Greed again, the Maoris got swindled, swamped by 10,000 settlers in the first year after gold was discovered. The other thing that happened was that loggers stripped the hillsides of the ‘kauri’ trees so that by 1930 there were none left at all! The NZ Government is now trying to replant some.
New Zealand birds are really annoying me. When I try to speak to them they move away; when I try to photograph them they get all coy; and when I ask them to shake a tail feather for me they get positively aggressive. To top it all I hardly recognise half of them. So first stop at Coromandel is to a bookshop to purchase Collins’ Birds of New Zealand. I did not do the same in Australia on the grounds that there were far too many and I would have gone bonkers trying to identify them. I had spotted harriers hunting by the roadside on my trip to Cape Reinga, and at first wondered what they were hunting as there are no mammals in NZ – then, of course remembered that there are no indigenous mammals if you don’t count bats. The settlers brought lots with them, so there are plenty of rabbits and dead sheep etc for the harriers. What I didn’t realise was that the settlers also brought lots of birds native to the UK in particular and just released them into the wild. The birds of course got on with it and they are all over the place now. At Cape Reinga I had been surprised to hear skylarks when the wind dropped. Outside my hotel I had seen blackbirds, thrushes and sparrows. It took some time for the penny to drop! NZ now has mute swans, and black ones from Australia, and the dreaded Canada Geese. The settlers packed them all in – ducks. Swans, geese, small birds, large birds, owls, finches – it goes on and on. And just for good measure they release weasels and stoats to keep them on their toes! So walking around Coromandel is a bit like walking round an English village - sparrows on the lawns, chaffinches in the trees, blackbirds singing – you could shut your eyes and be 18000kms away in England. But in some respects that is what the NZ settlers wanted to recreate. I did see some native species. The Bell Bird that goes ‘ding dong’! and the NZ Kingfisher which I watched perched on a log in the estuary, fishing for small crabs. At the end of my walk to the ‘pa’ I rewarded myself with freshly caught and cooked Coromandel scallops and chips! Loverly!

Talking about birds and distances has reminded me that at Cape Reinga yesterday a sign showed the UK to be 18000kms away. So I worked out that if I drove off the end of the Cape and headed home it would take me two months solid driving for twelve hours per day at an average speed of 60kmph to get home – that is if I did not meet any road-works and the traffic lights stayed on green all the way!

Friday 20th November Rotorua – Land of a Thousand Smells!

‘Mud, mud, glorious mud! Nothing Quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me follow, down to the hollow, and there we can wallow, in glorious MUD!’

I am so relaxed I think I have either had seven or eight pints – which I haven’t – or someone has stolen my bones! What has actually happened is that I have just been to Hell’s Gate Waori Mud Spa on the outskirts of Sulphur Spring City Arizona ie Rotorua. The leaflet waxes lyrical about this secret Maori treasure, with special muds and sulphurous waters where for the princely sum of $75 ( about £45) you can relax in your own private mud bath ( no hippos allowed – or so they said!) and then commune in a sulphur spa ( no blaming each other for the eggy odours!). So I thought when in Rome… First though you have to do the tour of the boiling mud pools ( average temperature 70 -100 degrees so not allowed in these!), sulphur lakes, and the mud volcano. Ok if you like steam and smells that remind you of chemistry labs at school. Not so good if you don’t like eggs. I did think for a moment that it might all be an elaborate hoax like the Only Fools and Horses ‘Peckham Spring Water’ and that below the boiling mud were pipes etc. who really knows. Still, the visit was worth it. I got 20 minutes on my own in a warm sulphur pool with a bucket of grey mud to play with. So what you say, you could do that at Southport any weekend! But no, this is ‘special’ mud. Quite what it’s supposed to do I don’t know. It’s too silky to give skin a good ‘peeling’. It just feels nice and makes a relaxing experience. 20 minutes later and I am hauled out of the pool by a hefty Maori warrior and thrust straight under a cold shower! ‘Shower good!’ he says convincingly. I am then led shivering to a sulphur spa pool where there are a number of terrified-looking people up to their necks in the warm water (it is 38degrees). ‘You go in pool now!’ says my captor, pushing me down the steps and into the water. I settle down next to two Germans and ask them how long they have been in here. They think three days, but are not sure as they are suffering from dehydration. After half an hour I slip out when the ‘guard’ goes to fetch another captive from the mud bath.

Apart from this it was superb. I can’t believe how relaxing it was and even the cold shower – yes that was real – contributed to the overall experience. I stayed in the spa pool for about 35 minutes. The others in the pool were varying sizes but some only showed about a quarter of their true bulk above the water line – hence the comment about hippos! The name of the place is down to George Bernard Shaw who visited and said it looked like the ‘Gates of Hell.’ His comments about the mud bath and compulsory cold shower are not recorded!

Another long drive today as I had to reach Rotorua where I stay for one night. I travel the ‘famous’ route 309 from Coromandel to Whitianga. It is basically an old logging road but all the guide books say it is ok in an ordinary car as long as it is not wet. Thankfully the weather is fine, and the road is a mixture of sealed road, unsealed stoney track and muddy (dry thankfully) track. It is very scenic and meanders through farmland, forest, up hill and down dale. The guide leaflet says you will be ok if you keep well left! It doesn’t mention massive logging trucks coming at you on the wrong side of the road or road-works – lots of road-works. They seemed to be rebuilding massive sections of the road. I think they are preparing for the real tourist season in December/January/February. It took me about 45 minutes to do the 21kms of route 309. Good fun. Back on route 25 it was Rotorua here I come, with about four hours driving ahead of me. The Coromandel peninsula is divide right down the middle by the Coromandel Range so I now had this on my right as I sallied down the coast. Music was my company as usual, and having found a copy of ‘Schindler’s Ark’ in a bookshop for $2 yesterday and having started reading it last night I was soon launching into ‘Three German Officers Crossed the Rhine’. Not my finest moment so far! Thankfully a car passed by me with the registration CANBY and so I was able to justify a change to the Beatles! The East coast of the peninsula is allegedly the prettier but I had no time to stop and see. I did notice a Cook’s Beach on the map, next to Cook’s Bluff, and then next to Shakespeare Bay. Was Cook’s bluff that Shakespeare never visited New Zealand?

My main intention was to get to Rotorua early enough to visit the mud spa, but also to allow me to visit the Kiwi conservation centre at Rainbow Springs. Imagine my annoyance then when I stopped off at a place called Tauranga for a coffee and a sandwich to find that it was enwrapped with major road-works and once I got into the city I could not find a way out again for 45 minutes! Hard to believe but the place is massive and it is a major port. I missed turnings galore and ended up driving on instinct to get myself back on the right track. Don’t go to Tuaranga!

Rainbow Springs Nature Park is a major player in Kiwi conservation in the North Island. Kiwis are bred there and released into the wild, with a high survival success rate. There is not a lot of chance of getting up close and personal with a wild Kiwi as they are shy nocturnal birds, so this was likely to be as good as it was going to get. And good it was! I joined a touring party of ten for a 45 minute in depth look at the conservation programme which included very close contact with – but not touching or photographing – three adult Kiwi. They are the national bird of New Zealand, about the size of a large domestic hen, and just about the oddest thing you could see – apart from the duck billed platypus! Physically they are more closely related to mammals than birds – for example they have marrow in their bones. They lay eggs the size of footballs! The human equivalent would be a baby of 35lbs! Ouch! The females are much nastier than the males – rings a bell, that one! The males incubate the eggs for 80 days. They mate for life. And they look cuddly. Why the problem then? OK it’s us again! The Maori have to take some responsibility for when they came the Kiwi knew no predators so were easy pickings for food and feathers. So easy that the Kiwi would just stick its beak in the ground and pretend it was not there! Kiwi feather capes were very popular with tribal leaders. However there were just not enough Maori to do serious ecological damage. That was down to us. Along we come and chop the habitats down. Then we introduce serious predators – cats, dogs, possums – but worst of all, weasels and stoats. These little beggars can kill 500 kiwi before you can say hang on was that a weasel I just saw. No that was a stoat! How do you know the difference. Simple, weasels are weasely recognised and stoats are stotally different! (Thanks to the memory of Grandpa for that one!) They are prolific breeders too so lots of kiwis needed for baby weasels and stoats. The poor kiwi just had no defence. Eggs, young, developing adults – all easy pickings for Mr and Mrs Weasel and the little weasels, as well as the Stoat Twins. So the conservation programme aims to put adults into the wild at a stage where they can at least defend themselves – they have very sharp claws. It’s slow progress but it is working. The conservation centre has very elaborate anti-predator fencing and a big sign that says ‘Weasels and Stoats – keep out!’

The guide for the tour was a Kiwi lady called Miranda. Now, whereas the Australians talk from the back of their throats – ‘Strine’ – Kiwis are more subtle but talk through their noses. ‘Egg’ becomes ‘ig’, ‘bird ‘ becomes ‘beard’, ‘sex’ is ‘six’ and ‘arrest’ becomes ‘ a wrist’ etc etc. So with a party of ten consisting of three from the UK, two from Canada, two from Thailand, and three from India the commentary was going to be interesting. Add to that a speed of delivery that was almost formula one and you can see what went on. Apparently two beards had six and the female laid an ig. The male then sat on the ig on the nist for two manths and a check was born. The check weighed in at 104 grims. The check was then taken away by a consirvationist before it was eden by a priditer, and fid a spishul diet of beef heart and veggies. When it weighed nearly a thousand grims it was released back into the wild where it was eatin by a weasil. Later in the evening after my mud bath I went back to the centre for the kiwi ‘night viewing’. That’s stretching it a bit. In the absence of SAS night vision goggles I think I saw a kiwi or two rushing between a nesting box and some bushes! They could have been mechanical for all I knew!

I will finish today with two things – plants and radio.
Plants first. The plant emblem of New Zealand is the pohutukawa tree. It has bright red flowers and a profusion of red signals the summer is here. They are just beginning to emerge now. The Maoris called it this because it means ‘red tree’ – doh! I missed out the Australian emblem the ‘wattle tree’ and apologise for this.

For all the Monty Python buffs out there, remember this……
‘This here is the wattle, the emblem of our land,
You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand. Amen.’
Rule Seven – no pooftahs! Rule Eight – there is no Rule Eight! Rule Nine – no pooftahs!

Radio! Come back Radio One – all is forgiven. New Zealand Radio is awful. It is so bad that every radio in every hotel or motel I check into is tuned into some sort of ‘Gold’ or ‘Timeless Classics’ station. Tonight I turned it on and Peter and Gordon blasted out. Who you say if you are under 93! Followed closely by Roger Whittaker! Help! Help! If it is not that it is Bic Runga singing to me from every ‘piped musac’ outlet in the country. Love the song, but has New Zealand not got any other music? Help!

Saturday 21st November Rotorua to Napier

I am heading South for my last couple of days in the North island. Actually it’s South-East to Napier on the coast, but first I have to do the ‘Maori’ experience at Te Puia. This is the site of the world famous – so famous I had not heard of it before – Pohutu Geyser which erupts a couple of times each hour and spurts hot steam, water and gasses to levels of 30 metres, but not today folks! It was impressive none the less and given that it all works on ‘natural’ plumbing even more so. The Maoris have built a cultural experience centre around the geyser site and though this sounds a bit tacky it is good fun. At my motel in Coromandel the owner had rather sourly referred to Rotorua as ‘RotoVegas’, and it is like that – a bit in your face and commercial but what the heck. It is one of the most popular holiday destinations in NZ for NZ people and who am I to challenge that. Not a place to stay a long time though. My ‘experience’ at Te Puia started with a quick visit to the geyser for a mini ‘spurt’ and then to the daytime concert which promised a traditional Maori welcome – hopefully not the same one Captain Cook got ie a spear in the back - songs, dance and the famous war dance, the Haka. Our hostess gathered us around the entrance to the Maori meeting house to explain what was going to go on. She laid great store on respecting the sacredness of the house as visitors and said we would be required to remove shoes and hats. She also said that the group should be quiet when the warrior came to challenge us at the start. This is where it went a bit wrong as the party of Japanese tourists did not seem to understand ‘quiet’ or ‘respect’. Now it may have got lost in translation, as the hostess said we would be experiencing a ‘tradisihinil Maori gritting’, and they may have been confused enough to expect the oncoming ‘warrior’ to throw handfuls of small stones at them, but when she said ‘shhhh!’ several times you would think they would get the message. One of them managed to get himself elected as ‘honorary chief’, basically because he pushed his way to the front, and then proceeded to not follow the hostesses instructions, for example not to turn his back on the warrior as this was seen as an insult! She was incredibly patient, and as for the rest of us if the ‘gritting’ warrior had chosen to spear him there and then we would have said ‘just deserts’. We followed the hostess into the Meeting House and she sat the men at the front – as would have been done in the past. Greetings and songs followed and then the women were invited up on stage to take part in the female poi dance. This involves swinging balls on string to music so the efforts were quite hilarious. Even more so because one of the Japanese men had managed to miss the word ‘female’ and had ended up on the stage. The hostess shrugged her shoulders and left him there. Then it was our turn. We were ‘required’ to perform the ‘haka’. It was great fun and no-one minded that we made a hash if it! Lots of thigh slapping and grunting. Seeing as the ‘haka’ is designed to intimidate opponents in war, we would have not even frightened a rabbit! No-one cared though and the ‘real’ warriors had a great laugh at our expense. At the end our ‘chief’ managed to get the traditional Maori ‘nose rubbing’, the ‘hongi’ right otherwise I fear to think where they would have rubbed his nose! A great hour!

I stayed for another hour and toured the site, looked at the geyser again, and went into a cultural exhibition. Lots of famous people have been here including Gracie Fields, Eleanor Roosevelt ( who looked about six foot six), and our own Queen and Prince Phillip (‘bloody natives!’). An interesting tale is the one about one of the Maori guides who actually assisted the Queen by holding her elbow when she appeared to stumble. Protocol says that mere mortals should not touch royalty so she was reprimanded by an eqirry and her bosses! Her response was to say would they have rather she fell! She is also recorded as giving Eleanor Roosevelt a ‘hongi’ but needing a step-ladder to do so, and giving Gracie Fields change for her New Zealand coins using the biggest cash dispenser in the world ( sorry!) After that really bad joke I went in to the kiwi house. The sign said no noise and no cameras, but it was not long before the familiar ‘babble’ arose and the ‘chief’ and his entourage arrived. I left quickly. Hope the kiwi had the sense to hide!

A fifty minute drive saw me at Lake Taupo, NZ’s biggest lake. It is in the caldera (collapsed cone) of a volcano that last erupted 26000 years ago and threw out 800 times as much stuff as Krakatoa! Wow! All the areas surrounding are still volcanically active. The lake is 606 square kms, and at the southern end is the mountain range that contains Mount Ruapehu (2797m) the most active volcano in the area - last erupted 2007! It also contains Mount Ngauruhoe (2287m), otherwise known as ‘Mount Doom’ from ‘The Lord of the Rings’. This mountain was chosen for the film because of its perfect conical volcano shape. You can see these mountains for miles around and at this time they are still snow-topped. The road takes me down the eastern side of the lake, through some forests, and then heads off into some semi-desert. I know this because the sign says ‘Desert Highway’. It is a tad disconcerting to see a gate after a couple of kilometres with a sign saying ‘road open’. I expect the road may have some problems in the winter – snow etc – but it still is a little shaking. I am heading down to a place called Waiorou where I expect to pick up a road to Napier that is not the main road. This will take me over the ‘top’ as it were, snaking between the Ruahine and Kaweka mountain ranges and through the Kaweka Forest. It should be interesting to say the least! I have looked at the map and it definitely does not say 4WD only! I have a little concern re petrol so stop at Waiorou and fill up and do the tyres. Waiorou is an army garrison town and the land to the east is all firing and training ranges. I will not be going there. To the west all the way to the turnoff the peaks of Ruapehu and Ngaoruhoe dominate the skyline and my thoughts. I imagine Frodo and companions climbing the peaks and making their way through the forests. I think about Orcs lurking in the trees of Kaweka Forest. What great scenery and how well used in the films. Make mental note to watch them when I return. For real ‘ Ringies’ there are organised trips to Hobbiton and all the sites used in the film. Not for me, but the films have really boosted the NZ tourist trade.

At the turnoff for Napier, which I nearly miss because I am thinking of other things, the sign says ‘Napier 154kms. Sealed road apart from 27km.’ Great, that means where the road is steepest etc it will be at its worst. Hey, ho! Off we go! I think I will do Napier in about two hours. The road is easy to start and that always ‘sucks’ you in to a semi-complacency. Farm after farm, up and down hill, then the forest starts, then the road gets steeper, more winding. Then a hopeful sign – road-works ahead. In this situation this usually means they are extending the sealed bit, and it does, but it’s Saturday so they are not working and have just left the whole thing in a bit of a mess. Half sealed and gritted roadway stretches before me. On some sections it says ‘100kmph’. I am doing well to do 60kmph and keep the car going in a straight line! I have to be alert for trucks as it is logging territory. Some of the hillsides are stripped of trees and look forlorn. I see only dust clouds behind me but am not expecting anyone to overtake me. In fact no-one does until a couple of kms from the end. The odd car and 4WD comes the other way. After all people do live here! Nipping to the shops must be a real experience – especially if you leave your bag behind! And just to keep me on my toes, some parts are sealed and I think that’s it then I hit an unsealed bit again. I am going carefully into a bend on an unsealed downhill bit when a 4WD comes tearing round coming up the hill. He sees me late and goes sideways a bit to get past. I shan’t repeat what I called him! The nearest I come to any real disaster is when I shave the hind legs of a farm cat that chooses this particular moment to cross the road. Eight lives left I feel. On the final sealed stretch a ‘ute’ comes up behind and I let him past. I am glad to see the end of the road and the sign that says ‘Napier 19kms’. It has taken me 90 minutes to do the 136kms from the Waioru turnoff. Not bad really. Make mental note to give up ambition to be a rally driver!

Glad as I am to see some ‘real’ mountains at last, I am somewhat humbled to read that none of the ones I have seen so far get into the top 30 NZ mountains in terms of height! My guidebook tells me that I am yet to experience real height and will see it in spades in the South Island where one National Park – the one where Mount Cook is – has 22 out of the top 27 peaks over 3050m high! Mount Cook itself is the highest at 3755m. Nothing in Australasia competes with it. Looking forward to that one then.

Sunday 22nd November Napier

I wake a bit dazed after my long drive the day before and my rather nice meal of New Zealand lamb with Rosemary – funny, I thought she’d gone to Canada. I remember why I have come to Napier. On 4th February 1931 at 10.47am Napier’s early history ended and its future was assured by one and the same act. A huge earthquake measuring 7.8 ( ie BIG) shattered the centre of the town, flattening most buildings, and killing 157 people. In nearby Hastings another 101 died. It is still New Zealand’s biggest ever natural disaster. Luckily it was the first day of the school year and Napier’s children were still outside lining up to be out into their classes! Otherwise it could have been another Aberfan. It is hard to get hold of the magnitude of such things but the whole Napier area was tilted upwards by 2.1 metres by the earthquake! The water in the inner harbour lagoon just disappeared and Napier suddenly had an extra 3000 hectares of land to deal with. The residents cleared out as you can imagine and most of them could not return for nearly two years. Napier needed rebuilding and here was where its future was secured. At the time of the earthquake a style of design known as Art Deco was fashionable – it had started in Paris with the Expositions des Arts Decoratifs et Industriales Modernes in 1925, and was used for example in the design of the Chrysler Building in New York – and this was embraced with gusto in the rebuilding of Napier. Thus Napier is THE world capital for Art Deco buildings. But it wasn’t just colourful, it was cheap and safe as most of the buildings would be made of reinforced concrete and devoid of the added decorations that had fallen on people in the earthquake. Napier reinvented itself, and today it is a tourist hot spot for this principle reason. In February they have an Art Deco festival in which major stars appear ( eg Rod Stewart) and they have a street ‘dinner’ for 2000 people – booked solid a year in advance – where all attendees dress in the Art Deco style of the 1930s. It is major fun and a real money spinner for the town. Even if architecture does not float your boat you can’t help but be impressed with the style and colour of the buildings and the fact that they have not bowed to the pressure of organisations such as McDonalds but rather made Mc Donalds adopt their style to the town’s buildings. Not all of the 1930s buildings have survived but there are sufficient for the whole CBD to have that Art Deco feeling about it. Well worth a visit and a walk round.

One of the Art Deco shops was Dymoke’s book shop and in a very short time I had bought two books about Captain Cook! Will let you know later.

Albatross! Albatross! Gannet on a stick!
Off in the afternoon to Cape Kidnappers to see the Southern Hemisphere’s largest mainland Gannet colony. This is three hour guided trip by 4WD lorry-coach (see Daintree River) and is the only way of reaching the colony without walking for four hours along a beach and risking getting cut off by the tide. So safety first. The route takes us through Cape Kidnapper’s Station which sound like a farm, which it partly is but it is also the ‘plaything’ of a US billionaire who bought half the coast of this peninsula ( 5000 acres) with the express intention of building a golf course on it and a world class one to boot. He did that and it is number 37 in the world rankings. Lucky for us on the trip the previous owner of the land happened to own the Gannet Trip Company and so inserted a clause in the purchase agreement guaranteeing access rights for his company through the ‘station’. So instead of the hazardous beach route we get to go on the hazardous station route – well some of it is hazardous. It takes an hour to reach the Gannet colonies (there are four) and we go through rolling pastureland, river beds, native bush, steep gullies (and I mean steep!) and alongside cliff edges with breathtaking views. As a result of arriving early and chatting to the driver who is a primary school teacher who does some supply teaching and this as well, I get invited to sit in the ‘death’ seat alongside the driver so that I can see with great vivid detail all the chasms we can fall into and the edges we can roll over of he gets it wrong. The others in the lorry-coach are all from NZ or OZ except for a lone Japanese girl who speaks top no-one and may be on the wrong bus. As we go along the driver points out rare birds, trees, sheep ( lots of these), and gives us a full breakdown of the purchase of the land we are now on. He also tells us he has played golf on the course, which would normally cost about £300 a round! We stop to take in the spectacular cliff-top views of Hawke’s Bay and the Mahia Peninsula. He tells us that when he did the morning trip it was so misty they could see nothing.

The Gannet colonies themselves are all near each other and there are 10,000 breeding pairs who return to the same site each year. We can get right up close and the noise( and smell) is tremendous. The birds ignore us and get on with the business of nest building, mating and for some of them sitting on eggs. They are a beautiful bird and very acrobatic. The main activity while we are there is nest building and male Gannets swoop over our heads (very closely) carrying large amounts of seaweed for the nests. With approximately five thousands birds at each site finding your partner whilst carrying a beak full of seaweed is not easy and many birds do not do it first or even second time. If they land next to the wrong female they get roughed up and have to take off quickly. When they do locate the ‘missus’ there is lots of squawking , and a ritual recognition dance that involves rubbing their necks together. Nest sites are vey jealously guarded and any encroaching even by accident is dealt with by nipping the offender! I felt like David Attenborough! Gannets, Gannets everywhere! They get under your feet, they get in your hair. Even standing directly under the runway I did not get ‘pooped’ upon, but the bus driver said I was just lucky! Whilst we were there a trio arrived who had walked the beach route and had had to wade some of the way. Two of them were from Scotland – but not according to one of the NZ ladies who confidently informed me she had identified their Welsh accents! They had come to NZ for the summer to shear sheep. Good luck, I say. The way back took us down a very steep cliff pathway and I felt myself apply my invisible brakes at one or two points, but the vehicle held steady and we returned ok. On the way the driver showed us a new ‘anti priditor fince’ and some ‘priditor traps’. The new owner had co-operated with two other landowners to try to create a conservation reserve on the peninsula. Once the fence was in place they systematically killed all the possums in the area (hundreds), as well as 700 – yes 700 – wild cats, lots of rats, weasels, stoats ( see yesterday’s joke) so that they could introduce kiwi and other rare birds to the reserve. They have a full time staff of ‘catchers’ who bait small traps for those ‘priditors’ who bypass the ‘fince’. I had wondered about foxes and it seems that this was one animal the settlers chose not to introduce as it was already seen as a pest. Perhaps it was a class thing too, as most people who came were not landowners in Europe? Anyway New Zealand is fox-less. As a parting ‘gift’ our driver introduced us to a plant called ‘Bushman’s Frind’ – lovely big leaves with a soft white down on the underside which can be used as natural toilet paper if you get caught short in the bush! Thanks for that, mate!

Travelling back to Napier I remembered that the Dutch in the form of Abel Tasman had named New Zealand but no taken possession of it. That is until I passed a chippy in the town of Clive and just had to stop for breaded snapper and chips. And the name of the chippy? ‘The Frying Dutchman’!

Cape Kidnappers? Another ‘Cookyism’ I am afraid. He had brought a ‘prince’ from Tahiti to act as interpreter and the ‘prince ‘had a servant who was kidnapped by local Maoris who fancied him with chips. Luckily he was rescued so the he could die of dysentery in Jakarta later in the voyage.

Monday 23rd November Napier to Wellington

It is a bright morning in Napier and after packing I tour the town centre photographing some of the Art Deco buildings. It is a little confusing as the ‘pedestrianised’ area seems to be frequented by traffic so I have to leap strategically every so often when taking snaps. I have a long drive ahead to Wellington – 305kms – so I breakfast in Napier. I choose a café at the junction of Tennyson Street and Hastings Street (there are also Browning and Byron streets – town planner liked British poets). I have a good view of some of the Art Deco buildings but one row is spoiled by ‘Rosie O’Grady’s Irish Pub’ – bah! You can tour in a 1930s car and one comes by. For a moment it is the only car at the junction and it is the 1930s again. In an instant it is gone and replaced by a new Chrysler Cruiser which doesn’t really look out of place, then a van advertising a cleaning service.

‘If you’ve got some growth on your window panes, who you gonna call? Mould Busters!’

I relax with porridge and fruit followed by poached ‘iggs’ on toast and lots of Earl Grey tea! Just watching the game – having a Bud!

The road from Napier to Wellington is bordered on the Eastern side by the Pacific Ocean and on the Western side by the Ruahuine Mountian Range. The land is pretty flat and makes very good farming and wine producing territory but scenically is a bit dull. You have to wait until you get to a town called Featherston, about 60 kms from Wellington before it brightens up again. I settle into ‘drive’ mode and get my MP3 player going. Thus I am a bit shaken out of my reverie when about half way to Wellington I am confronted by an enormous Viking astride the road! I know Eric the Red went to America, but New Zealand? I have hit the town of Dannevirke, which is on my map but not featured in my guidebook. I just have to stop and find out. The woman in the Information Point is most put out that the town is not in my ‘Lonely Planet’ guide! I double check it and still can’t find anything. She helpfully gives me a leaflet of explanation as to why there is a Scandinavian town in the middle of nowhere. It is simple enough. I am on Highway 2, but in the 1870s this did not exist. The route from Wellington to Napier had been planned but it was still very much a rough horse track. A proper road and railway was needed. To build a road etc you need labour and this would at that time have to come from abroad. Recruitment was put in the hands of a Norwegian a Mr Friberg who popped across to Norway, Denmark and Sweden and came back in 1872 with a shipload of Scandinavians. There were 13 Danish, 6 Norwegian, and 2 Swedish families, and each family was given 40 acres of land for their troubles. So that’s why they are here! So as they say in these parts – Hilsen Fra Dannevirke! (Hello from Dannevirke). The leaflet I was given was so helpful that I now know to put my rubbish out for collection on Tuesdays, that if I lived there I would be one of 9321 residents, and if I need to make a telephone call there are three call boxes situated along the High Street.
Excited by my visit to Dannevirke, where I availed myself of the use of the public conveniences on Barraud Street, I picked up a hitchhiker. I had thought for some time that there were hardly any hitchhikers around even though each town has at least one ‘backpackers’ hostel. The guy I picked up was a Kiwi of around mid-40s, who had trained as an engineer, had done various jobs for a while but not settled at anything, and over the last couple of years had taken to wandering the country ‘free camping’ ie sleeping under trees, and ‘tramping’ ie walking over hill and dale. He financed his lifestyle by signing on the dole but he had no intention of getting a job. Nowadays you can pick up your dole money anywhere as long as you have access to a bank account so he could travel where he wanted. He looked reasonably healthy on it. He said he avoided spending money on lodgings if he could and managed to get a shower etc once a week! We chatted about travelling, comparing England to New Zealand. He had some firm views on global warming, mutli-nationals taking over NZ businesses and a range of other stuff. He didn’t seem to see the irony of his complaining about immigration, and saying that those that worked were ok viv-a-vis his own non-working situation. I didn’t want to get drawn into any heavy discussions and anyway he would have forgotten me two minutes after he got out of the car so I let him talk. He told me that hitch-hikers were getting rarer as the younger ones tended to buy a cheap van or car rather than haul their packs along the roads. At the end of their journey they sold or dumped the van! A bit of the kiwi attitude to Maoris popped out in that we passed a Maori girl hitching. She had the traditional tattoo on her chin which at first site is a bit disconcerting. He said I would be wise not to pick up a Maori hitcher as they could not be trusted ( see Abos in Oz and Blacks in the USA etc etc). He went on to say that most urban crime is committed by Maori youth ( see Abos in OZ and Blacks in USA). No mention of disaffection due to employment prospects, racism etc. Hard one I know as it is ‘chicken and egg’ but it betrayed the usual myopic attitude. After about an hour I dropped him at a place called Featherston where he was going to find a place by the river to spend the night and have a few cans. I did not envy him one bit!

The last few kms to Wellington pass through the lower parts of the Tararua Range and the Rimtuka Ramnge, but the road is still pretty winding and steep. Wellington is NZ’s capital city though it is considerably smaller than Auckland ( about 400,00 all told in the region but only 100,000 in the city). You have to go through here when travelling between the islands. It is built on very steep hills and is a bit like San Francisco in the respect. It is known as ‘Windy Welly’ and I have experienced some of that tonight – it is throwing it down as I write this! Its famous ‘children’ include Peter Jackson of ‘Lord of the Rings’ fame and Katherine Mansfield, who ranks as NZ’s most distinguished author despite writing a limited amount of shirt stories and dying of TB at the age of 34 in France! More by luck than judgement I find my hotel easily and once settled in go for a walk. Compared to Sydney the hotel advice is good. I am sent downhill ( a good start) to get the Cable Car up to the top of the Botanic Gardens so I can see the view and walk down hill ( I like it) to the town afterwards. The Cable Car is very neat and cheap. There are also trolley busses ( like SF) and some ordinary ones. Up the top the Botanic Gardens are a bit disappointing but I enjoy the walk down and the view over the harbour. I need some exercise after my long day in the car.

The route down takes me through the Bolton Street Memorial Park, at the entrance to which is an explanatory board and free leaflets. The ‘park’ is in fact an old municipal cemetery which is as old as Wellington itself. It reached capacity in 1892 and a new one opened elsewhere. I find these places fascinating, they have so much history in them. There are over 8500 people buried in the cemetery, from all denominations, but despite living and working together each ‘denomination’ (Anglican, Jews, Catholics) insisted in having separate sections of the cemetery! There was also separation in terms of wealth with the poorest having simple wooden grave markers – most of which have rotted away – and the more prosperous having huge stone markers or obelisks. In the 1960s it was decided to put a motorway right through the middle of the graveyard. This meant the removal and reburial of 3700 persons, and the closure of the area for three years. The creation of the ‘Memorial Garden’ was to make up for the disturbance. Each gravestone is a story on itself and the guide leaflet picks out some key ones. Times were hard then and families did suffer. One family, the Duffs, had to deal with five of their children dying of Diptheria within a period of 11 DAYS! From December 21st 1876 to January 1st 1877 Hannah (21 months), Edith (6), Agnes (8), Margaret (10), and John (11) died. I stood there stunned by this. Just how could the parents cope with that? There is no record on the gravestone of other children but the father lived another 20 years and the mother outlived him by ten years. Diptheria is a disease virtually unknown now to us in the developed world, but it was still killing children in the UK in the early parts of the 20th century. The biggest child killer of the time was Scarlet Fever which caused blood poisoning and circulatory failure and another grave records the loss of six children of the Wallace family within three months in 1865. Finally, a fire took Louise Johnson and her five children in 1877. With death rates like these it is no wonder the cemetery filled up by the 1890s! In the lower part of the Garden I did find the grave of Rira Porutu who died in 1866. He had been a Maori tribal chief and was one of the signatories to the Treaty of Waitanga (see Bay of Islands).

My final task of the evening was to locate the Te Papa museum for a visit tomorrow before I get the ferry to South Island. Finding it was no problem. Finding my way back to the hotel was. For once my map reading skills let me down and I went left instead of right and like the Grand Old Duke of York when I was up I was up, and when I was down I was down, and when I was only half way up I was neither up nor down! Taxi!

Wednesday 24th November Wellington to Nelson

The historians amongst you will be amused by that juxtaposition. From Waterloo to Trafalgar via Lady Hamilton’s boudoir no doubt! But first, Te Papa. It is a huge National museum – and is FREE – and is too much to see in the couple of hours I have got before I go for the ferry. The museum guide says to see Levels 2 and 4, which are about the geological and geographical history of NZ ( level 2) and the social history, including immigration ( level 4). So off I go. Fabulous display about the geological origins of New Zealand, with lots of moving models and videos explaining ‘plate tectonics’ and why NZ is so volcanic. Simply put, the earth’s surface is a series of inter-related ‘plates’ that move about and push against each other. Where the most pushing happens there is the most earthquake and volcanic activity. The ‘join’ between the Australasian and Pacific plates runs right through NZ. An aerial view shows the lines of mountains that I keep mentioning running down the middle of the North island and all the way along the West coast of the South island. In geological terms this is a very young land mass and still changing! Makes the scenery exciting but there will be more quakes and eruptions in the future – it is guaranteed! Linked to this the geographical displays showed how some creatures are common to NZ and OZ, and why some aren’t, as at one time the two land masses were joined ( with India, South America and Africa too). It also showed that prior to the arrival of the Maoris about 100 years ago, 85% of the land mass was covered with forest and bush. The Maoris reduced this to about 55%, and the European settlers reduced it further to 25%. It basically stayed that way because the remaining 25% was too hard to cultivate being on steep mountains or swampland. Despite this I am amazed that there is still 25% left! As I have mentioned before apart from the effects of clearance on native plant and bird species, the introduction of non-native plants, animals and birds has had a devastating effect on native wildlife. It is easy to ‘tut’ from a distance when we have our ‘eco’ eyes open wide, but even the early settlers had their warnings from far sighted farmers, some of whom feature in the display. Places like NZ ushered in the era of cheap, mass produced food - Anchor butter, NZ lamb etc – so we have all benefitted at some point from the farming methods adopted. Times change though and there is a firm foundation for a more eco-friendly approach in NZ for the future.

The Maoris travelled great distances by seas to get to NZ, and slowly occupied the whole of the two islands. When the ‘settlers’ arrived the usual land swindles took place and it is very stark in the South island where there is hardly any land still under Maori ownership compared to the North Island. Maoris have their representatives in Parliament and their own TV station but it is hard not to see it as tokenism. One odd aspect is the adoption of the Maori ‘haka’ or war dance ( of which I am now an expert – demonstrations for a fee!)by the New Zealand Rugby team, the All Blacks. Tokenism again? Funnily enough there is some public discussion here about the names of NZs rugby and soccer teams. The soccer team is called the ‘All Whites’ and has just qualified for the World Cup in 2010. The World Cup is taking place in South Africa so a team called the ‘All Whites’ may not go down too well! We will see.

I chanced upon part of the display about immigration which was devoted to non-Maori people from the Pacific Islands eg Samoa or Tonga. They were encouraged to come to NZ but on arrival experienced racism from the ‘settlers’. Some responded by setting up strong political movements like the USA Black Panthers. Others formed ‘gangs’ not unlike those in South American cities like Rio. I wonder what my hitchhiker would have made of their stories?

My last bit of interesting news about Te Papa is that it has on display one of the cannons from HMS Endeavour, Cook’s first ship and the one that nearly sank after striking the Barrier Reef on their way home. The only way they got off the reef was to chuck lots of stuff overboard, including six of the cannons. Divers found then in 1969 and sent them to museums in New Zealand and Australia. It does not mention the UK – I will find out about that.

I haven’t got very much to report about the Inter-islander ferry, apart from the fact that it is big, and when we are waiting on the top ramp to be loaded we are physically shaken by the trains being loaded below! The journey of just under three hours, as well as the one hour wait for loading, gave me a chance to finish one book (Schindler’s Ark) and get well into another ( Captain Cook), and still have time to watch the ship being expertly backed into its berth at Picton Harbour having negotiated the winding route through Tory Channel and Queen Charlotte Sound – very winding and narrow! We had of course crossed Cook Strait which separates the North and South Islands, so it was appropriate that I should arrive reading a book about him.

Schindler’s Ark first. I picked this book up in Coromandel for the princely sum of $2. I will now leave it in some café for someone else to read. I had seen the film (Schindler’s List) and I suppose I was drawn to it by some of the tales I had picked up on my travels about treatment of indigenous peoples. It ranged between very depressing – just how could people treat each other like that! – and uplifting in that the human spirit refused to be broken by horrendous experiences. There were moments when I felt I could not go on reading it, despite the fact that I knew that most of the people involved survived the Holocaust – and some of them spent time in places like Auschwitz. But finish it I did with a tremendous respect for those involved and a feeling that I am glad I will never have to go through something like that.

Captain Cook is a little better. I went into a book shop in Napier and asked if they had anything on him. The man serving mumbled a bit and then went off. Five minutes later he came back with four books. I would have bought them all but I have no spare ‘weight’ in my luggage so I settled for two. One was a ‘101 things you always wanted to know about Captain Cook’ sort of book. I read that in one sitting. The other is a little less straightforward. The author is tracing in parallel the lives of James Cook and an ancestor of hers who lived a hundred years after Cook, but published a history of Australia in which he claimed Cook had never ‘discovered’ Australia. Very controversial at the time I understand. In fact Cook never claimed to have ‘discovered ‘ Australia, but he did think he was the first person on parts of the East Coast, but his principal aim was to stick a flag in a bit of it and claim it for the King of England! It is people since who have used this for their own ends and named all sorts of bits of it after him – McDonalds ‘Cook’ Burgers! He does however need credit for what he was really good at which was mapping for he completed the first successful circumnavigation of New Zealand (which if you remember had been named by Abel Tasman – wake up at the back there!) and drew spot on maps of it to boot! He may have used some earlier maps to give him some start but with his accurate measurement of longitude his maps are so good that they have only been superseded by the use of satellite technology! How about that!
I will let you know how the comparison works out but the ‘101 facts’ did give me chapter and verse about his death. He was getting on a bit by the time of his third (and last) major discovery voyage, was not well, and was starting to make poor judgements. His fatal poor judgement was to go back to Hawaii where he had already received a bit of a hostile reception. Local people pinched one of his boats and Cook decided to take their chief hostage until they handed it back.(This was a tactic he had successfully employed on earlier voyages). As you can imagine the natives were not going to let that happen and a skirmish ensued on the beach. Stuff was thrown and something hit Cook on the head. He responded by shooting the nearest native and then all hell broke loose. Cook was speared in the back, fell in the surf and was speared and clubbed to death. Four marines and a number of natives were also killed. The rest of the crew withdrew to the ship to regroup. To make matters worse the natives then ‘cooked’ Cook and ate part of him – he was only finally identified by a scar on his hand from an accident earlier in his life. Nasty. Needless to say the ship’s crew regrouped and went back and gave the natives a good going over, in the process getting back what bits of Cook they could, and burying them at sea. It took eleven months for the news of his death to reach London. A bit of an ignominious end to a rather interesting life. Thus the Cook legend was founded and grew and grew and grew. More anon.

Wednesday 24th November Nelson

Picton where the ferry landed is very small, and the next biggest settlement and the centre for activities for the three surrounding National parks is Nelson. It is a two hour drive from Picton, through the lower reaches of the Mount Richmond Conservation Park, and through a winding valley that cuts between the Bull and Bryant Ranges. What is noticeable is that wherever the land is in any way flat there are vineyards. Miles and miles and miles of them. And I understand that I am yet to hit serious wine territory! Nelson is a town of about 40,000 but is close to Stoke and Richmond so in effect it is one big conurbation. Yes, it is named after the Admiral, but as yet I do not know why. There is a Trafalgar Street, a Trafalgar Square, a Hardy Street, a Victory Square, - then just in case we miss the British patriotic influence we have Wellington Street, Britannia and Victoria Heights. Curiously there is Quebec Street, the Heights of Abraham, Montcalm Street, and St Lawrence Street. These do not mean there is a French contingent in the town. On the contrary they celebrate the drubbing of the French by an army led by General Wolfe so that we took over huge tracts of Canada, and just to prove that everything ends where we began, the charting of the St Lawrence River that led to the victory was carried out by – yes, you have guessed it, Captain Cook!

I am behind with the domestic stuff so this morning is washing and shopping as I will be here three nights. I visit the Tourist Centre and book a sailing trip in the Abel Tasman Park for Thursday – not forgetting to take my sun screen! There is just so much to do round here you get a headache just thinking about it. You can jump into, onto, out of, over, under just about anything you can imagine. You can walk or shop till you drop. You can camp, tramp, stamp, or stand where you like. You can ride a horse, a speedboat, a tractor, whatever. You can swim, dive, snorkel, see dolphins, seals, and maybe whales. You can drink yourself silly in the millions of vineyards gasping to give you free samples. Or you can just lie on the numerous beaches and get sizzled. This area is just about the most popular area in NZ for NZ tourists. Abel Tasman Park to the North is the most visited National Park in NZ – and he never even went there! The Kuhurangi National Park lies to the West and is the place to go if you want to ‘tramp’ or cave as it has some of the deepest and most intricate cave systems in the country – not for me folks. And to the South are the Nelson Lakes with more walking/climbing country. It’s all a bit intimidating if you just want a stroll! Nevertheless I go to the Conservation counter and ask about a not too hard walk that will take 2-3 hours. The man behind the counter who bears a remarkable resemblance to Sir Ranulf Fiennes, clearly only works in days, and I have to explain that I am only a ‘soft’ Brit ,and am not interested in roughing it with nature. He rustles his maps in a bit of a fluster, and suggests I might like to stroll round Woolworths. I say I have already been, and he is clearly impressed that I have survived so suggests a walk near Mount Arthur in the Kuhurangi Park. He finds me a map which shows a place called Flora Hut – which I am sure I have already seen in Woolworths! Next to the Anchor Butter. The walk will take about three hours and will lead me up to 1500 feet, with good views of the Mount Arthur range. I am sure he mumbled ‘good riddance’ as I left.

He would be even more irritated to know that after all his efforts I never got there! Oh I set off alright and followed the instructions in the leaflet, but right from the word go I felt that it would not work out. For a start the instruction leaflet was so vague. It mentioned taking a road bridge at a place called Ngatimoti on the road to Moteuka, but did not say take the back road to Moteuka – I discovered this by accident. When I reached what I thought was the bridge after an hour driving – nothing is close! – there was no sign for Graham Valley as the leaflet said. I guessed and took a right and found myself in Moteuka. Bugger it I thought, I’ll head back to Nelson. There must be a way back to my digs that does not pass the Conservation centre. As it happens I stopped at the Nelson beach at Tahunanui , had a really nice walk in the surf for an hour – the beach is endless! As is the norm now, very few people swimming but no stinging jellyfish and no shark nets! My walk in the surf absolved my guilt and I later waved happily at the Conservation centre as I drove past.

In the evening I walked into Nelson itself to see the Art Deco Cathedral at the top of Trafalgar Street. It was only 7pm but all the shops were shut and the town was eerily quiet. All that was missing was tumbleweed. There were a few bars open with a smattering of customers. I set off from the cathedral to walk back to my digs and came across a blue plaque on the wall of a jewellers. It said –

‘In 1999, Jens Hansen, renowned gold and silversmith, created here the One Ring for the movie trilogy The Lord Of The Rings’

One ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them

I did laze in bed a bit this morning and read my book as a very windy night had lots of doors and windows rattling and to boot someone from my bank rang me at two in the morning! Was amused by a story in this morning’s reading about when one of Cook’s party shot one of the strange bouncing creatures they had been seeing. As they settled down to a feast of the creature’s meat with a couple of friendly locals, conversation turned to what the strange creature should be called. The party had a sort of interpreter from Fiji, but he did not understand what the Aborigines were saying – ditto they did not understand what he was on about. No doubt there was a lot of gesturing and arm waving and imitating bouncing like an elaborate game of ‘charades’, so that in the end to the question (delivered v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y as Brits always do to foreigners) what do you call that creature we have just eaten, the Aborigine allegedly replied ‘kangaru’. So it became ‘kangaroo’. What the Aborigine was really saying was, ‘Sorry mate, no idea, I’m not from round here. I’m from Woolamaroo.’

Thursday 25th November Abel Tasman National Park

Despite the fact that you only have to look under your bed to find evidence of an explorer round here, I think I have just had one of my best days so far. I had signed up with Abel Tasman Sailing Adventures, a subsidiary of Abel Tasman Inc., for their full day sail in Tasman Bay and along the coast of the National Park. They promised scenic sailing, golden beaches, lagoons, fur seals, forest and an hour long beach lunch at Anchorage Beach where you could explore, swim or just relax. A 9.30 check in meant an 8am departure from Nelson. In my rush I forgot my road map so had to guess some of the way and then stopped at a garage and got a local one. I had been told to report to the caravan on the beach – very sophisticated but when I got there not a soul in sight. I have learned not to panic in these situations as everyone is a bit laid back but I did look around for a catamaran – saw one out in the bay – and had a word with the man in the hut next door who was selling tickets for the water taxis ( back to them later). He said ‘Oh yes, they will be along eventually’, which of course they were. I had in the mean time spotted the catamaran on the move towards the beach and spoke to the guy sailing it who turned out to be the captain for my trip. The catamaran can take about twenty people comfortably but at any one time there were only a maximum of 15 so lots of room to settle down. We set off at 10am after our safety briefing – the emergency exits are to the front, the sides and the rear, and if the oxygen masks come down we are about to be hit by a plane! Very droll but it set the tone for the day. Mark, the captain, was pleasant but always very professional. He clearly knew what he was doing, so much so that he was able to roll himself a cigarette and steer the craft with his knee or foot at the same time. We had a two hour trip up the coast, calling in at lots of bays for a look, spotting some seals, and just taking in the magnificent scenery. No wonder this is as popular with NZ people as it is. It is just picture postcard beautiful. Golden sands, empty beaches, deep blue sea, birds, wildlife. We all soon sank into relaxing mode but making sure that we treated ourselves carefully against the sun- except the two girls from Bavaria who insisted on getting lobster red! More fool them – pain tonight I fear!

At Anchorage Beach we lunched and whilst the Bavarians got redder some of us went in the edges of the sea and then headed for the shade. At that point some of the passengers departed to walk back along the Tasman Track – a mere four hours. In today’s heat rather them than me. We then took on some other passengers who had got a water taxi in the morning and who had been rock-hopping and seafood collecting for a couple of hours. It took us nearly three hours to get back because the captain wanted to do a bit more ‘sailing’ so took us a bit further out into the bay. More seals – the NZ fur seal is huge! – more scenery, more relaxing. The time went very quickly indeed. And I didn’t get sunburnt! I could see me quite getting used to this!

Chatted to lots of people on the boat – including the captain who let me have a steer for a bit – but most interesting was a girl form Plymouth who had taken six months unpaid leave to do the NZ and OZ trip. She told me she had been quite shocked by how negative Australian people were about Aborigines – even her friend and relatives. So it is not just me who picked up this ‘vibe’. We discussed how marginal social groups often turn to anti-social behaviour as a way of registering their ‘presence’ , and this is the case with the Aborigines and some NZ groups. As we talked and sailed through these idyllic bays we reflected on how traumatic it must have been for any native group to see a European ship just turn up in their bay. It was a trauma it took some groups a long time to get over. I said that perhaps the Australian Aborigines had a lifestyle that was so far removed from the European one that has been imposed that they may never get over the trauma.

New Zealand

2009-11-18T00:38:00.001-08:00

Sunday 15th November Auckland

Welcome to today’s edition of ‘I’m a seasoned traveller –get me out of here!’ Come back Adelaide – all is forgiven! I wake up to a wet, drizzly, dull, cold day in Auckland city. I have to pinch myself till it hurts to realise I have left behind the sunshine of Sydney and have come here. Yesterday was a day of travelling with me leaving the Blue Mountains – still not ‘blue’ but at least I could see them in the morning sunlight – at 7am and driving the two hours or so to Sydney airport, drop off the car then check in. The flight was delayed a bit by lack of baggage handlers (it’s not just Heathrow),and we landed in Auckland at about 5.45pm after a three hour flight. My taxi driver was Dev’s uncle from Coronation Street – I thought he was from Mumbai? The route from the airport took me through Selly Oak and Tottenham or so it seemed as everything – the houses, cars, gardens – were quintessentially ‘English’. Not surprising really given the origins of most of New Zealand’s original European settlers. Captain Cook again I’m afraid – he was or is the man who just about explored more of the earth’s surface than anyone in history, closely followed of course by our own Richard Branson. ‘Cooky’ as those of us who know him well are allowed to call him, went to sea as a teenager and got on because he could draw maps well. He ‘discovered’ Tahiti, landed in New Zealand, then took on Australia using up a lot of flags on the way. Some of his crew were excited to be invited to dinner by a Maori tribe who then promptly told them they were on the menu! Despite that ‘Cooky’ described them as of a ‘good disposition’. It was not a long career for sailors on the ‘Endeavour’ . A voyage with ‘ Cooky’ could mean death by any number of means- drowning when the ship struck the Barrier Reef, eaten by crocodiles, sharks, polar bears and natives, all manner of diseases, terminal boredom (shore leave in Auckland). ‘Cook’s Tours’ took them to Hawaii, Americas, Alaska, the Antarctic Circle. Not many of them had any spaces in their passports for more stamps! Depending which side of the barrier you are on you will either think of James Cook as an exciting adventurer or an imperialist villain. There are statues of him all over the place – some of which are not vandalised!

Auckland! Auckland! Auckland! A city so bad they named it three times! I have had more exciting days in Skeggy and Southport out of season. I decide to take a morning walk downtown. It is Sunday. It is raining. Auckland is shut! There are 1.2 million people in the Auckland area and most of them are still in bed – or in Adelaide. My guide book struggles to find nice things to say. The CBD is described as ‘grim and generic’. I follow a two hour ‘nooks and treats’ tour that takes me through three parks. Now the book did say that the city is the ‘city of volcanoes’ – well it needs something to give it some oomph! - but it did not say that the parks are placed in the cones of the volcanoes so that you have to go up, up ,up to go down, down, down, so that you can come up, up, up again. Those magnificent men in their flying machines, they go up tiddly up up, then go down tiddly down down – only on foot! Steps again, dad! Why does it always have to be steps? I tell myself unconvincingly that I will at least be fit when I return to the UK. I look hard for the nooks and treat and don’t find them. There is a reproduction of MIchaelangelo’s statue of Moses in one of the parks rather incongruously overlooking a children’s playground. The look on his face says ‘and I have come to this!’ Other ‘highlights’ include an ex-synagogue and the ‘original’ Father Ted Irish Pub. Give me strength!

Along the harbour wall there are the usual booths selling tours of all sorts. I realise that most things seem to happen outside Auckland in the areas where I am going tomorrow. Hopefully things will improve then. I book myself on a 360 degree islands tour for the afternoon, and discover a sea baths for later – a developing theme! On the way back to the hotel am alarmed to see a giant shark eating as bus – but then on second look see it is a ‘promo’ bus for Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World. There seem to be more Kellys of one sort or another in the Antipodes than in Ireland! It ‘sells’ itself as being ‘housed in old storm-water and sewage holding tanks’ ( ugghhh!) through which you travel on a conveyor belt, whilst the sharks, stingrays etc choose what to have off the passing menu!

Back at the hotel to collect my stuff I am not surprised to see people throwing themselves from the city’s 328metre high Sky Tower which is next to the hotel. I tell myself that they must have booked a whole week in Auckland on the advice of some unscrupulous travel agent - Thomas Cook’s maybe? Good job I am not here for more than a day. Am a little relieved to see them bounce back up into view as they are attached to a sort of bungy rope. The guide book suggests you can pay an extra $10 and the handlers will let go of the rope!

We tend to think Australia big, New Zealand small. Comparatively yes, but New Zealand is still bigger than the UK. It has only been populated for just over a thousand years, first by the Polynesian Maoris – they came from the opposite direction to the Aborigines of Australia so are very different – and then by the Europeans. The Maoris ended up being treated in much the same way as the Abos though. They had no metals and no written language, but neither did they have alcohol, drugs, or European diseases. The Dutch did pop in around 1642 but as there were no drugs went off again quite quickly. (Allegedly – Ed.) The leader Abel Tasman (see Australia) did leave behind a name – Nieuw Zeeland after the province in Holland from which he came. A hundred or so years later the British turned up, and that was that. The French did pop in but as there were no cafes and vineyards they went off in a huff. At first we were nice to the Maoris but in the end greed takes over and we have to ‘let em have it’ so to speak. We did come up with a rather ingenious method though. We gave muskets to one side in a tribal war and they happily bumped off their rivals. We then gave muskets to the other side and they reciprocated. Can’t trust these natives you know. They will kill a friend soon as look at them! By 1840 when New Zealand officially became a British colony Maori numbers had been reduced by about 20%. There were some pretty stiff clashes over the years much like those between the US and the Sioux Indians, but force of numbers and equipment meant that the settlers would always come out on top. Nowadays they seem to have had a better deal than the Aborigines, and are an integral part of society. But racism still exists (see Singapore).

I decide to give the town another go and go for a 360 degree trip round the harbour. The boat is packed – there are six of us on it, and two of those are re-runs who missed a bit in the morning. It drizzles for about 50% of the time and is blowing a gale the rest. Our ‘guide’ is South African who is reading a script he clearly doesn’t understand. Weitamata Harbour ( maori for ‘is something bothering you?’) is choppy and big and amazingly full of water! We pass exciting things like a ferry being put into dry dock, some fishermen being sick in the swell, and an extinct volcano. Most exciting is the ‘dormant’ volcano Rangitoto ( Maori for ‘bleeding skies’ as in ‘I am trying to sleep and those bleeding skies over that volcano keep lighting up’) , and a wind surfer who takes off in a huge gust and plunges headfirst into the sea! He was ok. We pass golden beaches that are only golden because they ship barge-loads of yellow sand from the South Island or so the New Zealand lady sitting opposite tells me. She is from the South so clearly there is a North-South thing going on here. I have a headache and think of throwing the New Zealand lady overboard just to make something exciting happen. One of the islands did cause raised eyebrows though. New Zealand is very hot on ‘bio-security’. I did smuggle Rodent in at great personal risk, but they got my apples and oranges – they are currently serving 20 to life – and sprayed my walking boots with something that will no doubt make my hair fall out or turn me orange like David Platt. Oh my God it’s already happening! If you go on this island where there might be kiwis – a flightless, nocturnal bird that no-one has ever seen – you should check your shoes for seed, soil, hidden marsupials or rodents. The New Zealand lady told me that some people had even ‘got pissed ‘on the island. I was just trying to figure out the relevance of this to bio-security when she ‘and not just cats and dogs’. She had of course meant ‘pests’ – those accents again!

Back on dry land, I head off to the Parnell saltwater baths. After my errors about the Bobby Charlton baths in Sydney I check the ‘gay’ section of my Lonely Planet guide. Rather discouragingly Auckland is nicknamed ‘Queen City’ and has the country’s biggest gay population – not difficult seeing as there is no-one anywhere else in New Zealand. Encouragingly there is no mention of the Parnell Baths in this section. A half hour walk sees me there. My heart stops when I see marked out lanes and the usual ‘Fast, Medium, Slow and Not You Mate’ signs. The staff at reception are interested to know if we have outside pools in the UK. Of course we do I reply puffing my chest out and looking hard. And we swim in the North Sea too I add (missing out the bit about only when ferries sink). They say the water temperature is 16C. Like a bath to me I brag. When I get in it is freezing! But I have a lane to myself and can just about make out the far end 50 metres away – no ‘poncy’ baths here! In the lanes beside me I think there are dolphins swimming until I realise it is the ‘serious’ squad in wet suits. They leave me alone though and I have my relaxing half hour. At the end I dip in the Jacuzzi which is a none too friendly 40C! I nearly end up scalded!

Walking back through the town I decide to visit one of the ‘treats’ from the earlier trip, and at the same time break one of my golden rules which is not to go into Irish Theme pubs. I had spotted O’Connor’s Irish Bar on my walk and had been attracted by the menu. I ordered a Guinness, which in fact was very nice, then Beef and Guinness Pie, again very nice. The bar staff were very interested in my view of NZ so far – I lied! Two musicians in the corner struck up some tunes and the ambience was improved by this. The one song that sticks is below – well what I can remember of it.

‘I don’t care if it rains or freezes, as long as I have my plastic Jesus,
Riding on the dashboard of my car.
I don’t give up and I ain’t wary, as long as I have my plastic Mary
Riding on the dashboard of my car.
And when I go a fornicatin’, I bring along ceramic Satan
And sit him on the dashboard of my car.’

Everyone except the Mormons in the corner applauded this one. As I left they were launching into Neil Young’s ‘Heart of Gold’ and I was for a split second tempted to stay until I did the maths ie more Guinness = very drunk = may even end up thinking Auckland is ok!

Monday 16th November Paihia – the Bay of Islands

‘Goodbyee! Goodbyee! Wipe a tear baby dear from your eye!
Though it’s hard to face I know, I’ll be tickled to death to go!
Don’t sighee! Don’t cryee! There’s a silver lining in the skyee!
Bonsoir old thing! Cheerio, Chin, Chin. Na poo! Toodle ooh! Goodbyee!’
I think I have left Auckland behind when I go to pick up my hire car from the airport only to take a wrong turning on the way North and ending up wending my way through the suburbs to find the right route. I eventually find Route 1 and head North. I am heading for the Bay of Islands which is a three to four hour drive. I want to be in Paihia before the Tourist Information shop shuts which I think will be about 5pm. Amazingly it does not take too long to leave the built up areas behind and the road winds through scenery that is a mixture of The Lakes, Derbyshire and Scotland – the latter the further North I go. I know that the South Island scenery will be a step up from this – see Lord of the Rings – but it is still pretty impressive. No signs by the road to look out for animals to road kill as curiously New Zealand does not have any indigenous mammals – they had not developed before NZ ‘cast off’ from other lands or emerged volcanically from the sea, whichever it was. Plenty of birds – lots of flightless ones as no predators…until humans arrived. There was a huge flightless bird called a ‘moa’ that stood 3.5 metres tall and weighed in at 200kg. Thus it was easily seen and too fat to run away – thank you very much said the early settler chefs…that is until they killed them all off! Good job that thing is not still around to wobble out of the bushes and stagger in front of my car! I see the odd bit of flying road kill, and one thing that could have been a kiwi, but on the other hand it might not have been. Lots of green! Trees, fields, meadows, forests. Lots and lots of green!

I have told you before about ‘road trip madness’ and it soon settles in. A sign for ‘wandering stock’ has me launching into ‘I was born under a wandering star’ from Paint Your Waggon. I perform the scene from Dirty Dancing where ‘Baby’ and her father fall out. ‘I’m sorry I let you down, Daddy! But you let me down too! Whaaah!’ Why that one I don’t know but it amused me to do it. Would it be possible for someone reading this to send help for me – preferably some doctors in white coats. You can find me somewhere on the road to madness, NZ. At some traffic lights the sticker on the car in front invites me to ‘Take it out and play with it’. I am not sure what the driver has in his/her boot so decide to pass on this one. At the service station where you have to pay your road toll, I pay my two dollars and I also realise at the same time that it is no wonder the concierge at the hotel thought I was wonderful as I gave him tips in two dollar lots thinking they were one dollar! This is because Aussie and Kiwi coins are the exact opposite!

Now back to the lack of mammals. It is weird having come from Australia where there are creatures of all sorts to do nasty things to you to a land where you would have to work hard to get pecked to death! But there are stingy things etc to watch out for. I will keep an eye out for the mouse-sized giant ‘weta’ which is a ferocious looking scavenging insect! What, a cockroach the size of a mouse! There were bats, but they made good kebabs. The kiwi is not just good at hiding but does not taste very nice. The Maori would have brought domestic fowls and pigs etc but favourites are something called ‘mutton bird’ which tastes like fish, and ‘puha’ which is tastes like it sounds and is prickly sow thistle! Not for me thanks. So the Europeans stayed with what they knew best – meat and two veg! They brought cattle, sheep, horses, goats, deer, rabbits, dogs and cats. If you could eat it they brought it. You may think that NZ’s top export would be sheep things and butter but nope! It’s onions! But sheep are big in the national psyche, so much so that they have ‘sheep shows’ with performing sheep for the tourists – but not this tourist. As usual when you introduce an ‘alien’ species it does not always go to plan ( see OZ with its pig and rabbit problems). In NZ it’s possums that are pissed…..sorry, pests….that accent again! And it has to be the Australian Brush-Tailed Possum - now 70 million strong – and munching their way through NZ’s best and most colourful trees and shrubs.

After a couple of hours I reach Whangerei, which is Maori for ‘domestic violence’ (see Maori glossary). I stop to find a toilet. I see a rather quality looking wooden building by the marina and see a woman go in it. When she emerges some moments later I ask her if this is the toilet. I think she can just about see me down her nose! ‘Oh, no’ she replies, ‘this is only for the use of people in the marina.’ And to emphasise this she adds,’ and you have to have a key.’ Got me there then. I ask her if she know where the public toilets are. ‘Public toilets? ‘she responds in a Lady Bracknell voice. ‘ No, I’m afraid I don’t know where the public toilets are!’ I give this anecdote in contrast to helpful taxi drivers! One toilet visit later, I check my map and see that Whangerai Falls are on my route and noted to be the ‘most photogenic in NZ’. They have a number of advantages over the waterfalls I have visited in Australia. Firstly, they are easy to find – no risky 4wd journeys. Secondly they have water in them. Now call me Mr Picky, but water in a waterfall is important. Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls may be spectacular but to see them in their glory you have to either have wings or be prepared to spend a number of months croc dodging while you walk there! Whangeria Falls are lovely and lots of photos taken.
I reach Paihai just before 6pm and the Information Booth is still open. Helpful Katherine books me on an all-day cruise to the islands with dolphin watching guaranteed and directs me to a good day drive for Wednesday. My hotel overlooks the bay and my room has a bay view! Yaaay! When I open the shutters in my room, the view is not just picture-book, it is picture-picture book! I find myself saying out loud – ‘Well, hit me with a stick and call me Henry!’ Why – who knows? It is laundry time again and as a seasoned traveller I muscle my way past some hesitant women and grab a machine in the guests’ laundry. While this is doing I sample the pool. It is empty and cool, and I spend half an hour amusing myself swimming under the false waterfall watched by bemused guests on their balconies. A well-timed return to the laundry room gets me a drier, much to the chagrin of other guests whose timing is not so good. I read my book while I wait then, laundry done for another week, set off to photograph some stunning sunsets. All in all a good day.

Tuesday 17th November Bay of Islands

The Bay of Islands trip promised lots of islands – there are 144 in the bay – a stroll round one of them at lunchtime, and possibly, possibly dolphins, whales, killer whales, seals and lots of seabirds. The trouble with wildlife is that it won’t come to order. However, fear not good sir! We had only been going about 15 minutes when the skipper suddenly announced he was changing course as some of the other boats in the bay had found a school of dolphins. Within five minutes we were there and the ‘experts’ on board estimated the size of the group at between forty and fifty adults, some with young. In order to even sail near dolphins you have to have a permit from the NZ Conservation folk. The boat I was on had the permit that allows you to swim with the dolphins under certain conditions. Two of the no-nos are if the group is feeding – it was – and if there are young present –there were- so no swimming allowed. Watching them was enough though. Sometimes we were following them and sometimes they were following us. At all times I think they had the upper hand! They were behind the boat, right next to it, under it, in front of it. We stayed a good 20 minutes just watching and snapping. These were bottle-nosed dolphins and so had a distinctive short beak. As we moved off and the skipper revved up the engines a group decided to leap and dash in and out of the bow wave and followed us for a good few minutes before they decided they had had enough fun. I am not sure if these are the ones getting caught in Japanese tuna nets, but ti makes you think! Fabulous!
It wasn’t quite downhill from there but apart from two NZ fur seals and lots of seabirds that was it for wildlife. Still, we felt we had got most of our money’s worth. The skipper diverted on a number of occasions if he or anyone else saw seabird activity as this is a good signal of whales and/or dolphins feeding. But it was only seabirds feeding. Only, I say when it was gannets and petrels and terns and shearwaters. Not an everyday sight for me in the UK! We went right out to the edge of the Bay where it does get quite rough, and made our way through the spectacular ‘Hole in the Rock’ – that was a bit scary! But it would not be the Pacific if ‘Cooky’ had not stuck his oar in somewhere. On seeing the ‘Hole in the Rock’ from the sea he declared it looked as if someone had shot a cannon ball straight though it. What a card he was! We stopped for lunch at Otehei Bay, the former home of US author Zane Grey – don’t worry if you have never heard of him, as he wrote fairly crabby westerns but made millions from it! We had an hour so I walked to the top of the nearest hill and sat there for my lunch. I had a 360 degree view of the surrounding bays and islands. It was very relaxing. On the way back we called at Russell to drop off some folk. Russell ( pop 1140) is former whaling station and in the past was known as the ‘hell hole of the Pacific’. Every vagabond, sailor and no-good for miles came there for R+R. At any one time there could be up to 70 whaling ships in its harbour. Its inns, pubs and brothels have long gone. The whales they hunted are nearly all gone – what killed the trade ironically was synthetic oils. When Charles Darwin visited it in 1835 he described it as full of ‘the refuse of society’. Nowadays it is a ‘select’ residential area. How times change.

As we pass a diving boat on our way round the Bay, the skipper comments that there are two wrecks sunk in the Bay which divers can visit. My ears prick up when he says one of them is the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior. For the uninitiated, the Rainbow Warrior was owned by Greenpeace, and in July 1985 it was in Auckland Harbour preparing to a sail to protest against the French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll near Tahiti. The French decided they did not want this to happen so they sent a team of secret service agents to blow up the ship in the harbour. Number one – this was tantamount to a terrorist attack on the soil of another sovereign nation. Number two – the explosion killed a crew-member who had remained on board on the night it was attacked. Number three – the French argued they had a right to do this when the men were caught; up to then they had denied it! They even tried to claim diplomatic immunity for the attackers! Ok, so James Bond isn’t real, but someone had been murdered here! The New Zealand Government and people went nuts! Two men were captured, put on trial and found guilty. The French Government (and people – don’t ya just love em?) went nuts too, as they thought this was unfair and boycotted NZ goods. They put so much pressure on NZ that eventually NZ caved in and sent the ‘guilty’ men to a sort of prison holiday camp on a French Pacific Island. Merde alors! Tomorrow I will pass Perengarenga harbour where the agents landed and set off in a camper van pretending to be tourists. If it wasn’t so serious it would be farcical! Vive la France!

Back on land I go to the hotel pool and once again have the water to myself. A couple of ‘wusses’ come and dip their toes in the pool then go off muttering. They pay no attention to me. They must think I am a seal. A while later I take a walk in the hotel grounds, which are located right next to the sacred grounds upon which the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. You will have learned by now that the words ‘native’ and ‘treaty’ do not sit together easily, and they usually mean a pretty bad deal for the natives (c/f purchase of Manhattan for a few beads and a copy of the TV Times). The Treaty of Waitangi did try to be different. It is hailed as the moment that New Zealand became a nation as it became a nominal British colony. The problem is as always one of interpretation. There is no doubt that a number of significant Maori chiefs signed the Treaty, along with Governor Hobson. But each side thought they were signing something different. The British thought they were getting the Maoris to sign over sovereign rights to the land. The Maoris thought they were signing up for a whale and dolphin watching trip round the Bay of Islands in Hobson’s warship anchored off the coast. In any case it wasn’t long before each side was accusing the other of reneging on the terms of the Treaty and wars broke out – lots of them, for a long time, and in the end the Maoris lost….surprise, surprise. But not before Hobson had ‘purchased’ 3000 acres of land upon which to found Auckland – taking advantage of the Maori chief’s offer of ‘take some land, take some free’ – and called it after the Earl of Auckland, whoever he was! The actual spot where the Treaty was signed is very impressive as is the 30 metre long Maori war canoe next to the Treaty House. I had to look at this twice as the sign said ‘Waca’ and the canoe was up on wooden blocks, with what looked like tireless bogie wheels below. It was only when I read that ‘waca’ means war canoe that I stopped looking for Scousers. Birds sing in the trees, the waves lap the shore, the sun sets over picturesque mountains and islands. The view is well worth the two cabbages and the one –legged chicken it took to buy it!

Wednesday 18th November Cape Reinga ( and back!)

La la, Tralee! Trala Tralee! I’m in love! I’m in love! I’m in love! I have just got back from a 400+ km return journey to New Zealand’s northernmost point – Cape Reinga. I was exhausted, nearly ran out of petrol, so by the time I got back I needed a shower. And that’s why I’m in love! This is the bestest, most relaxing, most wonderful shower I have ever had – well it was cause I could not be doing this and still be in the shower. Lead on MacDuff!

Cape Reinga is at the top of a 104km peninsula which starts about 100km from Bay of Islands so it was always going to be a full day. Petrol story later, but I did starts with a full tank as I had read that the northernmost petrol station at Waitiki Landing often runs out of petrol! Lunch, lots of drink, warm and all-weather clothing; pretty much prepared for anything which was a good job as I had not gone more than a few kms and it started tipping if down. Ok, I said to myself, let’s be reasonable. NZ is like it is – green, foresty etc precisely because it rains a lot. Usually 7 days a month on average in the summer, and more like 16 in the winter. So it can be wet. Once out of Paihai, the scenery moved quickly from the rolling hills of Derbyshire to glens and lochs of Scotland to rugged Yorkshire moors – hey up, Heathcliffe! – back to Scotland again, but this time the hills and dunes of the North coast. Plenty of variety for the journey – if only it would stop raining – which it eventually did when I reached the top!

At the bottom of the peninsula is Doubtless Bay. I mention this because the naming of this bay does not rank in the top ten things done by our old friend Captain Cook. He may have been one of history’s most travelled men, and his map drawing skills are legendary, but when he writes in his journal that what he sees in front of him is ‘doubtless a bay’ you can be forgiven for thinking ‘No shit, Sherlock!’ Other entries include the wonderful observation that ‘this creature remindeth me of a goat’ when it was in fact a goat that he and his crew had left on an island to help feed shipwrecked mariners; and ‘forsooth, methinks I saw a feathered creature in my hand’ when he was looking at his quill! He had been at sea a long time! More of ‘Cooky’ later.

The Maoris colonised NZ from the North, and their first landings were in the area of Cape Reinga, which they called Te Rerenga Wairua, which means ‘Where the heck have we landed?’ They quickly moved southwards and this Northern peninsula is one of the biggest concentrations of Maori speakers in NZ. It also has the biggest concentration of Croatian speakers on NZ. This is because when the Croats arrived at the end of the 19thC looking for work, they were ostracised by the ‘white’ New Zealanders but found the Maori more welcoming, so much so that there has been a serious amount of intermarrying. The odd place name pops up too. A couple of other odd place names that caught my eye as I passed were Salvation Road and Cemetery Road. Not only were these right next to each other but each of them also had an additional sign which said ‘No Exit’!

To reach Cape Reinga you have to travel on the only road that goes North, but this runs out 21kms from the Cape. The NZ road people are tarmacing it but are only part way through the project, so quite a lot of road-works and half finished roads to negotiate. Once there, there is a substantial car park, a toilet, an old lighthouse and that’s it! But you have to say WOW to the Cape itself. It sits at the point where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. You can see the physical clash of the waters in the surf and spray and the occasional whirlpool. It is a site that takes your breath. All this from towering, windswept cliffs. I don’t know what it is about coming to the recognised ‘end’ of the land - c/f Land’s End in the UK – but I always feel it is a sort of spiritual moment, timeless. I just want to look, and to ‘feel’ the moment. Cape Reinga is a spiritual place for the Maori too as they say it is the jumping off point for souls of those who have died. They also see the clash of the waters as between the male Pacific Ocean and the female Tasman Sea in a dance of creation through the whirlpools. I stood and watched and thought and climbed and sat down for quite a while, then headed for the ‘Giant Sand Dunes of Kilamanjaro’ – actually Te Paki Reserve. The sand dunes are really as big as they say – in fact bigger! Climbing them is like going up the last bit of Everest. I was following a German guy who was determined to get his towel on the top, but these dunes are so steep we both had to crawl some of the way on our hands and knees. We were rewarded at the top by a 60mph sand blast that nearly took our skin off! I think I saw the ocean, but even though I had glasses on I had to shut my eyes quickly so as to avoid being blinded! We both scuttled down quickly after that, and in doing so passed Mallory’s 1922 Everest expedition which had clearly taken a wrong turn. In the car park when I got back I amused myself by making sandcastles out of what was in my shoes and socks. The sand was everywhere – and Mary I mean everywhere! I then used what must go on record as the worst toilets I have come across yet! I cannot find words to describe them. Suffice it to say that men are not usually picky! Also in the car park was a stall trying to persuade people to ‘sand surf’ down the dunes. The brochure pictures show happy campers steaming down the dunes. All I can say is that they must have taken these people up by winch or helicopter for them to have any strength left to get on the board never mind ‘surf’ down on it! The stall had no customers whilst I was there.

The road to Cape Reinga more or less goes up the eastern side of the isthmus. It is 104kms long. Down the western side is a beach – which is 90km long! Called – rather oddly – 90 mile beach, you can drive the whole length of it provided you are a) mad and b) properly insured. Unfortunately hire vehicles are prohibited from the beach as they are not covered by the correct insurance. Tour coaches, strangely, are. But more of that in a minute. At the sand dune car park there is a notice that more or less says that death will come to all who dare to pass this notice. At a point where I visited the beach some 45kms south the notice said ‘Enjoy your drive on the beach’. This is because there is a section of the northern beach that at certain times of the day – coinciding with tides – becomes quicksand. Cars and people have come to grief there. I find myself wishing I had a 4WD instead of the tin can I am driving! In fact if someone can invent a car that can be a 4WD, a sports car and a straightforward saloon all in one – this would be the perfect car to drive in OZ and NZ! The coach brochure for Cape Reinga encourages the passengers to ‘feel the sand between your toes as you help your driver dig the coach out of the quicksand in a fun race against the rising tide!’

I did drive on Ninety Mile Beach for a short while – about five minutes – following a camper van on the assumption that they would hit the quicksand first! Just to say I’d done it! On the way back to Bay of Islands I (wrongly) chose the scenic inland route, which did take me through some spectacular gorge scenery reminiscent of what I should have seen at the Blue Mountains, but which unfortunately took me well away from any settlements that had petrol stations. I should have had enough to get me back – full tank, 400kms, should be plenty. But then I started to lose confidence in the petrol gauge, remembering that when I had it filled up the previous night the attendant had made some comment about it ‘filling quickly’. Settlement after settlement, no garage, and the needled flickering at just above empty – that light going on and off annoyingly. I won’t drag this out. I did get to Kawakawa on time. The tank slurped the petrol up. It takes 40 litres. I put 39.4 into it!

Now, back to Captain Cook. He is beginning to irritate me. He just keeps popping up everywhere. He only passed by Cape Reinga, but he gets a mention. In fact two other explorers get a mention – Abel Tasman and a Frenchman called de Surville who left his name on some cliffs , opened a bistro, then disappeared. Apparently Tasman and de Surville sailed past the Cape and each other without noticing! Tasman played a 17thC version of monopoly, collecting bits of land as he went past without actually landing there. He named a bit of the Cape after Maria Van Dieman wife of his sponsor. He named all of Tasmania after him! Startrek ‘trekkies’ may have already spotted this but I am only just catching on to the links between Captain Cook and Captain Kirk. Remember Kirk’s mission ‘ to boldly go where no man has been before’. That is Cook is it not? Both called James! Both Captains of their ships – one called Endeavour the other Enterprise – you don’t need a Thesaurus to link those. Both had crew members that didn’t survive very long. And the surgeon on the Endeavour was called ‘Bones’ because he had sawn off half the crew’s legs. Keep an eye on this one.

Finally for this entry, there are so many Maori connexions in this area, you will probably need a little help with Maori names and sayings. Below is a glossary for you to keep by for future entries.

Helpful Maori glossary

Awa Move on please!
Haka Novice golfer
Iwi Where’s the loo??
Kaiwaka Locksmith with mixed Maori and Liverpudlian origins
Kawakawa Shall I fetch the milking beasts, father?
Kumara Another day, thanks
Pa Elderly relative
Parahaka Army novice golfer
Pounamu I have just stepped in a cow pat
Puhoi Raised latrine area
Pukaki Military clothing does not suit you
Pupuke Stand well clear, and mind the doors!
Tangata I will join you in the sunshine
Taonga Licking device
Tapu Yes, I need the toilet urgently
Tapuna I really meant it when I said I need the toilet now!
Tekapo Bring your own toilet device
Wai Pardon?
Waitangi Remain here for the moment, Angela
Waiata What a ridiculous head-dress!
Waiomio Do you have to leave the party so soon?
Whangerai Maori domestic violence
Whare Kai I am locked out of my dwelling
Whare manuhiri Will the locksmith be here soon?
Whare runanga I am getting annoyed he is not coming quickly!
Can someone fetch him?
Whenua We will be there simultaneously

Melbourne and Sydney

2009-11-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

Sunday 8th November 2009 Melbourne
Hot, brash, busy, colourful, confident, a mixture of old and new – Melbourne is more New York than Milton Keynes. And as if to emphasise its superiority over Adelaide, the weather has just taken a very good turn for the better. It is shirt-sleeve order here as opposed to jumpers back down the Great Ocean Road. Known as the city that can have ‘four seasons on one day’ the forecast is a run of hot days not seen for over a hundred years. Top temperature yesterday was 32C and at the local races over a hundred race-goers were treated for heat stress – it didn’t say how many were treated for loss of money stress! The roll is expected to continue to Wednesday with temperatures in the low 30s, and then drop to a ’cool’ 27C. The last time this happened was 1902. They must have known I was arriving Saturday and leaving Tuesday. There is a worry that the current drought will not ease.

The local paper is always good for a feel for the area, but I have now learned to avoid the Herald-Sun which is like our Sun but without Page 3! I tried the Australian Age today and this is a bit like the Independent but without any class! The awful massacre at the US base had been relegated to page 5 as page 1 was dominated by big pictures of Santa’s arrival in Melbourne. Priorities, priorities. There was a snippet about Britney Spiers fans walking out of her first Australian concert in Perth as she was only ‘lip synching’ her songs. Surely they must have……but then they did buy tickets to see her so they must be….words fail me! I’m just glad she’s the other side of the continent. Hidden away on the editorial page was the revelation that exercise can kill you! However, counter research shows that not exercising can also kill you. There are millions of molecules known as ‘free radicals’ that if released by exercise can do you in. and I always though Marie Antoinette had been guillotined because she was French royalty! There are now thousands of Australians in leotards spinning slowly around not knowing which way to go for fear of ending up dead. Credit goes to the editorial which ended with the most dangerous form of exercise of all – overeating! Australia is suffering from what most advanced and wealthy societies seem to suffer from and that is growing obesity amongst its population. Forget the muscle-rippling, tanned Aussie surfer with his bikini-clad, thong-wearing bronzed girlfriend. Welcome to muffin-top and whale-tale! It’s like being in the USA all over again.

Finally the cuddly koala comes in for a bit of a stuffing in that local conservationists are now cutting the ears off koalas – all in the name of conservation and science. Admittedly the koalas do have to be dead and are most likely road-kill, but it does make you squirm a bit doesn’t it. Luckily for the koalas they don’t live in Melbourne where the pedestrian crossing lights at junctions are set up to allow a very fit cheetah to cross before they turn green and the traffic races off. However, wherever they live koalas are not good at crossing the road. They may well look right and left and right again, they may well make sure there are no parked cars obstructing their view, but once they start ambling across they are more than likely to sit down for a rest half way across and even more likely if some eucalyptus leaves have perchance blown down into the road. When I first heard the phrase ‘koala road-kill’ I was stunned. I knew Australian drivers were bad, but how the hell did they manage to get their cars into those trees! But I digress. The Aussies showed their soft side when they mourned the death in August of Sam the Koala who had been rescued from some of Australia’s worst bush fires (known as Black Saturday) for generations. The vet dealing with Sam could not say whether his death was due to over-exercising, under-exercising or diet. But he could say that he was probably one of Victoria’s last genetically pure koala bears. What? Apparently in 1948 mainland koalas were declared EXTINCT in the state of Victoria as they had been decimated by fur traders and bush fires. More koalas had to be imported from areas that had not killed them all off! So the ones in the area I am now in were ‘reintroduced’ – or so they thought. The idea of cutting off the koala ears is to provide DNA samples to show that these are remnants of the original population. Not that it makes much difference to the koala just flattened by truck. So the locals are busy snipping and storing, the koalas continue to get run over, and the Government – well they apparently, don’t give a toss! That’s conservation and politics for you!

Started the day off by dropping the hire car back at Avis. Simple enough unless you have to perform your first (and probably only) Melbourne ‘hook’ turn. This is when you are turning right at a major junction and instead of getting into the right hand lane as is logical, you have to position yourself to the left of the junction and then when an opportunity appears swing quickly across the traffic and exit the junction. I am clearly not the only one confused by this and why it is not a requirement at all junctions I don’t know. Anyway, I did it and only knocked down three pedestrians, collided with a tram and forced a truck onto the pavement where it went through the plate glass window of Woolworths. A success then! In the car hire office two young Japanese tourists (sans les bicyclettes) were being asked why they had turned up at the office with the car keys but without the car! In the short time I was there the staff managed to deduce ( by speaking English very slowly in a loud voice – oy veh!) that the young men had picked up the keys from the office at the airport and then got a taxi into town expecting to pick up the car in town. The car meanwhile was still at the airport – or so everyone assumed. I left them to it and hopped on the Melbourne Circle Tram. This is the one in all the tourist promotions. It is an old styled tram and free. It circles the CBD – Central Business District - and you can hop on and off as you please. There is a price to pay though as you have to put up with a constant commentary on each street and building passed. This is ok on the first ride but from then on becomes irritating. I was heading for Federation Square where I was told the Tourist Information Office was. On my way into the Office I was stopped by a policeman – not again I thought, I can’t have been speeding. ‘Nice t-shirt, mate’ he said. I had on one of the t-shirts from Rhodes and it said ‘Hellas’ (Greece) in Greek lettering. I then remembered that Melbourne has the world’s third largest Greek speaking population. ‘Greek?’ I asked. ‘Yes, mate. Good on ya.’ And he let me through. Inside Kelly was very patient and helpful. She told me about the Melbourne City Baths for swimming, and booked me on the Neighbours Trivia Evening for Monday. She said it was great fun and that she and her work friends often went along but they had to put on an accent as it is frowned upon for Aussies to like Neighbours! How strange. I might even see Doctor Karl Kennedy or even Harold Bishop as these are frequent attenders at these nights. The next hour or so I spent wandering around the CBD, taking photos of some of the imposing buildings, and then returned to the hotel to do domestic stuff ie washing. The hotel charges $10 to wash and iron a shirt! To do a bag of washing would cost about £50. No way Jose! I did it myself in the guest’s laundry for the princely sum of $8. Winner!

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon touring Old Melbourne Gaol, attracted by the fact that it was there that the infamous Ned Kelly was incarcerated before they hanged him. Kelly said it was a must, and she should know. Voted ‘best kept gaol’ by Convict magazine in 1863 and again in 1875, what is left of the original goal has been a museum since the 1970s. It is a monument to both stupidity and enlightenment, and is a fascinating place to visit. They have kept it as much like the original as they can - dark, uninviting, cold (good in hot weather) – not a place you would want to be if you could avoid it. And of course the centre-piece is Ned Kelly, but back to him later. I suppose the foolishness starts with importing criminals into Australia in great numbers. Not many of the early convicts saw the light and went straight. Even when their sentences ended they continued to hover around the edges of society and invariably went back to crime. Add to this the pressures of poverty – few actually made it ‘rich’ even in the early days – and you have got a classic recipe for increased crime. The response of the authorities in Victorian times was to build more prisons – the gaol records children as young as 3 spending time there for ‘wandering’ and ‘vagrancy’. The Old Gaol was built between 1840 and 1860, and was ‘full’ even before it was finished, mostly with impoverished people. During the period 1840 to 1924 (when it was closed) a total of 135 people were hanged for a range of offences - mostly murder – including Ned Kelly, and a possible distant relative of mine, William O’Brien late of Ireland who on 24th October 1884 was despatched at the age of 50 for murder. I say possible because we have the same name, and distant because almost half of Ireland is called O’Brien. My claim goes no further than that. Each time someone was hanged a rather gruesome ritual took place. They were left dangling from the gallows for about half an hour before being taken down and an autopsy performed on them. I always thought autopsies were to ascertain the cause of death, but who am I to say unless they were going to write ‘natural causes’ on the death certificate! As part of the autopsy the head was removed from the body and at the same time a plaster cast was made of the head as a ‘death mask’. There is no information in the displays to say why they did this, unless it was to display that the person was actually dead without the medieval way of putting the actual head on a spike and sticking it in front of the building. I will find out. In each of the cells of the prison block there is some information. Often there is one of these death masks. On the wall there is likely to be a picture of the ‘deceased’ with the reasons for their demise. It is a little disconcerting to be alone in the cell with head of a hanged person even if it is plaster. I was glad they all had their eyes closed! Of course in true Australian tradition the first two people hanged at the new gaol – a sort of ‘opening night party’ - were two Aborigines who had killed a man who they say had killed the husband of one of their relatives. They apparently went to their execution sitting on their coffins in the back of a wagon, smoking their pipes and chatting away to each other. No doubt they thought it was very kind of these white men to make these canoes for them and transport them to the river.

Ned Kelly though is what everyone comes to see. He was destined for this sort of end as both his mother and father were petty criminals – in fact his mother was in the same gaol when he was executed. He served his criminal apprenticeship with another famous Australian ‘bushranger’, but his big mistake was shooting dead two police officers in an ambush. From then on he was a dead man. The police caught up with him at Glenrowan where he was holed up with his gang, including two of his brothers, and some 60 hostages. In the ensuing gun fight three hostage and Ned’s two brothers were killed. Ned was wearing his famous ‘armour’ but the police simply shot him in his unprotected legs, and that was that. After a relatively short trial he was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 11th November 1880 at the age of 28. The display has his death mask – and rather ironically a poster for films starring Mick Jagger and lately Orlando Bloom – and a replica of his armour. Tourists are invited to don the armour and stand in front of a picture of the Glenrowan Inn. I didn’t. Prisoners were head-shaved before execution so the death mask looks a bit like any bouncer you would see outside a UK night club. The fact that the eyes are closed gives it an air of gentility – sleepiness. However we must not forget he was a nasty piece of work. This is no Robin Hood. To some Australians he has gained a sort of folk hero status – standing out against authority and all that. They have been sucked in by the brashness, the daring, and somehow they link this with their emerging national identity – after all the police represented the authority of the British Crown. They see it also representing Aussie ‘mateship’. How sick can you get! It is bit like the Irish over-romanticising criminal activities. As children we were taught the words to ‘rebel’ songs one of which was about a Ned Kelly type of character called Jack Duggan known as ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’. He is portrayed as robbing the rich and helping the poor, but he also stabs James McEvoy. A terror to Australia was ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’. Eventually he gets caught but not before he ‘bravely’ shoots two of the police officers trying to arrest him. It’s a bit like the Wild West, and the way the USA romances that. As I stood at the actual gallows that Ned Kelly was hanged from, I could feel no romance, just the sordid but inevitable end for a man whose short life was spent taking from others. More madness in the gift shop with soft toy ‘Neds’ and plastic body armour for kids. It made me feel a bit sick really.
Each cell display, each death mask, was a tale of human misery, for the perpetrators and the victims. Tales of low life and degradation paint a picture of 19th century Melbourne I am sure the good burghers of present day Melbourne would happily assign to the history of somewhere else. But there it is. Gold at Ballarat some 120kms North, logging of forests, digging of roads – all these needed cheap labour and so they attracted those in most need or those who have had no choice and been transported anyway. The hopeless or those with no hope? Women who have murdered their husbands or children or both, serial killers (not a new phenomenon), robbers, muggers, rapists, highwaymen – all these types efficiently dispatched by the hangman. Occasionally there is a miscarriage of justice. A man is accused of the rape and murder of a twelve year old girl. He is found guilty largely on circumstantial evidence. Almost ninety years later DNA shows it could not have been him. He went to the gallows protesting his innocence. Hanging in Victoria only ended in 1975.

The display does dwell on the mechanics too. You can stand on the trapdoor – it is securely bolted the notice reassures us! You can see from the chart drawn up by the hangman what ‘drop’ would be needed to expertly dispatch you – for me at my weight and height it was 4ft. You can see the cat-o-nine-tails used to thrash prisoners as part of their sentence, and see the ‘triangle’ to which they were tied. The thrashings were carried out by other prisoners called ‘flagelators’ and left the recipient scarred for life. We are familiar with ‘not enough room to swing a cat’ which has no feline origins, and ‘rubbing salt in the wound’ as this is what they did afterwards to ward off infection – ooooh! There is a visceral element to all this I am sure, but each element is part of a greater human tragedy. The one positive element in it all is the emergence of organisations like the Salvation Army who located themselves in the prison to minister to the prisoners – nobody else would.

Popped to have a look at the City Baths where I am going tomorrow then back to the hotel for a swim-cum-bath in the world’s smallest hotel swimming pool. This one would definitely fit in Sal and Dave’s living room! Out for a meal in the evening to Greek Town, prompted by my big fat friendly Greek Police officer. Dolmades, feta and olives (just love Greek olives) and lamb souvlaki. Too stuffed for a pudding!

Monday 9th November Melbourne
It’s Monday. It’s Melbourne. It’s going to be at least 32C. It was a warm night and I did not sleep well and so am groggy when I do wake. The radio is tuned to Melbourne’s Gay Radio station – that one’s for you Mark! Yesterday the guest host was Darren Hayes of Savage Garden fame. Naive old me though that Sydney was THE gay capital of Australia but Melbourne has its own claim to fame. Can’t quite a see the BBC giving over a frequency to this. Another example of Australia’s diversity and confusion – just what image is it they want the world to see? The music is good, but the ‘chatter’ in between is as inane as any pop radio station in the UK. Of course they are very excited by the prospect of Britney coming to Melbourne. I was hoping to miss the circus but the morning paper says she sneaked in whilst I was asleep. There is not much in between here and Perth – she clearly missed out Adelaide (another blow for their ambitions), and she would not stop at Cape Otway to see the koalas! My Lonely Planet guide tells me Melbourne has a GLBTI which translates as a Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender-Intersex Scene. I will keep a look out for one of those then!

Off for an early swim in the Melbourne City Baths, my eyes peeled just in case. The baths are the traditional Victorian design and are perfect for what I want to do which is SWIM – no posing pouches for me mate! The baths were built to stop the local populace washing in the river Yarra, and have been recently refurbished with a gym etc added. Luckily there are not too many serious swimmers there and I settle into the medium lane which tells me quite clearly that I must do a return lap in less than 40 seconds or a huge net will sweep me out of the lane and drop me in with the ‘slowies’. Some of the swimmers are cheating by using flippers, or else Charles Darwin missed something vital – there were some suspicions that Ian Thorpe of Aussie Olympic fame had webbed feet! I managed to keep up with the other swimmers without it spoiling the pleasure. A lovely half hour.

Spurred on by the vision of Ned Kelly’s bald pate, I head for a barbers shop for a heads shave. Ten minutes later and I am mistaken for Grant Mitchell by some UK autograph hunters. I jump on a tram and head for Federation Square where I breakfast once again on glorious toasted muesli with poached fruit and yoghurt followed by poached eggs and bacon on a bread baton. I look up the Melbourne guide to GLBTI food to see if this breakfast is featured, but it isn’t. I can only find BLT. I decide over breakfast that I will spend my day on the City’s trams – cheap at around £3 for unlimited travel. Federation Square where I catch the next tram is awash with parties of school kids on ‘trips’ ie wandering around with clip boards whilst their teachers soak up the sun and drink iced coffee. They are all dressed in ‘summer’ uniforms which are just like the ones on Home and Away and Neighbours - well, of course they would be idiot, I tell myself! It is a bit bizarre though as all the staff are dressed like they are heading for beach, which of course they might be if the pupil questionnaires are long enough. I am sure I see a couple with surf boards sticking out of their back packs and decide to keep an eye on them in the cause of professional standards. My first tram heads for St Kilda Beach, and sure enough the ‘backpack’ two leap on as it departs shouting to the concerned pupils to make sure they are back at the meeting point by 11.30pm. A strange incident on the tram. Two young women get on. They are students as they have to show their passes at one point. As we near St Kilda one of them decides it is time to put on her bikini top. She already has on a strappy top and a bra underneath. She slips the bikini top over her head and continues her conversation with her friend. She then fastens it over her bra and ties it at the back. The next step is to undo the bra and slip it out of her top. She does all this without breaking stride in her conversation and without revealing any additional flesh. I want to applaud at the end. The spell is however broken by her friend who falls over when the tram suddenly lurches and she steps on my toe!

St Kilda is like a mini Brighton, nestling on the coast a few miles from Melbourne. The single main street is awash with cafes, souvenir shops, food outlets, and tourists. I hit the jackpot again with my second Greek t-shirt, and am feted by the man in the ice-cream shop who gives me an extra dollop on my Mango-Mango. The beach is busy with sunbathers and a few in the sea. I decide to risk a paddle and am forced to do a ‘hot coals’ dance across the burning sand. The sea is crawling (or rather slumping) with dead jellyfish. Why is it always jellyfish, dad! I am told by a person beating one with a stick that these are not the dreaded box jellyfish but are the blue lumpy sort of jellyfish - he was clearly a biologist from the Melbourne University for the Pathalogically Stupid. Other people were poking the dead lumps with whatever they could find. ‘They don’t like it if you do that.’ I said to two women as I passed. They continued poking it as I moved on. The water was lovely and cool and worth the risk of brushing against a lump – but as they only end up on the beach if they are already dead I didn’t think there was much of one outwitting me in a side-step.

An Aboriginal man is playing the digereedoo in the street. I stop to record it and he chats to me, trying to persuade me to buy a CD. I give him some money and move on.

I catch the next tram to the Docklands area. This is like any regenerated area – mainly restaurants, shops etc. I could be in London or Chicago. I do not stay long. Just enough time to have an ice cream and lose my Symi cap! Bugger!
Neighbours! Everybody loves good neighbours! Off to the Neighbours Trivia Evening in St Kilda along with a bus load of other tourists. Bus is driven by Northern Irish lad who plays videos on the bus and encourages the passengers to sing. Plays Kylie and Jason’s old hits. I am amazed that the youngsters on the bus know all the words then remember they are the same age as Tess and Dorrie who have got the albums. We disembark at a very dingy-looking pub and are shown to our tables. I am placed with a young couple from Chester, Tim and Tara. They are on honeymoon and have spent one night in the Singapore Raffles Hotel as part of their package – at the princely sum of £350! They have now to conserve the rest of their money so are travelling in a hired camper van. They say it is ok but it is hard to keep stuff dry and the van is a bit pokey. They show me a picture of the van – it is pokey! Makes me glad I am not doing that. The audience in the pub is primarily tourists from the UK and Ireland , plus the odd Aussie who has wandered in off the street. I am expecting the evening to be cheesy and fun and it is. The compere warms the audience up – anyone here from Ireland etc etc, then introduces two young Neighbours stars who I don’t know – regrettably Bouncer and Stiff are not here. But Dr Karl Kennedy is and he bounds on to the stage to raucous shouts and applause. They take questions from the audience – Are you a real Doctor? – and someone asks him who of the three women in his life is the best. Of course he chooses Susan, who he has married three times in the series over the last fifteen years – I have not seen it for yonks so do not know what is going on at all! Then the actors circulate the tables conversing and having photos taken. It is very relaxed. I have my picture taken with Dr Karl. He is very patient as my camera malfunctions at first – ‘You’ve come a long way for a photo’ he says. We do a trivia quiz which includes some neighbours questions. I answer Bouncer and Harold Bishop to all of them in the hope that some will be right. Then suddenly Dr Karl is on stage with his rock band singing – ‘I predict a riot’ gets the audience on their feet and the staff remove all the tables. He performs for the next half hour and gets a predictable reaction to ‘Your Sex is on Fire’. The audience is mainly women and of all ages. They are having a great time. At about 10,30pm Dr Karl finishes his set and Paul Robinson comes on to sing. I have an early flight in the morning so leave after two songs. The tram drops me right outside my hotel. A good evening.

As I prepare to leave for the airport I hear that it was 35C+ yesterday – and getting warmer! Everyone is worried there will be another ‘Black Saturday’ which happened last February when temperatures spared to 46C+ (wow!) and there were serious bushfires in the state of Victoria that killed 173 people! This morning Melbourne is waking up to another hot day and as I watch people make their way to work I am glad that I am leaving at this point. The trams are busy. I am very impressed with Melbourne’s public transport system, especially the trams. It is cheap, efficient and clean. You can get just about anywhere in the city and for some way beyond for about £3. Why, oh why can’t we get this bit sorted in the UK?
One last anecdote. On one of my tram trips yesterday I passed a ‘Silent Protest’ by Quakers in aid of the rights of indigenous Australians. They had placed themselves next to a piece of street art which was a replica purse about the size of a double bed, just laid on the pavement. The juxtaposition of the two things was comical. If I had been walking by I would have been tempted to ask them about it!

Tuesday 10th November Sydney

Hot, brash, busy, colourful, confident, a mixture of old and new – Sydney is more New York than Milton Keynes. Hang on! Haven’t I already written that about Melbourne? But it could equally apply to Sydney (or Sidniy, as the locals call it), Australia’s unofficial capital – the official on being Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory., which is like Milton Keynes! It is Australia’s largest city at 4.5million ‘Sydneysiders’ but is also the most diverse and the oldest. Sydney Harbour is one of the biggest in the world (the biggest natural harbour in the world is in GB at Portland, Dorset!) and is spectacular in many ways. Lots of little bays, twists and turns, and the awesome sights of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera house. Sydney’s origins lie mainly in British and Irish convicts. This is not Botany Bay where Captain Cook first landed but the place where the first convict ships came in what is known as the First Fleet, under the leadership of Captain Arthur Phillip. As you would expect by now, the local Aborigine tribes were stripped of their rights to the land, locked up , driven away or just killed as the settlers took hold of the area. For the next 60 odd years Sydney (named after the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time) remained a bit of a hell hole clinging to the edge of this new continent. The first ‘settlers’ nearly starved to death as they did not know how to grow their food well enough. They drank themselves silly on rum – no change there – and it wasn’t until the 1850s when someone discovered gold in ‘them thar hills’ that Sydney became a place that attracted ‘real’ settlers. Almost overnight its population doubled and it was off! It is now awash with multiculturalism, diversity, complexities. It is not just about sunshine, sunglasses and Bondi Beach. But that’s what it says on the tin! We shall see.

First thing I find out is the locals do not have a good sense of scale. Getting from the airport to my hotel is easy enough, but once I settle in I have a bit of time to kill before I meet up with my cousin Fergus Collins who is taking me to his house for a meal. The concierge at the hotel tells me that I can walk from the hotel to the area of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in about half an hour, so I can be back to meet Fergus in plenty of time. Yeh! Half an hour if you are wearing seven league boots! It takes me an hour! The CBD is very built up, and hilly so you don’t see the Bridge and the Opera House until you are almost on top of them. I wind my way through the streets, noting places of interest for a possible visit tomorrow. I follow the map into the Botanical Gardens and through them to the edge of the harbour. Suddenly I catch a glimpse of the Bridge through the trees. It looks enormous. A little further on I start to see the curves of the Opera House which at this time of day – about 5.30pm – is partly in shadow. It is everything the pictures show and more. It is dominated by the sheer size of the Bridge, but in its own way dominates all that surrounds it. I know that its curves were inspired by a range of things including orange segments, snail shells, palm fronds and Mayan temples. The roof segments are covered with over a million Swedish tiles – IKEA did a storming trade that day! It is truly awesome. The closer you get the more you realise how huge the whole thing is! It takes half an hour just to get up the steps at the front! I am not intending to go inside so I just take photos from as many angles as I can. There are people everywhere – on the steps, hanging from the balconies, inside the glass fronted segments, photographing, leaping to be photographed – there is a ‘carnival’ atmosphere. And in the background if you look one way is the Harbour Bridge, and on the other the harbour itself. The view from the Harbour is said to be the best – that’s for tomorrow. The Bridge and the Opera House do complement. The Bridge is all dark steel, angular, strong, dominant. The Opera House is light, curved, with its own strength, but perhaps in away submissive? Far be it from me to fully understand the Architect’s motives but there is deficiently an element of male and female in the way the two relate to each other. I resolve to visit again tomorrow and to climb the Bridge.

I get a taxi back to the hotel to meet Fergus. ‘Gus ‘ or ‘Gussy’ came to Australia from Ireland fifteen years ago having met and married an Australian girl, Alex, in London. They have four boys – Charlie, Mikey, Teddy and Fergus jun. originally based in Brisbane they relocated to Sydney three years ago. Fergus is related to me on my mother’s side, and as a young man spent a fair amount of time in Manchester with mu parents. He is pleased I have taken the time to visit and we have a warm and wonderful evening - traditional Aussie ‘barbie’ – on his veranda chatting and reminiscing until it gets dark. Fergus is an export manager for a large retail outlet – mainly to do with the wine and beer trade – and travels worldwide to do his job. He spends serious amounts of time away from home, and only three weeks ago was in Ireland for the second time this year. He loves Australia and is about to take out citizenship. He doesn’t ever see himself returning to Ireland – but typically of all expatriate ‘paddies’ he still calls Ireland ‘home’. His family are lovely, and they really do have as good life here. All too soon the time passes and Alex drives me back to the hotel. It has been a really nice in interlude in my travels, and I look forward to seeing them again sometime – weddings and funerals most likely! Sydney was built on the efforts of ‘ex-pats’ like Fergus. Glad to see he is keeping up the tradition!

Wednesday 11th November Sydney Day 2

Hot! Fergus had recommended a ferry trip to Manly which would take me right across the far side of the Harbour to the harbour entrance. Nice beaches, nice cafes, and good views of the Bridge and Opera House to boot. I began with a meander through town, and a visit to the Queen Victoria Buildings (known to the locals as the QVB) which opened in 1898, only 3 years before Victoria passed on, so I don’t think she cut the ribbon. It is an incredibly ornate shopping centre, with pillars, balconies, stained glass windows, and massive copper covered domes – in fact just the sort of place the vast majority of Sydney residents would not have been allowed to go in! Nowadays of course if you’ve got the cash. It nearly didn’t make it as its style quickly went out of fashion, but in 1993 a Malaysian company came to the rescue and spent over $86million refurbishing it. It is amazing but don’t expect to emerge from a shopping experience there with both arms and legs! It was certainly bustling when I went in there. On the way in I paused when the City Hall clock struck 11 o’clock to signal the one minute’s silence. Apart from some servicemen selling poppies and a couple of other ‘civvies’ like me, no-one else stopped. I wonder if people go round with their heads in bags sometimes. A little further on the Remembrance Day parade had just finished. All over the news the PM, a ‘lovely’ guy called Kevin Rudd, was talking up Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan – so the timing was pertinent. They have lost 11 soldiers this year.

The Botanic Gardens cover most of the peninsula on which the Opera House sits. They are a horticulturalists dream. Exotic is not the word. Super exotic. They are placed over the very area that was first cleared by the First Fleet Settlers; cleared being the operative word. Remember the motto – ‘If it moves shoot it; if it doesn’t cut it down!’ The First Fleet numbered about 1000 people, of which 700 were convicts that the GB Government did not know what to do with so sent them to Oz. There was one civilian, and they thought they were on the ferry to Cardiff. (Bloody wide that Bristol Channel, boyo!) The rest were military sent to guard the convicts. What a happy bunch they must have been. The Aborigines did well to stay clear of them for a while, because when they did….well, you know the rest. The First Fleet Landed at what is now Circular Quay, where most of the Harbour Ferries leave from. I made my way through the Gardens to the Opera House and took some more photos.

The Manly ferry is a working ferry that will take tourists, so a bit like the Staten Island Ferry in New York it is fairly rough and ready. For $12 return you get a half hour ride across the whole harbour on the Ocean side of the Bridge, with scenic views of the Bridge and the Opera House and the isle and inlets between Circular Quay and Manly itself. There was a bit of scrum when we got on as everyone wants the best photo spots, but the cool breeze soon separates the photography boys from the girls, and before long good spots are available to anyone who wants one. The views are just picture book. The weather was good too so the light was just right. Lots of happy snapping went on. Manly itself is not up to much but unless you live there a day visit will suffice. There is a small beach next to where the ferry docks and the first thing I notice is the shark net around one section of the beach. There are a couple of hardy souls swimming outside the nets but most people are not. I must admit it did put me off. I did not have time to walk through to the main beach but the local guides all mention the shark nets, and the local paper did have an article about a recent shark attack on a man snorkelling in a local cove. He survived , but the shark had a good go at his leg. If it’s not crocs, it’s ‘stingers’; if it’s not ‘stingers’ its sharks! Oh well. I decided to miss out on a swim – the areas inside shark nets are described as a bit ‘soupy’ by the guide books – presumably because the wave action cannot operate properly because of the nets which are pretty substantial, rather than an idea of the combination of humans and water which the sharks prefer! I have a very nice lunch in the harbour café which overlooks the bay where I overhear a conversation about Mick Jagger and his time in Melbourne when making Ned Kelly. According to my informant Mick’s then girlfriend Marianne Faithful was ill in hospital so Mick left her and went off with another woman in a not very faithful fashion. ‘ And of course’ my informant continued ‘ today is the day Nid was hanged in Milbourne Jail’. That bit I can concur with. On that note I set off back on the ferry. I am due to climb the Harbour Bridge at 5pm so have no time to waste.

The Harbour Bridge! The Harbour Bridge! I did think about it for a bit before I booked to climb it. Heights and me don’t mix well, and especially if you can see down where you are climbing. But I steeled myself and reported to the Bridge Climb centre on time. The next three hours were a mixture of fear, anticipation, sensation, and elation. But I did it – and I have the pictures and the t-shirt to prove it! The organisation and the safety procedures are impressive. Nearly an hour is taken getting us ready for the climb. I am in a party of eleven with an additional climb leader. There is another Irishman, a married couple from Sydney, a mum and her son who are there because it is his birthday, and five people of various nationalities who are there because they are all on a ‘stag do’ – ironic because we all have to be breathalysed before they will let us go up on the bridge! We all pass. There is a ‘team building’ exercise which sounds a bit cheesy but part of it is to get us to know each other a little bit so that we look after each other on the climb. It works as it helps us to relax. We don all the equipment which includes headset so that the team leader can talk to us above the noise of the traffic below –and it is noisy! And then we are off.

We are on the ‘Exploration Climb’ which means we see a lot of the ‘inside’ workings and structures of the bridge before we head out to the top. Kelly, the group leader has taken mum and son and me as the first three because we said heights may be a problem. The first few bits are the worst as there are narrow walkways and gantries and some wooden planking to negotiate , some of which are directly above the water and some above the traffic. We are linked all the way to a safety wire a bit in the way climbers are linked to a safety rope. When the owner of the Bridge Walk had the original idea it took him ten years to actually get it going. One of the problems was insurance. No-one wanted to touch it. In the end he had to start his own insurance company! It has been going since 1998 and no one has fallen off. There have been medical emergencies – heart attacks, panic attacks, strokes – all of which have been dealt with successfully by the emergency services. Each team leader is in constant contact with base so getting help is relatively easy. Once you start climbing it you realise how big it is and the fact that it moves! It vibrates with the traffic, shakes with the wind, and expands and contracts according to the temperature. It has stayed there since March 1932 in all conditions, and is a credit to the engineers who designed it and the people who built it – and most of them were from Middlesborough. It is the third widest arch span in the world. The statistics are gob smacking. It was originally estimated at $4.5million but any of us who have had building work know that you can add at least 20% to that. In the end it came in at $10million and it took the city 60 years to pay off the debt. It nearly didn’t get built. The ferry companies lobbied hard against it. In the years before the bridge opened they were taking 40,000 people a day across the harbour. It took 52,800 tonnes of steel most of which was shipped from Middlesborough, and just six million rivets to hang it all together . At its apex it is 134 metres above mean sea level and I stood on that!

We wind our way through the structure, taking care not to bang our heads on the low beams which are luckily for me covered with yellow foam so I can spot then and so when I don’t spot them they don’t hurt as much! Eventually we are on the crest of the ‘coat-hanger’ and making our way to the top. Funnily enough once I am ‘outside’ I don’t feel bothered by the height at all. The view from the top is phenomenal. We have our photos taken at various points but the one most people are interested in is the one with the Opera House in the background. When we pause at the top to take in the view, the woman with her son reveals that her aunt – now in her 80s – crawled over the bridge arch on the night the bridge was opened with some friends. She was 18 and there were no guide rails or safety harnesses on that occasion. Wow! On our way back down we are treated to a magnificent sunset which we are not able to photograph as we have had to leave all such items behind – principally for safety reasons as anything dropped from the bridge could do serious damage below; but it also means the Bridge Climb company can make some additional dosh! We are all amazed at how quickly the sun disappears below the horizon, and it is pretty dark when we return. I am very pleased I have done the climb and having bought the obligatory t-shirt and some photos, head for the nearest pub to buy myself a celebratory drink.
Of all the hundreds of people who worked on the bridge, only 18 lost their lives in the ten years or so it took to build. Only three of them actually fell from the bridge. There is only one known survivor from a fall. A man named Kelly fell into the harbour and landed feet first. He suffered some broken ribs but legend has it his boots were found split open and level with his waist! And they gave him a god medal for it. The luck of the Irish!

Thursday 12th November. Sydney Day 3

I set off today to do one set of things and end up doing almost the opposite. My intention is to go to a place called Cremorne Point on the far side of the Harbour where I know there is a sea swimming pool that has good views of the Bridge and the Opera House. I am then planning to come back to the Aquarium, have lunch then head for Bondi Beach. It all goes wrong when I take advice from the hotel concierge. We find Cremorne Point easily enough on the map, but when I say can I get a bus there he looks blank so in the end I get a taxi. It costs me $25. When we get there I speak to a nearby bus driver about getting back, and he says the busses are complicated so it would be easier to get that ferry just behind you which runs every half hour and will get you to Circular Quay in five minutes. When I do get the ferry back it costs $5. Thank you concierge! When will I learn? The entrance pathway to the baths is closed for repair but a kindly woman walking her dog shows me a secret way which involves crawling behind hoardings and climbing over a fence. On the way she says that as it is Thursday the baths are likely to be closed for maintenance. They were! Thank you again concierge!

I did not rush back but sat to take in the view for a while then caught the ferry. On the way across I looked again at the Bridge and decide to shift my plans and do the Bridge Tower tour as this was already paid for. You can climb 200 steps to the viewing platform which gives close up views of the bridge and views of the harbour. It made up for the fact that we could not take cameras on the Bridge Climb. The exhibition inside gave the history of the building of the bridge in great detail. I came out with my admiration for the enterprise reinforced. At the top of the tower I chatted to a couple from Cambridge and as a result of this chat changed my plans again. Out went Bondi Beach and in came the ‘Bobby Charlton’ pool. I was telling them about my failed attempt to swim earlier and they said there was another open air sea pool on the far side of Mrs MacQuarie’s Point. It is actually called ‘The Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton’ pool after an Aussie Olympic swimmer. There are actually over a hundred public swimming pools in Sydney, but the Bobby Charlton pool is one of the biggest being full Olympic size ie 50metres long. The first reason I went against Bondi was sand – it gets everywhere, and not just in your sandwiches! The other reason was sharks. Now I like to relax when swimming but beach swimming in Australia is tantamount to offering yourself up for attack by something - even if there are shark nets about. I find it very hard to do the breaststroke or crawl and look over my shoulder at the same time. I care not that statistics say that the beasts are more likely to take an Aussie than a tourist. I’d rather not take the risk thanks. So off to Bobby Charlton I go.

On the way I experience a sudden desire to sit under a tree and have my lunch. I wonder if my time in Australia is starting to affect my psyche. I manage to resist the temptation and instead sit in the shadow of the Opera House ‘shells’ to eat my sarnie. Some lost Germans ask for directions and surprisingly enough I am able to help. They are looking for the box office which I have just passed. This is where I have another change of plan. When I spoke to Tess the night before she asked if I was going to see anything in the Opera House. This plus the Germans saw me booking to see ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ that evening at 7.30pm. That was the end of the plan for the Aquarium!

The Bobby Charlton baths are not in the prettiest of locations as they are set against the background of the naval dockyard but when I get there mid afternoon it is heaving! The Australians take their swimming seriously which is why they keep winning the Olympics. Like the Melbourne City Baths it has some very hostile times linked with each lane. With names like ‘Torpedo’, ‘Flash’, ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Speed of Light’ for each lane it is a little intimidating. I look in vain for ‘Floundering Pom’ and settle in the end for ‘Slow Freestyle’. Like Melbourne each lane has times allocated and a man with a long pole pokes those swimmers who are too slow. Despite this I settle in to a steady rhythm and start my first ten lengths – which given the size of the pool means twenty normal lengths. By the time I have done five lengths the other swimmers in my lane have disappeared presumably because they think I am dead and merely floating along, or like Marty in ‘Back to the Future’ they have gone so fast they are now swimming next Tuesday. I get out after ten lengths to rest and to put some sun screen on my back –see I do respond positively to pain! I decide to change lanes for the next ten lengths and head for one called ‘Flippers and anything else you need you saddo’. It is moderately busy and I complete my ten lengths without much problem. I allow myself a short time sunbathing but slap on a load of sunscreen. I have spoken before about the myth of Aussie muscularity and sun tans - a recent cartoon the local rag had re-designated ‘Slip, Slap,Slop’ as ‘Flip, Flop, Flab’- but here it was bodies on show, with serious swimming on the side. There was not a ‘comb-over’ in site. Speedos were the order of the day. Sunbathing was brief, as were the speedos. The person sitting next to me was trying to explain to his companion who was foreign why Australians call speedos ‘budgie smugglers’. That was a new one on me. It meant that for the few minutes I remained I looked at every male passer-by to determine whether they were smuggling budgies or parrots!
I allowed myself a short sojourn after my swim and enjoyed an iced coffee and an almond croissant – not bad for a lad from Gorton! – on the roof-top café. Now, iced coffee. If I haven’t mentioned it before then I apologise; if I have mentioned them before, then I make no apology for mentioning them again. I first discovered them in Kakadu about six million years ago! However small remote a retail outlet, garage or café they always fitted in a ‘cooler’ with cartons of iced coffee. The brand name in the Northern Territory was ‘Paul’s’. They were a lifesaver in the dry heat. I drank gallons of it. It will be one of my returning memories – stopping on a remote dust road somewhere in Kakadu and swigging iced coffee – admittedly by that time somewhat less iced than when I bought it – and just taking in the scenery.

I walked home through the Botanic Gardens again, and was amazed to see the number of fruit bats roosting in the trees. Dorrie, I thought you were in London! Coming down from the Bridge the previous evening I had seen what I thought was an owl but in fact it was one of these huge bats. They are a sight. They hang in their hundreds from the trees, and even fly about in the day. In the paper it said there were an estimated 28,000 bats in the colony and that they had already destroyed over a hundred trees. The Botanic Gardens are really suffering from their presence but they are protected creatures. Various ‘scaring’ methods including making noise so they can’t sleep are being used to discourage the roosting. They are clearly not working. I think of recommending the drunk who kept me awake on my first night in Sydney. H e placed himself almost beneath my window and spent a couple of hours yawling a mixture of classic Australian Frontier gibberish and alcoholic burbling. He eventually argued himself into unconsciousness, so I did get some sleep.
My journey to the Opera House in the evening was by taxi, and my driver was a mad Russian. He had come to Australia twenty years ago as a Physics and Maths graduate, but had ended up a taxi driver. ‘Not mach to show for tventy yeers’ he said. He said he had considered teaching but rejected it as he earned more from taxi driving, and besides he did not want to teach those who did not want to learn. In a moment of self realised irony he said he was not the best example of why education is important as he did not use his degree. He complained about Sydney saying it was a dangerous place as people sometimes got ‘bashed’ to death in the rougher areas, he said the beaches were full of ‘fornicators’ and ‘drug takers’ to the extent that each evening the authorities had to ‘drag’ the sand to collect unwanted items before their use the next day. My decision about Bondi – good one! We got stuck in the rush hour traffic and as Sydney taxis are on time for their meters it cost me double what it should have done.

When I had booked for the ‘Taming of the Shrew’ the woman at the box office had said that it was a production by the Bill Shakespeare Company and that it was a modern version of the play. Being originally by ‘Bill’ Shakespeare I thought fair enough, very ‘avante garde’ and very ‘Aussie’. When I picked up the play synopsis on my way in I noticed it was by the Bell Shakespeare Company! That accent agin! I then started reading the cast list and was noting that a lot of the parts were being played by female actors when it dawned on me that the entire cast were female, as was the director. Now no problem with this – in fact a little amused by the twist that all of Shakespeare’s plays had originally been performed by all male casts as was typical of the day. Tit for tat I thought. Next irony of course was the play itself. The story of the play is the subjugation of a strong willed woman to the will of her husband – very ironic indeed that an all female cast should be doing this of all his plays. Mine not to reason why.

For those of you who do not know the play here is a brief synopsis.

Peteruchio, a wizard from Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books, is betrothed to Katherina Jordinio – a shrewish woman with sizeable assets. Bianca, who has been married to Rollingstoneio longs to marry Bono, who has been in disguise to see the Pope. Verona, a friend of Bono’s, agrees to help him pretend to be a musician, so that he can get close to Bianca and woo her. Two of his other friends Bransonio and Vanmorrisonio pretend to be nice people in order to fool Katie and Bianca’s father into agreeing to her marriage. In an incredible denouement all the characters are revealed to be themselves, there is lots of cross-dressing and trouser-dropping, and visits to dubious stores, Brian Rixio is arrested and carted off to prison ,and nobody wants to marry anyone. In a final speech Katie professes her love for Muscleanio a Padua cage fighter and runs off to the jungle with him.
A great evening!

PS I have been reading my Lonely Planet book again and have just discovered that the ‘Bobby Charlton Baths’ is one of the main meeting places for Gay men in Sydney. Whoops! My observation of ‘budgie smuggling kit’ could have got me I in real trouble!

Friday 13th November The Blue Mountains

I wave farewell to Sydney apart from a brief visit to the airport tomorrow and set off in a hire car to spend my last full day in Australia in the Blue Mountains National Park, about a two hour drive West from Sydney. My route takes me over the Anzac Bridge so I do not see the Harbour area at all. Route 4 winds its way through Sydney suburbs, and I see signs for Newcastle and Liverpool. So many of the places, especially in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales are repetitions of English place names that at times it is like driving along roads in the UK. Eventually the road becomes the M4 and we speed off West. I have not eaten a meal since yesterday lunchtime so stop at MacDonalds for a ‘Big Brekkie Burger’ kindly served to me by a smiling Brittni. It is MacDonalds ‘Happy Day’ when all across Australia celebrities serve for free in MacDonalds restaurants in the name of charity, but unfortunately this Brittni is not lip synching.

Let’s get a couple of things straight. Not everything in Australia is what it seems. The duck-billed platypus is not a duck. The wallaby is not a kangaroo. The crocodile’s smile is not friendly. And the Blue Mountains are not mountains. In fact they are not really hills either. They are in fact a series of sandstone plateaux, older than the Grand Canyon, and just as spectacular in parts – that is if you can see them, but we will get to that later. It is yet another (yawn!) of Australia’s World Heritage sites with over a million hectares of rain-forest, blue-hazed valleys, canyons and heath-lands. It is the over 100 types of eucalyptus tree that give it its name because they exude an oil that mixes with the ever present moisture to create the ‘blue’ haze. The National Park’s slogan is ‘Easy to get to. Impossible to forget.’ My slogan is ‘Slow to get to. Impossible to see.’

I’m staying at a family-run hotel in the small town of Blackheath in the centre of the park. Mr and Mrs Bates are very friendly, but the old grandmother in the rocking chair on the porch does not say much. I decide to pass on the offer of a shower to shake off the dust of my journey. When I sign the guest book I notice the name Hedren as signing in but curiously not signing out. I dismiss this as the product of a tired mind and settle into my room. I notice a strange little creature crawling on the carpet. My first thought is cockroach, the second is funnel –web spider – Australia’s deadliest. It flips under the wardrobe so I get torch out of my bag and go hunting. It turns out to be a moth. As far as I know Australia does not have killer moths, so I relax. The Bates’ young son, a strapping lad by the name of Igor, who sports a rather fetching bolt through his neck, tells me that the nearest information centre is 3km away through the town at Dead Man’s Gulch or something similar. The ‘town’ is a crossroads with a few shops where I buy fruit and orange juice for my planned walk. It has been drizzling during my drive from Sydney so I kit myself out accordingly. The Information Centre is good and the ranger indicates a walk that is two to three hours long with spectacular views of the canyons, waterfalls etc. Not today folks! Despite the weather forecast in the Information Centre saying ‘fine’, the canyons and rainforest are full of low cloud, mist and rain. Where I park my car there is a ‘lookout’ over the canyon with a mind-boggling drop below – that is according to the information board. I cannot see a thing! Having been in similar position in the Lake District I tell myself that the area is as spectacular as it allegedly is for the very reason it has high rainfall, high precipitation, high humidity and lots of low cloud! The walk will take me along the edge of the canyon and I decide to go on it anyway. As soon as I set off it begins drizzling – you know the sort of rain that soaks you through – and I have to get out my Cape Otway rain mac! I just knew when I bought it I would need it. The walk through the rain-forest is pleasant enough but I am soon hot and sweaty. It is a good path but goes up and down the edges of the canyon with regularity. The Rangers have ‘stepped’ huge sections of the path, but for every down there is a corresponding up and vice versa. So it is a tiring walk. I am heading to a lookout that is approximately one and a half hours away. I traverse parts of the canyon floor, go above and below cascading waterfalls - I know this because I can hear the water! I still can’t see it. At one of the ‘lookouts’ I catch a glimpse of the waterfall. I imagine it is very spectacular on a clear day. After just over an hour I reach my initial destination. Had it been a better day I think I would have pressed on further but I am getting pretty wet and tired and so stop for lunch of my fruit which I share with a pied jackdaw. Another visitor, a sort of pheasant which looks a little like Archeopterix, declines my offer of a piece of orange and wanders off into the bushes. There are a few people about as you can drive to this lookout, but I have only passed one person on the path, a German youth looking for the box office for the Sydney Opera House! My return journey is relatively uneventful. Lots of bird noises but few sightings – one yellow crested parrot and two wren-like birds – so I got a bit lost in my thoughts as you tend to do in quiet situations. I rounded a corner to be confronted by two ghostly apparitions that turned out to be two more German youths wearing white plastic rain capes. Good job I was not an Aborigine – that would have really freaked me out! Back to the car park tired and wet – that too was now covered in low cloud as we are over 1000ft above sea level. The walk has taken me just over two hours and I must have climbed or descended a few hundred steps in that time. Why is it always steps, dad? A quick change and off through the mist for coffee and carrot cake in Blackheath itself.
Back at the hotel I notice a sign for ‘Murder Mystery Nights’. A smiling Mr Bates beams ‘You will imagine it’s real!’ Luckily it is not a Wednesday. I discover that behind the hotel is an Italian Trattoria and decide to have a meal there. It is generally a good decision. The ‘M’aitre D’ is an Irishman who has been in Australia for the last seventeen years. We exchange stories of Dublin and he says he would happily go ‘home’ tomorrow – but Australian wife and family to contend with. He tells me that the place will be quiet tonight but they are expecting a party of eight later. When that party arrives the men are all doubles for Rolf Harris! ‘Have you decided what you are going to eat yit?’ The waiter is a trainee. He fusses about everything. I say the starter of chilli mussels is nice. He says ‘I will lit chif know’. I like the subtle taste of the main course which is pan seared salmon with mashed potato and a fennel volante. ‘I will lit the chif know’. I dare to say the crème brulee is perfect. ‘ I will lit chif know’. I say I must use the toilet. ‘I will lit the chif know’. I am off to bed now. ‘I will lit the chif know’. I double lock my door!

So, goodbye Australia. Who knows when we will meet again. What have I learned about Australia in my four week sojourn here? That ‘ No worries’ is the same as OK. That ‘ Budgie smugglers’ are swimming trunks. That it is a huge country that even its resident population have hardly explored. That is a complex society and that Aussies are happy for Politicians to describe each other as ‘ fruit loops’. That Aussie males have an obsession with ‘six’ and with premature ejaculation – where else in the world would this be advertised on the radio? That it is still a young country that has not sorted out its identity. That Australian males love their ‘Utes’ more than their girlfriends. That the archetypal Aussie is not Crocodile Dundee but more likely Harold Bishop. That the real Crocodile Dundee is being done for tax evasion. That the Aussies like to think of themselves as free spirits. That Australia is no longer a ‘young’ country and has an ‘Ageing’ time bomb to deal with. That there is a huge alcohol problem that is feeding a crime and violence problem. That local radio is crap. That the Melbourne Cup is a horse race that the majority of Aussies take no notice of – despite the hype.

Weird and wonderful. I am glad I came. I am missing its quirks already!

Port Douglas and beyond

2009-11-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

Sunday 1st November Daintree River and Cape Tribulation
Before I go into the day trip north to the ‘wild’ lands beyond the Daintree River, a quick reference back to the ‘Habitat’ centre. I forgot to tell you about ‘lunch with the lorikeets’. What was advertised as ‘a delicious hot and cold buffet in our Wetlands restaurant where you can interact with water birds, curlews, lorikeets ( a small multicoloured parrot), cockatoos and a host of other bird life soon turned into the avian version of the Battle of the Little Big Horn – and guess who were the Sioux! The advert was a little economical with the truth in that the restaurant really was in the middle of the Wetlands area and so accessible to any of the bird life that was hungry, mischievous or both. The food was really nice and in generous portions, which it had to be given that you were lucky if you had two thirds of what you put on to your plate. It served as a cheap way of feeding the birds and entertaining those of us who saw what was coming and ‘shooed’ the birds on to other people’s tables. One couple shovelled huge amounts on to their plates, found a table, went off to get drinks and returned to find three egrets ( a small heron) settling down to their buffet – staff did try to shoo them off but the birds were obviously used to this so just feigned going away until the staff moved on to another table. I heard a child wail ‘ it’s got my steak !’ and sure enough an ibis had slipped its beak under his arm and off it went. How good this was for the visitor’s digestion I don’t know for as well as having to have eyes in the back of your head, you had to have them in the top as well to be alert to the dive-bombing parrots. The lorikeets? Well , they didn’t turn up! They must have got well stuffed at ‘breakfast with the birds’. Come to think of it I should have seen the warning signs when I arrived earlier – shell-shocked visitors being loaded onto coaches and driven away moaning ‘never again, never again’. I’d have asked for my money back if I hadn’t had so much fun!

North beyond Port Douglas the country runs out of being ‘nice’ and starts to take on some of the challenges of the Northern Territory. I had signed up for a day trip to the Daintree National Park ( which includes the Greater Daintree World Heritage Rain Forest) in a four-wheel driven monster that was a cross between a truck and a coach. It was driven by Patrick, a cheerful Aussie who assured us of ‘a real Aussie day out’ including a ‘real Aussie barbie’ under the canopy in the rain forest. I was a little alarmed to see that Patrick had only two fingers left on his right hand, and wondered whether or not ‘croc’ feeding had been part of an earlier tour! In the end the tour was a little bit cotton woolish compared to my adventures in the Northern Territory but was very enjoyable none the less. We travelled for about an hour along the winding Captain Cook Highway to Mossman, a small town founded on sugar cane and timber, though no timber is cut any more because it is a protected area. The section of road between Mossman and the Daintree River hugs the coast between Rocky Point and the fabulously named Wonga Beach to give both spectacular views and some heart stopping moments as Patrick swung the monster perilously close to the edge – I’m sure deliberately! ‘A little near the edge there, folks’, he beamed. The Daintree River is another monster which runs out to the sea at Cape Kimberley, and alongside the aptly named Snapper Island which is clearly in the shape of a huge crocodile. At the River, Patrick shoves us into a boat and disappears, promising us cheerfully that he will see us across the other side (he is catching the ferry) if we are not swept out to sea or the boat is attacked by crocs. The pilot of the boat takes us on a one hour meander up and across the river in search of wildlife. It is distinctly absent , and we have to be satisfied with the glimpse of a fish easting another fish – I missed this – and a green snake hiding in a tree – I saw a bit of it. I felt a bit sorry for the pilot and the others in the boat ( some of whom have come all the way from Cairns for the day – an hour before I got picked up) as he kept saying ‘ well just along here usually lives a big croc called Albert ‘ but of course Albert is not at home today. I begin to think about Peter Pan and wonder if Patrick is aware of any ticking in his vicinity. I resolve to count his fingers when we reach the other side. We try all the known croc hidey-holes but they are all conspicuous by their absence. Some people spot some ‘logodyles’ but that joke soon wears thin. At last, as it is getting a bit hard to bear not seeing anything, we reach the other side. A grinning Patrick comes to meet us. He still has all his fingers, but it is only 10 o’clock. From the ferry point we climb steeply into the Daintree Rain Forest. The contrast with the Northern territory is stark. Incredible greenery – verdant is the only word that truly describes it – rich in variation, enclosed, humid, and occupying only 1% of 1% of Australia’s land mass! Over 20,000 years ago rain forest covered one third of Australia – but its demise cannot be blamed on the settlers ( white or indigenous), but can be blamed on global temperature changes. A mini ice age was followed by rapid rises in dry temperatures and the delicate eco balance could not cope with it. Australia’s remaining rain forests and mangrove swamps are all in a narrow band of land that hugs the North and East coast, squeezed between the seas and the Great Diving Range of mountains. And to cap it all, along came the European settlers and cut swathes of it down anyway! There was not much luck for the rain forest creatures either as the watchword of the day was ‘ if it moves, shoot it; if it stands still, cut it down!’ One of the points we did pick up was that rain forest soil is not very good – what the rain forest is good at is recycling; everything that falls is used to produce growth. The early farmers looked at the 30 to 40 foot trees and thought we can grow stuff there – no they couldn’t. The things that are successful – eg sugar cane – are kept going by chemical fertilisers.
That brings me to pigs! How you might well ask. Well, the idea of the early settlers was to introduce species from Europe that they were familiar with. Remember the rabbits? The pigs were ok to start with but then started making a bolt for freedom – well , the convicts got theirs so it only seems fair in a way. There are now more feral wild pigs in Australia than there are people! 20 million and growing. I don’t want to dwell on the sex life of pigs particularly, but if you will allow me to mix up my examples they breed like rabbits. Only they are bigger and more destructive, and have become a huge problem. They are serious threat to habitats, including the rain forests, across Australia. Forget global warming, try global ‘porking’ ( if that doesn’t sound too rude – I did say I wouldn’t mention the sex life of pigs!). Patrick, our fount of information – we had perfected asking him questions on straight bits of road told us that someone had suggested hunting them down and when he had stopped laughing and reminded them of the size of Australia he did say that if 80% of the pigs were slaughtered tomorrow they would be back to the same numbers within two years! Get your head round that one!
We spent an hour at the Daintree Discovery Centre, which is like a ‘beginners guide’ to the Rain Forest. It was a real forest section that had had walkways etc placed strategically to enable guided tours to take place. We climbed the 26 metre tower – good for me – to look at the tops of the canopy. I was disappointed not to find David Attenborough there, whispering…
‘Here, high in the Daintree Rain Forest, a group of tourists is witnessing the natural behaviour of Australanicus Patrickus ,or as he is commonly known, the Two Fingered Driver. Australanicus Patrickus is a solitary creature which has a fierce territorial rivalry with Ignoramus Pacificus, the Single-Digit Sloth. Both creatures are only found in this part of Australia, and are sometimes seen gesticulating furiously at each other as they pass close by on one of the many forest tracks ’
Our actual rain forest guide David did his best to put us off coming to live in the rain forest – clearly wanted it all for himself – and following a dire warning about the 80-90% humidity in the wet season waxed lyrically for twenty minutes of our allotted hour about the Southern Cassowary , a threatened flightless bird about the size of an ostrich but with shorter legs, and in particular delighted in showing us a ceramic model of a ‘cassowary shit’, from which he could identify what the bird had had for breakfast, where it had been, whether it had been properly toilet trained, and finally whether or not it was being pursued by predators at the precise moment of deposit. This was the perfect precursor to lunch which was ten minutes down the road, but if we had stayed at the centre much longer might have been regurgitated fifteen minutes later.
The ‘barbie’ was good as Patrick had promised. I must confess to not being the greatest fan of eating giant slabs of burnt flesh in the open, and as my family know well am a major hazard anywhere near barbecue equipment, but this worked. For a start it was not a ‘me Tarzan, me cook Barbie (what would Ken say!); you Jane, you serve drinks and make conversation’ situation. Patrick declined to hog the fire and handed it over to his female assistant whose name I did not get but was undoubtedly Sheila. We walked down through a woodland glade by a babbling stream to the Barbie site; the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the ‘mozzies’ were not yet astir. Perfect! Satiated, we staggered back to the lorry-bus for the trip to Cape Tribulation. Apart from Patrick dicing with death in the coast road it had been a pretty straight forward trip so far. The name alone gave Cape Tribulation a sense of expectation. Bring it on!
Captain Cook again I’m afraid! Discoverer extraordinaire he may well have been, but he was as capable of any of us of hitting a reef or two. I presume that ‘mapping’ the coastline meant toddling along it a safe distance, then putting ashore every so often so that the cartographers and estate agents could get out their theodolites and send the ‘stick men’ to climb the highest local hill and allow them to triangulate or whatever it is that cartographers do. They did not believe in wasting time and effort , so whilst they were up there they planned the sequence of tracks and dual carriageways that criss-cross the region now. No wonder that they think of Captain Cook as a hero in this part of the continent. The problem was that Captain Cook or whoever was on lookout at the time was so focussed on shouting ‘cooee’ to the stick man up on Thornton Peak ( except it wasn’t called that then – I think the cartographer recorded it as……………… ‘lookoutyouregoingstraightfortheughtoolate’ Peak.
The HMS Endeavour had run aground on Endeavour Reef ( what a coincidence), so the Captain and his crew had to stay in the area for six or seven weeks to get the ship repaired before they could go off and discover Botany Bay. Cook was so annoyed he named the area ‘That Bloody Reef That Nearly Buggered Our Ship’ but was forced by his publishers to change it to something more dramatic.
‘I want action, Jimmy, I want threats, I want fear, I want cyclones, I want your readers to imagine their lives hang by a thread’
‘How about Cape Accident?’
‘Too weak!’
‘Cape Damage’
‘Too French! Imagine you’re still there Jimmy. Think of all the problems you have overcome, the trials,..the….’
‘Tribulations?’
‘That’s it Jimmy! Cape Tribulation! Scare the crap outa them!’
There is a memorial statue high on one of the hills by Cape Tribulation to those brave men who climbed up through the thick forests ‘armed’ only with a long branch and a coloured handkerchief with which to wave to the cartographer thousands of metres below. The statue commemorates the most determined of them all, one of the Endeavour’s crew, a Welshman, David Wynn Williams whose ancestors still carry sticks for cartographers planning the flood defences of rural Lincolnshire.

Cape Tribulation itself is the last point an ordinary vehicle can reach using the coastal route to Cook Town. From Cook Town itself to the most Northern point in Australia, Cape York, is described in the Lonely Planet guide as ‘one of the greatest 4WD routes on the continent’. It recommends that you don’t tackle the hundreds of kilometres of ‘roadway’ on your own – take two vehicles it says in case one gets stuck. When something is described as ‘character testing’ I know it means stay clear! Thank goodness we are not going that far – but Patrick says the ‘lorrybus’ would cope with the route and has done in the past. I think again of his fingers. The road is quiet but at Cape Tribulation the car park is heaving. We have half an hour, so I choose to sit on the beach and watch. There are only about 50 people on a sweeping u-shaped beach. The sand is golden, the vista is idyllic, palm trees are swaying, coconut husks litter the beach, the rainforest –covered hills are the backdrop - but again there is no-one in the water – stinger season. I feel disappointed. On a beach without even being able to paddle in the sea is a bit if a waste of time for me. I think of great UK beaches - and there are some, Norfolk springs to mind – and feel a bit cheated at coming right to the other side of the world to have my expectations unfulfilled. I am sure there will be other beaches but this one is ‘sold’ as one of the best spots in Australia. I am not unhappy when the half hour is up. On the way back down the coast Patrick surprises us with a quick call at an ice cream factory in the middle of nowhere! Yummy! We have to get the ferry back across the Daintree River and while we are queuing up Patrick tells those who do not already know about the five year old boy taken by the croc in February on this river. (It wasn’t Albert, but a ‘newcomer’ the locals did not know about). The boy’s family run a firm doing wildlife trips like the one we have been to today, and their home fronted the river. Patrick is sure the boy had been warned of the dangers, but all it takes is a momentary lapse. The parents, distraught as they were, did not want the croc killed but it was captured and taken to a ‘secret’ location in a wildlife park so that others could not seek revenge. It made me think about the fragility of life, and how a momentary lapse – walking out into the road without looking; it doesn’t have to be in ‘dangerous territory’ – can mean the end of it. It is a bit of a salutary moment for us all and the bus goes silent. Then there is a child’s voice asking a question. ‘Did the dog make it?’ Patrick picks this up immediately . ‘Yes it did. Yes it did. I suppose there has to be some positive in that.’
Mossman Gorge, our last stop is ‘owned ‘ by the local Aborigine community, who live in a ‘commune’ nearby .Their houses are far from the ones I have described in Port Douglas in more than distance. They are in negotiations with the local council about extending the car park for the gorge, but a stumbling point is who is going to have the car park fees. The Gorge is picturesque, and there are children and young adults swimming in the fast flowing waters despite notices advising them against this. Patrick notes that they are relatively safe as the crocs do not like the water temperature – it is too cold – but he does say that people have drowned in the wet season when the flow quickens. In the car park a Monitor Lizzard - the size of a cat – checks out the picnickers. As we leave the area and pass the Aboriginal housing, a group sitting beneath a tree – it is raining – raise their arms in a farewell salute. I think of it as an investment for the future when visitors will bring money into their community. I am tired when I get back. It has been a long day. I thank Patrick. I cannot bring myself to ask him about the fingers. Probably better I don’t know.

Monday 2nd November Adelaide
Up in the middle of the night to catch the flight from Cairns at 6.20am. I am being picked up at 3.20am. I set two alarms. I watch Arsenal demolish Tottenham , then am amazed to see that City vs Birmingham is on live at 2am. I manage to watch the first half, but at nil-nil it is not a thriller. I still don’t know the score at this point. It throws it down – the Tropics really do have torrential rain – as I leave, and after a 2 hour plus flight I am glad to land in sunny Adelaide. I check in my hotel and by mistake am given a cupboard instead of a room. On closer examination I discover that this is an upgrade cupboard as it has a ‘mini –bar’. I resolve if necessary to sleep in the mini-bar if it is more spacious than my bed. I am only here two night so I can’t be bothered to make a fuss. Us Brits hey! I settle down with my guide – and very nice he is too – and note that I am now in South Australia. (‘In South Australia I was born! Heave away! Haul Away!’) and that Adelaide is a big city of over a million people. Frankilry has described it as Milton Keynes with sun. We will see. Captain Cook did not get here as far as I know, but could have saved a lot of time by getting a map from the Information Centre which is what I did. ( The youth in the Info Centre was a nice young man on a sort of work placement which meant he knew nothing about the area – a theme I will pick up later). The ‘founder’ of Adelaide (for ‘founder’ read man who snatched the land from the Kaurna aborigines) was Colonel William Light. He drew the plans for the city in 1836 in between cycling in the local Mt Lofty Ranges ( ‘shoulders back there lovely boy!’). It is described as a city within a park as there are lots of surrounding ‘green’ areas. It is easy to get around as it is in a ‘grid’ form like New York. I plan to do a tour tomorrow – self organised. This afternoon I spotted an area on the map called O’Connell Street and the info sheet said there were some interesting eateries there. I hailed a taxi, and the guy said that it was a fair way as he had to follow the one-way system. I asked how much it would roughly cost and when he said about $12, I said I would give him $20 for him to take me on a slightly longer route to pick up the odd key site. The next twenty minutes were entertaining to say the least. The cabby was a WAM ( White Australian Male) who prided himself in his historical knowledge – but I am not sure which history text book he got his information from. He started off ok with the announcement of the population of Adelaide, but when he tried to go into its foundation he started to go off the rails big time. For a start he said the city had been named after Queen Adelaide and he thought there must have been a queen or something of that name in British history. He then took me through Victoria Square and noted that he thought she might have been a queen too. He explained the gird formation of the city and noted that Captain Cook had designed it. He continually pointed out buildings to me which was impressive until I realised he would only point out those with the names emblazoned in ten foot high letters on the front of the building. It was fun and I was a bit disappointed when we reached O’Connell Street. He was a nice guy. Just a pity he did not know a bit more about his city. Still, he was head and shoulders above New York cabbies who must be some of the most miserable souls in the world of cabbies. I could not imagine this guy parking in floodwater at Pennsylvania Station and leaving his fares to get their own bags out of the boot in the pouring rain as one loving soul did to Mary and I when we were leaving New York last year to travel to Niagara Falls.
This evening I caught the tram to palindrome city Arizona – a place on the coast called Glenelg. I did not notice the palindrome bit (thanks Tess for pointing it out) at all. It is a small resort by the beach. By the time I got there (ostensibly to see the ‘stunning sunsets’) the surf was up, the clouds were over and it was c-c-c-cold! I took some photos, had a Thai takeaway, a nice ice cream and caught the tram back. If I get up in time I will go for breakfast on Wednesday. Sleepy, sleepy, Glenelg, is where the first settlers (*see above) came ashore to survey (**see above) the area and to establish Adelaide. They also embarked on the curious alteration to the English language that is ‘Strine. It was when the automated ‘tram voice’ announced that we were approaching ‘Jitty Road’ that my musings started. The Australian accent can by a bit ‘whining’ to say the least, so if you are telling an English ‘frind’ to stroke his/her dog before placing them in the cut-through next to the Vets you will cause confusion if you tell them to ‘Pat your pit in the jitty next to the vits.’

Tuesday 3rd November Adelaide
Well, I owe my ‘cabby’ friend an apology. Further investigation reveals that there was in fact a Queen Adelaide ( I still have my doubts about Victoria) who was the ‘consort’ (like Cruella and Charles) of King William IV! Sorry, mate! I have also tracked down the origins of the town that spells itself back to front – Glenelg. There was in fact a Lord Glenelg - or Drol Gleneleg as he preferred to be known. He originated from the Highlands of Scotland where the Scottish Gaelic spelling of the area was Gleann Eilg. I could not be bothered finding any more out about him. Giving a place a palandromic name is enough for me. Glenelg was the first chosen landing place in South Australia by Adealide’s founder Colonel William Light, and almost at once he planted some vines as he felt the first settlers had something to celebrate. News travelled slowly in those days, so there was not such a rush to open the first Post Office. That was delayed until 1849. Colonel Light’s first postcard read…
‘Hello mum. Got here ok. Would have written earlier but had a bit of a hangover from the wine we brewed. Am thinking of calling it Jacob’s Creek after a name on a bottle I found in the sea. The beach is fantastic. Not a German towel in sight. Have been quite busy founding Adelaide and stuff. Glen is not awake yet but would send his regards if he was. Have to go now as there is an angry black man at the door asking us for camping fees. See ya later as they say out here. Bill.’
The post card arrived in England in 1903.
The city is going mad, or if you believe the hype, the whole of Australia is going mad. Despite the fact that I am in Adelaide, it is ‘Melbourne Cup’ Day, and I can’t escape it. I should have spotted the signs at the airport at Cairns – my excuse is I was half asleep – when all the papers had pictures of horses on the front. For a moment I could have been forgiven thinking that I had been transported in time to the land of Gulliver’s Travels and the Huonyms. It is billed as ‘the race that stops the nation’ and even as a non-horse person I have to be impressed by the statistics. Richest and most prestigious 2 mile handicap in the world – prize money $5.5million – of which the winning jockey gets 5% ( $275,000) which is not bad for a day’s work! Australians go berserk and bet about $100million on the race, and a horse wins it. I decide to test out the ’race that stops a nation bit’ as when I was on my tour around Adelaide there were a hell of a lot of people not ‘stopped’. My first ‘vicitm’ is the receptionist at the hotel. There is even a telly in the background with what look like horses to me on it. ‘Who won then? ‘ I ask provocatively, giving no clue as to what I am on about. She looks at me then at the telly then at me again and says in a rather defeated voice, ‘I have no idea. I have only just come on shift.’ As if that is an excuse! The race has been over for at least an hour by my calculations. I turn to the lift just as a party of noisy Aussies get off ( note the stereotyping here). ‘How’d the race go ? I chirped thinking I had better give at least a little clue. ‘Shocking!’ said a woman. ‘Why, what happened ?‘ I asked. ‘No’, she continued, ‘ it was won by a horse called ‘Shocking’!’ I gather from the continuing conversation that this is good for the bookies as this is not a big favourite. It is a public holiday in Melbourne and lots of other Aussies take the day off and get drunk – they don’t need much of an excuse. The local radio has been featuring it and ‘spoof called’ an information centre pretending to be a Chinese business owner asking at what time he had to stop working as he had heard that the Melbourne Cup was the race that ‘stops an Asian’. The spoof worked for a while as he even asked if he could employ non-Asians to keep his business going during the race. I did not set out to avoid the race today, and even if I had tried I could not have done so. More of this later.
I had set out to tour the city on my own ‘Adelaide Walking Tour’ vaguely based on one in the Lonely Planet Guide . I ended up walking for ages and covering serious amounts of ground but did see lots of the City which enabled me to come to the conclusion that Frankilry was being a bit harsh. As I said before Adelaide is very ‘green’ and I experienced lots of this today. I headed for the Torrens River and bypassed the Adelaide Oval where Sir Donald Bradman reigned before a pit lad from Nottinghamshire called Harold Larwood subjected him to ‘bodyline’ bowling. He was still one of the greatest batsmen that there has ever been. Opposite there is the University Oval and some lads were playing in an organised cricket match – full kit etc. I have been told that the Aussies take their sport very seriously and that they hate losing – especially to the ‘poms’ . These lads looked about 14 and were well engaged in the game. I saw one spectacular ‘caught and bowled’ before I moved on. Highlight of the morning stroll was the Botanic Garden. Too much to describe – the photos will be better at that – but certainly a place for Nigel and Linda to revel in, no sign of the allotment ‘gestapo’! I had had a coffee at the snack bar and was looking down a long avenue of giant Moreton Bay Fig Trees (trust me, they are BIG) trying to work out an angle for a photo when I suddenly thought I saw hundreds of giant yellow ants spilling across the path in the distance. I blinked and took a further look which revealed that they were in fact a line of kindergarten children in yellow bibs. From then on almost everywhere I went ( including the museums later) I was confronted by parties of ‘ants’ some very much under control and others not quite.
I headed out of the Botanic Garden and found myself next to the National Wine Centre of Australia, and enormous building in the shape of the slats of a wine barrel. People were getting out of taxis in their best ‘bib and tucker’ (I was in shorts and t-shirt) and heading up the long curving ramp to the main door. In for a penny I though and followed them. At the door a waiter dressed not unlike Renee from ‘Allo ‘Allo greeted me and asked with an element of mild sarcasm if I was attending one of the functions. To his credit he was helpful and when I asked if there was an area for visitors to look around he pointed this out. I took a quick look as I went up the stairs at the main function hall which was decked out for some big event. Another Renee at the top explained it was a charitable event for the Melbourne Cup. It was barely half past eleven and the race started at 2.45pm – there was surely some serious partying to go on in between. There was certainly an ‘Ascot’ element in the way the ladies were dressed. I spent half an hour looking at the exhibition which was very informative but my mind kept going back to the revellers downstairs. As I left the building the entertainment was just starting - a dance troupe, I tried to get the original Renee to tell me how much each of the punters was shelling out for this bash. He feigned ignorance, but did tell me that the charity was set up by two successful Aussie Rules footballers to support children with cancer, so I suppose they were entitled to their enjoyment for that good cause.
I visited the Adelaide Art Museum which had both indigenous art and European style art. I walked into one gallery where there was a huge portrait of King George III – he of going bonkers often fame – and blow me if it wasn’t the current Prince William staring back at me! I am glad for his sake that the ‘bonkers’ gene appears to have attached itself to his father rather than to him! It just reminded me also how far back this current royal family go. The current queen’s grandfather was the person who changed the name of the royal family to Windsor from Goethe Saxe-Coburg to distance themselves from their German ancestry at the time of the First World War. A swift walk along North Terrace bought me to the South Australia Museum where Captain Cook barred the way in – at least his portrait did. A lot smaller than I had imagined – no wonder he didn’t see that reef! Fabulous exhibits including lots of Aboriginal artefacts, but the bit that had me shaking was the South Seas galleries where they displayed some of the weaponry that was responsible for the demise of said Captain Cook. Give me a band of raging Aborigines any time versus the South Sea Islanders – at least the Aborigines didn’t slap you on a ‘barbie’ when they captured you. It’s not hard to imagine when you see this array of weaponry etc that in some areas of the South Seas – which includes Papua New Guinea - cannibalism was still being practised until relatively recently.
I then tried to find the Migration Museum, and ended up bumping into Larry Grayson. Well , to be truthful it was a statue of Robert Burns, but they had clearly got Larry to model for it. Robert was holding one of his poetry books in one hand and ‘shutting that door’ with the other. One of my favourite Burns poems begins ‘I’m a wee teapot, short n stout’. Why Robert Burns you ask? What connection has he with Adelaide or even Australia? None! Absolutely none! Apparently there had been a bit of a ‘do’ at the recently established National Wine Centre when they were trying to decide on a suitable subject for Adelaide’s first statue. Lord William Light had suggested they find a figure with connections with art and literature. Lord Glenelg who was a bit ‘squiffy’ thought he said to find someone who could fart through an aperture. He had been at university with Burns and remembered an old party trick of his with a teapot. QED. Everyone though it was everyone else’s idea and no-one wanted to admit they had been drunk. Thus is history made.
The Migration Museum was the best of the lot. Lots of personal tales of hardship, success, some failure. It is gob-stopping to imagine that between 1815 and 1930 some 52 million people emigrated from Europe - most went to the USA - 3.5 million of whom came to Australia. They still had to get past the ‘ White Australia’ test – which I tried in the museum and ‘failed’ as I was Irish and they could just refuse me on a whim. If you were black, Latvian, or politically known – forget it. As I have said before Australia was eventually pressured in to relaxing this attitude and repealing the law by economic factors – not enough labour was coming to the continent. One or two images stick in my mind. Families carrying two suitcases which held all they owned. Children taken from orphanages in England and ‘sent’ to Australia for a better life – maybe some did find it. Some more information about the ‘lost generation’ in an interactive display. Tales of whole families being ‘taken’ from an Aboriginal mother who had married a white Australian after being deserted by her original husband. Children who never saw their parents or siblings ever again. Very moving stories.
Later in the evening after my customary afternoon snooze (Donna, please note re my diary from January onwards!) I decided to pop down town and have a bite to eat. Mistake! It was crawling – sometimes literally – with groups of Aussies in various states of inebriation and undress. I should have spotted the warning signs on the tram which for the first time had ‘security’ men on it. Two very inebriated youngish women got on the tram at my stop and proceeded to further disheville themselves by kicking off the high heels and putting their feet up on the seats opposite. The security men seemed more intent on making sure no drinking took place on the tram, so the girls were left alone to chorus ‘ Have a great night!’ at anyone who got on or off the tram. Harmless enough but I was reminded of the old Australian proverb ‘ If all the women who attended the Melbourne Cup celebrations were laid end to end, no-one would be surprised!’ ( with apologies to Dorothy Parker!)
China town was heaving, and occasionally this was all over the pavement. I managed to find a nice hideaway in a Malaysian restaurant that was clearly a family run business. On splendid ‘sizzling Malaysian beef’ later I decided to cut for home! Wise decision I feel.
One final thing Adelaide. It has been cold – 20C compared to Northern Territory 40C. I have worn my jeans and a jumper for the first time. No wonder my bag is heavy if I have to bring all this stuff! Still it was good weather for my walking tour.
Wednesday 4th November Adelaide to Mount Gambier
I have a long drive ahead of me today as I travel the 500 or so kilometres to Mount Gambier which is the first stop on my three night Great Ocean Road trip to Melbourne. I have a few routine things to do so have set myself an 11am deadline for leaving Adelaide. I have to pick up the hire car, pst some cards and get some cash. I make the deadline comfortably, and head off to my first stop, the sleepy German town of Hahndorf ( pop 1879). The first day of my trip does not actually reach the Great Ocean Road, but it does go through some interesting and at times spectacular places, touching on the Coorong National Park which is mainly coastal. I reach Hahndorf at 12 noon and stop for ‘kuchen und kaffee’. Well, you just have to don’t you. It’s a German speciality and they would be offended. As I park the car outside a likely café, a very very loud siren starts to go off and people in the street start to run in all directions. Nuclear alert? Tsunami? Allied air raid? The girl in the café, who does not sound in the least German which is disappointing, tells me that the siren is for the local fire-fighters. She says they respond to accidents as well as fires and hopes it is not a fire. I have my coffee and cake outside and watch the fire engine speed off in the direction I will be going. I too hope it will not be a fire. When I go to pay my bill the girl more than makes up for her South Australian accent by demanding ‘ ihre papieren bitte!’ I show my driving licence and am let through Checkpoint Charlie. I am clearly thrown by the siren as I take the wrong turn and end up heading back to Adelaide. Luckily I can turn round after a few kilometres.
I plough on for the next hour or so to the strains of the Eagles – I pay particular attention to ‘Hotel California’ as I will be staying in my first motel in Mount Gambier. The land I pass through is tremendously varied. I can be in pastoral England one minute – green fields, cows grazing etc – then the next its ‘bush’ with the customary kangaroo signs ( I see none of course) – then mud flats and salt flats – then strange looking sheep – then vineyards, miles and miles of vineyards – then woodland. So I am not bored. At times the kangaroo sign changes to what I work out is a wombat. The advice is to go slow at dusk and dawn so I am ok to stick to the speed limit. I keep an eye out for any place worth a visit and see a sign that says Pelican Points. I know they can fly etc but this must be worth a look. About half a kilometre down a dust track I come to a car park. The sign says ‘Pelican lookout 10 minutes - please bring your binoculars.’ Bit of a problem there buddy, as they are locked in the boot of my car in Nottingham. Too much weight, see. I determine to buy some cheap ones that don’t weigh so much, even if I have to leave them in Australia. The ‘lookout’ is a wooden hut facing ‘pelican island, which is a good half a mile away. I strain to see if I can spot them and see some dots moving. I try to photograph them on zoom but it is all blurred. I think I can hear them! And then some of the ‘dots’ take to the air and head in my direction, taking up position in the thermals just above the lookout, and allowing me to get some decent photos. They must have known I had come a long way.
Back on the road I almost immediately see a sign that says ‘Welcome to Policeman Point’. I am in the process of deciding whether or not to stop when I see another sign that says ‘Thank you for visiting Policeman Point.’ I have passed two buildings! One of them looked like a derelict garage.
I retrace my steps past another ‘Welcome to Policeman Point’ sign and pull in to the ‘garage’. It is in fact a motel cum bottle shop. Inside I ask the owner if I can buy a sandwich. He says he can make me whatever and I opt for safety with toasted cheese, ham and tomato - an Aussie standard. I also ask for an orange juice - I have given up asking for ‘fresh’. He asks me if I want ‘arse’ in it! When I say ‘Pardon’ he repeats the word then goes to a large chest freezer behind the bar and fill the glass with – ice! I sip the orange juice while he sorts my sandwich. On the bar is a leaflet giving instructions on how to install the ‘Fluid-master 400UK Bottom Entry Cistern Valve’. I need the toilet but hesitate to ask for this in case I am attacked by this machinery. Eventually needs overcome fear, and by the time I re-emerge, there are two guys sitting at the bar supping beer. Outside I can see a really battered ‘ute’ so I presume they are local. The owner chats to them and they are on their way to Geelong to pick up something. Geelong is near Melbourne a good few hundred Ks away. They are talking cattle droving which one of them did as a younger man, and how one of their mates is having trouble with his girl who doesn’t like the time he is spending on ‘footie’. It reminds me of a programme I saw last night about the introduction of ballet and modern art to Australia in the 1930s when they were described by the Australian PM of the time Robert Menzies as ‘the work of perverts’. Some of the ballet company became stuck in Australia when war was declared, and married Australians. One married a farmer. The ‘dating agency’ promotion of this gave me some amusement .
‘You mean she can’t shear a sheep, can’t strip and rebuild a tractor engine, isn’t willing to lay barbed wire fencing , and can’t Barbie a ‘roo - and to top it all, she’s a facking ballerina! Sounds just right for Aussie farming!’
The sandwiches were great by the way. I followed another sign that said ‘ Surfing Beach’ and was the only person there for some time until a woman with her dog came along the beach. We waved from a safe distance but the dog barked at me – keep away it said.
My final stop along the way was at another sleepy place called Beachport. What a nice place it was. Deserted streets, as it was about 5pm. According to the ‘gumph’ on the beach notice-board it was a former whaling port and boasts the second longest jetty in Australia. Lots of photgraphable stuff as you can imagine. I went into the one hotel for coffee. They tried to persuade me to stay as it was curry night. I was tempted as it seemed such a nice place, but I had prepaid for my motel. I settled for the ‘scenic drive’ behind the town. It was spectacular especially as the sun was beginning to set and there were dark clouds hiding it.
Back on the road for the final stretch to Mount Gambier, I was getting tired and a little ‘road mad’. I drive quickly through a one horse town called Millicent, and feel guilty when I read the sign that says ‘Thank you for visiting Millicent’. Further along I see a sign for the ‘Millicent Wind Turbines Tourist Drive’. Who the heck would want to see that! I feel even more sad for the people of Millicent. Soon I reach a sign that brightens me up. It is for a place called Tatanoola. Before I know it I am singing…
‘Pardon me, boy, is that the Tatanoola Choo Choo?
Track twenty-nine? Is it leaving on time? ‘
I will need sectioning before this trip is over!
Mount Gambier does not have a mountain. It has some lakes – one of which is blue – formed from extinct volcanoes that would once have been mountains. I manage to get some spectacular sunset photos over the lakes. The local slogan is ‘stay another day’, but no thanks is what I think. The motel is better than I expect. No sign of Norman Bates. An early start for the Great Ocean Road tomorrow.
Thursday 5th November Port Fairy
Early start and glad to leave Mount Gambier behind. It is rush hour so there are three other cars on the road. I estimate it will take me two hours to get to Port Fairy allowing for stops on the way. I plan to see if to worth staying there or pushing on to Apollo Bay. I tune in to Ballarat FM and the news is depressing as they are covering the shooting of the five British soldiers in Afghanistan. It reminded me of the Cullin-la-Ringo massacre I wrote about earlier, as that was carried out much in the same fashion with the killings being carried out by ‘insiders’. So sad for the families.
I try to focus on the journey and what I might see. Not far out of Mount Gambier the road forks and I take the coastal route. Plenty of splendid scenery, and I am not even on the official Grate Ocean Road yet – this starts the other side of Port Fairy at a place called Warrnambool. I may not even get on to it until tomorrow. A lot of the place names have an English feel to them – Nelson, Dartmoor, Portland, Bridgewater. I envisage people trying to hold on to something precious so far from home. The countryside too is rolling hills with lots of cattle and sheep. I pass through a forestry area where the road signs suddenly change from kangaroos and wombats to – emus! I am sandwiched between the Lower Glenelg National Park and the Discovery Bay Coastal Park. It is not long before I actually see a pair of emus strolling nonchalantly along by the roadside. They are big birds! And they can be aggressive too. I take a couple of quick photos and move on. I am feeling quite please with myself when suddenly – more emus, this time a family group of four. And then shortly after that another three. I begin to see the point of the signs now.
By the time I reach the outskirts of Portland I am thinking about breakfast. As I roll down the hill into the town I pass a police car which turns on its flashing lights as I pass. I see in my mirror that he is turning round and coming up behind me. There is no-one else on the road so I figure he is after me and stop. He pulls up behind me and walks to the passenger side and indicates for me to open the window. Of course I have turned off the engine so I can’t do it straight away. There is a bit of a pantomime whilst I turn on the engine, open the window then turn off the engine again. I decide to risk going against convention and speak first, wishing the officer good morning. He seems to relax at this and responds in kind. He then asks me if I knew I was exceeding the speed limit. I reply no. He asks if I saw the 80kmph a bit of way back. Again I say no, but add that my mind was a bit focussed on stopping for breakfast. I suppose this was a bit of a risk as he could have me for driving without due care etc. He asks me if I had been drinking the night before. He seems a little taken aback when I say the last alcoholic drink I had was nearly three weeks ago in Singapore ( and that was a the result of a mix up in translation) – but a half grin comes on his lips. He still makes me blow in the tube. It is of course clear. While I am getting him my licence I wonder what the penalty for speeding is – an on the spot fine perhaps? His tone changes when he looks at my licence.
‘Irish are you? Born in Dublin?’
I tell him I was brought to England as a three year old.
‘That explains the accent, then. You on holiday?’
I told him my immediate plans.
Well, Paul, this offence – you were doing 95kmph in an 80 zone – normally attracts an automatic $240 fine (about £130) but as you seem like a nice guy, I ‘m just going to write you up a warning.’
When he returned with the warning, which was a basic reminder of the responsibility of all motorists to drive carefully, he then proceeded to tell me where I could get the best breakfast in Portland. His directions included the instruction to ‘throw a lefty’ at the roundabout where the road-works were. The breakfast was lovely, and made even more so by the traffic cop’s generosity. I looked at the local paper as I ate and saw that a colleague of his had been badly beaten by four men he had stopped in a car with false number plates. It‘s not all nice gentle tired English tourists.
Forty five minutes after I had finished my breakfast I entered Port Fairy. My first impressions were that this was another ‘Dodge City’. There is one main street, lots of motels, bars and restaurants. I was already beginning to think of pushing on to Apollo Bay before I reached the Tourist Information office. The first woman I spoke to was quite helpful, and suggested that it was asking a lot to stay two nights in Port Fairy – my original intention – so we settled on one night here. When I asked what was the ’24 hour’ plan for visitors she called Linda out of the back. Un fortunately Linda did not inspire confidence as she looked as if she had just got out of bed – three days ago! She scribbled on the town map indicating motels that were ok ( by whose standards I wondered!) and said that Something Island and Tower Hill were worth a visit. I found one of the motels quickly and at this point was glad to fall into the male stereotype and book a room at the first one I came to. It was fine.
After a quick wash n brush up I headed for Tower Hill, not exactly enthused by Linda’s description. How wrong I was. And how she very nearly put me off going with her casual ‘ it’s worth a visit’. It certainly was worth a visit. It turned out to be a State sponsored wildlife park. It was also ‘Emu City Arizona ‘. They were everywhere. One even ambushed me in the car park, but with a quick shuffle I avoided its angry glare. They can kill with that glare! Look what happened to Parky! I wandered about happily for a couple of hours, harassing stumpy-tailed lizards and watching harriers through my newly –purchased binoculars ( see tale re pelicans). I saw the signs for the Koala bears but also saw that they lie up hidden during the day time when it is hot. It was hot! I walked the rim of an ancient volcano and returned happy but tired to the car park determined somehow to let Linda know that she needs to sell this place a bit better. In the car park there were half a dozen people crowded round some trees taking photos. Curiosity got the better of me and I went over. I am glad I did for in one tree was a baby Koala and in the other its mother. The baby seemed to be having trouble getting into the tree where it mother was and the mother did not seem fussed enough to go and fetch it. She called occasionally just to let ‘junior’ know she was still there. After about ten minutes of furious clicking the crowd decided to disperse to lessen the stress that the youngster might be under. When I left ten minutes later he/she was still in the wrong tree. I had popped up to the information centre cum shop to get a t-shirt and told the warden behind the counter – who was a spit for Giant Haystacks of wrestling fame – and he just said ‘oh’ and went on with his task. When I came up with the t-shirt ‘Haytacks’ was looking through a bird guide. Suddenly his left hand squawked! He had a little bird in it and was trying to identify it with the book. The bird was none too interested in being identified and kept wriggling and squawking the whole time. He explained that it had flown into the glass window and knocked itself out. After a few minutes he pronounced that it was an immature Wood Whistler, and let it go. On the way out of the reserve I paused one last time to watch a family group of about six emus grazing. Very relaxing indeed.
Finished off the evening in Port Fairy with a walk around Griffin Island which has a light house of sorts , which according to Linda is ‘pretty crap’ but has a resident colony of shearwaters (like seagulls only not) which are a sight to see. When I arrive at the colony there is a note on the door saying ‘gone fishing for the day, back at sunset or thereabouts – if you are lucky, pal.’ I see one shearwater who has obviously been made to stay at home following some misdemeanour, and think well one is as good as a thousand and decide not to hang around in hope. I do a double take when I see some oystercatchers (at last a bird I recognise!) and then almost immediately see two that are all black! I know Australia is weird in the bird department as they have black swans, but this does make me stop. Later I discover that these are the ones they call oystercatchers, and the ones I know as oystercatchers they call pied oystercatchers. In my confusion I don’t see any of the catch any oysters. A little later on a bird that looks like a blackbird but is black and white taunts me from a bush! I already know this is a magpie lark. So yah boo to you matey! There are swallows around but they aren’t just swallows they are ‘welcome’ swallows. Look the same to me. Whilst the birds are enjoying their game of ‘fool a pom’, up pop two wallabies within spitting distance. This is where my brain really starts to get fuddled. Now wallabies come in all shapes and sizes. There are plain wallabies, rock wallabies, blues wallabies, jazz wallabies and Elvis impersonator wallabies. Whatever type they are, they are not – repeat not – kangaroos! One of the reasons for coming to Australia and braving the outback is to see kangaroos in the wild. So far I have seen ONE ( not counting the ones in the wildlife centre in Port Douglas), and I am now beginning to doubt that. What of it wasn’t a kangaroo after all but a kangaroo impersonator. What if it was a wallaby in a mask? Those of you steeped in the Sherlock Holmes stories will know of the Hound of the Baskervilles which was exposed by a long dead aunt of mine, Aunt Chrissie, in a single stop-the-world statement……
‘Sure it was never a hound after all, it was just a dog with a mask!’
I drown my building sorrows in what is billed as the ‘best fish and chips in Australia’ down by the harbour. Best I don’t know but pretty darned good. Nearly as good as sitting on the sea wall at Well-next-the-Sea!

Friday 6th November Port Fairy to Apollo Bay The Great Ocean Road (part 1)
According to my map and guidebook the Great Ocean Road proper starts at Warnambool and ends at Torquay, around 250kms of spectacular driving. The first 120km or so will take me to Apollo Bay where I intend to stop for the night. I intend to stop at The Twelve Apostles and have been put on to Cape Otway by someone I spoke to at the chip shop last night. They said lots and lots of koalas! I don’t see much of the actual Southern Ocean until I reach Port Campbell where I stop for ‘brekkie’ – a nice ‘veggie’ brekkie with haloumi and tomato sauce. Yum. I am amused to be reminded of Gill’s penchant for vegetarian breakfasts – with bacon! After breakfast I press on past Pickering Point and make my first stop at one of the many ‘lookouts’ along the route – far too many to stop at all of them. The view is spectacular. The Southern Ocean is a spellbinding blue, with rolling white surf – just like a picture-book image. It is throwing itself against a weak limestone coast and so the coastline is as a result full of crags and coves and bays and collapsed bridges and stacks way out in the water. The sea is not tidal so the waves work on the coast 24-7. It is a beautiful sunny day – temperatures in the high 20s. Ideal photography weather so I snap away like mad. Further along the coast I see a sign for ‘London Bridge’ and just have to investigate. An archway has formed in one of the ‘stacks’ and it is in the shape of the old London bridge that we sold to the USA some years ago. It will not be there forever. Usually the arches are the first things to collapse. As I return to my car a coach pulls into the little car park and a horde of Japanese tourists pour out. Unfortunately they are stereotypes as they all have cameras around their necks and they talk non-stop. A sign at the front of the bus says ‘On Tour’. I look serruptitiously around the back to see if they have bicycles with them.
A few kilometres along the road I come to the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park. It is a bit like Stonehenge in that you have to park one side of the road and go under the road from the visitor centre to reach it. I park up and note the signs for the helicopter flights – later perhaps. The Twelve Apostles (there are only actually nine left – and only six of these are really visible!) are all that is left of the original coastal headland which has been eroded by the power of the sea. They are ‘stacks’ that are well separated from the remaining headland, and for the most are only accessible by seabirds. They line up beautifully from the jutting peninsula and the National Park has provided excellent viewing platforms. I stay for what seems like ages just taking in the majesty of it all. I think of the power and the relentlessness of the sea, and in some ways the powerlessness of the land to resist. It makes me think of time, and the enormity of the time it has taken to shape these ‘apostles’, yet, in time, they will be no more! I look out into the Ocean. Due South, next stop Antarctica! How about that!
I make my mind up to take the helicopter flight. I am expecting a long wait as the area seems busy but there are no queues and I am put on a flight with two women from London. It is their first flight so they do not want to sit in the front which is great for me as I have the best photo spot. The helicopter rises gracefully from the ground and swings straight away out over the ocean and the Twelve Apostles. The pilot hangs there for a short while to allow us to take snaps and then moves on up the coast to Port Campbell where he banks back around and flies straight back down the coast above the stacks. We are at about 1600ft so it is a good height for photos. The pilot gives us a bit of a commentary on the way. Ten minutes later and we are on the ground. The two women say they have really enjoyed the flight. I mention New York and the flight over the Hudson River. One woman says she would not do that one as their helicopters are always coming down in the river! A bit of an exaggeration but there has been a recent tragedy when one was hit by a light aircraft from La Guardia airport. A number of people were killed. I am only glad we had that conversation after the flight! I go back to the viewing areas for a while, but then get the urge for another flight. I justify it by telling myself that I had spent nearly all the last one photographing and that I ought to go and just look! Twenty minute later I am airborne again. This time I have been put in a flight with two rather heavy looking women. They make all of us get weighed before the flight goes and pronounce the payload ok. As they were in the queue before me one of them ‘baggsies’ the front seat. I am put behind the pilot, so the effect is that all the weight is on one side of the aircraft. The ‘loader’ does not seem fussed by this, but I wonder how it will handle. As it lifts off the helicopter wobbles, the two women wobble, and my chin wobbles! The pilot, who is Vietnam veteran and used to dealing with heavy payloads in stressful situations soon has the craft back under control and off we go. The women have paid for a low level flight – I am not sure we would have got to the high level – which means that we fly at approx 750ft but we do not ‘weave in and out of the stacks’ as the pilot assured us. Because it is a low level flight they have been charge extra but as it is my second flight I am not! In addition we have to wear life jackets (this puzzles me – surely you would end up in the drink whether you were on a low or high level flight, but maybe there is more ‘gliding’ time from the higher level) and are given a safety briefing which includes a bit about swimming to the shore! From then on the flight goes smoothly, I get some spectacular views of the back of the pilot’s head, and apart from occasional ‘dips’ when the woman in the front tries to turn around so that her friend can photograph her, we return to base safely. We have to hover over the landing area for a short while as two other helicopters are landing. It is like the beginning of M.A.S.H. As we disembark the helicopter ‘springs’ back into its normal shape, and the pilot announces he is taking a break.
Originally the Twelve Apostles were called ‘The Piglets’ or some such but quite rightly this was deemed a bit rough edged for tourists so some smart alec came up with the Twelve Apostles. I find it hard to believe there ever were twelve of them if now there are only six that can actually be seen. Our pilots on both trips did point to one particular pile of rubble and said that that was the last Apostle to collapse – presumably at the end of the Last Supper - in 2005. Some of the other looked decidedly unstable. I am not sure if I went back tomorrow there would be even six left! I asked if they had bothered naming each of the stacks but he said no. I tried to name them for myself – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Thomas, Andrew, Charles, Harry, William – but then ran out of willpower. I knew I had to leave Judas Iscariot out as I think he was number 13 – unlucky for him.
I decided I too could do with a break and a cup of tea, but the visitor centre is being refurbished so I have to head off. A little way down the road I see a sign for ‘Wildlife and Deer Park – accommodation, toilets, drinks’. I pull in only to find it is a half built hut and they have not yet got their licence to serve food and drink. They can however sell me water and an ice cream.
The road from Princetown just beyond the Twelve Apostles swings well away from the coast and apart from the odd glimpse of the sea, it does not reappear until Apollo Bay. Cape Otway itself is part of the Cape Otway National Park and is primarily lush forest. The part of the Great Ocean Road that travels through the forest winds and climbs and dips like a roller coaster. I wish I was driving my Mazda instead of the hire car. It is perfect ‘top down’ territory. I have seen very few sports cars outside cities since my arrival in Oz. There are signs warning motorcyclists to slow down or risk death. One appears in my rear view mirror. With the visor down and the sun reflecting of it the rider looks like one of those assassins from the Bond movies and as he or she pulls out to pass I half expect the side of my car to be raked with machine gun fire. The bike quickly disappears into the distance , weaving around the corners, the riders’ knees just above the tarmac. For all the warning signs this sort of road is just too tempting. What is the pint of a bike if you can’t ride a road like this at speed? Still, I am glad not to find the bike wrapped around a tree or another vehicle before I reach my turnoff.
I was told that I would see koalas at Cape Otway. Well I did. Loads of them. Not far down the road the forest cleared out a little and there were a large number of eucalyptus trees. I knew they were eucalyptus trees because they had koalas in them and they only eat eucalyptus leaves – or so they said on Blue Peter when I was a child. Lots of people were stopped nearby and photographing them. They were either asleep or munching in the leaves, but either way the moved very little and were easy to photograph. I considered myself a bit of a koala expert having seen one in captivity and two in the wild and was especially pleased to recognise the rutting call of the male koala. This loud grunting noise carries through the forest and cam be roughly translated as ….
‘Put down the sheep shears, Shiela, take off your gumboots, but leave on your gloves – you’ve pulled!’
Right at the bottom of Cape Otway is the Cape Otway Lighthouse. But for this we might not have found the koalas in the first place. It is not named after John Otway of ‘Gordon is a Moron’ fame. Nor is it named after Matthew Flinders who was the Captain Cook of South Australia, who had an unfortunate sister Polly, who was prone to accidents with fires. In fact I cannot yet find any explanation as to why it is called Cape Otway. I will contact my taxi driver friend in Adelaide. The lighthouse has not always been there, as you might imagine. In the 1830s and 1840s when this coast was being properly opened up, ships would take weeks and months to travel from Europe. Some braver vessels would cut through the Bass straight to avoid Tasmania (who wouldn’t) and this would have the effect of cutting the voyage to England by a week. No pools or waiter service on the ships in those days remember! Unfortunately this was a risky strategy and many ships foundered. The maps of the coast very kindly provide details of the lost ships. Over 18 ships were lost in the narrow gap between Cape Otway and King Island, less than 90kmm away. In 1835 over 250 lives were lost when the convict ship Neva foundered off King Island, and in 1845 399 immigrants perished in the wreck of the Cataraqui. The government of the time was put under a lot of pressure to do something and petitions were drawn up. The answer was the Cape Otway lighthouse, which was opened in 1848 at the very point where the Bass Straight and the Southern Ocean meet. This was no mean feat as the areas was relatively unexplored at the time. The building of the lighthouse was good news for shipping and bad news for the koalas and for sperm whales. It could have been even worse news for the koalas if the settlers of the time had found a way of squeezing lamp oil out of the koalas. Luckily for them but unluckily for the whales the settlers already knew about whale sperm oil or rather sperm whale oil. Known for making your wick last longer, sperm whale oil was harvested to the point where the poor whales almost lost the will to live never mind procreate. The lighthouse light contained 21 parabolic reflectors, each with its own sperm whale oil lamp. It could be seen for miles. The whales, despite petitioning the Government and claiming that eventually they would be a protected species, were done for. They tried to avoid the area by swimming away from the flashing lamp but the whalers just came after them. Such is life! The lighthouse did make things better, but it did not stop all wrecks. It could not be seen in fog and the foghorn could not always be put on as it sounded too much like the rutting koalas and the lighthouse would be inundated with willing female koalas, so in the fog of the winter of 1880 the Eric the Red ( no, not the one who discovered America! Don’t be silly!) struck the Otway reef and went down with the loss of four lives. An improvement of sorts I suppose.
They had tried and failed to link Tasmania with Cape Otway by laying a telegraph cable under the Bass Straight. What went wrong was not explained, but the cable was quickly abandoned and replaced by flags (Blue Peter again). Passing ships signalled the Cape Otway station and they signalled back, and then passed the information by telegraph (land based) to Melbourne. In 1912 they attempted to signal Captain Scott who had set out to reach the North Pole using men instead of huskies – they were apparently cheaper. A Norwegian explorer, Thor Hyerdal, set out to get to the pole by using highly suspicious foreign methods, including a replica of the Titanic made out of reeds. Hyerdal looked as if he would get there first. A message via the flags was sent to Scott and his expedition. It said….
‘Hyerdal expected to reach the pole today. Stop. STOP. Stop.’
In the items found with Scott and his team there were no flag message books.
I finish today on the rather strange loss of another life. In 1978 the pilot of a Cessna aircraft, 20 year old Frederick Valentich was flying from Melbourne to King Island. When he reached Cape Otway he took an unexpected turn and headed out over the Southern Ocean. Flight control tried to raise him without success for a while and when they did make contact the outcome was bizarre….
‘Calling Tango-Oscar-Seirra-Sierra-Echo-Roger. Are you reading me? Over’
‘Roger control. This is Tango-Oscar-Seirra-Sierra-Echo-Roger. Reading you.’
‘Where are you ? Over.’
‘I am over Cape Otway. There is something hovering above me. I can see bright lights. I don’t think it’s an aircraft. I can hear music. Dah-dah-dah! It’s getting closer. The lights are getting brighter. It’s so beautiful. I’m going now. Over and out.’
And then it was over. He was never seen or heard from again. Most of this story is true!

Saturday 7th November Apollo Bay to Melbourne The Great Ocean Road – Day 2
You could probably drive the length of the official ‘Great Ocean Road’ from Torquay in Victoria to Warnambool in South Australia in a day- maybe 6 hours straight – or the other way round as I am doing it…….but you would miss so much if you just did that. It is not just about the spectacular scenery. It is as much about the little anecdotes and snippets of life and history that you pick up by turning off the road, sometimes on a whim, sometimes on advice as I did to Cape Otway – though my adviser did say don’t go to the light station, it’s not worth it. How wrong they were in my view. I didn’t just see ‘another’ lighthouse, I experienced other people’s lives through the history of that building and the people connected to it over time.
The Great Ocean road was the result of a brainwave by politicians worried about what to do with thousands of Australian troops returning from the trenches of World War 1 in late 1918 and early 1919. They had spent the war digging holes in France and Belgium in order to prevent the Germans from digging holes in the same areas. They could have just stayed three a little while and filled all the holes in again – I am sure the French and the Belgians would have been grateful – but no, the Australian Government wanted them shipped back so they they could start digging holes in Australia. The so-called ‘diggers’ were put to work building The Great Ocean Road – with their bare hands is what the Australian history books would have us believe. Not quite, Cobber. In fact they were given picks and shovels, pointed in the direction of Adelaide and told to get on with it. There is a bit of selectivity here, as none of the accounts of the building of the road mentions dynamite, and I am sure they would not have shifted some of the cliffs in their way just by spitting on their hands and saying ‘let me at it’. I am sure also that the odd horse and cart would have been available to shift some of the rubble. Perhaps I am being a bit picky, but nothing can take away the sheer enormity of the task. It took from 1919 to 1932 to complete the road – thirteen years! Some parts of it hug the coastline so closely you get vertigo just driving along it. I am sure the ‘diggers’ would have soon got fed up of people saying ‘look at the view’ or ‘let’s take a photo’. Driving the section from Apollo Bay to Torquay is head spinning. The road winds and climbs and twists and spins like a fairground ride. It is not possible to drive it quickly. It is also not possible to spot all the spectacular ‘views’. In fact the section from Warnampool to Apollo Bay was better for ‘sights’ and spectacular scenery because there were special ‘lookouts’ at selected intervals. Still, it was an experience.
One of the places I stopped was ‘Pickering Point’ where the notice board informed passers-by of the discovery of a tribe that had been hidden for generations and had only recently made contact with the outside world. Living in a remote area of the Otway National Forest known in the local Aboriginal language as ‘Derehamland’, the Pickerings had for a long time deliberately cut themselves off from the rest of the outside world. Occasional sightings had been reported, especially around the times of clan gatherings by other local tribes. A local anthropologist had been lucky enough to have been allowed to live with the tribe for a short while and had witnessed a number of important tribal ceremonies such as the ‘carrying of the logs’ wherein tribal elders remove logs that have been left as gifts by other tribes to a place of safekeeping, and the most important ceremony of them all, the Pickering burial ceremony known as ‘puttin em in’t grahnd’. Although cut off from other neighbouring tribes for hundreds of years the Pickerings have developed specific talents that have helped them survive and develop in their isolation. Some members of the tribe are revered for being especially tall as this has helped in hunting and in seeking places for shelter. Tribal warriors would shout out to the ‘tall one’ from the deep forest grasses ‘Wheer the hell are yo?’ and he would reply in the ritual manner ‘Ovver heer!’ Finally the Pickerings have developed their own individual brand of art known as ‘Bongo’. Unlike the indigenous tribes of the Northern Territory the Pickerings eschew rock and cave painting , instead preferring to decorate large metal objects with wheels which they call ‘vans’. Elaborately decorated Pickering ‘vans’ can be found mostly near the coast but occasionally inland at a place called Wymondham.

It was on this section of the Great Ocean Road that I saw my first ‘surfer’! Australians would have you believe that they are all born surfing, and that parents give them boards instead of prams when they are born. This section of the road feeds that myth perfectly. Curved golden beaches, rolling white surf, the requisite VW vans parked by the roadside spilling their owners out onto the nearest surf beach. Even the road notices claim it is ‘surfing heaven’. I determined to find out what this was all about and maybe even have a go myself ! Torquay seems to fit the bill. It styles itself as the ‘birthplace of the global surfing industry’ and home to the international Rip Curl Pro and Quicksilver – which I presume are brand names for surfboards. As you come into the town along the road now designated the ‘Surf Coast Highway’ you see signs for various surf beaches with curious names such as Winki Pop, Bells, and Juc Juc. There is a ‘safe’ beach for beginners at ‘Cosy Corner’ unfortunately near the rocks at Point Danger! I avoid the invitation to head down Surf Road and instead go to the Information Centre in town. The very patient young lady at the centre explains to me that I could book a two hour ‘learn to surf’ lesson for between $50 and $100, but that it might be a bit late in the day for this – it is noon. I change tack and ask if there are any places offering horse rides along the beach. We try one but they only take the rides out in the morning before the beaches get busy. Pity. The lady at the stables asks if I would consider a ‘bush trek’ which is going at 2.30pm - inexperienced riders are welcome. Before I know it I am booked into a stables called ‘Blazing Saddles’! I have an hour and half to kill before I have to drive 30km back down the Great Ocean Road to a place called Airey’s Inlet where the stables are. The Information Centre girl suggests I go and have a look at the main surfing beach, so I do.
Now, I love the beach and I love swimming in the sea, but I just don’t get surfing, and I get it even less having watched the surfers at Torquay. I witnessed the start of the ritual in the car park. First of all you have to have a fairly battered VW van, car or truck to which you have attached your surfboard for the hair-raising journey to the beach. You then have to struggle half way into your wet suit – it is definitely ‘de rigeur’ to put it on fully in the car park. This has the effect of pressing your midriff forward to emphasise the ‘gut’ you were hoping no-one would notice. You then have to place the surfboard on the ground and kneel like a supplicant before it, rubbing special surfing oils along its surface whilst chanting a special oration known only to the surfing fraternity – presumably you are told this on your first lesson. Once you have appropriately ‘greased’ you board you tuck it under your arm and head for the sand. The journey down the wooden steps can be quite perilous as you have a greasy board which does not quite fit to contend with. You then have the pebbles of the beach to negotiate, but at last you reach the water’s edge where you perform the last part of the pre-surf ritual – the tying on of the board. You attaché the board to your ankle by the string provided so that when you fall off it – which you do frequently – it will not float away to the South Pole. You then lie on the board and paddle your way gently out to sea and wait. For a long time. What is it that you are waiting for? Apparently it is the ‘right’ wave. Not just any old wave – it has to be the ‘right’ one. Some surfers have waited so long in the past for the ‘right’ wave they have visibly aged by the time it comes. If you pick the ‘wrong’ wave you will be vilified by other surfers around you. With lick the ‘right’ wave will come along before too long, and at that point you paddle like fury, attempt to stand up on your board, and immediately tumble head first into the surf. Then you do it again. Sounds like fun, hey? Give me a break! I stood for a while watching this ‘global event’ and trying to photograph someone – anyone- standing up on a board for more than a few seconds. The surfers I was watching spent more time floating around hanging on their boards than they did actual ‘surfing’. Eventually gave up. Goodness knows what it would have been like if I had not been at the surf capital of the world!
As I headed for the car I was delighted to see ‘beach’ wedding taking place. The bride, groom and guests were seated at picnic tables on a grassy area just above the beach. The bride was in the full bridal kit and the guests were well togged out too. Across from where they sat was a red Pontiac Firebird ( I looked at the name!) decked out with white wedding ribbons. Everyone seemed to be having a good time in the sunshine. Almost immediately in the car park I witnessed what looked like the end of another relationship as a loud and hostile argument took place between a man in full motorcycle gear and a woman standing next to a car. The man was cveratinly turing the air blue and in an act of final defiance, put on his helmet, shouted ‘It’s not my f****ing problem, and drove off. The woman followed a few seconds later. Life! Who’d have it?
All the way to ‘Blazing Saddles’ I was humming the tune from the film, which is one of my all-time favourites. I laughed my socks off the first time I saw it and still laugh each time I watch it since. I love the ‘Waco Kid’ and the black sheriff Bart, and mad, desperate Hedley (Heddy) Lamar. I am chuckling now thinking of it. At the stables I saw a notice that said ‘Horse Riding is a high risk activity’. That’s encouraging, I thought. When I was being signed in and filling in the form that gives the stable no liability if the horse flies off into the sunset with you, I suddenly realised that I had not ridden a horse for about 15 years – the last time being on a Lake District camp when Tess was nine! I quickly filled in the section that said ‘beginner’. This stopped me from going on the two hour bush trek, which involved trotting and cantering – a relief if I am honest. The put me in with a mum and two kiddies – who I am sure were secret circus stunt riders – and two ladies form Melbourne. Safety hats on we were led to our horses. I was sure they would give me some mean creature as I was the only male in the party but they gave me Bam Bam – named after either Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble’s nightmare child! Bam Bam was very gentle with me but as I was soon to discover I had arrived driving an automatic car and now was riding an automatic horse. The trek lasted an hour and a half. Bam Bam knew the way but also insisted on trying top drag my legs against any tree trunk or bush he could find. I tried the ‘ Heigh Ho , Silver’ bit, and tugged on the reigns, but he just turned his head slightly, gave me a disdainful look, and carried on as before. Even when we were trotting he managed to be coming up when I was going down which is not the way it should be, and can do serious damage to certain parts of a man’s anatomy. At least the circus girls were having equal difficulty with their horses and only managed somersaults and balancing on one leg! We passed a bored koala bear on our way up the ‘mountain’ – large hill really – but when we reached the top the view of the rainforest below was stunning. Until we reached there I had forgotten that we were riding in the Otway National Park. Coming down the ‘mountain’ I was reminded of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – another favourite movie - and in particular the part where they go to Bolivia and get jobs as payroll guards. They are accompanying the mine owner down the mountain and are on edge looking everywhere for possible ambushes. The mine owner stops them with the words ‘Morons, I have employed morons! We ain’t gonna get robbed going DOWN the mountain! We got no money going DOWN the mountain. Morons!’ This was in my head all the way back.
Within two hours I was in Melbourne. It looks what it is from a distance – a huge city of 4.5 million people, stretching across the skyline, unlike the relatively flat Adelaide profile. The main motorway dumped me off at the City intersection and I rang the hotel for directions. The girl who gave me the directions was not a lot of help and after driving a bit further I hit upon the idea of hailing a cab and asking the driver to lead me to the hotel. I duly did this, and I have to say I would not have founds it in a month of Sundays following the original directions. When we pulled up outside the hotel I went to pay the cabbie but he refused any money! ‘Have this one on me’, he said. I shook his hand as I left and thought ‘Welcome to Melbourne’.

Port Douglas - Queensland

2009-10-31T04:56:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 28th October Port Douglas/Cairns
Oh joy! Oh wonder! Oh rapture! Is it because I am sitting on the balcony of my apartment which overlooks the ‘barbecue ‘ pool, watching the clouds above darkening as they herald the start of the Wet Season – it has rained twice today already. Is it because I have left behind the thrills, spills, and inherent dangers of croc watching and 4WD driving in the Northern Territory? Nope, it’s far more mundane than that. I have a washing machine! And a tumble drier! I’m so excited I am spilling more powder on the floor than I am getting in the machine. For the’ saddoes’ amongst you it is an old fashioned ‘top-loader’ - (I have just realised there is a pop group named after a washing machine!) – but who cares as long as I can have some clean clothes. You have to remember…very hot, muggy, weather, lots of dust thrown up by the 4WD - it makes no difference I am inside – and short stays at a number of places. I got the message when people started to stand back from my bag when it came along the airport conveyor. At first I thought they were being polite, and that the ‘hum’ was the machinery of the conveyor, but no – I needed a stopover to sort some washing out. It’s all nice and clean and drying on the balcony. I will be welcomed back into civilisation.
Yesterday was a day that in Black Adder terms started badly and went downhill from there. My plan was to set off from Katherine early and to take the Stuart Highway to Pine Creek – yes it really is called that, and yes it is really how it sounds…but more of that later. I began by failing to remember that I had asked the reception to organise my Katherine Gorge trip the day before so that when it appeared on my bill I said I had already paid it. The receptionist was very patient, even when I added that I had been charged for a drink I had not had. Coolly, calmly, she lifted my credit card from my wallet and made me pay. She was right but I still left a little grumpily and confused. From Pine Creek I was to take the road to Daly River then cut off through the Litchfield National Park – my last bit of 4WD driving before I returned the jeep in Darwin. The Southern Access Track as it is called would take me some 60km along forest and bush roads, past various Falls and creeks to a settlement called Batchelor and then back on to the Stuart Highway. Well that was the theory. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the ride.
First stop was Pine Creek for a ‘big breaky’ at Maisie’s Café. Everyone seemed to be in there – local drivers, the police – except the obligatory Aboriginal family who were sitting under a tree across the road. I bought the local ‘Northern Territory News’ which is like the Mansfield ‘Chad’ only more introverted. Top topic was still the earthquake – it had given some Darwin Buildings a bit of a shake – picture of a woman who had climbed on to her roof to see if there was a tsunami coming. Technical details said the earthquake, though strong, was too deep to have caused a tidal wave, and also it was unlikely to have reached the shores of Australia. Still it makes good copy and outranks ‘Darwin man bashes cop after late night row’ or ‘Darwin man smashes car then runs away’. In the middle pages a helpful article explained how all of Australia’s deadliest biting and stinging creatures could do you in! Just the thing to encourage me as I wolf down my ‘super-size sausages’ before heading into the wilderness. I did read it though and was somewhat reassured that fatalities from these creatures average about one a year, and that usually this is as a result of anaphylactic shock from a bee sting. No room for complacency and each time I use the toilet I check the bowl for crocodiles!
I calculated that if I had used about half my fuel by the time I reached the 4WD bit I would have more than enough to get me comfortably to Batchelor. I found the track easy enough but not before I passed a farmer ploughing his field the size of Derbyshire. I could see the dust cloud for miles before I passed him. A little later on I thought I saw another farmer ploughing but this turned out to be a dust storm! As soon as I left the road to join the track I saw my first kangaroo – and this was a real one – or rather he saw me which was rather fortunate as if he had not swerved as he raced across in front of me I would have recorded another road kill. He or she was big and deep reddy brown and bounded away like the wind into the surrounding bush. The signs at the start of the track indicated that all the route was open, so off I went. It had taken me about an hour from Pine Creek, and it would take an hour and a half to two hours to get to Batchelor. After about half an hour or so I reached a place called Surprise Creek. Actually there were two surprises. One was that there was no water in the creek, the other was that there was a tree blocking the obvious route. There seemed to be an alternative route just to the right of the fallen tree but this took me through deepish sand. I had negotiated deep sand when I went to Jim Jim Falls so I tentatively made my way through it…only to get stuck! A brief moment of panic was followed by me taking myself through the situation. If I really was stuck then I was not too far from the road and it was quite likely that someone would come by eventually. Secondly I had lots of water, some food etc. I worked through the use of the 4WD in deep sand. The theory is to switch off the engine and to engage the lowest gear possible, then switch on the engine again and move slowly forward. It worked. A little relieved but concerned that I might meet as similar hazard further down the track I moved on. I told myself I could always turn round and have a go at moving the tree – it did look moveable – if I could go no further. About ten minutes later another vehicle hove into view coming the other way. We stopped next to each other and I asked the driver if the road was ok all the way. He said there were a couple of hard bits but generally it was ok. I told him about the sand and suggested he remove the tree. He grinned at me and said ‘No worries, mate. I’ll just engage first low and plough on through it!’ Half an hour and two other creeks later – both of which contained water – I came upon my biggest challenge. I went down into a creek, drove across it, and was confronted by a very steep climb out of the creek bed. To make matters worse, the way out had very deep potholes and loose sand. I engaged the lowest gear and up I went. If you are an experienced 4WD driver, then this probably was negotiable, but I soon got stuck, and had to reverse back down into the creek. I tried three times before I said to myself ‘enough’. I settled down into the creek bed for a moment and did some calculations. I had plenty of fuel so I could reach a place called Adelaide River where I knew I could get diesel. I had negotiated the way to this point so was confident I could get back the way I came. A quick three point turn and I was off.
About twenty minutes later I saw the other truck coming back down the track. We stopped next to each other again, both of us surprised to see the other. The driver told me he had taken my advice and moved the tree – so that was a relief for me. He said they were coming back as they had gone to Surprise Creek Falls for a swim only to discover – surprise! – that there was no water in the pool. They were heading back to another falls near Batchelor. I told him about my failure to get out of the creek. He had come that way but it was easier to come down than get up. He wondered whether or not to go back the way I was going. I said it might be alright if he was an experienced 4WD driver, then left them to sort it out. When I stopped at the end of the dirt track about 45 minutes later there was no sign of him behind me, so I must presume he got through.
I stopped for a while and talked myself through the situation I had just left. Off road driving is risky, but this is the safer end of off road driving. Still, I had calculated the risk of trying to go on and had made the right decision to return.
The next thing that happened made me see that it surely was the right decision. For some reason when I switched the engine on to move off the jeep had got stuck in low gear. I tried everything to shift it out. I even got the manual out. But to no avail. If I tried to go above 60kph the rev counter went mad and I feared the engine would be damaged. I also wondered how much it would cost of the automatic 4WD transmission was knackered. Another stop and think moment. How far was Adelaide River? I calculated about 50km. It would take me nearly an hour, and when I reached there it was pot luck if I could find a mechanic but at least there would be a phone to get in touch with the hire company. Darwin was another 145km from Adelaide River, so if I had to drive on it would take me nearly three more hours. It was already four and a half hours since I left Pine Creek! So off I went, keeping a close eye on the rev counter and the temperature gauge, with the 4WD warning light flashing accusingly. At Adelaide River I pulled into a gas station and filled up as the tank was not far off zero. I asked the guy behind the counter if he knew anything about 4WDs on the assumptions that all Australians who live in this area drive them. He asked me if was computerised or manual ( it was manual) and he said he would help me when he had sorted his other customers out. I moved the jeep out of the way of the pumps to let an old pickup with a rather worn guy at the wheel come into my space. I sat looking at the jeep manual hoping for some inspiration, and after about ten minutes went back into the shop area. The guy I had spoken to was talking to the road-worn guy about my problem. The road worn guy said ‘ It’ll be wound up mate.’ He then followed me outside and said ‘Have you tried driving it backwards? That usually releases it if it’s wound up.’ I followed his instructions, drove it backwards in a straight line, then engaged forward gear and drove it forward in a straight line, and hey presto! I could have hugged him only he was a bit road-worn, and Australian and they don’t take kindly to that. I thanked him and was on my way. As I left the garage forecourt, I passed a group of Aborigine men – yes, under a tree – who had been watching the bit of theatre with a look of bemusement.
I had planned to visit ‘Crocodylus Park’ – which claims to have the biggest crocs in the area - on my return to Darwin but by the time I got there It was shut, so I had an ice cream instead!
My adventure over I decided to reward myself for a successful return by going ‘Northern Territory Mud Crab’ wrestling at one of the waterfront restaurants. The crab was done ‘Singapore Style’ which I will not try to describe except to say it was spicy and fabulous. I knew it was going to be a battle when the waitress appeared behind me and proceeded to wrap me in a full length ‘bib’ much as you do when you are at the hairdressers. Half an hour later the crab surrendered, and I had a ‘Singapore Style’ face pack, which I’m sure in the long run will be good for my skin. As my driver from the airport today noted, not a thing to do on your first date!
Up at 3.30am to catch a 7am flight to Cairns, followed by a 1 hour transfer to Port Douglas further north. It is raining as I go to the airport. There are flashes of thunder and lightning. It looks like the wet season has started in earnest. (It is raining unbelievably hard as I write this – like standing under a waterfall! I am on my balcony so it is not getting me…yet! It certainly cools the air when this happens.) The woman at the Avis counter seems very pleased it is raining. I can sympathise. It has been a long hot Dry Season. The flight is fine - we even get there early – and I am met at the airport by a courier, Bridget O’Brien! (Classic Irish name, but born and bred in Cairns). She passes me on to Michael who drives me to Port Douglas. He is happy to point out all the finer parts of the Captain Cook Highway (we will get to him later), including a partly rebuilt Aborigine school. This reminds me of the radio on my long haul back from Adelaide River to Darwin last night. I somehow picked up an Aborigine radio station – and here’s me thinking they all sit under trees all day long! The DJ is speaking a dialect, but is playing records in English as well as dialect. In one song I hear I recognise the words ‘jabiru’ and ‘baramundi’ . Some of the English words refer to things I have heard about such as ‘Dreamtime’, which I think is before the world began (like the Garden of Eden?) and to the ‘Lost Generation’ – this was when the British and Australian Governments forcibly removed thousands of ‘mixed race’ Aborigines ( often in the more remote parts of the land, white settlers took Aborigine ‘mistresses’ and had children with them) and sent them to Christian Missions to be brought up as ‘white’ children, separating them from their parents and culture, and many of them had no idea who they were or where they came from. Recently the Australian PM has publicly apologised for the policy which as been described in some circles as a sort of ‘genocide’. A little later on I hear some Country and Western on the same station. Gets everywhere, DJ, doesn’t it! Yee hah!
Port Douglas is wet and humid when I arrive and I can’t have my room for two hours. I leave my bags and go into town – ten minutes away – and seek out the Post Office to post a birthday card to Granny (Gill’s mum). The post mistress says it will take a week to ten days – provided the GB posties are not on strike! Her birthday is in two weeks so it should be ok. I also find the Tourist Information place and book myself on to the Barrier Reef trip tomorrow – recommended as it is forecast to get windy as the week progresses. Later I go and book myself a Daintree River trip (Sunday) and a sky –dive (Saturday).
When I come in off the balcony I get wet feet as either the rain has seeped in through some hidden route or the air conditioning unit has leaked. No one around until the morning to sort it so I just dry it up for now. Hey ho!

Thursday 29th October.
Classic! Absolute classic! Survive 4 days in the Outback without as much as reddened ears – then get really sunburned on the Great Barrier Reef! (This one’s for you Donna). Picked up at 8.15am to travel on the Aristocat, a ‘spaceship’ of a catamaran which advertises itself as one of the most technologically advanced and environmentally friendly vessels of its type in the world. Beam me aboard Scottie! It has enviro engines, cruise control for ride stability, ergonomic individual seating…..you name it, it’s got it – but the one thing it clearly lacks is complete Pommie idiot control! Perhaps I am being a bit hard on myself as I sit here in a form of pain I have only experienced once before when Gill and I climbed Mount Snowdon on a sunny day with low cloud cover – the backs of our legs got it big style that day. I did read the leaflet. I brought my swimwear, hat, towel, sunglasses and my 30SPF sunscreen – in fact I brought two of them just in case. I applied the sunscreen liberally as instructed, particularly after coming out of the water. I put on hat, t-shirt and long-sleeved shirt to protect my skin most of the time. I kept a close eye on the exposed bits. But I paid the price for one simple misunderstanding. I thought that the sun could only get me when I was on the boat! But no, it got me when I was snorkelling and for most of the time just under the surface of the water. So I now have a rolling red stripe the length of my back down to the small of my back where it takes a break and then continues down the length of my legs. Painful? Yes. Irrittating? Yes. The joke’s on me now Donna!
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the show?
Well, yes I did. Luckily I did not realise the sunburn bit until I was walking back to my apartment when I somehow noticed the redness of the backs of my legs. We were taken to the Outer Barrier Reef – an area called the Agincourt Ribbon Reef – in some style where we were promised an unspoilt area teeming with fish and coral life for us to explore along part of the largest living structure on Earth. Sounds a bit awesome, and it was. We were actually taken to three different locations and were able to snorkel at each one. Each section of the reef we visited is in relatively shallow water, so you can get right up close to the corals and the marine life – fish on this occasion but they do see turtles, Dwarf Minke Whales, and the odd reef shark (small and harmless) on some trips. We did see a huge Groper Fish at the third site, but it does live there and comes to get food from the daily boat visits. The picture of it in the leaflet makes it look like a giant cod with the face of Elvis! The only way I way describe the snorkelling experience if you haven’t done it is to get you to imagine your face pressed to the glass of a giant aquarium. Fish of all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes swim by you, beneath you, in front of you. It’s hard to keep track of what is there. I started off trying to guess what each one might be. Oh that’s a tiny little blue reef fish, or that’s a great big blue reef fish and, oh that’s a stripey sort of yellowy thin triangular reef fish - but in the end just decided to immerse myself in the colour and shape and splendour of it all. The corals too were incredibly diverse in size, shape and colour. Some were as big as houses, some the shape of brains. I did identify a giant clam which opened its mouth menacingly (gills really!) as I swam over it. A couple of the sites had huge ‘canyons’ in the reef so that you looked down a long way to see fish of all sizes in the chasm below. No turtles though, and no whales – but we did have Barry from Brisbane. More of him in a minute. You can whale watch on the Aristocat but you have to come in the breeding season from May to September when up to 8000 humpback whales make their annual migration from Antarctica to the Barrier Reef breeding grounds , and they are joined by Dwarf Minke Whales – or those that the Japanese whaling fleets don’t get! Apparently there is even a distant relation of Moby Dick to be seen – the only white humpbacked whale in the world. The Aborigines have given him a name – Migaloo, which means ‘white fella’.
On the more serious side, the Great Barrier Reef is a protected natural wonder of the world. We were given strict instructions not to touch the coral, stand on it, or stand on the sandy bits in between the coral – reason is that it is a very delicately balanced environment and something like sunscreen can kill the coral. It is under threat from over -fishing, land-based pollution, global warming etc etc. Certain areas of the reef are now designated no fishing zones (much to Barry’s chagrin), and part of it is also a huge Marine Wildlife Park. We were all charged an extra $5 reef tax which goes towards conservation activities.
Which brings me back to Barry from Brisbane. If you have seen ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ starring Toni Collete, then Barry is the image in sight and sound of Muriel’s dad ( ‘I made Porpoise Spit what it is today’ ). A huge man, I guess in his late 60s, with his wife whose name I did not catch and two other couples from the same area. Barry and his wife chatted to me whilst the others intermittently made some semi-derogatory comment about him at which he grinned and generally ignored - his wife explained to me that he was ‘deaf as a post’. We chatted about the UK and cricket – which was amazing given my limited knowledge – and when they moved away at lunch and reef visit time, I could still hear ‘Barry this’, and ‘ Barry that’ cutting through the noise of the engine. Barry used to own a boat and he and his mates would come up here fishing two or three times a year for a week. They were allowed to take home 5 kilos of fish per person on each trip. Multiply that by 20 million Australians and it is no wonder there are no fish left! One of Barry’s friends was a farmer from near Brisbane, and his skin told the story of a life in the sun. Like the Italians, he may live long but it will be mostly as a prune. There is a myth that all Australians are sun-tanned gods or goddesses, and I may see some ‘evidence’ of this on the beaches of Sydney, but from what I have seen so far people are either very careful – they follow the Slip, Slap, Slop campaign ie Slip on a t-shirt, Slap on some sun-screen, Slop on a hat – or they are like Barry’s friends frazzled! But today, I stand need to talk! At the third site, we were nearly all back on board the boat preparing for return when a voice called out ‘Hey, is that a whale over there ?’ and the quick reply came ‘Nope, it’s only Barry still snorkelling’. With Barry back safely aboard, they headed for the bar – drinks only on the way back for safety reasons – where they returned with ‘Crownies’ ( a popular bottled beer) all round. Nice group in the end. Enjoyed their company. Good on ya, Barry. There were only about 30 people on board this monster of a catamaran as the booking agencies had been telling tourists that the weather was likely to be rough – it wasn’t – and the pilot, Ian, said that there had been 105 the previous day. By the time this statistic had been through Barry’s party the ‘cat’ had been as overloaded as a boatload of asylum seekers!
Friday 30th October Port Douglas
Not a good night as I cannot get comfortable because of the sunburn. Am punished more by tuning in to the local Aussie Country Music station which must just about be the worst in the world. Samples of the ‘cheerful’ lyrics included a song about a man who has spent his life driving ‘roads trains’ – wake up at the back there, I mentioned these in an earlier blog! – and is now confined to a wheelchair and a lonely life. Another one was about a drover who had an Aboriginal ‘boy’ as his companion but when the local townspeople discovered that the ‘boy’ was really a ‘girl’ they tracked them down and killed them! If I could have moved without producing spasms of agony |I would have turned it off! On the good side they did play Kenny Rogers’ Coward of the County which raised the cheerful bar as it is just about bullying, rape, and associated violence. DJ, you have a lot to answer for.
As dawn breaks I determine to go into Port Douglas – about ten minutes away - and sort out a few things, including some strong ‘after sun’. Bay Villas where I am staying is a series of apartments around two swimming pools, neither of which is as big as Sal and Dave’s living room, but combined they just about outrank it. The receptionist is brusque – ‘Stand there! Leave your bags outside! What do you mean the air conditioning is leaking?’ – but efficient. I would be happy to have her by my side if I get into a fight in a bar. She gave me a map of the area yesterday, and then tried to sell me some tours. She was even more ‘brusque’ when I went a booked them elsewhere. She would probably be quite pleased I got sunburned. She was most put out when I asked for a towel to replace the one I had to use to mop up the water – which had after all leaked from the air con.
Port Douglas is small (pop 5867) – its ‘raison d’etre’ being the tourist trade. It is off the ‘Captain Cook’ highway on an isthmus, so there is just one road in and out. There is one main shopping street with lots of bars, souvenir shops, eateries. It boasts the most expensive marina complex in Australia and the guy who built it had to flee Oz as the Government were after him for a host of financial fiddles. One of the hotels in the complex boasts the biggest indoor hotel swimming pool – at the last guess equivalent to 13 Sal and Dave’s living rooms – in the whole of Australia! Port Douglas has for a long time been where the southern ‘wealthies’ come to escape the cold winters. There are lots of expensive restaurants. It is still a place for travellers including backpackers to use as a hopping off placed for the Great Barrier Reef and the wilds of Cape Tribulation further North. It has a long sandy beach – called Four Mile Beach – but at this time of year no-one is swimming because of the ‘stingers’ (box jelly fish). Pity really as the beach itself is very attractive. There is a place down the road called ‘Habitat’ – but this one is definitely not Terence and Jasper Conran. Rather it is a wildlife park where you can get close to nature – safely! I will visit there tomorrow.
Yesterday when I went to the reef I had signed up for scuba diving as I had had a go at this in Rhodes in the summer. However they did not let me do it as I did not have a medical clearance certificate – a definite requirement in Queensland. (In Rhodes they had a doctor check people before embarkation. I was ok about it but if I had done this I would not have got so sunburned as I would have had a wetsuit on! Never mind. I went to get my refund and at the same time decided to cancel the sky dive. I want to be completely fit for that so I will probably leave it to New Zealand. Spent the day wandering and snoozing, and this evening went on the Lady Douglas, a sort of steamboat that tours the mangrove swamps behind Port Douglas and finishes off with a quick trip round the harbour, hopefully seeing some good sunsets. The pilot, who was English, gave us a commentary on the one and a half hour trip which started at 4.30 but it was nearly dark by the time we returned. One of the highlights of the trip is supposed to be ‘crocs’ but they were conspicuous by their absence. In the end we did have a fleeting glimpse of one as it dived beneath the waters. This was more than made up for in my view by the sight of Ospreys and Fish Eagles which follow the boat for ‘tidbits’. Another highlight was feeding the catfish with cat food – dry bits. No sunset but some spectacular could formations as the wet season rumbles in. I did get a chance to read a ‘croc’ book on the journey. Only 1% to 2% of the eggs hatched mature to adulthood. The reason? They get eaten by bigger crocs. It is rule of ‘croc’ society that you allow yourself to be eaten by any ‘croc’ that is bigger than you. Of course the pilot had to throw in one or two tales of ‘croc’ attacks. He said the average was one ‘croc’ fatality per year but in the last 14 months there had been four, two of whom were the children I mentioned in an earlier blog. The five year old boy was taken in February this year in the Daintree River which is just north of here. An article in the local paper featured the outcome of a court case where a local reporter was accused of violating the family’s privacy by going uninvited on to their property. The magistrate described the reporter as ‘arrogant, pig-headed, and foolish’ but said that as he remained on the driveway he had not committed any offence. Tell that to the family, I thought.
Back in Port Douglas I was tempted by the notice that read ‘Fish and Chips and Rock and Roll’. Actually the heat reduces my appetite considerably, and I think the ‘NT Mud Crab’ episode is the only ‘full’ meal I have eaten since coming to Australia. I did try a barramundi burger and chips in Kakadu, but only got as far as the ‘barram’ before I capitulated. The café I now went to was on the marina – the cheaper end – and for $20 (about £11.50p) I had grilled barramundi, chips and salad to the strains of an Elvis impersonator. It rained hard whilst I was eating, but I did not get wet on the way home in the dark – it was after 7pm. My evening was completed by the sight of the ‘brusque’ receptionist explaining to a Lily Savage impersonator that the ferry for Birkenhead definitely did not leave from the Port Douglas Marina.
Now. Captain Cook. This is not going to be a history lesson. You can find the facts for yourself in any good history book. What I am interested in is the interpretation of history. I cannot remember who it was that said history is written by the victors – could have been Hitler! Anyway, what about Australia’s history? The accepted version is that the Aborigines were living a harmonious existence with the land and with other tribes and clans when along came the Europeans and ‘land grabbed’ Australia. You have to go back 60 or 70,000 years to find the first ‘land grab’ as the earliest Aboriginal settlers moved in from Indonesia to North Australia. Over the next 2-3000 years the various groups and clans staked claim to the whole of the continent. Most lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle but there were settled groups depending on the location and the environment. There is no ‘written’ history of these times. Accounts survive through tales and song. Little seems to be known about how exactly they ‘staked’ out the various territories. I find it hard to believe that this would have been achieved without conflict. The Dutch ‘accidentally’ discovered Australia, and by the time Cook came to the East coast, most of the West and North coasts had been mapped. So when he set off on a ‘scientific’ expedition, his task was really to grab the East coast for the British King before the Dutch got it. He duly did this by sticking a flag pole in the soil at Botany Bay in April 1770. He was followed 11 years later by the ‘first fleet’ a set of convict ships which landed in Sydney harbour. Australia’s destiny was set by those two acts. The Aborigines were doomed as a result. Theft, violence, deceipt, disease, sometimes outright massacre saw to it that they were pushed off their ‘lands’ in rapid time. Were they any more badly treated than the victims of the ‘clearances’ in Scotland and Ireland in the eighteenth century, or the citizens of Drogheda massacred by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. Perhaps not. All are victims of that ‘tenet’ that might is right. The Irish peasants dying in their thousands during the Great Famine were seen just as much as ‘sub-human’ as the Australian settlers began to view the Aborigines. It is not just Australia that has a lot to answer for. They were implementing a European, racist view, that they as the superiors had the right to take what they wanted. What we tend to forget is that those who own the land, say, in the UK do so by right of force exerted at some time in history. Land laws merely confirm that right. Australia rapidly became one of the most racist societies on Earth. When people were beginning to challenge the South Africans over aparthied, Australia was operating a ‘whites only’ policy introduced in 1901. It was not until the 1970s that the policy was finally ‘dumped’ as pressure came from the rest of the world . It may have officially gone but you only have to listen to the reaction to ‘asylum seekers’ to see that it still lies just below the surface. So, let’s not blame Captain Cook. He came to a sticky end at the hand of some South Sea Islanders some years later so perhaps that was a sort of justice.

Saturday 31st October
Haven’t bothered to get out my Haloween photo from Singapore! Think I can hear fireworks or thunder. No, definitely fireworks. It gets dark very early here – about 7pm- so you either head into town to a bar or restaurant or , like me, you head back to the apartment to catch up on the day’s blog, phone calls etc. Had to sort out my early pick up for the airport on Monday – it has gone so quickly! I leave her at 3.20am for a 6.30am flight to Adelaide. Tomorrow I go for the day to the Daintree River area on a guide tour, but it gets back around 7pm and I will be too busy packing and getting to bed early to record the day’s events.
Today as a fairly laid back day. Slept a little better after applying all the sunburn stuff I got from the pharmacists. Decide to go to ‘Habitat’ and hopefully have ‘wildlife’ served on a plate (not literally) for me to photograph. Port Douglas is serviced by a ‘round robin’ bus service that you just hail by the roadside. It is a ten minute journey to ‘Habitat’. The bus is quaint. A small coach with a piece of card in the front window which either says ‘Town’ or ‘Out’ depending which way it is going. The driver on the outward journey is Mr Cheerful who must have relocated from the Norwich to Dereham bus service as he could not be grumpy enough on that one! We travel through the ‘posh’ part of Port Douglas where the hotels are ‘complexes’ and they have their own golf courses. One sign advertises a house with its own course for $745,000 dollars (about £423,000). I check my loose change but I am 50 cents short. I think of asking the bus driver for a ‘sub’ but think he might throw me in the sea instead. ‘Habitat’ itself is surprisingly good – part zoo, part wildlife park. It is split into three parts – Wetlands, Rain Forest, and Grasslands. There are more birds and animals than you can shake a stick at – though this particular activity is frowned upon. I think I will while away an hour here but end up staying nearly four. I go round the whole thing twice, taking photos like mad. I calculate that the second tour will be ‘sunnier’ so better photos in some areas and for once I am right. The main exhibits are the massive – and I mean massive – saltwater croc, the wallabies and kangaroos, and the koala bear. The croc is wedged between two rocks and partly submerged on my first tour, but vey kindly is on the grass sunning himself on my second. The kangaroos and wallabies are used to being fed so they come up very close. I am just about getting used to telling my kangas from my wallabies when I am confronted with a sign that says ‘tree kangaroo’. This I have to see. It turns out to look more like a lemur than a kangaroo, but there we go. It persists on hiding its head as I try to photograph it, but I outwit it by arriving unexpectedly an hour later. The koala bear is the star in lots of ways. It is cuddly and sleepy as you would expect, but is much bigger than I imagined. For some reason I had also imagined them as silent creatures so I am a bit startled when is suddenly starts to howl like a grizzly bear! The keeper says this is a mating call, and that the local residents complain about the noise! Good old Aussies. If you can’t shoot ‘em, then shut ‘em up! Twice a day the koala bear has to ‘sing’ for his supper and be photographed clinging to eager children and adults. There was a bit of a pantomime to begin one session as the keeper – the spitting image of the late Steve Irwin – got out a step ladder and climbed up to where the koala was having a snooze. It was quite happy to let him stroke its head but not so keen on letting go of the tree. The keeper smiled in an embarassed way and tugged at its front legs. They eventually were loosened but the bear ‘s back legs resolutely clung to the tree. For a moment we had the sight of an elongated koala bear as the keeper leaned back on the ladder in an effort to loosen the bear’s grip. The gathering audience was waiting for the outcome of this ‘tug-o-war’, and secretly hoping that the bear might just win. After what must have seemed an eternity to the keeper the bear gave in and allowed himself to be carried to the photographic area, where he duly obliged by clinging in a very cuddly and co-operative way to each person that was prepared to pay $18 for the privilege. I had had my fun so passed on that bit.
The three ‘habitats’ described above were user friendly in lots of ways and I struck up a conversation with a lady from March in Cambridgeshire who was a wheelchair user. She said she and her husband had been there since 8am for the ‘breakfast with the birds’ session – I had signed up for the ‘lunch with the lorrakeets ‘ later on. We met later in the café and continued our conversation. She asked if I had been to the Barrier Reef – I missed out the sunburn bit – and said she had only found one firm who were able to accommodate disabled people (ie they had hoists etc). Another firm had, in true Aussie style, said they were prepared to ‘have a go’ and that they ‘liked a challenge’ – but she decided to pass on that one. She was determined to go though and was encouraged when I told her that the boat I had been on had taken a lady in her 70s who was a total non –swimmer and had got her to snorkel the reefs with two staff as guides. Her final comment was that Australia, like the UK, had a long way to go in terms of accommodating disabilities. Neither of us mentioned that in the early days of populating Australia after the second world war when people from England etc were encourage to come via the ‘ten pound pom’ scheme, people with disabilities were not allowed in!
I close this section with a reflection on the book I have just read. Bought yesterday in a café-cum-bookshop in Port Douglas, it is by an Australian author Alex Miller – never heard of him before – and is entitled ‘Landscape of Farewell’. It is the story of an elderly German academic, recently widowed, who through a chance meeting ends up in the Australian outback and forms a friendship with an Aborigine man of similar age, who is a tribal elder and adviser to the Government on cultural issues. They are both seeking some sort of understanding and reconciliation with their past, and journey together into the outback to seek the burial place of an Aboriginal ancestor. It is a fascinating tale in itself, but links in a curious way to my musings about Captain Cook as a central feature of the book is the weaving into the fictional tale of a real historical event - the Cullin-a-Ringo massacre. This was said to have been the largest massacre of white settlers by Indigenous Australians in the country’s history. In October 1861every member – (nineteen in all) men, women and children – of the strongest and most well-armed party of white settlers to enter the Central Highlands of Queensland ( where I am now) was killed by the local Aborigines in a well-planned and ruthless attack. It led as you can imagine to extensive and brutal repercussions against the local population. The book’s fantasy is that the ancestor was the leader and brains behind the massacre and that it was carried out because important and sensitive religious sites had been (perhaps inadvertently) defiled. The book does not seek to ‘judge’ the incident, but merely to place it in the historical context of the time. The view of the elderly German academic is that we are essentially a brutal race who at times does very brutal things to our fellow human beings. He also feels that those living in the present cannot be blamed for the deeds of those in the past – even if they are ancestors. He gradually realises that his own father who had fought in the second world war may well have perpetrated deeds which he would find difficult to forgive. The book ends with his determination to face whatever the past holds in terms of what his father had done.

Kakadu National Park

2009-10-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

Friday 23rd October Kakadu National Park

Leave Darwin via the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs as instructed by the car hire person. Have to look for route 36 the Arnhem Highway. See signs for Alice Springs 1249 kilometres. The distances are mind boggling. Alice Springs is not even half way down Australia! Settle in for a 240km drive to my next hotel. I have spoken to the receptionist and she told me to look for South Alligator River and I can’t miss it. I’m sure I want to miss the river by the sounds of it. Route 36 not brilliantly signposted but I get on it. Need to explain to the uninitiated that a ‘highway’ in Northern Australia terms is really only a two lane road that snakes off into the horizon. I presume the scrubland on either side is ‘the bush’. As I move further from Darwin the cars etc get fewer. The roads are dominated by ‘road trains’ which are even more scary at night. Imagine an articulated lorry with a trailer attached. Then attach another trailer. Then another one. Big isn’t it? Even with these monsters bearing down on other traffic the roads get quieter and quieter. I drive for 15 minutes at one point without seeing another vehicle. And this is a main road! What the roads I will be travelling on tomorrow will be like is anyone’s guess. I see a sign for a Wetlands Observatory and stop for a while. It is very informative. Am captivated by the sign that says that one of the walkways to a nearby bridge is out of bounds because a large saltwater crocodile has been spotted ‘lurking’ in the area. Not bird-watching clearly. Helpfully they have provided a folder with details of ‘saltie’ fatal attacks – if you just lose a leg you don’t make the book! They are rare, but the posters and the signs make it clear that any contact is very high risk, and the advice is DON’T SWIM anywhere except the public swimming baths! Of course some visitors choose to swim in the rock pools and billabongs, and the park rangers do their best to see that the areas are safe. Fatal attacks occur mostly in the wet season – it is still the dry season now – when the rivers and creeks overflow and there are lots of places for croc to be. The folder recorded the last fatal attack in Australia as March 2009 when sadly an 11 year old girl was taken whilst swimming in a river with friends. The one before that was in 2008 when another child – this time a 5 year old following his dog into the river. I didn’t read the whole list which goes back some years, but tourists don’t feature heavily in the saltie’s diet. The reason? They don’t get complacent like the locals do. Both children lived adjacent to where the attacks took place. I think I got the message. As I left the observatory I heard a rustle in the bushes next to me. I was in my car before you could say ‘crocodile dundee’!

I ended up driving 40km past my hotel as it looked like an old gas station and I thought that can’t possibly be it! But it was so 80km later I was back and checking in. The gas station bit was only the front and the residences were not too bad. A bit log cabbinish but ok. Needless to say once I had checked in I had my now obligatory Oz afternoon snooze! At 5pm I headed for Ubirr, an aboriginal rock paintings site. I had been advised that it closed at sunset which was about 6.30 but that the sunset would be spectacular. Found it ok as the road off the main highway only went as far as the site. I got there in an hour so had some time to see the rock paintings before climbing with the 30 or so others to the viewing point. The sunset was on cue – very spectacular but a bit blurred by low clouds. Everybody was relatively quiet as this is an aboriginal religious site. Lots of photos taken. Spread out below lots of scrubland and wetlands in the distance. Someone said they could see kangaroos – but I couldn’t! Hardly seen any wildlife yet. A couple of cranes in a pool by the highway, some parakeets over the wetlands. Still, plenty of time for that. When the sun had set I was going to stay a while and just take in the view but a warden appeared and rushed us all off. I understood why by the time we reached the car park ten minutes later. It was getting rapidly dark and by the time I set off I had to use my lights to see the way. Journey home relatively uneventful – except I missed the ‘hotel’ again – but I did get my first ‘road kill’. Dammit, I thought, the road is empty for miles in either direction and this creature – a possum possibly – strolls out right into my path. I did try to miss it but I was not going to end up in a ditch. Sorry possum. Some other creature will have a meal of it no doubt.

Tomorrow I am off to Jim Jim Falls – this requires two hours driving on dirt roads there and back. That’ll test the four wheel drive! In the wet season the falls can only be reached by air!

PS
Some reflections on the Aussie male. It began with two stalls at the beach market. One was selling ‘stock whips’ – who the hell would want a stock whip unless you drove cattle? A hard Aussie that’s who. The other was called the ‘Roadkill Grill’ – motto ‘you kill it, we grill it’. Burgers to put hair on your chest mate! It continued with passing a sports bar. I had been warned by Eamonn that no bar will be without a TV, but this sports bar had wall to wall TVs, all with different sports channels on them! And then there’s the ‘ute’. Plenty of them in evidence on the roads today. So I wrote this fictional ‘male’ a poem.

Oh Sheila, oh Sheila, you know you’re a beaut
But you just can’t compete with my 4-wheel drive ute!
I love you, I love you, you know that it’s true
But you’ll have to excuse me, I have to meet Blue.
When we first met my darling, you liked the odd ‘stubby’
But four cans a day love have made you quite chubby
If you add that to having a liking for balti
You ‘re no wonder the size of a five metre saltie!

PPS
Rolf Harris featuring a lot as I drive along.

Saturday 24th October Kakadu National Park Day 2

Sleep glorious sleep! My first proper night’s sleep since I left the UK last Sunday. Made myself stay up to watch The Da Vinci Code – what an awful film! – so went to sleep around 12 and woke up at 8! Yahoo! Horrendous noise from white parakeets – they are like starlings around here – and some very strange geese which are the equivalent of our Canada Geese , but they do fly into trees when startled. Opened curtains to find an ibis feeding on the grass outside. Quick shower and breakfast as off to Jim Jim Falls. The Kakadu guide says that the Falls are only accessible by 4 wheel drive vehicles and not at all in the wet season. It also says to allow two hours to the Falls and two hours back once you leave the main Kakadu Highway. I calculate the turning is an hour away so I will allow six hours for the round trip. I am both nervous and excited by the off road bit – but assured by the fact that Brother Frankilry survived the trip at the end of the wet season two years ago! I check my fuel and decide to go on a full tank so have to call at Jabiru on the way. Take a wrong turning at Jabiru and then am directed the wrong way again by this stupid Aussie bloke out walking. Lose fifteen minutes with this palaver. Fuel gauge stays reassuringly on full! Reach the turning for JIm Jim Falls ok and stop to consult the manual re the 4WD bit. It is easy to switch on but it does say that if the road gets sandy or muddy then to up the ante 4WD wise. Never having driven a 4WD this means nothing to me – but I am about to find out. The sign says Jim Jim Falls is 59km. the first half an hour or so of the road is red gravel and the road is wide enough to take two vehicles side by side. Clouds of red dust are thrown up as I follow the signs and stick to 60km. One vehicle comes from the opposite direction, and then shortly after another speeds past me in the direction of the Falls throwing up so much red dust I have to stop as I can’t see the road! I don’t see another vehicle for over half an hour. ‘Piece of cake this off road driving,’ I think. Half an hour later, just as I pass a sign for a camping ground, the red dirt road abruptly ceases and is replaced by a very narrow single width dirt track. By my calculations this was to be my ‘road’ for the next hour or so! I stop and engage the next level of 4WD. I soon realise I need it. The ‘track’ is a mixture of soft sand, red gravel and stones - sometimes all at once. The local Aboriginal council have very kindly installed speed bumps at regular intervals just to make the ride more interesting. Some bumps are considerably bigger than others! I hope the vehicle can stand it. I would not have got more than ten yards in my Mazda! My up and down journey is made more exciting by the regular ‘sand traps’ where the 4WD has to work especially hard. I keep saying the word ‘traction’ as I reach these in some vain hope that this will ‘magic’ me through. I keep telling myself that even if I get stuck there will be other vehicles passing – eventually. Almost by magic one appears – and I have to pull over to let it past. I don’t see another one for the next forty minutes! I do however see the council guys responsible for the speed bumps. They are very kindly installing a few more on what had once been a nice flat section.

Suffice it to say the 4WD got me there ok. I noted at various points that the road dipped into dry river beds and that next to the edge of the road were indicators for possible depth of water during the wet season I presumed. A little alarming to see that these topped out at 2 metres!

The car park at the Falls was moderately busy – about a dozen vehicles. It was mid-day so very very hot. I had got all the bits I needed and sprayed myself liberally with insect repellent as I could see coach loads of flies gathering for the feast! The first thing I came across was the sign saying that due to the temperatures the 6km walk to the top of the plateau was banned! Oh dear, just when I ….who am I kidding? In this heat! The next thing I saw was the now obligatory ‘croc’ sign. Danger – crocodiles inhabit this area. Attacks can cause injury or death. Keep away from the water’s edge. Do not enter the water. And then where does the path go – yes, right along the water’s edge! It’s very difficult to walk no tiptoes in hiking boots but I did. In case I might think it was all a fuss over nothing – which I assure you I didn’t – there was a crocodile trap set at the edge of the lagoon. Probably the length of Sal and Dave’s living room! A local paper yesterday had featured an article about the capture of a 4.5 metre ‘saltie’ in another part of the park – not the one at the wetlands centre. So they are about. The paper also featured what it called ‘idiots’ and showed a photo of a guy standing on a croc trap holding a beer can! A middle aged couple in front of me as I walked up towards the Falls asked me if I was going to swim in the rock pool at the bottom of the Falls. Not a chance I said, haven’t you seen the notices. They had also read the same newspaper. The woman cheerfully said that some trekkers had swum there earlier for 20 minutes and none of them had been eaten! Trouble with crocs I said – sounding like a veteran – is you can’t predict where they will be. I was keeping well away from the water. I left them to go on up the path. I will have a look in the paper tomorrow – see if they made it back.

The journey back to the main road was easier as I now knew what the 4WD could do. I passed the council men who very kindly let me are the first to drive over a new speed bump. I thought that if the water gets to 2m high they must have to redo most of the road each year never mind the speed bumps!

By way of contrast decide to visit Nourangie Rock, an aboriginal painting site on the way home. This was fascinating – still had a croc sign though – as the series of caves and overhangs had some of the paintings I had already seen in guide books and on post cards etc . People had actually lived here for thousands of years. It was very sheltered and cool so I could see why. The paintings are very striking and in a way humbling. Made me think about the importance of place in people’s lives. The observation point overlooked the vastness of the bush below. I could see for miles. I could also understand why the Aborigines regard these places as sacred.
Back on the main highway I see my first real wildlife – and manage not to kill it! Two dingos – Aussie wild dogs – are standing by the road observing the traffic. I could have sworn they waved as I sped by.

The Australians have what seems like a curious relationship with their wildlife. I suppose they cannot be blamed for initially thinking it was all there for the benefit to shoot, kill, skin etc (c/f USA and the Buffalo or us and the wolf) but very quickly certain species got to the edge of extinction – including the ‘saltie’ which made great handbags and shoes, but could not replace itself fast enough. Eventually they had to declare a number of species ‘off limits’ – including the ‘saltie’ – to let them recover. Some recovered faster than others – the ‘saltie’ in particular. They are now thriving and the Aussies are trying to balance the fact that it’s great to have them back with the fact that given half a chance they will have you for lunch!

Tomorrow it’s croc spotting from the safety of a big boat on the Yellow River, the off to Katherine to visit the Gorges.

Sunday 25th October Kakadu to Katherine

Croc spotting, Charlie Drake, electric cars, the café with no customers, termites, road kill, wallabies, wild horses, earthquake, aborigine health and welfare.

Early rise needed to catch 9am Yellow River Cruise. Not helped by earthquake at midnight! Woken up by movement of the bed. It went on for some time – 20 to 30 seconds – and it was as if someone was holding the end of the bed and shaking it. I lay there thinking is this the start of something or just a shock wave. When it stopped I fully expected it to start again. I remained awake for another two hours afterwards , watching yet another awful film, and doing calculations in my head about the distance we were inland vis- a-vis a possible tsunami! Mad? Not quite. At breakfast lots of talk about the tremors. The girl who serves said it was her second of the season – but as she was from Chile she was used to such things. Did the earth move for me? No jokes please cause it did! On the radio on the way to the cruise the news was that there had been an earthquake in Indonesia of 7.5 magnitude, and the Indonesian Government had thought it wise to issue a tsunami warning which they later withdrew. That’s the way! Panic the population then say –oops, sorry! Shock waves had been felt as far as Katherine where I was heading which is 250k from where I was. Who’s laughing now? As I left the Kakdu lodge I saw my first proper marsupial – a wallaby – which scampered round a bush near my jeep. I saw another one when I parked up for the cruise. Definitely not big enough to be kangaroos.
The Yellow River cruise turned out to start in the Yellow Billabong – think small lake – and entered the South Alligator River. I have mentioned this river before. It is a brute of a river made even more so by the presence of saltwater crocodiles. It was named by an early explorer – or rather renamed from what the Aborigines called it – who did not know his alligator from his elbow! History does not record if this was a fatal mistake or not. The tour was fabulous. Two hours on a slow cruise around the area with a very informative guide and some very co-operative wildlife, including Mr and Mrs Croc and the little crocs. Sea eagles, azure kingfishers, jabiru (a big stork), whistling ducks (not Colonel Bogey but clearly not a quack) and thousands of magpie geese – these are the ones that fly into trees. And of course crocs! Shed loads of crocs. No 5 metre males – these are the stuff of legend and nightmare. But plenty of 3 metre females and one solitary 4 metre male. When you get close, and I assure you we did get really close, you see why these things are so fearsome. Jaws like clamps, silent deadly movement. We would be looking at one and suddenly it would disappear. That’s what makes them so dangerous. You never know where they might pop up. We saw them in the water, on the sand banks, hiding in tree roots – and the guide said they frequently hide in the long grass – which is why the route to the boat’s on a raised walkway. We saw five gather in one place and two females have a standoff – the guide said they do sometimes fight and kill and even eat each other! Keep well clear! Respect! We all had to have a sit down in the café afterwards!

Remember! Never smile at a crocodile! You can’t get friendly with a crocodile!

A brief visit to the nearby Warradjan (pronounced Warradjan) Aboriginal Centre was followed by a 250km drive to Katherine. Getting radio stations is not easy so I have to listen to what I can. It breaks the monotony of the journey as the roads can be very empty. As it is Sunday it is serious talking – no Dale Winton here! I relax into the programme which is about the near destruction of Aboriginal health and welfare by the onset of colonisation – thanks Captain Cook they say. Aborigines are SEVEN times more likely to die of diabetes, respiratory and heart diseases and alcoholism than white Australians. They also suffer depression very much more easily. Reason? Loss of culture, purpose etc. the Oz government are trying hard to redress centuries of destructive oppression, but it seems like a losing battle. One Aboriginal interviewed said change is good but destruction is not. Parts of the Northern Territory are given over entirely to the Aboriginal clans and their traditional lifestyle. Visitors need a licence to go on to the land. Very few tourists do. The future doesn’t look orange!

Last night I was in the lounge bar having a bite to eat when an Aboriginal man came in. He asked the staff to serve him an alcoholic drink. The girl who served him politely refused as he was not a resident but said if he was thirsty she would be happy to serve him with a soft drink. He had a coke and then asked if he could sit at the outside tables to drink it. The girl said yes. When he left you could have cut the air with a knife. As an individual he was no trouble but he represented a huge problem which is Aborigines and alcohol. Big trouble. The Government have gone as far as to ban alcohol sales and drinking in public in certain areas. They have also brought in an alcohol-free fuel to stop the young men ‘sniffing’ fuel.
Long journeys with little change to the scenery and no other traffic to observe and few animals as they mostly lie low during the day have led to the onset of ‘Highway Madness’. I find myself talking in a stereotypical Aussie accent and singing songs I had long forgotten. The engine of my jeep sound like a didgeridoo, so it’s not long before I launch into ‘Sun-arise’ in a Rolf Harris type accent. This is quickly followed by ‘Waltzing Matilda’ whenever I see a billabong sign. Even more bizarrely I rake up from the dustbin of my memory an old Charlie Drake number (see below). It may be sectioning stuff back in the UK but here in the Outback it’s what keeps us going!

Crossing the Mary River and leaving Kakadu behind perhaps forever, I take a rest at the Mary River Roadhouse. It’s sign advertises all the services you could need but when I pull in it like something out of a Sergio Leone movie. I half expect to see Clint Eastwood and Jack Palance facing each other in front of the store. There is a Volkswagen van at the petrol pump and two girls sitting at an outside table. The sign on the door says ‘Shut – back at 10.30’. Seeing as it is 2pm I have a long wait! I try the toilet door and that is locked too. I am about to go when the girls say the café is open. Inside it is empty. A woman comes from the back and serves me with coffee and a biscuit. I need break but am not staying here long. I ask for the toilet key and the woman says it is open. Perhaps someone was inside. I look out to see the third occupant of the van walking with the girls to the van and it very quickly departs, leaving just me, the woman, Clint and Jack. I look up at the fan spinning above my head and try to imagine what this place must be like when it’s quiet!

A little later on the Stuart Highway to Katherine I think the ‘highway’ madness has given me mirages as I think I see a traffic jam in front of me. I count at least five vehicles. I haven’t seen as many since I left Warradjan (pronounced Warradjan). As I get nearer I see flashing lights and a sign on the back of the van in front which says ‘beware slow vehicles’. Of course! It’s the Darwin to Adelaide electric car race! I had seen a news item on it when I was in Darwin. The cars are only allowed to be solar powered, and teams from all over the world have entered. The UK is represented a by a team of scientists from Cambridge University. They are aiming not just to complete the race but to end up in the top ten. I find myself getting quite excited. Will I see the Cambridge car? I pass about four of them and their support vehicles over the next ten minutes or so – some of the cars can do 60KPH – I actually see one overtake a slow lorry! Then I pass the Cambridge car. I honk like mad and flash my lights. They probably think I am some Aussie clown complaining that they are slowing the traffic. When I reach Katherine some of the lead cars are already there being dismantled for an overnight stop. By my calculations the UK team are in fifth place! Go for it boys! Only 2700km to go!

I finish my day with a visit to the Katherine Gorge to watch the sunset. I climb a very steep path to a viewing platform. The sunset is stunning and I take lots of photos. No one else is around. A youth had passed earlier but did not stop. I follow the path he took which is the longer but easier route. A girl passes me going the other way. I think she is a ranger by her garb. I am conscious that it will get dark very quickly so I hurry. About three quarter of the way down I meet the youth who walks with me chatting. He is working for the season at the camp near the gorge. It gets darker as we come nearer the He produces a head torch which helps light the way. It takes us a good twenty minutes to reach the car park from where we met and by that time it is pitch black. I thank him for his company and get to my jeep. I am tired and a little bit irritated with myself for nearly having to come down at least part of the way in the dark. And then I realise, of course, he had waited for me! He and the girl were a team whose job it was to sweep up late comers like me. He was going one way, she the other. He hadn’t embarrassed me by letting me know that. For a moment I was reminded of the story ‘Footprints in the Sand’. But he was a real person. I know that because I shook his hand as I said ‘Thank You’.

Monday 26th Katherine

Charlie Drake! Charlie Drake! Now where did he come from? Those of you who have just said ‘Weybridge, Mr Pugh!’ are older than you think. Sometime slapstick comedian of the 1960s, he ventured into the recording business with limited success. Fill in the gaps where you can as I can’t remember all of it but one song began………..

In the bad, badlands of Australia, many years ago…..
(memory gap here)
I said my boy Jack what’s wrong with him?
My boomerang won’t come back!
Your boomerang won’t come back?
My boomerang won’t come back, my boomerang won’t come back
I’ve waved the thing all over the place, practised ‘till I was black in the face
I’m a big disgrace to the Aborigine race, my boomerang won’t come back!
Well I can ride a kangaroo (yeah, yeah)
Make kinkajou stew ( yeah , yeah)
(memory blank here – I bet you’re glad of that!)
It ends up with him consulting a tribal elder who tells him…
The thing you have to know is, to get your boomerang to come back,
Well first you have to throw it!
A not very PC song but then it was the 1960s!

Up very, very early – 5.30am – for a 2 hour breakfast cruise down the Katherine Gorge. We were promised sunrise over the gorge ( missed that), early morning mists (too hot for that), freshwater crocodiles ( we saw one – in a trap!). Apart from that the gorges are stunning and a reminder of the power of nature and water over time ( there’s an equation in there somewhere). Chatted over breakfast to a young couple who had lived in Edinburgh and were returning to Melbourne via most of Australia over the next four months – driving all the way! A retired couple originally from Sheffield heard my accent and were keen to tell me how great Oz was – they took advantage of cheap flights and were full of praise for Richard Branson who they said had broken the Quantas domination of Australian airways. We visited two of the thirteen gorges that form the Katherine complex. Our guide pointed out the levels to which the waters had risen during the great flood of 1998 – Katherine itself is 29km away and the whole town had been under six feet of water! It’s not a place for wusses to live. If the sun doesn’t get you the crocs will. And if they don’t get you the floods will. There was another flood in 2006 but not quite as bad.
Got really excited on the way to the Gorge as I thought I saw my first kangaroo – there are some Australians who have never seen a wild kangaroo. It was real enough and bounded across the road in front of me – at a safe distance I hasten to add given my road kill record. Turns out though that it was a wallaby. I saw another one in the car park drinking from a leaking tap and so was able to photograph it. More were hanging round the waiting area for the boat and it was there that I heard the guide tell someone that they were more likely to see wallabies than kangaroos and besides they would have no problem identifying them because they are so bloody big! Still time yet, I said hopefully. After the trip I passed a very lifelike model of a Kookaburra sitting on a post ..that is until it moved its head. I thought whether or not animatronics had reached Northern Territory yet, decide it hadn’t and got out my camera. Now normally birds scoot as soon as you even think of talking a photo, but this thing had the patience of Job and waited whilst I fumbled in my rucksack for the camera. It even turned its head and smiled when I said ‘Say Cheese’.
Back at my room at the hotel I had a sudden attack of the ‘sleeps’ thought I’d have ten minutes and woke up two hours later. It’s the heat. I decided then to have the rest of the day as a ‘lazy’ day – went into the pool for an hour, did a bit of shopping in Katherine, did this. The centre of Katherine is very small – there are about 11,000 people live here (it was 250 in the 1930s!). walking around the town you quickly become aware of groups of Aborigines of all ages (family groups?) sitting under trees and other shady places, wandering through the Mall, hanging around the drive-thru Bottle Shop ( off licence). They seem to be doing nothing most of the time. Other people in town seem to have a sense of purpose – even if that is only shopping. I’m left wondering if the gap between white Australian expectation and what the indigenous population can deliver is too wide to bridge.

Tomorrow I return to Darwin via the Litchfield National Park where once again I will be testing the 4WD capabilities.

Darwin NT

2009-10-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

G'day. Welcome to 'Stralia. I have looked up my old guide book 'How to Speak Strine' in an attempt to get along here in the northernmost part of Oz. Landed at some godawful hour and reahed hotel where receptionist told me I had arrived early (doh!) and my room would not be ready until 2pm. One strop later ( I needed to do it Dorrie) I was in a room throwing all my bags in a corner and leaping - no staggering- into bed. Six hours later emerged to mid-day temps of high 30s. ( the sort of weather to make your throat 'as dry as a dead dingo's donger' according to my guide book) showered, changed and ready for anything I set off to explore Darwin. Ten minutes later I'd done it! well not quite, but there is not a lot to see. 'Head for the Mall' another receptionist said helpfully. i envisaged the Trafford Centre but got Mansfield's Rosemary Centre - but smaller. I did however find a really good food stall where I had lunch - spinach roll with lots of add-ons. wandered down to the Esplanade after that. Beach there but looked a bit crabby. No-one on it. More of that later!

returned to hotel soon after to sort out posting photos on blog. feeling very pleased with myself so far. (ps you may have noticed the blog is a bit eecummings - i can't be bothered at the moment correcting all the punctuation). read uop on Darwin from my Lonely Planet guide. ironically it is about the size of Mansfield and is here partly because the British needed to defend Oz etc from countries further North. A bit later the cattle drovers came and gold prospectors. The Aborigines - who had been here first - were a little put out by this, but settled into a life of subservience and alcoholism pretty quickly so everyone was just fine....except the Aborigines of course! There is an Aborigine legend that says that stealing land etc wil bring bad karma or whatever the Aborigine version of that is. So no surprise then that Darwin has got a bit of a kicking over the intervening years - destroyed at least four times by cyclones ( the last in 1974 when Cyclone Tracey flattened 90% of all buildings in the city!) and once by the Japanese who bombed it to bits. Surprise then that the Aussie Government passed an act in 1976 giving huge tracts of the Northern Territory back to the Aborigines...and asking them to please have a word with the weather gods!

Population is 60,000 but swells in the holiday season. felt quiet today, but found them all this eveing when I went to the Mindel Beach Sunset Market - Darwin's best attraction. the sunset ws a bit of washout as it was cloudy - plenty more chances of them I think. The market, set right against the beach, was fabulous. Stalls galore and food stalls to die for. By accident and spotting the longest queue I found the Malay food stall. Not long after gorging on a beef thingy with lots of vegatable thingys to accompany it . Woman next to me asked me what the 'veggies' were. I said I did not know or care I was just having them anyway! And they were gorgeous. Hot, spicy, gorgeous. Went and sat on the beach to eat it. Got sand in my teeth - Mary! - but who cares. Sun had gone down. Lots of folks on the beach just eating - watching the game, having a Bud! - and I thought if I had to choose between this moment and break duty at Oxford......!!!!

the beach was full but no-one in the water! Crocodiles you think? Killer whales? Nope. But something just as deadly - box jelly fish. all the beaches have 'vinegar boxes' to spray on yourself if you get stung then an instruction to get yourself medical attention asap. Needless to say the sea is a no-no for me!

toured the market afterwards and that is when I started to notice Aborigines. I stopped to listen to a band playing didgeridoos aided by electronics - very earthy. Some Aboriginal youths were watching too. I saw more around the stalls in small groups - usually boys and girls separately. They were clearly here for the fun, but the boys groups reminded me so much of groups of youths at Goose Fair. Not quite hostile but letting their presence be felt. a little later I saw one group playing abit of 'come-catch me' with two security guards. The guards looked more bored than anything else. one group of girls was buying chips from a stall - no Malay food for them. I saw a boy in a cap carrying a coke bottle. Ordinary young people, bored, a bit in yer face, but not a real problem. i wondered what other people were thinking. I wondered too - in the awe sense - at how deeply deeply black their skin was. History has a lot ot answer for. the story of the white and black Australians is far from over. Tomorrow I go to Kakdu, real Aboriginal country.

PS I think I speak clear English but this is not always what other hear. In Singapore I though I agreed to have berries on my ice cream but ended up with a Baileys! Today I asked the bus drive for a two dolar fare and ended up paying two lots of tow dollars! Hey ho!.

Rafles Hotel, Singapore

2009-10-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Singapore - first stop

2009-10-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday PM Singapore

2009-10-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

Waiting for airport pickup so spending another 'ten dolla' on this!

some more strange things from yesterday. heat brings out people - mainly women - with umbrellas. Little India as you would imagine it. An assault on the senses - colour, smells, sounds - it's Diwali so lots of lights! China Town definitely the best. Visited it twice yesterday. went to Taoist temple in the day. Red the dominant colour - lots of paper lanterns - ok to photograph as long as no-one praying. Guide says Singapore a very tolerant place religiously. Hindu temple next door! can't get over the cows on the roof. China Town by night fantastic. narrow streets filled with all imaginable shops, stalls, restaurants - wanted to eat it all but having meal as said earlier (see Racist Aussies!). Fresh produce everywhere. Men offering to make me a suit there and then. Trying to sell me elctronic goods. Fabulous. Passed bric-a-brac stall twice before I worked up the courage to purchase. :Looked at copy of Thoughts of Chairman Mao - 'original signed copy , Sir' - before settling on my good taste purchase of the trip so far. A Chairman Mao alarm clock! complete with picture of yer man with his arm waving to the seconds. Classic! now for the haggling. How much I enquired into the newspaper at the back of the shop. A face enmerged, looked me up and down, thought "Gotcha" ( or whatever that is in Mandarin) and said "twelve dolla'. No way I thought! ' I'll give you ten' I bargained fiercely. 'Done' he grinned. Outside I thought 'you fool, you should have offered him nine!' Clutching my clock, little knowing even if it worked, I hurried away. probably worth about three I thought. still it was a hag if not a full haggle! turns out it did work, alarm and all. unfortunately I set it going and the only way i could have stopped it would have been to drop it out of the hotel window 11 floors up! it ended up buried in a towel in my case. Mao would not have been pleased. Conficious he say ' Western fool victim of own stupidity!"

slow day today after all the rushing yesterday. A couple of hours at the Raffles Hotel, a tour of the National Museum at my own pace, and a nice calm cool swim.

Raffles Hotel. Where do I start? colonial past gone modern. Indian servant in white Raj uniform at the door - marked 'residents only' - poilitely guided me to the Long Bar home of the famous Singapore Sling. slightly incongruously Beyonce is playing in the background as I enter. i sit beneath mechanically operated 'fake' reed fans which give the impression they are keeping you cool but really it's the air-con. bar offers snack menu that includes fish and chips - colonial style of course. all tables are wicker as are chairs - which arenot v ery stable as at one point I lean forward and the chair shoots out from beneath me depositing me on the floor! I bounce to my feet like Cassius Clay - float like a bttuerfly! - as I am surounded by concerned waiters and waitresses. Luckily my drink - if not my dignity - survives! Tables have boxes of unshelled peanuts on them. tradition has it - my Aussie 'friends' let me in on this one - that you eat the nuts and throw the husks on the floor. constant background crunching noise as people make their way about. I join in happily, confident that this is the only place in Singapore where you are actively encouraged to litter without fear of having your hands chopped off!

at airport now where internet is free - no dolla! - and have time to kill before 4.5 hour flight to Darwin. Back to Raffles. finished my fruit cocktail reasonably slowly so as not to look as if I was thrown by my acrobatics. leave when everyone's back is turned but given away by peanut shells crunching beneath my feet! 'Safe journey Sir' the staff chorus. the hotel is a huge white marbled maze. i find my way to a balcony and take soome photos. nearby is a sign for the 'Raffles Museum'. worth a look i think. disappointed to find that the hotel was not founded by Sir R himself who shuffled off this mortal coil when his very own 'ticket' (geddit!) came up at he age of 45 - in deep debt too....the British Gov charged him for buying Singapore! - some time in the mid 19th century. The hotel was established by the Houdini Bros (wrong name but I will check later) early in the 20th C in a chickenshack (that one's for you Rosie!) next to the harbour. over a century later it is still owned by the Hiduja Bros - sorry that's Peter Mandleson territory - and has taken over the world. Not only does the hotel itself occupy land the size of Texas, but there is the Raffles Tower, Raffles Boulevard, the Raffles Medical Centre, Raffles on Ice (made that up) etc etc. Sir R would have been proud of the Gamja Bros but for the fact that they have made a pile of cash out of it and he didn't. Still he has a statue and the hotel named after him. The Ouija Hotel Singapore just doesn't have the same ring does it.

lots of famous folk have stayed there including Noel Coward (plus 'friend'), Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill, that Royal that abdicated and ran off with the American, Trevor Howard, Hayley Mills, Kylie (probably), Elizabeth Taylor - oh, and the Japanese....did I mention them before?

leaving there after a trenmendous thunderstorm that hel;ped cool us all down i reflected what it meant. A vast colonial edifice - no, not Sir Stanford Raffles - marble pillars and floors, sumptious restaurants and shops, palm trees and exotic plants, staff dressed to serve the Raj.....a bit of a contrast with two things I sawon the way there. One was migrant workers building pavilions on Singapore Cricket Club. they were on a break and in hammocks below the scaffolding to keep out of the sun. a fag and a bottle of water - no gin slings here! the other was a frail man walkiing by a litter bin. he had a drinks can in his hand and approached the bin but instead of putting the can in he reached in and took another one out, then just walks on. he clearly knew where he was taking them. It reminded me of what our guide had said yesterday. credit to him for beoing proud of his country. No more beggars on the street he said. The Gov banned them. the police arrest them. Just where do they go then? They clearly exist!

spent the rest of the afternoon at the National Museum. Very high tec exhibition of Sinagpore's history. Especially interested in the fall of Singapore in 1942. Basically two things happened. Churchill decided not to risk the navy in defending it - only sent a token force - and the Japanese commander ourwitted his British counterpart. GB had far more troops etc and could easily have repulsed the invasion....but Japanese commander had got to 'gates' of Singapoer so fast it shook the British commander so that when the Japanese commander offered them a chance to surrender...well, the rest is history. Japanese occupation was brutal. Thousand were shot out of hand. Troops were force marched to their deaths. Women and young girls forced into slavery and prostitution - if they were lucky. Lots of first hand accounts in the museum tour. chilling really. how they took us back after the war I don't know, but they did. more irony of course in that Singapore cannot ignore modern Japan as an economic rival and sometimes partner. Deep feelings must be being surpressed by some of the population thoough.

museum teeming with perfectly turned out school children. guide of course tells us that Sinagapore schools the best in the world! noticed 'edges' to uniforms - trainers, wearing of ties, some jackets - youth will push a bit even here.

final reflections on Singapore. Exciting, bustling, colourful, hot, sticky, wealthy, clean, busy. They seem to want to put the whole of the city underground as there are huge building projects everywhere. Lots of reclaimed land from the sea. ordered - a bit too ordered for me - low crime - that's good - hard on drugs - good too - generally safe. but peel away the skin, and I am not too sure what will be beneath. off to OZ now where everything is 'in yer face mate!' Ta ta for now.

Wednesday 21st October - Singapore

2009-10-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

jet lag has really kicked in. am sleeping intermittently. not helped by Rosie Fewer ringing me at 4am thinking I was travelling next weekend! As I said not to worry the phone was ringing anyway (old Irish joke!). yesterday was a busy day. met my first aussie and kiwi racists - HFOB you did warn me! - visited China Town twice, went to botanical gardens - very peaceful - and saw range of Singapore accommodation. Am not guaranteeing any of this is in order as mind a bit fuzzed. managed to try out the rooftop pool for an hour or so. met up with a Scouse couple heading for Oz to see children - a growing tale with people I meet - he was an Everton fan so was glorying in the beachball incident! he will be even happier this morning as Liverpool lost again.

decided to go on Singapore tour. coach supposed to be air conditioned. small man at front with battery fan. toured 'high rises' which are where most Singapore residents live. guide vey proudly announced that 90% of Singaporeans owned own flat in high rises. land at a premium. lots reclaimed from the sea in the last forty years or so. further back Singapore - 'lion country' - basically swampland occupied by very few people until the British got their eyes on it - spotted potential of natural harbour - aren't we good at that! problem was that the Dutch had got here first. so in 1819 Sir Stanford Raffles - more of him later - 'bought' the island and its 100 inhabitants from some stoned Dutch sailor who couldn't remeber he sold it the next day so that caused a bit of a row. compromise was that Dutch took Indonesia - more 'hemp' there! Population now 4.5m. Good investment Mr Raffles! stayed British until 1942 when Japanese took it over. Remember the bikes? well Singapore was one of the best defended places onm earth as lopng as you attacked it from the sea. The Japanese of course cycled the length of the Malay peninsula and popped in the back door and Bob's your uncle. British surrendered with hardly a shot fired and paid the price for it in japanese prison camps and on the Burma railway!

the japanese of course had to surrender it back in 1945 when our own Dickie Mountbatted took the surrender on the steps of the Parliament building. we kept it unitl 1963 when we handed it over to Malaya - the residents not happy about this and so went independent in 1965. Guide vey proud to tell us a saga of foreign investors, banned strikes, low wages, market forces and rapid economic growth. government set up Provident pension fund for all workers - took 20% of pay but made employers gicve 20% too. thus able to fund cheap housing and guaranteed pensions. 'Boom' helped by lots of foreign workers. gov very heavy on crime - crushed Chinese gangs ruthlessly. Area now 'low crime does not mean no crime'. I did notice the 'death for drugs' on my landing card. guide proud to say Singapore a very safe place but I did notice the plethora of CCTV and high fences in the wealthy areas. death penalty for kidnapping too.

back to the racist aussies and kiwis. wnet in the evening on a tour of China town, which included a meal. sat with retired Oz couple, retired kiwi couple, and two women from oz - one of whom on way back to have first baby at home. nice conversation until retired Oz lady mentioned she had seen a young woman with twins in Stockport of all places - problem was that one twin white and the other black! up pops her husband with ' it'll come through you know. Like cattle. the strain will come through. not like in aborigines. strain can't come though in abos.' well it was like the flood gates being released. off they went down racist lane. the maoris got it - 'they tatoo their faces you know! it looks filthy!' people with tatoos got it! people with ear and body piercings got it! and then they launched into foreign toilets! the Oz gut was such an expert on the losiness of toilets all over the world that I suggested he write a "Rough Guide' to them. the attempt at humour went down like a tatooed maori with body pierced mixed race twins at a Melbourne beach party. I was still rolling with the punches when the meal suddenly ended and we spilled into the street to catch our Trishaws. glad to say the evening got more surreal but for the right reasons. there were eight of us each in a trishaw powering in convoy through the streets of China Town, and on to the main thoroughfares. one of the trishaws had its own sound system so to the beat of Bony M - "Ra ra Rasputin!' - and Michael Jackson's "beat it" we traversed the city.Great fun! even the racists were smiling - but not at the irony like me!

time to pack for my flight to Darwin. hope to visit raffles Hotel this afternoon - if they let me in!

Tuesday 20th October 2009

2009-10-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Singapore. Day 2

If you really have to take a 12 hour flight then Heathrow at 10pm is as good a starting point as any. It's quite, efficient, calm. Yes - I did say Heathrow! Apart from argument with car hire firm - which I lost- all went ok. I wanted to drop car at Terminal 4, they insisted I brought if to Terminal 1. I agreed if I could check in on time. I was all for leaving the keys at their empty desk. Dorrie, you know what I'm like when I feel a complaint coming on! well, the thought of the bill when I returned from Oz made me see sense and I took the car to them. to their credit they rsuhed me back and I got through checkout with time to spare. So glad I booked Premium Economy! lots of leg room, nice service - the people next to me were whalloping the free booze before they got their seat belts on! Mind you they did sleep nearly all the way. i foresook the booze and stuck to water. I slept badly. You do the maths. plenty of leg room, but I am too long for getting really comfortable. Numb bum syndrome I'm afraid. I still just don't get the physics of flying. How the heck can a thing that big be up in the air for over twelve hours! Still, glad to say it was and we landed safely in Singapore just after six local time. 32C.

Journey to hotel uneventful. first imp[ressions of Singapore - very like Chicago in terms of skyline, coastline etc. lots of tall, brightly lit buildings. all road signs in English. cars right hand drive. saw the Singapore Flyer - allegedly world's tallest giant observation wheel. felt a tad sick looking at it! memories of Goose Fair! Perhaps? perhaps? arrived hotel abour 7.30 and did the settling in bit. by 9pm had decided that I was going out into town for a while. Chinese taxi driver was aNeil Diamond fan - said good music transcends all....or something similar in a heavy Chinese accent. Nice man. In a rash moment I said " Take me to the Singapore Flyer!". Half an hour later I was 165 metres or the equivalent of a 42 storey building above the Singapore night sky. the view must be fanatastic if you have your eyes open! tried lying on stomach and holding on to the floor but no better! no, you will be pleased (especially Mary!) to know I managed it ok. great views, took lots of photos. when I got to the photo booth was a bit miffed to find that the only decent photo they had of me was in a "Happy Halloween" frame that they could not change. Oh well.

Moved on from there by taxi to Clarke Key, passing Outram Street and Upper Pickering Street. Thought I was back in Sutton in Ashfield! Clarke Key is riverside restaurant center. Very busy even at 10 at night. Had a bit to eat then set off to get taxi to hotel but ended up getting bicycle taxi instead - ten dolla! fun if a bit hairy at times. no brakes or lights. cutting across lanes of traffic. all the time smiling and chatting in version of English I could hardly follow. somehow in a mad sort of way relaxing. and very environmentally friendly - not a Sinagapore strongpoint I feel..

asleep by midnight. Woken at 3 by message from Tess who had forgotten time difference. back asleep about 4.30. woke 9.30. missed breakfast. one thing. room service efficient. phoned for plug adapter and it arrived before I had put the phone down!

it is now 11.38. I am running out of time as booked half an hour at exhorbitiant cost - 10 dolla again! plan is to go on City tour this afternoon and on a guide tour of China town tonight - including meal. enquired about Raffkles Hotel. was told in no uncertain trems that I would not get in dressed like that! hope I have suitable clothes as will try tomorrow.

one image I cannot get out of my mind is Japanese troops and bicycles. it's about the fall of Sinagapore in the second world war. I will have to come back to this.