Travelling without moving ...

Around six hours ago we left George and Maryam at the domestic terminal in Perth while we headed for International Departures. Now we're in Singapore! We flew over the site of the wreck of the Batavia and, what's more, the route that the beleagured captain would have sailed in his open boat to Jakarta, where he raised the alarm - it was all open, blue sea.

As we approach home, it's beginning to sink in ... this has been quite an experience ... in all sorts of ways. As we stepped off the plane in Singapore, for example, there was the unmistakeable, warm, earthy smell of the rainforest; Before now, I couldn't have used the word "unmistakeable" to describe it, and close on its heels came a host of other sensations: recollectoins of Khao Sok arising from the smell itself, and of the desert in places like Uluru and mount Magnet, arising from the contrast between this damp smell and the dry, flinty air of that place.

There's much left to describe - the desert, our trip to Adelaide from Alice, the meal with the momks in New Norcia ... please keep watching!

U3AHA?

Down in the deep south of WA we've stayed in a couple of youth"hostels". The truth is, though, that while these are still hostels, they no longer serving the younger voters. Although the hostels are perfectly adequate and comfortable, the buildings are old, and often have cold, distant ablutions rather than the en suite or close proximity suites that the modern young traveller craves. By staying in some of these places, our little group has succeeded in reducing the average age of the hostellers by a significant amount. Nevertheless, they're good value (the hostels), and we're continuing our travels and adventures.

The weather down here (we're in Walpole, near Albany on the south coast of WA) is decidedly raw, and we've been put off snorkelling by that and the many "blue bottles" in the water. Undaunted, we've taken to the forests, and spent much of this morning 40 m above the ground among the tingle-tree canopy. Here we saw black cockatoos and parrakeets while the walkway swayed alarmingly in the breeze. Sea-sickness isn't confined to sailors!

Evenings are spent playing pool (George and Maryam are surprisingly good) or trying to find restaurants that are still open for business later than 7:30 p.m. , and yesterday George surprised us all by eating a wobbegong - or at least part of one - in a local restaurant.

There are only a few days left before we fly home, and so we plan to make our way back up to Perth tomorrow and the day after, possibly taking in Busselton en route.

The beautiful south

It's 8:00 pm and we've just finished supper in the New Norcia monastery guest refectory; the only sound is a small bell ringing outside in the darkness, and this probably means that the monks have finished mass. At 8:00 pm last night "Bad to the Bone" was thumping through the Mount Magnet Hotel as the four of us played pool in the bar at the Mount Magnet Hotel; it was quieter than the previous night, when a fight started because because the bar staff wouldn't serve an under- age aboriginal girl (though her family were in the hotel the following morning, and a full reconciliation seemed to be going on). Mount Magnet is less than 400 km from New Norcia, but a world away!

We left Denham (Shark Bay) and the sea on Thursday, to drive down the west coast as far as Geraldton, and then to turn east and inland. On our last day in Denham we found a very well-recommended beach for snorkelling, Eagle Bluff. We hadn't been in the water long, though, before we met up with two sea-snakes. Now, all the guide-books tell you that they're not aggressive, just curious, "they will even lick a diver's face-mask" and may wrap themselves around your arm or leg in a friendly hug. The guides also say that they VERY rarely bite, and even then, may not inject venom. The trouble is that their venom is extremely potent, and so we decided to leave the water "with some expedition, and a little fluttered". After we'd dressed we walked up to the top of the cliff to watch the sharks swimming around a bit further out from the shore, and felt much safer.

The drive south was uneventful, until we reached Northampton, where Maryam discovered that the backpackers' hostel is an ex-convent. There was no going further - we had to spend the night. And so the four of us shared the big old building (which still has crosses etched into the glass above each bedroom) with Rowland, an itinerant artist from Fremantle, who was on a painting expedition aboard his Hell's Angel style motor cycle.

The next day we headed on to Geraldton and then turned east for Mount Magnet. By this time, we'd discovered Monsignor Hawes, a Roman Catholic priest who built eccentric churches in the outback, and we saw his handiwork in Geraldton, Northampton, Mullewa and Yalgoo! By mid afternoon we'd arrived at Mount Magnet. It's a remote gold-mining town in the depths of the desert, but one of the friendliest places we've found. We met and talked to all kinds of people here, including, for the first time, aboriginals. After our first night, we decided to stay an extra day to explore the area, which included an abandoned town-site, hills and caves in the desert, aboriginal art inside a hollow rock and lonely graves out in the mulga-scrub. Very poignant.

We left Mount Magnet this morning reluctantly, getting a friendly send-off from the hotel owner - who made us bacon and eggs to see us on our way - and the volunteer lady that we'd talked to in the tourist information office (the old tin shed where the town ambulance used to be kept) the day before. Driving south again, we passed through Payne's Find and finally left the red-ochre desert behind us to enter the green, gentler, wheat belt. Suddenly roads were busier and less straight, fellow drivers didn't wave back any more and the little towns along the way didn't look as frayed as they did earlier in the day. New Norcia greeted us with grand church buildings, imposing monastic archiecture and fine trees. It's left us feeling a little displaced; comfortable, yes, but hankering a little for the red dust and the big smile that you get in a rough and ready desert town that doesn't see many visitors and so wants to make them as feel as much at home as it possibly can.

(By the way, I'm sorry there are no links or pics in this post. It's a free connection, but it'll only handle one internet site at a time, so I can't search for sites.)

Shark Bay WA ... harrrrrr!

"Treat Tiger Sharks with great respect" it says on the information board just outside the internet cafe in Denham, where I'm posting this entry. As if anyone needs telling. Actually, we haven't seen one yet, but a bottle-nosed dolphin did surprise George while we snorkelling off the beach at Monkey Mia yesterday afternoon! It swam between him and me, though I didn't see it. George swallowed a great mouthful of saltwater in his surprise!

We joined up with george and maryam as planned in perth and we've driven here via Bagingarra, Billabong and Geraldton. People here on the mid west coast live life at a fairly slow pace, and it revolves around fishing, it seems. Also the night-life is limited. We went out to watch people catching squid on the jetty last night and, in doing so, seem to have missed a community "singing circle" that happened in the hall. A lady has just come in and said to the attendant here,
"There were 10 of us! And we sang mostly the old songs. Next week may have some dancing, too."
So you see, it may be worth us staying here a little longer.

Oh, by the way, I haven't forgotten about Uluru, but time presses.

Katatjuta

When we arrived at Katatjuta it was mid-morning. This was a good thing. Many tourist companies bus people in to see daybreak at Uluru and Katatjuta. They were leaving as we arrived. and so we had the fortunate experience of walking for several kilometres in the mountain and desert almost alone. There are sacred Aboriginal places in the Katatjuta mountains, but, unlike Uluru, where the path goes close to them, here it stays well away and they don't tell you where they are, or anything about their story. What I CAN report is that Katatjuta is a very beautiful place. The rock here is red sandstone, weathered into domes; where the rainwater runs off the surface, wet gullies and flushes allow plants to grow, so imagine red rock and occasional green smears and smudges. Deeper in there is water; we found a waterfall trickling over a rock slab, small waterholes and a trickle of a brook, with dragonflies and kingfishers. the most noticeable sound is the birds (tzee tzee of Zebra finches wherever there is any moisture to be had, whistling of the honeyeaters, echoing scream of desert hawks) and the wind that blows gently and constantly through the valley. When we walked out onto the desert (which is scrubby, not bare sand), we saw camel tracks and spotted our first reptile, a tiny dragon sunning itself on a rock. By mid afternoon we were emerging again into the carpark, and evening visits were arriving ....
.. later the same evening, at the Yulara camp site, we watched from a distance as the sun set on Uluru, and then watched the stars in the darkness.

Meanwhile in Cervantes, we've explored Mount Leseur National Park - more than 800 different species of plant exist here, the diversity is similar to raiforests, but this in Mediterranean heath. It is a remote area, only recently opened up for visits, and the walking is really exciting. In the late afternoon we went snorkelling at Dynamite Bay. The visibilty wasn't great - too much sand and seaweed, but we saw sponges, tubeworms, a toadfish and many violet crabs. It's raining tonight.

Now, where were we?

Yesterday, we picked up a hire car from the nice man at AVIS in Perth, and drove around 350 km northwards to Cervantes. It's a cray-fishing settlement that has a very good hostel (we've now discovered), wonderful beaches, very few people and the Pinnacles Desert! In the evening we wandered among the scattered limestone pillars as the sun sank into the Indian Ocean. We saw kangaroo and emu tracks in the sand and a celebrity chef being filmed cooking a meal on location(a dessert I presume, sa Molesworth, hem, hem!). We ate in the local tavern, discussed religion with a local and walked back along the beach in the dark. We saw the Magellanic clouds VERY CLEARLY, and the best shooting star I've ever seen - visible for at least 5 seconds, falling from NW to SE. Today we've swum, (almost, with a wild sea-lion - it appeared in the water where we'd been just a moment before; I don't know who was more surprised, it or us), explored a huge sand dune complex, seen two blue-tongues and visited Lake Thetis with its STROMATOLITES. What a day. We're staying here for another two nights, and we're off to look for stingrays in the light of the jetty tonight.

But what's happening as you drive to Uluru, I hear you cry. Fear not, the story unfolds ....
It's truewhat they say about driving in the desert, all the drivers wave to one another - well you never know when you might need to be remembered! We rattled along to Erldunda at a great turn of speed and managed to pick up petrol and beer there (both essential over the next few days). We also wondered at the Giant Echidna that was safely caged up outside. The, a right turn, and on to Curtin Springs! The road is edged by red, red desert and plants that are either irridescently green or luminously glaucous. It's a ravishing combination with the blue sky above. We weren't taken in by Mount Connor, which many mistake for Uluru as they approach, but it did signal that we were close to our overnight camping place. There's motel-style accommodation at Curtin Springs, and a restaurant, too, but we chose to use their free camping space (2$ for a hot shower, placed in an honesty box). So we pulled in among the few 4WDs, the caravans and the tents and slept soundly till morning.....

Red kangaroo and red centre

Although I'm writing this entry in the YHA in Perth (a quite grand ex St John's Ambulance HQ), it's the time in the centre that i want to continue with (or I'll forget). For now though, just let me say that sleeping horizontally tonight is something that i'm looking forward to a lot after two nights attempting to sleep on a "red kangaroo day-nighter seat" that must have been designed by an engineer with the bodily proportions of a mountain gorilla - too short in the leg and too long in the torso!

... back to Alice Springs.

We spent the afternoon exploring the town - mainly the centre (Todd Mall) and Anzac Hill. As the shoppers disappeared from the mall, aboriginals stayed behind and some began selling small pieces of art, or asking for money to buy food,
"Brother and sister, help me with 5 dollars for some food."
We handed over some money to the middle-aged couple sitting on the edge of the walkway. The man's speech was slurred, but the woman quickly took the cash and said, "That's good, that's 'nuff to buy flour and meat. I'm gonna get a kangaroo tail with that."
As the sun set we walked up Anzac Hill, the memorial to the Australian fallen in the 20th century wars. There's a good view from there; out over the twon to the MacDonells and the desert. The place is doubly poignant because the hill is also a significant site in the local Aboriginal dreaming stories. ust for completeness, the local Macdonalds now stands guard over the Dog Rock, on of the most sacred Aboriginal landmarks in the area.
We walked back along the Todd River bank to the hostel in the gathering darkness. All through the stands of gum trees small groups of Aboriginals were sitting around fires, or wandering between them. They were noisy, and called to each other aggressively, but we'd been told that this was nothing to be too worried about so we carried on. There was probably a lot of drinking going on (and petrol-sniffing is a problem, too), but we weren't close enough to find out. The voices and smoke in the darkness were evocative, though. No point of contact seemed to exist between us and them. The groups that noticed us ignored us; individuals walking past either did the same or veered away. A strange and unsettling experience, but, like Bill Bryson, we found that when we got back to our own concerns - in our case joining in the barbecue at the hostel - the Aboriginals faded away.

The following day we collected our campervan and headed out for the desert!

The plan: drive south to Curtin Springs and camp there overnight; next day go on to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and then camp at Yulara to visit Uluru (Ayers Rock) the next day; camp in the desert somewhere between Yulara and Erldunda; return to Alice Springs briefly before driving out to the East Macdonnells to camp at Trephina Gorge for a night; return the campervan.

Driving off southwards down the Stuart Highway, we soon left the township behind. Next stop would be to re-fuel at Erldunda, 225 km south, and then a right turn along the Lasseter Highway for Curtin Springs.

Introducing Alice

Alice Springs is everything and nothing. It's everything that you've read it will be, and nothing like you expect!
First impressions are always dangerous, but the airport is a spic and span bush airstrip, gone modern; a brightpiece of shiny chrome and glass air-conditioned technology planted in an awful lot of red ochre emptiness. It was fresh and friendlyand, after our walk across the sunny tarmac, we were picked up quickly and efficiently by the bouncy girl from Toddy's Backpacker Resort.
"Throw your luggage in the trailer, guys, it's all open over there," she said, "I'll be along in a jiffy, no worries." So we did, and she was.
There were a few other people on the bus - a group of three backpackers, two girls and a boy, comparing travel in a mixture of Spanish and English, a pair of Asian girls and a lone, quiet middle-aged woman traveller wearing a straw hat held on by a scarf. We talked to one another a little, but mainly as acknowledgement that we were all in the same bus, and anyway, the driver was giving us snippets of local information as we rolled along.
"Not much to see on this stretch of road, guys."
"This is Heavitree Gap, guys," pointing to the break in the hills where the road ran into town, "used to be that Aboriginal law only allowed men to come into town through here; women had to walk to a gap 7 km further around. Tough for the women, eh guys!"
"That sandy track's the Todd River, guys. It's full of water, guys, but you can't see it 'cos up here Mother Nature's been kinda clever, guys, and made the rivers upside down so the river bed protects the water from the heat. Neat, eh."
This phenomenon of tour guides and drivers using the word "guys" addressed to males and females during any kind of organised delivery or instructions is ubiquitous. It's interesting, though, that once you're talking to them on a one-to-one basis, it doesn't happen any more. Must be part of the uniform, along with the beanie and the khaki cargo pants.
The lone woman traveller was dropped off at the up-market Desert Palms resort while we trundled on to Toddy's on the other side of town. It's a big, friendly concern - something like Hotel Ali in Marrakech - dorms, double rooms, family suites, plenty of open areas, and lots of help to book on tours and spend your tourist-dollar! We left our rucksacs in our neat and tidy room and set off to eplore ...The Alice.
It's not a beautiful town. Functional describes it better. Mainly single-storey buildings line wide, sealed roads that intersect at right-angles to one another. There's a tired, run down atmosphere on much of the main drag and business is obviously not good for all of the entrepreneurs who've tried to ride on the back of the town's iconic image for tourists and travellers. Vacant units are scattered throughout the shopping areas. What is impressive, though, is the setting. The town sits in a huge shallow basin, with the MacDonnell Ranges running east to west and the Stuart Highway north to south. Heavitree Gap is the only way through the MacDonnells, to the south, and it's this gap that the road uses. What our driver hadn't told us is that the gap played an important in the local Arrernte people dreaming stories a long time before the town arrived. Men's business was carried out there, and that was why the women kept away.
Here, in Alice Springs we found Aboriginal people in evidence for the first time. If you read "Down Under" by Bill Bryson, you'll find a very accurate description. Some move through the streets as though they inhabit a different space from the white Australians and the visitors. Some are drunk or intoxicated on other substances than alcohol. Sometimes battered, they congregate in groups on corners and greens, or sit and talk loudly in family groups as shoppers and sightseers flow around them.
(more later)

From Orange to Red Ochre

The road from Forbes to Orange is isolated and winding, and passes through the little township of Eugowra. It was near here that the Gardiner Gang (including Ben Hall) held up the gold escort coach and made of with the loot. We wandered off the modern road and managed to find the remains of the old trackway, where we could still see ruts made in the rocky surface by wagons. There, below a bluff covered with boulders and gun trees, we found Escort Rock, the spot where the hold-up took place! On to Orange, famous for wines and Banjo Paterson. It was dusk when we arrived there and so there was nothing much else to do but book into the Parkview Hotel and enjoy an unfeasibly large supper. And so we arrived back in Sydney the next day ... to find, in due time, that our departure for the Red Centre was one day earlier than we'd remembered! The next stage of our journey, by air to Alice Springs, and then in a BRITZ campervan to the desert follows asap!

I'm actually writing this (real-time) in Kangaroo Island. Yes, that's how far behind I am with the blog. Here we've seen seals, sea lions, koalas, wallabies and many fairy penguins. Last night, judging by the footprints, they tried to hijack our car from outside our room at the Penneshaw YHA - they certainly serenaded us to sleep, and awake, and to sleep ... all night!!

Listen, time passes.

Here we are in Adelaide, weeks after the last blog entry, winding down after a hard day's wine tasting in the Barossa valley! Not only that, we've spent a gorgeous weekend on a houseboat on the Murray River, stroked a possum's tail and watched SouthernRight Whales lolling 50 metres offshore with their calves. All this thanks to the hospitality of family that we've hardly met over the years but who are, nevertheless, welcoming us into their homes and treating us like the closest of friends. But, I hear you say, "You're my eyes and ears there, what's happened, give me details." Well, dear reader (if indeed anyone still bothers to log on to this sadly neglected site), it's been thrills and spills all the way.
Let me enlarge ...

The Streets of Forbes.
Forbes is a small town in New South Wales, not a million miles away from Parkes where the famous radio telescope is housed. People in Parkes will tell you that Forbes is a rough sort of town, the kind of place that your in-laws might come from, but not a place to be born in yourself. I'll have none of that. Forbes is a fine place that deserves at least one whole day of any traveller's time. We started at the tourist information office where we were able to pick up plenty of information about Ben Hall(of whom more in a moment) and also some of the more interesting souvenirs that I've found since we've been here. For example, the women's institute here seem to turn out not only the usual woollen dolls, painted plant pots and padded clothes hangers, they also have a sideline of very tasteful dinky lingerie bags decorated with applique Victorian foundation wear. We bought one and were mightily delighted. Across the way from the tourist information centre is the Forbes Olympic Swimming Pool. Sadly, this fine facility was closed and so we made our way directly to the cemetery, a mile or so out of town, where we found the graves of Ned Kelly's sister, Captain Cook's great great grandniece and Ben Hall. A walk back into town took us past the Gaggin Oval (we'd seen the Gaggin graves in the cemetery, incidentally) and the to the splendidly veranda'd Albion Hotelwhere we had lunch. As we ate, the police surrounded the table next to us and quizzed the man sitting there. As they walked away he muttered, "You'll never take me alive!", but they heard him and told him that if he didn't come to the station with some haste, he'd be in trouble! A notice told us that the Albion Hotel was the venue for a Hall family gathering some years ago; still some of them around by the sound of things. The Forbes museum is a magpie's nest of all sorts of memorabilia and bric-a-brac, housed in the old town theatre (the bordello actually, so the curator told us). Here we found a display about Ben Hall, a collecion of Victorian ladies' underwear, a piece of a space vehicle that had landed in a local garden and a photo of Mrs Onions, one of the earliest female settlers of the Lachlan River hereabouts and not a woman you'd like to cross. Back at the car park outside the visitors' centre there's a wishing well that seemed to make the final statement about the legacy of Ben Hall in the town. A notice said, "Due to constant thieving, please make a wish at the store across the the road."
So then, who is this Ben Hall?
What better way to tell the story than in song:
Come all you Lachlan men and a sorrowful tale I'll tell,
The story of a decent man who through misfortune fell,
His name it was Ben Hall, a man of high renown,
Who was hunted from his station, and was like a dog shot down.
For years he roamed the roads, and he showed the traps some fun,
One thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and John Dunn.
Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree,
To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.
Ben went to Goobang Creek, and that was his downfall
For riddled like a sieve was the valiant Ben Hall,
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
That the seven police surrounded him as fast asleep they lay.
Billy Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead,
The troopers then fired madly and they filled him full of lead,
They rolled him in his blanket and strapped him to prad,
And they led him through the streets of Forbes, to show the prize they had.

Tragic stuff, you'll agree!

It's later than you think!

There was a moment yesterday when a small voice from downstairs said a very expressive word and Faith came running up to announce that our flight to Alice Springs was one day earlier than we'd remembered. The result is that we're here in the Red Centre now instead of .. well, tomorrow. If you want to know more about Alice Springs you'll need to do a search because I'm typing against the clock in a public internet booth with a queue developing behind me. First impressions:
red desert; frontier feel; similarities with Khaosan Road, aboriginal people - on the streets and in the surrounding countryside.
More later, if possible, and I've still got to tell everyone about the TRUE centre of Australia ... Forbes.

Moving seaward silently, at a snail's pace

I really need to begin this post with a piece of news from the Sydney Weekend Telegraph. It's about a week old, but you might be interested.

"Three strange shapes (pictured here), viewed at Shelly Beach, Manly last weekend, have still to be positively identified. Seemingly human-like, they shocked local residents who were out enjoying the unseasonal winter sunshine.

"At first glance," said Tommo 'Schooner' Riley, veteran sticky-beak, " they looked just like you and me, but when you got closer, Jeez."

This reporter pressed Mister Riley for more information - What were they, mate - mermaids, dragons, ghosts?
"Nothing at all like that, blue," insisted Mr Riley, adding that they seemed to be a queer sort of
mongrel he'd never seen before, not even on TV!
"Not true blue at all," he said.
Despite the growing crowd, nobody who was present is able to agree on a clear description of the creepy creatures, though all agreed that each one was different from the others even though they all moved together.
"Marvellous to look at," said Mrs Kazza Bungle, a Cabbage Tree Bay sunnie entrepreneur.
Asked to describe just one of them, Mrs Bungle's reply was a chilling,
'It's beyond me, darling.'
Others, though, were more forthcoming. Ibrahim Boticelli, proprietor of the nearby Bella Kebab Hot Ice Cream restaurant said,
"It was a Saturday, so there were a lot of people around to see the things. It was warm, too, for July, and business was slow because nobody wants to buy our tasty gelato and red onion pitta-pockets when the sun shines. I remember that the three things moved down the beach slowly - all together, though - and went into the sea, you know, carefully."
When quizzed as to whetheri anybody tried to talk with them, or if the creatures talked among themselves, Mr Boticelli became definite.
No, he said, they didn't talk, but the noises they made were not disturbing, more like muffled squeals, particularly as they moved towards the deeper water."

What do you think?

I'm interested because Faith, George and I went snorkelling in Manly the same weekend and we didn't see anything strange. Maryam stayed on the beach, too, but even she missed the spectacle! Faith's had a lifelong fear of putting her face underwater, so it was a real surprise to turn around and see her paddling about with us. She'd been so thrilled to see fishes swimming about at her feet that she braved all and found that snorkelling is not at all like trying to keep on your feet and in your depth. Now, there's no holding her back. We've had to go on a trip to the Sydney Aquarium to identify what we saw - mostly Gropers, Leatherjackets and Toadfish - and she can't wait to go back to Shelly Beach at least once more before we leave Sydney for the much less marine Alice Springs (though I did suggest that she could try snorkelling in the Todd River).

Our next adventure is an excursion to Parkes to see THE DISH. George has gone on ahead to do his stint searching the sky for pulsars, but he reports that there are lots of dead kangaroos along the road. This is a worry because I've just read the following report on the MSN (Au) website:

SYDNEY, Australia - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. Paleontologists say they have found the remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom."
Professor Michael Archer said Wednesday that the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolflike fangs were found, as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo.
"Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves," Archer told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.The species found had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh," Hand said.

The team also found large ducklike birds.

"Very big birds ... more like ducks, earned the name 'demon duck of doom', some at least may have been carnivorous as well," Hand told ABC radio.

Let's hope that the demon ducks and the killer kangaroos fight it out among themselves and leave us timid travellers to slip across the Woop Woop unnoticed.

Finally, the Mexicans have arrived in town, by way of this splendid tall ship here, called Cuautemoc. By chance, we were there to see them tie up and make fast, which they did to rousing Latin American music. Maryam shyly waved at one of the matelots, who was reefing a capstan or splicing a yarn or some such task, and got a flashing smile in return. Since then we've seen groups of the crew wandering about in the city in immaculate nautical uniform and Faith and Maryam have needed to be physically restrained on a number of occasions.

The Long Way Round

The day before yesterday it took Faith and me four hours to walk to the nearest railway station (in Epping!), a trip that usually takes about half an hour. The reason? We didn't follow the customary route along the road, but took the path through part of the Lane Cove National Park that starts just down the road. It's just one of the fingers of bush that run through the suburbs and extend deep into the city, and it follows the course of a creek - called Terry's Creek, or Devlin's Creek depending on which bit of it you're walking along. To find the path, we went to the end of Vimiera Road (which looks just like it sounds) and passed under the M2 motorway through a grey-painted culvert; there on the other side we were among gum trees and smooth, weather-worn sandstone outcrops. Although we could hear the rumble of the motorway behind us, the most noticeable sounds were the creek below and the squawking cockatoos. A little way in I left the main track to climb onto a boulder for a better view of what was ahead and there, just down the hill, was an echidna! It trundled out from under the low vegetation, crossed the path and waddled off into the rocks and fallen wood on the other side! That sealed our fate, and for the rest of the way, we stopped so often to look around that a man who passed us on his way into Epping passed us on his way back an hour or so later, and we'd covered about 1 km of the 4 km route. We didn't see any more echidnas, but it was obvious that the birds have decided Spring is on the way. Galahs, cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets were paired up and hacking nestholes in the gum trees. Near the end of the track we emerged, unexpectedly, onto a street.
"Can we get to Epping Station from here?" we asked a couple of burly builders who were lightheartedly hurling huge chunks of concrete into a skip.
They looked at each other for a second.
"Yeah, your best bet is to take the track again, mate."
"Thankyou," we said.
"No worries," they answered together, "Whooah but look out, it gets thin!"
We hurried back into the bush to find the thin path.
From Epping we caught the train to the nearest ferry pier (Meadowbank) and so into Circular Quay along the same Parramatta River route that we took with George and Maryam on our first day here. We passed by the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in a glorious sunset. Cameras were clicking all around, people in shirt-sleeves were eating ice creams and burgers, ibises flew overhead, startlingly white in a blue, blue sky ... and they call this winter! The free local paper this week has an article about how to beat the winter blues, "Sniffles, weight gain, lethargy and depression can all get us down at this time of year," it says, and goes on to encourage readers to start the day with hot porridge, and to eat lots of casseroles. What's more, I've just discovered that the coldest sea temperatures around Sydney match the warmest sea temperatures available in the UK. This is comforting because George and I plan to go snorkelling on Saturday.
So, after the walk around the outside of the Opera House, on through the Botanic Gardens to meet George and Maryam at the Art Gallery. Here we saw a marvellous collection of Japanese art and calligraphy, some grand nineteenth century Australian landscape paintings - just a few of which were painted by artists more used to depicting Dawn in the Dales or Stormy Weather on the Ouse, and who were obviously daunted by trying to capture scenes such as One Cow in 300 square miles of Emptiness and Natives in a Rock Shelter a Very Long Way Off Because I'm a Bit Nervous of Those Sharp Sticks They're Carrying.

The evening ended with the very bizarre experience of eating a Uighur meal in a restaurant in Chinatown. This little adventure whisked us away from Sydney along the Silk Road to the yurts and untamed horsemen of North West China. We drank pots and pots of tea (kok cay) because the restaurant serves no alcohol (being Muslim) and consumed awesome helpings of dishes such as hoxang (dumplings filled savoury meat), uighur polo (rice with lamb), kavab ( grilled lamb on skewers) and nan (onion bread).
Sadly, neither Faith nor Maryam would agree to to entertain us with wild and provocative Uyghurian dancing (see picture) of the kind that George assures us he experienced on trip to China's north west fontier.

Never mind, we're going to a karaoke club with Xiaopeng (one of George's students) next week.

Around the traps in Sydney.

Odd contradictions abound here, and just as you think you're getting on top of things, something happens that throws out your perspective again. let me give you a few examples.

Imagine a cute, sandy bay, lined with gum trees, palms and very plush houses. The sun is bright, people are on the rocks having picnics, children are paddling in the gentle waves. It's just a mite too cold to swim, but , gosh, you really want to. There's a very prominent sign on the beach that says the waters are polluted after heavy rain and you should wait for 24 hours before bathing; there hasn't been heavy rain for ages, though, and the water is crystal clear. You think, just a quick dip, it would be chilly, but fun. Then you see, out of the corner of your eye, the net that's enclosing a portion of the beach. No-one seems to be paying much attention to it. "What's the net?" you ask. "It keeps the sharks out." WHAT? THERE ARE SHARKS? Nowhere is there a sign saying, "There may be a little pollution sometimes but, hey, never mind, you could get eaten!"

It's winter here (equivalent to January in UK), but the weather is mild, and the skies often bright blue, and there are swallows. However, it gets dark by 5:00 pm and people shuffle about on their way home from work in the dusk wearing scarves and woolly hats while multi-coloured parrots fly around and the greenery is alive with chirping frogs and tropical vegetation. Yet, the posties all stride around wearing VERY short shorts. Is it to ensure that they move briskly and deliver the mail with sufficient Australian vim and vigour?

The Ranch is a very popular restaurant near where we're staying. It gets full and you have to be prepared to wait for a table. Can you book? NO! The Ranch is an aircraft hangar or the biggest school canteen you've ever seen. tables of huge surface area are laid out in awesome banks, with fixed benches alongside. The way it works is this: stake a claim on a table (or a portion of a table if you have to); leave a scent marker or some other token of your occupation; join the queue of people laughing and joking as they shuffle past the food displays and order your meal (note, order your food, not collect it); collect a number on a stick and return to your table (if you can find your way back through the crowded hall); now go to the bar and buy your drinks, you can carry these back through the melee yourself, slopping foam and bestowing blessings of wine upon your fellow diners as you go; wait for your food to arrive (by which time you've finished your drinks and have to scrum your way back to the bar again). But here's the ting; it's really enjoyable. There are all sorts here - families, people on their way home from work, gangs in cocktail dresses and smart evening wear because they're eating here before going clubbing - and the whole thing sound likes a penguin colony. Fair dinkum, though, it's bonzer tucker, my steak was the ridgy-didge!

Finally, being in the suburbs, things look a lot like home. Three-lane traffic in both directions, driving on the correct (ie British) side of the road, regular buses, people looking glum and carrying plastic bags of shopping home, kids on school holiday jumping all over everything. And then, "What's that thing lying in the roadside ahead, is it some poor cat that's been run over?"
NO, it's a bloody huge fruit bat that's the size of a hang-gliding bedlington terrier. And they're not just road-kill either, they're in the trees - heavy, leathery, chirping bundles of bat, like little pterodactyls, waiting for dusk so that they can fly off and feast on someone's peach trees.

It's going to take a while to acclimatise!

Being and introduction to Sydney

Our first three days in Australia ....

Day1: Arrived at 0610. Lady Bay is where the nudists go, although when we walked past on a day of cold wind and drizzle, there were only two nudists to be seen, and both were demonstrably male.

Day 2: Manly Bay is where EVERYONE goes and, the weather being warm and mild, it was full of energetic, radiant, golden-skinned Sydneyans. They bowled aong the walkways, bounced into and out of ice-cream parlours and fish and chip shops, jogged along the beach, were talkative and social, ate enormous picnics and surfed the Pacific waves confidently.

Day 3: Undercliff-Overcliff is what the hardy types (but again, that's everyone) do on a Sunday in the Blue Mountains where they brave airy heights and dizzying depths, wearing training shoes and skimpy vests in the winter weather, to view waterfalls and eat Lilly-Pilly flavoured ice-cream.

Next year, new name: Fawlty Towers in the Jungle. Tell your friends

These words faded into the distance as the pick-up truck took our luggage and us down the track from Our Jungle House towards the bus stop a couple miles away. Faith wrote in one of her emails that "this is the kind of place you miss afterwards" and she's right. The six days that we spent in Khao Sok have been an interesting, amusing and heartwarming experience of how a community survives and prospers at the edge of what we call civilisation. There's no lack of any creature comforts at all, at a price, in fact the visitors demand them. For example, a family booked out of Our Jungle House after less than 24 hours because it has no air-conditioning in the houses. Most of the local people, though, live simply; they have satellite tv, electricity and running water, but their homes are small and simly furnished, most have smallholdings and grow fruit and vegetables, many make an income from the tourists.
Iat is a good example. He picked us up at SuratThani station on our arrival and drove us the 100 km or so to Khao Sok. On the way we learned that he was born and lived in the next village to khao Sok, went to the local primary school (walking the 6km each way along the developing Highway 401). He pointed out all the different crops growing around us - rubber, rambutans, papayas, durian, oil palm, and served us our supper in the restaurant that night. We saw him quite a lot on other days, too. He led a "night safari" for tourists, did some local driving and spent time with his friends and family in the village itself.
There's only one street, so it wasn't easy to miss people. The main thing that he pointed out in his conversation about how things have changed is that now most children go to and from school by motorcycle. This is true; every day the little fleet set off in the morning and returned in the evening.
We also became friends with a young man who's a deaf mute. We met when we were looking for a path to local wat. We managed to explain what we were looking for and he managed to explain how we could find it. After that we saw him most days, either in the plantations, the shops or passing on his motorcycle. He always waved exuberantly at us, and we even got to have a sort of discussion about whether a brightly coloured bird that we'd all been looking at was a kingfisher or not. He signed kingfisher by waving his hand like a fish swimming while dropping the other hand down to it very fast like a diving bird.
So you see, it was a very fascinating place - and that's even without the plants and animals!
We're in Bangkok airport now, just about to go through immigration and boarding for Sydney. We shared the sleeper train from SuratThani with many people, boxes of cured eggs, crates of live crabs etc. and spent this morning exploring the maze that is Chinatown.
Now I know exactly where to go if I want someone to mend ANYTHING I own that's broken.

Vampires of the Jungle

Leeches are interesting creatures. They spend most of their time (up to six months at a time) hanging around on a leaf waiting for a meal to come along, and then, wouldn't you know it, two meals come along at once! We've been feeding leeches pretty successfully for the past few days. They make undemanding guests; you hardly know they're there until you're bleeding all over your shirt, and when you pick them off and throw them away, they are so very eager to come back that it's touching. However, we are in the rainforest, as Klaus, "our friendly manager" tells us, and this seems to account for everything that happens, both good and bad.

The people we're meeting here are of three types - locals, expats of various nations and visitors. We're firmly in the third category, you'ld think, but wait; our stay here is about three times longer than the usual visitors, who use the area as a one or two day stopover between Phuket and Kho Samui, or vice versa. The upshot is that people are beginning to recognise us as we amble about looking like something out of an Edgar Wallace story (or maybe it's because we wander about looking like ..... ).

In addition, Khao Sok village is VERY seasonal, and we're out of season. so the few vistors who are here are important to the local community. In the dry season (December - March) the place must be heaving, and there's a move to have Paradise Parties in the Jungle, Full Moon Parties etc. You can see the different factions as you walk around the village - some places have Bob Marley Posters, Che pictures and so on, and names like "Rasta Bar", "Freedom House", "Far Out Bungalows"; others have neat foliage, Thai flags and topiary and names like "Deep Forest Hideaway", "At Home with Nature" and "Green Mountain View". I'll leave you to decide where "Our Jungle House" fits into the picture, but a clue might be found in Klaus' house rule that the bar closes at 2100.

Today is our last full day here, and I'm making this entry in the village's tiny internet cafe, where the other computers are being used by local children doing their homework and Klaus doing his administration. In spite of the seasonal tourism, the village is still agricultural, and all those who run bungalow enterprises, guiding etc also have smallholdings where they grow bananas, papayas and rambutans and keep a few chickens, or work on the rubber plantations hereabouts. At this time of year, many of the little restaurants and shops are closed up.

Tomorrow we go back to Surat Thani and on to Bangkok by overnight train, but in the meantime, we're still taking in the fact that we saw Langurs (leaf monkeys) and Great Hornbills today!

Next post will likely be Bangkok or Sydney.

No suit, no life!

Down most of the sidestreets that we found in Bangkok there were small tailors-shops, and often a tout standing outside would press a card in my hand and say that he could have a good suit ready for me in a day or so. How this would help me, a hot sweaty sightseer, I'm not sure. On our last morning, as we found our way to the river pier to catch a water taxi to Hualamphong Station and the overnight train to Suratthani the usual thing happened - tailors-shop; tout; card. I was carrying a rucsack, a smaller canvas shoulder bag and I must have looked very sweaty indeed, but I still managed to refuse politely, " Mai, khap khun khrap." I even managed a half-hearted wai (you'll have to look that one up if you don't know). He smiled a big smile and, with oodles of sincerity replied, " No suit, no life!"
If only you knew, I thought smugly.
So, then, more impressions.
Walking from the river pier to Hualamphong through Chinatown. We passed through the mechanics' soi (quarter). Store after store filled with reclaimed car-parts - whole shops full of gleaming cog-wheeels, others piled high with hubcaps or oiled drive-shafts, and everywhere the smell of mineral oil and diesel.
Hualamphong itself. Blessedly cool because it's air-conditioned, crowds of people - Thais, backpackers, seated around on the floor watching advertisements on a huge plasma screen while monks in orange robes mingled among them. ALL stood up to attention while the National anthem played at 6 pm!
The train was an experience. Imagine "Some like it Hot" played in a sauna and you'll have a good idea. We had our beds made up for us and we were plunged into darkness when the train-dude closed the blinds on the windows. Outside, Bangkok slid away and, before we fell asleep we glimpsed fireflies in the trees.
Just outside Surathani we were woken and our beds disappeared to become seats again! Lots of tired bemused travellers - we were, worryingly, easily twice the age of any other non-Thais in the train. The train disgorged us onto the platform where the touts homed in - "Koh Samui?" "Where you go?" "Best deal, honest" (you can decide on that last one for yourself). But we were being met, and so we looked for a sign with our names on it. There it was - a big smile, a handshake and Iat (we think that's how it's spelled) took us to the car, loaded our bags, bought us coffee and whisked us away from the chugging coaches and pick-ups.
Along Highway 401 and into the mountains. Iat pointed out rubber plantations (the price is good, apparently), his old school where he used to walk 4 kms from his village each day, "But now all have motorcycle." We saw lots of these - it was school run time as we drove along. The best I counted was a parent and four children (all in immaculate school uniform, and with school bags) on one motorcycle.
At Khao sok we turned off the road and down a track into the forest - plantations of banana, oil palm, rambutan. "Our Jungle House"was just as we'd imagined; a claearing in the plantations and low thatched buildings by the side of a river flowing beneath an immense cliff. Klaus, the manager met us and explained that we were welcome. He was, he said, trying to create a kind of Fawlty Towers in the Jungle. We'll see! Our tree house is charming - set about 4 metres above the ground, it looks out over the river and onto the limestone cliff where there is a nest of wild bees among the tropical vegetation. We immediately set off for a gentle walk in the national park where we were comprehensively mossied and leeched - but no harm came to us except for the bleeding. We heard gibbons! We heard gibbons! We heard gibbons!
We met a Canadian from Saskatchewan in the evening, and were entertained with a giant toad.
Internet is fickle here in the jungle, so I'm not sure when the next post will happen. Marjoribanks says that this is only to be expected, but we must keep a stiff upper.

Tuk-tuk boss? This you first time Bangkok?

I woke suddenly at 6:00 a.m. this morning and, after Faith made it clear that she wasn't quite ready to get up yet, I went out for a walk in the early morning cool. The street outside was almost deserted, except for some ladyboys who were clustered around a derelict old hippy who was sat in the gutter - exactly where we saw himlast night. They were behaving very like kittens with a mother cat, just sitting around him and stroking his hair, putting their arms around his shoulders (which were very bony) and smiling together. He seemed to be happy about it, too. Across the road, the area of Banglamphu leads down to the river by the side of a wat (temple) and I wandered down there among crowds of children going to school, a few monks moving quietly between the temple buildings, noisy cockerels and bewildering bird-sound from the trees. The children were buying street-food from vendors outside the school gate - deep fried fruit, noodles, juice and slush-puppies. By the time I returned to the hotel, Faith was up and we were both ready for our breakfast ... and out into Bangkok.
After I'd dragged Faith over my early morning route (both ladyboys and school children had gone by now), we went down to the river and turned to follow a khlong and narrow alleys to the impressive Rama Bridge. It was a fascinating walk: wooden houses along the khlong-side, bo trees with scarves around them, and shrines at their feet, a fish hung up in abush to try, food satls on every corner, and many, many smiles.
Finally, bathed in sweat, we took an exhilirating river taxi rde to Wat Pho pier to find the Reclining Buddha Temple. I'm afraid to say that we gave in to a "friendly" shop owner (see title) who explained in great detail how to tell good tuk-tuk driver from bad, and "helped" us to get one. We went to see the Temple of the Black Buddha first, which was very interesting (with an old Buddha statue that had been almost black because people kept taking the gold-leaf for luck) and a guide who first told us the stories about the temple and then, yes, you guessed, said how lucky we were to be able to go to see the Siam Export House, today of all days - it's included in your fare, he said helpfully! Well, well, we said, what (or wat?) a surprise. We told the tuk-tuk driver that we'd be a VERY SHORT time in the Export House, "ten minute?" he offered. We were thirty seconds. " No-one ever come here before and buy nothing, " said the smart woman. "We're the first of many," I replied, as we smiled and left. The tuk-tuk driver looked relieved when we came back to him, and whizzed us back to Wat Pho along and across streets, by a khlong and through a market. So, he got his commission for delivering us to the Export House, and we got a scenic tour for only 40 baht (about 55p).
Wat Pho is every bit as impressive as the guidebooks say, and the reclining buddha is gargantuan. Little details pleased, though, as always. There's a school in the temple grounds, and it was brass-band-practice day. The children, were outside practising such fine old Thai tunes as Colonel Bogey and American Patrol. We felt sorry for the girl who was only allowed to play the mouthpiece of a saxophone. Perhaps one day, she'll improve enough enough to merit the rest of it, but it did lend an air of eldritch wildness to Marching through Georgia. We eavesdropped on a temple ceremony where monks in orange robes were chanting as monks are meant to, and then made our way back to Banglamphu through the University - where the students demonstrated for Thai democracy and freedom on a number ovccasions between the 1970s and 1990s. Back at our hotel, an American businessman who was swimming with 2 Thai women yesterday, was looking mightily pleased as he swam with 4 of them today. "I found a fourth for bridge," he said loudly.

First post from the second leg of the journey, and it's from an internet cafe just off Khaosan Road in Bangkok. I have 8 minutes, and counting! So what are the first impressions? Well, it's more like Tangier than Marrakech. Working buildings, glass and steel offices, crumbling concrete tenements that are, nevertheless, attractive, big old cars. There are many trees, and we've just eaten under one of them, a bo tree in the yard of Ranee's restaurant. Here we saw our first long-standing hippy resident, sitting at a table, wearing fisherman's trousers, a striped shirt and fearsome dreads. The Khaosan road is fascinating - very international in many ways. Tomorrow we'll explore; tonight we sleep in the snug wood-lined room in Buddyhotel with the a/c on "high". It's all very amazing!!

No crime in the mountains

It's Sunday, May 14th and we're back home but I'll post the blog entries as they were written over the past few days. Thankyou to Tricia and gang (and everyone else) for your encouraging comments. I'm glad you've enjoyed reading - it's been great fun writing down the highlights. Future posts will happen, and there are some more pics and links to add to earlier posts, too.
Today, Wednesday, May 10th, we've driven from Spain's deep south to Madrid, very near its geographical centre. We left Cortijo La Joya in thick mist and watched the cloud rolling off the mountain tops in a huge standing wave as we drove down into Antequera and the motorway. We've spent a very happy month at the cortijo with its little community of friendly residents and travellers. It's been a great base for our explorations and a warm and welcoming home to return to at the end of a day. Antequera was sunny, and we took a last opportunity to photograph its police station that looks like a film-set for Zorro! Our lunch stop was at the extreme northern end of Andulacia, where the road crosses a steep mountain pass and emerges in Castilla La Mancha, which stretches out, flat as a tortilla, for mile upon mile, although the monotony is relieved occasionally by gigantic black bulls standing by the roadside. In earlier times, the pass was the holdout of an Andalucian bandit who "escorted" travellers safely through the dangerous landscape. They weren't allowed to refuse the offer of an escort; if they did, the landscape was likely to become much more dangerous very quickly. We've ensconced in a Formule Hotel in a commercial area on the outskirts of Madrid and had our supper in a truckers' restaurant. Here we got a good 3 course meal with wine and coffee for 17 Euros (total), joining the other customers watching Seville playing Middlesborough in football in UEFA Cup Final. The young and efficient waiter here worked out straight away that we're British from our stumbling order in Spanish, and so he served us in carefully pronounced Spanish himself, listening out for our mistakes and correcting us gently as we struggled along. The other diners meanwhile, truckers to a man, were relishing their own supper, one man to a table, being served just as thoughtfully. Having said that, one of them really got under the waiter's skin. He had convex ears (always a bad sign, I've found) and continually asked for more of everything, holding up a hand like a child at school to catch the waiter's attention. When he got to the dessert he changed his mind repeatedly about what he wanted. Finally he decided that he wanted a peach; the waiter said he thought there weren't any, but that he'd go and look. Meanwhile the diner got up and wandered around, looking for a peach, too. Finally, he found a bowl of fruit, including two peaches, on a high shelf above the dessert display cabinet. With a huge grin, he took first one, then the second, and helped himself to a plate and knife before going back to the table. When the waiter returned to report that there were, indeed, no peaches, the man pointed delightedly at his plate and began to tuck in. For the rest of the time he sat there munching and slurping them as loudly as he could, turning around occasionally to let everyone see that he had TWO peaches, not just ONE. Just before we left, a big friendly giant, just like Mongo in the film Blazing Saddles, came in to eat. he got a seat at the front, right by the television, and the biggest salad I've ever seen, served super-quick. While everyone else was drinking wine or small glasses of beer, he got a huge glassful of beer that must have been about three quarters of a litre. We could have done with his help later (read on). By the way, Seville are 1-0 in the lead as I write. On the short walk back to the hotel, two very nice young men in a swish-looking car asked the way out of the trading complex (well, actually, one was in the car, the other looked as if he'd just got back from asking directions). We stopped and said that we didn't know the area - we should have known better, it was such an obvious set-up - and things got exciting very quickly. The man on the side of the road grabbed Faith's bag and tried to make off with it into the car. She held on very tight, though, and pulled back, yelling at him at the top of her voice. I grabbed the bag, too, and buffeted, trying to push him away. His accomplice in the car turned and shouted to him, and our attacker put his hand inside his jacket as if to pull out a weapon. I don't know whether or not he had one - or was simply going through the motions so that we'd let go - because I managed to land a good high kick in his ribs (bless you, Berkshire Bedlam!) on top of Faith's efforts, and he gave up; we were making a lot of noise! I yelled to Faith to run, which she did surprisingly quickly, and I was close behind. The guy had bundled himself in to the car, though, and was gone in a flash. Back at the hotel, wobbly but in one piece, and with all our belongings still intact, we reported what we could to a passing security patrol. It's appalling how little we'd been able to take in, though; a newish sporty black car, possibly a Mercedes, possibly a BMW; two young men, one black - the driver, one white - the attacker. Seville has just won the game, 4-0 (3 more goals scored in about 10 minutes near the end), and, knowing Seville, there'll be no sleep there tonight!
Thursday, May 11th. The TV news at breakfast showed Seville's celebrations. The whole city out in the streets cheering, crying, singing - and they've only just finished a week of Semana Santa followed by a week of Feria! The news headline was 'Trabajar sin dormir!' - work wothout sleep - and they interviewed a number of very bleary office workers, restaurateurs etc who were convinced that they would survive the day on good, strong coffee. So did we; the next section of the journey took us across the most fearsomely flat country that I've ever seen until, at last, we arrived in the Pays Basque and the Cantabrian Mountains. Here, we could well have been in the Alps. Chalets, green mountain fields and forests of fir trees on steep valley sides.
We stayed in an Etap Hotel this time, in the hilly Bilbao suburb of Arrigorriaga. The whole area is bilingual - Basque (Euskara - all K's and X's) and Spanish. We went for a walk and saw the whole town (more or less) collecting the children from school, had a quick drink in Cafe Coyote - themed on Wile E. Coyote, even down to the light fittings shaped like bundles of ACME TNT, and then had a meal in Restaurant Capitaine Utzigaine (who he?). Meanwhile, outside, it thundered and rained. A good, honest mountain storm. Just before bed, we checked the news. Seville is still partying!
Friday, May 12th. We' as marvelled at Bilbao's transporter bridge (they do say it's even older than the one in Newport, the scurvy knaves) and now, hearties, we is safely aboard ye good ship Pride of Bilbao, bound for Portsmouth, aye. Biscay (o), is fair calm, and ' tis hardly a wobble we's feelin' as she ploughs her way north'ard. We ' as seen 'ordes o' dolphins (common an' striped, dam'yer eyes!), fin whales an' a sei whale. I 'is 'ardly able to keep me trusty 'arpoon from a'quiverin'! We 'is finishin' the day eatin' our supper in the ship's Carvery as the sun is settin' an' 'dolphins is bow-ridin' ahead o' us. I is wipin' a salty tear from my (good) eye jus' thinkin' on it - but don't 'ee think I is goin' soft mind!
By the way: a bottle of wine to the first reader who correctly identifies the source of this post's title.

Who is Juan Gonsales?

The broad beans saga has reached a conclusion at last! A couple of days ago, Faith and I went for a walk through the fields nearby, which are bursting with them, in spite of everyone here saying they're over now, and it was all we could do to hold back from contributing to the well-known phenomenon of "edge-effect" in crops. Instead, we discovered that there's a local market in Antequera ( a little late, I know) and drove down there this morning. En route, we passed our Romanians busy picking the next harvest in the very field we'd walked past; our hopes were raised! The market turned out to be a pretty typical one, mainly shoes, - being Spain, terrifyingly architectural women's underwear, thin clothing, sunglasses and tablecloths (though they might have been mantillas, depending on your viewpoint cf Picasso), but there were also four different traders selling fruit and vegetables. At first there was no sign of broad beans, though plenty of flat, green ones, and then, on one stall, we noticed a few crates of broad beans stacked at the back, but not on sale. We loitered and, in God's good time,a box came to the front, and, lo, broad beans were being sold! We had to wait our turn, though, local fabaphiles were at the front of the queue; small, assertive local housewives who know that the best way to tease their man's jaded ardour is to present him with a plateful of freshly cooked broad beans. We bought rather more than we'd intended, largely through a misunderstanding of the term "medio", as applied to market trading. Whenever I' ve encountered the word before, its meaning has been "half", as in "medio racione", which is the eminently sensible way that you can buy a half portion of something in a venta, and get to taste two things instead of one. I went ahead and applied the logic to buying the beans (I'd heard some of the women do the same, so I felt I was on safe ground). HOWEVER, in this context, medio is taken to mean half of the usual quantity (apparently 4 Kg) in which the item is sold. We have plenty of beans now. We checked the other vegetable stalls out of curiosity; none of them had "habas".On Sunday night we got to a concert in Antequera. Musicians from the New Cologne Philharmonia played a programme of Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Albinoni and others. We heard Mozart's 3rd Violin Concerto played on 3 violins, a viola, a cello and a double bass - a curious and intimate experience. There was a piccolo concerto by Vivaldi with similar instrumentation, the very good soloist looking as though he'd parked his Harley Davidson in the street outside; a Brandenburg concerto featured a big, Arnold Scwarzennegger look-alike playing a tiny trumpet shaped like a French Horn!Our last venture has been to return to El Torcal, more or less where we began our meanderings here a month ago, for a final walk exploring some of the paths that are on the large scale map that we brought, but are not indicated on the information boards. The path that we chose led us to a glorious valley where there is a deserted quarry. Abandoned blocks of stone, each about 1.5 metres square, lay around and, further along the track, we found some millstones of different sizes, including some that were still only partly cut out of the rock. The track had been paved with rough, riven stone at some point in its life. Beside it, beyond the quarry, were a small meadow enclosed by a dry-stone wall, a stone hut and a stone dog kennel. We crept inside the hut (who wouldn't?). It's obviously been used as a bothy - it'd be quite effective, but you'd need a good camping mat on the stone sleeping bench (it had a shallow depression carved in it, roughly body-sized; obviously to contain a straw matress). On one end of the bench, apparently written with white correction fluid was: 10/01/2003, Pancho, Salvi, Madera. Muy buena. -3 deg C. Mucha nieve. Back outside, shading our eyes as we were accustoming ourselves to the glaring sunlight, we noticed something else. Down on one of the road-slabs, something was carved. It was faded and worn, but finally we managed to trace out what it said. There was a date, 1787 (the same year that Mozart composed Don Giovanni), a crucifix, and the name JVAN GONSALES. Who was he? Was this his hut? His quarry, originally? Or is what remains of Juan Gonsales resting quietly under the slab? Take your choice! The trackway wound on down to Antequera, gleaming white in the flat valley below, but we turned upwards and, walking over Camorro de Siete Mesas - Torcal's highest point - we emerged at the roadway near the visitor centre. The car park was full of cars and coaches; we'd met no-one all day (just an ibex, and it wasn't bothered about us at all). Over the past weekend, Heino (the owner) has returned with his wife (Iris), and there have been a couple of long and pleasant evenings where all of our little cortijo community has met together at the end of our separate days to compare notes and discuss those things that one discusses when on holiday and the conversation is lubricated by several glasses of wine. This will probably be the last post from Spain because it's not likely that we'll have access to the internet on the long journey home that begins tomorrow. We plan to leave La Joya in the morning to drive to Madrid for an overnight stop in a Formule Hotel on the southern outskirts of the city, and then on to Bilbao for a similar night, before taking the ferry at 1:15 pm on Friday. Next post, May 14th, deo volente!

Love and death

"Eight brave bulls!" it says on the poster in Malaga. Well, the five that we saw certainly did their best, but each of them ended its twenty minutes or so in the ring dead, nevertheless.
For 15 Euros each, we buy our tickets (sol y sombre, which allow us to sit in a part of the bullring that's in full sun at the beginning of the corrida, but shaded by the time of the fourth bull) and join the crowd. It's made up mainly of enthusiastic, evidently well-informed, Spanish - mostly couples and families - and the merely curious like us. The Plaza de Torros is a circle of raked sand surrounded by stepped stone terraces where the "groundlings" sit and topped with covered galleries for the richer clientelle. It feels Roman. At 6:00 pm exactly, the wind-band, sitting high up in a covered part of the terraces, begins to play and two dignified old gentlemen dressed rather like musketeers and mounted on white horses, enter the ring. They ride across to the other side at a walk, followed by the rest of the equipage, mounted and on foot. There is polite applause from the crowd and some appreciative calls as the various matadors carry out practice passes with flamingo-coloured capes. Now a smaller band, of snare drums and trumpets, sounds a flourish and a horseman with a lance appears. He is splendidly dressed, hidalgo-style, and puts the horse through its paces, high-stepping, side-stepping and generally lording it. Great cheers from the crowd. Another fanfare from the trumpets, a gasp from the crowd this time, and the first bull bursts out of the pen and into view. The job of the unmounted matadors with their flamingo cloaks now becomes clear. They take turns to attract the bull's attention and to make passes before retreating behind wooden barricades; this performance evidently allows the main act to assess the bull's behaviour and stamina and to decide how much it needs to be slowed down before he can engage with it. This slowing down is done by picadores. Mounted on heavily padded and blindfolded horses, they come up alongside the bull and with heavy, short-pointed lances, stab at the hump of muscle between its shoulders as it tries to gore them. The crowd doesn't like the picadores very much; they know that they can take the fight out of a bull before things have even begun if they're too heavy handed. There's hissing and whistling as one of the picadores stands in the stirrups and bears down hard on the bull, turning the lance in the wound. The picadores retreat, and the bull is left panting and confused in the middle of the ring. Not for long; the solo rider returns armed with a light lance. A furious dance begins between the rider and the bull, accompanied by pasadobles from the wind band. The rider, trailing the reversed lance to draw the bull's attention, wheels and turns the horse around it at close quarters. The knowledgeable among the crowd applaud or shout "bien!", or simply "eehhh!" at passes that are particularly good. Eventually the band stops playing, the lance is abandoned and a second rider, who is the matador, enters the stage. He sticks the bull with successively smaller sets of banderillas, decorated barbs. Placing these requires the rider to move in closer and closer to the bull, and with each strike the crowd cheers and the bull starts as if bitten by a fly. For the final scene, the matador dismounts and chooses a scarlet cloak and a heavy sword with a curious cross-piece about 15 cms behind the point. The action takes place in silence. There are a few passes, raising quiet approval from the crowd, before the matador stands still, facing the bull. He takes sight along the sword, rises on tiptoe and falls forward, at attention, towards it. The sword is intended to enter immediately behind the skull, where it joins the neck, to cut the spinal cord. This will drop the bull instantly. But the thrust isn't accurate and the bull rears, turns away, and then faces the matador again, panting, angry, confused and very much alive. The crowd cheers the bull. What began as an elegant, formal final movement, though, has become a messier affair that takes two more attempts before the blade hits its target and the defeated animal falls onto the sand, suddenly onto the sand, suddenly dead. The matador turns away, the crowd applauds and a team of three white asses, with colourful bridles and jingling bells, trots into the ring. The bloody carcass is hitched by a chain to the bar they are carrying, and dragged off , to the sound of the merry bells, to be butchered. There it is then, our first, and likely to be only, experience of a bullfight.
As we walk back to the car, we pass through an enormous street party. Evidently, here in Malaga, Cruces de Mayo is celebrated differently from in Antequera. There is food and drink, anyone can join in, and most of the women and girls are wearing flamenco dresses. We stop and buy a beer and a tapa, listening to the women taking turns to sing flamenco love-songs while the children dance. Behind them, the excavated Roman amphitheatre glows rosy pink, its terraces empty, echoing the wailing music back into the square.

All the world's a stage

It seems to me that the Spanish have a love of theatre in their everyday lives. We've seen this made evident in obvious ways: the Semana Santa celebrations, the Seville Feria, and the Cruces de Mayo, for example. And it's there in the passion for football and bullfighting. But it creeps into all kinds of other things, too; the occasional crazy driving, the fact that you'll sometimes see a farmer with a rod-straight back but a scruffy shirt and worn chaps, riding a fully caparisoned horse - all silver buckles, tooled saddle and plaited main - across a roundabout in the town. As we drove into the village the day before yesterday, we saw one of the Romanians (you remember that they're seasonal workers here), tearing down the street pursued by a man brandishing a broken bottle. They sped past us, but the boy had reached the safety of his house, and so the man hurled the glass into the gutter, where it shattered very effectively, and strode off. In a few moments a posse of women was heading up the street from the house in the direction of the bar. I don't hold out much hope for him.
Yesterday, we went for a walk in the Sierra de Grazalema National Park. It's an area of deep valleys and high mountains, more or less south of Ronda, which were the last stronghold of bandits such as Pasos Largos (Long Strides) and Jose Tragabuches, who survived by smuggling, preying on stagecoaches and living off the land! Maybe there's just a little of it left because all along the path, the National Park signs bore (very neatly written) grafitti like "Don't steal our water!", "Primitivism - yes! Free your soul; preserve the right to roam freely!" and "Not thieves, but Mafias are taking away the outdoors". The area has a microclimate that's wetter than the area further east, where we're based, and so it's greener, with many more trees, and rivers that actually have water in them rather than puddles or nothing.
We walked from one railway station (Benaojan) to another (Jimera de Libar). The railway runs from Algeciras to Ronda and was designed by an English engineer named Henderson. The gradient is ferocious, and in earlier times the train ran so slowly that contraband goods could be traded from the windows. The footpath is so achingly perfect that it must have been designed by the Ministry for the Picturesque, or some such government department. It wound along the mountainside, sometimes down at the level of the river, sometimes high above it, and all along, the banks and hillside were splendid with yellow wild chrysanthemums and red poppies. We passed a ruined farm called, of all things, Cortijo de Orija de Buro (Donkey-ears Farm!), where tiny pond turtles plopped about in a stream and a mummified goat carcass lay dramatically in a mouldering stall; we picnicked close by the river bank where unfeasible numbers of very big fish swam, annoyingly, just out of reach; nightingales sang in the thickets below us as we marched along the higher stretches, and colourful bee-eaters called to one another above.
At the end of the walk, the splendidly uniformed Jefe de Estacion operated the outdoor signalling levers with a flourish, to allow the train to enter the station. His assistant - not so splendidly dressed as you can see - still managed to get into the performance as Beano, the Humorous Clown!
We still haven't been able to buy any broad beans (habas)! We saw them in the market in Malaga earlier this week, but by the time we got back there to buy some, the market was all shut up for the day; we found a tiny grocer's shop in Antequera where we could see beans through the window - but it was closed, and we couldn't find our way back there later; for more than a week now, one of the supermarkets has had a shelf labelled "habas", but it's empty. Of course, the fields are full of them. Once again, you see, it's theatre; build up the tension, and keep them guessing.
I'm beginning to think that Jack struck a good bargain in getting not just one, but five beans for his cow. Cows are ten a penny hereabouts!

Pablito y las cabras felices

Picasso was born in Malaga. In order to paint his tableau, La Joie de Vivre, Picasso divined the vital essence of "goat" by doing lots of studies, and represented it on canvas. Our village is in the centre of a shallow concave plateau in the mountains, about 2 kms in diameter. Around the rim of the plateau, and on the edge of the village itself, there are farms, and at least 5 of these have a goat-flock. Each flock numbers around 200 goats, so you can appreciate that, here in La Joya, goats make a big contribution to the local joie de vivre too. What's the point of this rambling? Well, yesterday, we went to Malaga to visit the very impressive and well-ordered Picasso Gallery - you get directed along from room to room by very attentive and polite curators who get quite agitated if you go back to look at a picture twice [comments overheard from a very British, blue-rinsed lady: looking at early, naturalistic paintings, "He must have done these in his VERY young period, it's not the real stuff."; looking at a pencil sketch of the artist's eyes, drawn realistically, "Of course, if he drew eyes like that in our art class, he wouldn't last long."]. Among other things, we saw his studies of goats, made to help him to paint the mythical creatures like satyrs and fauns, derived from goats, that are dancing with the pretty nymph in the tableau (I think he'd already done plenty of studies of women, so he didn't have any trouble getting the nymph right!). The gallery is on a site occupied since prehistoric times, and when you've seen all the Picassos - in the correct chronological order, by the way - you can go down to the cellar and see - again in the correct chronological order - the Phoenecian, Roman and Mediaeval buildings that they've excavated on the spot. On the way home, for the first time, we had to wait on the narrow road while one of the local goatherds drove his flock along towards us on their way back to their farm. It was on a long bend where the road has barriers on each side to help to stop you from driving over the verge and into the steep fields, and in that particular stretch of road there's only one point where the barrier opens onto a field path. So, llike Picasso, we mused on the goats - as they trotted, jumped or ambled before our eyes - all 200 of them!Malaga city is divided in two, North to South, by River Guadalhorce, or it would be if the riverbed wasn't so dry and sun-baked that it's covered with grass and bushes. On one stretch, near the centre of the city, they've installed a stainless steel false river bed about 30 metres long and 2 metres wide, with fountains and lights in an attempt to represent a river (or maybe its vital essence). It looked very attractive yesterday in the heat, and the sound of the water was refreshing, too. We joked that they could use the river bed as parking space, and so ease the acute parking problem they have in the city. As we settled down to bed last night there was an electrical storm. Lightning lit up the mountains and there was the rumble of distant thunder. By midnight, the thunder wasn't so distant, and by the small hours, the thunder had been replaced by a gale and driving rain that went on all night. It's been raining most of today, too, and so we stayed inside and have done things like reading, editing photos and drawing. At lunchtime, we went to the local farmers' bar, Venta Vargas, to eat and, lo, the big news is of the chaotic aftermath of the flooding in Malaga overnight! There were film reports of people mopping out their houses, retrieving their cars from flooded streets and one man was pointing proudly for the cameras to a scorched hole in his roof where the lightning had struck. In Venta Vargas, they had a log fire going in the huge open fireplace and the place was full. There was the distinct impression that people had put in a morning's work in the fields, against the elements, and were now ready to call it a day. We had to wait until we could get a table for our "Menu del dia". They have this every day, between 1:00 pm and 3:30, and it costs 7 Euros each. For that you get a Premier Plato (usually a choice of two different soups and another simple fish or meat dish), a Segundo Plato (today there was a choice from roast loin of pork, fried anchovies, fried cod, chicken, pork and bean stew etc), Postres (ice cream, homemade flan - creme-caramel, an orange or tinned peaches), bread and a drink (the default choice is a litre bottle of their house red wine put on the table for you to finish, or not, as you wish). All this is reeled off in very fast Spanish with a thick local accent, so what you get can be a bit of a lottery. Wherever we've been in the rural parts of the area, people stop for a lunch like this, taken in a local bar. They get back to work at about 4:00 pm and then finish at around 7:00 pm. Venta Vargas is typical. a single room with a corner counter, a small kitchen behind and a big open room that acts as dining room, bar and television room, depending on how they've laid out the tables and the time of day. It's run by two small, active, quiet men who might be brothers, or not. They've obviously worked together for a long, long time because they move around the space getting all the jobs done, keeping things moving, checking on the customers without getting in each other's way, and each knowing what the other is doing at any time.The weather forecast says more rain tomorrow, but clearing later. So maybe Malaga's river has returned today, filling the city's brave attempt to represent its vital essence with the joie de vivre of fishes.

Seville marmalade

Being back in Cortijo La Joya after the visit to Morocco feels a little like coming home after a rowdy party! We travelled up to Bobadilla on the Algerciras/Granada train past storks' nests, ordered villages and well-watered fields. These things stand out precisely because of the contrast that Morocco affords. A school group got on the train part way home. They were infant school children with their teachers; they'd been on a school visit and were tired but happy. We were surrounded by excited and tired people. At Ronda they got out.Their parents were waiting for them on the platform; a familiar sight from another life! Since being back at La Joya (the spelling varies - sometimes La Joya, sometimes la Hoya), we've explored an enormous local limestone gorge and visited Seville. Seville - Don Juan's home, as well as Carmen's. We got there during the Spring Feria. In Easter Week the men get to carry Holy Images around the streets; during feria, the women get their revenge! They dress in Flamenco costume and parade themselves all over the city! Not only this; they dress up their children in Flamenco costume, too. Buses, trains, cars, horse-drawn carriages were all loaded with putative Carmens and their worried partners. To be fair, the enormous park where the Feria actually happens is nothing nor less than an excuse to see and be seen. There are carriages, temporary ventas (inns), some of which are private and some public. Added to this, there are squadrons of people riding horses. Not ordinary horses; not ordinary people. These are Hidalgos and their escorts. Men in tight trousers and leather chaps, with high boots and spurs and incredibly cool hats. They ride, holding the reins in one hand, with one hand on their hip and their signorita behind them. Faith was transported (not literally, unfortunately, she says)! We visited the Reale Alcazar, too. (What, more Moors?). It was spectacular, but we're all Alcazared out! Yesterday, Antequerra (the local town - you remember, a lovely place) was due to hold a grand display of Flamenco and Horsemanship in the bullring. We went down, but all was locked up. There was a handwritten notice that said, in effect, "Due to circumstances beyond our control ..." We found out what the cirumstances were. Cruces de Mayo. This is the Junior League Semana Santa (see earlier posts), when the children get to carry miniature versions of the Holy Images through the streets. Someone had made a major cock-up! The two dates coincided, and, quite reasonably, Cruces de Mayo won. The bullring organisers are probably galley slaves to a Barbary Corsair as we write. Today is May the First, people here seem to have a day off work. The Romanians are having a big friendly barbecue. I've taught them how to use the swimming pool here, in spite of its being only 68 degrees F in the water, but I've stayed clear of playing football with them so far - they are very fit (they pick broad beans in the fields all day). We tried to buy broad beans today, "Tiene usted habas?" Faith asked. "No. Hay muchos en los campos, pero nada aqui," was the reply. I bet Asda are bying them all up! The dry gorge today was spectatcular and quite scary (lots of plants and sheep bones and so on), but we did well! This evening we've eaten most of a bean stew (alubias rather than habas), but it defeated us in the end, and we'll have to tackle the rest tomorrow!