One Goes Mad(ish) in Australasia

Show me the way to go home

2010-05-24T23:11:00.005+01:00

I can hardly believe it, but the time to head back to reality is upon me (I won't be in England for a few days yet, but there'll be a lot of sitting in airports before then). As I sit in a gift shop in Anchorage, using their ancient machine and surrounded by cuddly moose, I'm hard put to think of anything really serious to say! I'd like to sum up my experiences, and tell you what I've learnt, but the faux Inuit tat is really distracting me, and in any case I expect I'll still be discovering what I've learnt in months to come.

All I can really say is that it's been an adventure - I've been tired, scared, wet, boiling hot and freezing cold, and irritated beyond endurance by my fellow man (you can't beat hostel living!). I've also been elated, excited and overwhelmed by beauty; I've made friends and met people from all over the world; I've done things I never thought I could - and done them well. Right now, I'm more positive about the future than I've ever been in my life. I know that I'll face problems with finding a job, and fitting back into a working routine, and I know that I'll moan about it! But I rely on all of you to remind me that, at this moment, I knew that anything was possible.

It just remains to say thank you all for reading - it often comforted me to think that I'm connected to friends and family back home, no matter how far away I was. But now I'm so looking forward to being there in person... Over and out!

Land of the midnight sun

2010-05-20T02:46:00.002+01:00

And so to the third new entry, and Fairbanks. This is Alaska's largest city in the interior (and second largest in the state), and I can't say I enjoyed it much. It might have had something to do with the hostel - I was greeted at the door by two obese, horridly wheezing pugs and it didn't get much better than that. It's also a very inconvenient city for the non-driver - not so much a town as a very loosely connected collection of far-flung buildings. With, bizarrely, a congregation of tae kwondo and yoga instructors at the top of my road.

Still, I did go to the Museum of the North, the pride of Fairbanks and rightly so. It's got displays on Native culture, on local wildlife - and a 9ft-tall stuffed bear in the foyer. You can't say fairer than that! I was also able to watch several informative films on the Aurora borealis (always there, even if you can't see them because of cloud or sunlight) and on living in the far north through the winter (it gets as cold as minus 60C in town; the locals recommend lots of layers and good boots).

The real reason for the trip north, however, was my tour to the Arctic Circle, some 200 miles north of Fairbanks along the gravel-paved Dalton Highway. If you want wild Alaska, that's really the place to go looking for it - from the subsistence miners and "End of the Roaders" who fill their yards with junk and insure it with Smith & Wesson, to hundreds of miles of arctic tundra. There's only one place to get supplies between Fairbanks and Deadhorse (the oil town on the northern coast). Yukon River encampment is right on the shores of the Yukon - as you might expect - but its big claim to fame is that it sells burgers and blueberry pie. Apart from that, it's just you and the pipeline, which pumps crude oil all the way from Deadhorse to Fairbanks. Although ugly in itself - and much derided by the environmentalists - the 1974 pipeline is a beautiful work of engineering. All the men in our party (three older couples and a guide called Norm) were fascinated by it, though I was more interested in the tree swallows that were nesting in the joists.

It's a long, long haul up to the Arctic Circle, but the scenery is pretty mesmerising - in spring, the tundra is covered not by ice and snow but by black spruce and stunted birch and green mosses; it's unexpected and really pretty, and you can hear birdsong everywhere across the Yukon Flats as they gear up for mating season. Our guide kept us entertained, too: Norm is a real Alaskan, by which I mean he's 61, Republican, he goes hunting and trapping, flies his own floatplane to his cabin in the woods, and moved here 40 years ago because of the freedom. He and I certainly didn't agree on everything, but he had thought hard about his choices and was willing to see that his opinions were just opinions - as long as others did the same. A really interesting guy.

The Circle itself is just an imaginary line in the ground, with a sign to say you've made it. But it didn't feel like an anticlimax to me - now I can feel I've been, and seen a different aspect of Alaska, one that tourists often avoid. I didn't even feel (that) disappointed to miss the Northern Lights - after all, they were right above my head, even if I couldn't see them. And it was cool to have all the daylight - it's early in the season, but it's still bright enough to read at 11pm, and the sun's back in the sky before 4am. By midsummer, it won't set at all.

So after all that, I've caught the railroad down to Talkeetna, a tiny town south of Denali National Park, and the hub for climbers attempting Mt McKinley, the tallest mountain in the States. I too am heading up there tomorrow, but I'm doing it the easy way - in a plane with skis, which will land us on virgin snow up top for a hike. Cheating? Perhaps - but in such a good cause...

Striking gold

2010-05-20T02:36:00.002+01:00

The next adventure was different in tone, but no less enjoyable. I headed back to the ferry and motored down the Lynn Canal - on another gloriously sunny day; I've been very lucky with the weather - to the gold-mining town of Skagway. In between watching snow-capped mountains slide by, I fell into conversation with another Alaska character: a young man named Mark who had clearly taken far too much LSD and methamphetamine in his life. Hard to say if he was on something then or if he's just permanently addled, but he considers himself to be a prophet and a man of God, so we had a pretty good chat about spirituality. He also prayed to God to relieve me of my cough; I can't say it worked any better than the antibiotics, but his heart was in the right place.

He'd certainly have fit in to the original town of Skagway, which welcomed dreamers of any stripe when it sprang up during the Klondike gold rush in 1898. Today, the whole town has been preserved as a national park, and the buildings along Broadway have been maintained (or restored) in their original gold rush style. It had everything you expect from a Wild West (or Wild North) town: saloons, gambling, ladies of doubtful virtue and a criminal gang headed by one "Soapy" Smith, who was eventually killed in a shootout with the town's marshal.

Sadly for the thousands who flocked to Skagway and nearby Dyea in order to cross the mountains into Canada and the Klondike gold fields, the rush itself was short-lived. By the time they'd waited out the winter - when the passes are, well, impassable - and been bilked of most of their savings by the likes of "Soapy" Smith, all the productive claims had been staked by Canadians nearer at hand. It was enough to put Skagway on the map, however, particularly when they built the White Pass & Yukon Route railway to facilitate travel for the prospectors.

Today it's a tourist trap, but a very beautiful one. I trod the wooden boards of the sidewalk; visited a restored saloon; and took in the sights of the town (a brisk 10-minute walk end to end). I also went over the pass on the railway, where the snow was still lying 10 feet deep and the walls of the tunnels (blasted by those original prospectors 100 years ago) were solid with ice. My plans may have changed while I've been on the road, but I did get to Canada after all! And by a historical route to boot - though happily not carrying 40lbs of supplies on my back...

Ice, ice, baby

2010-05-20T02:27:00.002+01:00

I left you, dear reader, as I was about to join a cruise to the glacier at Tracy Arm Fjord, and it was every bit as spectacular as I hoped it would be. We were greeted by Steve, our skipper - a true Alaskan with a laconic drawl and a dry sense of humour, who took us all the way out to Endicott Arm Fjord (Tracy Arm was still too thick with pack ice to negotiate). Along the way we passed yet more magnificent coastline, several colonies of 40-odd bald-headed eagles, and a mother bear with her two cubs, shooing them into the undergrowth as soon as we hove into sight. ("Bad tourist bear," said Steve.) We even met a rather bashful humpback whale, who barely surfaced before slipping under the waters again.

But the best wildlife spotting as at Dawes Glacier, at the far end of the fjord. As Steve picked his way through jagged blue icebergs (blue because they're freshly broken off from the glacier and lack oxygen), the seals who live on the pack ice kept poking their heads above the water, checking us out; after we stopped to take in the glacier, and the silence, and the sharp, chill air, they came even closer, wondering what the hell we were doing there!

Cute as they were, though, it was the glacier that really commanded attention: so far from human activity it was clean, mountainous shards of blue and white ice stretching hundreds of feet deep, cracking and groaning with hidden movement. We saw several icebergs calf too, with a thunderous rumble and a crack like gunfire, falling into the water with a force that made our boat rock several hundred feet away.

We were the only people for miles around, and our small boat was dwarfed by the spectacle, which is just as it should be, and the day wasn't over yet - on the way home, we motored down Ford's Terror (an arm of the fjord, so named because the (white) man who discovered it was caught in the currents at the entrance and thought he was a goner). Steep granite mountains rose to either side; snow melt fed wonderful waterfalls, and then, right at the end of the arm, we stopped to appreciate water so still and dark and deep it was like glass - I have never seen such clear, sharp reflections; it was the kind of beauty that makes your heart swell.

Northern exposure

2010-05-13T03:40:00.002+01:00

I know, it's a cheesy headline, but it fits! Alaska is all that I hoped it would be and more - I'm ending my trip with a bang, not a whimper (the only whimper being when I'm racked by another coughing jag; much to my appalled horror I was finally forced to the doctor today to get some antibiotics for my poor abused chest - I'm prouder than ever of Britain's national health care).

On a happier note, I've made it as far as Juneau up the Inside Passage (and no matter how often I say that, it feels rude!). The first few days we floated in glorious sunshine on a sea as calm as a millpond, while the fluffy white clouds stood out so clearly it looked as though we could touch them from the deck and mountains of dark cedar and spruce rose at the water's edge. The absolute highlight, however, was sighting whales - one humpback breaching the waves behind us, and a pod of Orca playing alongside the boat. Even the gnarly, tattooed hard men (of whom there were plenty on board, hanging around in their vests despite the nip in the air) rushed to the rails to see - I guess whales are just one of those things you never get blase about.

I also stopped off in Ketchikan, Alaska's "first city" (ie it's the first one you come to after passing hundreds of miles of Canadian coastline), where I spent a delightful day walking along the creek where the salmon fight their way to the spawning grounds every May, marvelling at the bald-headed eagle who'd landed on the roof of the Lutheran church not 30 feet above my head, checking out the totem poles dotted everywhere around town, and visiting Dolly's house, once owned by Ketchikan's most notorious (and successful) prostitute. All her things have been preserved just so, including what has to be the floweriest bedroom of sin ever. She earned between $75 and $100 a day, when the miners' wages came in at around $1, and clearly knew a thing or two! More staid was the Totem Heritage Center, which houses about 40 19th-century totem poles, rescued from abandoned villages where they'd been left to rot. I love the brightly painted modern ones that are everywhere in Alaska and the Northwest, but these were something else - half decayed, but vast and powerful all the same.

And now I'm in Juneau, the state capital, which is unbelievably tiny! City Hall is little more than a shack, and Parliament House is hardly bigger than a small London theatre. However, what it lacks in size it makes up for in the stature of its natural wonders. It's cupped in a valley formed by majestic mountains (once again covered in cedar, spruce and, at this season, snow), with snowmelt forming roaring waterfalls down to the sea. There's a glacier just down the road, which is close enough to walk on (I didn't! My derring-do is on hold until Mt McKinley, where I'll be doing a glacier walk in trained company). And tomorrow I'm heading out on a boat to Tracy Arm Fjord, where the ice forms walls right at the water's edge, and whales and sea lions play nearby. It's all about the landscape here, and it's almost too good to be true! Superlatives are just not enough...

Election fever

2010-05-06T23:00:00.002+01:00

Literally, in my case! I'm glued to Helen's computer in Seattle, watching the results as they come in, while I cough up a lung and sweat out some kind of cold virus. Not nice, but on the plus side it's only the second time I've been sick during my travels, and if I have to be ill, at least I'm doing it in someone's comfy home... till tomorrow anyway (I'll be back on the road - or ferry, anyway - and heading up to Alaska). Another advantage is that if the exit polls are correct and the Tories do well, I kind of want to be delirious.

In other news, I've just returned from Spokane, where I was visiting friends I met on a cruise in New Zealand (I love travelling!). Don, Nancy, Janet and Brian were incredibly welcoming, and treated me like a queen (of England)! They even threw an all-American barbecue for me, with cheeseburgers and apple pie, and invited the neighbours round. It was a totally different experience from the rest of my travels, and great to see the other side of America (I've been in the big cities and doing the common tourist trail; Spokane is far inland in Washington state, close to the Idaho border, and my friends live in Republican suburbia). Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and though we didn't always agree politically, it was interesting (and salutary) to hear other views. And in addition to three days of lovely hospitality, I got to see Deadliest Catch - a reality TV show about Alaska fishermen, following five ridiculously manly and tattooed fishing crews as they go their storm-toss'd and cussing way across the Bering Sea. Just fabulous.

And all that testosterone lies ahead of me - the ratio of men to women in Alaska is five to one, apparently, and I may yet meet a man who wrestles bears in between taking off bottle tops with his teeth. Or not. I suspect the trip may be more about the scenery than the (human) wildlife! But before then the UK will elect a new parliament (and government) - and I've still got hopes that it won't be a Conservative one. Whatever happens, I'm incredibly cheered by seeing lines outside polling stations, even if - disgracefully - too many of them couldn't cast their votes. How can you get people to participate in the democratic process if they can't be sure their vote will be counted?

Tempest toss'd town

2010-04-30T01:27:00.004+01:00

I've been in Seattle for nearly a week now, and it's certainly living up to its reputation as the rainy city - the skies have been pretty uniformly grey, and any hint of blue disappears like a false dawn as soon as I get outside! Having said that, today the sun shone - and stayed shining - as I headed out to Bainbridge on the ferry. It was a glorious trip, with Seattle's skyline gradually disappearing behind us as this tiny island appeared ahead. The real highlight was getting out on the water, but I also enjoyed pottering about Winslow's bookshops and
cafes, and absolutely loved the city centre - three wooden buildings and a bizarre pod-like sculpture. Archetypal small-town America, right down to the picket fences.

Elsewhere, I've been mixing food for body and soul. Yesterday Helen and I went on a tour of Theo's Chocolate Factory in Fremont. It's a small place that makes Fair Trade and organic chocolate: we got the low-down on production from tree to tummy, and at the same time were given a bunch of free samples to concentrate the mind! Just to balance out all this indulgence, earlier in the day I'd been round the Seattle Art Museum, with some really interesting modern art (my favourites, a giant black mouse sitting on a man's chest, and a chainmail coat made out of 40,000 dog tags. What did they mean? Who knows? And who, really, cares? It's all about how they make you feel. There was a quote by Georgia O'Keeffe up on the wall that is possibly the best explanation for abstract expressionism (and modern art) I've ever seen: "Even if I could put down accurately certain things that I saw and enjoyed it would not give the observer the kind of feeling the object gave me - I had to create an environment for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.").

Rather less high-mindedly, the previous day I'd been to the Seattle Center, photographed the Space Needle, and run amok in the Frank Gehry-designed Sci-Fi Museum (it also housed the Seattle Music Experience, but except for a rock photography exhibition, and some information on the grunge scene of the Nineties, this didn't interest me so much). But, oh, the books! The cyberpunk! The models of the Terminator! The original costumes and ray-guns from Star Trek! I admit it - I geeked out. Then I went on the monorail into town and felt like I was in Fahrenheit 451 - without the book-burning...

Anyway, I'd best head off and get some more coffee down me. Seattle being the home of the barista (yes, I've had a mocha in the original Starbucks - I couldn't resist), they have coffee shops every few steps here, just in case your caffeine levels fall dangerously low. By the time I leave here I may well be vibrating, but, oh, it's delicious! Bottoms up!

Just enjoying the vibe

2010-04-23T21:26:00.002+01:00

So, Portland. I wish I could say I've been exploring the politics of America's greenest city, and soaking up the hipster arts scene, but sadly not! Perhaps it's because I'm coming to the end of my odyssey (only five weeks to go, and then I'll be back in the UK - pray God not under a Conservative government), but I've been content to mooch about instead.

And in fairness, that's been pretty cool all by itself. The first major landmark I visited was Powell's, the largest independent bookstore in the States. Strangely, I find myself walking past it often on the way to somewhere else, and popping in for a browse - the ways of my unconscious are not that unconscious! Apart from all the novels (room after delicious room of them), there's a pretty good graphic novels section too, and I've belatedly discovered Preacher, the dark tale of one man's attempt to make God answer for abandoning humanity. But with sex and guns and secret societies. Those who know the series (and even those who don't) will not be surprised to learn that my favourite character is the tormented but charming Irish vampire. I know, I know, I'm sorry! I've tried to like nice guys, but unless they come with a side order of torment, misery and emotional angst they just don't do it for me.

Back in the land of the emotionally sane, the other delights of Portland tend to revolve around its green spaces, lush and plentiful because of the climate. Washington Park is glorious, with an incredibly moving Holocaust memorial tucked among the trees, as well as a beautiful authentic Japanese garden. This really blew me away - there's a steep climb to get there, and suddenly you come across this haven of peace and tranquillity, with gentle waterfalls and limpid pools full of coy carp, winding paths and carefully arranged stone gardens. Unlike many Japanese gardens it's user-friendly, too - you can walk around it without being told not to touch (or walk) in case you disturb some deeply meaningful arrangement.

Equally lovely is the Chinese garden - you walk off the street and suddenly you leave Chinatown (one of Portland's sketchiest areas) behind. Portland is twinned with Suzhou near Shanghai, and they designed this garden for the city as their sister gift, basing it on scholar gardens of the Ming dynasty period, which were also meant to create an illusion of spaciousness and peace right in the heart of a city. The relatively small plot (less than an acre) is divided into scenes that flow into one another - the view from one pavilion, for example, would take in a small pool running under a bridge, leading the eye to a larger pool and waterfalls beyond. Small paths run into nowhere, and the walls between courtyards are pierced with windows that frame more beautiful views beyond. As soon as you walk in you can feel your cares lifting from your shoulders - a wonderful experience.

My other highlights in Portland have been hanging out with other guests from the hostel - I've met a really good bunch of people, and part of the reason I haven't been out sightseeing is because I keep getting sidetracked into gossiping with my room mates! Still, it's nice to chat over a few glasses of red wine, and probably better for the soul than checking out architecture - my world needs a little balance! Tomorrow a group of us are heading out to a comics convention, where I will be geeking out and having an all round cool time. And after that it's on to Seattle - Starbucks, here I come...

San Francisco days

2010-04-19T02:02:00.003+01:00

I left you, dear reader, lounging about in San Bruno, cuddling babies and generally making myself (a little bit) useful about the house. But the following day Dad and Vanessa joined me in San Fran, I moved down to the boutique Hotel Frank in the city, and the serious sightseeing began...

And thus started the pattern of the next four days: in the mornings the three of us went to some major attraction, and in the afternoon D&V went to rest (Dad's just had a tendon injury) and I pounded the streets checking out the neighbourhoods, before we met up again in the evening and I showed off the photographs - virtual sightseeing!

The results of this punishing schedule will be up on Flickr, as soon as I can find a computer terminal that lets me upload photos (God bless the YHA for being so security conscious, but it's killing me that most of a normal computer's functions have been disabled!). Day One we saw the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a glorious collection with some new names for me (the emphasis was very much on American and local artists, with a bunch of Diego Rivera stuff too, which I absolutely love). Day Two was Alcatraz, which should have been cheesy but was awesome - they had an audio tour you could follow as you went around which was superbly atmospheric (lots of slamming doors and distant shouts and cries), and the place itself has a lowering atmosphere all of its own. We went into one of the cells in solitary at one point, and had to hold on to each other because it was so damn scary.

Day Three our joint excursion was to the Golden Gate Bridge (of course!), and it was a lovely clear day - something that doesn't often happen in SF, I hear, but which happened for me twice so I feel very privileged. Again, it's something that you think might be overrated, but it's hard not to feel dwarfed and overawed by the sheer miracle of engineering you're walking across, and it's given a human element by the phones spaced along the bridge that connect directly with a crisis counsellor, in case you feel tempted to jump.

On my own I had some fantastic trips too - an afternoon exploring Chinatown, and another following in the footsteps of the Beat generation in North Beach (the City Lights bookstore was a particular highlight, as was the first club to feature topless waitressing, commemorated - believe it or not - with a plaque on the wall! Beats our Blue Plaques, that's for sure). I also climbed the crookedest street in the world (so steep it has 10 switchbacks on the way down), and admired the gilt-and-stone Classical wonderland that is City Hall. But one of my favourites was Coit Tower, endowed by an eccentric (but rich) lady named Phyllis Coit, to beautify her beloved San Francisco; as well as building great towers on the highest hill in the city (gorgeously decorated with murals inside - Rivera is here, too), she was given to wearing a fireman's helmet and joining them whenever there was a call-out. And who wouldn't, given half a chance?

My favourite of all, though, was when I went back to the Castro district to have another look around on my last day in the city - I felt it was appropriate. I saw the Harvey Milk Plaza, and 575 Castro Street, where he ran his camera shop in the Seventies, and I ambled around the "gayest four corners of the earth" on the corner of Castro and 18th. But best of all I got to see inside the Castro Theater, one of the most amazing movie theatres I have ever been in. It's a mixture of Spanish, Oriental and Italian influences, with great golden panels and starbursts in the ceilings, while the front was designed to be reminiscent of a Mexican cathedral. It's hardly been altered since it was built in the 1920s, and it's about the most luxurious place you can think of to watch a film - and, even better, I saw A Single Man in it. In the heart of gay San Francisco. I was so excited I was bouncing up and down when I got my ticket - and not just the film, but the circumstances too made me cry like a baby throughout. [In an aside, and having now seen all the competition, Colin Firth was robbed of that Oscar.]

So there you have it - San Fran in a nutshell. Now I'm in Portland, Oregon, having come up the West Coast via a very scenic train journey (and this is for the Americans in the audience - the train was on time. I thought the UK was the place with the worst trains in the world, but it's not so, folks. Sure, we have leaves on the line and the wrong sort of snow, but here it's not unusual for trains to be three days late. Kind of puts my journey from Liverpool Street to Stoke Newington into perspective). Anyway, this too is a delightful place, all hippieish and liberal and full of AMAZING restaurants (the residents pride themselves on their food, and rightly so). It also has the largest independently owned bookstore in the States, but more of that in another blog. For now, it's dinnertime so I'll sign off and go in hunt of something delicious to eat. It's a hard life, but someone's got to do it!

My summer of love

2010-04-11T00:26:00.004+01:00

Well, there's been precious little sightseeing in the last week - I've been hanging out as part of a family instead, and having a lovely time. However, Mel and I, plus Sophia and Zachary, did head down to hippie central yesterday, the place where it all happened in 1967.

Basically, Haight-Ashbury was once a mecca for all the drop-outs and alternative lifestylers from America and beyond, and it's still leftfield and incredibly cool. As soon as we left the car we were right among the Tibetan handicrafts, tattooists, hemp products and "smoke" shops - plus the skinny teenagers in Gothy T-shirts and winklepicker shoes. In short, it's like Brighton, but with wooden town-houses and steeper hills. And sunnier, of course.

My favourite place was the comics shop (I told you it was like Brighton), but the incredibly attractive man who chatted me up in the hippie coffee shop ran it a close second (I'd dressed up for the occasion in purple top, heavy eye make-up and oversized jewellery). Feeding the ducks in Golden Gate Park with Sophia afterwards was another highlight, as was the gopher - it popped its head up right by us, which I personally found very thrilling!

Talking of thrilling, I've also introduced myself to 3D films this week. Clash of the Titans was absolutely rubbish - it bore almost no relation to the myths I knew and loved; its only redeeming feature was that Sam Worthington was dressed in a short tunic throughout. How to Train Your Dragon, however, was absolutely awesome - seriously, it may be a cartoon but it's bloody brilliant. Highly recommended!

Tomorrow I'm joined by Dad and Vanessa, and there'll be some serious sightseeing going on. Honest! This blog will have educational content once more - and some pretty pictures too. Over and out for now...

Here's a question

2010-04-06T02:18:00.004+01:00

We did a lot of driving on my road trip, and there was plenty of time to think. Something that occurred to me as we powered our way along Route 66: if you were a question, what would it be? After some consideration, I decided that mine would have to be: "Says who?"

Route 66 was awesome, by the way. Every anti-Establishment bone in my body (and that's quite a few of them) thrilled to be retracing the steps (well, wheels) of all those Harley riders and leather-clad rebels. And in Seligman they serve the best milkshakes in the States.

Road trip!

2010-04-06T01:36:00.002+01:00

It's been a whirlwind week - I've been through four national parks, partied in Sin City for two days, and taken in the world's campest Easter Parade in the Castro District of San Francisco (trust me, you've never seen an Easter bonnet competition quite like it). And I've had an absolute blast throughout.

Our road trip started in Los Angeles a little over a week ago - 11 women and one man (one half of our honeymoon couple!) boarded a minivan at the airport and headed out to Joshua Tree National Park. We were incredibly lucky with the time of year - being spring, the trees were blooming. All these spiky arms were reaching for the sky, topped with white pinecone-like flowers (the trees are actually part of the lily family, hence the waxy flowers). I thought nothing would top Australia till I reached New Zealand, and then I thought nothing could impress me more... till I reached the States' desert landscapes. The vast rock formations, the lonely trees, the scuttling lizards and croaking birds - it was so beautiful, and so eerie.

And even this was as nothing compared to the Grand Canyon. I splashed out and took a helicopter ride, which was the best decision I've ever made - the first five minutes of the flight hugged the tops of serried ranks of pine trees, before bursting over the rim and revealing the Canyon in all its glory. It has to rank as the single most spectacular moment of my life - nothing can prepare you for how vast, how splendid it is, inhuman in its scale. We flew for 50 minutes and it felt like seconds - every moment we were seeing another amazing view: the Colorado River the size of a bootlace below us; being dwarfed as we flew below the rim; amazing rock formations in the shape of temples and animals; all the amazing colours... We ended the day watching the sun go down over the Canyon, the grey gradually leaching the reds out of the rocks in front of us. It was a truly magical day.

But the trip wasn't just about the glories of nature: the next day we hit Las Vegas, which has to be the most fun you can have with your clothes on (or even without). Regina (a 70-year-old Swiss grandmother, and an awesome travelling companion), Anna and Nikki and I hit the town together the first night, picking up margaritas (but sadly no men!) as we went. Every so often we'd have to stop and just laugh in disbelief and delight: it was all in the middle of the desert, for God's sake. My favourite was the Venetian - with a replica of St Mark's Square inside, plus a false ceiling that bathes the place in constant daylight, and canals with gondoliers plying tourists up and down... and it's all upstairs. But the boulevards of Paris (plus l'Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower), and the streets of New York, New York (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, brownstones and the Brooklyn Bridge no less) were awesome too. And the lions - real lions - in the lobby of the MGM Grand were pretty cool, as were the old-school kitschy sword-and-sandals style of Caesar's Palace and the Luxor. I even went to a totally naff and over-the-top magician's show on the second night (Criss Angel - basically Paul Daniels with Gothic frills). It all tickled my sense of humour (and after all I love a bit of camp), and I am totally going back again - I'm not done with Sin City!

So what could follow that? Death Valley, of course, a vast plain of salt pans and churned up, baked earth. It had rained the previous day so there were flowers, but it was still an eerie landscape - beautiful, though. I'm definitely a deserts girl. Yosemite, where we went last, was also beautiful but didn't move me in the same way (perhaps because we have mountains and snow at home?). In fairness we weren't seeing it at its best; while spring is good in deserts, in Yosemite it just means that most of the tracks are closed off by snow and ice. The waterfalls were going great guns, though, and the lakes were at their best!

And now I'm having a few days of domesticity: I'm in San Francisco with Mel and Will (who have very kindly taken me into their home, and shown me Doctor Who specials - life doesn't get much better than that). After all my travels it's great to be in a real home again, and I'm loving being Aunty Abigail to two small children (both Sophia and Zach seem to like me, which is incredibly flattering!). But I did pop down to the Castro district yesterday, and I'm heading off to the hippie area of Haight-Ashbury in the next few days, so I haven't abandoned all my sightseeing. Stand by for a post on the Bay, and in the meantime, au revoir mes amis.

LA woman

2010-03-27T06:18:00.002Z

So here I am, right in the heart of Hollywood, and by jingo it's an unhappy place. The wannabe starlets are desperate, the people dressed up as Batman and Tinkerbell and the like outside the Kodak Theater, hustling for tips for having their photos taken with tourists, are desperate, and most of all the homeless people, who are everywhere here, are desperate.

Funnily enough, Downtown - which all the tourists are told to avoid at night because it's dangerous - is much more welcoming. I just spent the day there, looking at gorgeous architecture (from the metallic sails of Disney Hall to the Spanish Mission adobe buildings of the Pueblo, from the Art Deco-like City Hall to the wrought iron loveliness of the Bradbury Building, the location of Sebastian's apartment in Blade Runner). I also took in the Spanish stalls of the historic founding district, and soaked up the cheerful pandemonium of Chinatown. Tomorrow, more beauty - I'm heading out to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has one of the largest collections in the States.

Mind you, Hollywood's not all bad: I have enjoyed looking at Grauman's Chinese Theater, with all the stars' hand- and footprints outside; and the stars on the Walk of Fame (most of whom have since sunk into obscurity, though apparently Viggo Mortensen's star was being instituted today - sadly I didn't see him!); and this evening I went to a Mad Max double bill at Grauman's Egyptian Theater (gold-relief scarabs set into the ceiling; statues of Canubis in the lobby) and it was frigging awesome! And walking home past all the neon and the hustlers and the wannabes was pretty cool too. But I won't be sad to get on the road on Sunday - out into the desert again, with a few days in Vegas to reconnect with civilisation. American road trip - now we're talking...

Fiji time

2010-03-24T22:54:00.002Z

Newly arrived in Los Angeles from the Pacific, which was 10 days of extremes and no mistake. It all started pretty badly - the day after I landed, Cyclone Tomas hit the outlying islands to the east, and suddenly we were all grounded. I was safely tucked up in Nadi (on the west of the mainland), confined in what was after all a pretty nice place, albeit not what I'd expected.

Now, Nadi is not where you'd choose to spend a holiday, despite the most awesome and unexpected Hindu temple downtown, and when there's a curfew and everything is shut it's worse. But while being bored and having my sailing trip cancelled was the worst thing that was happening to me, over on the other side of the mainland people's homes were being destroyed; a few people were even killed in the waves. It was incredibly uncomfortable, being a tourist and in an incredibly privileged position while the people working (and being totally cheerful the while) were worried for friends and family. What was worse was that I was the only person who'd watch the news with the staff to find out what was going on.

I did manage to spend some of my tourist dollars at least, when the curfew was lifted. Not a lot was going on because of the threat of rain/wind, but I headed out to a village on the outskirts of Nadi to meet some of the locals. Mind you, this hardly lessened the burden of guilt, not least because I was the only person on this tour so they were spending all day looking after just me! A charming young man called Adam (missing most of his teeth but gorgeous nonetheless) was my guide for the day because his English is the best in the village, and after being fed breakfast - cross-legged on the floor, which was a test for my knees - in the chief's hut, we wandered round the rainforest and down to the waterfalls. Along the way we met one of the men, who was setting a trap for a wild boar that had been stealing their root crops; the villagers mostly live on chickens and eggs, as well as the produce that they can grow, but still go hunting with spears for meat on occasion, though it's a dangerous business. Then it was back to another hut, and more food - even I was struggling by this time; no one wants to be rude but I'd had three meals by 12.30pm and had NO IDEA how much of the vast spread before me they wanted me to eat! I compromised by eating something from every plate, while Adam and two old ladies looked on, laughing like drains when I was caught unawares by a wild chilli.

So, an interesting but not a cosy experience for a Westerner - the huts are clean but basic, with corrugated iron roofs and bamboo walls; there's one tap in the whole village; it's clearly a hand-to-mouth existence when it comes to eating, and there are 70 mouths to feed with very little. They really need the money the tourists bring (Adam was furious to hear that I'd been hassled by two blokes on the street the night before; Fiji needs a good reputation, he said), and it was little enough. I'm glad I went, though, and didn't just hang out with the other tourists.

However, for all that the second part of my holiday was your typical Western experience - the cyclone over, boats were again bound for theYasawas (islands to the west), and I spent six days in Botaira Resort on Naviti Island, the largest in the group (and it's tiny). This couldn't have been a greater constrast - I slept in a bure (a kind of bungalow) right on the beach - I could see the sea from my bed. There were never more than 10 people staying in the whole resort because it's off season - and for the last few days there were only two of us! Everywhere there were palm trees and hibiscus flowers, with nothing to do but go snorkelling right off the beach (literally - you could wade out to the coral and be right among all the glorious tropical fish). And in the evening we'd have dinner looking out at pink-and-orange sunsets from a bamboo verandah, while the crabs skittered over the sand below.

My fellow guests were lovely, and the staff were incredibly friendly. Though my favourite was the enchanting Cookie, the son of the chef (appropriately enough!), who turned three while I was there and whose big treat was to head out on the launch every afternoon when they were dropping off guests to the catamaran. He was terribly shy, but by the end of my stay he was saying "Bula!" (hello) and waving quite happily. As for myself I managed to subdue my guilt to a dull roar, and had a wonderful time - and who could fail to, really? And as it's likely to be my one and only luxury tropical holiday I'm glad I got to go!

Now I'm in the City of Angels and pounding the city streets, which is yet another contrast. More on that later, but I'm sorry to leave Fiji - like everyone, I have fallen in love with it.

Goodbye, Pork Pie

2010-03-11T20:54:00.001Z

So here I am in Auckland for my last day in NZ, and everything is conspiring, God bless it, to make me feel not too sad about moving on. Since I landed it's been damp, grey, congested, expensive and thoroughly miserable - just like London, in fact, and I can't say I'm feeling homesick. Plus the bunk above me is so low I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

So it's off to Fiji iwth a glad heart, for 10 days of boats, beaches and bronzing (sounds better than "sun, sea and, er, precious little of the other"!). I don't think there's much in the way of internet access out there, so this is adios until Hollywood. I'll be an LA woman before you know it...

Decorated hero

2010-03-09T20:18:00.002Z

All of which brings me neatly on to Napier, the Art Deco capital of New Zealand, where I've broken my journey up to Auckland for two nights. I spent yesterday afternoon taking in the town, which is a ridiculous, glorious riot of sugar-pink and peppermint-green facades, with tall palms crowning the effect: I feel like I'm in an Agatha Christie novel, set in Torquay.

And perhaps this extravagance is entirely apt, since it sprang from such an extravagant catastrophe. The 1931 earthquake razed the previous town to the ground - the museum has pictures, oral histories and newspaper accounts, and it really was as though the world had ended. Yet in response to all that violence they rebuilt something glorious. I begin to see the importance of the history of design and fashion; before, austerely, I felt it was irrelevant. Now, although it's an effect of history rather than a cause, I don't think you can understand people from the past unless you also know how they decorated their homes and themselves.

There are so many resonances in Napier, for example - the desire to be modern, yet also to follow Santa Barbara out of disaster; to make something distinctively different than before yet very much of its time; to be as fashionable as the rest of the world but keep their New Zealand character - that you cannot ignore the Art Deco. Though I understand why, if you lived here, it and all the related tourist industry would become stifling. Like living in an Agatha Christie novel...

Artistic licence

2010-03-09T19:50:00.002Z

I've just spent a glorious three days in Wellington, gorging myself on the Arts Festival and generally being a black-bereted, pretentious type. Wonderful. I finally saw Schiller's Mary Stuart - good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the RSC's production of The Duchess of Malfi with Harriet Walter, which sounds like faint praise but isn't - and also a Swedish circus troupe called Cirkus Cirkor, who were amazing: from the white-painted ringmaster to the (supposed) audience members who suddenly turned out to be able to dangle from ropes above the stage by the power of their calf muscles alone, it was an abandoned, joyful experience - with that faintly sinister edge that all good circuses have. Plus it was set to a live soundtrack of dreamy indie pop by Irya's Playground - the kind of music that David Lynch used for Twin Peaks.

And the films! I finally broke and took a Lord of the Rings tour (I've been so good, but I could no longer resist). Quite a few of the locations were close to Wellington, including (and fans will know what I mean) the place where the hobbits hid from their first sight of a Black Rider - remember those hooves? But the real draw was the Weta Cave, where they've put some of the artefacts on show. It's a glory hole of swords and chainmail, full-size models of Gollum and the Uruk-hai Lurtz, plus the Sumatran rat-monkey (Brain Dead) and some of District 9's guns, as well as a new series of ray guns that might be the basis of a film one day. Basically, it's a film geek's idea of heaven and I LOVED IT. They were even selling Doctor Who merchandise, presumably on the grounds that a nerd with a jones for Lord of the Rings will also be a Who fan. They're right, of course, much as I hate to admit it!

More highbrow was my tour of the Parliament buildings, from the ultra-modern Beehive (which reminded me of the Barbican, all brushed concrete and curves), to the Library, a ridiculous pink-and-white birthday cake of a building in Victorian Gothic, and absolutely delightful to someone with a quirky sense of humour! The tour itself was interesting, though the guide lost a shade of her friendliness when I asked some smart-alec questions about freedom of information (oops). And after that it was on to the new St Paul's Cathedral, a monstrosity in pink concrete, quite the ugliest church I have ever seen. But just as I was recoiling from the evangelical stained glass, this bloke came up to me and invited me into the bell tower. No, not for any nefarious reason, but because he's an enthusiast. He's been ringing bells for 40 years in one or other of New Zealand's seven bell towers, and delights in showing off his knowledge. He and the rest of his crew were going to be ringing a quarter peal for a delegation of visiting campaniles from GB later that day, and I was lucky enough to be passing by as they were ringing that afternoon - I felt quite touched by stardom, knowing one of the band, so to speak.

All that, and Katherine Mansfield's birthplace, the New Zealand film archive (where I saw an NZ cult classic, Goodbye Pork Pie, whose incredibly slow car chases down unsealed and winding roads in a Mini were worth the entry fee alone), the Wellington Museum, the art gallery, Te Papa (New Zealand's national museum) and some lovely second-hand bookshops too. Who said New Zealand had no arts scene?!

Ouch. No, really, ouch

2010-03-05T06:25:00.003Z

Have finally got around to reading the New York Times Bestseller (TM) "Eat, Pray, Love", and have been gripped by a dark and savage jealousy. I wondered why everyone I met was urging me to get it: like me, Elizabeth Gilbert is a woman in her mid-thirties who threw everything up and went travelling to seek enlightenment. Except that she's done it more wittily than me and in print. The bitch.

She has also, as the title suggests, fallen in love. And the closest I've got to male attention is to be told, very kindly, by Christie the 18-year-old Geordie lad that people his age still go clubbing, so they like to hear the indie tunes remixed when they're out (we were listening to the indie tunes on my iPod at this point; boy, did that put a dent in my cool self-image).

And I can't even hate her as she's great! I guess I should turn jealousy into envy and spur myself on to emulate her success. After I've finished sobbing brokenly into my pillow, of course...

I made it!

2010-03-04T06:54:00.003Z

I've just finished walking the Queen Charlotte Track - four days, 71km (plus side tracks, making it about 80km in all), 1,700m ascent and a real sense of achievement: six months ago I could barely walk up a hill; now I'm climbing 1,200ft before breakfast. I'm really proud of myself; exhausted, but proud!

Actually, although people call this the "easy" tramp, because you don't have to carry your cooking utensils, sleeping bag etc, it's about the longest walk in NZ, and is pretty gruelling in parts - particularly day three, which is officially 24km, not counting the climbs to lookouts, and climbs up some very steep hills! But in fairness the nights are more comfortable than other tramps, as you can get your head down on a nice soft bed in one of the hostels and homestays along the way.

Although everywhere was comfortable, my favourite night's stay was with Noeline and Tuppence - the former being a 79-year-old lady who rents out beds in her house to fund her travels during the off season. She's been to 48 countries in the last 15 years, and is considering a trip down the Amazon in a canoe this winter! Tuppence has just as much character - she's a little terrier who has a penchant for men's underpants; she steals them out of the guests' bedrooms and hides them under Noeline's chair. Luckily she didn't get hold of my bra, but she did spirit away my knee support before I knew where I was.

The days were lovely, too - two of them were overcast and showery, but this in fact makes walking more pleasant. Plus, the greens of all the ferns in the undergrowth really come out during the rain, and you get to see the sea in all its different colours in the different weather - from today's sparkling blue to an opaque, almost milky turquoise yesterday, and the slate blue of a Persian cat (and an angry one at that) the day before. Throw in the usual rolling hills, cicadas and bird calls (plus cheeky weka on the path - the size of a small chicken, they think they're the baddest thing in the forest and are totally fearless!), and you have a brilliant four days. And now I'm heading for bed and a well-deserved rest before gearing up for my last days in NZ. There's a lot to see and not enough time to see it in!

And just so as you can see where I went, below is the map of the track...

Mud, mud, glorious mud

2010-03-02T23:33:00.003Z

It's been a funny old week and no mistake. I did manage to make a few new friends among the fresh Flying Kiwi-ers - I even hung out quite a lot with the 18-year-old Geordie lads, once they'd decided that my music was OK for an oldie, and I knew my rugby! (They played quite seriously for a local league.) But it wasn't quite the same, and there was another serious disappointment when the Tongariro Crossing was cancelled due to bad weather - an alpine walk and 70kph gale-force winds being uneasy bedfellows. However, there were a few high points to make up for it - and most of them included mud.

Yes, it was time to hit Rotorua, and it was awesome. The first day we had free time and I went alone to the Maori village and thermal pools while most others headed straight for the spa. It may have been touristy, but I think I got the better deal: Te Puia houses a replica village, carving and weaving schools, mud pools and hot springs, and the Pohutu geyser. The village was a little kitsch, but still interesting, particularly the replica whare [meeting house], one of the few that tourists are allowed to enter. Sadly I was there too late to see the carvers and weavers at work, but I saw their stuff on display (and sale - it was a miracle I didn't leave bankrupt!). And the mud pools and hot springs were fabulous - there was even a cooking spring, where Maori women would have boiled their food in woven flax bags; you could even cook at different temperatures depending on the pool. The geyser was great, too - the Prince of Wales geyser (so named because it looks like three feathers, his symbol) gushes continuously, and the Pohutu every 20 minutes or so, spraying viewers in sulphur-scented water and generally delighting all concerned.

The next day was Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, which many consider to be superior. It was certainly spectacular, starting with the Lady Knox geyser, which is ignominiously induced to perform every morning at 10.15am by pouring soap into the opening (this breaks the tension between the layers of hot and cold water inside, and brings the hot water rushing to the surface). Three prisoners discovered this phenomenon while they were washing their clothes years ago, and it still has the power to send shivers up the spine - not so much because of the water rushing out, but because of the rumbles beneath your seat just before it comes. Quite unnerving.

Not so unnerving but really cool were the mud pools - from the brilliant lime green water of the Devil's Bath, to the sulphur yellow caves and the pink and orange of the Champagne Pools, this is the most extensive area of thermal activity in the world. The smell was indescribable - no matter what they say, you don't get used to it, at least not in a couple of hours - but the colours, and the plop-plop-plopping sound of the mud making a bid for freedom, were a delight. We spent a happy few hours there, basking near the warmth of the water, and because of its uniqueness it was another highlight for me.

And that was it, really - the next few days were mostly spent on the bus or sheltering from the rain, apart from a few hours in Taupo, looking at the lake in the afternoon sunshine, and spending a lovely few hours in the bonkers local museum, a riot of eccentricity (it included a replica Sixties caravan with original fixtures and fittings, to demonstrate the height of Taupo's tourist era, and a local man had willed it his collection of model aeroplanes!). And now I'm walking the Queen Charlotte track, of which more when I get to the end - currently I'm resting my much abused knees (most of it seems to be uphill) and gearing up for the last push! So it's goodbye from me until then...

New beginnings

2010-02-22T07:46:00.004Z

I was going to call this post "All good things must come to an end" as I'm feeling pretty bereft this evening, but having gone out for a walk to Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula, I got a bit of a positive groove back and I'm choosing to think of the remainder of my Flying Kiwi tour as an opportunity... You see, nearly all of that fabulous group of people I've been hanging out with got off this morning, and we had a very emotional farewell on the pavements of Auckland. Even John (60 years old, and seemingly a very no-nonsense fellow) had a bit of a sob, so you can imagine what I was like! There's something about a tour that throws people together far more quickly than real life, and it feels like you've made great, great friends in a very short time - but in this case I think it really can translate to the UK too.

Our last week has been jam-packed - too packed to write about it all. However, there have been stand-out highlights. Most of these came in the Bay of Islands, where on the first day Werner, Gillean and I made up for having missed a heli-hike to the top of Franz Josef Glacier (the weather was too dodgy) by taking a helicopter ride over the bay, all on the spur of the moment. It was awesome - there were just us three and the pilot, and we flew over the wonderful clear blue waters right the way to the outskirts of the bay and back, feeling very adventurous as we did so. The next highlight was actually all the next day, when we stayed a full day in the same place and 14 of us (mostly the old crew with a few additions) chartered a yacht for the day and pottered about the bay, waiting to catch the wind and soaking up the rays when it died down. It was amazing not to be subject to the tyranny of an organised tour - a few minutes extra for a swim at lunchtime met with no drama! - and it was super-cool to be sailing rather than following a fixed course with the motor on. I even took the helm for a while, with June and John giving me encouragement (well, June was; John was mostly taking the piss!), so now I can also say I've sailed a yacht.

That evening we headed out to the Treaty House at Waitangi, the site of the place where the Maori chiefs signed a document that effectively gave Queen Victoria sovereignty (not that they thought they were doing that - there's still controversy to this day about whether or not they were cheated out of their land). The show was very touristy, but actually pretty cool - particularly when we all headed for the whare, and three people had to represent our chiefs, facing down the warriors challenging them. It raised hairs on the back of my neck as it was - the real experience must have been terrifying. The Maori history we gleaned from the show was also very interesting - though I'd love to have looked at the museum during the day; sadly we ran out of time. History aside, the absolute highlight of the show were three of the actors - mostly running about in loincloths and not a lot else, and slapping themselves on their perfectly formed pecs and generally showing themselves to advantage. The ladies in our party were beside themselves! We were going to kidnap them for the bus, but reluctantly decided against...

I also managed to catch up with Catriona, who's doing a bone-carving course in this tiny town called Opononi on the west coast of the north island. Sadly (the tyranny of the schedule again) it wasn't for long, but I was able to pop in to the place where she's staying, and meet her teacher, Jim, and see some of his and her work. His wife Charlotte - a wonderful, welcoming woman - weaves flax, and his aunties make feather cloaks for dolls, and ceramics. Basically, their whole family seems to be obscenely talented! As, of course, does Treenie. There's something very special about meeting a friend from home all the way over here - I was terribly sad I couldn't stay for a few days; as well as the luxury of spending some time with Catriona, it seems like a wonderful place to relax and contemplate life over the gorgeous views of the bay. But a little visit is better than nothing!

My other highlights of the last week also revolve around friends, new ones this time. Painting Auckland red to say goodbye to half the crew, and last night having a party on the beach under the stars to wave off the rest, are evenings I'll always remember. This whole post has been very sentimental, I realise, but that's how I'm feeling today! I still have some great activities lined up, however, from the Tongariro Crossing (an alpine walk through volcanic scenery) to the mud pools of Rotorua. Onward and upward - with only a little glance back...

Goodbye, sandfly...

2010-02-16T20:33:00.002Z

... and hello geysers. Today I start the North Island part of my tour, and will shortly be disappearing into the bowels of New Zealand (perhaps a little too literally, given what tour veterans have said about the smell of the hot pools!). We had an awesome few days at Abel Tasman - I took a water taxi out for one of them deep into the park, and hiked along the coastal trail for about four hours, past glorious emerald green water (something to do with the tannin, I believe), and through rimu forest, with the frantic sounds of nature getting it on all around me (the cicadas making their mating calls were deafening).

The other full day we had there I went horse-riding again, on a nice chap called Lightning Jack. I say nice, but stubborn might be a better word - he was really a little too overqualified for an amateur like me, and fought me every step of the way because he could sense that I wasn't in charge. After a few hours of tugging at his bridle I was a little tired - he was definitely the winner in our battle of wills. However, we did get to ride along the beach, and I even cantered a couple of times - definitely more than I thought I could manage! The man who owns the horses was a treat all on his own - he's called Harmony, and is an American hippie who's somehow ended up on a horse farm in the middle of nowhere in NZ; most excitingly, a couple of his horses appeared in Lord of the Rings, and he himself was a Rider of Rohan. I know you can't throw a bale of hay around here without hitting someone who was an extra, but it thrilled me all the same...

Which just leaves the Valentine's Day party. We'd all been given "secret Santa" Valentine's, and a $5 limit to get them a present, and there were some fantastic gifts - from possum fur nipple-warmers to beautifully penned poems. I'd drawn the guide, Mike, out of the hat, and found him a lovely pink wand and hairband, which turned out to be extremely apt, as he'd come to the fancy dress party wearing fairy wings! We'd all been given strict instructions to turn up in pink or red, and though Frans (an older gentleman from Holland) was a strong contender for first prize with his op shop pink dressing gown, accessorised with pink flags, the winner was Werner (from the Austrian part of Italy, and seemingly very straight-laced... until he'd had a few beers): "Dancing Queen" came on the stereo, and suddenly he was dancing on the table in a lovely pair of women's pink pants, with his chest hair shaved into a heart. Outright winner.

Sadly we're losing a lot of the crew in two days when we hit Auckland, but I think there are six of us staying, and I'm sure the next lot will be just as good. We'll soon get them in shape if not. But before we get back on the bus and all the tour madness starts again, I'm heading out to look at Wellington's architecture and be a grown-up for a few hours! I'll be signing in again when I can, and in the meantime love to you all! [NB I don't think I mentioned that the worst thing about the South Island is the sandflies, hence the title of this post; most of us look like plague victims right now, and we're overjoyed to be leaving them behind!]

We're in the Wild West, baby

2010-02-13T20:27:00.003Z

And it's the reason for my radio silence over the last week (no internet or mobile reception). I've rejoined Flying Kiwi and have been cruising up the west coast of the South Island, where men are men, and sheep are nervous. There are few specific sights, as it's the least touristy part (of the South Island at least), but there have been some highlights - greatest of which is the group of people I'm travelling with, who are awesome. From dressing-up days when we're doing a long drive, to bus bowling (it's a long story), and karaoke nights by camp fires on the beach, they're all up for having a giggle. I realise it sounds pretty naff when I write it down, but it's great when you're out there under the stars, beer in hand and singing along to Queen!

Other than that, we went to the Bushman's Museum, run by a man called Peter who has no truck with mealy-mouthed PCism. He was one of the guys who started out in the venison industry, which has a long and adventurous history. Years ago, the English (I know, we do all the bad stuff) introduced deer to hunt, and their population boomed. In the Thirties, the government sanctioned hunters to track them down, but they weren't making enough of a dent. Eventually someone came up with the bright idea of hunting from helicopters. This, however, worked too well, and they were running out of deer to sell to the venison industry. But one enterprising man had the solution: they would capture live deer, and ship them off to farms, tied to the bottom of helicopters... As Peter put it, jumping off the skids of a helicopter and wrestling a deer to the ground "makes bungy jumping look like a pastime for fairies". The museum celebrated all these men, and also talked frankly about the difficulties in living off the wild west coast. Eccentric and fabulous - though judging by some of the outraged letters of complaint (pasted up around the place) not everyone shared Peter's sense of humour!

Other than that, we've been on coastal walks, seen the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki, passed swiftly through the jade factories of Hokitika, and are gearing up for a big Valentine's Day party this evening (we all had to pick a name out of a hat and buy that person a Valentine's gift; I got the guide, Mike, and I've bought him some lovely pink fairy wings - thankfully I suspect he'll find it funny!). We've now made it as far as Abel Tasman, and I'm about to catch a water taxi deep into the National Park to spend the day hiking over limpid pools and through cool beech forests. Oh, and I should be able to eat my lunch on the beach. Wonderful.

Fjord of the rings

2010-02-07T03:57:00.003Z

Well, technically not - Fjordland seems to be one of the few places Peter Jackson didn't film, though it can't have been because it lacks the requisite beauty. According to Maori legend, demi-god Tu-te-raki-whanoa carved the fjords out of the coastline with his adze, with the northernmost fjord (Milford Sound) being the summit of his art. However, when the goddess of death saw the glory of what he had made, she was afraid that visitors would never leave, and so created sandflies as the price of all that perfection.

I've now cruised up both Milford and Doubtful Sounds (geographers will know that these aren't sounds, but fjords - the distinction was lost on me!). V- or U-shaped lakes aside, they are as wonderful as the legend has it (even with the sandflies!), and not one of my pictures can do them justice - as always in New Zealand it's beauty on a heroic scale.

Milford Sound was fantastic, but the real experience for me was my overnight stay last night on Doubtful Sound. Because it's so hard to get to (you need to drive from Te Anau to Manapouri Lake, then take a one-hour boat trip across the water, then another 45 minutes on a gravel road down to the fjord's edge) there are few tourists there, so on the Navigator we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The boat was a palace of luxury (well, for a backpacker, anyway!), with old-fashioned bunkrooms below and a mini-stateroom to eat all the wonderful food they kept dishing up. And in between times, you could wander out on deck and stare at the mountainous hillsides, decked out in myriad shades of green except where there had been a tree avalanche and the vertiginous slope was scarred white (the trees have no taproots - the entire forest clings to the side of the mountain by intertwining their roots like velcro; when one goes, a great swathe goes with it).

We even had the best of the weather - Fjordland is notoriously wet (they have in excess of 3 metres of rain a year, and only 50 days without a drop), but yesterday we had blazing sunshine throughout, and the views were spectacular. And this morning we woke to a world of grey mist, through which the boat drifted, muffled - amazingly atmospheric. Across the far side of the sound we saw bottlenose dolphins playing about the bows of another boat, and fur seals lounging on rocks right at the edge of the Tasman Sea. And for a glorious 10 minutes we stopped, switched off the engines and just listened to the birds in the forest, while the water mirrored the trees around us. A definite highlight of the trip.

And now I've got one more day in Te Anau, before I head back to Queenstown and rejoin the bus tour madness, after which blogs will be in short supply for a couple of weeks - we'll be mostly bush camping, with very little internet access. I'll try to post when I can, but won't be online very often till 28 February. If anyone is wondering why I'm not replying to emails/Facebook, that's why. Normal service will be resumed as soon as... Au revoir!

Thanksgiving

2010-02-05T07:51:00.002Z

I've got so used to being on the road that for much of the time I forget how utterly remarkable it is that I'm here, in New Zealand, and not back at my desk in the UK. But every so often there's a moment when the total unlikeliness of it all hits me, and I had one of those today when my bus was driving past "the Lake that Breathes" (Lake Wakatipu, an 80km-long pool of limpid blue water, which, through some geological quirk, rises and falls by 3 inches every 15 minutes). With the sun shining, and the mountains rising up in the distance, it was all so amazingly beautiful that I was struck yet again by how lucky I am that I - of all people! - am on such a wonderful adventure. Just in case you thought I might be getting jaded - no, not at all!

Wanakaaargh!

2010-02-03T03:11:00.003Z

So much to say! After a quiet few days down in Fjordland, which was all about cruising gently through the scenery, it's been adrenalin all the way. I've now followed up hang-gliding in Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand, with strapping myself to a beautiful stranger and throwing myself out of a perfectly good aeroplane at 15,000ft in Wanaka!

The one-minute-long freefall was truly awesome - after what seemed like a long, long wait on the way up the cool air was beautiful, and the rushing wind and feeling of freedom remarkable. I'd asked my tandem instructor to keep it gentle, so there were no somersaults during freefall, or heady spins when the parachute opened, but I think I got the better deal by going down slowly - plenty of time to admire the views of Lake Wanaka, the Clutha river, and in the distance Aoraki Mount Cook. And that's it, I promise - I think I've done all the adventure activities that appeal, and I'm certainly never doing a bungy jump!

There have been quieter pursuits in Wanaka, too, while I take a break from the Flying Kiwi bus. First up was the cinema - no one on the bus could quite believe that I'd travel all that way just to visit a cool cinema, but I'm sure all of you can! And having watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in the Cinema Paradiso yesterday, I can confirm that it was worth the journey: it's a tiny place, with comfy sofas and sagging armchairs for seating - and an old Morris Minor in the corner for those seeking a real change! There's an intermission, during which you can scoff home-made cookies and ice-cream, and old-fashioned tear-off tickets. All in all, it's about as far as you can get from your usual multiplex, and totally appropriate for watching a Terry Gilliam extravaganza. Glorious.

It's back to Queenstown tomorrow, and then a return to Te Anau and Fjordland, for some (different) scenery - and a two-day boat cruise into the wilds of Doubtful Sound. The adventure continues, but without the screaming! However, I'll just leave you with this...

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

2010-02-01T03:53:00.008Z

No! It's me, hang-gliding - and it was awesome! I was feeling pretty sick with nerves beforehand (the take-off video is a treat - I'm practically green!), but once we were in the skies and I'd settled into my harness I was all smiles - air, not water, is definitely my element. The cool dude you see steering the glider, wearing sandals and a T-shirt 700m up, is Neil, who dreamed of hang-gliding from a very early age (he even built himself a glider aged 15; luckily he didn't try to fly it!). Anyway, see the picture and judge for yourself - it's the nearest I'll ever come to feeling like a bird in flight...

The hills are alive with the sound of music

2010-01-25T05:41:00.002Z

Stewart Island totally rocks... with birdsong. Not to mention some awesome (and deserted) walks through glorious scenery. This is New Zealand's third largest island, but comparatively little visited, with the result that it's wonderfully unspoilt. There are about 300 hardy souls living there full-time, and the township has one hotel/pub, one restaurant and one fish-and-chip van. Oh, and a boutique selling high-quality merino wool goods (I know, surreal!). The rest of the island, apart from fishing, is taken up with birds and walking.

I went to see the birds on Ulva Island, on a guided trip with a botanist/biologist who could actually tell me what I was looking at (like cars, I pretty much tell them apart by colour and size alone). There was a dedicated twitcher on the trip (carrying a camera as big as my head), and he seemed pretty impressed so I think we got our money's worth! We saw Stewart Island robins (white-breasted instead of red, but just as cheeky and inquisitive), saddlebacks (incredibly rare) and weka (about the size of a large pigeon, flightless, and, now that they've rid it of stoats and weasels, the island's most dangerous predator; this could perhaps explain why so many of New Zealand's bird species are extinct or nearly extinct - they're frankly weedy, as they had nothing to defend themselves against until the Europeans brought all sorts of mammals over. First it was rabbits, to hunt, then stoats and weasels to contain the pestilential population explosion of rabbits; possums for their fur, mice who hitchhiked across, then cats to catch the mice... It's like the old woman who swallowed a fly, with about as much success.) There were numerous others too - but my favourite of all (apart from the weka, who came over right to our feet to find out what we were and what we had to offer!) was the yellow-eyed penguin, which we spotted on the boat ride over - he hung around for ages right next to the boat, preening and diving and posing for photos. And these are supposed to be shy birds, the tart!

The walking was fabulous, too - most of the trails were deserted, and around almost every corner you could stop at an empty and picturesque beach or bay. I wish I could capture the sounds for you as well as the sights - part of the glory of the experience is not just what you see, but the gentle lapping of the waves on the sand, or the buzzing of bumblebees, or the wind in the trees. It was all good training for my ultimate walk too - I've booked a multi-day tramp through Queen Charlotte Sound (it's the only New Zealand Great Walk where you can have your luggage transported to the next night's accommodation, rather than carrying tent, gas stove and all on your back. Vital for me, particularly when some days there are 23km sections and 1000m ascents!

Tomorrow I rejoin the Flying Kiwi bus, so I'll be out of range till the end of January - it's all tents and patchy phone connections as we head into the wilds of Fjordland. But I'll have much more to tell you then - so au revoir for now!

The Edinburgh of the south

2010-01-20T06:25:00.002Z

I've been spending a very happy few days in Dunedin, where a bunch of Scottish emigrants set up shop in 1848 - presumably because the changeable weather and tearing winds made them feel at home! In all seriousness, it's a lovely little city, designed to mimic Edinburgh (even the name is the Gaelic version), right down to its street names. As a result, the architecture is chock-full of lovely stone buildings, with St Paul's Cathedral particularly pretty, made of creamy Oamaru stone and with an airy vaulted ceiling inside.

In addition, they've got a solid art collection (including my new favourites Rita Angus and C F Goldie), plus some seriously avant-garde temporary exhibitions - a photographer of hidden America, Taryn Simon, I thought was great; another chap, whose oeuvre seems to consist of words painted on cardboard, not so much. Plus there's a gorgeous National Trust-like manor house from 1904 called Olveston, which was willed to the city by its final owner in the Seventies. After the city had been forcibly dissuaded from turning it into flats for students, conservationists set about restoring it and now take guided tours round this perfectly preserved Arts & Crafts country house - lovely.

But lovely as it is, it couldn't compete with the Royal Albatrosses on the Otago Peninsula. I took a nature tour down there the other evening - it's the only mainland-based breeding area in the world - and we saw dozens gliding in on the updrafts, coming in to land. It was an experience I'll never have anywhere else, and I feel very privileged - as I did to see the incredibly rare and shy Yellow-Eyed Penguins, a little later on the same tour. The company I went with have exclusive access to a private beach, where the farmer who owns it has planted penguin-friendly grasses for them to nest in on the headland, and as a result the population has stabilised where elsewhere they are nearly extinct. We hunkered down in hides and saw parents and chicks, plus adults surfing in to land before beginning the long hop up the hillside (up to 100m) to their homes.

And in between all this I've been having a wonderfully sociable time, hanging out with the ladies in my dorm (Ruthie, the 64-year-old free spirit, Sarah, a Canadian who's about to start teacher training at Otago University, and German Anna, who's just finished six months as an au pair and is now kicking over the traces) and doing stuff like the brewery tour with them (highlight: tasting six varieties of ale!). Plus I've been made to feel incredibly welcome by a friend of a friend and her husband, and it was very special to be part of a family for an evening, just spending time in someone's home. Thera, if you're reading this, thank you!

So after such a great time, I'm all set up for the next adventure - remote and wild Stewart Island, which is free from predators so New Zealand's defenceless flightless birds can thrive there! More when I get back...

The calm after the storm

2010-01-17T04:06:00.005Z

Thankfully I had time to recover after the white-knuckle ride, with the next few days being more about the scenery than the thrills! We headed mountainwards, to visit Lake Tekapo - which is a wonderful turquoise colour thanks to the microscopic rock particles in it, which react with the glacial meltwater and the sunshine to make this beautiful, startling colour. And after that it was Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain and - as ever - amazing to look at.

Sadly the weather was a bit against us, with the clouds covering much of the mountains around us, but we did a 3-hour alpine walk that more than made up for it. It had everything from grey shingle to green marshland, rock climbing to rock hopping over streams and bogs, mountain views and lakeside paths... Journey's end was Lake Hooker, a glacial lake with actual icebergs in it, right at the foot of the mountain. In winter, apparently, there are avalanches, and even in summer, as now, the ice came right down to the water. The only things that bothered me were the swingbridges - flimsy suspension bridges strung over roaring rapids. I felt like Indiana Jones, but not as brave. And without the bullwhip.

After that, we headed into Oamaru, the whitestone city. Much of the historic district is built from a local whitestone, which is apparently soft when freshly quarried before hardening into a marble-like effect. This was meat and drink to the Victorians, naturally, who carved it into grand whitestone columns and pilasters, with leaf decorations on every free surface. Even the local paper is housed in one of these grand buildings - Independent, eat your heart out! Sadly we weren't there for long enough to explore Slightly Foxed, a second-hand bookstore downtown that looked like a treasure trove. Though perhaps it's just as well, given that my luggage already weighs a ton.

And now I'm in Dunedin for a few days, having hopped off the bus to explore a bit more on my own. I'll be heading out to Otago Peninsula tomorrow to see the albatrosses and yellow-eyed penguins, and soon after that heading down to Stewart Island to go kiwi-spotting (the birds this time, not the people!). With any luck the weather will pick up again - now I know why Crowded House (NZ band) wrote "Four Seasons in One Day". I'll let you know how the twitching goes (and the brewery tour - it's not all clean living out here!).

Water torture

2010-01-17T03:38:00.006Z

I've stopped at Dunedin to catch my breath after the first few days of my backpacker bus adventure, and it's been action all the way! There were 32 of us on board, 26 of whom had been together since Auckland. Stepping on the bus was a little intimidating, but a couple of hours in I'd got a few names and faces sorted out, and after a wet night under canvas we were all bonding like nobody's business. And the bonding continued the following morning, when we went white-water rafting down Rangitata Gorge...

This was an extraordinary experience. We were squeezed into wetsuits and thermal clothes, and then bussed down to the river and divided into four rafts. On mine were Matt (terrified of water, poor chap - he was talked into it by his mates), Lina from Sweden, Ros from the UK, Jimmy, our Flying Kiwi guide, and Ben, the rafting guide. Off we headed onto beautiful calm water, and were given lessons in what to do once the water got choppy (hold on and get down, and paddle for your life were the main instructions). And the first two rapids were cool - water in the face, bounced around, getting the blood flowing... However, these were only Grades I and II, and there was more to come.

The next one was Grade III, and we hit a wave wrong and the three of us on the left-hand side of the boat went into the water (me, Matt - now scarred for life - and Lina). And that was OK, once you clawed your way to the surface - we were all wearing life jackets and helmets, and all you had to do was float on your back with your feet facing forward until someone could come by and haul you onto the raft again. Easy as. But the Grade Vs were yet to come...

The first one was a cinch - we stopped beforehand and were given the choice as to whether or not to continue, and it was only 60m long and frankly didn't look as bad as the Grade III, so we headed back onto the raft and went through it beautifully, without a single mishap. At the next stop, Lina and Matt got out, but I stayed on, figuring that I'd already been in the water once, so how bad could it be? Very, I discovered, as I bounced out at the top of the 350m Grade V rapids and went down on my arse, sans boat, for the rest of them. Bloody terrifying - particularly the waterfall, which I could see coming! No one was able to throw me a safety rope until the end, by which time I was a sorry state - all snot and hyperventilation, though the rush of wellbeing once I was on dry land again was incomparable. I think the appeal of these adrenalin activities is not so much the activities themselves, as the enormous relief once they're over and you're alive! People were very impressed with my calmness - I even held onto the paddle, for heavens' sake - and I'm glad I've done it, but I will never do it again. And just for your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the photos - the rest are on Flickr (I'm in the green helmet, heading into the water). God bless dry land!

Dolphintastic

2010-01-13T23:33:00.002Z

I've just spent another lovely few days in Akaroa, a beautiful harbour town near Christchurch, reached via a precipitous road over the volcanic mountains hereabouts. This was very nearly French territory way back when, after a French sea captain bought the land from a local Maori tribe, and hurried home to gather up emigrants to populate it. Sadly for him, before he returned with his 50 odd settlers, the British had signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori, which effectively gave them control over both islands, and moreover it turned out that the local tribesmen had in any case sold the land eight times over. After coming all that way, however, they decided to stay and Akaroa became a French town in all but name.

Today, of course, it's all a bit more touristy - the French flag flies over fish restaurants, and all the street names are in French, but that's about as far as it goes. However (and I think I'm spotting a theme here) it's as charming as all the other small towns in New Zealand, with gorgeous views, cute harbour, gentle walks and plenty of photo opportunities. Plus trips out onto the water to interact with Hector's dolphins, one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. The first day I was due to go out dolphin swimming the trip was cancelled because of a gale - and with the waves reaching six foot in the harbour itself, never mind in the open water, and the water iron grey and frankly uninviting, I was rather relieved. I spent the day in the tiny local cinema instead, chatting about sci-fi films with the enthusiastic owner and in between times watching subtitled movies in a lovely 12-seater, sipping fresh coffee and generally feeling that all was well with the world.

And in any case the next day dawned fresh and fine and we headed out in our wetsuits (no photo opportunities here) to look for dolphins. Sadly they were still a bit unsettled by the storm, and more interested in feeding than playing, but we still managed to get into the water with a pod of three, who circled us for a short while before swimming off to find someone more interesting! Even so, I feel very privileged to have swum less than 5ft away from a dolphin, and because they didn't stay long we got a partial refund as well, which I thought was very generous considering it's entirely up to the dolphins what they do!

And now I'm about to join my backpacker bus for a trip round both islands. I'm hoping that because it's all very rugged (camping out and cooking over a fire and so on) the clientele will be a bit older and more staid, but we shall see. Whatever happens, we've got some great stops on the way so who cares?! I'll write more when I get some internet access again, and in the meantime I hope everyone's well and surviving the snow...

Love story

2010-01-09T22:48:00.003Z

Well, it's happened - I've fallen in love with New Zealand. Up until now our relationship has been like Jane Bennet and Mr Bingley - rather shy of each other and tongue-tied - but passion has now definitely blossomed beneath the muslin (or, being a modern girl, beneath the lycra-mix T-shirt). Christchurch is charming, but it's once you get on the road that NZ's real beauty strikes you. I could try to get all lyrical about the mountains, and the long grass rippling over the hillsides like some great beast's fur in the wind, and the amazing, endless sky... but words (and photos) can't really do it justice - only something like (and I know this is a cliche) The Lord of the Rings can show it off to real advantage. Nonetheless I shall try!

My first outing was to Hanmer Springs, a tiny alpine resort with hot springs, and crisp, clean air, nestled in the mountains. The springs themselves are quite commercialised (at least in comparison with Dalhousie Hot Springs in the Simpson desert), but since this is NZ that still means they're not too crowded. I spent a very happy few hours soaking myself in sulphur springs (and more filtered pools too) at 38C or 41C, and looking up at the mountains towering around me. It must be wonderful in winter, with snow on the ground.

The next day I spent on foot, exploring some of the area's many walking tracks. With some difficulty I got to the top of Conical Hill to see the amazing views (I have a long way to go before I'm at NZ levels of fitness; still, I've got a few months to get there!), and then through a forest of newly planted Douglas fir, with the only sounds being a distant saw and my only companions the bumblebees doing their thing in the sunshine. And there were some beautiful woodland tracks too, dappled and cool, with springs trickling nearby. Wonderful.

In fact, the only downside to the trip was the bus journey home, which - despite every precaution - I spent in fiery, desperate need for the loo. Old age, eh? Who needs it? Like my dodgy knee and the shin splints, it's one of the growing list of jokes that Mother Nature is playing on me! Anyway, bodily decrepitude aside, I'm overjoyed to be here, and looking forward to the next trip, to Akaroa on the coast, where (weather permitting) I'll be swimming with dolphins...

New beginnings

2010-01-07T09:33:00.004Z

I may not sound very coherent on this one - I've just finished The Children's Book, A S Byatt's epic saga of the Edwardian age, and three families torn apart by the First World War, and it's devastatingly good. But having blown my nose and generally mopped myself up, I wanted to write about my first days in New Zealand, before I head off to Hanmer hot springs tomorrow!

So far it's all been very gentle and dreamy. Christchurch is amazingly pretty, with faux Gothic greystone buildings at every corner, and a crystal clear river trickling through the centre of town, populated by ducks and men in boaters punting the tourists about. I've pottered through the Botanic Gardens in the blazing sunshine taking photos (apologies to those of you also following on Flickr - there will be a heap of flower pictures sometime soon!), and sampled the Arts Centre (once Canterbury College, built to look like an Oxford college, quadrangle and all, and now full of bijoux little art shops and a cinema in the cloisters; I went, of course, and saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a violently bloody Swedish thriller based on a bestselling novel - not the most appropriate to the setting, and it appeared to surprise the elderly couple sitting behind me too, but there you go!).

I've also checked out the art gallery, which is a fantastic modern building amid the stone, all wavy lines and glass frontage, and with a great collection of New Zealand artists. Plus there's Canterbury Museum, which is a little provincial - lots of kitsch dioramas of
big-breasted Maori ladies weaving cloaks and plucking moa - but very endearing, and some of the exhibits are stunning, including the wood carvings from various whare (meeting houses). And just to make me feel really at home, the hostel is lovely, very cosy and friendly, with a herb garden we're free to plunder, spotless rooms, and its own house cat and two guinea pigs, who run around the lawn during the day, squeaking at each other. Adorable. (I should perhaps mention that this is a women-only hostel; I'm not sure the blokes would be so bowled over by guinea-pigs!)

So tomorrow is Hanmer Springs, before a few days back here, and then off again. I'll keep you posted, and in the meantime, good night and sleep tight...

Road trip

2010-01-01T01:00:00.003Z

Happy New Year everyone! I didn't quite spend mine on the Great Ocean Road, but it was a near-run thing. I got back from tour at 1opm last night, and once I'd unpacked and cleaned my filthy body (my trip, as ever, was like a tour of duty!) it was about time for the bells to chime. All very low-key, then, but nonetheless it was a good start to the new decade. I say this every year, but things are on the up, I'm sure of it!

The tour itself was a bit of a mixed bag. The Great Ocean Road - built by returning servicemen after the First World War to create employment - is simply spectacular, and we had wonderful weather for it too. Time after time we stopped at a lookout to see amazing limestone cliff formations, or wild surf beaches bristling with damp young things in wetsuits, or just families at play while the sun baked boardwalks all along the coast. The highlight, naturally, was the Twelve Apostles, towers of limestone balanced precariously in the sea. It's the tourist mecca of the whole drive, and rightly so. We saw them with all the crowds, but also got to wander alone down a little-known stretch of beach where you could see them towering above you.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the camping was a different kettle of fish. I was bunking in with a lovely Irish couple, Yvonne and Mark, camping novices who aren't going to be converted by this experience! The first night was OK, but the second had no showers, and we were cooking in a semi-covered kitchen with thousands of flying bugs. That night's chilli con carne had extra protein in abundance, and those of us who were helping with the cooking had to keep stopping to comb them out of our hair and retrieve them from down our clothes. I'm pretty hardened now, but that was horrifying! Afterwards we retreated to the bar (it was an odd mixture - no running water for campers, but a place for them to drown their sorrows in beer), before grabbing not many hours' shut-eye. We were a sorry bunch the following morning, for sure.

However, the Grampians was the next stop, and despite the heat this too was fantastic to look at. We visited the main tourist stops again - MacKenzie Falls, and the Pinnacles - but they were remarkably quiet. At times during our walk up to the Pinnacles, and particularly on our way down through a rocky landscape that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie we were completely alone. We finished the day with trips through the mining towns of Ararat and Ballarat, with commentary from our guide Peter (a great storyteller). And that, I guess, is my last tour in Australia. I'm sad to be going, but excited at the prospect of exploring another country, and happy that I have so many good memories. The next time I write it'll be from a different time zone - 2010 really is starting with an adventure!

It's just not cricket

2009-12-28T04:58:00.003Z

I've had the most sensational three days, living in the lap of luxury in a hotel on Melbourne's most exclusive street and being a guest of a member of the MCC at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It's back to earth with a bump today, though - a rickety top bunk in an eight-share dorm, with two blokes snoring like bandsaws, five people returning from their night out at 3am and a couple giggling and rocking the bed below me (I don't think they were doing anything more sinister than cuddling, thank God, but the bed was really not up to much - the slightest movement had it trembling like a hammock tossing on the high seas). Anyway, after some moments of severe petulance at reception this morning, I've been moved to a different (and hopefully more peaceful) room, and tomorrow I have a trip down the Great Ocean Road to look forward to.

In the meantime, I'll just reminisce about living in the Novotel - with a chaise longue, for reading, and a gloriously comfortable double bed, for lounging, and room service, for stuffing myself with delicious morsels on Christmas day! Not to mention watching films until my eyes were popping, plus a new print of Easy Rider at the arthouse cinema on Boxing day. And amidst all this sybaritic pleasure, I even managed to look after my soul too, and visited St Paul's Cathedral for Christmas morning mass, which was lovely.

And yesterday was the apogee - a visit to the MCG, which for most Melburnians is considerably more holy than St Paul's, and my first live Test match, courtesy of Keir, whose guest I was. Those in the know said it was the slowest day's play they'd ever seen (in fact, I missed the most exciting part of the day - the streaker - when I popped to the loo, dammit), but being a cricket virgin I think I got more out of it than them. First, I had nothing to compare it to, and second there were moments - when Pakistan was scoring runs, and Australia was taking wickets - when I could really see why people become obsessed with the game. Looks like I might have something to watch to tide me over when the rugby's on holiday for the summer...

Aah, heady days. And more to come - the Great Ocean Road, New Year in Melbourne, and then pastures new in New Zealand. On second thoughts, who cares about a bit of snoring?!

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T01:24:00.003Z

I'm not sure if I'll have internet access over Christmas, so I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy time, and a merry New Year too! I'll be back on 28 December, blogging again, and in the meantime, here's wishing you all health and happiness. Much love, Abigail xxx

Penguins!

2009-12-24T00:53:00.002Z

Just back from two days exploring Gippsland, the highlight of which was the penguin parade at Phillip Island. The Little Penguins are the smallest in the world (as you might expect from the name), and also the most timid. During the day, if they're not out at sea stuffing themselves on anchovies and sardines, they hide away in tiny burrows, peering out suspiciously at all the tourists urging them to come out for a photo opportunity. In the early evening, after an afternoon on Churchill Island, looking at the National Trust building there (once a farm, then a holiday home, and now again a model farm; absolutely charming), and watching a demonstration of sheep-shearing (I felt very smug, having done it myself!), we headed down to the Nobbies headland to try to spot a few. I have a photo of a flash of white breast hidden in the hillside, and we saw several lurking underneath the boardwalk, wondering who all these bloody people were disturbing the peace, but it wasn't until we were settled in our seats on the beach and darkness had fallen that the real action began.

They don't like walking across the sand, because they're not camouflaged for it and fear all the birds of prey, so first they gather at the water's edge, waiting for others to come and join them. Then they creep to the rocks, wait for a bit, wait for a bit, wait for a bit, and... turn around and rush back into the water. Then they begin again, and you think they're going to make it across the beach this time, then... something spooks them and they rush back into the water. This went on for about 20 minutes, until there was a critical mass and suddenly hundreds of penguins were streaming past us, having a groom and a fight and a chat, finding their babies and feeding them, and waddling up to their nests on the hillside (and falling over when they'd had too much to eat!). There was even some penguin loving going on.

It's the largest colony of Little Penguins in the world - about 30,000 on the island all told - and even though the Parade is a tourist trap it was just spectacular. Photography is banned, because the penguins don't like the flashes (their eyes are very sensitive), and the people are firmly kept away from the penguins' homes and coralled onto boardwalks, so as far as it can be it's regulated in favour of the penguin. Plus they're also busy demolishing holiday homes on that part of the island so the penguins can move in and expand the colony! More penguins, please - they're absolutely adorable.

The next day we headed off to Wilson's Promontory, which was equally spectacular, in terms of scenery. In places it's still looking very sorry because of the fires in February, but most places are amazingly recovered. We did some bush walking down to the world's southernmost mangroves, and then high up on to the hillsides to see the amazing views out over hundreds of hectares of bush and forest. The shine was taken off the day a bit when I ran into a low-hanging branch and thumped my head (nosebleed, lump on my head, the works - most embarrassing!), but once I'd mopped myself up a bit I was game on to head to Squeaky Beach. As usual with Australian titles, the name says it all - the beach squeaks when you walk on it. Apparently, this is because the sand has a high level of tin in it, making the grains very fine and regular, so they squeak when they rub together. More importantly to me, it was a beautiful, white beach with crashing waves, bristling with surfers doing amazing things on boards, and the sound of the surf whispering on to the shore as the sun started to go down.

We rounded off a lovely day by going wombat hunting on a deserted airfield; sadly it was still too warm for them to come out - all right-thinking wombats spend the heat of the day underground. It seems the nearest I'm going to come to my favourite Australian animal is the entrance to their burrows - but that's OK, I guess. I've not been short of wildlife on this trip! And now I'm off to spend Christmas in the lap of luxury, thanks to Mum - Novotel on Collins Street, here I come. Hooray!

Culture vulture

2009-12-20T23:07:00.002Z

More from Melbourne, and I'm still loving it! Saturday was Ned Kelly day - Victoria's most famous son. I visited the Old Melbourne Gaol, home to the death masks of criminals hanged on the grounds, including our Ned, which was incredibly atmospheric and not a little creepy. You could brave the claustrophobia and wander right into the cells - making sure the door didn't swing shut behind you... The effect was diluted somewhat by a painfully embarrassing live-action reenactment of the Ned Kelly story by two actors playing all the parts in bad wigs. I was reminded of a street performer Paul and I saw once at the Wireless festival - all eyes and teeth, he'd realised it was his moment and was giving it his all.

After that, it was on to the State Library, which is sensational - the domed reading room is just beautiful; I almost signed up to a course of study there and then just so I could spend time studying again. Wonderful. And around the rotunda there were exhibitions, one displaying some of the library's collection of old texts, from Bibles to Japanese ukiyo-e illustrations, and another on the changing face of Melbourne, which had Ned Kelly's armour from the siege of Glenrowan - mighty cool.

And yesterday I headed down to the South Bank (wherever I go in the world, it seems there's a south bank with all the arts stuff there) to take in the National Gallery of Victoria's international collection. The building itself is a work of art - one wall is made of water, constantly falling before being recycled to start again - and inside it's all high ceilings and angular rooms. I only had time to look at the European stuff, which starts with icons and altarpieces from the 14th century, and goes on to Francis Bacon and Barbara Hepworth, and of course Stanley Spencer (hooray!).

And there's more to see today - I might wander down to Parliament House and have a look at Carlton Gardens, and the Melbourne Museum. And later I think I'll have to take advantage of my hippie surroundings in Fitzroy and find a meditation class. Groovy. And tomorrow I'm off to see the fairy penguins on Phillip Island, which will be the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life!

Cinema paradiso

2009-12-18T07:32:00.002Z

I've just spent my first day exploring Melbourne, and I'm so excited I've had to rush back to write this! Today I was mostly hanging around Federation Square, which is home to some outstandingly ugly - but strangely compelling - architecture, notably the Ian Potter Centre, home to Victoria's collection of Australian art. This in itself was fantastic - Hugh Ramsay, Russell Drysdale, Sidney Nolan and more - but it was also housed in the most spectacular space. Around every corner was a window onto the Yarra river, or a peek at some steel-and-glass corridors, or the contrast of the grand old, mellow stone Flinders Street station... I'm not usually a fan of all those self-consciously geometric angles, but somehow it works.

But the best was to come: the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, which is a film buff's heaven. If I was speaking I'd be stuttering with excitement - there are clips of early movies, from Georges Melies to The Story of the Kelly Gang from 1906, the world's first full-length feature film (though only a few frames survive now); there are celebrations of Australian film icons, from Mad Max (they even have the car!) to Christopher Doyle, a true artist and my favourite cinematographer. Even more excitingly I discovered that he only started in films in his mid-thirties, which gives me hope for myself - if I can achieve a tiny part of what he has I'll be the happiest woman alive. Plus there are amazing interactive displays showing the separate importance of colour, sound, light and movement to make a beautiful, coherent whole. And an installation from Anthony McCall, who experiments with solid light, as well as a short from the Australian animator Anthony Lucas, whose shadow plays are the most sensational things - watch this clip and you'll see what I mean... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM. I've booked a ticket f0r Boxing Day for the centre's showing of a new print of Easy Rider, so I'll have the chance for another look, but I'm just overwhelmed with excitement - I could jump up and down!

That's going to be a hard act to follow, but I think that Melbourne's up to it. I'm staying up in Fitzroy, which has the feel of Brighton, somehow - slightly seedy and dirty, but hippieish and laidback, with second-hand stores and kooky cafes everywhere you look. In fact, I'm going to be putting on all the weight I've lost, because the food round here is sensational - every nation on earth is represented, most of them within a stone's throw of my hostel! I've already been taken to a Thai place with the most exquisite dishes (and beers from 100 countries to complement it) by Pearl, who was on the dive trip with me. Still to come is the Victoria Markets, with all that foodie produce. In short, I'm in heaven!

Lest we forget

2009-12-16T05:05:00.002Z

I've made it to Canberra, and I was going to write a post about how it's so empty of people it feels like the Marie Celeste (or that stretch of the A406 on the way to Stoke Newington; those of you who've driven it will know what I mean); how the architecture in the parliamentary zone is as concrete and ugly as the South Bank, but without the latter's looming gravitas; how the best building is the National Portrait Gallery, filled with wooden struts going up the walls that make you feel as though you're in some MC Escher drawing; how the place lacks soul, because it's been constructed rather than allowed to evolve... And all of this is true, but I've just spent the morning at the Australian War Memorial, and feel too sombre to be a smartarse.

It's a combination of the Imperial War Museum and the Cenotaph, standing at the top of a hill running up from the centre of the city, a broad boulevard flanked by memorials to the Korean, Vietnam, First and Second World Wars. Inside there's a series of exhibition halls telling Australia's wartime history, with dioramas and paintings, photographs and personal effects... There are even recordings of former prisoners of war in the Pacific, which are incredibly moving - more than once I was wiping a tear from my eye. As I was, of course, over the exhibits on Gallipolli. It's all been done so well - it's dignified, and moving, and educational, all at once. And then you come outside into the searing heat (it's 35C today) and the dry smell of the eucalyptus, with no one around except in cars, and it becomes something you'll never forget.

Ride the high country

2009-12-14T09:44:00.001Z

Want to see some pictures? Here's the link for Leconfield:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onegoesmad/sets/72157622872272841/
These are some of my favourites off the CD they made up for us so we didn't have to carry around cameras the whole time. Oh, and there are some of me too - not so much my favourites but at least you get the idea of what I was doing!

Whole Lotta love

2009-12-13T08:36:00.004Z

Back from Leconfield and a week on horseback, and I'm just about walking straight again (I was using muscles where I didn't know a person had muscles). Aches, pains, bruises and scratches aside (including a rather neat mark from a calf's hoof on my thigh!), what a fantastic week. It turned out I really didn't have to have horseriding experience, as my horse knew what was what without my input. Tim (the school's owner) paired me up with Lotta, a beautiful tall chestnut who was (mostly) a sweetheart. In fact, she and I had a fair amount in common: she liked to eat all the time, hated going up hills, and didn't suffer fools gladly - the fool in this case being me! We'd be riding off to muster sheep or cattle, and she'd stop and look round at me with this expression on her face that just told me to stop trying to direct her and let her get on with it. By the end of the week, though, we'd reached an understanding - she sometimes listened to me, and always let me check her hooves and groom her, and even had a bit of a nuzzle and a whinny, bless her heart.

When we weren't riding out to far-flung parts of the farm to round up sheep and cows, we were doing all sorts - wrestling sheep to the ground and shearing them, putting in fencing, shoeing horses, slaughtering and butchering sheep, lassoing, whip-cracking and calf-wrangling. The latter was indeed the most rugged part of the course - especially when I was paired up with Philipp (another glasses wearer) and we were told to take off our spectacles in case they got broken in the scrum. The plus side, of course, was that we couldn't see the hooves coming, but the minus side was that we couldn't see the damn animal all that well! Still, we got it down on the second attempt (once I'd got hold of the tail and hung on for dear life), and then they castrated the poor little bugger. It was all very red in tooth and claw, with that outback spirit of no-nonsense make-do-and-mend. Plus we ate the balls later on that evening - just like crackling, and rather tasty!

Sadly, without the Jackaroo school the farm wouldn't be viable - there just hasn't been enough rain for too long; all the horses and cattle have to be fed extra because the pasture won't sustain them on its own, and that's 400-plus acres. And that's not their only problem - during the week there was a haze of smoke on the horizon from 5o bushfires in the Tamworth area, and it's only the start of the summer. The previous week they'd all had to spend Saturday night fighting a fire on their own property too. What makes up for the harsh existence, I guess, is the slow pace of life and the amazingly beautiful scenery. Certainly the staff seem to like it - they're all backpackers who've stayed for months to get experience, notably Robbie, the manager, who was in road construction back in Holland but now shoes horses and castrates cows with aplomb! And we pupils had a great time, eating round the campfire and being woken at 6.30am from our wooden bunks in the shed with country music.

For me it was a truly memorable experience, and despite being kack-handed at just about everything we tried (except the sheep - I was quite good at that!), I wouldn't have missed any of it for worlds. Tomorrow I'm off to Canberra and a post-Impressionist exhibition that's on loan from the Musee d'Orsay, but I might well be hankering for the cowboy life...

Even cowgirls get the blues

2009-12-06T06:36:00.002Z

Proving once again that Australia is a land of contrasts, I've come to Tamworth, the country music capital of Oz, where I'm preparing myself to be turned into a Jillaroo (Australia's version of a cowgirl) over the next five days. So far I have the hat, and tomorrow morning we're all going to pick up the second-hand clothes, but beyond that I'm apprehensive. I asked one girl who's on the course if she had riding experience. "Oh, no," she laughed gaily. "Just dressage and showjumping, not Western." Which was distinctly daunting for yours truly, who hasn't so much as been on a donkey ride down the beach. The nearest I've been to riding, in fact, is reading "National Velvet". Still, I'm here now and stiffening my upper lip as we speak. After all, I'm a good sturdy girl from good sturdy peasant stock, and if I don't shine at the riding and mustering, hauling sheep about should be no problem!

I'm going to be out of contact for the whole week - we're on a farm in the outback hills, and there's no mobile phone reception or internet - so if you're interested in seeing how I'll be spending my time, this is the link: http://www.leconfield.com/ The calf-wrestling looks particularly rugged, I must say! I'll do a post on the whole experience when I'm back in Sydney next weekend... It's all a far cry from the Eastern beaches cliff-top walk from Bondi to Coogee, or the chi-chi Paddington markets on Oxford Street, but I can certainly say I've never done anything like this before! Wish me luck, guys and gals. Yee haw!

My Blue heaven

2009-12-01T22:13:00.002Z

Up in the Blue Mountains, and I've got my groove back. I lost my zest for a while there, but a few days of crisp, clean air and hiking through wondrous scenery has brought it all back again! I'm staying in the most amazing hostel - it's like a Swiss chalet, all wooden walls and polished floorboards, jolly paintwork and roaring fires (I don't know why I thought the mountains would be hot - the clue's in the name after all; I've had to invest in another fleece when I brought frankly unsuitable clothing up here!). It's small and friendly and great to come back to after a hard day's hiking.

Talking of which, yesterday I climbed down the Giant Staircase (I was going to go back up again, but by the time I'd got to the bottom my legs were trembling and I figured I'd be stranded halfway up the side of the mountain; these are really steep steps, and there are a lot of them). Then I walked along the valley floor among the tree ferns and climbers, with the sunlight filtering through the foliage, the previous night's rain a distant memory. And after a quick trip up to the top via cablecar, I wandered past the Katoomba Falls and along the cliff walk to the Three Sisters (Aboriginal princesses who were turned to stone to save them from their father's enemies, but tragically he was killed before he could turn them back).

Today I'm heading into Leura - to browse the second-hand bookshops and antique shops if the rain doesn't ease up, or to explore another part of the cliff walk if it does. It doesn't really matter - the walking is beautiful, and the towns are charming, so I'm in heaven whichever I do. Truly, this has been one of my highlights - I absolutely love it up here.

Harbour lights

2009-11-25T05:38:00.002Z

I've reached Sydney, and spent yesterday being the cheesiest kind of tourist there is - great fun. I'm staying with my friend Keir somewhere to the north-west of the city, in the most idyllic apartment. He's right on the water (really - you can see the ferry stop three floors below), and I have spent much time soaking up the sun on his balcony, watching coxless fours being bullied across the water by men with megaphones and powerboats, and generally being cosseted with home comforts and bulging fridges. All in all I feel a bit like a baby seal, waiting on the beach while more grown-up and responsible seals head out to sea to forage for food, losing their bodyweight and leisure time in the process. Puritanism is battling hard with hedonism, and hedonism is winning.

The most energetic I've been so far was when I packed up my camera and a guidebook and headed over to the city on the ferry (great public transport!). I spent the day pottering around the Rocks (where the colony began), along the waterfront under the bridge, and down to the Opera House, where I hung out on the steps for a bit, soaking up the iconic scenery. Then it was down to the Botanic Gardens, Hyde Park, and through the business district, before heading back to the opera house for an evening of avant-garde ballet. Thank God I'd put on a dress - everyone was dressed to the nines in honour of the venue, which was as smart as the clothing.

The ballet itself was pretty great, too - it was a trio of pieces, the first one a response to dance in 16th/17th century Spain, with beautiful costumes and haunting music; the second was a comic piece with all the traditional Royal Ballet moves and scenery (my favourite); the third piece was frankly puzzling. It was by Wayne MacGregor, the top billed choreographer there, and was the kind of piece where everyone dances in white undies to discordant music and represents polar exploration. I admired the technique and athleticism, but the dance itself left me cold. Am I simplistic to prefer narrative and melody? On second thoughts, don't answer that.

Sadly the journey home brought me back to earth with a bump - first, my travelcard got swallowed by the ticket machine, and I've been waiting in all today for it to be returned to me (it's a weekly pass, and too expensive to let go); and second we were treated to more performance art from a former squaddie who'd wet himself, who bellowed "Waltzing Matilda" all the way from Darling Harbour to Chiswick. I was feeling sorry for him, too, until he weighed in about "the Muslims", at which point I just wanted him to get off. I felt right at home - just like being on the 149 through Dalston!

Now I've got my travelcard back Sydney is my lobster; tomorrow I think I'll head on out to Manly, or the Bondi clifftop walk if it's not too hot. More soon, folks...

Dead poets' society

2009-11-20T06:32:00.002Z

I've reached Byron Bay, and spent the afternoon exploring the literary landscape - notably the plethora of bookshops (which I scoured for more in Shane Mahoney's Murray Whelan crime series; having picked up the first one for free in a hostel, I've fallen in love - again - with a literary character, and this one has a few film spin-offs too. Why is passion so expensive? Or is that just my passions? Still, Murray is the modern Australian Philip Marlowe, wisecracking his way through sinister situations that are none of his making, and he's my kind of hopeless gumshoe. How could I resist?).

The road names, too, have a certain literary air - they run the gamut from (naturally) Byron Street to Browning, Ruskin, Kingsley, Cowper, Tennyson, Jonson, Carlyle and Keats Streets. Sadly - unless I manage to find the Arts Centre, which apparently has a cinema with bean bags - that's about where the artiness ends. I know the place was set up by hippies as a radical art community, but it's long since become a seaside resort. A very nice one, though - and apparently there's a literary festival in August.

Still, I got some culture in on Brisbane's South Bank - seemingly modelled on London's, right down to the concrete monoliths and big wheel, but with warm weather and places to swim! The Art Gallery of Queensland, in particular, was superb - a wonderful collection of Australian art from a Western perspective, tracing its roots from the colonists to the modernists of the Sixties and beyond. Plus a lovely collection of international art (covering my darling Stanley Spencer, who seems to be something of a hit in Australia, plus Picasso, Matisse, Van Dyck, Hepworth, Rodin, Reynolds...) and the most informative labels I've ever come across in a gallery, with the minimum of pretentious art-speak in them. I did venture out of the arty area, but not for long - I have to say, I think that's the best of Brisbane (though it's pretty damn good).

Tomorrow I'm upping the alternative ante and heading out to Nimbin, plus a quick trip through the rainforest (again! Hopefully no leeches this time). And then I have another day to explore the beaches here, and some more of the walks around town. I'm a lucky girl...

Don't let the bed bugs bite

2009-11-18T08:49:00.003Z

So here I am in Brisbane, and I've had my first real hostel horror. As soon as I walked in to the Yellow Submarine late yesterday afternoon my instincts were telling me to walk straight out again - the dingy paintwork, the grotty sofa in reception, the abject mess in the room, the snapshots of people at toga parties lining the walls... All of this spoke of a place that would be my personal hellhole - but I put it down to being tired from the journey and pressed on. Until I sat on my bed and was bitten seven times within half an hour. I told the lady in reception that there were bed bugs, and after she'd insisted that they were mosquitoes (I know what mosquitoes look like, and it's not like that), she said that it was probably lice - certainly not bed bugs. When I answered rather dryly that I wasn't all that keen on sharing my bed with lice either, she got rather shirty with me and implied I'd brought them along myself. At which point (and buoyed up by a pep talk from Mum - thanks, Mum!) I cut my losses and booked in to the YHA down the road.

And what joy it has been. Spread over five floors with lifts and maps detailing all the amenities, it's a little like living in an airport lounge - I certainly wouldn't want to stay at places like this all the time, as it's not very friendly. But it's blessedly, blissfully clean, and the laundry room is so luxurious I was almost - almost - tempted to do some ironing. Tomorrow night is movie night, and tonight I'm going to stretch out in my little bunk to read by the light of my own reading lamp (fellow hostellers will understand the wonder of this).

I'm trying not to let my opinion of Brisbane itself be coloured by this: one dirty hostel (and more traffic than any other Australian city I've yet seen, plus the poor opinion of everyone I've yet met) shouldn't put me off. Tomorrow I'm going to go for the sightseeing like a demon and catch up with as much of the nice stuff as I can in a day, and then it's on to the next destination. Poor Brisbane - I have a feeling that it never gets a fair go. But onward and upward...

Dune

2009-11-16T00:05:00.002Z

So here I am in Hervey Bay, having just had breakfast by the sea, sipping mocha coffee while the waves lap on the beach and the sunlight sparkles on the water. And now you all hate me, there's more, because over the weekend I went over to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. It was formed around an extinct volcano, and is now 124km long and covered in rainforest - absolutely amazing. Occasionally I'd catch myself thinking: "yes, but I've seen rainforest" and then realise that this one has taken root on sand alone. One of nature's true wonders.

And the island's beauty even shone through the mother and father of all headaches - one of those ones where you feel as though your brain is being squeezed through your nose. Consequent to this the first day passed in a bit of a blur - we went on a gentle (thank God!) rainforest walk, and saw the Coloured Sands (there's a great Aboriginal story to go with this: a princess was betrothed to a respected but old warrior and she was unhappy about it, so she used to go to this place by the beach to be by herself and think; one day she was joined by the Rainbow Serpent man, and they fell in love and continued to meet in this special place. One day the warrior caught them together and decided that if he couldn't have the princess no one would, so threw his boomerang at her; at the last minute the Rainbow Serpent threw his body in front of hers and saved her, but the boomerang hit him and he exploded into all the colours you see in the sand there today. To this day it's a sacred place for Aboriginal women and men aren't allowed there). We also climbed the headland on the only true rock on the island to watch stingrays, sharks and turtles in the water below, and paddled down Eli Creek, a crystal clear stream of water that flows from inland down to the sea.

The following day - after nine hours of sleep in my own room, luxuriously - I woke refreshed, relaxed and gorgeously free of pain. And it was just as well, because Sunday was much more action-packed. We went on a 2.5km walk (uphill, through sand) to get to Lake Wabby, which is populated by catfish and turtles and was formed when the sand blew across a creek to form a dam. Arriving at the top of a sand dune, looking down towards a sparkling blue lake, was like being in Lawrence of Arabia - complete with mirage. And that wasn't even the best, because in the afternoon we visited Lake Birrabeen, which was formed when vegetation filled a depression in the sand at the top of a dune, making it waterproof, and capturing the water for all time (known as a perched lake). This was absolutely sensational - first of all we were the only people there, and then the water itself was like nothing I've ever swum in before. It was as clear as if it had been drawn out of a tap, cool but not cold and so unpolluted it was potable. I could stand up to my chest in it and see my toes as clear as day, wriggling in white sand so fine you could clean jewellery in it. Yet another magical experience - I took photographs but they simply cannot do it justice, not least because the water is so clear on the island that you can't see it on film!

All in all, I had a fantastic time, and we even got in a bit of 4WD adventure when the bus got a flat (and our driver was nearly flattened when the jack collapsed in the wet sand), and then we got bogged down in the sand 10 minutes further on! Poor Ben, the guide, had several beers once we made it to our accommodation that night. There are no roads on the island, of course, and the beach acts as the main road - another amazing sight, seeing 4WDs obeying traffic laws as the waves come in up to their wheels.

And today I have a free day to swim in a sea that has no jellyfish in it (hooray! no stinger suits!), and then swing in a hammock on the verandah at my hostel. Tomorrow, Brisbane, and after that Byron Bay. I'm a lucky girl...

The horror, the horror

2009-11-12T06:28:00.004Z

Before I get back on the bus tonight, I have to share the last journey, during which I was trapped in a confined place with... "The Da Vinci Code". Films on the Greyhound aren't like on the aeroplane - it's not like you can choose to plug yourself in to listen, the soundtrack is just beamed throughout the bus and you have to watch. Hence I found myself on the Townsville leg watching "Troy", starring a disturbingly pneumatic Brad Pitt, and on the last one watching, horror of horrors, "The Da Vinci Code". And now I've actually seen it, I can - as I have maintained all along - confirm that it is indeed the quintessence of mediocrity. It's big and glossy and expensive, and it's still boring, which is unforgivable. Somebody put a lot of effort in to create something that has no passion, no spark, and the least charismatic leading man since Freddie Prinze Jr. Although I hated "Troy", at least it wasn't bland. Wrong, yes; cliched, true; an affront to anyone who knows and loves the Greek myths, sure - but it wasn't bland.

Well, that was weird

2009-11-12T03:58:00.004Z

So I'm just back from three days of platypus spotting in Eungella National Park, and it was a truly surreal experience! I'd been feeling pretty smug on the Greyhound, when all the backpackers got off at Airlie Beach and I was the only traveller to carry on to Mackay - I've beaten the crowds, I thought; I'm not being a sheep, I thought; how original, I thought... And all of this was true - but possibly for a good reason. Mackay is not exactly set up for tourism, and on Monday it was teeming with rain (my curse is back - Queensland is being flooded at the moment). Once I'd fended off the advances of a teenager literally young enough to be my son and found the hostel, that was about my lot for the day. Apparently there's a nice art gallery here, but no time for that - we were up at 4am the next day to drive up to the rainforest to spot platypus.

And that was superb: first off, they're so much smaller than you expect. The male grows up to 50cm long, and the female only 40cm. They're also so at home in the water they don't look as odd as they should - they swim along with their bills scenting the air, then dive like ducks, leaving barely a ripple. It was another magical experience to see such shy creatures in the wild, ignoring all of us on the riverbank and carrying on with their daily lives.

However, you can't look at platypus forever, particularly in the rain, and we soon headed off to the next stop - the historic Eungella Chalet (est. 1934). There, at 8.30am, Barbara and Karin (Swiss sisters) and I were left, bereft, to amuse ourselves for two days. Not what we were expecting at all - we'd been thinking there would be three days of bush walks and camping, guided walks and so on. And though the Chalet was a lovely place to stay - we had an ensuite in the room, and I got a double bed to myself; the luxury was indescribable - it was so empty it really did have a definite air of The Shining hotel. Thank God there were no lifts or I'd have had conniptions.

The horror movie feel only continued when we went out after lunch to explore the area. The place was surrounded by mist (I now know that Eungella translates as "Land of Cloud") and we could barely see 10m in front of us. Certainly the advertised beautiful view down to the coast was completely obscured! Still, we thought, the rainforest would be good, and we found a promising looking path up to Sky Window and Broken River. All was well for the first few kilometres, but then Karin noticed something attached to her ankle... and pretty soon we were overrun with leeches. Those bloodsuckers just kept on coming, faster than we could peel them off us. I've still got the bloodstains on my trousers from where one of the little bastards had a good munch. We were out of that forest so fast we must have set a record (another event in the backpacker Olympics, along with luggage weightlifting and speed eating?), and that was the end of the bush walking for the rest of the visit. There was something so disgusting about the way one end of a leech attaches itself to you, while the other end waves around blindly looking for something to hang on to - perhaps you had to be there, but I'm not keen to try that again! It wasn't the sort of wildlife we were looking for.

We got some more unexpected wildlife that evening, when three pissed-up Queenslanders on a work jolly (the only other people in the hotel apart from a Swiss couple and their son) decided to chat us up. Or, rather, not to - because they were married, they reassured us, "we're not trying to shag yous"; however, they couldn't promise not to "kill you and eat you, like in Wolf Creek". Actually, they turned out not to be such bad blokes when they were sober, even though Wolf Creek continued to be something of a theme. And they weren't even the most eccentric ones in the place - that was Susanna of the Hideaway Cafe, where we had breakfast on the second day after walking 10km to see the platypus again (along the road, naturally). She's a German woman who came to Eungella some years ago, and - judging by the newspaper clippings about her on the walls - was once a very beautiful woman. Now, however, she's held back the ravages of time with way, way too much plastic surgery - she is actually shiny and slightly misshapen, and I was so startled by her appearance I took a moment to remember my order. She's also got collections of woolly hats, and coloured button sculptures of peacocks and kookaburras in her garden. Her apple strudel is sensational, though - well worth the morning's hike.

And that was that. We'd seen all that Eungella had to offer (apart from the Natural Therapies Centre, which we didn't dare go in) by 9am. The rest of the time, we played cards in front of the fire and tried to get warm and dry. On the plus side, I have seen a wonderful creature in the wild (the platypus, not the Queenslanders); learnt the rules of poker; spent two days with a pair of great women; and had an experience that very few other backpackers will ever have had. Surreal, but rather wonderful. Jokes aside, the owners of the hotel were fantastically friendly, and we had some great chats with them - Tony used to be a farmer and had a whole different perspective on the country - not to mention that when the mist rose on the last morning the scenery truly was amazing! I wouldn't have changed the last couple of days for anything else. And now it's back to the major routes - overnight on the Greyhound down to Fraser Island.

Her name is Rio

2009-11-07T06:10:00.002Z

I had a true Duran Duran moment yesterday, when I went sailing on a schooner called Providence. We were crewed around the island, stopping at Radical Bay (one of the most secluded beaches on Magnetic Island) for some snorkelling and a picnic lunch on the sand. The only thing that was less than glamorous was the stinger suit (de rigueur right now because it's jellyfish season)! I'm not sure I'll ever be much of a sailor - had it not been for the travel sickness tablet, I think the rather choppy water could have been my downfall - but there was a certain wonderfulness about lying under the rigging, listening to the waves crash against the side of the boat.

Today has been pretty wonderful too, starting with a brisk bush walk up to the top of the island where the remains of the Second World War fortifications and gun emplacements are gradually mouldering away, being overtaken by eucalyptus and gum trees. On the way I spotted a koala and her baby, cuddling into a tree and majestically ignoring the tourists and their cameras. And then on top of the hill somehow I managed to lose everyone, and was alone with the beautiful landscape, and an eagle flying overhead so close I could see its markings, and the distant sound of the waves on the beach hundreds of feet below. A truly magical moment.

Tomorrow it's on to Townsville, and then down the coast to Eungella National Park - fingers crossed I get to see a platypus in the wild...

D'oh!

2009-11-04T08:28:00.003Z

I can't believe it - I missed the Melbourne Cup. It all comes of listening to three Sydney ladies who told me that it was run at 3.30pm. And of course it is - in Sydney. In Queensland, however, we're in a different time zone and I missed it! I just can't get my head around the fact that one country has four different clocks. Not to mention some of the states doing daylight savings and others not. It's all too much for my little brain to cope with.

Still, nil desperandum. I did get to see some of the celebrities in their finery (to my horror, one of the ones being interviewed was at school with me). And now I'm on to the next destination - Magnetic Island. I'm fresh off the bus and haven't explored yet, but I'm looking forward to breaking out the snorkelling gear tomorrow and having a look at the Reef. The accommodation is all in these cute cabins amongst the trees, and there are apparently masses of koalas in the wild here. If I hear any shrieks and grunts during the night, they tell me, it's the female koalas getting attention - not British backpackers doing drinking games...

Trials and tribulations

2009-11-03T04:13:00.002Z

Well, no trials really, except ones of endurance! I went straight from the boat to the after-dive party - I suspect I drank my own bodyweight in booze, though it was the gin and tonic at some backpacker bar that finished me off for good. I'm proud to report, though, that the people left standing at this stage (only about 1am, but we'd all been at sea for three days which takes it out of you) were all in our thirties or more, and Ken is 70 this week. The youngsters had all caved and gone to bed long since. Vive les oldies! I was feeling pretty seedy, however, when the alarm went off the following morning to wake me for my next tour, up to the Atherton Tablelands and the rainforest village of Kuranda.

When I got to Skyrail, though, I felt immediately better (that and the ham and cheese croissant worked wonders). This is a cable car ride above the rainforest canopy, going up past Barron Falls and as high as 55om (http://www.skyrail.com.au/), before you reach the artsy village at the top. Along the way you get to stop at various boardwalks and lookouts to see the rainforest at ground level too - it had been raining that morning and there was a beautiful loamy smell, with faint traces of sunlight just filtering down through the canopy. It's all wonderfully peaceful - I was going to say still, but it's never that; even 10m above the trees you can hear crickets and birds singing away like mad. It felt even more luxurious because I had a car to myself, and I could just sit back and soak up the scenery.

And the village itself was great too - OK, it's a tourist trap; once it was an artists' colony and now the only arty thing about it really is the smell of patchouli in the street markets. But it was still great to wander around (I succumbed to a Kiwi guy selling some gorgeous smelling salt scrub - his patter was too good to resist, and though I absolutely do not need a luxury salt scrub in my life it does smell wonderful!). I also headed to some of the best attractions - the koala gardens first, where I finally got to cuddle one. I have photographic evidence of it, too - a picture of me looking rather uncertain (they look and feel lovely and soft but smell appalling!) and a female bear looking terribly bored. Still, I can add it to the growing collection of pictures of me with wildlife - along with a friendly sun conure parrot perching on my finger at Birdworld, the next stop.

This was fantastic - an aviary filled with native and exotic birds of all kinds. There were parrots and parakeets, emerald doves and galahs, finches playing about in the waterfall, black swans and cockatoos... I spent nearly an hour just wandering around and listening to the bird song and watching them fly about, then went on to the butterfly sanctuary, which was also packed with beautiful creatures. They were everywhere, fluttering about the place and landing on your hands or backpack, the most sensational colours and sizes. Sadly I didn't have time for the venom zoo, but perhaps I'd had the best of the wildlife that day!

The following day was another early start, though at least this time I wasn't hampered by a hangover. My tour was heading up for a day trip to Cape Tribulation (finally you get to appreciate the dreadful pun of this post's title), and because of how much we were fitting in to one day it was a bit of a tick tour - I've seen the rainforest meeting the beach at Cape Tribulation, tick; I've seen Mossman Gorge, tick; I've seen Port Douglas, tick; I've seen the world heritage route from Cairns up past the Daintree River, tick. That said, I have seen all these things now, and they were beautiful. Plus, we had a guide who amply made up for any hastiness in the itinerary. Billy had a typical Queenslander drawl and didn't stop talking and joking around from 7.30am until 6pm. This sounds trying but absolutely wasn't - sometimes day tours can be a bit po-faced because people don't get to know each other at all. Billy, however, could remember all 20 names and was introducing us to each other, ribbing us (me especially, being the only Pom) and getting everyone laughing; in the meantime he was giving us some really knowledgable commentary on the history and surrounding landscape. I suspect he might be Australia's top tour guide - he's a tough act to follow, certainly.

And now I'm off down the east coast towards Brisbane. Tomorrow night I arrive at Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, and after all the excitement of the last week I'm looking forward to spending a few days lying in the sun and snorkelling intermittently. This is definitely the life! Now for those horses...

In search of Nemo

2009-11-03T03:55:00.004Z

It's been a full-on week or so here in Cairns, but I'm finally catching my breath, just before the Melbourne Cup starts - the world has fallen silent here, which is actually quite eerie! Still, I'll be tuning in shortly, and my (metaphorical) money is on Roman Emperor to win by a head.

So much to catch up on, but first was the diving. I had two days of dive school in the swimming pool and classroom - I nailed the theory, but struggled underwater. It turned out later, after I kept getting water up my nose and choking, that my regulator had a hole in it and my wetsuit was too small and restricting my breathing, but by that time the damage had been done - I was panicked. Still, I pressed on because I wanted to get out to the Reef and see all those lovely fish (Nemo! Sweetlips! Sharks!) and figured that the worst-case scenario would be if I couldn't manage the diving but snorkelled for three days on the Great Barrier Reef instead - and how bad, really, is that?!

The boat itself was amazing. We had cute little cabins, a sun deck and six meals a day, prepared by an authentically sullen French girl - but boy, could she cook. Plus, and more importantly, the company was fantastic - in particular Debbie, one of my classmates, who had come aboard with her brother and his partner, both diving, and her dad Ken, just snorkelling. We all hung out in the evening playing cards and having a giggle, joined by whoever was around, and had an absolutely excellent time.

Sadly, I didn't get on so well with the watery deep. The first dive we started before the engines had even properly stopped from our three-hour journey to the outer fringes of the reef, and I was standing on the side of the boat still feeling queasy and wondering what the hell I would do if I was sick underwater. The water, too, was choppy, and we were hurried off the boat into it with waves slapping our faces and going down our snorkels and people pressing up from behind and wanting us to go faster... The idea with diving is that you use your breathing to rise and fall, but by this stage, caught in a log jam and under terrible pressure, I was sucking in so much air it was a wonder I didn't rise out of the water like a helium balloon. I certainly couldn't get under, and the instructor had disappeared beneath the waves long since, so I cut my losses and went back to the boat.

After 10 minutes clinging to the steps and bringing my panic attack under control, everything looked much brighter, and the next dive I did complete - I insisted that I was going first with the instructor and at my own pace; oddly enough that all went much better! Still, I was still terrified under the water - the fear was making it difficult for me to breathe - and I decided to stop torturing myself and snorkel instead. Once I'd made peace with my decision - and despite the dive instructors, who spoke not another word to me once I'd told them - I had a fantastic time, and have absolutely no regrets. There's an extreme sport out there with my name on it, so I just have to keep trying them all! And I did get to see Nemo; and sweetlips; and sharks...

Things I have learnt

2009-10-23T13:11:00.002+01:00

The early bird in the hostel catches the hot showers and the free internet
The first question to ask in a new town, after "Where is my bed?", is: "Where is Woolworths?" (Someone volunteered this information to me in Perth; at first I thought they were directing me to the pick'n'mix, but it turns out to be a supermarket over here.)
Ear plugs are a Good Thing
So is handcream (I know, bizarre)
Never, never take a white towel on tour
Vanity is also surplus to requirements. And any pretensions one might have had towards hygiene
The fastest way to make friends is to share a campsite with no toilets. And a bus after no showers. Odd, though, that this doesn't work in London
I can make myself comfortable anywhere. This might not come as a surprise to those of you who've seen me leap into pyjamas at the slightest provocation, but it was news to me and I think it's pretty cool!

Blimey, what a scorcher

2009-10-23T02:13:00.002+01:00

Today's the day when I'm going on a jumping crocodile cruise on the Adelaide River, and at 9am it was already hotter than a London heatwave! So I'm just grabbing a bit of an air-conditioning hit before heading out again, and updating everyone on my Kakadu adventure. It was more luxurious than I'd anticipated, as we were put together with another tour group to make up numbers - only one night's bush camping, which was brilliant as usual, and the other nights in fixed tents - beds and mattresses, no less! Very comfortable, though I'd have preferred to rough it - maybe the sun's gone to my head...

Other than that, it was great - there were 13 of us for the first three days, then four disappeared back to Darwin and we had nine hardcore campers for the rest. We were mostly older, which was nice (ie in our thirties or late twenties), and no teenagers this time. The first day we went to Litchfield, to have a dip in Florence Falls and Buleh rockhole, then it was swiftly on to what was billed as "culture camp" - actually a very informative few hours with an Aboriginal man named Graham (plus his staggering mullet), and his brother and daughter. We were taken on a bush walk to identify fruits and trees that were useful, as well as ones that would kill you (invariably the ones that look the tastiest). We also had a masterclass in didj playing, and basket weaving - something only the women do. The latter in particular was immensely skilful - from collecting the pandanus leaves and preparing them for weaving, which takes three years of drying, to dyeing them and then weaving them into baskets or bags. The whole thing was a delight - all three of them seemed so confident and happy with their lives, sharing their culture but not giving it away to the tourists, that it felt really optimistic. (I got the same feeling about art class with Manuel, on day four: he's attached to an art gallery in Katherine, and tells stories about his family and growing up in Arnhem land to tour groups, then teaches them how to draw rarrk (traditional northern Aboriginal crosshatch drawing; dot painting is a central Australian tradition) with sticks - though you do get to touch up the mistakes with a Western brush. Again, he seemed incredibly happy with what he was doing - and also got some good belly laughs out of our woeful attempts to copy his painting.)

After that, we were into Kakadu for a few days, clambering over boulders and shimmying up rocks to get to Barramundi Falls, Jim Jim Falls (or Jim Jim No Falls, because it was the end of the dry season!), and Twin Falls. I'm definitely getting fitter - one track was billed as 900m, but it was surely the longest 900m in the history of the world, as there wasn't a flat part on it! Even so, I kept up with everyone else - by the time I've tramped around New Zealand too I'm going to be a champion walker. My favourite route was to Twin Falls, however, because we got to travel on a ferry in the middle of it - with the gorge rising on either side of us, and the water cool and green underneath the boat, it was beautifully peaceful. The only hint that it could erupt into danger were the crocodile traps along the banks - the rangers try to move the salties into other areas like billabongs where they'll be more comfortable (ie where they won't kill tourists, I imagine!). We did do another cruise along a billabong where there were a few salties out for the afternoon, one a mere 25ft away, but like us they feel the heat and most were underwater.

And it's not just the water that can be dangerous - on the fourth day we were on our way to Gunlom to visit the waterhole when our guide discovered that there had been an unplanned forest fire - started either by arson or stupidity. We'd seen other places burnt out on purpose - at the end of the dry, the rangers burn certain parts to clear up the leaf litter and long grass and make the area less vulnerable to lightning strike - but this was really melancholy. It had jumped the road and on either side the fire had got too hot and taken out the trees too. It was smouldering all over, and in places tree trunks still had flames licking out of them. And it was amid all this desolation that we shredded a tyre - saved only by a couple of rangers who were passing and helped us wrestle it off. It turned out the next day that the spare had a slow puncture also, but thankfully we were in bustling Katherine by then and near to a mechanic's. We still swam at Gunlom, with the smell of scorching in the air, but didn't stay long.

The last two days were spent down in Nitmiluk national park, near Katherine - climbing up Edith Falls (which actually had some falls even this far into the dry), and canoeing down Katherine Gorge. Myself and Daniela, a German doctor working in Melbourne, were Team Europe, and we may not have been the fastest pair on the river, but with the amount we were zig-zagging from side to side, unable to steer, we certainly went the furthest. Eventually, Emily and Michael, a lovely Australian couple from Newcastle (NSW, not upon-Tyne), gave us some paddling tips and we made it back to base - it had been a very long 6km!

Another lovely tour, another lovely group of people. The next one is learning to dive at Cairns from Tuesday, before heading out on to the Great Barrier Reef to see what's what. Fantastic. But first, the jumping crocs...

Tropic thunder

2009-10-16T07:45:00.003+01:00

So, here I am in Darwin at the start of the dreaded "build-up", and I'm bearing up well. Actually, having been told that, as a bloody Pom, I'd die in the heat, I'm pleasantly surprised - judicious spells in air-conditioned shops aside, I'm more of a mad dog and out in the midday sun (plenty of sunblock, water and a hat my constant companions, of course).

In fact, Darwin is great all around - I love the tropical weather and plants (there's a coconut tree outside my window, for heaven's sake, plus little geckos running over the walls and making great cries), and there's plenty to look at, as long as you do it languidly. I've been over the botanic gardens, which have all those tropical rainforest plants I've only ever seen in glass houses before, and along one of the many beachfront walks to the art gallery. This, as well as having another good Aboriginal art collection, also has a chilling section devoted to Cyclone Tracy. I knew that the city had been badly damaged by Japanese bombs in 1942 (there are memorials dotted all over the city), but didn't know that it was also razed to the ground by this cyclone on Christmas Day 1974. The newsreel footage is devastating, and there's also a sound booth with a recording made by an intrepid clergyman as the storm was raging - in the darkness it's absolutely terrifying. Truly, Darwin is a testament to resilience.

It's also closer than most places to nature - notably of the crocodilian sort. Today I headed up to Crocodylus Park, to watch the salties [salt-water crocs] being fed. There's a mix of rescued and rehomed crocs there, many with horrific injuries sustained in territorial disputes. The really horrible part about this, from a human perspective (or from mine, at least) is that they can heal themselves. So not only can crocs hear your car pulling up near to their waterhole, smell you, see you (particularly at night) and sense you through their skin, but they can also generate a powerful antibiotic to recover from astonishing wounds. No matter what my guide says on the trip to Kakadu/Litchfield (starting tomorrow, 6.30am), I'm not going to risk swimming in any waterholes! Particularly at the end of the dry season, when there's less water about for us to be fighting over - the salties can have it, with my blessing. They're cute when they're little, though - I have a picture of me cuddling a baby one (its mouth safely taped shut for the tourists). Not as cute as the turtles, however - no cuddling, sadly, but the long-necked one in particular was absolutely enchanting, like some Disney cartoon.

Alice: a wonderland?

2009-10-13T23:29:00.004+01:00

At first sight, yes. It's a shiny, clean, modern town nestled in the shadow of the Western Macdonnell ranges - from the main street you can see the mountains rising up behind the buildings. It has the magnificent setting of those bush towns, without being bleak. Closer inspection reveals more problems, however - Aboriginal people are everywhere on the street (it's an outdoor culture), but somehow utterly separate. There is evidence of poverty and alienation, and signs up banning alcohol in public places, which - as in the communities - clearly don't apply to Westerners. Two peoples are living uneasily side by side - UK's assimilation problems are nowhere near as severe as this.

Having said which, I continued to be a tourist too. I visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service museum, which is absolutely fascinating. The "mantle of safety" continues today, mostly funded by the public, which I think is scandalous! The states pay for the running costs, but the planes and their kit are paid for by donation. I've been dropping money into RFDS tins since I've been here, but having learnt that I'm going to have to step it up. Elsewhere, I visited the Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame, in the old gaol (again, fascinating - great stories about the women who gave up everything to come and make a life in the bush in the 19th century). And climbed Anzac Hill to get amazing views of the town and its gorgeous surroundings.

Even more touristy was my hot air balloon trip - I thought I would die when I had to get up at 3.30am the morning after the outback trip (the balloon has to get in the air before sunrise because the wind picks up then), but I've recovered now and have a certificate and photo souvenir to make up for it! I must confess, for the money it wasn't the most amazing experience - we were 16 in the basket, in cramped conditions, which made it less than peaceful, and it was hazy over the horizon so the sunrise was less than spectacular. However, I can say I've done it, and it was rather special to take off silently, to see the trees below us with kangaroos hopping about, and being so high that the birds were flying beneath the basket. Plus, the gourmet breakfast was as delicious as billed.

Actually, I'd have stayed in Alice longer, but had already booked the Greyhound so was on my way in only two days. I've passed through Katherine, which was something of a lost weekend - the hostel was booked up (it's a one-hostel town), so I had to get a motel room (shame!), and it was so nice I mostly stayed there! Not very intrepid, but I am going to the falls on another tour so I don't think I missed much, and I needed the time to recuperate by a pool. And now I'm in Darwin, back in hostel world, and preparing to go out and explore. I'll let you know what I find...

"If you panic, you will die": Part Three

2009-10-13T23:04:00.005+01:00

Once we were on the road again, it was mostly a case of escalating superlatives: first Uluru, which was awe-inspiring, from close-up and from a distance. We did the base walk (only the teenagers wanted to climb it, listening to Jarrod's carefully balanced explanation of why it was a sacred site and shouldn't be disturbed, and then asking how long it would take! It was moot in any case - the top was closed due to high winds). The base walk alone is about 9k, giving you some idea of what a bloody big rock it is. Then we headed to the sunset viewing point, passing by the coach parties with their canapes and magnums of champagne, carrying our filthy coolbox with its sparkling wine and cheese biscuits! We had the best view, though - and the next morning too. Jarrod had found a campsite far away from the crowds, where we slept in our swags on the sand dunes and saw Uluru at dawn, our own private viewing. Absolutely beautiful.

The next day was Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), which is a site sacred to men (Uluru is more a women's place). That walk was far more taxing, but consequently more beautiful. Once you've scaled the path for 3k you can see down the Valley of the Winds, with the red rocks rising and falling around you. It's just on such a massive scale it's hard to comprehend. You can see why the Aborigines told these Dreaming stories about how their landscape came to be - it's hard to imagine it happening by accident; one needs to pull it down to a human scale.

The day after that was Kings Canyon, and that was more spectacular still. The first 10 minutes of the walk (or 20 in my case!) were straight up, and then you were on the top of the canyon, which in itself was beautiful enough, but there was much more to it. There was a natural amphitheatre weathered out of the rocks at the top, and a waterhole filled with palms and birdlife (called the Garden of Eden), mulgas [bush trees] growing out of the rock... And once we'd finished that, we headed off to camp in the bush again, by the River Todd, with dingoes howling in the distance - one of the many experiences from the trip that will stay with me forever.

Actually, there are so many: the kindness of, particularly, Audrey and Romu when I was struggling with the walks - they hung back so I didn't feel I was holding people up so much, and encouraged me to keep going up the steepest parts. The nights by the campfire, drinking Fucking Good Port (seriously, that's the brand name; it lives up to it, too). Listening to Radiohead on the long drives, the perfect soundtrack to the desert (Jarrod is a major fan, and we heard it a lot to my delight). Getting an extra day because of the delay at Mt Dare and just five of us heading off to Palm Valley outside of Alice, which is like some kind of prehistoric landscape (the palms are the only ones of their kind in the world, descended directly from the age of the dinosaurs). Climbing the rocks on top of the lookout, despite my vertigo, with everyone cheering me on. Being the camp clown - I'm not sure what was wrong with me, but I tripped over everything from camels to rocks, set fire to the pot when it was my turn to cook, broke my camera, my boots and hat fell apart (literally - the last few walks I was sticking them together with gaffer tape) and I am still covered in bruises! Not to mention getting locked in the composting toilet at Dalhousie hot springs and breaking myself out with a pair of tweezers. All of it, the good and bad, was brilliant. It was just a sensational, unforgettable trip and I loved every filthy, exhausting day of it.

"If you panic, you will die": Part Two

2009-10-09T23:27:00.004+01:00

So, to take up where I left off, our band of happy campers are stranded at the Mt Dare Hotel, waiting for a new Land Cruiser - but what a cool place to be stranded. We all enjoyed the rest and the comparative luxury (most of the places we stayed had no facilities at all, and none had showers; we drove into campsites every three days or so to wash and by halfway through I was dirtier than I've ever been before!). We played cricket in the bush (England may have won the Ashes, but we lost this game comprehensively I'm afraid), and headed out for an evening walk to see the sunrise (this is the origin of the phrase above: Jarrod couldn't come with us because he had things to sort out, so cautioned us against treading on anything that looked like a King Brown snake, gave us a bandage to keep the poison from spreading too quickly if we were bitten and told us not to panic. Defence against one of the world's deadliest snakes - a piece of crepe and meditative breathing. After all that we were quite disappointed to see nothing more exotic than some camel tracks!).

The birds around the camp were amazing, too - actually, they were amazing throughout. I was surprised that there were so many of them in the desert - galahs, rainbow bee-eaters, black and white cockatoos, clouds of budgerigars, crested pigeons, wedge-tailed eagles, peregrine falcons, emus... We also saw kangaroos (of course!), a colony of yellow-footed rock wallabies, which were incredibly cute, wild horses and plenty of cattle out for a stroll. The place is teeming with life despite looking so barren, with the saltbush and mulga trees supporting a huge range of animals. I'm not sure I'd live out there, despite the really cool outback attitude - if you don't have it, improvise, and take it easy while the parts arrive; when life is more basic you strip away a lot of the bullshit. It was great to do it for a day or so, though, before getting back on the road (Part Three of the trilogy of the trip to come).

"If you panic, you will die": Part One

2009-10-08T23:43:00.005+01:00

Have landed at Alice Springs after 11 days on the road, and so much has happened I'm going to have to do this in stages! First off, to introduce our crew: Jarrod, our guide; Audrey and Romuald, a lovely French couple who have been travelling for six years now, via Scotland, Canada, USA and Fiji (basically, barring Scotland, my journey in reverse); Julian and Elisabetta, an Italian couple at university; Kevin, an extremely taciturn Dutchman; and four German teenagers ranging from 15 to 17 - Charlotta, Roxana, Stefan and Victor. We piled into a Land Cruiser on 28 September and very quickly became acquainted - sitting face to face and shoulder to shoulder will do that, particularly when you have to disentangle your legs from each other when you hit a dirt track (and we hit plenty of those).

First up was a "quick" walk up Devil's Peak - devilish indeed, particularly with the tail end of a satanic cold; I never made it up to the top, I confess, though I did get to sit in the bush and the sun (hallelujah!), watching lizards and soaking up the scenery. Then on to Quorn and a camel ride through the bush into our camp for the night, before going yabbying at the creek (yabbies are small crayfish; we didn't catch much, but enough for hors d'oeuvres; the food throughout the tour was excellent, particularly when Audrey and Romuald took over cooking duties - any hope I had of losing weight went right out of the window!). That night Jasper, a local Aboriginal man, came over to our campfire to tell us some stories about the landscape (the Rainbow Serpent; Yurla, the kingfisher spirit, and so on); it was fascinating, but quite uncomfortable - understandably given how they've been treated Aboriginals are usually fairly stand-offish, and it felt unnatural to have someone performing for us. Very interesting, but for a white colonialist oppressor not a cosy experience.

The next day we visited Wilpena Pound, a huge crater surrounded by mountain formations, one of the many geological phenomenons of the last 11 days and at one time a sheep station, though how they got the animals to market with no viable road I don't know. We also climbed to some Aboriginal rock paintings - some claim them as 30,000 years old, and though that's unlikely they're certainly thousands of years old. We don't know what all the markings say, as that's a closely guarded secret that the oldfellas only pass down to the initiated; it's a good guess that they relate to good waterholes and food sources, and the tribe's responsibilities under the law. Aboriginal law is written only in paintings such as this, which is partly why the community is in so much trouble now - as it's passed down orally, the Stolen Generation lost touch with their roots completely. Apparently there are some moves afoot to teach the languages in school, but much of the lore has gone for good.

Day 3 was mostly spent on the road - we were now into the Outback proper, in towns that had once grown up around the old Ghan railway line and are now windswept places where you can see the desert on either side of the high street. Cook may have been a ghost town, but some of those places are not much more lively, and certainly just as inhospitable. We fetched up that night in William Creek (pop. 3 - one at the airfield and two at the pub), near to Lake Eyre, and next morning took a flight over the salt lake - absolutely beautiful. Sadly the birdlife that comes when it fills had disappeared - they can only stay about two weeks because of the extreme salinity of the water - but the sweep of the salt flats was amazing to see, contrasted with the red sand around it. I've waited 20 years to see the outback, and it is as beautiful and awe-inspiring as I thought it would be.

It's also just as eccentric. On Day 4 we hit Coober Pedy, really everyone does live underground. Fortunes have been made and lost and made again on the opal fields, and it's a great Australian story - no big companies have moved in because opal mining is hit and miss; you can only guess where you're likely to find it and hence a lone miner is as likely to be lucky as a conglomerate. Thus an eccentric outback town has grown up around the mining - it's slightly less lawless than it was (at one time, only 10 years ago or so, people resolved arguments with gelignite; the local bobby who tried to put a stop to some of the antisocial behaviour had his car blown up twice before he got the message and left them to it!), but pretty rough and ready. The houses underground are great, though - it was pelting with rain (we went through the driest part of the driest continent, which is lucky to get 4in of rain a year, and saw 16mm in a night). Thankfully we were allowed to sleep indoors at this point, and living underground in a place hewn out of the rock is actually pretty cosy; I'm not sure I want to try my luck mining for opals, but perhaps those green people who are building under hills in the UK aren't so eccentric after all... Though they wouldn't have a kangaroo orphanage, run out of an art gallery. Here a couple take in joeys, usually ones who've survived their mother being hit by a car, and try to release them in the wild once they're weaned. It doesn't always work - Bella frankly didn't want to go back into the wild and now lives in their home, toasting herself in front of a gas fire! If I don't come back as a koala in the next life, I'm coming back as that kangaroo.

From there, the weather cleared up beautifully and we were on the road again via the Painted Desert just after dawn, which was sensational (every sight we saw was more spectacular than the last), and on to Dalhousie hot springs. These are bang in the middle of the Simpson desert and large enough to swim in; they're about 37C, bathwater hot, and surrounded by birdlife and native mulgas and red gums. We bathed in the afternoon and under the stars that night, which was a magical experience. It was also a riot with Romu and Julian, who decided they needed to form a human pyramid for the photo album and roped in Roxana. Actually, the photos turned out pretty well, despite Julian nearly drowning!

And then we were on the road towards Uluru - or were supposed to be. Most of the driving was four-wheel drive on dirt roads, and that was the good stuff. We were luckily not far from a way station when there was a grinding of gears and the car stopped, for good: the rear axle had sheared straight through. As misadventures go, this one was fine - Jarrod got on the CB to the Mt Dare Hotel (pub, campground and mechanic's, though we never did discover where the mountain was) and a fantastic bloke with a beard the length of my hair and swagman's hat came out to give us a tow. There we stayed while Heading Bush drove through the night to bring us another vehicle - quicker than getting a part from Alice, which takes three days. And here ends Part One, with our intrepid crew stranded in an Ocker pub. But a pub with showers - the luxury was indescribable!

My (current) favourite things

2009-09-27T10:37:00.005+01:00

Fleece No. 1
Fleece No. 2
Home-brand cold cures
Morrisons' woolly travel pillow
Ikea sleep suit
Hostel libraries
The Original Pancake Kitchen, Adelaide
Palace Eastend Cinema, Adelaide
Mum's walking boots
The fact that an echidna's young is called a puggle.

Last night in Adelaide, then it's 10 days in the outback, sleeping in a swag and cooking on a campfire (itinerary below). More when I hit Alice!

Tie me kangaroo down, sport

2009-09-25T01:45:00.003+01:00

Back from Kangaroo Island, off the coast of Adelaide: it rained for two days out of three, I had a streaming cold throughout, and I loved it. Brilliant, brilliant trip.

We started at 6.30am on Monday, heading out to Victor Harbour where we saw the last of the Australian Right Whales (called "right" because they float to the surface when harpooned, hence they were the "right" ones to hunt) before they head out to sea for the summer. There were some mums there, being very stately, and some babies playing - flicking their tails flirtatiously, breaching the water and so on - as they got their test drive before the big migration. Fantastic - and just the start of the wildlife.

Once we hit the island, Simon (our guide, a right-on Australian dude) took us to one of his koala spots, where we saw (and this is pretty rare) a couple in the wild. One was even awake, which is something of a miracle - since this isn't mating season, they mostly sleep, and then eat, and then sleep again. Basically, they're stoned on eucalyptus... If there's such a thing as reincarnation I'm coming back as a koala - they eat, sleep, get high and have sex and that's it. Sounds pretty idyllic to me.

After that, we hit the caves to escape the rain (I should say that it started raining when we disembarked from the ferry and didn't stop) - cool stalactites and other formations - and then tried to go for a hike along the cliffs, but only got five minutes in before we were wet through - and I'm not talking a bit damp, but wringing water from our clothes and hair! After that we gave up and went to the camp for the night, which was really comfortable. Got the wood fire going, got the clothes drying and played Jenga amid the steam. We were seven at this point - me, an English guy called Mike, three cool Chilean dudes, an absolutely silent boy from Hong Kong (I never knew his name) and Eva from Holland, perhaps the world's coolest 18-year-old.

Next day it was still raining (!) and I still didn't care - though possibly it was something to do with the fact that I was high on cold cures throughout - and we did another hike to a beautiful waterfall (I concentrated on not having a seizure when we went up a horrible hill - even the youngsters were struggling with this one), then met some birds of prey at the sanctuary: a frog-mouthed tawny, peregrine falcon, barn owl, kestrel and wedge-tailed eagle, some of whom we could pass from arm to arm. Very cool indeed.

After which, we joined up with the two-day crew and went sand-boarding (basically like sledging except on sand dunes at Little Sahara), and in the evening went out looking for fairy penguins. In between we saw echidna (shy creatures who weren't best pleased to be surrounded by tourists taking photos, bless them), kangaroos and their joeys, wallabies, brush-tailed possum (including a cheeky one who was stealing from our bin late at night), Australian sea-lions, New Zealand fur seals, more koalas and a whole heap of scenery. Sadly there aren't many photos - and none of the third day when the sun came out - because my camera ran out of juice and I'd stupidly left the charger behind - so I'll just have to remember the Remarkable Rocks (actually remarkable - like a Salvador Dali sculpture) and the Admiralty Arch, with the fur seals basking underneath, or the little schoolhouse that was in use until 1945 (one room, and an outside dunny)...

Altogether a great tour; only a few days before I head out into the desert and I'm hoping I can shake this blessed cold before then. To which end, I'm spending the day with an Ian Rankin novel and some biscuits. If that doesn't do the trick, nothing will...

Noodling around

2009-09-19T02:13:00.002+01:00

The sun's come out and yesterday I headed up to Hahndorf in the Adelaide hills to celebrate. This town was at the heart of the German influx in the mid-19th century, and still has a German character today. It's very touristy - every other building offers you wiener schnitzel and apple strudel - but also pretty, and artsy (Hans Heysen used to live up there, and his studio is still open to the public, as well as the old Lutheran schoolhouse, which is now an exhibition space for local artists). Perhaps I was unduly influenced by the sunshine and the big glass of locally brewed pale ale, but I liked it a lot! And the sauerkraut/wurst hot dog. And the endless shops offering carved wooden toys etc. And the alpaca strutting across the hillsides.

Next up, now I've learnt to negotiate the bus system, is Cleland National Park, where you can indulge in a spot of koala cuddling, and Glenelg, the local beach hotspot. And tonight I'm off to the cabaret at the Adelaide Festival Arts Centre - the city is apparently the arts centre of Australia, so I thought I'd better get stuck in. I don't know anything about Cookie Baker (tonight's chanteuse) but I'll let you know. In the meantime, I feel a spot of noodling around is called for...

I feel like the rainmaker

2009-09-16T14:59:00.004+01:00

It's pissing it down in Adelaide too! I should hire myself out to those farmers who have been hit by drought. Still, it's not conclusive until I reach the desert - if it rains then, I really will be like that lorry-driver from Douglas Adams' "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish", whom the rain clouds love and want to be near.

It led to today's bizarre highlight, though: I was escaping from a shower into St Francis Xavier Cathedral (Catholic hub of Adelaide, with a mad statue outside of Mary Mackillop, a nun who was beatified in 1995) just as a service was starting, so I thought I might as well stay. Communion went on its merry way according to the liturgy - until the votary candles caught fire and the Eucharistic Prayer was punctuated by the verger deploying his fire extinguisher. Considering they emptied a whole 2kg one into the Lady Chapel, everyone kept very calm - we were pushed through Communion at some speed, though, and it ended with a very perfunctory blessing: "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord... and under the circumstances I'm sure you'll all clear the cathedral quickly." But then I always knew priests were unflappable.

Bedtime for me, goodnight all...

Perhaps the coolest thing I've ever done...

2009-09-15T00:28:00.005+01:00

Just got off the Indian-Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide, and it was sensational. I splashed the cash and booked a Gold Service sleeper, which made for two incredibly comfortable days. (See http://www.gsr.com.au/our-trains/indian-pacific/gold-service.php for the pictures.) There was a diner that looked like something out of Agatha Christie - all it needed was Hercule Poirot telling us whodunit - and a lounge for when the comfort of your own cabin all got too much. And the food! Oh, the food! And all while the scenery of the Nullabor Desert flashed by the windows - surreal and very beautiful.

There was even some touristy stuff along the way - on Sunday night we went on a coach tour of Kalgoorlie, site of the biggest gold find in the world and still very much operational as a mining concern. The driver gave waggish commentary throughout (particularly on the "skimpies" phenomenon: some years back an enterprising businessman sought to boost trade by having his barmaids serve topless, until the health and safety put a stop to it; he then got them to wrap up in Clingfilm, and then someone stopped that too; nowadays they get their jugs out (to receive the tips for getting their jugs out) for only a few hours each week, so the tradition is watered down a bit, but they're all very proud of it, and of their brothels, which do daytime tours apparently!). We also visited the Superpit itself, with the giant trucks looking like Tinker toys in this vast, vast hole in the ground - like some James Bond villain's plan to take over the Earth's core.

There was also a stop at Cook, a ghost town in the Nullabor that used to have a hospital, school and the works, till the railway closed it as a stopping post and now only five people live there, amid gradually rusting, deserted trucks and buildings, to keep the place open as a watering hole for long-distance trains. Most poigant, for some reason, was the basketball court - such an odd thing to have in the desert, with no one to play on it anymore.

And now I'm in Adelaide: Kangaroo Island, wine valleys, koalas, beaches and botanical gardens to come...

My kind of sightseeing

2009-09-11T11:21:00.003+01:00

Freemantle today, known for its cafe culture and bijoux markets. But today it was known for the wet - even locals had never seen anything like it. I stuck it out for a bit, but in the end went to the cinema to dry out instead - and saw District 9, which is absolutely superb! See the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PDlMggROA
An alien-human buddy movie that's action-packed, poignant and surprising - go see...

It's raining, it's pouring...

2009-09-10T13:53:00.003+01:00

Yes indeedy, I have come all the way to Perth, Australia, and it's colder than when I left England. Apparently there are weather warnings out for tomorrow - gale force winds! That trip down the river might have to be postponed...

Everything else is a plus, however. Being a neurotic insomniac is coming into its own, as I haven't felt the jet lag too much - I'm used to being knackered so switching to night shift is going OK. As for the plane ride - it's been much too long since I flew anywhere; I was so excited by the personal entertainment system! I watched six films back to back (good ones, too), whereas the last time I got on a plane they were still pulling down the overhead projector which didn't quite sync with the voices. It might have been economy but to me it was luxury.

And Perth has some really cool things too - there are iridescent green parrots roosting in the trees as you walk down the street (so much better than pigeons); Kings Park is 400 hectares of loveliness; and in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, amid some fantastic Aboriginal art, I stumbled over a series of nine Stanley Spencer paintings (Christ in the Wilderness). My favourite artist, on the other side of the world - I was absolutely stoked.

Tomorrow, weather warnings and all, I'm going to have a go at Freemantle. I'll let you know how that goes - I remind myself slightly of those people who go to National Trust gardens in the pouring rain, telling each other brightly how nice the roses are as they're being lashed with water. It's the kind of pig-headed Blitz spirit I really admire, so I hope I can do the same!

Curses, I did it!

2009-09-05T10:27:00.000+01:00

G'ah, I've joined the Facebook revolution, and it's like social networking crack cocaine. Actually, I see why it's so good, but I'm going to keep faith with what now looks like my totally lo-fi blog! And pop in to see what's going on in Facebook. And email. And update Flickr... Good God, I'll be a better correspondent from the other side of the world than I was in the UK. Sorry, guys.

To Facebook, or not to Facebook?

2009-09-03T14:52:00.000+01:00

That does seem to be the question. Bella has bet me A$20 that I'll be signed up within the month, once I start trying to hook up with people on the road. But I'm still commitment-phobic, and can't bear to enter the Facebook universe! In the meantime, and before I cave (just as I did with my mobile phone, alas), I have a new link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onegoesmad/
It's got a few things on already, such as my attempts at drawing (not bad, considering), but will soon, I'm hoping, have sweeping Australian vistas and cuddly koalas...

The Collection

2009-08-16T18:12:00.000+01:00

So, it's goodbye to the film collection. I'm feeling slightly bereft already. Though I can always go to the cinema a lot and decide on the next generation of DVDs. And pick up some Australian rarities. Hmm. Perhaps I need to work on this Zen, no-possessions, rolling stone thing.

In Limbo

2009-08-16T17:54:00.000+01:00

Only a few weeks to go until D-Day, and I'm finally running out of chores to do. I've packed up most of my stuff. The builders have nearly finished repairing my flat. I've even managed to jettison the demands of my neighbours - for one year only, leakgate is someone else's problem. Now that the inevitable last-minute panic with the loss adjuster turning up four days late is sorted, I'm running out of things to fret about, and it's a very peculiar feeling. Never mind, I'm sure I'll find something to worry about...

One Goes Mad(ish) in Australasia

Show me the way to go home

Land of the midnight sun

Striking gold

Ice, ice, baby

Northern exposure

Election fever

Tempest toss'd town

Just enjoying the vibe

San Francisco days

My summer of love

Here's a question

Road trip!

LA woman

Fiji time

Goodbye, Pork Pie

Decorated hero

Artistic licence

Ouch. No, really, ouch

I made it!

Mud, mud, glorious mud

New beginnings

Goodbye, sandfly...

We're in the Wild West, baby

Fjord of the rings

Thanksgiving

Wanakaaargh!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

The hills are alive with the sound of music

The Edinburgh of the south

The calm after the storm

Water torture

Dolphintastic

Love story

New beginnings

Road trip

It's just not cricket

Happy Christmas!

Penguins!

Culture vulture

Cinema paradiso

Lest we forget

Ride the high country

Whole Lotta love

Even cowgirls get the blues

My Blue heaven

Harbour lights

Dead poets' society

Don't let the bed bugs bite

Dune

The horror, the horror

Well, *that* was weird

Her name is Rio

D'oh!

Trials and tribulations

In search of Nemo

Things I have learnt

Blimey, what a scorcher

Tropic thunder

Alice: a wonderland?

"If you panic, you will die": Part Three

"If you panic, you will die": Part Two

"If you panic, you will die": Part One

My (current) favourite things

Tie me kangaroo down, sport

Noodling around

I feel like the rainmaker

Perhaps the coolest thing I've ever done...

My kind of sightseeing

It's raining, it's pouring...

Curses, I did it!

To Facebook, or not to Facebook?

The Collection

In Limbo

Well, that was weird