Magnetic Island – no hardship to get stuck there.

Posted on by jamesthecharles

Welcome to Maggie – 5 miles off Townsville in Northern Queensland. Though Captain Cook in 1770 called it “Magnetical” Island – he thought something there was having an effect on his compasses. Later research has been unable to trace anything, hence it has become more simply Magnetic!

(Puts me in mind of the Harbour at Sydney Cove – where all the ferries come in and out – it was first called Semi-Circular Quay. Why? Because of the shape of the bay naturally.  But in true Aussie style, that’s a bit of a mouthful, so Circular Quay it is now called. I await further shortening: one day it will be Serky!)

But (again) I digress. Magnetic is a good name – the island drew me back (with a friend) 26 years after my last visit.  Sadly, I couldn’t remember a bit of it! Not entirely my fault; they have moved the Ferry from the mainland to another port and built a new terminal along the coast. Which simply wasn’t there in 1985.  It has to be said that much of the island looks as if it hasn’t changed a lot since then, though again I can recall only a rather backpacker-ish guesthouse with very lush gardens and whilst we saw one or two of them (and a fair few backpackers) nothing rang any bells.

But what we (my friend Robin – out from London) and I were seeking was sunshine, peace and tranquility – and we got that in heaps.


This is Jeffery Bay – 2 mins across the sand from our little un’s front door. Taken somewhat late, so here’s a daytime view on same beach:

 

Hmmm. I tried – without success – to turn this picture up the other way; I had intended to make a flippant quip about the distortion of the waistline being caused (perhaps) by gravity in far north Queensland. Unless you turn the page upside down you won’t see the joke. So I should reverse the joke to say that I was too heavy to be returned up the right way. Sadly it was too hot for much exercise – that’s my story anyway.

Another more reasonable shot on the beach!

The point behind me was famous for its rock wallabies – tiny, kangaroo-like marsupials which gather at dusk – so gullible tourists can feed them! They even sell little bags of “feed”in the local store much like we used to do for the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

Is that cute or not? And here is Robin being creative with a perching marsupial, silhouetted against the sky!

 

There’s little that creativity can do to help here :

As you can see, it is something of a small and very rocky island – covered, indeed, with these large, probably volcanic, boulders.

It is also quite a famous jumping off spot for the Great Barrier Reef and for deep sea fishing trips. I am sorry to say that we didn’t any nearer to the Reef than you see me now.  Our trip, basically, was R&R not adventure travel – as least that what it ended up as.

There are wonderful fish to be fished, if that’s your thing:

Blue and Black Marlin, Sailfish, Mackerel, Wahoo, Giant Trevally, Dogtooth Tuna, Coral Trout, Mahi Mahi, Tuna, Red Emperor and Sea Perch. But, you know, I caught a Wahoo once – in the India Ocean off Mombasa during my acting days in Kenya. And that’s another story.

So meantime, we walked a lot around the island – it is not large and half a day would see you from one end to another. We were, unbeknownst to we pommie travellers, at the end of the season.  From November onwards, it gets wetter, businesses close, tourists disappear and in their place,  the seas start to fill with stingers of various kinds, up to (and including) the infamous Box Jellyfish. Though the Box can be as large as a metre or more, the tiny (finger-nail size) Irukandji is as deadly if not more so. The remedy for being touched by either? Liberal doses of vinegar and call 999 or equivalent. Don’t worry,  they will send a helicopter to get you : there isn’t a hospital on the Island!

 

Far cuter, far less dangerous. In fact, unconcerned and oblivious to passing tourists and clicking cameras:

I was completely convinced it was a plant, until we saw another (and with a baby!). Aaahhh!!!

I wish I could offer you a picture of the Dugong that swam within a metre of me as I paddled in one deserted bay, those that know me know that I don’t really “do”swimming. No photo because :

I was skinny dipping and didn’t have a camera with me

Even if I had a camera, I was too shocked initially as I thought it was a shark and then it was gone

There were a couple of “naturists” haunting the rocks a little up the beach and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself

Which leaves me with only one wildlife picture to show: our (almost) nightly dinner guest:

And strangely enough – is it something to do with eating lots? I can’t make this bird picture turn the correct way round either!!

It’s a bush curlew or plover and teams of them raid any outdoor eaters across the island. Chivvy one away, and three return so you learn to ignore them pretty quickly. Though they settle down very late at night and like to sing for hours before they do. A haunting, cur-lewing sound which can severely jar the nerves if you’re not in the mood! Sadly you’re not allowed to eat them, strangle them or (indeed) kill them off in any other way!

Despite them, we managed a few days of complete rest: lots of bush walks and (for me) a pretty severe case of sunburnt shoulders.Which, being  so surprised and embarrassed by, I shall discuss no further. Except to say that it was not for lack of sun-screen, just a failure to remember how hot it was (even with sea breezes) and how often you should replace your sun screen. At least once more often than I did, I now realise.

 

To conclude : I think my memories of Magnetic were coloured by the years that have passed; by the amount I was drinking in those days (maybe I was on an altogether different island?) and by the fact that it is probably a destination for ‘the youth’.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that except that I wanted more than just bars and surf hire or jetski shops and was disappointed. My attempt to bike hire was thwarted by indifference and end-of-season slow down. So probably won’t be going back again in another 25 years.

 

Christ – and all His Churches gone!

Posted on by jamesthecharles

I realise that almost every Blog I write starts with a disclaimer about what time has elapsed since the last, and this is no different.  My excuse in this case being that I was left in such shock after my brief visits to Christchurch that I didn’t know what point there was in writing about it………..

Still, several weeks later and I wanted to record what I felt (and photographed) at that time – so feel free to skip what will be a rather lower-key, probably sad reminiscence.

I arrived in Christchurch late at night / early morning on  my birthday – 13 October – and  spent a pretty uncomfortable night on airport bench seats till the coffee store opened about 5am and the first bus into the City departed at around 6.

I was purely passing through, to make a connection with a coach going down south (see my Post on Dunedin) so saw little of the City itself. I remember being surprised when the airport bus dropped me next to a park and the office for the coach company was a portacabin / almost a ship’s container. A little further down the street, an old bus seemed to be the ticket office for all the local buses (and there were many).  I didn’t realise (at that time) that the whole of the transport infrastructure had been re-scheduled, due to the closure of the city centre and, with it, closure of the bus and coach depots – and much more besides.

It wasn’t till I returned a few days later – and had a day in Christchurch – that I fully absorbed the enormity of the two earthquakes that hit the city in the previous few months; the most recent (last February) causing the closure of the ENTIRE city centre……….

Imagine (say) Cardiff, or  Bristol, or Sheffield – all cities with similar populations of Christchurch – around 450K. So far bigger than, say, Canterbury, Cambridge or Bath in populations terms.  To give an idea of the size of the place. Then imagine – if you will – putting a fence around the very centre of the city/town and simply closing everything off!

This – as you see – is the Crown Plaza Hotel – it (like all the buildings you see in these photos) is closed.  It took me almost an hour and a half to walk around the metal barricades closing off the town centre. And even outside these steel walls – street after street was lined with buildings that looked like this :

As far as I could decipher, the marks on buildings indicate which International team had checked the building, when and what the result was. So many of them seemed OK – until you noticed that at ground level – right where the foundations meet the pavement or street – the whole structure has dropped. They even use that term around the City centre – you can’t enter the “Drop Zone”.  Which is why it is taking so long to restructure and rebuild : when the earthquake hit, whole sections of the ground simply dropped : fell in (sometimes by several feet) taking all services and utilities down with it……..look at the way this pavement is humped and where the building has sunk….

And one of the saddest sights – not just in and around the city centre – were the Churches. Most of them (I suppose) Victorian and therefore hardly built to withstand earthquakes, with the following result….

I must have seen 6 or 7 churches like this around the city – and two or three empty (cleared) sites with a Notice saying where the church services were being held now that the church on the site I was looking at no longer existed.

Older houses/office seemed to fare no better:

The only way I can describe the experience is to ask you to imagine arriving at your local city – whereveryou (my reader) happens to live. As you approach through the suburbs, roads are simply shut off with No Entry signs. Garden walls – especially old brick ones – every few hundred feet are shored up with L-shaped timbers, since clearly they would collapse without support. A pair of semi-detached houses stands – one unmarked and ordinary, it’s next-door neighbour shored up much like the walls are. The sight is simply bizarre. Bits of gable roofs missing, motels rickety and shut down.

And then consider ALL the shopping centre being closed – no buses, no taxis, no department stores or supermarkets, no hotels, no cinema or theatre, no clubs and pubs. All shut – save those in the outlying suburbs – most of which (at least on the landward side) escaped the worst of the shocks.

Even the bus I took from the City to the seaside made several diversions around rounds and areas where I could clearly see “drop zones” on roads, and pipes with water/gas services being restored.

At least at the seaside (I told myself) all will be clear and indeed, the lengthy beach I wandered – littered with thousands and thousands of wonderful shells, was almost deserted and very calming :

Yet even here – as I wandered a little, trying to find the diverted bus-route back, this little row of local shops had its own story to tell, 3 or 4 miles from the city centre at least.

How to finish this?

I would say that I felt a real sadness, an emptiness and hurt that seemed to pervade many of the places I visited – the people looked resigned, maybe almost a little beaten down by it all. And who wouldn’t after two major earthquakes in six months! And yet – within that, the human spirit was struggling to show through:

right next to the odd collection of huts and sheds that comprised the central bus “hub” was a brand new trailer selling home made cakes, healthy snacks, the best coffee I had had in months and two ladies serving who explained that their cafe in the city was out of bounds so they had created this unit to service people travelling the buses and so that their name (brand) wouldn’t be forgotten.

Around the corner, in the city’s largest park, a  local lobby group had set up a tented camp and was offering places to stay for people travelling through and also dispensing information on how to be part of the process of re-building Christchurch for the local community, along with help yourself lunches.

Though I left Christchurch somewhat subdued by it all, I left without doubt that it would rise again, but maybe with less desire to build high-rise hotels and offices, whether earthquake-proof or not!

New zeal and new direction??

Posted on by jamesthecharles

Hi all

After a shaky few weeks trying to reconcile my vanishing bank balance with my original plan to stay away from the UK at least for one winter……

I was on the point of heading to France for an interesting but financially unrewarding caretake / houseit adventure. Nice old manor / chateau that used to be a Fort (1700) in the south Languedoc.

But it started to unravel and I started to realise that I hadn’t yet fulfilled my plans in Oz so – with a little Help from  Better Homes & Gardens and a live version of Masterchef Oz,  I am back  on track and I write this missive from departures at Sydney International – en route for Christchurch, New Zealand. Some of you may know it as earthquake central (Feb 2011, Sept 2010) so if you never hear from me again, start the search there…..

or better, yet don’t start the search at all. But remember me with a smile. Oops….. the flight is called.

Well , several hours later – 01.39 to be precise – I am in the arrivals area at Christchurch airport. With the TV blaring out the latest Rugby Match. Apparently I must be the only one not following it. Indeed, I hadn’t really connected that it is on – mostly in the North Island (I am South – we go south in the winter!!) and in any event, the British team (or probably English) has already been knocked out by – guess who, the Froggies! – and I presume have slunked orf home!!

I am awaiting the first proper bus of the day. At 06.05 – call me Cheapskate O’Rourke if you wish, but I don’t allow (as in budget) for taxis and shuttle-buses. All far to expensive and seems even more so here in darkest Christchurch.

Of course, I have no idea what it looks like until it gets light; we did fly over snowy-topped mountains on the way down but that’s all I know. Then I take the bus (an Intercity this time) down the coast fort 5/6 hours to be place called Dunedin.

Here’s an object lesson in what happens if you (by which I mean “I”) trust the memory banks. When I decided to hop across here, I attached a little dream to my plans : to visit a city also ndestroyed by earthquakes (in the 1930s)  but rebuilt in almost completely preserved Art-deco. Yum for architectural buffs. So….. booking my trip, I “remembered” that it was Dunedin and duly got a flight to Christchurch – easy and swiftly done.

Ah, but. Speaking to a friend later about said art-deco delight, she said, “oh, yes, Napier is lovely – you must go”.

Needless to say Napier is on the North island – accessed via Auckland – all of where I am NOT going! Hey-ho, it turns out that Dunedin (and here is where the wires may have crossed) is famous for it’s Edwardian / Victorian architecture.  Think Edinburgh, or those large offices and banks that litter the City of London. Oh, well, perhaps I can pretend I have come in search of Charles Rennie Mackintosh influences, since Dunedin is also (allegedly) a Scottish city – whatever that means.

This blog ceases here again for a while : the airport very kindly provides free internet (like Sydney) but only for 30 mins, so I shall log away and be back in a twinkling of the southern stars.

Incidentally – I am as far away in time and space as I think is possible from London /England etc.  Exactly 12 hours ahead of you (if you are in UK) and as of now, I am 62 years of age and 2 hours!! Happy Bday to me!!

Well, circumstances dictated a rather different trip that expected and indeed, I am completing this Blog from what passes for home (in Sydney, that is) after an eventful but fun few days.

I am keeping Christchurch for a separate Blog : as much as anything, because it’s a very sad subject. I was more shocked and saddened that I had expected; to see quite a sizeable city reduced to a cordoned off, quiet  and eerie no-mans land was quite hard to fathom. So more of that later.

Meantime, I arrived at the bus interchange outside the city (see para above) since the absence of a central point has created two interchanges – one each side of a huge park. Here I get my bus for Dunedin (6 hours to the south) but not before having a delicious home-made muffin and exceptional coffee from a little roadside shack near the buses. An enterprising couple set it up precisely to fill the many gaps in the normal day-to-day workings of the city. (It is very hard to avoid references to ChCh as they call it).

Anyway, after my sleepless night travelling, I saw little of the journey south as I slept fitfully – first in my own seat and then (when I spotted an empty back row), actually sleeping lying down across the seats. Albeit the seat ridges giving the feeling I was sleeping on a corrugated roof!

Had I been awake, I might have seen scenery like this (which of course I captured on the return journey!):

and this

Now I know I said “oh it’s just going to be like Wales or Scotland – and I’ve been there”. And to an extent, that is true, but the actual foliage (the flora!) is quite different – apart from the yellow Gorse which is unmistakable anywhere! I can’t believe that the immigrants brought it with them – there’s so much of it! But yet, it can’t be a native plant and I believe that most of the land was native bush, until Europeans got there, when they cleared it and made farming land – so maybe they did bring it. To remind them of home.

Other reminders…. this could be a Scottish loch or Norwegian fjord:

So – I arrived In Dunedin and checked into a converted Tannery – now a rather stylish industry-style hotel. Here’s the view from the window – quite industrial – though an intriguing building looms on the horizon (more of that later!). The building centre left is the Fire Station, incidentally.

Yes, quite an industrial view! But the room boasted (as they say) a very groovy curved glass bathroom :

how  Star Trek is that!! Slide the glass door back and inside is a loo, a sink, and another glass wall within which lies the shower.

So, Dunedin did not disappoint. It is – as I have said elsewhere – the Gaelic name for Edinburgh – and it’s layout is almost the same: long flat plain with railway alongside the main streets – yes there are Princes and George Streets here. There’s a volcanic plug at the far end (matching Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh). The only thing missing is a castle. But there are plenty of other splendid buildings:

The Railway Station :  I kid you not! Though no passenger rail exists at the moment – only freight! What a terrible waste.

 

The Cathedral – complete with statue of Robert Burns in front!


Wonderfully neo-classical ex theatre and offices.

The University clock tower – worthy of St Pancras himself!! The building you saw from my hotel window.

 

So you see, a small town – population no more than 12,000 but with many students and a bustling arty feel that made me think more of Oxford than anywhere else.

This is Paul – he is (I suspect) a perennial student as he’s near 30! He very kindly borrowed his flatmate’s car and took me around the University and the nearby Otago Peninsula – as far south as I have ever been.

He’s from Malaysian originally, but has been in NZ for 10 years – and still studying! Currently a Doctorate in Chemistry – clearly we had much to talk about especially given my fascination with the Periodic Table of Elements. (see, I bet you think I am joking!). In a year or two he plans to go to Europe and maybe take another Degree – there seems no end to the potential in Chemistry!

By the way, he was very lovely and really generous – I just don’t think he liked having a photo taken!!

I would not have seen so much of the area without his kind offer of tour guiding.

At the end of the peninsula, a Seal sanctuary and an Albatross colony! Though we didn’t see any of either. Here’s a shot of some cormorants (or shags) nesting nearby : spot the shags anyone?

We are close to the sea here, and the river is quite a tricky place to navigate – with sandbars and shifting tides. But it looks and is beautiful.

As far away as the Victorian settlers of Dunedin were, they clearly did not forget their homeland – these images speak for themselves, wherever in the world we may be (and they are ubiquitous):

this is a bar and restaurant now

this, an employment office

and this…….

 

Pom pom pom pom pom-pom (do sing along!!!). She would not be amused.

And so – after a turn around the very well-equipped town library – which included an exhibition about Eleanor Farjeon. She wrote the poem everyone thinks Cat Stevens wrote : Morning Has Broken In fact, he simply put music to her words.

It’s 11,000 miles from home here – and not far from the international dateline that would take me back into yesterday as the time flies. So I am not surprised at all to see how those pioneers 150 years or more ago wanted reminders of their home country. What is surprising is that (as the money from sheep farming and dairy came rolling in) they had such grand architectural ideas for their town – equal to any in the cotton mills back in Lancashire, or to those of the rich aldermen of Edinburgh. Though not so surprising when you know that one Thomas Burns, a nephew of the Bard of Alloway himself, was a founding father of the town.

Now I’m awa to ma bed………………….and as my dear old departed father was wont to say, by way of convivial farewell:

“lang may yer lum reek”.    I couldn’t have put it better myself.

 

 

It’s All Good……………

Posted on by jamesthecharles

Australians – as I suggested in an earlier blog, have a certain way with words (avo=afternoon, for example.)

They have similar affinity with phrases – some you will know :
no problem / g’day / that’d be right / bloody oath! / beyond the black stump.
You get the drift…….

One of my favourites though, is “it’s all good” = people use it to mean “that’s OK, everything’s OK, cool , even No Problem.

Sad to say that insidious (and invidious) multi-outlet burger monster, the  yellow arses (McDumpsville) has taken the phrase and tags it onto the end of their latest product launch. So we shall have to stop using it I suppose……

I hadn’t planned a whinge (!) so moving rapidly on to say I am quite living the Life at the moment.
An old friend of my older brother Sean lives here and Lisa, her partner and family took me out on Sunday. For a little spin around the Harbour – picking me up from my local Pier – this is how we do it here!

And mine hostess – in the Galley!

There are 4 sizeable bunks in the fore cabin – and shower room.  Liza and David have a double bunk, with their own en-suite shower room!  All mod cons, sat-nav and more.

We had a leisurely cruise down the Harbour – under the bridge (of course) but stopped en route (as you do) at Sydney Markets to pick up some fish and the most enormous prawns I have ever seen – I promise.  We ate those after mooring up in one of the little bays that surround central Sydney. I was home in time for tea after we explored some way up another of the many rivers that feed into Sydney Harbour.
I was struck later this week – on another trip – by how extraordinary it must have been for the first explorers here (Captain Cook, and then  the First Fleet etc) when they came in through the gap in the hills and found themselves in what we now call Sydney – initially it was called Port Jackson. Even today you can get a flavour of that first sighting as parts of this huge harbour have been left quite untouched. Here’s a shot or two taken from the Manly Ferry. That’s not a description of the crew, incidentally (though they usually are!) but an outlying town across the bay from Sydney; Manly sits across a spit of land with the Ocean and one end and the Bay at the other and you can walk from one end to the other in about ten minutes.

If you squint you can even see a tiny yellow beach centre right!!
Mind you, if you looked right and  behind this little hill ::::::

There’s the City and the Harbour laid out across the horizon.

Manly once had a well known – and somewhat disreputable artists colony – consisting largely of writers (mostly poets, as it happened) which caught my attention. As did a somewhat derisive poem addressed to the township from one of the more successful poets. Here’s a snapshot which I hope will be legible.

I hope it isn’t too hard to read; you get the bonus of my fingers in shadow at the bottom. Will I ever manage the technology that taking a photo requires? I doubt it……

I also took a trip up-river (past where I am staying) to a town called Parramatta which has early buildings to rival the oldest in Sydney.  It owes its existence to being inland and easily reachable by the river.  Having established the colony in Jan 1788, the earliest arrivals realised very soon that the local land would not support crops and – fearing starvation – they searched for more fertile land up-river and found it at Parramatta, establishing the town there in November 1788.
Its climate and accessibility made it a popular early choice for Governors (and their wives) and some of the earliest farm experiments and government buildings are still there. Sadly the town itself has grown in a rather disorganised fashion and now hides any quaintness it may have had with a rather boring centre of uninteresting offices and shops.
Though it was extraordinary of learn of one Convict (transported here for 7 years) who was working for the Governor in Sydney and who was moved to Parramatta when his gardening gifts were recognised. He was given a few acres, some animals and other support (and got married), with the proviso that they prove a man and family could be self-sufficient. Suffice to say they did, in less than two years, and were rewarded with further land etc. Eventually, having made a good living, they sold up and bought a larger farm further up-country and retired quite rich. I couldn’t help but reflect on a life that (back home) might have continued in criminality and maybe the gallows,  but which, in this colony at least, gave him a true opportunity for a new and successful life. I hope there were many more like him……

But Sydney – and the country around – is moving into Spring now (another reason not to rush back home!) and as the days get warmer, the beaches and bushland will get ever busier. I met with an ex-UK colleague (she now lives in Melbourne and Dubai) who said that the best reason for living in Australia was the sensible work / life balance and – though I could hardly say I am “working”, I do observe that little has changed in that respect since I first visited here (in 1985).
I interpret people’s attitude to work as being the means to fund people’s social life, family and friends and so on.
Work does not wholly seem to overwhelm lives quite as much as it appears to in the UK.   Feel free to disagree, of course; it may just be that I’ve become such a non-worker I have completely lost the plot!!

I am off again tomorrow with a friend here who is driving us 2/3 hours up the coast to what remains of a small sea-side community off the beaten track. Like a lot of country places, it is threatened by the growing mining industry here – many small towns, villages and even homesteads are suffering from the boom in mining (for iron and other minerals) or gas from coal seams which is also widespread. The coming years, as a result, will bring  huge financial bonuses here – but some fear it comes at the expense of land-destruction and that once the mining moves along, it will leave areas depopulated and poorer. Though central government (Canberra) seems to favour the $$$ it sees to balance books – especially from China, which will buy almost anything mineral, ore and gas to feed its own booming economy. There is almost no trading deficit here – at least at Federal level. Individual states are not much worse off.

Imagine if we could say in the UK that in 10 years or so, there would be NO government need to support the ageing population!  Because of an insistence on private pension / health cover that has been going on for many years (they call it “Super” – short for Superannuation  – and it has been compulsory), the population should be self-sufficient as it retires.  Add to that the booming billions from the industries I mentioned above and the coming years should be very good for Australia.

Unless the politicians manage to turn such a success into a disaster – we shall see……

Post Haste – I don’t think so!

Posted on by jamesthecharles

Well, what can I say? This Blogging lark didn’t really keep up the speed it started with!

Off like a Guy Fawkes Rocket – soaring and fizzing and now? – more of a whimper than a bang. With only a couple of blogs in recent weeks, I’m winning no prizes.

Though quality is what counts of course. So – talking of quality, let me start you with the Two Ronnies (Google them if you don’t know!):

A row developed today at Sussex County Council when Library listings were announced and Southern Rail’s new Timetables were listed under Fiction.

A woman complained to Police that a squad of cavalrymen from the Light Brigade had crept up to her house and seduced her. When asked if she would prefer charges she replied ” yes I would. It would be noisy but I wouldn’t be kept waiting so long….”

Boom Boom (as they say). I won’t trouble you with any more.  Sometimes even I am surprised by the funny books Brenda has amassed. I am back in Sydney now – and no pun intended.

After a lively few weeks with Peter & Christine, their four young girls and mother Joan up In Queensland,  the peace of suburban Sydney is quite noticeable. I have been reacquainting myself with Brenda’s very neurotic dog Rimsky (as in…..) taking him for such unusually long walks he’s been flaked out by 7pm. Which Brenda usually is too – after days of trying to teach English to a range of immigrants from all over.  Though I don’ take her for walks!!

By Australian law, if you want to be Naturalised, you must reach a certain standard of spoken English. Some of her students are elderly women who have been coming to classes for years and still speak only Chinese or Iranian!

Meantime, out walking today , I found I may have been in the Bush way north of Sydney before…… spooky, I was only 14 then!

I went walking with one of the women who arranged my first trip out of Sydney when I arrived – remember Tom Groggin Station – the very up-market log cabin in an earlier Blog?  Penny and I hiked, scrambled and walked 12 or so Km through virtually virgin bush (yes there are markers – though I wore a screaming orange hat in case we needed to be spotted by helicopter for a rescue). It doesn’t seem far, but it took several hours. Quite oddly,  you do get a feeling for what the early explorers settlers must have encountered. Such thick and lush vegetation;  incredible trees – I called this one Busty Bertha!!

It is a gum tree of sorts, with the most amazing boles studded all over the trunk – which itself has no bark as we would know it,  just a smooth dark skin, like an elephant. You cannot resist touching it.

And who needs art in galleries, when this naturally eroded rock offers such stunning visuals!!

or this………

The landscape is almost completely sandstone – varying in hue from bright yellow, through orange to deep dark purply red. Sometimes the sand on the tracks is deeper  (and wetter) than an English beach (for want of a better word). Other times the bedrock rises underfoot and we slip and slide from the frequent small watercourses than criss-cross the land. Old oyster shells litter the riverside parts of the track – evidence of the eating habits of the original inhabitants here. Before what my thoughtful friends describe as The Invasion!  That would be Captain Cook and onwards……

Meantime, Brenda (and Penny’s partner Liz) were lazing about at their home overlooking the nearby Hawkesbury River a mile or three away. This vast inland estuary could easily have been the first main outpost rather than Sydney. Fate decreed it is now a very pretty backwater with several villages accessible by boat only, and a very popular spot for commuting and/or weekending from Sydney. Penny & Liz live here full time – high on the hill above the bay, but with vertiginous steps and gardens right down to the water. I didn’t venture down to the bottom; after our walk I rather feared that I might get down there, but my legs would refuse to come up again.

I was very ready, however,  for the barbecued lamb and veg followed by Cherry Mud Pie! (imagine that…. yum).

Barbecues, by the way,  are NOT just a summer occupation here – both Liz and Brenda have large gas barbecues in the back gardens and use them almost daily.

As I sit here now – watching Motor Racing from Belgium on the TV and writing this, I know I’ll be dragging myself up from the seat soon – legs and glutes aching!  and the bike ride I half-planned for tomorrow will NOT be happening!!

This is Penny below as we clambered up another boulder-strewn hillside.

It is just coming into Spring here and plants starting to bud and shoot. Some strange and wonderful sights : this tiny (1 inch wide) bud opening like a tiny, perfect coat button.

There are at least 500 varieties of eucalyptus trees & bushes, dozens of Banksias and even more that look like these previous two but aren’t. I could never be a Botanist.

In fact I discovered the other day that I am a “Scanner”  as a descriptor of how I approach life, work etc. This was a new word to me – but a welcome piece of information, counteracting the guilt I have felt all my life for not “applying myself” to a career. According to my “research”  the behaviour of a Scanner is to dip into everything – the world is fascinating, there isn’t enough time to check everything out etc – and after a period of brief intensity, to move on. Be it acting, exhibitions, poetry, cycling, praying, keeping fit, learning to sketch, writing Blogs (!) singing, looking for work, whatever,  etc etc etc

(The opposite pole, by the way is a “Diver” – the person who needs to microscopically investigate one special subject or topic – down to its atoms etc . Way too much information for me).

Anyway, it seems it’s OK to use my talents this way – and it explains why I have been an office worker, actor, tour director, administrator, Butler, Hotel worker, – and that’s just a few I can remember at the moment.  Armed with such information I shall be planning even more fancy flights of fancy!!

Forthcoming “Scanner” activities will include:

investigating House Sitting / Caretaker (so don’t be surprised if I end up somewhere in Europe when I finish here; come and visit me)

finalising some “consultancy” work  (cough, cough) with my old event pals from the UK who are doing cloned shows here like Better Homes & Gardens / MasterChef Live and the Baby & Toddler Show. Yikes!

More Poetry : a historical/biographical/whimsical poem for every year I have been on the Plant – at least 1949-2009 anyway!  60 for 60.

And on that optimistic note I will close.  Stating only the obvious : this is not a dress rehearsal and what’s the worst that could happen?  (Most of it already happened, anyway!).

Take care. Love to all.

JC

Derby and Joan………

Posted on by jamesthecharles

We none of us are getting any  younger, are we?

Yesterday (Sat 16th) my next sibling down – Philip – was getting a surprise 60th birthday party from my other siblings, family and friends – which I of course was unable to attend, being 11,000 miles or so away.  The Lucky One? – indulging my travel addictions! – but missing family fun.

My friends Peter and Christine – with whom I am staying – live  (with their 4 daughters and his mother)  on the Gold Coast of Queensland, close to the “city” of Surfers Paradise.  Not sure how accurate that name is these days; the entire beachfront here is lined with tower blocks of apartments, hotels and holiday rentals. Those on the second row back will be lucky if they ever see the sun at all!

 

Queensland has always been – it seems to me – a little like Perth.  Like a rather brash, unruly younger brother to its more sophisticated rellies (Sydney/Melbourne) – rather like Leicester Square next to Covent Garden.  Both very popular with visitors but one slightly more garish and with its hair let down.  The Gold Coast –  more Las Vegas than Leamington Spa!!

Brisbane itself I don’t know well, but will be investigating soon.

(( “Rellies” by the way – is a typical Aussie shortening for convenience. We say relatives……  you can try your tongue and brain on “avo”, “dahls”, “smoko” for some more linquistic puzzlers!))

Mine hosts kindly (and very expensively) took me out to dinner on my first night here – to a purpose built dinner theatre venue called Draculas! Think theme park crossed with Rocky Horror Show, crossed with The Trocadero and you get the picture. From the coffin room style entrance, through the Ghost Train cars which took us in pairs down the main dining area; the enormous (a litre?) goldfish bowl cocktail glasses to the serving staff impersonating  Avatars, Vampires or Zombies,  right through to the show itself.  A combination of schlock horror / heavy metal crossed with ventriloquism, cross-dressing, puppetry and plain old rock from the 60s to the 90s which carried us along by force of enthusiasm, noise and sheer-salesmanship for 3 hours. I was exhausted, over-excited and dying to buy my own set of fangs (only $35!!) by the end of the night.

On a gentler note, the BLOG  is titled Derby and Joan – see above – because Joan (Peter’s mother) was quizzing me about England and places she remembered, including – as it happened – Derby. Or Durby as she called it…….

One of the loveliest things about people here is that , despite a rather ambivalent past history with successive British governments, and despite enormous changes in the ethnic make up of the population (even in the 10 years or so since I was last here), so many people still have ties to the UK and Ireland and want to talk about where they or their ancestors came from. Even if they have never been to Europe and don’t plan to go anytime soon!

I keep getting blamed for bringing English weather with me! Though it is winter now, here in Queensland they insist the last 2 years have seen a change in climate towards wetter, colder winters.

This is the first time I have been In Australia in the “winter” and I suppose I would equate it with an English autumn; often cold and misty at night. I notice more than the locals do though, that when the sun shines, there is some heat in it – despite mid-winter – something that would not be the case in mid-December in England, even if the sun deigned to shine!

The last few weeks – though based in Sydney – have seen me making short trips away (usually with my old friend Brenda) both up and down the coast and inland to the Blue Mountains. So-called because the blue-ish green tint of the native eucalypts,  especially in the evening light, gives the mountains that sort of hue. They are very beautiful – incidentally – and it’s fun to imagine the difficulty the first settlers had in getting up the hills to start with. Unlike Britain, where following a river up will usually find a path through mountains, the land here doesn’t do that and often they followed for miles only to fruitlessly arrive at a blank and towering cliff, with little hope of ascending it!

Brenda lived at one time in a small town called Blackheath – around the  4000 feet mark – and there are other friends who recently moved to Richmond. Windsor is nearby,  as is Pitt-town. You will note the derivation / influences of the place names!

Many of the coastal areas bear a combination of Aboriginal as well as European names.  A glance at the map that follows shows quite a selection – and will also give you some idea of the distances involved here.  When compared to the UK, you realise what a very small – and quite crowded – country the UK is.

Spent a pleasant 2 days in Eden – almost as far south in New South Wales as you can go. Once a huge whaling industry was based here; now only tourist come – though they come for whale watching as numbers of Sperm and Blue whales still pass close by the shore on their way south to Antarctic breeding grounds. Sadly, we were too early in the season  to see any – though it was galling to find out that as we drove back on the inland route, whales were being sighted in Sydney, off Bondi Beach!!  Here’s a shot taken near Eden, trying to pretend it is a cliff, rather than a 2 foot riverbank!!


It could be a lunar landscape, almost! Did you ever see such a think sandy riverbank; just where the River runs into the sea near Eden.

I took the train up from Sydney to my current location – on the map above passing through Tweed Heads and into Queensland….. that part of the journey is 11 hours by train. The coastal track stops just into Queensland and the last 3 hours to Surfers Paradise are by coach! A further 1.5 hours would get you to Brisbane.

There WAS a rail track onwards to Brisbane along the sea, but a lack of passengers and poor maintenance of rolling stock, track and stations meant it was closed 2o years ago! As one Rail employee said to me :  1100 Km or track is a lot to maintain.

For the geographically-challenged amongst my readers, that’s the distance more or less, from Lands End to Jon O’Groats!!

Here – by contrast – is Werri Beach – somewhat near Kiama on the above map. Very different country : pastoral, cows grazing everywhere and green meadows running down almost to the sea. It reminded me of parts of Ireland……

Though with different trees and, of course, no Guinness – or diddly-diddly-dee tourism!!

I really am blessed that I have friends here – and that they have friends who embody the Aussie spirit of generosity and laidbackness (what a horrible portmanteau word! I apologise if I made it up).   In the last few weeks, I have been offered (or accepted):

Sheep-farming  (shearing comes later) or cattle farm visits; Sailing in and around Sydney Harbour from 2 different people; Beach houses / millionaire’s country retreats / bush cabins; Cars on loan; Lunches / Dinners in very exclusive venues in Sydney and beyond; Bike riding in the Blue Mountains; Dog walking all over the place – everyone seems to have dogs!!

Not to mention the wonderful vistas and the sheer fun or travelling long distances with no particular rush to get anywhere……. if I go much slower as I adventure along, I shall probably stop completely.

Until the next time…………..

Joan, Joan, where are you…………………………………………???

No Worries?

Posted on by jamesthecharles

My main worry is that I am having such a chilled time that I have become very idle in the Blog department! Since my last blog (May 21 I think), a month has flown by and I have been in and out from Sydney a few times, latterly a few hours south to my ex’s (that’s Steven) near Canberra – where his partner Tony has a sheep farm.

Seriously. At the moment there are only 450 sheep on the 3300 acres – their part of the country is only just recovering from an 8-year drought, when animal stocks were almost zero and many farms and holdings were sold off.  Tony’s family has been on this farm since the 1890s – and in Australia since the 1830s, so it’s great that he survived.  Especially since I can now add Sheep Wrangler / Drover to my CV. I think the proper term could also be Jackeroo – but I feel a bit Senior for that.

(Talking of which, I quite blatantly request a Senior Concession Fare on the bus from Brenda’s into the City – tho I am not entitled (being non-Aussie) and also not old enough, as their age for Concessions is 65. So far it has worked and I get full use of trains buses and ferries for $2.50 a day!)

I digress.  Here’s a typical view of the land in the southern tablelands where Tony’s farm is situated.

A very nice young Aussie called Mike came to the farm for half a day, to scan the sheep. As in scan for pregnancy. As I recall, 390 or so were with lamb! They had to be rounded up, passed through a paddock or two and finally funneled into Mike’s machine. He had the worst job – shoving the hand-held scanner between their rear legs to get a reading. This caused lots of them to wee themselves. What a day job, eh?

I was (at first) charged with feeding the ewes up the last little ramp into his machine, but didn’t have the strength to really shove those who lowered their heads and refused to budge. Plus their wool has lots of sharp burrs which – despite my gloves – were really working into my “townie” hands.  Tony had a trick of grasping them somewhere “down below” which I didn’t fancy even trying to learn, so I moved down the line and found I had a good knack for funnel duties – aided by a useful wooden staff I picked up in the meadow, which I used to prod them rather effectively in the left buttock! We soon had them running through pretty neatly.

I shan’t be taking up a career as a sheep farmer anytime soon, however.

Moving on……

This is the Deep Space Station in the hills outside Canberra. There are 3 in the World (all owned/run by NASA):  this one, one in Spain and one in California. They spend their days communicating with satellites / spacecraft / stations we have up there (so to speak) and also listening into Deep Space for any signals that might be coming To Us. ET phone home – that sort of thing.

It opened in time for the moon landing in 1969 and has some stunning equipment, films and footage from those days as well as many other space excursions. At the moment they continue to monitor two spacecraft now at the very edge of our Galaxy and have been tracking for 10 years or more. They are watching Mars, Pluto, probes and meteor showers.  Is their work about looking at the past (light years etc) or the future – who knows what they will find?

As luck would have it, the very time we were there,  this huge disc (300 feet across) tilted and turned till it was lying flat and facing straight up. Like a scene from a James Bond movie!  Though we are actually sitting on the back terrace having tea and cake.

We were out for the day to visit some of Tony’s family history. His surname in De Salis – note the De – not de! And the family dates from ad the 9th century in a Swiss province close to the Italian border called Soglio.   This happens to be the name of the property he currently farms and where I’ve been staying.  Say “solio” not sog – and you realise how Italian it is.  Until about 1930 all the males of the family held a courtesy title of Count – and indeed there is a current Count and Countess Charles De Salis – they run a very upmarket B&B in a stately home in Somerset!

Back in the 1830s,  sons of the then Count came to Australia and over the following generations bought, farmed, sold or lost a number of very large estates – one of which now forms an entire suburb of Canberra itself. Our trip that day took us to one earlier property which even includes a beautiful small walled family cemetery – part of the national heritage trail these days.


This branch of the family is actually called Fane De Salis – but that’s too confusing to try and explain here! Suffice to say, a visit to this historic place – where the cemetery gets the best spot – on a little hill adjoining the two rivers which run through the property – was a really special occasion.

Of these two rivers, one – the Murrumbidgee – runs along the border of Tony’s current property – though Soglio is about 30 miles away!

As a suburban London boy – and never a country dweller really, I find it fascinating and enthralling to explore a family that can trace it’s occupancy of the same land for 150 years and the family itself back over 1000. I feel sure I shall steal some of their story for future writings.

Meantime, their life – that’s Tony and Steven’s – carries on in a gentle and natural way. Steven is an artist (some of you will know that) and now continues to make his art in some of the rooms in the farmhouse, as well as lending hands – when the need arises – to farm stuff. Suffice to say that he prefers making art to sheep wrangling! He is currently teaching art at the Australian National University in Canberra, as well as working on his own PhD with a project concentrating on Bronze Serpents and their appearance and meaning in cultures worldwide

See http://www.stevenmarkholland.com. for some examples of his talent.

I leave you with a dinner scene from Soglio. Jane and Greg (the neighbourly tenants next door), me (serving the roast mutton), Mike De Salis (Tony’s cousin) and Tony  himself. Steven on camera.

Don’t be fooled by the jollity of the occasion. We are having fun of course, rugged up (as we say here) with several layers and the wood stove on which we rely for cooking and hot water. Head beyond this room to the bedroom wing or outside areas and you risk a severe chilling, in a not-so-fun way!!

Canberra is over 3000 feet and I had forgotten till I arrived that we are still in winter here. Frost and not a heater to be found in the shower! Yikes ; high speed washing – if at all – was the order of the day. I began to wonder why I was in the habit of showering daily – I decided I would rather not impersonate a brass monkey.

Sydney or Bust (I think I mean “Bush”)

Posted on by jamesthecharles

A fairly straightforward flight from Perth brought me to Sydney one Thursday afternoon over a week ago – and a rapid couple of trains got me via the centre of the City to West Ryde, the nearest train station to my friend Brenda.

I was so early (for that read ahead-of-my-gestimated arrival time) that she’d hardly got ready to meet me and it took longer to do the final 3 miles or so than the whole journey from the airport!!  Our reunion – after 11 years – was brief as an early night called.

We left Sydney at 6am Friday – the 13th – for what became an 8+ hour journey into the wilderness. We eventually arrived at Tom Groggin Station (google it if you like). An old property right on the NSW/Victoria border – indeed, the Murray River which marks the border thereabouts, actually runs through the property! Here are some photos I took there.

Please don’t think for a moment we were roughing it! This is the main house at Tom Groggin.

Below  is part of the old farm down the hill – where a famous Australian poem (and film etc etc) has taken it’s inspiration : called The Man from Snowy River (if you like poetry, Google that as well).

When you enter the property there is the working farm – “our”  house is a further 4 Km (2.5 miles) up the hill, across the River Murray and then across a smaller river (the Omeo) – twice! All our possessions were transferred to a 4-WD Toyota at the farm for the final part of the trip. When the water is too high at the Omeo – everything gets carried over this bridge – which of course we had to try. Terrifying for this townie!!

It’s really a home-made mini-suspension bridge and (as you might imagine) sways and bucks a bit as one crosses! The most disconcerting bit being to look down through the metal mesh and realise only a few Meccano-like screws and a single cable are holding you 40 feet above the rushing river! Oo-er….

Not sure whether to take it at a run – or tip-toe!!

This is some of the view from the house – we are next to a National Park, quite close to Australia’s highest mountain – Mount Kosiosko (not sure about the spelling) and have crossed the Great Dividing Range to get here – in the Snowy Mountains. We came through a snowline at about 5000 feet and are about 3000 feet now in a gentler valley. At night though it is close the freezing, so we are glad of the enormous log fire.

The house is owned by a wealthy Sydney businessman and has 5 bedrooms all with en suite bathrooms, huge lounge and dining areas (inside and out)  and some lovely pieces of modern Australian and other native art.  It has been an enormous treat to be here, watching wild horses (brumbies) grazing up and down the hill, kangaroos (natch!), emus and herds of Black Angus cattle – which also supplied some of our dinners!!

You never saw such clear skies and legions of stars in your life, I bet!! We even managed a full moon, by good fortune.

After a bracing and relaxing weekend away, it was back again to the bright lights of Sydney, including this awesome sign when we stopped to use a road-side service area loo!!

Yikes…….

Good idea to look down the dunny (that’s Aussie for loo)  before using it!!

Pom Thoughts From Abroad

Posted on by jamesthecharles

Well, so much for good intentions. Though I did manage a final India “roundup with photos” recently, I realise I have been here in Western Australia for more than a week. And as I haven’t done very much, I can only say that actually, my time here is really the first few days when I have actually felt able to do nothing. I am even doing some sunbathing (sunbaking! as we say here) even though the practice is largely frowned upon and people go to quite some lengths to ensure no sun-tanning gets done.  Kids appearing as white-faced ghosts, grown adults with silver or white cheeks and noses : they know from experience the damage that the sun can do, long-term. It’s not like Jan Austen – or India for that matter – where a pale skin indicated a non-outdoor working life; even the outdoor workers (lifeguards, gardeners etc) are covered up and protected in the main.

I tell myself that my half to one hour in the sun daily is just toning my skin up nicely!  I don’t want to arrive in Sydney looking that a pale Pommie!  See what a different culture I come from! It’s actually about 28 degrees here this week (a hot 82 in UK speak) and clear blue skies mostly. There has been a little rain shower or three, which they need, and (like India) it gets dark pretty sharpish at 6.30 pm.

Since I am a creature of leisure and my hosts have now returned to work, I’ve been borrowing a bicycle and cycling around and usually ending up in the nearest town –  Mandurah – almost daily.  For a proper barista coffee (they don’t drink it at the house) and usually a snack or cake (you know me!). And a leisurely exploration of the area. Mandurah calls itself a City – I think the population is around 85,000 and it is the biggest place in WA apart from Perth (500,000).  Mandurah lies 50 miles  south of Perth and has been quite lucky in recent years in obtaining a new highway, a new railway from Perth (very efficient) and some very smart marina and canal-side housing developments. There are some beautiful waterside homes at prices than can climb towards $2M but you would get quite a lot for that – probably 7 beds and baths, several reception areas, boat moorings etc.

The Indian ocean lies one side (west) and Mandurah sits at the mouth of a river and inlet complex which is pretty huge and includes several conservation areas and legions of birds, inc. ibis, cormorants, pelicans, parrots (of many types) and of course bush creatures like kangaroos.  Only today – as I returned from the cycle, not 200 yards from home, two kangaroos were browsing the grass verge, looking well-fed and sleek and with little interest ine me. They move with a strange, slow gait – almost gracefully for animals with such tiny paws and such large hind quarters!

Reaching for my iPhone to take a picture, I realised – to my utter horror – that I had actually left the phone on top of a publci phone box in the city- half an hour cycle away!  Being too budget-conscious to use the iPhone itself, I tried to call across country using a payphone and (James being James) when it didn’t work, I stomped the receiver down, took back my coins and cycled off – completely forgetting the phone propped up on top so I could read the number to dial! A fatal combination of impatience, irritation, forgetfulness, Jamesness.

But there is a God! Trevor was at home close by and we flew into Mandurah. Astoundingly, there was the iPhone, still sitting atop the payphone – and this on what is Mandurah’s main through road. Thank God – and I say that with humility and gratitude! – that most people have mobiles these days so pay phones get very little use.

I happen to think that Australia is (by comparison to England – and certainly London) a rather more moral place  and that a finder would have handed my phone in. But I am very grateful that I did not have to put that theory to the test. Phew!!

Meantimes, I have been doing a little research into the place called Australind  – almost exactly 100 miles south of Perth. It seemed to me that the name was of such significance (Australia and India – two of Britain’s major colonies) that it must have a special  place in Australia’s founding history.  The truth is somewhat more mundane and sadder.

Though first sighted in the 1650s by Dutch explorers,  no landings were made until about 1802 and only in 1841 did the british purchase (from whom??)  103,000 acres with the intention of settling and breeding horses. For use in Australia and in India – hence the name.  The settlement really lasted barely two years : as someone remarked, there was no rain in the summer and too much in the winter. The land (as it is all along the coast) was too poor to support crops etc and though 440 settlers came from Britain, the site was officially abandoned as a settlement in 1875.  The focus shifted a few miles away to Bumbury, but largely to Perth where the abundant Swan River allowed for an inland settlement and thus ensured its future as the state capital.

Some hardy souls clearly hung on – though it is interesting to note that as late as the 1971 Census, only 418 lived in Australind. Today that may be as many as 7500 but it will never be an important place and (indeed) is bypassed now by the “Old” Coast Road and by a new inland freeway and has no rail connections. I still plan to visit to see the 2/3 buildings that remain from that first attempt in the 1840s.

I realise that my daily cycles around the area are actually filling my mind and imagination with lots more to tell. Not to mention my first visit to Perth in 11/12 years. So I will leave you with an image or two :

a lovely picture  from around the time of the 1st World War  which captures the evening light and the trees that make this such a wonderful landscape to wander. Called ‘Droving into the Light’ by a German artist – Hans Heysen.

And I also include a shot of the ubiquitous local emblem – state, river and Brewery!! The Black Swan!


Keep me in your thoughts, as I do you in mine.

India to Australind.

Posted on by jamesthecharles

I know, I know, some of my titling is excruciating – it can only get worse!!

And as for the content, for example:

You call that poetry?

No I do not

I call it verse –

which is far worse,

is it not?

Anyhoo – for my final blog that relates to India – this will be mostly photographic. I baulked – at the last minute – at packing my digital camera in my small case, so all the photos come via the iPhone. And in fact are not toooo bad despite that.

What they lack in composition and artistry, I hope, will be offset by the sparkling wit that goes with them!

Enough, already. Here are a few of my favourite things (apart from raindrops on kittens, bright rubber mittens – or however that song goes!):

This temple roof is completely covered with individual figures – and it all gets re-painted every two years! Talk about the Forth bridge Temple.

This is a proper Juggernaut!! Quite a painting job too!

And in the middle of the surrounding slums and chaos, this beautiful (and beautifully kept) temple in the middle of a “tank” – or water storage facility.

 And how about this for water management? As good (almost) as anything the Romans built – tho it hasn’t had to survive 2000 years yet – maybe 200 and is still carrying water to Mysore City from the mountains.

This is Tipu Sultan’s summer palace away from Mysore – on the river at Seringinpatnam (check that spelling!) where ultimately he was defeated by Wellington.

This stunning carving I mentioned in an earlier post – it is part of the wall / Water Gate at Seriningipatnam (etc!) but now – since the walls have fallen or been partly destroyed by the British, this piece sits at the River’s edge simple as a block of stone, which I stepped off into the River – as I bathed (a bit) to have all my sins forgiven. ;))

Things were not ALL bad! Here’s a solid gold throne from the Tipu’s other Palace!

This strange little house – right behind my “hotel” in Mysore – shows what life was really like for most people say half a century ago!!

I think I will send this to the London Zoo – as an example of how you can manage the litter and be subtle at the same time!!

And so, the Englishman abroad takes a break (in the Temple doorway) – certain sure that the Helpful Attendant will be returning the iPhone(camera) in a moment, together with a reminder that it’s always a good idea to make a small donation to the Temple (i.e. to him!!).

OK Folks – no more India stuff for the time being – until I start on my research for the Maharaja of Coorg (when I get home!).

Hope these give a little flavour of what a strange, smelly (in every way), entrancing and befuddling country India is.

I can only encourage you all to pack a small bag, forget about keeping too clean and laundered, don’t eat anything that hasn’t been cooked immediately before. Don’t drink the water – bottles are everywhere and price-controlled; only eat fruit you can peel. If you want to eat local (as opposed to air-conditioned tourist places) pick the busy places where there’s a queue of Indians.

Don’t expect NOT to be fleeced, no matter how kind and friendly your rickshaw driver / hotel front man / waiter is – you represent £££ or $$$ for them and they will – in the politest possible way – try to remove as much as possible from you. So I always try to keep in mind that – even if I am paying Rupees 150 for a ride that really should cost less than Rupees 100, the reality is, we’re arguing over 40p!!

(Given that there are 70 Rupees to a £1 and you can eat well for 200-300 Rupees!)

Hare Rama Hare Krishna  – from this old ex-hippy to you all!