Outback Soundscape

I think it was Miles Franklin who said that if there were one sound which could define her life, it’d be that of a tin can rattling along a street (or something along those lines). If I had to pick one at the moment I write this, it’d be the sound of one hand slapping March Flies to death on my legs...or maybe the piercing repetitive clanking of Nev breaking the bead on yet another tyre...or perhaps the distant, constant hum of the community generator.

OK, so I can’t pick just one: there are yapping dogs; locals yelling at the dogs, at each other, at the world (depending on the time of day and substances consumed); screeching cockatoos; the old-fashioned ringing of the doorbell at the shop next door; a lawn mower somewhere nearby; 4WDs and trucks rolling into our yard or just whizzing past; River (Nev’s dog) panting in the heat; and the slapping of March Flies continues the whole way through. And then some days, there’s almost nothing but birds making the only kind of tweets we need in our life.

As well as single sounds, there are soundtracks to parts of my life. When I hear these songs, they can recreate the camaraderie of a particular workplace or the solitary sense of cold winters past. The song of the season at Mt Elizabeth was, without a doubt, Zac Brown Band’s ‘Chicken Fried’ (courtesy of our cook Sharron), the chorus of which we belted out nightly as we washed the dishes after dinner, with little regard for the remaining diners...

“... a little bit of chicken fried,
cold beer on a Friday night,
a pair of jeans that fit just right,
and the radioooh-aaooh-aaoooh”

A song or album can often bring to mind a particular event, like the way my mobile ring tone (which I rarely hear these days, living out of range as I do) reminds me of being on the rooftop bar at the Union Club with a great bunch of friends, Hadass and I shouting along every time the phone rang...

“The best things in life are free
but you can save them for the birds and the bees
I want MONEY
that’s what I want.”

I also tend to associate particular songs with specific people in my life. For me, listening to Lowrider’s ‘What Are You Looking For?’ (“What...IF...I. Don’t. Know?”), will always remind me of living with Meisy in Parkville – two handsome and entertaining Germs in our flat and more wordly and wonderful friends just a crack in the floorboards away.

For me the combination of single sounds in my life as well as my soundtrack of the moment has drastically changed along with the environment in which I live – from the urban soundscape of Melbourne, to the outback soundscape of the Kimberley.

I’m sure that along with the physical change, I’ve become more open to new and different sounds, including music I never thought I’d listen to by choice...

When Nev and I started courting (the lingo here is another story altogether!), he’d pick me up from Mt Liz and take me places in his car. These were Nev’s pre-iPod days (since rectified), and his source of music was a handful of terrifically scratched CDs – if ever there was a technology not made for the outback, that’s gotta be it – and a USB stick that a friend had put together for him, featuring songs from Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

So, not only did I get to enjoy the likes of ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Nothing Compares To You’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and ‘Oh, What a Night’ as we drove to and camped in beautiful places, but we also listened to albums by such great 70s rockers as The Police, whose lyrics Nev changed from “So Lonely”, to “Leooooonie”, and howled it out as loud as he could far too often. I have to admit, even if it might have driven his neighbours crazy, I liked it then and I like it now, much more than I would have imagined.

Less impressed was I, when I discovered the source of one of Nev’s sweet sentiments was actually appropriated from the lyrics of a Deborah Conway song. And, you know, things are pretty great between Nev and I, but the other day Whispering Jack nearly brought that all undone. The good thing is, I could probably delete it from Nev’s iTunes and he’d be hard pressed to get it back. Ahhhhhh technology; I like it when it’s on my side.

It’s also a little strange to realise that I don’t often want to listen to the albums and songs that used to be my absolute faves and that’s at least partly because my outlook has changed so [Achtung! Confession approaching] where heartsick and lonesome used to form the underlying narrative of many of my cherished albums, now I’m altogether more positive and, lacking the music library to support this change, well, let’s just say that Nev’s iPod is a welcome addition (Whispering Jack notwithstanding).

We don’t hire vegetarians

On my first morning at Mt Elizabeth, I sat at the breakfast table with
my new boss, Pat Lacy. Pat's husband Peter was the boss too, but I
reported to Pat. Everyone else had started work and while I had some
breakfast, Pat asked me how I'd slept. In her abrupt manner, pretty
well the next thing she said was, "I hear you're vegetarian," promptly
followed by "...wouldn't have hired you if known that." I was a
little worried, but assured Pat that it wouldn't be a problem, and in
truth, it never was. And not once more did I have to pick the meat
out of my dinner.

Depending on the number of staff and the number of guests dining
(sometimes up to 30), Sharran might cook for everyone or Pat or Peter
might cook for 'the house' or, in what always reminded me of mafia
movies, 'the family' – an all-encompassing term which included the
ever-changing staff. If there were vegetarian guests there would be a
vegetarian dish such as a pasta bake, vegie fritters (my all-time
fave) or a quiche. In time, Sharran expanded her repertoire into
vegie lasagne and mexican-esque bean dishes and even Pat on the odd
occasions she cooked for guests worried that there wouldn't be enough
for me to eat. I can assure you, I did not go hungry!

When I arrived there were seven staff, which along with me included
three backpacker girls from the UK, Ireland and Denmark, Johnny the
New South Welshman and man-of-few-words who was a mechanic and general
station hand, Sam the Pommy station hand and Sharran, the
aforementioned cook. In the time I worked at Mt Liz, about five other
staff passed through with only Johnny and Sharran staying through till
the end of the season in October.

The five family members who were also workers included Peter and Pat,
their niece Kymmie, their daughter-in-law Emily and their grandson
Blake (who at only 16 months didn't have too many official duties).

Kymmie was Pat's 2nd-in-Charge, who knew the answer to everything,
could solve almost every issue and was responsible for teaching me the
ropes and for holding fort if Pat was elsewhere. One of the most
competent 19-year-olds I reckon I've ever come across, Kymmie was
great to work with and work for and came to be a good friend to me
too.
In the first days I learnt the basics of my job, which wasn't hard,
but was constant. Starting at about 6.30 or 7am each day, we girls
helped set up and serve breakfast, cleaned up afterwards and then
started on the rooms.

With 11 mostly twin rooms in the homestead, a further 7 beds in the
cottage and a well-used campground, there was plenty of bed-making,
laundry, sweeping & mopping and bathroom cleaning to be done. This
work usually carried us through to lunch time, but with a decent break
for smoko (even though nobody smoked) it wasn't too taxing as long as
we had enough staff and it wasn't too hot. In the times when there
were only two girls working and there were multiple busloads of
tourists, it got to be hectic.

After a good-sized lunch of leftovers, there was plenty more cleaning,
washing and re-stocking to be done in the afternoon as well as new
guests to meet, greet and deliver tea and bikkies, and campers to
check-in and surprisingly recognise. But we also had a two hour break
which was long enough for a walk and a dip in the creek, if you wanted
to, or a nap and laze about, or if you were John, Shaz or Kymmie a
quick horse ride. In July and some of August it was still cool enough
to do the 45min Homestead Walk, which Sharran did most days, but it
wasn't long before we had to switch to mornings due to the escalating
temperatures.

At around 4 or 5 in the afternoon the dining room had to be cleaned
and set up for dinner. It was a big room, with four or five tables,
which could and did seat 30 or more diners and could and did provide a
nice spot for Mt Elizabeth's dogs and tame wallabies to while away the
afternoons – the wallabies in particular not bothering to find
somewhere else to poo. Thus, cleaning this room was very good
exercise! Exercise which was often rewarded by a warm slice of Pat's
(or Kymmie's) freshly baked bread. If there was a busload of guests,
this pre-dinner time could prove pretty busy, but often there was a
nice lull of serviette folding, or some other relaxed activity.

Perhaps partly because we didn't have a liquor license, it wasn't a
rowdy place. The guests usually went off to their rooms straight
after dinner and we'd watch a bit of TV, or have a fire and a couple
of drinks. Bedtime was usually around 9 or 10pm for me. Nice n
early.

Coming Back to the Kimberley - July 2011

Although I was excited about the job offer, I wasn't 100% sure I was
doing the right thing. So, as soon as I landed back in Melbourne I
talked to my Dad. "I really want to do it, Dad, and I just can't think
of a reason why not," I said. Dad said, "That's coz there isn't one".
And I'm glad I listened. Three weeks later, I was on a flight back
to Broome.

An indirect flight to Broome, a lazy afternoon eating cackleberries
with Doug and a 2hr~ish bus trip to Derby was not a clever thing to do
the morning after my naughty niece's 21st birthday. I would not have
made that flight if not for my Mum, so thanks Mum.

After a night at the Boab Inn, I was hoping to be collected by someone
from Mt Elizabeth Station, but for one reason or another, they
couldn't get to town. Instead, I was collected by Pat Lacy's
sister-in-law, Ann Jane (nee Lacy), to spend a night at the lovely
house she and her husband Rick have built at Woolybutt Rise, just out
of Derby. And a very nice introduction to the extended Lacy family it
was.

Early the next morning, Ann drove me to the turn off and I was again
collected, this time by Andrew an employee of Kimberley Recruitment on
his monthly trip out the Gibb to visit his clients in the Aboriginal
Communities.

A great day was spent driving the 350+ km to Mt Elizabeth stopping off
for avocado and vegemite sandwiches (courtesy of Andrew); a coffee
with Neville at Imintji, who suggested he'd be out to see me for lunch
at Mt Elizabeth the following week; a quick walk in to Galvan's Gorge
and a look at some rock art there; a nice afternoon dip at Barnett
River Gorge, soon to become a favourite; and finally a late afternoon
arrival at the Mt Elizabeth homestead, surrounded by lush green
gardens and populated by a friendly bunch of young staff.

I spent the first couple of nights staying at the cook, Sharran's
place, with poor Sam (a ringer on the station) booted out onto his
swag to make room for me, and Sharran started to introduce me to some
of the highs and lows of working on the station straight up, telling
me about difficult guests (of which, I was to find, there weren't
many). Amidst her tales came the comment, "...and then I get a fucken
vegetarian..."

I'd already picked the beef out of my curry at dinner that night, much
to the boys' amusement and had privately wondered how I'd manage with
this aspect of station life, but figured it would come out soon
enough, so I told her nervously, "Yeah...I don't really eat meat
either", trying to kind of play it down by not using the "V" word.
"Oh, true?" was Sharran's response, an example of the new lingo I
would also have to get used to.

M&Ms Tour Part III: El Questro and...the End?

The next day we continued on to El Questro, an enormous and heavily
promoted cattle station operating as a Wilderness Park, which the Ms
were divided about visiting and where Mike flat out did not want to
stay. We didn't take to the place on arrival, not to the lawns or the
manufactured 'township' and, after checking out the campground (and
the prices!), Mick and I decided Mike would be more cheerful if we
were to visit a few of the main attractions and continue on our way.

Zebeedee Hot Springs was an easy choice, but it was very crowded and
more like lukewarm springs; Amalia Gorge was a challenging
hike/climb, which is perhaps partly why there was almost nobody there,
and well worth the effort and, after a beer at Emma Gorge Resort, the
short climb to the falls was a bit of a challenge, but highly enjoyed
by Mick and I. Mike stayed at the Resort drinking coffee.

Late afternoon came and as we drove on to Kununurra, we hoped we'd
find a spot to camp to finish off our GRR experience. We didn't, as
it turned out, and continued on to Kununurra, where we camped for
three nights, before the Ms and I had a teary good bye.

Once back in Broome and checked in at Broome's Last Resort (true to
it's name), I was cheerful, relaxed and couldn't care less about the
crappy hostel I was in, the dodgy blokes at the Roebuck Hotel, or the
fact that I would be flying home the next day. I could, however, care
less about the lack of appealing employment prospects back in
Melbourne and set about at once contacting properties on the Gibb
River Road about work.

The next day, while visiting my old mate Doug, I was offered and
accepted the job at Mt Elizabeth – agreeing to be there in three weeks
time. It wasn't the end yet, not by a long shot.

M&M’s Tour Part II: Hann River to Home Valley

By this time we were getting along very well (to be fair, we had
gotten along easily pretty much from the start). M&M wouldn't let me
camp too far away from their trailer to keep an eye on me and were
nice enough to give me one of their spare pillows and let me use one
of their camp chairs around the fire, while one of them perched on a
slab or the stoop of the trailer. We shared the cooking and shared
the drinks (none of which I'd yet paid for) and shared stories of our
lives.

That night on the Hann River, we were pretty happy with our campsite.
There was nobody else around, and when one other trailer pulled in,
they were decent enough to park a way down the river. But after dark,
when we were watching the bush TV (the campfire), a car rolled in and
stopped right in front of Mick's bumper – so close that he would have
had to reverse to get out. This did not make for a friendly pair of
Ms and when the foreigners (who would have been forgiven if they
didn't have an Aussie in their midst) asked where we got our firewood,
Mick said, "Over the river, look out for the crocs," which of course
did not exist.

The next morning our neighbours continued to unwittingly affront us by
their mere presence, with one of their number going not very far away
to relieve herself. Mick turned around and was met with a sight,
which he infomed us was definitely an all-over tan. A site I'm not
sure he was that unhappy to see...

We continued along the GRR and turned off to drive 60km up the
Kalumburu Rd to Drysdale River Station, my first experience of an
operational cattle station. There we checked in for camping and
dinner and before we knew it, it was happy hour again. Dinner at
Drysdale was fantastic, with the chef putting in a special vegie
effort for me, and after dinner we joined the crowd around the
campfire, which turned out to be a friendly mix of staff and guests.
I chatted to some friendly foreign staff members over many a glass of
red, and started to wonder whether this could be a job for me.

The next day we hit the skies, in a scenic flight along the Prince
Regent River to St George Basin, taking in the King Cascade along the
way and flying over and around the Mitchell Falls a few times too.
Although it's possible to drive to the Mitchell Plateau and visit
these spectacular falls, the road was still closed from the big wet
and so a flight was the only way we could see this magnificent area.
And I'm so glad, as I'd have found it hard to justify the cost of the
flight otherwise and there's just no comparison for the site of this
massive almost entirely untouched area from the air.

Unfortunately, my indulgence of the night before had me reaching for
my Sic-Sac, a precaution which the packaging thoughtfully warned me
not to be embarrassed by, as 'even vetaran air travellers are subject
to occasional motion sickness'. However, I made it back to land, my
pride intact and we headed straight for famed burgers, at which the
chef again excelled with his vegetarian offering.

Our Drysdale adventure complete, we headed towards Kununurra with a
few days exploring still up our sleeves. Not far along we decided to
bush camp for a night at Russ Creek, a little spot where we met and
spent happy hour with a cheerful couple, the only others camped there.

On the way to Home Valley Station the next day, we had to cross the
Durack River. There's a practise of walking across waterways in the
Kimberley, to determine whether they're safe to cross. This is
obviously not a good idea when the waters are known to be home to
saltwater crocs, such as the Pentecost, which we'd be crossing the
following day. When we got to the Durack M&M decided they'd wait till
someone else came along to see how deep it was – even though Mick had
previously stated that the driver should really be the one to walk the
river, so that he could be sure of the depth, the sand at the bottom,
the holes, rocks etc. I thought they were just being lazy buggers so
said I'd walk it...something I've since learned is not advisable.

Anyway, walk it I did. It was a long walk, because I really was
scared and caught myself stopped in the middle staring back and
realising the quickest way out would be to keep going, but it was
barely knee-deep and perfectly safe to drive across.

Just before reaching Home Valley we stopped for a toilet stop at the
side of the road. It seemed to be a lookout of some sort, and there
weren't many places to hide for a wee. So I crouched beside a big
rock, trying to maintain some sense of decorum...believe what you
will. Upon our arrival at Home Valley, we asked about things to do in
the area. The woman who checked us in enthusiastically recommended
the 'Kissing Rock', apparently the place Nicole and Hugh had first
kissed in the inexplicably awful film Australia. Needless to say, the
Kissing Rock was quickly renamed and M&M greatly enjoyed my
embarrassment.

Home Valley, whilst an impressive place to arrive at with three huge
Boabs marking the gateway, was a disappointing place to camp.
Although there are huge manicured lawns for camping, the operators
only allow visitors to camp in one section of lawn till it's full to
bursting, before opening up another section. We met some nice people
though, had a nice HOT gorge walk, a few beers and generally enjoyed
our stop.

Mick & Mike’s Tag-a-long Tour Part I: From Broome to Manning Gorge

So, the blokes I met in Broome caravan park turned out to be a couple
of retired blokes from the east coast. Mick (60), from Eleebana (Lake
Macquarie), NSW, had the 4WD and the camper trailer and Mike (66),
from Nambucca Heads, NSW, was along for the ride. We hit the road
pretty much straight away and, although I later wondered at my
reckless decision, at the time I didn't feel there was any reason to
hesitate, or to be concerned at the turn of events. Mum thought
otherwise. And even Mike was telling me I should have taken a picture
of their licence plate and sent it on to someone. I know he had a
point and I guess I was a bit lucky that in the end none of these
safety concerns mattered.

We stopped briefly in Derby to shop for food and booze, but upon
discovering there weren't many other things to do in Derby, continued
another 126km (our first foray along the Gibb River Road [GRR]!) to
Windjana Gorge. We camped for two excellent nights there, visiting the
gorge itself and its many freshwater crocs (oh, I saw about 13 in half
an hour), as well as Tunnel Creek, which in my opinion is an
over-rated walk in the dark through waist-deep water surrounded by
large groups of elderly tourists wearing not much and freshwater crocs
who'd rather be left alone. As an introduction to the Kimberley
though, Windjana Gorge is perfect. Even better if you actually know
of the history of the place, an awful tale of genocide well-described
in Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance.

From Windjana, Mick n Mike's tour continued along the GRR to Lennard
River Gorge (even though it was closed!); Imintji, where we had a tyre
repaired by Neville, and at about 307km from Derby, we stopped for the
night – at Mt Barnett Roadhouse and Manning Gorge. We camped
overnight at Manning Gorge campground, which was packed and without
functional amenities (no lights, no hot water) but not entirely
unpleasant. We ended up playing cards with our neighbours, a friendly
couple and once again, getting stuck into M&Ms goodly supply of
wine...

The 4km return hike to Manning Gorge is an awesome hike and the gorge
itself is a stunning spot, with a waterfall and heaps of space for
swimming. We didn't hang around all that long, but you could, if you
had some tucker to keep you going. Instead we got back on the road
and, although I'd chatted to Peter Lacy briefly at the Roadhouse, the
sign at the Mt Elizabeth turnoff warned of a very rough road, so we
continued on and made ourselves a bush camp on the banks of the Hann
River instead.

Doug

I don't know why Doug came to talk to me, but I'm sure glad he did.
We got chatting pretty easily and I asked him where he lived before
Broome. He answered cheekily, 'My mother was a gypsy,' but went on to
tell me that he was adopted at about the age of four. He doesn't
know, but guesses that his family couldn't afford to keep him and that
his adopted parents only wanted him for labour on their farm (although
I have to wonder why they'd choose a four-year-old if this really were
the case).
He says he was well looked after, clothed and fed, but there wasn't a
lot of love in his life. He had many chores to do from the age of
four, and from school-age he was up at 5am to do his chores, before
walking some miles to get the train to school and didn't get home till
6 at night, when he had yet more chores to do.
At the age of ten Doug met a girl called June, who asked him why he
walked all that way to the train and didn't ride a bike. "I don't
have anywhere to leave my bike," he answered, to which June promptly
offered for him to leave it at her place, saying she'd ask her mum
first. Mum said yes, Doug started to do just that, and ten years
later Doug and June were married. In the 70s they came to Broome and
stayed. They had to move to Perth in the late 90s, because June had
been diagnosed with cancer and was receiving treatment. When June
passed away in 2001, Doug told his family, "If I'm going to be lonely,
I'm not going to be cold; I'm going back to Broome".

Broome and the Beginning

It was almost June. I really needed a new job. The doc kept telling
me not to worry about it, but I l felt like it would help to get back
in some kind of rhythm; to feel useful again. At the same time, I
also wanted to get away from Melbourne; to wipe the slate clean; to go
for a hike; and most of all, to curl up in my little tent in a wild
and beautiful - and peaceful - place. It was too cold and wet to
consider camping in Victoria, so I set my sights further afield and,
after recommendations from friends, decided it was high time I got to
the Kimberley - priority destination: Bungle Bungles. A couple of
weeks away'd do me good and I'd get stuck into my job search when I
returned...right?

I landed in Broome on a Friday afternoon and took a shuttle to the
hostel I'd booked. I'd done scant research, but knew it would be
difficult and expensive to get around the Kimberley on my own, with or
without a vehicle and I thought I'd have more chance of meeting travel
buddies in a hostel. But when I got there I took an immediate dislike
to the place and impulsively decided to walk a K down the road to the
campground. After all, I had all my own camping gear. The welcome
wasn't much better, but I set up camp and was feeling pretty pleased
when a friend of a friend came to take me out for a drink (big thanks
to Sue & Mel for the nice welcome!).

Over the next two days, I discovered that Broome is pretty hard to get
around without a car and that it's not really the place to be on a
long weekend - it's utterly devoid of any sign of life coz everyone
heads out of town! But I did manage to get to the excellent Saturday
morning market and make a soon to be great new friend, Doug Thompson
(Doug's story to come). I also gave in and hired a car. Mainly so I
could go to all the campgrounds and stick up notices, hoping to meet a
travel buddy. But while I had the car I also visited Gantheaume Point
for a stunning sunset picnic.

Monday morning came and I was planning to call some foreign guy about
a trip he was planning from Broome to Kununurra along the highway for
which he wanted a female companion (dodgy much?). I'd met some German
girls too, and thought I might get back in touch with them, depending
what this bloke said. I'd also left my number with Conservation
Volunteers who run fantastic-sounding conservation projects, where you
camp in the Bungles for 10 days for peanuts. Well, a fair few peanuts
at about $40 a day, but still a damn sight cheaper than the $2000+
charged by the budget tour operators for the same time frame.

As I was walking to the shower block that morning I said hello to my
curious neighbour. He and his mate were packing up, so I asked where
they were headed. When he said, 'The Gibb River Road', "the shortest
and most spectacular way between Derby in the west and
Kununurra/Wyndham in the east" (The Kimberley – An Adventurer's
Guide), not many more words passed between us before I asked if he
might take a passenger...me. My life changed when he said yes.

Imintji Life Update

A very dear friend of mine recently sent me a message asking for
answers to the following six questions, whilst another lamented at the
number of times she's fruitlessly checked this blog for updates. So,
here are some answers which I hope will keep you interested, dear
readers.

1) With the soaring temperatures in the Kimberley, what time is
acceptable for beer o'clock?

The answer to this question depends on many factors, including...
a) what time I wake up, which is usually between 6 and 9am due to
sunrise which is shortly followed by escalating temperatures (it's
currently 5pm and 33.3 degrees at the back of the workshop, where our
lounge room is located, and I *think* I'm on my 3rd beer).
b) whether I am employed or required to perform any kind of rational
or logical thought, which I am not at present.
c) whether I need to drive anywhere, which I usually don't; lately
when I go anywhere I go with Neville and he likes driving so much that
he does most of it.
d) availability of said beverage, which at Nev's place is plentiful.

The short answer is lunchtime, but sometimes we have a bourbon at
lunch instead. But if we go for an early morning gorge/river walk, we
might have champagne for breakfast, thereby negating my previous
answer. Five o'clock is definitely late.

2) Do you ever sleep outside?
The answer to this question depends on how you qualify 'outside'.
Given that there are no floor to ceiling walls at Imintji, you could
say that we're always outside. However, we do sleep in the caravan,
so I suppose that qualifies as inside, even though the walls are
almost entirely flyscreen. When we go camping we ALWAYS sleep outside
(of course), but depending on the mozzies, we might put up a tent but
no fly unless there are storms...is that still outside?

Short answer: frequently - and it's great!

3) Where is the bathroom? In the caravan or in the repair shop?
Hmmm...bathroom...by which you mean room with a bath in it? We
haven't got one of those. There's a bath somewhere, which Nev says
he's gonna set up outdoors for us. We do have a tin shed with a
shower in it and it's out the back of the workshop, on the way to the
caravan. But it doesn't have a toilet. The toilet at the workshop is
a work-in-progress, but there's a shop next door and they have toilets
(full of frogs), which we can use. I recently met a woman who is
married to a grader driver and she waited four years for a toilet!

Breaking News: Neville has just promised me that he won't make me wait
four years.

4) During the wet season, will you live in an actual house that has
walls? Where is said house?
Actual house...no. Um...walls, yes. We're in the process of moving
to Location 8, which is NOT a bar in Melbourne, but Nev's 10 acre
block in the Phillips Range, 50km from Imintji. On the block there
are two 'dwellings'...I suppose you'd call them. One with walls, in
which we sleep. It's basically a shed, but there's a rug on the floor
and a sliding door and the mozzie dome is on a raised platform, which
I like to call a mezzanine. But no, no house.

5) Is Nev a good cook? What is his top dish thus far?
Yes, yes and yes! Nev is an excellent host and a very good cook. His
favourite thing to make is pizzas and roasts, but he also makes a mean
veggie curry and has shown rapid advances in his vegetarian cooking
skills, given that he only started out on this venture approximately
three months ago. He has also made impressive feasts as veggie
burgers (on a camp fire, no less!), veggie nachos, delicious egg
cookups for brekkie and inspired spontaneous creations that as yet
remain unnamed. In short, I'm always well-fed...possibly a little too
well-fed!

AND:
How long will you be in Melbourne?
I have just this very day booked our flights and we'll be in Melbourne
from 27 December till 9 January. We're both really looking forward to
it and hope to spend time with everyone who's in town.

Any further questions?! Email me! Look forward to seeing you Xx

A Tale from The Muddy Waters

The Muddy Waters is a newspaper produced in Derby. Numbering about 30pp, it is produced at least monthly and is available in about a dozen places around town.

At the Boab Inn, there's a tin to put your $2.50 in if you want to buy a copy. When I put mine in the staff checked to make sure I wasn't inadvertently paying for my internet usage, which is free for guests.

With the cover featuring the success of the Bush Poets' Breakfast - an event I'm disappointed to have missed - the latest Muddy Waters features horoscopes; useful phone numbers; obituaries - as well as birthdays(!); Derby Senior's News (including a expected visit from the Broome seniors).

There are also a number of columns including from Quentin, a local policeman; Diana, a keen gardener; Fong, your friendly pharmacist pontificating on the health benefits of milk thistle and little blocks of useless information, such as 'Eunuchs do not go bald'.

It's an interesting paper, and makes me wonder why we can't continue to have papers in the city. But I'm not really in the mood for debate - and my Muddy Waters horoscope tells me not to make waves, unless I am on a very big boat and not far from land.

So, instead, I'll share with you the poem from the winner of the annual Johnny James' written bush poetry competition, Dr James Fitzpatrick.

Hope in the Valley

There's hope in the Valley, it flows slow and deep
A river of life floods the plains
It softens the tears that the grandmothers weep
Like a desert refreshed by the rains

There's pride in the Valley, those women stood strong
To stop that damned river of booze
While businessmen, countrymen swore they were wrong
But the women had too much to lose

See the children were damaged before they were born
The alcohol poisons the brain
The grandmothers grew them up, tired and forlorn
While the parents went drinking again

Now the river of grog is a trickle out there
And the young people hunt through the skies
For the spirits of old men with wild untamed hair
And that wise, patient gleam in their eyes

There's hope in the Valley, it flows deep and slow
Like culture - where life finds its themes
The river of hope has a long way to go
But it's flowing, and so are their dreams.

Melbourne to Derby and Beyond

Yesterday was a hell of a day.

After the hilarity of Jaymi's 21st, I made it home sometime around 2 or 3am and commenced packing, more than a little inebriated. Finally went to sleep around the time mum came to wake me up, 4.30. Slept in my clothes until it was time to get to the airport at about 5.30 (thank you mum, for not allowing everyone's assumption about me missing the plane to come true).

17 hours later, I checked in at the Boab Inn in Derby and ordered a pint.

Next time I'll be flying direct - and not directly after a party! Not much to say in the post, but that I met a friendly guy on the bus and I ruminated on how I feel very much like I'm escaping, but legitimately. What do you reckon?

POLAND: 23RD AUGUST

Dear Diary,

I'm not really in the mood for conversing, but I'm hoping that a litre of Zywiec (that's beer, Adam!) and some Legendarny Smak Krakersy (which of course means 'legendary tasty crackers', right Ola?!) will improve matters somewhat.  And, as I become aware of drinking duty free beer in an airport terminal, I recall the threats to sic the Feds on us at Hobart airport for drinking some leftover goon, politely, from plastic cups.  Ah, Europe, the wondrous place where you can drink anywhere, provided you behave yourself. Seriously, on German trains, they have this clause.  But in Germany they also consider beer to be essential, thus it remains untaxed (a benefit which I don't think even applies to tampons in Australia) and insanely cheap – unlike coffee, which is heavily taxed in Germany.

So, for those of you who've lost track like me, I've been away now for about a month.  And, as is my wont, I'll work backwards to the beginning.

I'm currently in Katowice, Poland, awaiting part II of my nice cheap flight to Kiev.  It cost me somewhere around 60 quid, from Milan, but I had to kill five hours here.  Customs/border control tried to speak Polish to me while checking my credentials and were surprised to learn that I couldn't speak back.  Such is the sad truth – that I can probably speak more Italian than Polish, and even that I only just learnt in the past week.

SWITZALY: 15TH-23RD AUGUST

Wow, my left ring finger really wanted to pluralise 'week', and it's true that it feels like I was in Italy for longer than one week – and I nearly was because although I knew my flight was leaving on the 23rd, I had the idea that it was a Monday.  It was only yesterday, lying in the sun by the cascata (waterfall) near Chiavenna with Michele, writing a thank you card for my wonderful hosts Laura & Vinci, that I realised the date, and...eeeeeeeeeeek!  Lolli and Teo had to kick people out of their bar so they could dash to Chiavenna for a good bye drink.  Oh, but I think they LOVED to have an excuse to chuck a bit of a sickie...

So, I arrived in Chiavenna last Sunday evening, from the Swiss Alps (the Engadine Valley), where Marty and I had spent the weekend – he went kite surfing FOR HOURS on the Saturday (he was the 2nd last kite on the lake at Silvaplana and I was accompanied by peanuts and beer while I waited, oh so patiently...not my forte, as you may know...and then he nearly blacked out, methinks perhaps he overdid the exertion...but some pizza fixed him up and we had an early night in a campground full of exhausted kite-surfers.

On Sunday, the worse for wear Grandpa Moo Moo and I went for a day hike above Pontresina (not far from Silvaplana, which is near St Moritz).  We kinda cheated, I thought, because we started our hike with a chairlift which took us up to around 2000m and only climbed the remaining 1000m up to Piz Languard (3262m), but still we did it and it was really excellent, but a bit difficult to breathe at that height!  Marty and I also had one fun night out with his flatmate in Stuttgart, on the Friday when I arrived – luckily for me it was the Sommerfest, a big festival in the centre of the city.  We saw some great jazz, including a very convincing rendition of 'What a Wonderful World' (video to come!).  I'd expected to spend more time there, but Switzerland was appealing to both of us, and I'd already spent two weeks in various German cities.

Arriving in Chiavenna on Sunday evening was like coming home.  There is nothing like Italian hospitality – and they tell me they're considered 'cold' in the north and that the further south you go, the better it gets!  We went to a fancy new restaurant that night, which had only very recently been opened by some friends of my hosts.  It seemed that nobody in our group really liked the place, and at that dinner, and future dinners, I marvelled at how much discussion there was about every element of the evening – in Italy, everyone has an opinion and they're not afraid to shout it out loud!  Anyway, I liked the dinner and it only cost me a kiss!  I liked everything in Italy!  And having a personal translation service, in the form of the dashing, young Fabio who lived in Sydney for 16 years and thus speaks Aussie English without a trace of an Italian accent, was a bemusing bonus!  Grazie mille Fabio!!!
I returned to Switzerland twice to 'take in the sun' during my stay in Italy, hence 'Switzaly'.  The first time Laura and I spent an absolutely lovely day lazing, dozing and reading by the Silsersee at Isola – a freezing alpine lake which we only managed to jump into for about 3 seconds and resurfaced to applause.  The second time we drove with Laura's sister Cami, her Mum Antonia and her mum's friend Mariana to the other side of the mountains, the Splugel Valley (I think), for the thermal baths in Andeer.  It was a great day too, but we drove through three mountain passes and spent two hours in the pools and were pretty tired when we came home to Friday night dinner and drinks plans...but we went out anyway and had a great dinner at a Crotto (www.crottoalprato.it) – a particular type of restaurant only found in Chiavenna and named such because of the mountains in which they have natural wine and cheese cellars.  There is a set menu usually at Crottos – and in this case it was a five-course, heavy, meaty and lasted a good few hours.  But of course, my dietary requirements were well catered for with cheese cheese cheese!  We also drank a few chocolate grappas (!!) after the meal, and then proceeded to amble across town to a bar, where I sat uncomfortably for a few minutes across from a cool looking couple who I really wanted to talk to, but got the impression they couldn't speak English very well.  Tentatively, I asked them a few questions, and when I asked the guy, Pepe, what he did for work the floodgates opened.  Turns out he was a soldier, of some sort, and really wanted to tell me all about it, rating the differences between the soldiers of different countries and telling me amongst other things, that he didn't think soldiers should be allowed to have opinions about war.

LAKE COMO: 18TH-20TH AUGUST

While in Italy I also visited Lolli and Teo for two days in Domaso, on Lake Como, which was just gorgeous.  Surprisingly hot, so they say, for this time of year, but that of course, was good for business – Lolli and Teo run a bar La Maddonina, and business booms when the sun shines.  It was so super to visit them, and they took a day off each, to spend time with me...I felt very special.

The first day Teo and I went to Bellagio, by ferry.  It's an important town, apparently, because it's precisely where Lake Como diverges to become two separate lakes.  And it was pretty sweet to wander around for the day, albeit scorchingly hot and NOT a good place for swimming.  Surprisingly, there aren't that many good swimming spots on Lake Como, and people tend to swim in pools, rather than the lake.  Not because of the water, although I did hear of some toxic fungus in one town while I was there.   Anyway, the second day I got to spend with Lolli.  She and I went to Villa Carlotta, a huge, beautiful villa (possibly 70,000sqm, but don't quote me) which was given to Carlotta when she married George...I never quite worked out who he was tho, a duke I think...I was distracted by thoughts of George Clooney, who has a house near there – but who, according to Mariana, an authority on most things, doesn't care about anyone and has never had a girlfriend for more than two weeks.  But I digress.  

Lolli and I had a great day at Villa Carlotta and later swimming in the pool at Menaggio.  But both evenings that I spent by Lake Como ended similarly.  At around five or six o'clock, the Italian host for the day realised they had to return to work at the bar and started to negotiate with me...oh...Leonie...let's not go back.  Lolli/Teo can look after the bar tonight.  Let's stay in a nice hotel...let's have a few more drinks...let's...

Oh shit.  I think my flight is boarding!

UKRAINE: 23RD AUGUST – present

Ok, so I didn't miss my flight. And as predicted the beer helped me recollect my experiences. Now I'm Kiev.  I arrived close to midnight on Sunday, and was met at the airport by the beautiful Tatiana Alexandrovna and her tall and handsome son, Rostyslav Yurievich.  We caught a taxi home and proceeded to drink a bottle of wine, eat Yura potatoes (just the way he used to make them), salad and some wonderful fried and heavily mayonnaised vegies and to reminisce for hours about Yura, Tanya's husband, my mum's cousin and my favourite Ukrainian of all time who very sadly and suddenly passed away in June this year, only four years after his younger brother.  Lezhat Spakoyna.

At about 2am Tanya's flatmate woke up and came into the kitchen to smoke a fag, and down some Dzhin Tonic...oh Ukraine, how perfectly acceptable alcoholism is...

The next day was Independence Day in Ukraine, so after drinking the remaining cognac along with our midday brekkie, we headed to the city for the evening's antics.  We (and everyone else in Kiev) started with a walk through Marinsky Park to the lover's bridge, where lovers go and attach a personalised padlock inscribed with their names to the bridge to signify their undying love, or something.  Although it seems some of them can't afford padlocks and just tie tissues to the bridge.  Anyway, it's a nice idea, I like it.  I saw a similar thing through the window of a train in Germany – I think it was in Cologne.

We made our way to the Motherland monument and sat down to drink a beer mix – a popular, new beer/soft drink combo available in cherry, lemon and god knows what else. We saw some oldies singing traditional Ukrainian songs, lots of young women wearing traditional clothing almost fashionably, with tight jeans or short skirts and some buskers playing Gunners – 'knockin on heaven's door'.  Eventually we got to Kreshchatyk, the main street in Kiev, which is a 4 or 6 lane thoroughfare that is entirely fenced-off – so you usually can't cross it, but must use underpasses.  However, the street was closed and lined with tanks and army trucks, on which there were thousands of people climbing and posing for photographs.  Of course, we joined them.  There was also a stage, and some cool music by the Ukrainian band ????? ???? ('Another River'), which continued until the fireworks went off at about 10pm.  It was really a massive celebration – they were calling it Ukraine's 18th birthday, but my host commented that she thought things were better before independence, an opinion I'm sure is shared by many.  

NIKOLAYEVKA
Later in the week, I took an overnight train to Nikolayevka, where my pseudo grandparents Ivan Zaharovich (he's actually my grandma's brother, so my mum's uncle) and his wife Maria Pavlovna live, and where Tanya, Yura and Rostik also used to live.  It was difficult to get a ticket, so I had a place in the Plaskartny Wagon, which is sort of compartmentalised, but without doors so it's pretty open, and all along what would be the corridor are narrow bunks too.  I reckon it fits more than 50 people and is a pretty novel experience the first time.  People often talk to me on Ukrainian trains, I guess because I look so obviously different, and I was really pleased to find that I could hold a conversation, if a little haltingly.  I was asked to change places with another woman, so that two friends could be nearer – and then a guy generously offered to swap with me again so I could have the nizxhny bed (bottom bunk), which unfortunately put me closer to the snoring babushka, which I suspect was his plan all along.  He was very friendly, but not in an uncomfortable way, and when I said good bye in the morning, he said something like 'don't forget me' (nichevo ne zabyla), which I thought was pretty funny considering I didn't even know his name.

I was met at the station early the next morning by a teary, clutching Babushka Masha (that's Maria Pavlovna to you!), who nearly climbed onto the train in her rush to hug me, and the gold-toothed smiley Sergei – Tanya's cousin who has a car.  It's getting more common now to have cars and even fancy, new cars or 4WDs, but nobody in my family has one.  Lots of young guys have motorbikes now too, and of course they wanted to take me for a ride.  It was near impossible to say no, and once there were even three of us on the bike...helmets?  Ne nada!  At Masha's house everything is new these days, including the hot water service, which she rushed to buy from a nearby city on the day I arrived – because in Nikolayevka, there's no hot water throughout summer...at least not this summer, I think it's because of the crisis.  And although there is now a lot of new stuff to be seen in Ukraine, like laptops, DVD players, MP3 players etc, the standard of living is still pretty low, with really poor road conditions, public conveniences (don't even think you can call them 'conveniences', when they're not!) and public transport – for example it takes an hour by bus to travel the 15km from Slavyansk railway station to Nikolayevka.  

Masha, Vanya and I started that first day with breakfast and vodka, of course, followed by a nap.  And I am continually offered beer, wine and vodka at every meal, breakfast included.  However, unlike previous visits, I'm not overindulging at the pure wonder of it.  I'm actually attempting to not be overfed and grossly overwatered, but it's proving difficult, and exercise too is proving very difficult to achieve – mostly because I'm practically not allowed to go anywhere alone, oh yeah and hangovers abound.  Generally, my friends don't even let me go up four flights of stairs from the front door to Masha and Vanya's flat. This is endearing, in a way, but I'm starting to feel a bit strained.  And it's odd, yesterday I even asked about a particular woman's over-friendliness and was told that of course, everyone wants to meet me, to ask me questions, and even to touch me to see if I'm real.

But because of this, and because some people want to use their English, and improve it, I have found myself another dashing, 24yo translator & running buddy – Anton Constantinovich Chaichenko.  I actually met Anton four years ago when I was last here.  I didn't really remember him, to be honest, but I did remember meeting two cute, young English speaking boys on my last night in Nikolayevka.  Turns out those boys were Anton & Vova – and they haven't forgotten me, but then again, neither had the lady who works in the chemist.  Foreigners really aren't very common here – and particularly Australians.

Anyway, the first night Tanya's sister came over for dinner with her 5yo son Nazar, his 18yo sister Inna and her motorcycle riding boyfriend Sergei.  We had a vodka feast and then went gulyaht, which means 'walking', but which really just means walking until you get to a bar or the 'centre' and then sitting down and drinking the night away.  I talked with Tatiana Sultanovna (her dad's from Kazakhstan) and Anton and we made plans to go for a run in the morning – which, despite feeling like crap, we actually accomplished.  We ran to the river, Anton took a quick dip, and then we walked back, talking all the way coz his English is actually excellent.  He told me lots of funny things, like that he only drinks when he's at home, in Nikolayevka, because otherwise he might get crazy and blow something up, coz he likes blowing things up, like his school when he was 16...but he only blew up one wall, you see, so it wasn't so bad.  And all the kids were pretty happy coz they didn't have to go to school for a week.  

I think the population here is about 17,000 and that maybe 5,000 people work in the power station, which is probably the only reason this city exists, because the station powers the surrounding region.  Anton told me that the British wanted to buy the plans for the station and build their own, because it's so great, but when they realised they would have to manually fix everything, they lost interest.

On day 2, we went to the cemetery.  I wanted to, but I didn't realise how awful it would be to see Andrei and Yura's graves, side by side, and their poor mother in great distress, kneeling to hug their  headstones, kissing their pictures, and just bawling over the terrible pain of losing both her children, before the age of forty.  Vanya sat in stony silence, and Lida (Tanya's mother and a great support to Masha) busied herself cleaning and tidying, until Masha joined her.  We took a short walk around to visit and tidy the graves of other family members, and then returned to Andrei and Yura for a picnic.  There are lots of picnic tables in Ukrainian cemeteries, and it's normal to have a meal by the graves of your loved ones, and it's actually really a nice thing to do.
In the evening we went to old 'starry' Nikolayevka, where there are very old houses – no high rise flats like in the cities – and big vegetable gardens.  Lida's husband Sasha lives there, so we had dinner with him, Lida's sister Shura, Shura's son Sergei and his overbearing wife Marina, Inna, her brother and her boyfriend and my dyedushka (grandpa) Vanya.  Masha had had a health scare the previous night, which required an ambulance call –supposedly normal occurrence and nothing for me to worry about?! – so she didn't join us.  Dinner, with much vodka, was followed by some drinks in a bar, and then going to another bar to watch Yura's beloved football team Shaktyor Donetsk unfortunately lose to Barcelona (1-0).

The days following continued in the same vein.  There's not much to do in Nikolayevka, but stay at home watching TV or sleeping, roam the streets around or sit and drink.  So we did all of the above.  Everyone likes looking at photos, so we did plenty of that too.  And I've tried to sit and talk with Vanya and Masha as much as possible, but it's really hard, and they're both really miserable.  When Anton came for dinner last night it was pretty uncomfortable and he didn't stay long.  One day Anton and I went shopping in Slavyansk, which was pretty fun even though we had killer hangovers and it was horribly hot at the market.  But I just LOVE the fashion here, and I would buy so many clothes if only I had a Sherpa. I settled for just one top, which says in big, sequined letters 'I'm not going to teach you how to dance' – I love it!  I also found some great badges, cool hats and tres sophisticated sunglasses.  Vanya thinks everything is SO expensive, so I couldn't tell him what I paid.  The sunglasses were 120 griven, which is about 12 euro, but when he asked how much they were, and estimated 15-30 griven, I just had to tell a little white lie and agree with him.

GERMANY: 31ST JULY – 14TH AUGUST

But I've been remiss and must say a few words about my first two weeks in Germany.  My arrival was wonderful, mostly because Marty surprised me by meeting me at the airport and driving me to Aachen, where we went straight to Nico's new flat for some welcome drinks and then spent the weekend hanging out and partying with Nico and Gummi and a whole bunch of their mates. This was actually pretty fantastic because, although of course I was very happy to see Marty and it was nice not to have to take the train, it's also 400km for him to drive each way from Stuttgart where he lives to Aachen. So, to drive 800km to meet me and spend the weekend was really super lovely!

I've written a bit about that first weekend already, but after that, Nico was a brilliant host and tour guide, and we didn't spend more than a few days in one place.  He managed to skive off work A LOT (and it wasn't always my fault!), and so went to an awesome football match in Duesseldorf (in which 2nd level Fortuna Duesseldorf drew with 1st level Hamburg who they wouldn't usually play but it was a tournament and it went to kick off after the siren – if that's what it's called – and was very exciting, Gummi reckon the best game he's ever been to!), and spent a few days after that staying in Mettmann, where he grew up and where we went pretty much so that he could work on the house with his dad for a couple of days and I could ride his mum's bike around town and do some Tourism Vic work while sitting in his mum's lovely garden – easy life!  And Nico's mum is real, and a fabulous cook!!  It was pretty nice to meet them and spend a few days with them.  Although, if only I could speak six languages, and actually converse properly with people's familes!!

Nico and I had a pretty cool night out in hot hot hot Duesseldorf drinking Alt Bier and exploring the old city, then headed back to Aachen on a late train for a couple of days of swimming, shopping (needed more summer clothes!) and cycling around town, going to barbeques and hanging out in the park in the evening.  We went back to Mettmann on the weekend for a big party, and a day lazing by the pool at Nico's parent s place, where I managed to get stung by a bee grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then back to Aachen again on Sunday night.  The very next day, after a big sleep-in of course, we caught a bus to Maastricht, in the Netherlands, just to explore another interesting place coz it's only one hour away and something like 5 euros for the bus ticket and is really a world apart – we did a walking tour of the city, had a delicious Dutch brekkie, at around 2pm and did a mini pub crawl, but couldn't actually find any decent bars...shoulda checked the guide book!!  I think we stayed in Aachen for the rest of that week, but we did a decent bike ride to the 3-country-point a couple of days later, and so visited briefly both Belgium and the Netherlands again.  And had a super active night in the climbing forest, of which you've probably already seen pictures.

It was absolutely wonderful to spend two whole weeks hanging out there with my favourite Germ, and I'd love to have stayed longer, or go back and visit again, but I had a time-limited visa and a plane ticket to Ukraine, an Ola Chiquita Bonita to visit, some Wieners to see (!) and I still haven't worked out what the hell I'm doing after my redundancy present runs out and the thrill is gone.  A job is certainly in order, although my small, responsibility-fuelled desire to find one in Melbourne is rapidly diminishing...ah decisions, they're so overrated.  I wish I could employ a decision-maker, along with my Sherpa.  I wish I could SEE the future!  Ha, maybe I'll go to Turkey – they're good at seeing the future there, if I recall rightly...

Fso, mne para ('Done, I have to go') Xx

and then the fat lady sang

franz josef village feels like a lifetime ago.  the day we last wrote, we had beer for dinner - at least a schnitzel (7 beers), as nico says.  we didn't plan it that way, but it was pissing down and we sat on a swing on the verandah at our chateau franz (not quite as glam as it sounds) and, well, we just didn't move for hours - except to go to the fridge and back.  and when that was empty, we went to the pub.  we did think about dinner.  and we ate some of the free soup, but sitting on that swing, watching the rain pour down and drinking our tui was pretty damn satisfying.

it did, however, make for a difficult morning the next day - and we had a glacier to climb!  well, maybe climb is a bit misleading, we didn't go to the top (our guide had never been to the top either), but we did spend near on six hours hiking WITH CRAMPONS (the very idea of which scared me), and even ice axes!  well, our ice axes were really only for show, they helped with steep ice climbing, but they weren't to be used for axe-like purposes - that sort of activity was restricted to the guides...and their nice legs...oh, sorry, daydreaming...

but seriously, the guides were excellent.  they really knew what they were doing and ours was particularly no nonsense and gave us good safety info.  unfortunately, due to the seriously high volume of rain there had been recently, our guides spent a great deal of time carving out new tracks for us which was cool, but not scintillating to watch - oh, except for his legs! 

and there were some parts of the glacier that we couldn't go to, because they were just too unstable.  i'm sure you all heard about the guys from melbourne who met their unfortunate demise at the behest of an unstable glacier.  it was pretty scary.  before i even knew about that it was scary, because there are these things they call 'moulins' (the french word for windmill), which look like a little puddle on the glacier, but they're actually a very deep hole, sometimes 100m deep which, should you step into, would deliver you to an icy death.

clearly, we survived.  but it was a long day.  the next day we decided to hitch to queenstown coz we had a booking to do the routeburn track, which we'd made back in october - lucky, coz some, like our israeli mates, couldn't get on that track coz it was booked out.  we didn't get moving particularly early, coz we aren't much good at that.  and we kinda didn't realise just how far it was.  in fact, the advice we'd been given at doc (dept of conservation), was that it would only take five and a half hours.  it took a while to get our first ride, then a fellow tramper picked us up and took us just as far as the fox glacier.  nice kiwi bloke, told us we'd be 'blown away' by the routeburn.

took a while to get our next ride, but it was a sunday and i guess it was a particuarly touristy route.  the main highway down the west coast, yes, but not a whole lotta kiwi traffic going by.  and it was mostly kiwis who gave us rides.  so, just to prove me wrong, our next hitch was with a fairly strange bloke from york.  well, via manitoba, canada.  yes, he had a singsong lilt we could barely make sense of ("next stop poob", he said to nico at some point, to receive only a blank stare in reply) , and he was a grain farmer who was driving around the entire country without a clue about it.  but, to be fair, he drove us abbout 400km and we woulda been stuffed without him.

so, when around 7pm he finally threw us out in queenstown, we bought ourselves some zubrowka to celebrate our success!  and the next day, after a helluva breakfast at bob's weigh (HIGHLY recommended), we started the routeburn track...aka the routeburn river!  so, the truth is it's a beautiful track which takes you pretty much from glenorchy (not far from queenstown) and mt aspiring national park to milford (of the world famous milford sound) and fiordland national park.  it's brilliant, because it is something like 350km by road, but only 32km on foot!

but, what they don't tell you is that the route burn is a river.  and you don't walk it, you SWIM it.  our first day was ok.  not brilliant weather, but clear and warm enough and a nice cruisy 2hr~ish walk.  we took a lot of photos of water, not realising just how wet we would become in the coming days.  the next morning we had a lovely sleep in, and postponed the start of our 13.6km tramp, hoping the rain might ease off.  it didn't.  if anything, it got worse.  it was a little disappointing, because most of that day was spent above the treeline and the views, had we seen them, would have been astonishing.  honestly, try these on for size...

http://www.mytravelbackpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/163-jeremy-scenery-routeburn-track.jpg
http://203.86.194.7/Images/craigPotton/262.jpg

but we contented ourselves, with getting completely saturated, declaring ourselves mountain heroes yet again, and having a waterfight, just to make sure there weren't any dry patches.  and dry patches there were not.  which at the end of the day i discovered actually included everything INSIDE my backpack as well.  i think it was the first hint of a bad mood in our entire trip.  when i nearly cried because i did not even have a dry pair of knickers, not a stitch to wear AND my sleeping bag was wet too.

to his credit, ponyboy took control of the situation.  found somehow in his pack that contained SO FEW clothes (especially compared to mine that even had a frock for new year's), an entire clean dry change for both of us and enough sleeping bag warmth to start me snoring in about three mins flat.  well done, ponyboy!  when i woke up he cooked us dinner, using such creative implements as a tennis racquet, and all was well again. 

we did have to put our wet clothes on again the next morning, walk for another four hours or so in the rain, camp in a swamp, sleep through a thunderstorm with lightning in both directions the next day, but somehow none of that was as bad as that one moment without dry knickers.  unfortunately again, we could see only very brief glimpses of the view on the final day.  but we've since heard that this is very common - and seen pictures of trampers on the milford track at the same time as us, but they were waist deep in water at points!  and i thought i was wet!!

when we finished the tramp and got to milford, we were told it had been raining like that for two weeks straight, since the 30th of december.  and even for somewhere that apparently gets 7m of rain a year, that was frustrating for the locals.  a little frustrating for us too, when we went on a cruise on milford sound and again could see very little. 

luckily, and we were very lucky for a lot of our trip, it cleared up in the afternoon and the company operating the cruise let us go again in the afternoon!  so, when we finally jumped on our bus, we were pretty cheerful, although nico was feeling the effects of so much wet, cold weather and had a sore throat.  nothing a snooze on the bus, followed by a movie and ice cream in te anau couldn't fix tho!  yes, we saw quantam of solace!  and what a luxury a cinema was.

up again early the next morning, we were on a bus to invergumboot (also known as invercargill), and onto bluff and stewart island!  foolishly, we hadn't booked the ferry, so we spent an unplanned entire day in bluff.  but it was nice enough.  we took a hike for a few hours, and rewarded ourselves with VB and fish n chips, or "feesh n cheeps" as i apparently pronounce it!!  then, finally around 5pm, we were on the ferry and on our way to that funny little outpost stewart island, which is almost entirely national park and where nico tried to teach me to say "nichts", oh so many times, to the point where a bloke in the pub thought we were having an argument.  i mean to say!

the rakiura track (rakiura is the maori name for stewart island) is a three day tramp, which takes you on a loop from oban (the township on the island), inland and back along the coast.  it, the track and the tramps on the island in general, are renowned the mud and muddy it is!  it is also, however, fairly easy to avoid the mud.  if you're not me and if you don't walk...ohhh...straight through the middle of a knee-deep mud puddle.  oh, did nico laugh whilst i clung to a tree and wailed.  to be fair, it was first thing in the morning.  even if our mornings did start around 11, it was early, in my book.  anyway, just wait till you see the photos.

so, it was a great walk and despite the number of stairs, we bloody loved it.  i got a bit melancholy coz it was our last tramp and our holiday was coming to an end.  but i think i didn't sook too much.  so, all that's left is timaru, which we visited solely for the purpose of going to the tui brewery, and christchurch, which we visited purely for the purpose of leaving.  we got as much as we could out of both places, and stayed up all night in christchurch ~ the first place we'd found in new zealand that really actually resembled a city, a-mazing!~

and now i'm home.  and sadly, back to work tomorrow.  so, this is goodnight.  do vstrechi Xx

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu

dear diary,

 

porangahau's famous hill, taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is drawing increasing numbers of visitors to the area (but not us, coz we had tramping to do!  we just liked the name, so we thought we'd share it with you). it means 'the hilltop where tamatea, with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land, traveller over land and sea, played his koauau (flute) to his beloved'. It's on the north island, but we're not...anymore.

 

so, where are we now?  in a bloody thunderstorm!  which has been going for what feels like days, but actually only started coday, when we were leaving arthur's pass with some new israeli friends, who nico has decided we should abandon already.  so we did.  but they were good for a ride!  if you know what i mean...no really, they had two cars between three people...they needed us - to pay their petrol!  so we let them make us coffee and drive us to franz josef village, where all we have done so far is eat, drink beer and have a spa!!!  bloody great!!!  we were going to do a short walk to the glacier, but we decided a full day ice hike tomorrow would be more in keeping with the ethos of 'trip danger'.  so today became a bludge day.  which is only fair considering we climbed a mountain on new year's day with hangovers!

 

yes, that was at arthur's pass.  an excellent detour from the main road down the west coast.  it's about a hundred Ks from greymouth of the south island, along a very windy and steep road.  we were trying to hitch from greymouth and it was absolutely PISSING down, and no bastard would stop and pick us up.  i was about to crack the sads if we waited in the rain much longer, but luckily, after only half an hour and when our jeans were still hanging on to our (skinny!  yes!  skinny!!) legs, a local dude took pity on us and stopped.  he wasn't going anywhere.  in fact, he lived right around the corner from where we were hitching.  but we were VERY wet.  and he was a nice, simple soul who decided a charitable act at 5pm on new year's eve was the right thing to do.  honestly, we couldn't believe the guy would take us 100km, completely out of his direction.  we sort of kind of tried to talk him out of it, but not very hard.  we just decided to give him plenty of drinking money instead.  WHICH he didn't want to take!  but we were insistent and i think he was happy.

 

we got out of his car outside arthur's, a bar/restaurant with accommodation.  we headed straight for their (fake) open fireplace and a nice big goblet of red wine.  then we decided not to venture back out into the driving rain, and instead we spent an exorbitant amount of money on a HOTEL room, yes, you read it right, a hotel room!!!  and oh what a nice luxury that was for new year's.  and actually, not a stupid amount of money.  only three times more than a hostel...eeeeeeeeek!  we made ourselves feel better though, by drinking our six-pack of VB and cooking up a feast in our hotel room - ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh - well, when i say we, of course i mean NICO cooked up a feast and i kinda watched and vaguely assisted.  oh yes, VB.  please tell adrian.  it's even cheaper than in oz.  only cost us $9.90 (nz dollars!!!) for a six-pack.  woooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo!!  oh yeah, mmmhmmmm mmmhmmmm!!  and then there was the goon!!  oh yeah, and the pub and the pints and the shots and the band and walking home in the rain and....actually....i don't remember the rest.  bloody good new year's.  and we got to sleep in till eleven too - niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

 

and coz we were oh so fresh, we climbed a mountain (- It was Scott's track, Lou Lou!).  yup, and mum, if i haven't said this already, i'm telling you now, hitching is NOTHING compared to mountain climbing WITH a hangover.  it was only a five hour walk, but the winds were around 80ks and i honestly thought i would get blown off.  to the point that i was hanging on to nico and wishing i weighed about 120kg, just to hold myself down.  nico wasn't scared, of course, he did the chicken dance on the mountain top!!!  and yes, there's proof:


honestly though, the view from the top of avalanche peak was a-MAZ-ing!!!  and we left our hangovers at the top, hopefully they're still enjoying the view...but i think they would have got blown off too.  actually, it was the first time i was glad that meisie didn't come with us.  we would have had to hold her down.  oh yeah!  AND we saw our first glacier, up the top of avalanche peak, there was a glacier on the next mountain!!  it was just superb.

 

arthur's pass/avalanche peak was definitely the first cool thing we have done on the south island.  we'd left wellington on the 30th, got an early ferry in gorgeous weather across to picton, a bus through to richmond, actually through to Beverly Store and some damn fine ice cream.  and then it was hitching again for us.  with a friendly animation dude just back from LA, a bearded ex-melburnian in a beat up car (whose beard grew down to his belly button in just three years!), the nursing wife of a pig hunter and an awesome (and fucking huge) Maori truckie dude called Rima, who has had a burger named after him and loves his wife as much as....fried chicken.  no, i am deadly serious.  i think what he said after that was 'i wish it would rain chicken'.  what a dude.  but he dropped us in a fucking hole called springs junction, which was ridden with sand flied and NO DAMN GOOD for hitching out of.  took us near on an hour and a half.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

seeing as how we're going backwards, i'll tell you what we did before wellington.  wellington, btw, was a blink in the night.  we barely saw it.  we arrived on a bus around 9.30pm, after having spent three days canoeing on the whanganui river.  yeah!!  we started from ohakune (place to be careful, according to the bus driver with verbal diarrhoea who drove us from ohakune to whakahoro landing to start our journey) on the day after boxing day.  we weren't so very cheerful when we started coz we'd hiked a few K outta ohakune to stay at a nice free campground.  the hike itself wasn't so bad, except that we'd bought half a slab of beer just prior and had to carry the bastard.  but we made ourselves feel better by drinking it all when we got there!  oh yeah, and i was kinda nervous about the rapids on the whanganui river.  remember, i went canoeing not that long ago and managed to capsize the boat effortlessly.  didn't really wanna do that again.

 

but, master of the river, captain kuru, managed to guide us very safely through ALL the rapids, just by yelling at me lots - PADDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  it worked, surprisingly.  gee, who'd have thought paddling was all you needed to do!  oh yea, he (captain kuru) did get about oh....ten litres dumped on him each rapid.  ha, not me tho.  because i was in the back...yes, i'm clever sometimes.  anyway, weird trip, kinda, because the other canoeists and kayakers were carrying heaps of luxuries.  like eskies full of beer and snags.  and they were cooking up feasts.  and we were in tramping mode and trying to reduce our luggage so much that we ended up with bugger all, such as only one cup and only one fork.  kinda tricky when eating spaghetti.  or drinking coffee for that matter.  i'm pretty sure nico has learnt the word "share" now.  but purely for necessity. 

 

christmas we spent in whakapapa village (pron. "fuck a papa", and whilst being a useful expletive, actually means genealogy, or something like extended family - aunts, uncles and cuzzies - apparently).  well, half of it.  it was actually the day we finished the four-day tramp (41km) starred as mt doom in lord of the rings.  bitch of a climb.  but we did it!  along with a bunch of bloody yanks. it's an active volcano too, seriously, it was steaming at the top!  but i wasn't scared.  nope, not me.  scaredy cat?  don't know what you're talking about!  but seriously, there were SO many people up there i couldn't be scared.  plus, i was too busy trying to catch my breath.  nico didn't have the same problem, and certainly no fear, he RAN down the bloody thing.  took me a wee bit longer...

 

hard day's walk tho.  nine hours from start to finish and were we buggered?  oh yeah...just a bit.  we were certainly too buggered to bother talking to the five fucking thousand germans in the huts.  ok, so maybe there were only 15 of them.  but too many!  we were super happy to have our...errr...nico's fancy tent to retreat too.  even when it was raining, we preferred it.  didn't have to share our manuka honey vodka with anyone!!  oh yeah, the next day was hard too.  coz even tho it was only three hours, it was PISSING down.  so we got drenched.  wet weather gear?  nah, what for, we're HARDCORE.  and uh...wet.  but that was ok.  we had soup when we got there and that was the day that nico decided we should eat ALL of our hot chocolate powder, just like a fondue.  or a chocolate soup.  damn fine idea.  there were some jealous people there.  but we didn't share.  nuh-uh. 

 

the next day was christmas, also known as the day without food.  yeah, we kinda ate it all already.  and we had left some fucking crackers.  no cheese.  a few nuts.  and water, glorious water.  oh yeah, and we walked oh...about 16km.  piece of piss...not.  actually we nearly had our first fight.  because, we couldn't find the honey.  nico was getting a bit upset.  and pretty much tipped his entire bag out onto the track.  yeah.  hunger changes people.  but we found it.  and we sat and ate every single piece of food we had.  a guy came past and asked if we were opening a restaurant.  he suggested it might be byo - and we said yeah, and you have to feed us too while you're here.  no good.  bastard didn't.  so we kept walking.  when we saw the chateau (a la Shining) at whakapapa village we had to hug and jump around in circles.  then our "beer legs" propelled us the rest of the way - no probs, actually, suddenly we weren't tired anymore.  and the mac's great white tasted bloody fine when we got there - but not as good as the 500g of pasta with a bottle of cream and a hunk of blue cheese that we demolished in a very short period of time for dinner.  more high fives.  actually it was a cool christmas.  oh yeah, except we really missed our families heaps.  so much that we had to drink away our sorrows all night long.  and, good thing was, the fancy pants chateau that we were drinking at had heaps of delicious cakes on offer, for the guests, which didn't really include us, but we got our fair share anyway.

 

ok.  seriously outta time.  sorry!  can't tell you about art deco napier.  we did check out all the awesome art deco buildings.  there was an earthquake in napier in 1931, i think.  blah blah.  google it.  oh yeah.  huka falls were good too.  AND the hot springs on the way back into taupo.  good clean FREE fun.  yeah.  mhhhmmmmm!!

 

see ya!

 

oh and if there are any lp editors reading, there's a typo on pg 573 of the nz guide in the boxed text about the tasman glacier.

Day 5: Still Friends

Nico has made a discovery: there are no Orcs on the East Cape. Auckland was boring and expensive, so we booked a bus to Opotiki for early Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in fact, there are no buses around the East Cape, only big stupid backpacker tours which cost a bomb and we don't have any bombs. But I REALLY wanted to go there! So, we had to hitch. Sorry Mum. But really, it was the easiest thing in the world and Nico has a wooden tennis racquet so we are safe. And it only took us 16 rides, to get from Opotiki to Napier (hitching along the shoreline the whole way), where we are now.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself! The East Cape is gorgeous; lush, green and isolated. And, unlike a drive along the Great Ocean Road, which flies by the car window fairly quickly, we were forced to keep stopping and waiting around for our next lift. So we really did get to see it. Our first ride was with a youngish Maori dude (maybe) in a flash ute. We sat on the tray of the ute and took photos of our success. He didn't take us very far, just to a tiny servo in Tirohanga. Where we thought our luck had run out already. So we started hassling random people at the servo. We'd coaxed a guy to give us a ride about 5km, when a nice, ice-cream eating grandma stopped and picked us up. I won that one (Nico and I have a slab riding on this competition!), coz she said she didn't mind picking up girls.

After telling us her life story, the grandma dropped us off in Hawai, where there was a ferocious looking beach and piles of driftwood. But before we had time to eat even one whole pack of crackers an awesome grandpa, Kuru Ned (Ned with a K, like knife) picked us up and took us ALL THE WAY to Te Kaha. Now, HE was an interesting bloke: 75yo, driving a shitty old pickup truck, who has lived in Toorak (of all places) and now lives on his son's Kiwi farm in Te Kaha. We liked him so much we gave him a nip of our Manuka Honey vodka from the hip flask.

Flushed with success, we thought we'd keep trying, hoping to get to Hicks Bay (another 80km), but it was already five o'clock, so THAT was a super dumb idea. But a nice Kiwi couple picked us up in their Tarago and took us not very bloody far. Then we made them feel guilty so they took us to a campground in Waikawa. Actually, not really a campground, just a private, sheltered grassy spot off the highway. Nobody there but us and nobody who seemed to want our money either. So we had a swim (slash wash) in the ocean, cooked up an instant feast and had our first night in the tent. Cosy, but FINE - and I have a new love in my life...my sleeping bag!

Next day a young stoner Maori dude in a car with no plates picked us up coz his grandpa had just died and he thought a good deed would make him feel better. That was kinda weird. Then he was telling us how much property he had. Even more weird. Anyway, dude dropped us off at a bend in the road and we waited and walked a bit till some foreigners in a campervan took pity on us, but not for very long. Actually, they took us further than they were going. A weird trend that saw at least two other cars doing u-turns and coming back to get us coz they felt guilty. Funny mob over here!!

A business man gave us a ride from Whanarua Bay to Waihau Bay, and informed us that there IS, in fact, a bus that goes along the East Cape (which turned out to not be a 'real' bus at ALL, and a mail van/courier thingo. So we went into the shop at Waihau Bay to enquire. The girl behind the counter was pretty nice, and she asked Juanita, who was eating her brekkie, about the bus. Juanita, didn't know, but she said if we waited till she finished her brekkie, she'd give us a ride as far as her kids' school, 20km before Hicks Bay - an offer we couldn't refuse!

And she was a CLASSIC. She had five kids, and must have been around 30 or so, and she was/is studying teaching. She had her first OE (overseas experience) last year, which involved visiting family in the amazing locales of Dandenong and Sunshine. She was the kind of person you couldn't imagine in a bad mood though, exclaiming 'choice' and 'nah, STOP it', when I told her of our plans to climb Mt Hikurangi, and she also told us a bit about the local Maori tribes in the area. Cool Maori chick.

After a few more rides, we made it to Ruatoria, where we had to book in to attempt climbing to our death...I mean, tramp up Mt Hikurangi. The guy at the info centre almost talked us out of it because although he could drive us out there (20km from town), he couldn't pick us up the next day. Bit rough, considering we had to hike 10km up to the hut and a further 2.5 to the summit, which I wouldn't even call hiking, I'd call scrambling!! Oh, Nico calls it fun, I think. Even though we started this crazy scramble to the summit at 4.30am, yes, in the dark with our nerd lights on. And he thinks I liked it too! Which may be true. Even though, when we got to the summit I felt as though I would either vomit or cry and I honestly wasn't sure which. Luckily, neither as it turned out. But really, it was fucking amazing. The view from the highest non-volcanic peak on the North Island (1754m), the first place to be touched by the sun each day, was nothing less than spectacular. Climbing down, scary, but we made it.

Anyway, we said we'd make our own way 20km back to town. And make it we did!! Seriously, best place for hitching ever. A civil engineer from Birmingham picked us up off the main road just outside Ruatoria and we tried to keep our eyes open all the way to Gizzie (Gisborne), another 128km, where we did not very much apart from pig out on fish n chips and $2 half-handles at Smash Palace (have you ever heard a better name for a bar?! It had a DC3 - that's a plane, for those who DON'T know -smashed into the roof, kinda, and heaps of signs, bikes, machinery and weird memorabilia hanging from the ceiling and all over the walls), oh yeah and the other thing we did in Gizzie was SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, for 11hours, sweet as bru.

All our other drivers were interesting and weird in their own special ways, but probably the 2nd best (after KNed) was Rick1, who picked us up today from Muriwai, with a dead lamb on ice in the back of his station wagon. He was going as far as Palmerston North and said he'd take us all the way to Napier (nearly 200km), if we didn't mind listening to opera and going for a swim in Mahia on the way. Jeez, life's tough.

Covered in seaweed, we made it and we're staying at the Criterion Art Deco Hostel in Napier. It's cool, and reminds us of The Shining. We have done such exciting things as eating ice cream and clothes washing (Nico accidentally put all his clothes in the wash and then had no pants to wear, so had to wear mine!!). We went down the street and spent a packed at the supermarket and Nico cooked us up a FEAST! Probably the last feast we'll have in a while, as we're headed for Taupo tomorrow, to try and get ourselves onto the Tongariro Northern Circuit. But it's not definite yet, as bad weather has cancelled a lot of trips lately, and we won't find out till 2pm tomorrow if we can do it.

In terms of our itinerary, we've worked out and booked (don't worry Mum, no more hitching - on the Nth Island at least) everything up to Golden Bay for NYE. So we're off for 4days tramping in Tongariro National Park followed by three days on the Whanganui River Journey, by canoe (!) and then straight down to Wellington, across to the Sth Island on the ferry and then...nothing, sweet nothing for a couple of days.

Any questions, please direct them to my manager, Mei Keng Cheong at 1/35 Morrah Street Parkville.

Laters Xx

wondering wandering in hopeless night

feeling anything but hopeless
(apart from the saga of logging into this blog)

this blog which was supposed to be a travel blog.

but, after a bike journey from collingwood to north fitzroy this afternoon with D, i've decided that "journeys" is a more suitable all-encompassing term by which i can get back to blogging without necessarily leaving my boudoir!

or perhaps i can just as easily extend the concept of travel to include non-intergalactic trips...and perhaps, if i'm honest, i'm enthused to blog again because i'm less revolted by my various personas, this one included.


this week has been full of journeys of the bicicular kind (oh, won't someone please help me find the word that means "of, or relating to, bicyles"? i'm sure it's out there somewhere...)

but yes, i have been cycling. a little reluctantly, but i've made three complete journeys this week. two big efforts, from collingwood to footascray and return. and one less so, east fitzroy to north fitzroy and return.

but i tell ya, hard work or no, t'has been the most lovely kind of challenge i've faced in recent times. despite the a) unwelcoming attachment of my decidedly unporous girlie bag to my rather damp back yestereve and b) chill wind that picked up just as dusk started to fall and i was passing through the edinburgh gardens.

so, should you ever need to cycle from collingwood to footascray, i highly recommend taking the slightly longer but ever so much lovelier paths along park street, north fitzroy to the capital city trail and sticking to the moonee ponds creek and maribyrnong river trails as much as possible.

yes, i felt i had much more to say when i started this post but my inspiration seems to have evaporated. and the act of being horizontal seems to have induced extreme drowsiness. i wonder do i have time for a nap...

fare thee well, i shall try.