This is the story of my trip part 1 and some more

2008-02-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

This is the story of my trip

the trip that I had plotted but not planned
and had talked of for months especially to all those asking what I would do in my retirement ‘. I am going to Tasmania’ I said to the fearsome lady to whom I talked at such length about the whys and hows and what fors of the easy to do work stop - such a long long near year ago these conversations were

I dithered and I dathered
I was going
I was going on my own
I was going with Tony
I was going alone
I was going in September
I was going in October
I was going with Tony
I was going alone
I was going with Tony

We thought of going on a greyhound bus all the way down the east cost
We both said NO
Tony thought of hiring a car (immediately on arrival )and driving down the coast
I said NO
We thought of joining an organised bus trip part way down the coast
We both said NO
and its my trip.

Tony was ill and wasn’t going at all

I was going alone so I was going to Hobart and maybe somewhere else
and its my trip.

Oh but it would be Christmas time
I or maybe we would be a nuisance there
I should be and even partly wanted to be here in a mummy gran host role which I never in fact take other than in my head
and its my trip.

Outside voices of ECLA and G too all said GO AND STAY FOR CHRISTMAS

Emails to G in Tasmania

Tony is OK
Tony is going too
I am going with Tony
I am making my trip with Tony
At last
The choices were scored out and the backbone was kept
The day of final booking came

One morning in October I went back to the travel agent we first visited in July. She had a good price available, flying out on the 5th November to Sydney and back from Melbourne on the 31st December.

Will I? won’t I?
Flutters and mutters
Cold George Street phone box to London
Are you sure?

Back in the shop and it was as easy as buying a train ticket to Dunfermline.
I was going. Tony was going. We were both going on November 5th. I was leaving home on the first.

Relief at the end of the dither.
I suspect that, whatever the outcome, there would have been relief at the end of such a protracted dither about something I was going to do

I wont dither again……………until the next time

Then to find starting and ending accommodation in Sydney and on Melbourne web trawl of hostel possibilities
me one
Tony the other
advice from G
and all for 6 nights of a 58 day trip
my choice and G’s recommendation for Sydney matched

Done

In Melbourne there was little choice or availability during ‘the pre-Hogmananay celebrations

Done too

A short time was now left to get ready – to buy clothes- I had many but I had to buy more
Arrange my gear, the important things bag, the beads; it all took days and days
My daughter came, looked at my stuff -‘but mum won’t you need more than that for 2 months?’
Its my trip.
I did some research on this
Even
when going on a trip
to a city
for a visit
to the wilds
for some camping
and some walking
and who knows what else
As little as possible
Lady suitcase and ancient rucksack

I had railed against the very idea of my trip involving walking – ‘I am NOT going on a walking holiday! That’s NOT my trip’ I said and said again as Tony got excited about all the possible walking routes. Buying new boots and travelling only with them and flip flops maybe gives the lie to this…….
I am going to see G and the place he lives in, to dance – I successfully contacted the Hobart dancing people early in my outfindings but sadly failed to find any available 5r – I was going to hang out, to be, to sit on beaches, to drive around maybe …..

I read very little about the country so my knowledge was limited to what I had heard. seen in pictures and ‘just knew’

The 1st of November 2006 came after very busy days
of house clearing and cleaning because I couldn’t leave the old year’s mess to come back to in the new year
of far-too early-Christmas -card writing
of packing

Lists and lists of jobs and of gear were gradually ticked
Lists of vital numbers to efficient daughter
Many Tony phone calls made and received

The 1st of November 2006 came
I photographed the empty flat
I photographed the empty autumn windows
I photographed my suitcase in the drive with my shadow
I photographed the bus stop

I was on my way at last
Excited but clear and calm
???time of day

walk bus train tube walk

from the wilds of the country to the heart of the city
from a cold flat to a cosy apartment
from weeks with just me to weeks with another

walk bus train tube walk

28/01/2007 11:44

I don’t remember the journey from Edinburgh at all

Tony met me at King’s Cross
He carried my rucksack which was itself carrying my sleeping bag for him to take on the expedition - mine being a better fit than his and possibly more suitable for a long-distance-gear-carrying walk he might make

I stashed my bags in a corner of the balcony room in his flat

It’s a treat to be in a room with its own defensible space- its own balcony. Dinky but there’s enough room to stand surveying the street below and the everlasting work on the roof opposite while hair brushing, coffee drinking or simply taking the air
- and no one from outside can get there

London days 1, 2, 3 and 4

Days of final organising – printing out all the important info, photocopying all the important info, checking the bank accounts are working
Buying the digital camera that was to work so hard over the next 2 months
Writing out (me) and talking (Tony) what we would like to be done with our important things / thought might need to be done
if something went badly wrong
Meeting sister eating on a pavement café not in Essex Street and faring well
Dancing all day on Saturday with the option of all day on Sunday as well

Saturday dance was a good place to start from
Sunday dance would have been one dance too many
We were to fly from Heathrow on the evening of Sunday 5th November.
We could have danced until 4 in the afternoon.
Sense prevailed and we slept til we woke, fed ourselves, did a final readiness check and unhurriedly walked through the autumn leaves and tubed longly to the airport

On with the lines of people through all the checks where I was sure I was doing or being or carrying something wrong and I would be found out in front of everyone. But they didn’t find it and they let me through to the next wait place where I could nearly relax

At last we climbed on to the giant plane with the chummily close together seats and our very own window
‘we are not really allowed to change seat allocations but I’ll ask’ said the check in lady and she did and it was
a grandstand view of the world as we flew over it
we excitedly and ignorantly anticipated

The first leg of the flight from Heathrow over Europe was at night and I slept some I think

Then it was light but the blinds were to stay down ‘as a courtesy to the other passengers’.

We peeped out over somewhere and saw amazing creselations - like millions of un-iced Little-Gems.

crenulations

Hong Kong Airport

We loitered some hours as we awaited our next flight.
We spent some of the Hong Kong dollars Organised Daughter recommended I take on unnecessary but welcome coffee.
We sat in a quiet corner.

I began to crochet a hat with the plastic crochet hook I bought for the journey. Plastic so it would be allowed on the plane! These were the only stitches I crocheted on the whole trip and in the weeks leading up to it I had made several hats several times.

We saw the sun set.

Another big plane was ready for us.
Qantas and more room for or legs
Window seats as booked in George Street in October and we had an arrangement about whose turn it was- an arrangement that I don’t remember and that I didn’t like anyway -‘its my trip and I bought the tickets’ was an underlying feeling - that I probably reneged on by girning and getting my own way
I spent the latter part of that flight hiding at the window under my jersey as we flew over the apparently empty country of Australia wondering and puzzling over recurring squarish shapes with rounded corners which looked like very regular pools with sandy edges -
I later learned that these ‘pools’ were dams and the land was not as unpeopled as I had assumed.

The plane landed in Sydney.
We disembarked
In something of a daze
With a sense of amazement that it had in fact followed me
I collected my lady case made recognisable with a torn scrap of silk scarf
It’s fellow tornee was left on the Wishing Tree at Cromarty in the summer with the wish that…sh sh sh sh…!.

here were then some info gathering stress minutes as I insisted that I knew where to go to catch the bus and I picked up leaflets but Tony asked a deskperson who told him something else

Out into the bright white sunlight of Australia feeling stressed and overrun.
I wanted to slowly find my way to the bus for which I had the info
I wanted to ignore the pushy salesperson directing me the way I knew I didn’t want to go
I stalked off
Oh dear a domestic
Domestic number one within minutes of arriving in this far foreign land with a person who was going to be with me for days and days and days, a person who was only here because I was here, a person who was only being sensible in his way as I was in mine
He talked to the sales man who pushily followed us, saying ‘we’re having a bit of a domestic’!
I stalked on
And stopped round a corner of the building where somehow time
or the presence of strange yellow-legged yellow-beaked starling-like birds brought the bad moments to an end
Together we found a bus – though not the one the hostel had suggested we use, so I worried that the hostel wouldn’t refund us the fare as they’d said they would.

Trivial details to be the first memories of a new continent.

The bus slowly filled and the driver sped off through the back streets of Sydney to take us to our hostel in Glebe Point Road.
By reading street signs and indicators and by following the newly acquired street map I was able to more or less follow our course – noting the names of places Gil had mentioned or had come up in that minimal info gathering read – Redfern is the place name that jumps to mind now as somewhere to ‘pass through by bus, mum’. I think I only ever did that.

Different yet familiar
Wide streets
Overhead power lines slung low
Traffic lights hanging in the middle of the road

Into the hostel
Through one of its many doors
Yes, said the young receptionist in this place of youth, we’re expecting you
This is your key
Your room is there
The showers are down the hall
Enjoy your stay

We hunted and found the room that matched the key -it had lots of beds
Yes, said the young receptionist in this place of youth that is your room
Noone else will be coming to it

Sighs of relief and of pleasure and of wonder
I have really arrived in Australia at the start of the biggest trip I have ever made.
Biggest is a very loose word – length, distance, variety, difference, adventurish

I needed to obey Organised Daughter and not sleep until it was Australian night time
and also I wanted to go out and be in this city

That first out in Sydney happened but is so foggy maybe I was already asleep.
A wee walk
‘Round the block’
There were jacaranda trees blue flowering in the gardens of wrought iron verandahed corrugated iron roofed wee terraced houses.
Had I time travelled back to the Zambia of 35 years ago?
The trees, the roofs
We saw some waterfront before our eyes started to close
And we went back to sleep in our room in the place of youth in the very early evening.

We awoke later in the evening and tried again.
I felt as if it was morning and only wanted coffee. Tony was hungry and needed more than that.
This, the second domestic issue, the food one, was to recur throughout the trip. People travelling together could perhaps be programmed to need the same foods and drinks at the same times cooked and served in the same ways or to be self-foraging creatures unconcerned about social niceties.
After a long walk down Glebe Point Road, I found my ideal-in -that-moment coffee place. It had soft lighting. It had comfy chairs.
I sat there feeling metropolitan and relaxed, with my coffee and a magazine.

I am a traveller.
I am in a big city.
I am out for my evening coffee
yes, body. It is evening.

Tony joined me from his supermarket quest. We enjoyed another coffee before we wandered back up the leafy street. I gasped in wonder as I caught glimpses of the tall city buildings clustered together, of Sydney Harbour Bridge and I tested my new wee digie camera just to see if I could catch any images in the streetlights. There are some I can identify as having been taken then but that is their only value

Back into the hostel building with its heavy wooden doors and banisters, with its stained glass and we slept in our big bunk with the empty ones around us wakening in the real morning to the noise of the foreign birds shouting their greetings.
The hostel provided good fresh bread for breakfast that dunked well into a cup of sweetened strong instant coffee.
I liked, in my role as traveller, wearing my skirt of many zipped pockets, to help myself to this fare, take it to a table in the leafy paved garden area between the building and the pavement, and hear the conversations between the passing travelling young people.

Sydney Day one

Walking Day

The bridge, the opera house, the skyscrapers, the postcard view of the city were all on the agenda so armed with the street maps helpfully provided in our room we set off to walk Through Glebe’s leafy streets
By the Fishmarket
Quickly under the big road with my eye on the bridge supports
Passed Harris Road – will I go to school?

There they are the tall buildings, as they look on the postcards, glittering in the sunlight.
‘Look!’
On to a pedestrianised bridge, we were to get to know well.
My eyes were drawn to the mono rail
‘Look!’
I watched for each train to approach and surprisingly watched as it passed by and disappeared on its circuit of the City.
On over that bridge
Into and through the skyscraper world
‘There’s the Bridge’
It’s much smaller than I expect and somehow disappointing but then I have travelled from the land of the Forth Bridge so am something of a non-technical bridge connoisseur
We make a plan to maybe walk over it one day – but I don’t think that’s for me
Onward by the ferry terminals – must go on the ferries too
Along the wide quayside with the modern restaurants and bars which are already confused with those of other cities
To the Opera House, looking just like its photographs, standing on its plinth of sandwich-eating more- photograph-taking tourists
Up the steps

Listen
Look
Peep in the doors
Find an entrance
Down down into a dark cloakroom
Up up into a blank foyer

Dead

No sounds

Sad

Disappointing

Not a musician in hearing
Not a dancer in movement
Not a singer in voice

There are so many spaces around the building
There are so many people looking at the building
There are so many artists who could perform

To bring the building alive
to let its soul be heard

People everywhere looking and sitting
Are they waiting for something to happen?

I walked on

I visited the city slung with my black bag of very important things, another bag of day needs, tops to take off and on, and the camera which became part of my dress for the whole trip.
After that first day when I lost one and foolishly retraced my steps around the city in the forlorn hope of finding it, I left behind the colourful scarf the travel guru said should be part of everyone’s kit. I kept them folded small in their special bag along with the colourful beads which would have their moment of glory in a much later chapter of the story.

Sydney eating places - a domestic minefield

We ate mostly ’out’ and often with some difficulty matching needs wants desires of the moment

There was the Chinese place on the …./ and …. Much recommended d by G which I found claustrophobic, scary, I’m doing this wrong and I cant choose and let me out of here’ its supposed to be good but really I don’t like this stuff at all there is too much and it is too greasy and the formic tables are unpleasant and the lighting is harsh help help but it was cheap and tony would have been happy to go back again and again –
There was the other Asian place nearby also with Technicolor food photos – why does there have to be such a huge choice –the differences must in fact be minimal additions to a basic dish
The lady in this place seated behind the counter and looking like a smart person of decades ago when draffens and the like were staffed by forbidding black gowned ladies with drawn back hair took our orders passed them to the kitchen and almost before we had sat down at our table the brushes and mops were out the chairs piled the staff readying to go. We took our time as they unhurriedly and apparently cheerfully cleared around us.
There was the pizza place near the hostel I went to alone for a good wood-fired pizza
There was the …… place , a proper sit-in water-served place on Glebe we went to after the Blue mountain day where I ate pide which is a another country’s version of pizza which is another country’s version of the cheese piece and where we had relaxed dinner conversation with one of our fellow aboriginal pourers
There was the place on the pavement on glebe where I sat while Tony ate - or was that a snack eat not a dinner eat
There was Thai on Wok recommended by Gil which we looked at several times rejected as either too dear or too busy and somehow never came back to though we did intend to
There was the other Thai place on glebe which we went to instead of the recommended one - why??? r

I can’t remember all the detail of these days
We had coffees and I learned to ask for a ‘flat white’ which at its best is like the café au lait I drank on my days in Paris
We wandered the streets
I shop-looked a little as I passed and planned tho never carried it to shop look and even shop for real
We explored together
We explored separately – usually after I had stomped for some food or need of space or just want to go without planning and discussing reason

Everything was amazing and entertaining and so different yet so much the same
the same language but frequently spoken by people who looked very different and whose accents I found difficult
there was a 1950s feel to the streets, to the look of the people who at times seemed to be formally dressed with hats and gloves

I liked it.

Ferry Day

The day of walking exploration was followed by a day of ferry exploration.
Sydney being a city built around water the ferry is a regular means of transport from one part of the city to another
Our plan was to take as many ferries as we could going in as many different directions, to make the fullest use of our day ticket and to see whatever we came on.
All the stresses of the ferry terminal bustle, the rushes to find ticket booths, departure times, departure piers, the interminable decisions about where to go next soon were forgotten as the ferries took us
up to and under that famous bridge
close to the Opera House - the upturned boats looked more charming from the water
back towards the skyscrapers – (what a dated word)
The ferries of many sizes were variously yellow and green and workman-like or sleek white and sophisticated. We travelled on as many as we could. We took short journeys and long journeys on big ferries and wee ferries.
I enjoyed the experience of being on the water as I always do and I wonder why the only being on the water experiences I give myself are on ferries.
Our furthest out point was to Watson’s Bay where we set off for a walk to…..We walked through a resort-like little place of restaurants and on towards some tame bush. We walked along our first Australian beach that day and came on the ideal swimming place for us – Steps led down to a labelled ‘naturist’ beach where I saw no inspectors and where gearless we could swim in the warmish water. There we were all natural on one side of the water and passing by was a huge container ship

Back to the ferry - the goal of the walk had been changed as we went –- swim stopped walk – and the time game came in to play again ‘If we get this ferry then we can take that ferry if we don’t get this ferry we have to take that ferry and then we’ll only be able to take that ferry……’
Deep breath. It’s OK. This is fun. This is travelling. This is seeing as much as possible.
And so back to Sydney in one of the smart white catamarans, passing places I recognised a little and noticing things I had missed before – the little brightly coloured seaplanes and the colonies of sailing dinghies parked like toys on the glittering water
The river ferry to Paramatta sounded and looked grand.
The Rivercat
Busy commuter boat with people gong home for their teas
And us
There for the ride
From the wide waters of the ……….. into the river
A slow wide river
Between green banks
Passed the Olympic site
Noone getting on
Everyone getting off
Industrial sites
A university or something
Suddenly we’re in the middle of a town
Paramatta
Only us and a couple with a baby are left on board
This is the last boat of the day so back we go
It might have been interesting to visit
But no decision needed
This is the last boat

I like boat rides

It was chilly as the sun set over the river and I was driven to take a brief shelter inside the cabin
Dark early for summer and dark quickly
(Not as fast as in Zambia, which is my other place of difference, but significantly faster than home)
(((I am told the equivalent to Southern Spain)))
Surprising
Different
Foreign

Manly Day

Another day and another ferry
The biggest one of all and the longest trip
To Manly

It was a busy ferry, the passengers streamed off and everyone headed in the one direction
We followed
Over a pedestrian crossing
Along a wide shopping street with trees in the middle
To the ocean
Where I stood on the promenade and looked
Where I felt weak or tired or woebegone
Where I said ‘I’ll see you later. I’m going to sit in that café.’ At this time distance I don’t recall if this was domestically caused.
But I didn’t sit in that café on the corner
Because it wasn’t the right café for me
It was too formal
Or
was it too crowded ?
I walked along the street a short way. I came on a friendly café serving free take-away coffee as an opening treat.
I took my cardboard cup back over the road to the sea side, sat at one of the provided picnic tables within sight of that original café and nearer to the walker’s possible route.
For me not to go to the sea is very strange and that day I didn’t put a toe on the beach never mind in the water.
It was a quiet world that passed me by.
Seagulls
Elderly ladies younger than me.
A server from the café with a tray of freebee sandwiches.
No Tony after his beach visit on his way to walk
(I think I had intended walking too before I succumbed to my wearies. The day makes no sense otherwise. No walk. No swim. Why did I go there?
By not seeing or by underestimated the time he would take I missed him.
I don’t carry a watch, have no truck with mobile phones and there are times when I pay a penalty. Maybe this was one.
Slowly I headed back towards the main drag, thinking to link up with him at the ferry end of his walk. On the way I visited a clothes shop for another cup of coffee
Upstairs swimsuits
Downstairs swimsuits
round about swimsuits
‘just coffee please’
At the ferry terminal – a utility building of shops, bars and cafes I waited in my dwam state, maybe because of some previously suggested arrangement or maybe fancifully.
I saw the Big Issue seller.
I saw children with ice-cream.
I saw some postcards
I saw the staff changing ferry signage each half hour.
I saw the people variously rushing for the speedy Sea Cat or waiting for the regular ferry.
Eventually I took a ferry back, waiting until the last moment before boarding.

On that ferry ride, I must have regained energy, purpose or my sense of a need to do and to see everything. From the terminal in Sydney, I walked into the gloom of the Central Railway Station to experience another form of transport, to go where the train took me. Without studying the route but confident both that there were stops within the city and that my travel ticket covered me, I climbed on a train going somewhere – maybe even over The Bridge.

A double decker
Silver outside
Green inside.
Green slippery seats like the 1950s couchette seats in France.

Wrong way!
How far’s the next stop?

Not far
I changed trains in a dismal station
This time upstairs
And in another to take a train going in the right direction
Downstairs –such luxury of choice

There’s The Bridge!
I’ve been on Sydney Harbour Bri-idge

Girders flashed by.
Cage like.
Cars whizzed by my reflection in the window.

There was a station near the end
Time to get off

And maybe to cross back over the river by ferry
The be- skirted lady traveller walked purposefully
As I tried to follow the signs to the ferry place but they seemed to lead me nowhere and I was beginning to feel an unspecified unease as I walked around a non-touristy little bit of city.
Few people
Getting late
Conspicuous
In and out of the station
I didn’t want to give up on the ferry
I didn’t ask anyone the way.

Some say to ask is the right and easy thing to do.
For me it’s neither right nor easy.
I would have to show I didn’t know and couldn’t rely on myself to find out
I would have to have an interchange with a strange person
I would have to ask for something for me
I would be vulnerable

Or that’s today’s story

Maybe I could walk. Maybe I should try
I checked the walking route on to the bridge but I knew it wasn’t for me
A bus?
But which bus and which direction do they go in?
Pause pause pause
Go back the way you came
Aluminium Silver train
Another opportunity to choose upstairs or down
Over the bridge in to the grand Central station
It’s green in there too - and drear

Feeling unsettled behind my mask in the dark of Sydney I stood at a city bus stop
Waited
Waited
And was relieved when a familiar bus came along to take me home to the hostel in Glebe
But
I caught the bus that turned off to soon
I missed a stop and had to walk back through new streets

An addition to the adventure.
It was a good adventure though tale is of some woe and angst

I was hungry.
Maybe that explained the unsettled feelings and even that earlier weariness too.
I crossed the road and bought a wood-fired pizza.
I hunted for a bottle of wine.
In and out of the Glebe Point Road shops. The Bottle Shop behind its dark windows was intimidating and severe. (It surprised me in Australia that alcohol did not seem to be as readily available as in this country.)
I won.
I enjoyed my lone pizza and glasses of wine under the big umbrella at a court yard table .
Sitting eating on my own in somewhere pleasant was one of my pre-travelling travelling pictures

Bondi Day

We travelled by train and very busy bus from the city centre to Bondi beach. At the train /bus connection point there were uniformed officials pointing out the way to the hordes – the tourists, the surfers with their giant boards, the families. ‘For Bondi go to the right of the station exit outside the station’. To go to the right we had to join a long queue to the left. It was all very puzzling and for some time I couldn’t see any of the buses. But we rounded the corner and there they were, loading and leaving very efficiently. To Bondi!
I’m not sure what I expected but I was surprised that the bus stopped in a busy shopping street. Here as in Manly the passengers all streamed in the one direction - this time straight over the sea front road towards the ocean a car park width away
Tony and I paused before following the throng. Was the pause in order to buy the sunhat or did the sunhat buying come because of the pause? The sunlight was glaring. The straw hat I chose shaded me well and kept my hair in place too.
Once kitted out we followed the way to the Beach, passed a placard man. He reminded me of a God one who stood on Waverley Bridge in Edinburgh for many years. This chap seemed to be displaying not Biblical but his own texts. Hippy love and light?
The sun on the sand was so dazzling I had to shut my eyes.
Our plan, having looked at the busy Bondi Beach, was to walk along the cliffs from Bondi to Coogee. We set off along the waymarked concrete walkway expecting the crows to diminish. We had chosen however to walk on a day of the Sculpture by The Sea Exhibition. The other walkers were stoppers and lookers and the streams of people were going in both directions. Once we became accustomed to this, we joined in the stopping and looking – a stroll day rather than a brisk walk day, the heat wouldn’t have allowed briskness. We photographed the sculptures; we photographed each other photographing the sculptures.
We gratefully accepted samples of Lipton’s iced tea – mango peach lemon greentea – from guys with the tea in backpacks like those used by workers spraying weedkiller and also from stalls where we thirstily sampled and sampled again. As we drank the welcome teas, we listened to a jazz band.
I made use of the Kodak booth to have some of my new digital pictures printed free and to enter on of them in a competition.
I guess I gave the wrong address. I haven’t received my prize.
All this above the ocean, the blue blue ocean.
There were sculptures made of metal, sculptures made of found objects, there were amusing sculptures – the colony of little people, the squatting trumpet thing , there were simply beautiful sculptures - the split polished rock, the water falls .Each sculpture had its notice and information and many people carried ample booklets. I am yet to read of them.
On and on we walked. Round a point and to another beach. At the far edge of this bay, there were families with small children. It was a suitable place for us to have an ocean swim. As someone used to bathing on near empty beaches, the crowds were a challenge even here. I was concerned about the advisability of changing in public with the problem of the money belt and other important things, but we shielded each other, swam one at a time and didn’t suffer.
As we headed on round the next point, we came on a swimming pool cut into the rock. It looked attractive but once through the changing procedure was enough and it was time to press on.
The final part of the walk led us past the settings for several weddings. Chairs arranged in a grove But how did we know that that was what it was

expedition one of the items on G's list of Sydney must dos.
A concrete ‘beach’

Chish and fips
Beer
The eternal place to eat thing the coffee place the beer place the food place

Then a bus back to Sydney and a nighttime ride on the monorail. It was good but to see anything the light is better!

The night we slept in a dorm.
I don’t mind sharing a sleeping room with others but I always assume they’ll mind sharing one with me.
When I snore, they do and this was one of these occasions.
I woke in the dark middle of the night aware of someone speaking sharply. ‘Turn over, mate. You’re snoring.’ Assuming that I was the culprit, feeling sure that wasn’t the first rebuke and that my snoring would continue, I got up. I walked outside the sleeping part of the hostel, found the kitchen open and made a cup of coffee. I prowled on looking for somewhere to sit and down some outside stairs, off a
side courtyard I found an ideal little empty sitting room with a sofa and bookshelves.
I picked out a light Australian novel and curled up comfortably. This was good.
After a time a young also wakeful man came in. We chatted a little though my attention was on the story and I really wanted to be there aloe, maybe even to sleep. He was friendly, English, working in Sydney, fidgety, confiding. I read my book. The night wore on. He left the room. He came back. He left to go to his own room. He told me where it was. The night wore on. I moved to a table at the back of the building. He came there and said ‘I want to ask you question. Don’t take offence. Can I ask?’
I told him of course he could ask but I wouldn’t guarantee an answer.
I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this.
‘I have a condom in my pocket. Can I use it on you? ‘
Very calmly, with a smile and a decisive shake of the head I replied ‘No.’
He continued ‘It’s healthy. We could use the toilets there. It’s healthy.’
‘I agree it’s healthy’ I said like the matter of fact travellery woman of the world I pretend sometimes to be ‘But the answer is still ‘no’.’
He left shortly after pointing out his room in case I changed my mind.
For a short time I sat where I was. I didn’t feel threatened or alarmed just uneasy and I didn’t want to be driven away r even him to think I had been – I was that matter of fact travellery woman of the world after all.
In time I did move on and went for a walk to the waterfront through the early morning sleeping streets. I watched as the sky coloured over the Anzac Bridge. I photographed the reflections of that graceful bridge in the still water. I followed a new walkway along the water’s edge under a dark crane, one of the retained industrial remains. I watched it over my shoulder as I passed on my way towards a modern housing development and back to the leafy streets of Glebe where I found coffee and rolls in the kitchen.

Thankfully my friend of the night was not there to make me feel discomfited but as I breakfasted I overheard a conversation that did.
It went something like this.

Did you sleep well?
No, I hardly slept at all
Oh?
There were snorers in my dorm. Two guys seemed to be taking it in turns. One stopped. The other started. Then they both disappeared leaving their alarm clock to ring. I had to get up to switch it off.

I knew he was talking of me and I felt bad.

There is a story here of me, three men and my reactions to my reactions to each of them.
The two passing men, the one who made an unusual request in a matter of fact way and the one who made reasonable comments to his friend, and my travelling partner.
I was disproportionately concerned about the snoring issue. Possibly even more so by the man commenting on it publicly even though I was anonymous to him – and I was only one of the snorers. (There was a fourth person in the room who might have been equally guilty…) It was as if I had been doing something very wrong as opposed to something very annoying and something I – but for the clock –couldn’t control. It became an important part of our Tony’s and mine, shared with no one as far as I know, tale – ‘the snoring night’
I was surprised, puzzled, taken out of my comfort zone by the sex issue. But unharmed and unharming. That too became part of the tale –‘Can I use my condom on you’
I was having some domestic issues with my partner as I struggled to be on my own trip and also on a trip with him.
I wanted to be free to wander.
I wanted ‘just to do what I do’.
I wanted to allow practicalities like food, sleep, banks, times take care of themselves.
He, reasonably, liked to plan some.
I wanted everything to go my way even though I didn’t always know what way was. I didn’t want to be asked what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go all the time. I felt constrained.
Yet I was pleased to be travelling with him.
All that was in the air. We had travelled over the world together at my instigation, even at my upfront outlay, but something was not right. Yet I didn’t want or wasn’t able to talk of that with Tony while I could talk to him at length about the other two minor men.
In the writing of this, the important issue has space. On the day, the two passing issues had time taken both in my mind and also in discussions with Tony. The other was only referred to when it manifested majorly as it did for example outside the Chinese eatery G had recommended.
I assumed we both knew we were heading there – Tony after all is a serious map consulter.
I assumed we both had some idea what sort of place we were going to – Tony after all is a knowledgeable city person.
When neither of these things proved to be true I ‘grumped’, walked off along the street, pronounced everywhere else as unsuitable for us to eat in, often for presumed budgetary reason…..
We did finally go to the Chinese Food Court. We had to eat somewhere and we were there after all. I at least was sorely disappointed. There was lots of food, little of it to my curious taste, there were shouting dinner ladies, there was harsh lighting, there were school dinner tables and chairs, there was a low shutyouin ceiling.
We ate in a friendly fashion. The difficult moments slid under the Formica until the next time.

Pyrmont Day

After the strange night and early morning, we both wanted to tick our lists – Chinese Gardens for me and a Bridge Walk for Tony were top.
Together we took the now familiar – look, no map! – walking route to the city to then follow our separate must–dos on this the last Sydney day before a Blue Mountain visit.
We paused on the colourful Pyrmont Bridge, looked around a the water the ‘waterfront’ and I ,as ever, and notice read.

Wow!
The bridge opens.
It opens every Sunday.
This is Sunday.
It opens at twelve o’clock every Sunday.
It’ll soon be twelve.
People can go in the cab with the opener.
These people are going in.
We can go in too.
Where’s the queue?
There’s no queue
Just go in
Just go up
Up
Up the clankety steps overhanging the sleek water
Into the driver’s cab
the driver’s cab all cosy and snug
the driver’s cab all busy and close
the driver’s cab all powerful and high
the driver
his tram levers
his story
his pictures
his words
his knowledge
his enthusiasm
history

Clear the Bridge
Stand behind the barriers
The bridge will open in two minutes

Stand behind the barriers
Clear the bridge
Stand behind the barriers

Clear the bridge

Clear the bridge
He looked down at a lone engrossed woman
Not hearing? Not understanding?

Clear the bridge
Stand behind the barriers
The bridge will open in one minute

lone sitting woman looked up and around
Jumped up
And
open newspaper flapping in hand
smile of
Recognition
Contrition
Chagrin
Amusement
Puzzlement
On face
She rushed to join the waiting watching people behind the barrier

Operation time
Radio messages exchange
Polished tram levers pulled in 19th century sequence
Shrill hooters peep-peeped in 21st century obedience

The stately bridge glided open
Splitting the roadway in two

The monorail overhead undisturbed
A trains passed over the chasm

And
All slid smoothly back in place
The barriers were lifted
The people walked on

The operator was pleased with that day’s performance. Everything was perfectly synchronised. He was proud of his job, his bridge, its history.
He gave us facts and figures, data and detail, information and explanation. And a leaflet to study later.

Carefully, leaving behind thanks, and not looking further down than my feet on the open steps in their flip flops, I left the cab.
Breathe in at the top and out at the bottom.
Safe! It was only the climb down which felt unsafer for me - the limb up and the time in the cab were slid and secure.
.

The bridge’s industrial function finished with that of the docks yet it remains, solid, as useful and interesting working relic of times past, at home in the sea of glittering glass and white painted buildings whose function is business or tourism. Its bright paintwork, its place on the walking route, its pedestrianisation, the monorail following its route, all go to make it as significant in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.

The coffee stall on the bridge – another 21st century touch – was the parting place for the day.

I set off for my slow city wander day. First to go again on the monorail. This time in daylight being able to see where I was going and trying to photograph the front - or the back - of the train I was riding in as it went round a corner. This toy-like train fascinated me. I liked to travel above the streets, sometimes very close to the walls and occasionally able to look into uncovered office windows – like offices everywhere desks, phones, computers and not very interesting.
This time I used the monorail as transport as well as tour and bought a ticket which would allow me to get on and off throughout my wander day.

The Chinese Gardens called as they had since first I saw their roofed walls. Was it the mystery of the high walls that attracted me? Had I read something? I don’t know but I had to go there.
I arrived at the entrance, paid my entry fee and was immediately unsure about the place. It was another – albeit pleasant tourist attraction or trap.
But I was admitted to the secret.
There was information available about the gardens, their layouts, the intentions and meaning of each part. I said thank you and I strolled, I saw, and I wondered. I said thank you and I strolled, I looked, I enjoyed
At first, I was interested in the groups of people in Chinese dress, always it seemed being photographed. Was this a special occasion? Am I ‘in the way’? Then I saw the sign –‘’ Borrow Chinese dress here.’’ OK
I sat in a round pavilion with a yin-yang symbol.
I wrote some purple notes in the notebook Laura gave me. It was my plan to write some record of the trip as I went along.
Nearby were the sounds of water gently splashing, of tinkly music, of quiet voices. Nearby was the perfume of the flowers. Clearly not far but totally out of sight were the sounds and smells of burger bars, barbeques and funfairs.
I enjoyed my time in the garden but I was also a little disappointed. It was beautiful. It was peaceful and I needed some peace. Maybe the fact that it was so consciously planned and arranged somehow detracted from it but if it had not been planned it wouldn’t have been there and I couldn’t have enjoyed its artifice as I did.
A puzzle.
After a cup of refreshing but not –what- I- had -expected iced tea (Lipton’s brand suited me in the Bondi crowds but it jarred here) I moved on to something completely different but another must of my day and conveniently nearby.
To Market City.
Wherever I go, I visit the market. Ideally, I visit a market for fresh local produce or crafts but really, I visit any market. I wandered around and around until I was able to make the decision that really there was nothing for me here.
I don’t have the tee-shirt but I had the experience.
From there to the monorail and on to the one remaining form of Sydney public transport for me to experience – the tram. This tram was more like a train than the trams of my long ago childhood in Dundee. I’m sure it had no levers like those still in use on the Pyrmont Bridge. I travelled to the end of the line, by the Anzac bridge, by the suburban houses and playfields. I stayed on the tram at the terminus
Terminus, the word, reminds me of far away time when the terminus was a far away place where I went for a jaunt with my Auntie Stella, where the driver walked from the front to the back of the tram clack clack clack clack clacking the wooden seat backs as he changed the front to the back and the back to the front.
From that Sydney terminus I retraced the tracks to Glebe my Sydney home.
Later I walked back through the Glebe streets to the station for another tram ride. As I walked, I wondered about these terraced houses which were so appealing to me - the smaller the house the more appealing. Once they were I suppose built for families and these tiny houses would have been very crowded homes. I was seeing them with my 21st century eyes and my personal taste. There was a near match with my ‘wee house’ desire.
That tram ride to the city I took to maybe meet Tony after his day.
On the Pyrmont Bridge, I stopped again at the coffee stall just as the coffee maker was closing for the night. As I drank it on the bridge along came Tony. The clearing up man kindly served us another coffee ‘but don’t tell anyone you got it from me. I have a train to catch.’ I watched as he folded up the equipment inside the booth, closed the doors, and walked away from the booth which had been the start and finish point of our city day .
I had my ticket.
I wanted to ride round the monorail route one more time.
Tony waved me off as I climbed the steps from the bridge to the station.
The train came in.
I climbed on.
Then Tony was suddenly there too – ‘I changed my mind. I got a ticket. I’m coming too.’
Once around to see it all again and then

Eat Food Where What

‘Let’s go somewhere we come on rather than back to what we know’ I said
Along the way home, there were lots of rejections
‘not for us’ which I think was code for beyond our/your /my unspecified budget
‘I don’t want to eat that but you go.’ I think this while factually true but it may also have been a way of keeping my independence, our individual independence, of holding interdependence at bay.
I wonder what we did eat that night
That last city night before the wildness began to claim us.

INTO THE BLUE MOUNTAINS

During the early Sydney days there was an intention of sorts to visit and stay in the Blue Mountains for a day or two, possibly returning to the hostel the day before fly out.
Our accommodation in Sydney was therefore booked piecemeal – 3 nights to start with, then 2 more, then maybe more, and finally we
Stayed put. Three rooms in the 8 nights – the original, the one night dorm, and the last, another like the first. A big bed for us and four other beds for our gear.
The hostel was spread over three adjacent old buildings. Polished wood. Stained glass windows. I met a man one day who was painstakingly removing cracked and broken windows to remake them in their original style. A long project, which would give some of the faded elegance back to the old buildings.
Comfortable
Anonymous. I rarely saw anyone o my way to and from my rooms.
The social life in the inhabitants – the short and the long timers was carried out in the leafy courtyard
The public room was the entire front ground floor of one of the buildings. It contained a reception desk staffed b various cheerful helpful young people, pay as you go computers with internet access, soft drinks machines, and pies and piles and racks and racks of information leaflets. Early in the visit we trawled through these. We found a system, which worked, for us. I picked a selection, gradually rejected most and tony did the same. The one activity which stood out for both of us was an aboriginal walk in the blue mountains.
We read the details and we were over the age limit. We used the internet facilities and contacted Evan the guide, telling him how fit and used to walking we were It was OK we could go.
We only had to pick our day.
Always difficult.
What ifs.
If we go then, then we can do that.
If we go then, then maybe we could do that.
If we stay there, then we can go there.
If we stay there, then we can’t go there.
If we do that on that day, then there are no more days.
PPPPPrrrrrrrrrFFFFFFF
Finally we decided on our Blue Mountain day and on staying in Sydney until fly out day.

An early start was needed and I was sleepy. Tony had to wake me and wake me again but we caught the bus to catch the train to meet the man at…..
One other person got off the train at the little station. She was going walking too and she was staying in the same hostel. Her decision to take this tour had been confirmed when told there was an ‘older’ couple also going. That had made her feel more safe.
Together we waited for minutes that seemed much longer than they were.
What now? What instead?
But there he was coming towards us, apologising, telling us someone else was even later and introducing himself all at the same time. We waited some more at an atypically graffitid picnic spot - the first I had noticed in Australia - depressed broken tables.
Then as a complete party of four plus one we moved on.
Follow me
In single file, with our various packs, our various speeds, we did
In moments we were visually out of this century and in a minutes audibly.
Led by our guide who had aboriginal ancestry through his father
who had known the land since childhood
who had learned - been given – the stories of the people and of their lifestyle and of their ‘sites’
a people who had not lived there in that style for almost 200 years since the coming of the people of the north brought disease, dis-ease and death
to individuals
to old and to young
to families
to clans
to the community

The people of today
The people with some aboriginal blood
The people feeling interest in that lifestyle
Were represented to us by our guide
Who
by taking us to the land as if on walkabout
by teaching in his quiet storytelling way
of what was and of what is
with a vision of what might be to come
of how we each can learn to be in tune with ourselves
with our community
with the land
by taking time for everything and by quietly experiencing through all our senses

We dropped down down down as the trees grew up up up and the thunder rolled and the lightening flashed and the rain poured
making the already rough track trickier and slippier – my challenge for the day was to keep up and to keep upright.
The leaflet had warned us ‘not for 55+’ but we made our case and our choice and were admitted.
His pace is not for the speed free but we coped.
This was an introduction to Australia beyond the city that I don’t think I would have had in a regular walking tour or in a personal
wander.
The thunder and lightning added to the wonder I felt in this new landscape I was to learn to call the bush .The trees began
to grow above me as they did below me.
We took shelter under a rock overhang and sat in a row facing out to the trees, the rain, the lightening.
It was here during this shelter time, that we were encouraged to use all our senses fully as we were invited to follow several sense
exercises.
Smell
With crushed eucalyptus leaves, rolled and put in our nostrils we could fully allow the bush to become part of each of us.
Sight
By focusing on something and allowing it to fill us and become part of us. As I focused on softly swaying golden tree tops below us I
I was soon swaying with them.
Touch
By being fully aware of the rock beneath us, the rock we sat on, by feel through our hands and our feet the quartz, which was the mineral of importance to the aboriginal people
Taste
to know and to experience slowly the taste of certain leaves
Hearing
to walk quietly, few words and with soft steps

Being at one with the natural world Being still and at peace

I found these suggestions very natural and easy to follow. To walk leaving no trace is also familiar to me. It feels right.

I would have liked an extreme of silence to hear the leaves, the thunder, the birds, the cicadas.
The guide talked only occasionally out with his set information points and then in a soft soft voice – so soft at times it was hard to her.
While the punters were all clad in walking boots with good strong soles that couldn’t but leave some mark he wore flimsy plimsolls.

The journey was mostly off bushwalker tracks, following little paths in a well planned route with stopping points at aboriginal sites; at places where there were props stored- a stick in a red ant hole, banging together things at the dancing ground, ochre paints ready by a billabong to be crushed in the water, flat surfaces of sand or earth on which to draw out the information. Everything was neatly hidden out of the sight of any possibly passing person except in one overhanging cave where the ochre painted pieces of bark left by previous walkers. What will people make of this gallery in times to come?
Tony posted our work to London His was important to him and he included mine in the package. As I write it is in limbo somewhere – ephemeral art.
My ochre on bark painting
I picked up a flattish piece of red coloured bark to work on
I am always diffident about art activities
and was so this time too
But Evan drew in the sand some traditional symbols and named the traditional colours.

I used, in this order

the symbol for woman - a white (

the symbol for a long journey ………..

the symbol for a meeting

in yellow a woman colour

White is the spirit colour and as I painted I wondered if the white spirit woman was a dead me going on a journey having been at a meeting, or if the meeting was one that I was not physically at
This was a briefly troubling, fanciful, difficult interpretation of the symbols I chose.

I added === in red above the ……….. with the thought of ‘lightening’ it but I don’t now remember what was the significance of ==== or of red.

I wrote some of these words in a streetside in Sydney the next day, still feeling the connection with the land. I wanted to put my feet on the earth, the rock.
At the lunch stop art studio billabong I needed to climb into a dark cave behind a waterfall. There were no snakes but I didn’t think of the possibility until after – there might have been
I swam in the billabong underneath the waterfall, the curtain fall

Water
Fire

Throughout the day, there was evidence of fire in the charred tree trunks of still growing trees.
I learned that banksia a plant which regenerates only through fire. Aboriginal women used its teasel-like fruit as a hairbrush and its beautiful cone that smoulders very slowly to carry fire from camp to camp
Rainforest
Jungle creeper
The stories were told to aboriginal people gradually as they were initiated further and further
I didn’t retain detail of these stories.
Evan was free to tell us a certain level of story but beyond that ,the elders of his community had told him, he must not go .
His personal view is that unless told the stories may be lost and that as the culture is no longer being lived/adhered to it should now be Ok to pass on more but he will not disobey or go against the wishes of his community. Some people are already unhappy about the information is sharing.
In years to come it seems likely that as he becomes more senior then he will share more.
I sense a link between the ethos of the aboriginal culture and that of the sustainable / new age / alternatives of the west.
This may , of course, be romantic and fanciful.

Story of rainbow serpent
Encircling past present and future
Animals plants and people

Story of godman descending

Story of clans gathering for meetings and dancing and talking and sharing
Story of initiations That they happened, the men and the women separately at hidden sites some of which Evan knew of
Sites of corroborrees, camping ground, sacred sites with markings where Evan first told had us to stand behind sticks marking off the ground, gave us some detail then allowed us to cross if we wished
There was far more detail given than I could remember even on that following day sitting in the leafy café by the pavement in Glebe feeling, thinking, scribbling, drinking

Men’s business
Women’s business
Elders - teachers/ masters who took years to become fully initiated – there were 16 stages of initiation Evan said –and at each stage they went walkabout for up to a year through the lands of different clans

Where does this information come from?
Does anyone really know this?

The land – the down-ness and the up-ness
the height of the trees
the great distances

As a group we sat in a tiny cave where the sound resonated as we hummed. This must have been a sacred site. It resonated too with that cave high above Rydal Water in my recent journeying past and the cave deep in the Western Tiers in my soon to come journeying future.

Sandstone caves with markings that on approach I thought were human made
A final climb to a cave where I only spotted one of the three hand stencils stencilled by individuals in the long ago individuals who after chewing a mouthful of guano and red ochre sprayed the resultant mixture forcefully through a hand held open in front of the rock

How does anyone know that this is what happened all these thousands of years ago. It seems so unlikely.

We sat together in silence in that cave while Evan read for us a poem written by his father - I have a copy and it tells the essence if not the detail that Evan gave us.

Evan then stepped outside and swung his own-made bullroarer. The sound was powerful and strong The sound of other. I heard it in my far away place.
Softly he returned amongst us, greeted each of us individually and welcomed us back from the Dreamtime to the 21st century.

We walked out of that place.
Very soon I heard the sound of animals.
I looked around
I didn’t understand why no one else commented on the sounds
Then I saw we were approaching house and garden land
The animals were barking dogs. And not wild beasts.

On to the concrete pavement
Up the tarmaced road
And
In to the pub
21st century was here
part of me stayed out there somewhere for days to come
I think that that is where part of me always lives – not in that country but in that style /It suits me

and I’m certain my whole trip was coloured by that experience

Ideally I would revisit that place, I wrote the next day, or somewhere similar – slowly, at my walking pace so the gripping tripping rushing worrying about being too slow and about needing a little help which was part of that experience was cut
I realised this somewhat on the Tasmanian days that followed

A wonderful experience for a first bush day
No worries about where or when
No worries about how or what
No worries
Peace contentment
And
Joy
In one short session of talk of our days experience I said how connected always feel to the land and how I dance rather than talk that connection.

04/02/2007 15:03
I wrote in here yesterday of the return from that rip
Of my last Sydney morning
I copied my notes of the flight
It has gone
I thought I saved everything
I guess I didn’t
Or I was trying to be too clever a s I saved on both machine and on new wee device

So t repeat my work if I can

From Five in the pub
Talking
To four in the Train
Chattery
I listened to the busy tight planned itineraries of other travellers, to the different ways of visiting a country, to the backpacker youth traveller world of seeing ‘everything’ in two weeks in partying groups and I knew I had chosen the way that was right for me now – slow, unplanned, selective but with little selection.
Then three in the walk back to Glebe through the city streets.
All hungry and eatery searching.
We ate and comfortably compatibly chatted some more in a dim friendly restaurant sitting at a glass wall overlooking the back premises- the car park and the rubbish, the near trees and far roofs. Pide – like pizza, like cheese piece.
Our companion too had found the day worthwhile as her final Australian experience.

The next day was a down day, a still day, a recap day, a go- nowhere far day. I wrote some of this account in sitting in a streetside café in 21st century Sydney still feeling the connection with the land, my feet on the earth, the rock.
I chose a quiet café with a tree-filled terrace, a step up from the pavement.
I moved from table to table as I followed the sun. I ordered one flat white then another, I reflected and wrote. Tony joined me and at separate tables we continued to note our thoughts until the lunchtimers and felt that my rent time for 3 cups of coffee was spent.

Later, aware of my aching limbs from the speedy climbs in the bush, I treated myself to a massage.
Masseur Terry
of Zambia
of Findhorn
of neither
but like both
In his peaceful room above the shop overlooking the street.
It felt good.

but, and there is too often a but for me, why do I never say what I really want?
Why do I agree that what I am being given is OK?
Why do I find it almost impossible to say ‘that isn’t right?
Why do I even when asked the question about what I want give an unclear response?
As in ‘somewhere between pampering and (don’t know the word that was used) firm, forceful remedial, strong’
I did really mean fairly – there it is again -firm
Why does it seem somehow unsuitable to ask for that? Somehow unsuitable to say ’firmer’.
Why when I am paying for a service can I not have exactly what I want rather than what someone else deems appropriate for me?
That someone else can only know what I want or need if I tell them
Is it that I am unsure of my ground, that I don’t want to say ‘harder’ to be told “of course but I must warm you up”
Is it because I am afraid of showing my lack of knowledge?
Is it because I don’t want to break the silence?
Is it because I am so unsure of myself that I will accept whatever is given?
Why?
To leave thinking ‘that could have been better’ is foolish if I have not said what would have made it better for me.

As I write this, I am aware that there are those who would say I always get or take what I want.

Side thought alls. Not part of the story.

I did feel good after the massage.
Tony met me.
‘Your husband came in. He is waiting outside.’ That assumption makes me smile. I quite like it. As an assumption.
Final Glebe pavement café sit.

And only Glebe pub visit. We went in to a pub that was more like a hotel – big, wide.
It had a good value for money food deal but we had already eaten and it was steak and I don’t eat steak. But we kept reading the sign. We missed it but we could watch as we sat under the muriels in the conservatory extension with our glasses.
Back in the 1960s
The Belleville The Pitbauchlie
Like places I remember going to then. ‘Eating out’ was something my family hadn’t done so it was new when I met it as a young adult with parents in law to be or with college friends. 1960s

Back to the hostel to pack the bags to be ready to leave to catch the bus to catch the plane to go to Tasmania
But first I must go to that tower.
That tower that had been rejected as touristy, money wasting, unnecessary but that had been in my mind all the time as a me place if not a we place.
So off I went on the bus into the city
I got off neatly at the right stop
Looked up It high
Found its entrance
And rode up the mirrored escalators through a 50s gilded shopping place
To the ticket desk
I want to go to the top of the tower I don’t want to take the ride experience
One ticket only
Tower and ride
Somewhat concerned that the elevator to the top of the tower would also take me on the unwanted ride I queued
Snaky queue
A lone woman amongst the groups of youngsters and of families I queued
One more space in this elevator
So here was an advantage in being a one I could legitimately queue jump
Jerkily up
Not the ride please, I didn’t say
Out to the top to the enclosed observation deck
360°
I watched those going upper and outer being kitted for the experience and didn’t envy them at all
I walked all around
People people people
Cameras cameras cameras
Recognised and alien languages
The city all below
High low
Trees parks
Water boats
Boat wake
Far and near sands
The Bridge
The Opera House
Roof gardens
Roof running track
Visited and not
Airport
Huge
But beyond
Hazy distant bush
Blue
Eucalyptus blue
Sky blue
Sea blue

I walked I stopped I looked I recognised I photographed I posed
I wrote a postcard of an Australian Sheila and posted it from the tower to Trish
The words were silly they made me laugh I don’t remember them
I was disappointed that the coffee shop was shut for reformation
I walked around again
The mindful of time
I queued
But
Is this the queue for the ride?
I walked around again
Is this the queue for the ride?
One queue fir everything
I queued
I went down I went out
I looked up
I came out an unfamiliar entrance and spent some anxious minutes finding my way to the bus
I turned left
Round the block
And left
And left
And there it was
Turning right at the entrance would have saved minutes but there were enough
Finally to the hostel to meet tony waiting with our bags.
For the hostel ordered shuttle bus
We waited It didn’t come
W waited some more
It didn’t come
We waited beyond the time
It didn’t come
The hostel phoned the bus – ‘we came and there was noone waiting’ they said
A taxi was ordered in its stead
A speedy and friendly drive
Lucky people to be going to Tasmania
You must go to Huon
To the Huon valley
There you will get the best fruit
Plums
Apples
All organic
At the road side
The best
There at roadside stalls
Fresh
Organic
Apples and plums
The best fruit
The east is good too
Go to Freycinet
But remember the fruit in the Huon valley
The best

Into world of the big airport again. Airy and bright this one with a view to the planes and beyond.

Through the security check check checks
Yes, we are who we say we are
Our gear is what it is
We are carrying only the things we are permitted to carry

A contented unencumbered wait time. Then to that plane.

Written on the Hobart flight

As we flew away from Sydney I tried to photograph the tall CBD and the Tower as a final Sydney sight of this trip.
The picture is of the sky above them

Towards Hobart
Towards Gillies

Up the mountain?
On a funicular?
That was a dream that was – Gil’s girlfriend met us and said Gil was working on top of the mountain. She was going there anyway and would we go too on the funicular?
Not a premonition this
We were met by both
There was no mountain work
There was no funicular

Sitting one behind the other to have equal viewing rights –I had selected these seats weeks from my computer in the window at Harvieston.

Through the clouds
Bump
White
Silver wing
Golden beaches
Frothy foamy surfing ocean
Excited anticipation
Blue sky blue sea
Bright clouds
Holes to look through
At
Sea or land
Or
Too far to see what

White horses
Southern horses
Unicorns or penguins

Clouds whispering greying
Pen fainting purpling scraping
Sudden land below
Beach waves
Then
Gone n the cloud
Bright sunlight
South west ish
Long long shore line

BIG WHITE HORSES
WINDIER NOW
LANDLESS

Looking down to the sea
See the white
Specks
Starlike
As if looking up not down
As if in the night not the bright
Are there bots don there

The ending announcement
Clear up time
My wine isn’t done
We’re nearly there
But
We’re still up high
Grey cloud below
Curious
Will it be cold?
Hail was forecast
I’m suffering the wine effect
Words are atumble

Here are the crew with jackets on
Is this seniority or are we near landing time?
But
We’re high
And I’ve fast drunk a wee bottle of wine

Land ahoy
Tasmania
Tony is taking pictures from his window
Beach
Forest

“restricted goods
no food”
wingly wongly paths through woods
forests
bush

ears

empty

We’re down
This is it
We’re in TASMANIA
((eat up those cheese pieces)))

Down the plane steps and through the door
This is Hobart and there that chap over there that’s Gillies in his tweed jacket so like his father
Forgetting that we were still in the same country and didn’t need to be passportised I waited
then through the no barrier
Hallo
This is Alexis
Hallo
Hallo
Here at last
To the bag find
There they come round the bend
My lady case with its silken tag
My faded old rucksack that I first used on hostelling hols with Gil 20 years ago
And Tony’s big black bag
All of us together
To meet Rosie The Van
And to hurtle through the evening
Over the bridge I’d never drive
Into the city
To a waterfront
To eat fish and chips
No mountain top
No funicular

EARLY HOBART DAYS

In Tasmania at last after all that planning and wondering and pre-being in Australia
This is where I was journeying to
This is what it was all about
I was very pleased to see Gil but that is not the uppermost thought this is the PLACE I was travelling to
Gil was here so I had an in
I doubt if I would have considered a Tas trip otherwise

We were met at the airport at 6.30pm
greeted and driven to town
I met Alexis – the girlfriend.
A sweet friendly strong confident pretty welcoming young girl
I met Rosie – the van.
A noisy struggling red ‘will I go or will I not?’ roomy green stickered vehicle with a familiar red and black cover over the back seat
It lived here for a while and on Gils bed in Carlowrie Place
Catriona posted it - or took it out to him
But really he wanted another cover we didn’t find

We chuntered towards the city
A surprisingly long way
Over the Tasman Bridge whose high arch was not for me
To park at the waterfront
All developed
Directly
No questions asked
No dither
to eat in a smart fish and chiperie
Not just ‘fish and chips please’ or ‘a fish supper’
But different fish to choose from
Blue-eyed trevalla I was recommended
There is a story somewhere about trevalla environmentally OK, but trevally not – or is it the other way round

We ate we chatted we drank some – wine for Alexis and me - white ‘because it’s fish and beer for the boys
Out into the twinkling evening and back into Rosie for the first of many drives up the hill to Gils.
Then up up up thro the town with my ears doing their not-quite-popping thing
Not to the top of the mountain
We didn’t see the top of the mountain for days
to Fern Tree (two words I now know not Ferntree as I have been addressing the occasional thing for the past almost 2 years}
Steep roads
Looking front sides and back and trying to talk too
Off the main road and on to Summerleas Road
Gil’s road
Passed squat building brick shaped houses some built on stilts it seemed
All different colours
Space
And then we turned a bend
And whoosh down a short steep entrance way
Stop
We’re here
Out you get
Rectangular long and low
Through the squeaky screen door
Hi chicks
through the kitchen
the kitchen so familiar for some reason and friendly and welcoming

A wee room all ready for us
“This is your room for the duration”
A shiny wooden floor, a chair, a basket or two, a wall of clothes, a window to the van - and nothing else!
“It’s OK. The bed’s coming”
We dumped our bags
We were shown around
A familiar layout – the long living room with the table at one end
A familiar feel to it all – 70s? 60s? homely?
Baskets of wool and work to be done
Washing on the screen
But then
‘Come outside’
Back through the kitchen
out the door
And on to the ‘’deck’ is it? Running all the way along the back and side of the house
High
Looking down to the garden below
And over to the bush beyond
In the garden
grass trees veg patch
And look down there!
a bath
an avocado bath with space for a fire underneath
a hot tub
I must have a go in that

A tarpaulin draped dome
?
That’s the oven we’re building
You can help us finish it

More drink
This time from one of the $12 for six bottles Australian Shiraz that became so familiar – like Costa perhaps

Sleep time and here’s your bed
The soft foam from the sofa in the living room
A low bed like I like
Downie sheets extra sleeping bag for warmth
It’s high here
Now the empty bare room is a bedroom
with space for the bed
for the gear
and some walk space to allow G and A to get to their clothes cupboard
Sleep
The first night of Tasmanian sleep

In the morning my first taste of Gillies made coffee– espresso in a whooshing thing like mine but with the sugar added into the machine and with hot milk heated in a brass Turkish coffee pan- narrow long handled lipped
Neat and good
And of his own made bread
I have a talented son

((((Mmmmm late deliveries here))))?????

Some local explore
A wander around the garden
And off for a first of what we expected to be many visits to the mountain that is covered with walking paths and marked routes
up around across
Gillies leading the way
At speedy young man’s walking pace we set off up the road and over to the mountain start. Gil led us briskly – and we didn’t demur - long leggedly on a wee walk along the lower slopes – the town is built on the lower slopes so these must be the middling slopes to The Springs.
I don’t remember seeing the Springs but Alexis asked if we’d brought water so they must be real ones.
Quiet.
Unfamiliar greenery.
Its so good to be here and Ill go this way one day and that way another, and to the top of course
The mountain remained for some days in cloud

On our return we stopped at the Fern Tree Shop, the one time I was there, for milk .
Tony chose too some muesli not thinking that we were in a ‘corner shop’ and Gil host-like bought it without comment – I later mum-like squared

That evening after a welcome dinner with house mate Nat we were introduced to the pademelons in the garden
Marsupials
They jump
Squat short fat
But mostly they eat grass I presume
They come out in the dark
A big torch shining
I had a difficulty with that
It seemed we would be disturbing the beasts yet they were apparently unconcerned
And how could we have seen them without
I never did spend darkening time there beast watching
Where do they live in the day?
I never asked that question
In the bush of course
but
On the ground
Under the ground
Don’t think they live up trees

And to the possums and the currawong on the deck

{{{{{{I like the sound of my typing it is getting faster all the time I think grandma Aboyne would not be too displeased at least I can hit the keys How many fingers am I using?
I’ll try to count - middle finger of right hand and both first and middle finger of the left
and sometimes O stretch with pinkie and forefinger but that’s a trick that takes time for speed my three trusty fingers are used. I feel that I move my whole self in this typing dance I like it its fun. And I especially like making the sound of a final. . there it is again. .satisfying….}}}}}}}]][[

We were lent a pile of maps and books to read, given information and asked what are your plans?
Ever vaguely we had none really.
It’ll happen.
It’ll fall into place
Was this difficult for G and A and their housemate ?

My ideas:
To explore the town and its environs
Just to be there
To gradually go further afield
To get ourselves a car someway – to hire perhaps or even to buy…..
To acquire the necessary camping gear – tent sleeping bag, cooker, everything
Gil could lend us from his gear or acquire for us from left behinds at the Pickled Frog Hostel where he worked
To visit the Tip Shop we had heard so much of
To take time

Next day Gil took us to that Tip Shop. It’s a shop. It’s at the tip.
I think that some people take their unwanted stuff directly there, and that the bin men also put stuff in the shop…
It’s such a good idea, so practical, so sensible.
There should be tip shops at every tip.
Maybe Dad wouldn’t have liked to buy at a tip shop but he would have been a regular provider of goods!
And
Maybe he would also have been a customer
It’s very hard to resist at Tip Shop prices
And everything can go back there
Next day
Next week
Next year

A big wooden shed surrounded by outdoor piles of assorted gear – sorted into categories, dishes, kitchen stuff, old doors, chairs and more. Inside clothes, books, music and and and and

Tony and I trawled for possible camping gear .
We found 2 chairs, a low pink one for me that didn’t survive being sat on and a regular one for T
2 pottery soup bowls, 60s style with fat wee side gripping handles I liked them
I wanted to buy the whole set for G. Tthey seemed to fit their kitchen!
We don’t need more, mum Thanks…
Mine lasted me the whole trip for most of my camping meals .
Gillies has it now
Or its back at the Tip Shop!
A black enamel mug for me
It came back to Harvieston with me and has already had a soup-at-a-bonfire outing
Cutlery - a round traditional-style soup spoon that I became quite attached to
Kitchen utensils
Wee aluminium bowls that might be useful pots
A pot lid
Tony found a gripper gadget – just right for the handleless pots and also, he later in London found, for opening stiff jars. He is to watch out for another for olding lady me
And
to put it all in
a basket, a shallow wicker basket that was to travel with us around Tasmania

And all for a song!

The Pipeline Walk

We studied the Mount Wellington map and saw that The Pipeline going from a reservoir far on the mountain down to the town passed by Fern Tree with its accompanying walkway.
Armed with map and directions off we set to walk down to town.
Along the path, there were signs giving some historical detail….
We came to the ponds, and there we saw for the first time the picnic/ barbecue facilities – equipped shelters which I assumed were for group use.
Down some more
This was our first Tasmanian expedition

No memory of how we spent that afternoon
Wandering most likely
But I know that
In the evening
We met Gil and Alexis and went to Rectango, a free musical event held every Friday in a courtyard behind the Salamanca Arts Centre.
We were early before the band was set up, time to look around.
The ‘courtyard’ was in fact an empty plot behind a one-time warehouse – buildings on three sides with a cliff face forming the fourth.
The band set up under the cliff.
A group of players with a Zimbabwean finger pianist and singer as front man.
There were soon crowds of all ages in the courtyard and a space to dance.
I made use of the dance space, the others in my gang stood with their beers at the back – G all man-like in his sports jacket – I have to remind myself that his fatherwas already almost thrice a father at his age.
Gil looks very like his father did at the same age.A side note
I met some of Gil and Alexis’s friends and after the music we went to eat together with one of them at a different fishnchip place on the front.

((((((A side note
Fern Tree
Fernbrae
where I was born nearly 60 years ago
where Laura and Alastair too were born
where I remember visiting my mum – mummy – and being very upset after Alastair was born .
I left clutching a box of chocolates mummy had been given .
I remember holding daddy’s hand as we crossed the road on our way home.
I have a sense of him looking down at me and of it being me not my little sister who needed to be and was being looked after that day.
I wonder was the box the same blue ribboned one that I later used to store Gran Beck’s stair carpet fixers or was it a red ribboned one that I kept until not long ago with treasured things
I almost need to go and look in the cupboards where it would be if I still had it but I don’t want to not find it, so no not now)))))

Saturday
Salamanca Market Day
This was somewhere I had to go.
I was pleased that I was to go alone
Tony was sleeping,
Gil and Alexis were working.
Alexis gave me a lift in Rosie the van to the Pickled Frog where Gil was already at work.
In his capacity as jovial Australian hostel chap he made me a flat white, and phoned to book places on a Harbour sail the following day – aboard the Lady Nelson, a training ship we had seen the night before - two for the price of one, a sail and a tour.
Through the streets to market to market to buy …. A rose pink head wrap from the woman who dyed it
made it
tied it on me.

A market is a market but this is The Tasmanian market.
The streets are closed and filled with stalls.
The crowds are out to buy veg and honey, wooden crafts and socks, things and more things.
Christmas presents.
I bought tickets for The Wilderness Society’s advertised ‘ Beards, Bush shirts and Beanies’ that night.
It seemed an interesting introduction for us to the green /environmental/countryside issues in Tasmania, to the works done and being done before we began our travels.
Unfortunately, it proved to be mainly an old chums reminisce evening about events of 20 and more years ago.
There was a short video shown which gave an overview and there was a brief outline of current campaigns.

As I travelled and thought some, I realised that I was into seeing what is now rather than what might have been

Sunday and a sunny day
Down the hill to go on the ship.
Sunglasses – pink of course and I think that may have been the only day I wore them but I knew I needed then on the water.
The glare was very strong.
After a time of wondering if we were to stay berthed, the ship set off. The volunteer crew happy to give us detail and more about the ship, about sailing, and about the points of interest we could see. I’m not a good listener in these situations. When I listen I miss. I enjoyed the experience of being on the water, of watching the sails be set, and of seeing what we passed by. Cold.
Later separately – we’d had a bit of a row about food or planning or space or something - we made our way to a Circle Dance evening I had learned about before I left Scotland.
I walked up Elizabeth Street to…??Newtown Hill town ……following my map.
I was there far too early.
I failed to find anywhere with food more substantial than a bar of chocolate.
In one short street I passed the Greek club, the Italian Club and the another similar place.
I had this dance event marked as an important one in my Hobart time.
I wanted to dance and I thought I might be able to make some connections with my dancing tribe which would be useful in my travels.
I was warmly welcomed.
I danced.
I chatted a little but there my connection ended.
I didn’t try for more.
That was slightly disappointing but OK too.
There is one dance that I should try to find. It was choreographed by a woman from Adelaide to music by Enya – a simple birthday dance. Peter and Christa Sands are my contacts .
Tony and I were speaking again, tho we were never not, by the end of the dance and walked down to meet Gil at the Pickled Frog for a lift home.I wonder – we walked down to meet him to go up ….could we have walked across?

Monday
The top of the mountain came out of the clouds so this was the day to go up.
There was a short window of opportunity before it was time for a lift down town.
Gil gave us a lift to The Springs and we went speedily up the steepest shortest route.
A narrow nobody-else-there-today path
but the top
The Pinnacle was busy.
This is a mountain with a road and a car park and all mod cons.
Quick stop to look.
Quick photo opportunity and down again fast.
With perfect timing, we met Rosie the van, Gillies and Alexis at the corner of their road.
A drive to meet Beryl at ……
Now, Beryl was a car well known to A and G and she was available for a mere $200.
Her owner, confusingly Bella, was about to leave Australia for the UK and Beryl needed a home.
Beryl was maybe to go to one friend.
She was maybe to go to Alexis.
But
She would be happy to come to us.
Tony and Bella confabulated over Beryl
While the others and I chatted with a very wordy lady who showed us a wee housie she was preparing to let to sweet couples
She also told us of her horses and her hens, of her car and of everything
We bought Beryl
Tony was doubtful
I was optimistic
She sounded nice and friendly
We all had fish and chips at Kettering - munching by the ferry place
And Tony with much trepidation drove Beryl to Neville the garage man
‘ he’ll look at her brakes’ said G
She sat on the forecourt to wait her turn
No new comfy home
Poor Beryl
All full of Bella’s Tip Shop offerings

She sat and she waited
We watched as we drove up and down
‘ Haven’t got round to it yet’

Neville when he learned I was is am Gil’s mum came up with a big beaming smile and a held out hand – ‘You must be so proud of him’

Plans were afoot to go to the Tasman Peninsula in 2 cars or in the van.We could go on exploring from there or we could come back.
Go in the van and we come back to Hobart of course.
Whatever I don’t mind
We did the shopping all together – in Woolworths
Edinburgh Woolworth’s 40 years ago had food
I bought the ingredients for my first professional woman meal there
Kippers in a bag and tinned tomatoes!
On the way back up the hill we took a second look at a $1000 Subaru on Nev’s forecourt.
Maybe we should buy her.
Tony wasn’t at all happy about Beryl and Nev too seemed to think the brake problem wasn’t a minor one as Bella had assumed.
We wondered overnight and early in the morning Tony phoned Nev and then chased off down there to test drive BK.
On the test he drove her uphill and I had a wee shot on Gils road.
We both liked her.
So he bought her.
Just like that!
Nev said ‘I’m much happier seeing you in this car. These youngsters drive cars, like Beryl and Rosie, by the seat of their pants, but that’s not so good for you!’
He had some travelling sayings I’ve lost. I hope Tony has them . About it being good to travel, I think

The gear was packed in Rosie, G, A and I met T in the newly purchases 4WD, transferred some gear and me and off we set in convoy for the Tasman peninsula.
The first of the great explores.

At some point
We claimed from Beryl the choice pieces of Bella’s Tip Shop junk
A pink wrap top for me
Some useful cosy campsockshoes
An excellent shiny elegant whistling kettle for camping
A deep useful basket
A petrol can
A foam mattress that foamed away
A jacket fit for Alexis as State Coordinator for Clean Up Australia Day
And more

Not a bad deal really
We gave Beryl to Gil and Alexis to do with as they chose, to keep, to use, to give away , to sell.
They decided not to keep her and Nev sold her for them at a good price.
Everyone happy
I think

TASMAN PENINSULA

In the Subaru with all our gear and Tony at the wheel, we followed the speedy van into and through and out of the city on our first out of Hobart excursion.
Back over that bridge
Remember we were in a sailing boat down there.
My attention was on what I was seeing ,
His on what he was doing
Just as well or I wouldn’t be here to tell this tale for you to read

They’re fast
They drive fast
We don’t know the way we’re going - tho we did look roughly at a map
the roads
the lanes
the Australian highway code
is it the same as the one we know?
Scary

Over a causeway like a road sitting on the water.
Over a little low island
Over more floating road.
The way went straight on
Away from the city now but, if I looked back, I could still see the mountain.
Farmland
Scattered houses
Then a town - Sorrell of the High School
We stopped
I bought my ‘ rose’ – thank you, Nat – sunhat from an op shop, a schoolgirl’s hat, a Sorrell High School hat but just right for me
Gil bought us a red pot to go with the blue tip shop lid and a fish slice too
The real reason for the stop wasn’t this or to allow Tony to draw breath.
The shopping filled in the gap - must make use of an op shop opportunity - while Alexis phoned one of her employers, the owner of the shack we were on our way to stay in.
Uh Oh an arrangement muddle
the keys aren’t left
Mary of the shack, henceforward known as Mary’s Place, thought the arrangement was off
but we could camp there any way
so onward.
Next stop was at Eaglehawk Neck Café for coffee and food.
A sunny welcoming painted wooden place on a narrow strip of land – the Neck.
It was so good that T and I paid a return visit later in the trip
For me the returning veggie breakfast served in the sunny room used by overnight eaters – real veg in the veggie burger, real bread, poached eggs, surpassed my quickly chosen soup of the outward visit
The outward stop was a social stop
The outward stop was a friendly stop
The outward stop was a ‘we’re in Tasmania ‘stop
The outward stop was a good stop

Following on we travelled, fewer buildings, just trees now until we turned off onto a dirt / gravel road
Time for the Subaru to show her 4WD colours.
She likes these dirt roads.
Easy.
Gripping.
Trees on both sides.
This is real bush now
Eucalyptus everywhere big wee thin thick this one that one the other one
Smell the eucalyptus

Stop!
We’d arrived.
Alexis dismantled a gate arrangement and the two vehicles crept up the rutted track
At first there was no dwelling visible, then WOW!
A wee wooden cabin hidden in the trees.
A veranda on two sides with an armchair by the door
A table and benches in front
Look at that loo!

Outside of course
Long drop of course
A wee path walk from the shack
Up some steps
No door to shut you in.
A view over the trees.
With seats for two friends

I had really looked forward to staying in a ‘shack’.There is a similar one over the fence from G in Fern Tree. And Wow !!

There was a bit of a to-do .
Well, I freaked - about whether or not we should ‘break in’.
I upright uptight thought not.
Tony tried to open a window and stopped
Gil succeeded and climbed in.
I felt uncomfy about it
I admitted my discomfort and said I’d put up the tent for me.
Tony could of course, sleep in or out but he chose out with me - it might have seemed as if there was a bit of a domestic if he hadn’t I suppose.
Gil and Alexis had their space in the wee house at the night times. I think it all worked out well.
I would have felt a bit intruding on G and A space in there not only in Mary’s Place .
Much later, weeks later, Alexis told me that Mary was not at all concerned , and in fact quite pleased, that we had ‘broken in’ and it was no problem at all to her.
Aside : I have a pair of Mary’s ‘pants’ – dungarees she passed on to A who passed them on to me after both she and G had decided they weren’t for them – just right for the bush.

The Shack
The ‘shack’ in the bush
One room with a loft bedroom
Just the size for me
The shack all alone
No tracks leading from it.
Except the one to the gravel road

The whole building is like my living room at home with a wee kitchen corner added, a table with a camping gas stove
The sleeping arrangement is like in this room at Harvieston – a ladder to a loft.

We ate at the outside table

Gils advice to me as I enthused around
‘Stamp about when you walk in the bush to let the snakes know you are coming
Don’t wander far, mum’
I obeyed

The cooking was partly in and partly out

Afternoon
Once we were all set up, we set off to Roaring Beach.
Gil and Alexis in the lead followed by me then Tony
A fishing party, a swimming party and a running party.
I followed the instructions
Walk to ‘three trees then a gate forking to the right’.
On along a narrow track, through areas of close green which I later learned were wallaby nibbled –‘wallaby lawns’
Down through the gorse. Was it gorse or something similar?
To the beach.
I wasn’t sure until I arrived whether I was in the right place or not so had been keeping a weather eye behind to know my route back

I was there.
I was in the right place
I followed the instructions.

Alexis warned me that the water was cold but still I was surprised. It was chilly for me too.

On our- fishless -return journey I saw my first wallabies
.
On the road we saw a dead or dying blue tongued lizard.
It seemed much sadder to see a dying rather than an already dead creature.
I felt I ought to ‘do something. ‘

Evening
A convivial outdoors meal.
Gil set up to take photos. He ran back from the camera to sit and strum guitar to be in shot - can I see that one someday please?
Possums came to the table
Friendly or hungry or inquisitive beasts
A salt pattern I made on the table was untouched by them in the morning.
They carefully avoided it as they left their poo presents.

Gil recommended a walk for us the next day, saying it was my kind of place.
Intrigued we set off.
He was right of course.

Peter Adams place
A ‘Centre’
Sculpture
Poetry
Landscape
We approached the place and saw it was busy with a group of young people .We self-followed the track and found all sorts of astonishments on this cliff top walk.

Sculptured chairs
viewing seats
with
sea rocks and drift wood placed not stuck down
Each in its own unique hollow
Words in shape carved on the benches
There is much written material about this place but these are my memories.
I was amazed to find this ‘in the wilds’

Past
the ancestors
A midden on which to put a stone to honour the past
Present
A pond with a split and polished rock thro which you can see’ a broken heart’
A much bigger rock than the Findhorn Nature Sanctuary Rock but similarly placed.
Future
A spiral of huon pine at first only visible above ground but as you walk around you see that it grows from an under place

Eternal Fire
I read the sign
I saw a curious shaped rock or possibly sculpture
I assumed the fire was within it.
Then we came on a huge low-burned bonfire. The site was set as if a ritual/ ceremony of some sort had taken place – there were what we assumed were aboriginal instruments, cf Evan, laid on a rock
The group of people we had seen we now took to be participants in an event / a workshop.

The different greens as we looked inland
The blues of the sea
The brightness of the sky

The wallabies
The far below sands

There were some pieces of cloth dangling from trees
Markers
Decoration
of some other significance
Scribbles on trees
pondering these along with the possible ritual significances of some of the other things we had seen, we assumed the scribbles were person made
scribbly gum, however, we later learned

After we finished the walk we passed by the buildings again – no crowds now but the owner, Peter Adams, spoke to us briefly and talked of the whole landscape being a sculpture.

Second Mary’s Place night

The place itself is what stands out for me – the shack, the remoteness, the firsts

A and G had to leave early for work but t and I were time free. Together we cleared up, a and g doing the inside – A as clean up Australia State coordinator is very good at this kind of thing of course - and they locked up.
That left t and me to take our own slow leaving.
To be for a short time silently in this bush place
to close the gate behind
to put the sticks back in the position I copied.
As I placed the sticks I felt I was taking part in a ritual: that they were not simply markers: that each stick had to go a certain way.
I never asked whether this was true or not. One stone with some metal around it had to go in the middle, that was all I knew.
We headed to Fortescue Bay and on the way stopping at Remarkable Cave – so it was signposted – with its walkway signage and so on. Here we could see the ocean tumbling into a cave open at both ends.
Yes, remarkable.

Bright blue fairy wrens in the car park
Signage helps
Tea tree plants
the smell of their broken twigs is like the conditioner in my bathroom!

Echidna crossing the road slowly
in its movement like a hedgehog , but it’s much bigger and not really like a hedgehog at all
it stopped on the verge
we stopped to watch
it stilled hiding its face

BIG SNAKE day

We walked to Mt Brown, ambling along ,me in front
Tony called out
look snake!
a big one
the thickness of my wrist and length of my arm
dark brown black
it moved quickly over the low growth by the path
and was gone!
Scary
It was big

On our return walk from the top of Mt Brown when we thought we were near the snake place we kept to the rocks by the sea side of the path.
Good rocks for walking on but it was later hard to refind the path

The path passed by A Blowhole
A deep hole in the ground some way inland.
Standing near I could hear the rumblings and grumblings of the distant sea.

To Fortescue Bay
The Ranger greeted us, booked us in, gave us a numbered site to pitch the tent
(No need for domestic deliberations that night)
and he put the first stamp on the National Parks Pass we had acquired in Hobart.
Busy place
A Go-Dive weekend
?
In the car park there were giant trucks, boats, piles of equipment
The campground was unfamiliar, with bare earth, big spaces for each pitch, the little dome tent looked a bit lost.
The neighbours seemed to be settled in for long stays
lots of equipment.
A fireplace provided within each site
Firewood for sale for those not supplied by the land at Mary’s Place
We
as novice Tas campers
Found the eucalyptus leaves to be excellent firelighters
Woooosh
But we soon learned that
nothing from around is to be burned
no sticks, no leaves, nothing

Under the Tasmanian stars.
Almost hidden by the tall trees protecting the space.

Squeaking white sand to sit on to watch the sun go down

A morning swim in the cold turquoise blue water

The second morning I found a different swimming place
a lagoon behind the beach.
In the dark of the night I climbed out of the tent to see the stars and I stayed out.
The only other lights visible puzzled me
moving on a hillside I didn’t see in the day.
Hours later I realised they were the lights on masts of the boats at anchor.
After getting dark lost on the loo way, floundering amongst fishing rods, boats and oxygen cylinders I arrived in the big truck park.
No one.
No sound.
White shapes in the dark
I watched myself for a moment waiting for the scared- of-big-things feeling,
it wasn’t there.
I was surprisingly un-unnerved.

I walked on the beach at dawn
I saw footprints that I think may have been a tas devil – I checked with a Hobart book
I watched big white birds soaring
I watched boats swaying at anchor in the bay
I followed a track away from the beach through some trees and came to a lagoon, in the early morning as if a magical lost place.
Calm sweet water.
I found a sheltered spot.
I looked around just to be sure there was no none there.
I swam.
Back to the camp walking briskly now to warm again.
It was morning time now. The kettles were whistling. The breakfast people were busy.

An Expedition to Huay Point and a cliff top walk beyond through changing forests, from eucalypt to mixed to almost familiar to briefly rainforest and back again.

Out out out to the point
Down and up down and up and across until there was no where else to go
Looked
Rested
fed
in a grove of stunted trees at the far point

Much fire evidence on the way – blackened banksias.
The path was by sheer cliffs but there was enough vegetation between the path and the edge for it to feel safe
not for me on a strong windy day though

Back to Hobart because I wanted to, no, had to listen to Gil on the radio .
This was his final broadcast on Edge Radio in his show with Nat - Folk the System.
On the way back there was a brief stop at Port Arthur.
Not for me.
I never do like packaged tourist places but I suppose while I see the historical interest of that place to Australians it is not the Tasmania I came to visit
That’s not head in the sand, rather ‘that was then and this is now’….

We arrrived at Fern Tree just as Gil and Nat were leaving . They both looked very smart for their listeners.
We tuned in the radio and waited.
Exciting.
Surprise!
Gil sounded just like himself and like all djs who chat with their accomplices on air.
He played first something by the ?peatbog fairies> he said I had introduced him to - I guess I sent him the CD probably at his request
He said
Mum
if you’re dancing about the kitchen
watch the stock pot!

That was Sunday.

On Monday Tony had to do some car stuff so I had a town wander.
I thought about buying myself a swag
I loved the idea of being out and still protected, able to see the stars
and also the idea of being totally alone, with just me.
I didn’t buy one tho
it seemed daft
all I need is a sleeping bag outside on a fine night
but for beasties of all sizes.

I had thoughts of borrowing or hiring before I left but I didn’t so that’s on the list for the next trip

An exploration next of two near-to-Hobart aboriginal sites
Risdon Cove
Risdon Aboriginal Land
It made me have the ‘shouldn’t be here’ feeling
It seemed to be focussing in its signage on the awfuls that did happen and on what is now happening to recall these awfuls
rather than what interests me
the time before the awfuls

It is difficult to say this
These dreadful times must be acknowledged and given their value
But there was much more time before than there was then or has been since

Restdown meaning ?

info leaflet check

On to another spot

An advertised ‘aboriginal trail’.

We followed the path and the sign
It was a pleasant walk if a bit edge of town unkempt by the river
We came on points 1 and 2 – a midden and a cave / shelter but missed or didn’t reach point 3
disappointing
I wonder
Did the money run out?

Fishnchips at Salamanca again
at a newly opened wee place
giant chip portions
outside seating

Back to sleep at Gil’s

The general plan for the rest of the journey was in place
We were heading west!

OnWARDS TOWARDS THE WILDERNESS
Its Tuesday and all is ready for the big off

No backup this time
No chums
No stay place

The road open in front

No AA either
Foolish foolhardy brave daft trusting silly
Any or all of these applied

Through the city
This time no bridge crossing but on and up
There was a countrywide proper map and I had a wee tourist route map -easy to hold.
Stop, look–at- place info, very useful
And
Some of it came all the way back to Scotland
In the purple Bella bag

Through farmland and hop-growing areas
A stop at a market, that I assumed was a produce market
So
Was surprised to find
It was like a permanent ‘Tip Shop’ in a village hall
with a woman sitting there as if she waited for custom every day.
I wonder when -if ever - the place is cleared and there is no more stock
There was nothing I wanted or needed but I found a pot of lemon butter - curd in my language
And was able to smile and buy it and think I was contributing something to the community, not just noseying

The hot bare ground around the hall was an empty parking lot
Where is the community?
Where are the people who might buy all that stuff?
Where are the people who might give all that stuff for sale?

Some more driving
And then
That’s the turn off we need
Let’s go there
STOP
At a wall muraled shop
A coffee stop

‘Welcome to the Tyenna Valley’ it said on the wall at the ‘frontier town’ of Westerway

Here we turned off the main road
I accepted as ok – tho not really - the instant coffee – ‘I’m in the sticks now after all’ was the thought – ‘remember to have tea next time’
This was the local wee shop with a café counter as so many of them had - in a further on wee place there were two almost identical both in stock and in meals served. This one however had an added big lounge area – padded cane seats. Tourist info on the walls and spread out on tables leaflets by the ton
Coffee drunk
notices read
onward
We drove away
heading inwards
on and away

To Mayenna and on
With only a vague plan and distances sense
There came a point when we realised
No we can’t go on this way we need more fuel first
This had never been a consideration in our previous wanderings in Britain
It was never a problem to find petrol
Long long ago in Zambia, I had met that issue, but so long ago

It was my drive turn
And I saw a sign to
Styx Giant Trees
I swung off the road
down down down
in in in
a dirt road
I so liked that driving
I’m not sure how the passenger felt in what was at that point his vehicle

Money stuff
I thought of it as ours
In fact, it was his
There were a few or more days of difficulty around this
It became ours, half-and-half,
And
I could drive it
And
I could drive it every bit as well as he could
Even though I didn’t understand the mechanics
I even drove when alone in places that I would rather not if the option of not was there
Steep downs

Down and in to the Styx giant trees
it was a long way in and the signs were followed
Not that one
that’s a forestry track and not that that’s another
The trees were bigger all around
Drove by a quarry
and
At last
Came to
The place called The Land of the Giants
Here
Stop

Another car was about to leave
It went
No other people
Just trees

Later I learned of the forestry spin.
But for now this was it
I saw what I saw

We followed the signposted route
The path amongst the giants
Read the notices - add them later
And gawped at the giant trees
Looking up
neck craning
disbelieving what we saw

Unbelievably tall
unbelievably wide
Beyond my knowledge

We looked our fill and walked back to the main forestry track
We found another walk
A path to the Styx
To the river
We followed it
‘To the river Styx’ sounds creepy
I looked at it
And I went in
I swam all on my own down there
First I had a little dip in the warm water, a brief dip and a sun fast dry
Then when I found a better spot – deeper water and easier access
A better dip
I didn’t swim over to the orther side
Just around and around in the dark water

I drove across it on the way down, would drive back on the way up
I assumed it worked both ways and it did

To Mount Field National Park and its campground
The need for more petrol before we could go further took us there
To
An unprepossessing campsite
I was disappointed
Park-like
I didn’t like it
It was too exposed too open too too many things
I did a major grump growl disfriend
and
Sat hiding
Slumped in the car
While Tony put up a tent
But then
Once it was dark
I emerged
I joined in the food eating and the wine drinking

A pademelon with a baby in her pouch came nearby
And
An eastern striped bandicoot
So said the sign I read the next day

The fleece seat covers from Bee Kay made cosy and comfy beds and did so throughout the trip.
Sometimes under
sometimes over
sometime as footers.
One time I thought to use them as carriers

In the night the rain came in
I was asleep but Tony added an outer fly

Was this the new tent ?
the one with star-gazeable walls, the one that was never really used?
The one bought the day I didn’t buy the swag?

Next morning I was up early and walked off alone to the Russell Falls
Along a signposted tarmac pathway by the river – where I could have, but never did, see platypuses
Waterfalls – a little impressive wide and high
I have been waterfall spoiled
Mosi oa Tunya/ Victoria
Niagara
Waterfalls have to be spectacular to impress me now, - not by their size, but by their position, their rocks, their trees

Back down the other side -the rougher path
I was almost at the end of the path when I met Tony so I redid the wee walk with him and together we continued to the top of the Falls and on to Horseshoe Falls which are just as named
I had taken 2 or 3 steps that way before and stopped thinking it ‘not a good thing’ to do too much exploring on my own

Onward sign following to THE TALL TREES
Labelled
swamp gums
Hugely tall and wide trees that have survived both fire and felling to stand as they do giant-like striding through the tree ferns
with their fallen brethren even more huge around them.
A fallen trunk over the pathway had a doorway cut in it.
No need for me to duck to walk through

Back to camp for breakfast and plan time
There was a lot to explore in that area
The campsite wasn’t really awful
There was an up to go
Then a bunch of kids arrived and staying there wasn’t really an option any more
what elderly fuddy duddies! we’ll be wanting these parks where no young people are allowed soon!
Anyway, we found - by reading or asking or something - that there was a place to stay up towards Lake Dobson.
We asked,
we booked,
and later we drove up.
First {and why do I still think the sequence is important] I drove out of the Park, back along the road to Maydena
in the still unnamed- and in fact never quite named 4WD Subaru – Becky, Beryl the Kid, (Beryl is significant because that is Tony’s mother’s name as well as the original car’s name) Bicky, Bee Kay
drove along a narrow track towards the entrance to Junee Cave.
To reach the cave entrance we first walked through tree ferns by the river.
I like the tree ferns.
They are very different to anything familiar to me. I like meeting that difference.

It wasn’t possible to see far into the cave mouth . Junee cave is the entrance to a cave network where a river appears fully formed from the rocks, but the interpretive signage – there was a lot of it about and sometimes too much - told us it was also the entrance to the biggest cave in Tasmania
Niggly.
We wandered at it for a bit – slight disappointment at the promise of something there but not for me – then walked back.
I splashed my face with the surprisingly uncold water from the river continuing my practice of being in/ feeling most of the waters I passed on the journey. As I sat astride a tree fern growing sideways across the river I forgot about the strange land, the possible strange creatures, the don’t-leave-the-path-ness of the place and felt very at home and comfortable.

I drove us up and up – a contrast to the previous day’s down and down – thro changing landscapes until we arrived at 1050m

And
a hutted encampment where there was not another human soul
15 km from other people up a windy edgy dirt track
Totally alone
Just us, with everything we needed, even a blockbuster
Outside the hut I wrote:

The Stove is on
The food is cooking
The sleeping bags are laid out on the bunks
The candles are to hand
And
The wallabies, who have been eating the grass and the bushes around us, seem to have gone to bed with the sun.
The birds still sing and a band of sunlight shows over the tops of some distant eucalyptus trees

Here
High
The trees are small and there is moorland, alpine plantland and little pools with peaty paths between them
It all seems familiar
Yet at the same time very different from anywhere I have ever been

It was cold.
Layers upon layers of clothes.
The London bought down jacket was gratefully worn.
The Beryl acquired cosy camp shoe-ies just right for the soft ground
A table and benches outside
I insisted on being outside for everything except sleeping – food preparation, cooking could be done inside
place warmed, food cooked in a oner on the stove with the provided wood
why can’t I get it together to do that here, at home ?
why does food coking have to happen in a kitchen in a house??

The hut
I’m not sure why it was they were built but now they are let to the likes of us.
Wooden, weathered, some in a renovation process, two roomed, living room with stove and table and benches, bedroom with bunks for 6 or was it eight people.
Composting loos
I’m very taken with these loos and I have no problem about going out to the loo in the night
I wonder…
Would that be just as true
If it was wet and cold and windy
And every night ?
To get to these loos
There was a bridge to cross
two bridges
A male bridge and a female bridge
There were
Poster instructions showing how to use the loo
do and shut the lid!
A wash hand basin
but that’s all
That’s enough
There is too much washing in this world we live in
Too much bathing and cleaning

It was a good place to stay.
I liked it, the being there, the peace and stillness, in the wilderness
It was another of my best places
It felt tough though there was that road running by and a carpark up ahead for those who would go off to explore further
isolation,
We thought hard about it but we wanted to stay another night
So good here
it would be so sad to leave
even tho we had until 4pm that day

How can we fix this without going down the mountain

Heidi and her grandfather

Tony spoke to a passing person in a van (a teacher leading a school party - ?those we had moved away from?)
would he give a message for us when he went down?
yes of course
but he, the teacher man, did much better than that
he met the cleaner – yes, the cleaner! At the car park and gave her the message .
She radioed down the mountain
“It’s OK for 1 more night”
I think it was a bit irregular but hey why not be irregular
A cleaner !!
Up a mountain!
Stunning
So there we had a whole long day to play with
For Tony a BIG walk
For me some slow walk
some sits
some writes

We set off up the hill some more in the car

Because we liked the car
Because Tony might be needing it later after his long walk
Because we did
But
It wasn’t far to the car park

I hadn’t properly got the lie of the land
But it didn’t matter

There was a shelter
With more notices
With a book to record walk plans
We did that
with me overestimating wildly
‘Better safe than sorry’
Together we set off
Around Lake Dobson on a boardwalk
Me wandering and sign following
Tony seriously expeditioning – guidebook and map in hand
It was good to do different things and come together at the end of the day.
That should never be a problem

Tony purposed off on his route and I strolled
through the ‘Pandani Grove’
Like palm trees but not
“look like tropical palms but are very different. The world’s tallest growing heath – fam. Epacridaceae” said the sign
Amongst them are the pencil pines
“probably lived in Tasmania prior to the evolution of lowering plants about 150 million years ago. Some of those around Lake Dobson may be over 1000 years old.” said the other sign

I loved these trees. There’s a dance in them. The pencil pines twisty and bent. The pandani sharply straight leaves with bodies reaching tall or leaning over
Look for the dance in the pictures.

I walked slowly through the trees, and briefly along a wide non-public motor track until I came to my sign
Platypus Tarn
I followed the wee wiggly path down through the trees
I came to the tarn.
I chose a sit place.
A long sit place.
The sky was blue
The water was blue
The sun was hot
The frogtoadcricket was LOUD
The water beckoned
The platypus stayed hiddem
‘come out come out Mr Platypus wherever you are’ I wrote
I looked
I wrote
I sat there for two hours
I saw no one
I sat topless
And dipped bottomless
not swimming ,just wetting.
I thought that to swim in the cold water
where there were tree trunks and whatever else submerged
where there was not a soul in sight or in range
was possibly foolish
so I didn’t.

I was content in the complete aloneness of the day and think of that day as one of my Tasmanian bests.

I ate some food
I took some pictures
my shadow in the water, the smooth patterned, wrinkled trees
And then I moved on.
Back up the wee path
A bit further out
along a very muddy but signposted track
to Seal Tarn
Would there be?

On this track I passed 4 inward-bound speedy people, the first I had seen since I left Tony in the morning.
I had liked the idea of being able to say ‘I saw no-one until I got back’ but noone until 4pm is pretty good, neat even

I passed a dead possum
Odd ,I thought, for it to be lying dead
All exposed
There in the middle of the path
When the cover of the bush
The hidingness of the bush
The protection of the bush
Was all around

Seal tarn is a big shallow tarn and the furthest point of my day’s outing
A burst of walk energy took me there.
I paddled
I washed my muddy trouser bottoms
I listened to
Creaking and croaking
Bird song
Bright singy happy in the sunshine
birds and me

The homewards march
I retraced my steps until I came to Lake Dobson where I followed a different path around .
I signed myself back in
Tony was still out there somewhere.
Leaving the car in the car park for him, I walked down hill to the hut.
I felt a disappointment when I saw another car but they stayed at their end and didn’t speak so that was OK
(Antisocial grump)
I lit the stove
I put the kettle on
I put bread and spread on the table
Within moments there was friend Currawong!
How does he sense it so fast?
But
There were no wallabies. The night before they were there at this time and stayed until dark
The other human couple
surely they didn’t scare them off
maybe we were the first people for a while and they have other feeding places where they go when humans are around

A young fluffy one came by briefly

It was good to do different things and to come together at the end of the day.

Tony came back from his big trek late – it was a long and difficult one. More difficult and challenging that he had expected.

In the morning we cleaned up.
I swept up.
We loaded up.
We headed off.
First up again to the Pandani Grove and then down – Tony driving now
We stopped several times
at the Lyrebird Nature Trek
through mixed woodland
assorted eucalyptus with different leaves and barks from tiny to broad and thick
by the huge stump of a fallen tree
on a pathway made a long time ago from fern tree stumps or something similar
worn and well used
No lyrebirds visible but who knows whether or not they were audible – they can apparently sound lke anything.

The desk people were friendly and didn’t knuckle rap over our irregularities!

The end of the Mount Field experience

For me it was a tame wild experience. The aloneness of the tarnside felt safe and comfy despite its isolation

A step from Fortescue Bay which was in itself a step from the city

The wildlife around the huts
currawong who liked our food
Wallabies
Possums – one with a young one on her back.
Different shades of brown.
On and around the table.
Up the steps to the door.

FURTHER ON AND IN

Leaving the tameness of Mount Field behind, we journeyed onward through Maydena again
A familiar stretch of road this was becoming.
Passed the set back -is it shingle?- bungalows, passed the shops with not much, but enough.
On into the trees.
The aim of the day’s drive was the Gordon Dam. I had uneasy feelings about this - or any – dam.
A confusion of uneasiness that is partly environmental concern
The killed flooded lost land is sad
but also comes from my dis-ease around anything man- made and big, dark and someway threatening
especially tall structures - bridge supports, that Spanish place whose name isn’t there any more, cranes and machinery
I don’t understand it but it has been with me for a long time

As a schoolchild
I daily walked by
tall darkness and machinery as I passed the working mills in the narrow Dundee streets of dark mills
Skipping and singing
Sometimes checking over my shoulder

Then

As a schoolgirl
I yearly walked near enormous cranes at Rosyth Dockyard Navy Days
Looking round
Watching
Waiting
Expecting
Something

But why ?

There were no bad incidents
I walked the Dundee streets daily
I could have chosen other routes
And I did some days
But I don’t think it was to escape

I’m leery of – that’s a good word - pipes running down the hillside.
The mere mention of hydro power stations and their big apparently empty halls of machinery
Cruachan
Pitlochry
Cockenzie
Torness
But it isn’t the buildings that threaten.
It’s what they contain
It’s there apparent vast emptiness
I avert my eyes from any windows at such places

Tall trees and dark caves are good
No lights at night is good
Usually mountains are good but sometimes their slopes have a way of nearly attacking me
If I am coming down one side, the other side over the valley can be scary but I think that’s maybe a vertigoish thing

Passing that long aside by

Inwards through trees
knowing that we can only go there because the roads are there
the roads are only there because the dam hydro people and the loggers built them.
An uncomfortable edge.
I like the place.
It’s beautiful but there is so much horror in that landscape.
I could most of the time shut it out
this is now
This is what we have now
Today
Don’t feel bad about what happened then
Enjoy the now
Live in the moment
But
The then is there within the now

A scant look at a possible campspot for the night as we passed by Ted’s Beach

Through the one-time dam builders’ town of Strathgordon –the name has an uneasy ring too
It is now home to the hydro workers of the area and also provides tourist accom
We didn’t feel a need to stop
Bleak
Still
Sorrowful
Eerie even

The Gordon Dam
At the end of the accessible Tasmanian world
The road stops
I was gearing myself up to face the sight of a high dam lowering above me
But the road approaches it from above and until you are very close you only see the expanse of water
Look down and there it is
the dam
The arc of the dam holding the water back from rushing as it would through the narrow gorge.

A tasteful round building
Seemingly projected over the gorge
The Visitors Outlook
postcards and posters
A smiling chatty lady to give facts and figures

It felt all right for us to be there
But it’s a bad thing
Not as scary
As I’d thought
down not up
beneath not lowering
I felt I ought to dislike it
I felt bad about it
But it is a beautiful object
Steps and more down to the dam
One can walk along the top
railinged and walled
Once there was an exit from the other end of the dam into the wilderness
But that has been closed
For sensible safety
Too easy for people to walk along a pavement and then suddenly out into the nothing
Easy for some people possibly

Mmhm

I tried

I climbed down some steps
Stop!
I could see water!
Then back to the top

I climbed down a little further – they’re just steps you can walk downstairs ,Sheila
Then back to the top

Back up a bit
down some more

I won’t bother.

But I really wanted to, so another try
Bit further this time
Then back to the top

Finally I made it to the top of the dam.
Done it!
I had my picture taken I think
Flat water above – like Lake Kariba ((there were many Zambia- likes in this trip)
The deep chasm of the original river course and its crumpled rocks below
I thought I could just walk along a bit – maybe all the way - it’s a pavement after all.
I don’t fall off pavements. It’s safe
I took a few steps along
then
I looked down and I was scared at being the only ones there, the what ifs won and a final speedy up for me.

Whwhwhwhwhwhwh

Very silly
Inexplicable
Or explicable
There was Tony
There was me
There was no one else
The smiling lady had gone to her workday home
What if?
What if?
What if?

That’s me. That’s what I do. That’s how I think.

Back safely at the top
On solid ground
Nothing changed
No one arrived
There was Tony
There was me
There was no one else
But
No problem now!
I crossed the road and followed what looked like an entrance to something – the ‘works’ or office or….
Maybe once it was
I found nothing
Or
maybe it’s all hidden
Back to the car park and to look down at the dam and the top of the gorge from solid safe ground

We had sight seen so it was time to stop for the night
Back to Ted’s Beach
We didn’t meet him
We wasn’t there
but he didn’t object to us staying at his beach.
Some of his friends were there in big 4WDs with caravans and boats attached
He even provided everyone – friends and strangers alike – with a big bus shelter equipped with tables and benches, electric barbecues that I didn’t find out how to use and power points for, well, whatever…
I recharged my camera battery and one of Ted’s friends boiled a kettle or several while his wife was plugged in to her computer.
She worked all evening and also as much of the next day as we were there.

And all for nothing!
No cost to the punters

It was windy and wet so against my I-like- to- be-out-ness we ate in the shelter – cooking on the good wee stove Gil found us
I didn’t feel comfortable in there – other people
I needed to whisper and wanted Tony to too
I walked long ways around
in one door and out the other so as not to have to cross too near these inoffensive others
Sounds mad

Other campers
Big vehicles
One of them wore a sticker – “Adventure Before Dementia”

A lay-by like camp place
For no money I can’t complain!
The tent was exposed and battered by the wind but it stayed standing.
We slept the night in a windblown squashed bed but in a nearly dry tent

In the morning I was up early
Unseen Creetches visited in the night – not possum shit so what?
Low heather around made that place a familiar one
I clambered down to the wee burn to write notes – ducked down and hidden. I had the stove and the kettle and all the coffee makings down there too
With my busy camera
All the while I was there, I heard an Invisible very croaky toad frog.
Sun dappling
A squall of rain sent me and my ink splodging notebook for shelter

During our last Ted minutes we witnessed the cleaners again - this time 2 guys
I went on to the beach but I wasn’t tempted in the water – the morning hands in the burn would do
I read number plates
Tasmania the Natural State
Tasmania The Holiday Isle BK has this one

The camera was rejuiced at Ted’s
The car at Strathgordon

We paused there briefly after the rejoicing to look at a giant hewn down bit of a huon pine trunk – felled in 1975. Girth – vast
Age marked to Roman times and beyond to birth of Mohammed

After leaving Ted’s beach we stpped at a picnic area for a second breakfast.
The shelter there -tabled and fireplace had a tunnel like feel
As we coffeed ther in the wilderness along came the cleaners in their van!!

A fallen tree over the road caused us to stop.
There was room for one car to drive by
It had recently fallen

The Dams Edgar and Scott’s Peak were creepy
What is it that makes me call manmade functional objects creepy, I ask again?

The next planned campsite was near Scott’s Peak.
We drove in and around one at Port Edgar – these had all in a previous existence been the sites of logging/ hydro camps

The Port Edgar site was in itself attractive – no one there, neat wood buildings for the composting loos– Ted’s Beach had regular ones- and pademelonsoroweretheywallabies

But
The location was not what we needed
We would have had to make the drive to Scott’s peak –not far but.. to go on the explores

So onward

And here I should have the map out to confirm info but for now I will put in what is still in my mind or in my notebook

To the Scott’s Peak campground or site or place

At first I didn’t like it so well
We drove around
This place
Well, maybe, that place
And I am a terrible person at campsite selection
But we selected
Tent erected car positioned just so –or was it? I don’t remember but that is always another issue. The car must be near but not too near
Preferably with the boot towards the tent or the fireplace
Sometimes it needs to be a block between other people and me
Poor long-suffering Tony

This is the end of another road – a dirt road- the only way on is by foot and itsa long long way to the next place
Dinner was cooked in a brick built fireplace with an iron grid and cover – wood provided! Here in the wilderness
Compost loos again

I went for a wee wander before dark, followed a path thro the trees and bushes out of the campsite and came to a walkers registration booth.
I read the log. Many have taken 15 days to walk from Davey point / Port dave on the south coast.
And many have done what we would do- a wee way out and back again

The rain came but the fire was made in the brick stove in the forest – lentils, onions red cabbage cooked an Egyptian Pie variation.
A 12-hour sleep and then awake -Dry today- to bird song, shriekily loud. Near neighbours have gone and it seems empty here
Us and the birds

Moving on
Drove some and stopped for breakfast in a Day use only no camping shelter where we saw Cleaners again – the same cleaners who were at Ted’s beach before. I can’t belieieieve it –cleaners in the wilderness

Nature Reserve Trail walk Wedge by stringy gum – long shreds hanging - myrtles celery pine sassafras Hard water fern

At a viewpoint back towards Lake Gordon. We saw the tops of the now dead drowned trees
The white straight trunks of dead drowned trees looked as if a distant shoreline of white cliff
That’s when we saw the Strathgordon huon and the Lake Gordon tree ‘cliffs ’

It’s all a bit of a muddle this - I worked in one book and also in another but here goes again and I can sort it later

Written at Scott’s Peak Campsite on maybe Sunday 2nd or 3rd December – days didn’t really matter
“I need to find which tree is the huon”
The fire is smoothly going
It’s like Fisherground - black mud/ firedirt
All alone the weekend people have gone. The funny creatches are in hiding – square poo seemed to stop at the end of the boardwalk Of Davey Pt track
Birds cheep
In the morning I stopped to listen to what I thought was a toadfrog – noise changed to a shriek Tony pointed out an ’owl’ on a tree. It clearly WAS an owl to me too until off it flew with its 2 pals- later identified as black cockatoos – its yellow patch and one eye had looked like an owl’s 2 eyes (*??)
I had even suspected a little one – its feet?

Thro green woods – old stuff and newish
Fallen and growing
‘Stags‘ and near-stags-
Trees that look dead but have one branch in leaf away up high
So high sometimes I’m not sure which tree it belongs to
jumparound jumparound like the wallabies

Woke this morning to loud bird song
Breakfast in shelter – I can’t get over the facilities provided in these free campsites –and with right on loos to boot.
My ideal in fact
Fireplace
Own space
Quiet =birds excepted

Walk along davey pt track first thro woods then over moorland
I didn’t expect duckboarding provided away beyond the 1k of easy walk
Whip whip whip whooor wills
Id expected

Mud
Deep mud
Over the boot mud
Stay in the middle of the track mud
Fun mud
On and on and on some more
Until ‘some pink things’ were our endpoint
3 hours or so from the start
Piece eating by babbling brook in traditional manner
But it untraditionally disappeared under green growth
Tried pooh sticks but they didn’t reappear

On our return mud slurp we met two walkers heading out to camp for the night and then to ’do the Arthurs’.
A long A to B appeals but not the up or the gear carrying
Something to plan for in an unplanned life maybe

After the big walk day a drive out and away from Lake Peddler and to a forest experience

The Creepy Crawly Walk
Thinking that this is a walk for people who don’t ’20 minutes return’ with signs.
Board walked
The signs told in whodunit style the tale of a butterfly. I didn’t read it all but I marvelled at its detail and at the thought put into it.
But for me to spend the time following the story would be to lose the time in being in that place -the real is here I don’t need to be in a story (that feeds nicely to my guilt about fiction reading – that I always ought to be doing or being rather than living someone else’s tale!)
I experience by walking with steps up and down and around the trees – it was made to accommodate the trees –and fixed around them - the low mosses, the ferns, the logs, the airy places, all the levels and all the varying greens from deep to light
Lichens : some white fluffy looking yet crunchy feeling

From the map and the tourist info we knew there was a walking path into the forest at a place called Timb’s Track
To the Florentine River..
We parked
Boots on
Mud ready
We walked
Road left
We saw some people
but I didn’t pay much attention
I had noticed a blue tarpaulin as we passed days before -maybe someone camping out – didn’t think much about it.
We followed the track - and found some people roughly path making
‘volunteers’ I thought and went on
On and in
Thro tall trees and tall heath by giant wee white stone covered anthills -sadly the photos I tried to take of them for Tony who seemed particularly fascinated by them haven’t been successful – a blur
but there is a very successful photo of the snake that crosssssed our pathway ,a white lipped black and poisonous for sure - ‘blue black with pale under the mouth’
but not concerned about us at all it slithered away into the pathside
by tea trees
((((I was trying to be sure in my tea tree identification – it was one of two - I held a fluffy flower in my left hand and a flat flower in my right and as I was some way away from Tony at this point I said as I walked : Left fluffy right flat Left fluffy right flat Left fluffy right flat Left fluffy right flat Left fluffy right flat
After some sniffing and deliberation the conclusion then was that the tea tree has a fluffy white flower but CHECK
But also I think this doesn’t matter now))))

There was a view through the trees now and then to the mountains – a girl we spoke to at the peopled start told us about a viewpoint. The plan was to go there on the way out.

The Track was wide and sometimes showed itself as if once a cart track road for a purpose
We came on a broken down wooden shack with a still visible stencilled name –‘EWE’S INN’
Intriguing
We keeked in
There was a beer bottle
An original maybe – no, too fanciful
more likely of much more recent vintage

Nearing the river now and more industrial signs –
Another shack with a corrugated iron roof
Bits of a one-time cable river-crossing with a box attachment presumably for industrial use
Gloom doom laden River Florentine
Dark water dark growing trees
Dark long felled – or fallen
Trees floating
Logging or mining or both
Nothing to call me to put even my hands in that water
Harch dark rough

Evil even

We lingered awhile as we lookes bank wandered
A disappointment that this river did not attract me
Back the way we came

Stopped at the lookout– signed by pink ribbons
A lookout built round and high
Of sorethumbstickoutly smooth new wood
From where we couls see the loine of the Florentine river and the tops of trees and trees and trees
Another little signpost -to the Twisted Sister

Pink flagged path

Twisted too
Strange to name one tree

But twisted and tall
Sister, well?
PICS HERE

nearing the end os the walk, we met again the young woman of the morning – a bit of chat and e foung fro her that we were at the site of a tree protest and that we had just passed by a tree sit
Some chat and I said we need to got to find our campsite for the night

‘’ Oh, you can camp here –in the trees with us’’
I think my mouth fell open Cam we really?

She left us to think about it and to talk to ….. at the end of the path by the road and he would bring us in if we wanted.

We thought

We met a chap
We had a long talk from him about the work of the Forestry in Tasmania and about
The work of those trying to halt that work
He moved off in to the forest and us out thinking now to look for the person

He came running back you were going to look for me Im the one you need
I was going in for my tea
He had run back to get us
No more what ifs no more debates
To the cat for gear

I picked up the tent – but no no we have spare ones you just need your sleeping bags
So quickly gathered them up and personal essentials and some food – tho we were invited to eat too It seemed good to tale some stuff to replace what we had eaten and some beer and some wine

At young man’s walking speed again into the forest

The bird noise was so loud so shrieky I didn’t think it was bird noise at all
This way that way
Duck
Over
Golly it was fast and slippery we were really in the forest now not old paths but recent
And then we came to the encampment
A few tents spread out in the tees
A central tarpaulin roofed kitchen
And a few people
This is your tent for the night
I was still overawed – no tamed campground this, the real forest with a tent squeezed in between the trees.
Gear plonked down and we joined the others
It was late afternoon/ early evening – one of these times – not dark yet but evening approaching and with it and into it came the clink clink clinking of the tree people’s climbing equipment as they approached the no fire campfire circle for food and talk
I sat I listened I looked I was amazed by it all
The circle grew and grew. People arriving from the trees .others arriving from other protest sites. Others just arriving
Talk of the protests
Talk of the tree houses– that’s not the phrase - - tree sits
Someone had a sofa up there
All great fun
But all very serious business too
The laughing chat of this young person’s world. What did they make of these 2 aging geezers in their midst. The one mainly silent. The other with pertinent questions
In the majestic ancient mossy forest

Main track is indeed the remnant of an industrial one > it is being remade in amateurish fashion log by log -sticks by sticks really not logs -by the treepeople hoping to encourage more people to walk in the woods, be in the woods, know the woods, and therefore help save the woods from the dastardly logging companies who apparently only want to bash down the trees to pulp or chip them.

The camp is set in this place because it is an area ear marked for clear felling - leaving a strip on either side of Timb’s Track as a sop - The access road way has been begun. Trees pushed aside and then left lying. If nock them down then why not use them.
We saw this destruction the following morning and amongst it the tree sits of more protesters
Dav from England
Round the fire there were young people from around the world. One man- Tasmanian - told of …… need to read up… a village on the other side of the river, now virtually gone ….. mining logging….. site of last known tas tiger

We were shown the loo – a hole in a tree with a tarp over it and loo rolls in a plastic bag .. Couldn’t find it in he dark

I slept very soundly in the night
Sad not to have a wakeful night forest experience but I was there
In the morning there were some voices but mainly gone about their business
A book was produced for us as visitors to write in - I wonder what I wrote@?!

When we were ready to leave the place was empty..

To the road where we looked at the unmanned stall of info , collected some free, paid for calendars which now hang on our walls as a memory of the occasion.
Into the human world again where Tony had a chat with the man of a couple setting off on a walk – no gear no nothing

Drive onwards towards Lake St Clair

Wheel track retraced to Mount Field
Stopped at the park and day use area for some food, picnic. Electricity to camera feed
Loo stop
a paddle in the burn
Through ‘English’ agricultural land, sheep and cows, past both recent and long ago tree devastation. The recent is land laid waste. The long ago had to ,(?)thought it was right, didn’t know better, huge grey stumps and huge piles of old greyed wood in the middle of fields like there are stones sometimes at home. Very tree aware on that day because of the night spent right in the forest in and encampment of tree protectors ,the ground base of thetree sitters

Now months later, the news tells that these sitters have been moved, that the loggers are

Wild West towns
Empty spaced wide streets
Hydro works big wide scary pipes scarring down hillsides

Lake St Clair National park and a cathedral like entrance to the park buildings but again at an oh so disappointing dull bleak campsite
bare earth which was to be muddy earth

Fireplace all a bit exposed for my liking but it was soon dark
And the pot was on in the traditional manner veg , lentils, that sort of thing
Cooking in a camp environment is so easy – no worries just do the same thing each time and it works and if it looks awful well its dark anyway and
hungry outdoor people eat anything

don’t remember much of that evening tho
little chat with a ? german young guy who hah used that fireplace the night before –so me feeling space intruding and all our gear had to be kept at one side to allow room for him and anyone else too…. But they didn’t come

Early in the morning I woke up and got up
Rain
Puddly and muddy around the tent
So I collected the coffee making gear set myself up at a rocky place and got brewing – neat wee red cafetiere was still alive then -

A heap of tent pegs on another rock interested me – I assumed very early risers had left them in their rush to walk somewhere but later learned that a young couple had been flooded out in the night and that they had watched the rivers running towards us
Just missing
We repitched the tent away from the possible flood site nearer to the lakeside – an apartment with a view
a stone rather than a concrete fireplace
and lots of possums

Possum stories

on the car - tipped the wine cup over
in the car – nibbled at raisins and oatmeal
on me – sniffed wine and cake
too near the fire
I said ‘No Its Hot!’
Snarling at each other - about ownership of the food source?
Scrabbling around tent
In tent
In Tony’s wash bag
Eating Tony’s soap
The tent was zipped up
Pooing on the car

Lake St Clair.
With
The mountain peak at its end
the one time pump house on a far shore
the rocky shore line
the water
the
space in the trees for a tent a car and a fire
and
these oh so smooth and carefully shaped board pathways around the building of the centre

Shadow lake Circuit
A short long walk well way marked leading to a slightly warm feeling lake – tho not enough to tempt me in. Very cold outside.
Stripey trees
board walk in places
Appropriately took some shadow pictures but had more success elsewhere

plans for a walk to the wilder side on the following day
a boat to catch in the early morning
breakfast in camp – cereal and coffee
a second breakfast in the restaurant- it was too grand to be a caff- 2 eggs and flat white for me–
buy boat tickets
we split jobs
one to get food
one to get tickets
good idea
but
the food seller and the ticket seller were the same person
so time unsaved
rush rush to the boat for Neptunes Point at the other end of the Lake
but there was plenty of time to tie on the hoods and fasten up the jackets
that was just as wel
it was a chilly spilly speedy bumpy ride I didn’t enjoy too much
I was surprised by the small very fast motor launch which Trevor the driver sped hangontoyourhat style over the bumpy windblown lake

Pause at Echo Point
from where we could have walked serenely back by the shore
where the hut sleepers were serially disturbed by nosy ferriers.
A blast on the horn called us back to speed on to the top of the lake.
The ferry slowed and turned at a rivermouth - Paramatta in miniature
A lone young man in long johns and shirts, cup dangling from his pack .awaited the ferry
‘I’ve been out 2 days’

The three young girls stayed on board for the return ride
The French family of mum dad three children and a pot headed into Neptune’s Hut for an overnight adventure
We plodded off to find first the loo and then our track.
The high composting loo was discreetly hidden.
The tracks had signs of varying age
we followed one to ‘Cynthia Bay’, the bay we had left not long before.
at a division of the ways we came on a sign recommending that all walkers use the lakeside via Echo point route
we were eschewing that one
Hmmmm.
We had a chat with a passing 2 sticked overlander who reckoned all the paths were ok ‘ all signposted’
he was taking the recommended option on his way for a good cup of coffee after being out on the trail for a week.
We headed in and up
The markers led us up and up through the varying forests
Eucalypts young and old
Fallen falling
Standing dead dying and alive
Burned
Higher and higher we climbed
And in apparently the ‘wrong ‘direction
On plod through tall pandanis
And less tall with flowers hidden between layers of their sharp lip cutting leaves
Down
To Lake Petrarch
A long way
It was high and cold
An exposed and windy beach
Pine fir trees I’d seen nowhere else
Piece point
Not too long a linger in the chill
a photo or two and on for a marker hunt.
We had earlier been following various –it was as if the way had been re-marked several times
We worked out:
Bright orange – recent
Pale orange/yellow – older Some had treebark grown over
Red and white paint blobs on trees
and
Rectangles on sticks
We found some. We followed 2 bright new looking ones through some trees
Helpfully at a burn crossing Tony pulled me over and turned me round and sat me down
I grumped
I was in control of my stepping
I didn’t need to be pulled
To be offered assistance can be good
But or assistance to be yanked on one
Is Bad
As I said
I grumped
we followed a straggle of rectangles through the boggy buttongrass - big tufts of leg hurting to step over stuff
On and on and on and soul destroyingly on
Crying and falling
And falling and crying
Mid-bog Tony told me the time and that we would probably have to spend the night out
behind not on the mountain.
the way was hard
the way was long
the way was harder and longer than I was aware it was
than tony let me know it was as we went
he told me
I panicked
I rationally panicked
you go on
leave me here
I’ll be OK or did I say something else?
The track route took us up and behind the Byron gap by the lake and eventually the Cuvier Valley
Marker to indistinct marker
No hope
no end in sight
We heard a river
We left the route to follow the river
‘go to the river follow it we’ll meet a path’
we did have a wee map
It was much easier walking .
minimal impact Bushwalking went out the window as we pushed our way through the riverside tall heaths
I liked it at the river
I felt less panicky there
it was all ok
we even had a wee riversit and piece eat
I wanted to linger and enjoy
but
On and on and on
A last we saw one of the much square pooing wombats
the ‘rhombuses’
Big brown pig-like waddling heavy
And another and another
Or the same one x three
With some pleasure at that
and a mind working on how to cover up at night
plastic bag
Which wet mud things on
which better off

NOT ENOUGH GEAR
NOT ENOUGH PREPARATION
I RELIED ON TONY WHO RELIED ON A WEE SKETCH MAP
I RELIED ON THE PARKS PEOPLE TO WAYMARK
I IGNORED WARNING
AND I DIDNT EVEN FILL IN THE DAY WALK LOG BOOK
VERY FOOLISH

But on and on and we met the bog path as it joined the riverside path
Relief at first then dismay and doubt as it headed riveraway

a noisy flock of Cockatoos pecking at the inside of trees and thereby explaining the chewed look we’ve seen and the heaps of like sawdust
Creaking trees – one against the other or alone
Swaying
Bare or tall pale trunks on the opposite mountainside making it look sheer
We met the cloud now and then
jacket on jacket off on off

Rush on
less panic now for me on a track away from that boggy stuff.
A certain foolhardy adventurishness had relished the idea of a night outdoors but there was little shelter and I was stumbling….
Anyway we did follow the route to its end and with some relief hit the unusual metal mesh bridge and the gravel track back.
We left the lake in the morning and our next sighting of it was at 9.30 in the evening .
Not a route to be recommended for view
for terrain
for pleasant walking
But we did it
As we bushwacked and wayfound on what must in effect have been a well marked route because we followed it from start to finish The MIB rules the look before you step snake rules were lost
Some of these words about the loooong walk were written the morning after the looooong walk sitting on a lakeside log
Early morning sun well up now and moon all but down
Warm in sun on longfallen log on beach
Chilly by tent amongst the trees tho was very cosy in the evening by the fire after the adventures of the day

I sat on a log in the sun hearing the gentle swish of the water on the shore
the thud of car and van doors
Occasional photographers footsteps
The engine of a leaving vehicle
but
PEACEFUL
and
TEMPTING TO SPEND THE WHOLE DAY LIKE THIS

Exhausted by the long and difficult walk day, we planned a drive and little-look-walk day.
We set off from Lake St Clair heading west after the early morning by the water and a snake see and a wee swim too
A ????whitelippedblack snake that scuttled over the rocks moments after I saw a dead one
and that was moments after I had my first snake thoughts
”warm rocks a good snake spot watch out “

We stopped at all the marked lookouts and nature trails on the route
The Franklin River Nature Trail
We walked to the river and over the river
over a very narrow one at a time swingy bridge
And returned thro the on path camplace of a group who had complete the 5 day return walk /climb to Frenchman’s Cap
The young group were covering the path
They didn’t expect anyone else today, they said

On to Donaghy’s Lookout
A stepped and boarded pathway to a spot high up
360deg of mountain and forest around
Frenchman’s Cap snowcovered
An earlier in the day sighting was brighter, more cap like but no photo taken then because we would get more later!! We’ll be nearer
Yes, nearer but light less good
So, remember ,when it looks good snap it
Just in case that is the one opportunity
Look down on to the Franklin River in its gorge
As we stood at that point I was aware of the emptiness of the sky and of the few -if any at all- planes or their trails I had seen
Empty
Huge

Under that huge empty sky I didn’t feel lost, I felt good

Onward to the night’s campspot
Layby camping at the Collingwood river
the start point for Franklin river rafting expeditions
There was a built fireplace but a big sign “no fires after midnight” so I thought we should use the wee stove
and I was a bit stroppy about the place
there were other people there and they were there first
I didn’t want to get in their way
be too near them
be there
be seen
have Tony speak,,,,,
‘The fire spot was too near others’ is what I write nearly at the time
Hidden loo
Foot paddle
Early away - no coffee even - and more tourist stops

They’re not bad
Tourist stops

Nelson Falls Nature Trail
Busy busy
we usually had these places to ourselves – timing, I suppose.
This was early for us but post organised breakfast for gangs .
A walk thro woods on boards to the falls

Onward and the landscape changed dramatically
From forest wilderness
To the wilderness of post-mining trauma

Passed Lake Burberry / Crotty Dam on the way -wrong name - C not G but it felt a bit G –and a soggy mossy picnic area where we had breakfast sqilch squich with the stuff across the …..bod …. Can you guess what that word was?
Outlook over lake to mountains but it didn’t feel comfortable

Thro the blighted landscape
and on the tourist trail
looking for a road to the Iron Blow we headed up a road in a near dead town
Linda
It had streets, street names, derelict shacks and empty spaces with an occasional car and a brighter house denoting continuing life.
In its Australian way it reminded me of Newtongrange as it was 20 or so years ago.

Depressing and the 2 travellers had a ‘bit of a squabble’ here so my notebook says.

I wasn’t doing any driving on this blighted day. I was doing the easy, if unpleasant, just looking and I probably wanted to do more - looking not driving.

The road was a hard one to drive – I wouldn’t have liked to
up
Up up and round and round
The mountains were blasted yellow white grey any unnatural colour
We found the road marked ‘iron Blow’ I set off to walk a way up to see if I could work out how far it went or something about it being a very edgy looking road
It was very hot.
I walked on a bit passed my said stop point.
And
There was the car coming up behind me
So we did go together to the Blow along the edgy short road
Parked and walked down a path to the view through and over a fence of a now-flooded opencast copper mine to a deep hole .The water was bright greeny blue The workways, the shelvings, the passages from one level to another were all clear as if scores of men might pop out ,pick up their picks and start to work there again

Back to the main road somewhat depressed
over the crest of the hill
down steep hairpins to Queenstown where we thought to find a supermarket
– but coffee first, the first of the day.
Bigger this place, less derelict but of another age and overshadowed by mined hills
Wild West
I didn’t se a saloon with swinging doors and rolling gaited punters but I didn’t look in every street……..
Old buildings in the main street with a covered walkway
Surprising that inside one of these coloured premises there was a woman who would copy my memory card to CD
A wonder experience
Very hot
Unattractively attractive
I felt I had to spend time in this place
I watched the now for tourists wee train which runs through the forest to Strachan on the coast
I like wee trains
I was tempted
Walked up and down the streets, looked for the best supermarket and eventually bought what we needed and more
Looked for somewhere to eat but either grotty or shut or something
I had a grump
The heat
Tony
Something
After a chat with a guide lady we headed to a place where we could see a huon pine
I had no idea what one looked like and she told us the spot where we would for certain see one
We drove
We found the place
Signage
Crafty signage
A conversation between two trees
A ??douglas fir or a something else and a Huon Pine

I read it
I looked
I read it again
I looked again
I read it some more
I thought I knew which was which but I wasn’t sure
Took some pics to help when I looked at a picture in a book in a shop or a poster at an info place
but it was days and days before I found one

We had chosen to camp at a spot beyond Strachan
>>>distance that journey…..
another very cheap campground from the book out of Beryl
We saw a fantastic red sunset on the way - me photo shooting out of the moving vehicle
We came to the place and ‘Speak to the Caretaker’ said the sign
somehow suggesting dire things would happen if we didn’t.
Similarity to Crakaig camp spot

Tony did or tried to - he, the caretaker , was pissed. Tony was told we could camp ‘anywhere’ so we chose a duny spot on the Macquarie Bay side rather than a sheltered in a dip with no view much camped in spot.
It seemed calm when we pitched the tent but very soon it was windy and we took shelter in the tent to eat our salad dinner – we were obeying ‘no fires’ orders even on the beach
tho the caretaker said it was OK

He came along after and I don’t think our chosen spot was OK but he didn’t tell us to move.

Back along the track a bit there were some shacks / cabins/ caravans and Tony didn’t like the place. There were fisher people about with big vehicle tracks on the sand but I felt happy there.
A decision was taken to move from there in the morning
But first we had a walk along the sands towards Hells Gates and Ocean Beach. It would be possible to walk for miles on the sand here, maybe even to drive, but for us the feel of the ocean and the sight of the open waves was enough on that day

Towards Strachan stopping at a Swan picnic place with tables and a high lookout point … Black swans
breakfast
It would have been an ideal camp spot too

Strahan and decisions to be made
A big boat up the Gordon River
Or
A train through the forest
Or
Something else
Or
Miss it all out because the boats were big and touristy and that jarred with the place and it was all very dear

But I came there to go on that river

Wander and wonder and as we did we stopped by an old sawmill just as they were giving their daily demonstration of using a old style saw – breaking down saw- An interesting talk about how a few sawmills are now licensed to saw salvaged previously felled wood from the forests of the World Heritage Area for ‘craft’ use. We have seen vast quantities of long ago felled trees apparently just left
uon pine I learned is water-resistant and doesn’t rot easily either. This was the property that made it a good wood for boat building. It has many properties and I have a wee bag of saw dust which would apparently keep the beasties away from my clothes..

And then there was the bit of wood

The sawmill had stuff for sale
Big stuff made stuff
And it had boxes of bits of wood to help yourself to for a dollar or so

I rummaged for a bit I liked
A small bit

I thought I ‘d found one
A dinky one
and then Tony had it and paid for it and zipped it up in his bag

I was very upset about that little piece of wood or maybe I was very upset because it was such a Sheila right bit and I wanted Tony to see that and was upset because he didn’t

Wandering
and I was a bit stroppy I think
a bit I need to wander and just be
a bit not wanting to be held down , held back
from doing unsuitable tourist things like looking in shops

coffee drinking

so for a while after the wood incident we went separate ways in the tiny place

then we met again accidentally at the coffee place and finally made a decision about the boat trip – yes we’d go

but there had been a bit of wonder about a plane trip instead. I don’t think that was ever very serious and the pilot didn’t think the weather was good so he wasn’t selling hard

on my way to buy the tickets so the deed was done and we could stop deliberating I found another option – a sailing boat which could take us further up the river
that sounded good. We needed two other people to make the numbers and here they are coming into the shop – but no, they had other plans tho they had earlier wanted to do that trip
However the boat Stormbreaker was also offering in harbour B and B and we had no nightstayplace fixed . We were planning a B and B of some sort , had begun to ask, well Tony had
I don’t ask questions

We booked the boat option
to be on the pier at … o’clock once it returned from the dinner cruise that we weren’t going on

A hunt for an eating place. This seemed to be the day. the place for some soft living some luxury so we looked for a restaurant

A walk around the head of the bay
no where
I went further while t did some car stuff and I found somewhere but rejected it as too…..

So it was fish and chips again in the Strachan version of the ‘nice’ Hobart fish and chiperies
I had wanted to go to eat somewhere special-er for a change but I tried and failed to find somewhere
I bought us a bottle of wine labelled Strachan to drink while we sat on deck later in the evening

We watched our home of the night sailing in
The captain welcomed us aboard showed us round

Still the sailing boat was a good idea if a little disappointing that we had to share it even tho it was with a near silent go to bed right away couple
We drank over the yard arm there are pics to prove this

We had the V bunk – the letting woman insisted that we go and see it first –It was cosy and comfy with a porthole at either side of the bed /with a good view of the signs advertising the B and B

Early rising and self help breakfast gear out of boat and into car and rysh to be at the ferry to get the best seats.
I went straight to the outside front also bagging 2 enclosed inners as I went
It was cold
It was wet
It was windy
But we stayed out there longer than anyone else – t longest of all.
The trip took us through Hells Gates - aptly named and back
that was when I took shelter – it was difficult walking over the deck
scary
I held on tight.
I found that the rear outside bit had a canopy and was also protected by being rear

Shearwater flocks over the water

Part of the trip was a tour of Sarah island and the story of its convict prison days was told by a young guide - -stalwart through downpours of rain he kept going, acting his whole tale. Dripping and not talking in his detail I was more aware of the other drippers around -and all the time thinking I can read about this. I still haven’t

Back on board
And into the Gordon River. We motored slowly up the river – there are speed restrictions – and were able to stand out on a low deck only opened during this part of the cruise
-just above water level as we glided quietly between the trees
-it looks just like the photos
The trees right down to the banks
Long felled trees visible at the edges
Bendy river
seeing around the bends

More trees
More trees

The buffet lunch was served during this part of the cruise. It was difficult to tear myself away to get my lunch –but it was part of the ticket deal and good food so I did at the last call and I ate it standing out on the low front deck.
I didn’t want to miss a minute of this in-the-midst-of-it time.
Heritage Landing was the furthest point up the river for us – another boardwalked short journey through the trees – this time in a gang!

And the return
A second saw mill visit
Wet and cold to a Strachan coffee shop to try to dry

A fantastic day and a good decision to take the boat trip - as smaller boat and to overnight would have double iced the cake

Onward from Strachan
Some campsite deliberation – Strachan itself was a possible but then we found there was also a site at Zeehan so we left Strachan on our route

We sopped at Henty Dunes Picnic Area to explore or at least experience these huge dunes.
I climbed to the top expecting a steep dunedrop to the ocean. Instead I saw a vast area of sand – a desert stretching towards the sea. Had I crossed it I expect eventually I would have reached that dunedrop.
There were dead stump, remains o f trees in certain places on the sand.
Another new landscape.
We set up camp – permissibly –at the picnic area – made a fire in a fireplace with some carried wood and with some laid there ready.
A big cook up of Queenstown Veg – a 2 dayer.

Possum

As the dayshift of adventure tour dunesliders and quadbikers arrived we decamped, hit the road and headed through Zeehan
Towards Cradle Valley.
We coffee stopped in Rosebery We post officed in Zeehan - an old fashioned big wooden counter. I bought a paper in a depressed shop – keltyish – we needed to check info about bushfires in the east because we were, maybe, on our way east

Cradle Valley was a downspot for me on arrival – touristy (low touristy at that]I don’t know what made me think that but there was something in the presentation of the just before the national park area that I didn’t like and packaged
Tony was instantly ready for a walk, me a sleep . He set off around Dove Lake while I carsat and wandered a little - as far as the boathouse by the lake – mix up Wordsworth DylanThomas here
Awe inspiring scenery mountains Cradle Mountain
Campsite down the hill a way A good spot with room for car tent and more and for me to take my sleeping bag in the night/early morning
And sleep some more
A day of sleep but then I had a food need, a caff visit need but I went the wrong way and had a long uninspiring road walk.
Tony spent his day organising to go on the Overland trek .
Very focused
Gear prepared
bag packed
giant bag

I started a day walk with him up to Wombat Pool and watched as he plodded up a steep slope .
I went on to Crater Lake and Falls before returning via boardwalked buttongrass to a point downnvalley from where I’d left the car. Shuttle bus to the rescue.
I found the car, drove to the campsite, wet.
Found the tent almost in a puddle, upsticked and drove off,

shsheieillaas

still wandering

Summer 2008

stepping out

This is the story of my trip part 1 and some more