Its another tantalising piece of road to Coral Bay which is still the great NW highway with a turnoff to Coral Bay. The roads are all sealed but the one to Coral Bay was a recent addition. Prior to that it was a dirt track and a 4WD domain which kept the Britz toaster brigade and anybody with 2WD out. Now it is relatively easy place to get to and a regular stop on the flashpacker trail. Now when we left Denham, Des and Annette took pity on us and gave us a Bill Bryson Audiobook..Downunder.
We are the only Britz van with a tape machine in the western desert and the Western Hemispere...sigh
We had listened to TBO Elton John which is great...the first 26 times...and then well Sad Songs becomes saddos and then we have to switch to ABC Western Australia radio which is a bit 'Good Morning Vietnam' a la Radio 210. Thats the local nonsense in Reading...and then there is James Lush who god bless his mum...sounds like Gary Davies...the king of nonces if ever there was from the heady days of Radio 1...well when you are about to renounce the Lion King and apply to the priesthood for a vow of silence...turn it over.
So we cut into Bill Bryson. Actually I think he is a brilliant writer in his genre and the stories about England, the pubs, the people. We pick up in Aussie and he beautifully describes Perth and then embellishes each stroy with facts, simple stuff. Lovely bit about the Stromatolites in Hamelin Pools where we had just been and a lovely bit about a trip to Alice Springs with his producer mate from the beeb involving good aussie hangovers and not opening puffy eyes for risk of bleeding to death!
Anyway a very good story which really tickled the van muppets:
'So this freind of his is having an extension done and his daughter was helping the builders. At the end of the week they give her a silver coin for helping them and the father takes her to the bank to open an account. The manager asks her if she enjoys working with the builders and she says yes. Then he asks her if the builders are likely to be on site next week and if she is going to be working and she says 'only if we get the fucking bricks!' boom boom. Well after a diet of EJ this was a breath of humour badly needed.
After all this we arrive in Coral Bay and it looks small, sandy and the home to Ningaloo Reef. There is lots of men gathered around another gutting table for the
catch of the day so fishing is all well and good and living in Coral Bay. The campsite is great and we wander to the Dive shop. We dive tomorrow on Ningaloo - inner reef.
From the shore you can see the reef fringes the whole bay and forms a sanctuary inside for the inner reef. The weather has been rubbish recently and diving on the outer reef, where the big fish live and probably the sharks, is a no go.
The reef stretches up to Exmouth in the north and Whale Sharks are here for 2 months and have just left..no worries.
The diving the next day is fabulous and then we snorkel in the bay in the afternoon which is a tad murky but the water is a beautiful temperature and there is coral and stuff to see. Fo comes snorkelling on the dive boat and probaly sees more life on the surface than we do below the surface. The coral is in great nick and there is plenty of life with sharks, rays and barracuda around. The next day we are doing the
'Manta Ray interactive experience' as the lingo goes.
We leave at 9 as usual and make for the place the spotter plane tells us the Mantas want to get 'interactive'. The visibility sucks and i think the pilot has been on the grog. We follow a couple of cold leads and then Emily, Dive Master and spotter girl, gets a hot lead and swims along behind the assailant with her arm directly in the air indicating visual contact. She was very fast considering she only had one arm and two fins to propell with and she signalled for us to enter the water. We followed the Manta for a long way but didn't interact too much as she was clearly late for a meeting on the other side of the reef and we were all in hot pursuit. They are truly beautiful animals and there will be other meetings! We knock off and head for a dive on the reef again. Very beautiful, lots of life and a great divemaster in Emily who can finally bring her arm down from above her head with some heavy physio.
Apart from the diving and the local fauna in the bayside cafe the town is deliciously small, the beach reaches all the way round the bay where you can always find a quiet spot to yourself and its generally paradise. Like the whole of the west coast at this time of year campsites are full, you cannot book ahead in most cases and everybody wants to be in the same place. It is set to grow although hopefully it won't lose the special atmosphere it has now. Besides that there is still very few resorts on the coast and heaps of coast. We have to leave, the toast is ready and we have only a couple of weeks to get to Broome...back on the highway again towards Karratha and Dampier, Fo's spiritual home!
Friday, 20 July 2007
The North West Highway to Coral Bay
We leave Perth in our Moulinex Toaster (Britz Camper) looking forward to nights being serenaded by cicadas gazing lazily into the skies as thousands of shooting stars break over our heads as we barby the hind quarters of a mammal or two. You really do leave civilization very quickly and we were on the open road. Other campers showed their respect by a wave of the hand...we were in a huge club of toasters all cooking slices around the rim of Australia. Allegedly because of the season it is the only way to travel as hotels are full and there ain't nowhere else to stay...Hail the camper van nee 'galloping Gourmet' kitchen on wheels...no crustaceans will be safe in our neck of the woods..you will fry!!! Our first stop is Cervantes, crayfish capital of Western Australia (WA). It is now off season and the boats are pulled up onto the shore and the fisherman have all gone off to spend their wads up and down the coast. We check into the Pinnacles Camping Park. Standard issue in WA is a 'very large' 4Wdrive with 'roo-bars' on the front (preferably with a Rams horns mounted atop - a la 'Dukes of Hazard') towing a large camper...the Roo-bars are essential as we nearly took out two Joeys as we foolishly disregarded the advise about driving at dusk, and they are very big! Their carcases lie on the side of the road where other 'duskers' have come to grief. We cook ourselves spaghetti bolognese...when in Rome...and a charming fellow from the next camper along called Andrew drops in with some friendley advice and a bottle of Kinwarra for the Spag. Its delicious and the stars and planets, especially Venus, welcome us to Cervantes. The camper is split into two and one bed is made up of the seats and table, the other is a shelf perched above this table with a foot of room above it. I get the shelf....by dint of fact that i can actually climb up there and by getting into a particular position which would have made Houdini envious...remove my clothes and wriggle into my sleeping bag. If you want to get out in the night..forget it. In the dark you have to balance one foot on the sink and the other on the end of the seat/bed and lower yourself into the abyss...reversing the procedure for re-entry to shelfdom! Its the best nights sleep I've had for a while which must mean I have tendencies to Japanese hotels and karaoke...strange. Fo, being an insomniac is awake through the whole procedure reading 'Billabong Bills 50 easy to cook Emu/roadkill' recipes. We leave teh campsite and drop into the garage/deli/bakery/bait&tackle shop/family advise centre for breakfast. A terribly gay blade cooked us a slap-up and gave us some friendly advise about the best way to approach a pinnacle although i think we are on crossed conjugates at this point and we leave for the 'Pinnacles Desert'...which is full of pinnacles. Extraordinary large natural forms of re-cemented sandstone in a sea of sand dunes. They are dramatic and interesting and we both mount one for the benefits of a saucy photo! We leave knowing we have a long drive ahead to Sharks Bay and Denham...hoping its nothing like the one near Slough. We arrive just before roadkill'o'clock and check into a charming campsite on the bay run by whats left of Stalag 93 from '44. The bay is fabulous and we take an dusk walk along the esplanade into town. We have already enquired with Haupmansturer sheila in the camp shop and she rather charmingly assured us that no boats would take us to Dirk Hartog (DH) Island where Dampier landed in 1699. Strange really, the bay is full of boats and you can see DH island, surely some salty seadog would dump us there before going off to the slaughter that is the fishing charter business that is the mainstay of the fleet. On top of this there must be a hundred boats all parked around town all waiting to join in the fishing-fest nay daily marine slaughter! We talk to the first fishing boat 'Unreal' fish charters...well!!! Heath (not cliffe) agrees to take us and he is the friendliest seadog you could ever meet. Great we are set but not for a few days.
Still Denham has a wealth of things to do and we are going to do them all. First off snorkelling equipment and then to the beach. Snorkel for hours, nothing to see but the water is gorgeous...and what a sunset...this is definately not Slough!
Over the next few days we do the sights! We swim with dolphins at Monkey Mia, they are such perceptive animals and are very tame here, they are fed in the morning but not at any other times as they have a propensity to get lazy - then not go fishing for themselves or teach the little pups how to catch dinner. One pup this year has already died from starvation.
The following day we go to Whalebone and Shell beaches. Both beautiful places in this empty landscape where you are unlucky if you are not the only visitors. There is so much space and so much unspoilt coastline. The coast from Perth to Exmouth is 1800km -ish and then you have another 1000 or so km to Broome with only 6 or 7 small centres of population. Things are changing though and the area is in boomtime with the mines in the north desperate for workers and shortages of people all the way up the coast. Tourism is taking off but the only way to travel is in a camper and it really does feel like a frontier area with most of the roads having only recently been paved but they still flood if the rains come...which, rather surprisingly, they frequently do. This gives the whole area a carpet of light green and small flowers break out over the entire desert..thus the 'Flower State'
We also visit Eagle Bluff which is a meeting place for all kinds of Planktonics. Sharks, dugongs, turtles etc all come into the bay to feed and chat. The whole of Sharks bay is a marine reserve and covers some 24000km2 which is practically all carpeted in sea grass. The depth of the bay is sometimes only 4m and it traps the seawater in pockets. These pockets are distinct areas which have high salt concentrations becoming hypersaline. The species of animals that inhabit these hypersaline areas are thus distinct to these pockets and adapt specifically to the local conditions. Thus you find specialist animals which are found nowhere else on the coast or in the world. New species of animals are constantly being found in Sharks Bay and there is no sign that there is any shortage of new ones, just not enough scientists looking for them.
In the campsite there is a wealth of people and some fantastic characters and similar to the animals around here I imagine they are not found anywhere else in the world (except Earls Court obviously). They are colourful in their character, in their speech and stories and they are incredibly friendly, open, hospitable people who seem to enjoy every day for the 'hell of it'! I really like them. We have met Des and Annette, both psychologists (worrying) and they are great fun and a mine of information. They have the most gorgeous Labradoodle called Lizzie who is complete character and we want to steal her away and take her north. This is not practical.
Dirk Hartog Island is tomorrow and the anticiaption is killing Fo...more spaghetti then to quell this over excitement........
....as a descendant of William Dampier I am honoured to write this piece of the blog -our trip to Dirk Hartog Island where Will landed in 1699 on his commissioned 'voyage to New Holland'. He had thoughfully written the coordinates down in his navigators log and so we landed at exactly the same spot of the island - now known as Dampier's Landing. Luckily for us we had a travelling companion and explorer Leon Deschamps, local Denham lad and acute Dampier nut - there is nothing he doesn't know about Dampier, Dirk Hartog, turtles and aboriginal pursuits to name but a few subjects.
We were all fascinated - including Heath and Byron our friendly seadog brothers.
We swam ashore to behold the low dunes just as Dampier had descibed them and a paradisical beach skirted with beautiful aquamarine shallows. Dampier collected and recorded 24 species of flora from the west coast of Oz, many from this exact point and his specimens still exist today in the herbarium at Oxford University. So I set about emulating my life-long hero and attempted to identify and collect the same species Dampier had 300 years ago. It was not difficult - my first step onto shore and I could see cuttle fish 'shell's' all across the tide line stretching away to the east. Dampier is attributed with the discovery and naming of the cuttle fish in the annals of natural history as well as the avacado, an archipelago, Sharks Bay itself and the word 'barbeque' to name but a few. He was quite a bashful fellow and didn't feel the need to name his discoveries after himself - sometimes losing the kudos of discovery thereafter.
We trod carefully through the bush and came upon the commemorative plaque installed at the site where he was expected to have collected his samples on August 17th 1999 exactly 300 years after he first set foot. Sadly we were reminded of 21st century man here where a plastic clad windswept barbeque (would you believe) blew in shredded tatters across our horizon. Leon was positively embarrassed.
We made our own discovery while on the beach - a magnificent armpour-plated crab with golden hairy legs and claws - hopefully a new sub-species (also a Dampier word)to be attributed to a Dampier in 2007!
We sadly had to leave Dampiers Landing if we were to sail round to Turtle Bay another haunt of Wills, and poor Leon and Byron had the unenviable job of hauling aboard this super slim torso. Talking of humpbacked whales, one very courteously breached before us as we rounded Cape Inscription - this was turning into the BEST day. The steep red cliffs of Turtle Bay loomed in front of us and again a beautiful beach with an array of shells and plants , and a sad little loggerhead turtle cemetry half way up the cliff - their husks baked in the sun. Leon speculated they had been taken by seabirds for a turtle meat lunch - but I wondered if they weren't washed up there during a storm as there were so many in one place.
This was another magical backdrop of family (and world) history with still a few more in Western Oz to go - sayonara Sharks Bay - we will return.....
It is sad to leave Denham, the campsite full of 'Go West' characters but Coral Bay calls and we have to go via Carnarvon...Wales?? On the way to Wales we stop off at Hamelin Pool, an old Telegraph Station, famous in itself as a telegraph station but an older more important living thing lurks here (and not the knotty old relic who sold me a cornetto. Here, in ancient reefs off the beach, are to be found stromatolites, the first living things to inhabit our planet 3.5 billion years ago and they are still slowly going about their business now. Single celled animals which grow only 1cm a year in a, leaving their skeleton behind in the form of prehistoric and pre 'National Desigh Awards' totally random lumps which to the untrained eye may be an insignificant blob. Not so these animals give off small amounts of oxygen which then accumulated over 2 billion years to give us our primeval oxygen rich atmosphere...so in effect the 'big daddy' of us all! Magnificent.
We stay the night in Carnarvon and they arrange a firework display for us, the charm offensive goes on. Its a day of revelling and boozing and they have indulged. There are merry folk everywhere and lots of people swigging out of highly suspicious bottles of coke.
We set off north again after a coffee and egg and bacon not...McMuffin from a charming Coffee shop in Carnarvon. We set off sated for the Blow Holes just up the coast.
Its a great drive, the recent rain has bought all the flowers out in the desert and we skirt the McCleod Lake to Quobba, blow hole capital!! Another breathtaking piece of coastline with the most incredible jets of water shooting up to 50-100 feet in the air as a front drop to a coastal swell of titanic proportions crashing onto the coastline and breaking on the reefs which fringe the coast. We stop for a little
snorkel in the bay. The water is not so clear due to the swell I imagine but it is a great little bay full of conflicting currents from the inlets and surprisingly good life on the reef. A stop for a Blowhole experience with photos...next stop Coral Bay.
Still Denham has a wealth of things to do and we are going to do them all. First off snorkelling equipment and then to the beach. Snorkel for hours, nothing to see but the water is gorgeous...and what a sunset...this is definately not Slough!
Over the next few days we do the sights! We swim with dolphins at Monkey Mia, they are such perceptive animals and are very tame here, they are fed in the morning but not at any other times as they have a propensity to get lazy - then not go fishing for themselves or teach the little pups how to catch dinner. One pup this year has already died from starvation.
The following day we go to Whalebone and Shell beaches. Both beautiful places in this empty landscape where you are unlucky if you are not the only visitors. There is so much space and so much unspoilt coastline. The coast from Perth to Exmouth is 1800km -ish and then you have another 1000 or so km to Broome with only 6 or 7 small centres of population. Things are changing though and the area is in boomtime with the mines in the north desperate for workers and shortages of people all the way up the coast. Tourism is taking off but the only way to travel is in a camper and it really does feel like a frontier area with most of the roads having only recently been paved but they still flood if the rains come...which, rather surprisingly, they frequently do. This gives the whole area a carpet of light green and small flowers break out over the entire desert..thus the 'Flower State'
We also visit Eagle Bluff which is a meeting place for all kinds of Planktonics. Sharks, dugongs, turtles etc all come into the bay to feed and chat. The whole of Sharks bay is a marine reserve and covers some 24000km2 which is practically all carpeted in sea grass. The depth of the bay is sometimes only 4m and it traps the seawater in pockets. These pockets are distinct areas which have high salt concentrations becoming hypersaline. The species of animals that inhabit these hypersaline areas are thus distinct to these pockets and adapt specifically to the local conditions. Thus you find specialist animals which are found nowhere else on the coast or in the world. New species of animals are constantly being found in Sharks Bay and there is no sign that there is any shortage of new ones, just not enough scientists looking for them.
In the campsite there is a wealth of people and some fantastic characters and similar to the animals around here I imagine they are not found anywhere else in the world (except Earls Court obviously). They are colourful in their character, in their speech and stories and they are incredibly friendly, open, hospitable people who seem to enjoy every day for the 'hell of it'! I really like them. We have met Des and Annette, both psychologists (worrying) and they are great fun and a mine of information. They have the most gorgeous Labradoodle called Lizzie who is complete character and we want to steal her away and take her north. This is not practical.
Dirk Hartog Island is tomorrow and the anticiaption is killing Fo...more spaghetti then to quell this over excitement........
....as a descendant of William Dampier I am honoured to write this piece of the blog -our trip to Dirk Hartog Island where Will landed in 1699 on his commissioned 'voyage to New Holland'. He had thoughfully written the coordinates down in his navigators log and so we landed at exactly the same spot of the island - now known as Dampier's Landing. Luckily for us we had a travelling companion and explorer Leon Deschamps, local Denham lad and acute Dampier nut - there is nothing he doesn't know about Dampier, Dirk Hartog, turtles and aboriginal pursuits to name but a few subjects.
We were all fascinated - including Heath and Byron our friendly seadog brothers.
We swam ashore to behold the low dunes just as Dampier had descibed them and a paradisical beach skirted with beautiful aquamarine shallows. Dampier collected and recorded 24 species of flora from the west coast of Oz, many from this exact point and his specimens still exist today in the herbarium at Oxford University. So I set about emulating my life-long hero and attempted to identify and collect the same species Dampier had 300 years ago. It was not difficult - my first step onto shore and I could see cuttle fish 'shell's' all across the tide line stretching away to the east. Dampier is attributed with the discovery and naming of the cuttle fish in the annals of natural history as well as the avacado, an archipelago, Sharks Bay itself and the word 'barbeque' to name but a few. He was quite a bashful fellow and didn't feel the need to name his discoveries after himself - sometimes losing the kudos of discovery thereafter.
We trod carefully through the bush and came upon the commemorative plaque installed at the site where he was expected to have collected his samples on August 17th 1999 exactly 300 years after he first set foot. Sadly we were reminded of 21st century man here where a plastic clad windswept barbeque (would you believe) blew in shredded tatters across our horizon. Leon was positively embarrassed.
We made our own discovery while on the beach - a magnificent armpour-plated crab with golden hairy legs and claws - hopefully a new sub-species (also a Dampier word)to be attributed to a Dampier in 2007!
We sadly had to leave Dampiers Landing if we were to sail round to Turtle Bay another haunt of Wills, and poor Leon and Byron had the unenviable job of hauling aboard this super slim torso. Talking of humpbacked whales, one very courteously breached before us as we rounded Cape Inscription - this was turning into the BEST day. The steep red cliffs of Turtle Bay loomed in front of us and again a beautiful beach with an array of shells and plants , and a sad little loggerhead turtle cemetry half way up the cliff - their husks baked in the sun. Leon speculated they had been taken by seabirds for a turtle meat lunch - but I wondered if they weren't washed up there during a storm as there were so many in one place.
This was another magical backdrop of family (and world) history with still a few more in Western Oz to go - sayonara Sharks Bay - we will return.....
It is sad to leave Denham, the campsite full of 'Go West' characters but Coral Bay calls and we have to go via Carnarvon...Wales?? On the way to Wales we stop off at Hamelin Pool, an old Telegraph Station, famous in itself as a telegraph station but an older more important living thing lurks here (and not the knotty old relic who sold me a cornetto. Here, in ancient reefs off the beach, are to be found stromatolites, the first living things to inhabit our planet 3.5 billion years ago and they are still slowly going about their business now. Single celled animals which grow only 1cm a year in a, leaving their skeleton behind in the form of prehistoric and pre 'National Desigh Awards' totally random lumps which to the untrained eye may be an insignificant blob. Not so these animals give off small amounts of oxygen which then accumulated over 2 billion years to give us our primeval oxygen rich atmosphere...so in effect the 'big daddy' of us all! Magnificent.
We stay the night in Carnarvon and they arrange a firework display for us, the charm offensive goes on. Its a day of revelling and boozing and they have indulged. There are merry folk everywhere and lots of people swigging out of highly suspicious bottles of coke.
We set off north again after a coffee and egg and bacon not...McMuffin from a charming Coffee shop in Carnarvon. We set off sated for the Blow Holes just up the coast.
Its a great drive, the recent rain has bought all the flowers out in the desert and we skirt the McCleod Lake to Quobba, blow hole capital!! Another breathtaking piece of coastline with the most incredible jets of water shooting up to 50-100 feet in the air as a front drop to a coastal swell of titanic proportions crashing onto the coastline and breaking on the reefs which fringe the coast. We stop for a little
snorkel in the bay. The water is not so clear due to the swell I imagine but it is a great little bay full of conflicting currents from the inlets and surprisingly good life on the reef. A stop for a Blowhole experience with photos...next stop Coral Bay.
Thursday, 12 July 2007
Adelaide to Perth - The Nullabur Plain
All aboard the Indian Pacific – came over the tannoy in Adelaide rail station. A wonderful locomotive with silver grey carriages freshly washed for the similarly grey nomadic passengers. We jumped into Red Kangaroo class, very middle of the range – and cheerily laughed when shown to our sleeper cabins, the same size as your kitchen table. Not much snoring room for two chunky virgo's!
Across the Nullabour we voyage with 3000kms to go gaping at the soon-to-be-familiar vision of blue-grey low lying shrubbery speckled onto a deep terracotta backdrop , the occasional tree, there when you go to sleep and there when you wake up 7 hours later. At least a feeling of consistency.
When you spend time in an enclosed space with strangers from all corners of the globe,whether it be on board a Chilean ferry or an Australian train you certainly get to know their characters and habits enough to write a book, no less! I enjoy people watching at the best of times and I enjoy more trying to guess creatively their lives and places of work, why are they travelling, who have they left behind? This journey was no exception and we had a glorious time spying on (and being ignored by) those wealthy types in up-market Gold class who had their beds turned down and a 5 course gourmet meal with a selection of superior wines , Australian only of course. (We had what suspiciously looked like British Rail sandwiches turning up at the corners due to the air miles!) They had probably made their money investing in the Gold mines of the southwest and had come on this trip to see how their investment was doing at the Superpit in Kalgoorlie where we stopped for a few hours one evening. Kalgoorlie is a fascinating mining town before, after and during the goldrush and we were lucky enough to have the most amusing tour guide who was hell bent on showing us among other buildings, the houses belonging to the local hookers and their red lights. Luckily for the ermine clad elite, gold mining is going through a huge BOOM! and the giant pit (largest opencast mine in the world) full of seemingly dinky toy trucks it was so deep, produces 1 tonne of gold per day!! 'No worries' as they say out here - none at all it would seam!( 'Scuse the pun)
Everybody in Red Kagaroo class became familiar with a family of four children all under 8 yrs with the most patient amazonian mother and the naughtiest 3 year old Oscar running up and down the corridors in the sleeping carriages giving us all a wake up call at 5.30 am. His brothers and sister invariably locked him out of their carriage for a bit of peace I imagine so he could scream and yell making sure nobody else had any, until he was let in. "Oh so your'e Oscar' each grey haired occupant would say when they emerged blearily from their undersized carriage. He will be quite a character one day. When we arrived I was happy to note mum and all four kids were greeted at Perth, by her equally amazonian sister and three cousins. What a school holiday this will be - I wonder how may Dads would have made the same trip across the Nullabor?
Arriving in Perth we had the fortune to meet up with kindly friends of Sheryl Campbell whom we had spent many an hour chatting to on the Navimag trip in Chile, and they gave us valuable guidance on places to visit and how not to be run over by kangaroos on manouvres while driving our camper through the bush as we proceeded up the west coast of Australia. Perth is a beautiful city , spacious and green with wide avenues and stunning scenery, capped by Kings Park overlooking the city and Swan river. Here we whiled away many an hour tramping about the 1000 acres of botannical beauty and gazing humbly at the memorials of those who gave their lives through Australian history. It is a serene place of reflection in a stunning position.
In Freemantle the victorian buildings of worth still stand preserved with reverence contrasting with the innovative modern architecture of the Western Australian Maritime Museum . Here I was fortunate enough to meet Dr Mick McCarthy, Curator, marine archaeologist and professed Dampier fan who dived onto the wreck of Dampiers leaky ship the Roebuck, where it sank in Acension Island. His team, within the first hour of the expedition, salvaged the ships bell and a giant clam from Williams shell collection that went down with the ship. Fascinating stuff! I have to thank Mac for all his encouragement and guidance towards my plans of hopefully contributing further to the profile raising of old Uncle Willliam. You never know, my dreams may yet to come to fruition!
Across the Nullabour we voyage with 3000kms to go gaping at the soon-to-be-familiar vision of blue-grey low lying shrubbery speckled onto a deep terracotta backdrop , the occasional tree, there when you go to sleep and there when you wake up 7 hours later. At least a feeling of consistency.
When you spend time in an enclosed space with strangers from all corners of the globe,whether it be on board a Chilean ferry or an Australian train you certainly get to know their characters and habits enough to write a book, no less! I enjoy people watching at the best of times and I enjoy more trying to guess creatively their lives and places of work, why are they travelling, who have they left behind? This journey was no exception and we had a glorious time spying on (and being ignored by) those wealthy types in up-market Gold class who had their beds turned down and a 5 course gourmet meal with a selection of superior wines , Australian only of course. (We had what suspiciously looked like British Rail sandwiches turning up at the corners due to the air miles!) They had probably made their money investing in the Gold mines of the southwest and had come on this trip to see how their investment was doing at the Superpit in Kalgoorlie where we stopped for a few hours one evening. Kalgoorlie is a fascinating mining town before, after and during the goldrush and we were lucky enough to have the most amusing tour guide who was hell bent on showing us among other buildings, the houses belonging to the local hookers and their red lights. Luckily for the ermine clad elite, gold mining is going through a huge BOOM! and the giant pit (largest opencast mine in the world) full of seemingly dinky toy trucks it was so deep, produces 1 tonne of gold per day!! 'No worries' as they say out here - none at all it would seam!( 'Scuse the pun)
Everybody in Red Kagaroo class became familiar with a family of four children all under 8 yrs with the most patient amazonian mother and the naughtiest 3 year old Oscar running up and down the corridors in the sleeping carriages giving us all a wake up call at 5.30 am. His brothers and sister invariably locked him out of their carriage for a bit of peace I imagine so he could scream and yell making sure nobody else had any, until he was let in. "Oh so your'e Oscar' each grey haired occupant would say when they emerged blearily from their undersized carriage. He will be quite a character one day. When we arrived I was happy to note mum and all four kids were greeted at Perth, by her equally amazonian sister and three cousins. What a school holiday this will be - I wonder how may Dads would have made the same trip across the Nullabor?
Arriving in Perth we had the fortune to meet up with kindly friends of Sheryl Campbell whom we had spent many an hour chatting to on the Navimag trip in Chile, and they gave us valuable guidance on places to visit and how not to be run over by kangaroos on manouvres while driving our camper through the bush as we proceeded up the west coast of Australia. Perth is a beautiful city , spacious and green with wide avenues and stunning scenery, capped by Kings Park overlooking the city and Swan river. Here we whiled away many an hour tramping about the 1000 acres of botannical beauty and gazing humbly at the memorials of those who gave their lives through Australian history. It is a serene place of reflection in a stunning position.
In Freemantle the victorian buildings of worth still stand preserved with reverence contrasting with the innovative modern architecture of the Western Australian Maritime Museum . Here I was fortunate enough to meet Dr Mick McCarthy, Curator, marine archaeologist and professed Dampier fan who dived onto the wreck of Dampiers leaky ship the Roebuck, where it sank in Acension Island. His team, within the first hour of the expedition, salvaged the ships bell and a giant clam from Williams shell collection that went down with the ship. Fascinating stuff! I have to thank Mac for all his encouragement and guidance towards my plans of hopefully contributing further to the profile raising of old Uncle Willliam. You never know, my dreams may yet to come to fruition!
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Melbourne to Adelaide
Leaving Sydney behind we head down Highway 1 on the first leg of our road trip round Australia. I am excited - the wind through my hair and another capacious hot chocolate in my tum we head for the hills - well the coast actually that lies between Sydney and Melbourne . The little corolla straining under the weight of our ever growing book collection we drive through plenty of eucalyptus forests not passing many cars at all which is, I am warned by the wise old fruit next to me, something I'd better get used to - oh,and its raining. No, I mean raining ,,,,hard. New South Wales and Victoria have been on desperate measures for 3 years without a single drop of rain and resevoirs at all time lows of 23% and the like - and all they had to do was invite a little known Dampier to stay and the whole place suddenly gets a lot more dampyer - hic!
Battling through the never ending forests of gum and the sound of it being rapaciously chewed in my ear by the now 18 months (and counting) non smoker we hole up in a pretty lagoonside town of Merimbula in a hotel motel with a peculiar sense of spatial design. The tumbleweed rolled past us down the deserted street as we attempt vainly to find a cafe, restaurant or front parlour open and warmly welcoming the disconsolate heroes with huge pies or roast of the day - and it was only 8pm. Eventually we had to 'knock up' a kindly Thai grandmother who was putting her bed socks on behind the CLOSED sign on the door and persuaded her to knock us up a quick chicken sate which we ate salaciously back 'home'.
Dawn broke behind a wall of water and leaving still fewer local smiling faces behind we set off towards Melbourne hoping to reach Bairnsdale for the next stop. We took a brave guess that this was not going to happen as we left New South Wales and progressed into Victoria....underwater. The bridge over the River Mitchell had been obscured by the torrent which had burst its banks -the road was closed. We were steered to stop overnight (but more likely 3 nights) at Lakes Entrance, the attractive tourist spot where several rivers converge into inland lakes that only a strip of land,the said township, and miles of stringy dunes,separates lake from ocean. This is where we should have used our combined MENSA score of 408 to work out that torrential rivers converge into lakes which overflow into...Lakes Entrance, and they did exactly that - into our motel car park overnight. So upon rising we were faced with the news that 3 lakes and four rivers were approaching from the rear and the full moon promised the highest tide of the year from the front - hmmn, time to leave. It became a humbling experience driving gingerly through little villages completely awash with river water, only the cross bar of the soccer goal visible above the swirling muddy soup and trees buried underwater almost to their tops. As we left the flood plains and climbed up towards melbourne the sheep in fields by the road gradually became whiter and cleaner - as they found higher ground.
We arrived in Melbourne to a very warm and fluffy welcome from Nicole and Julian, the highly fit and intelligent thirty somethings we had the pleasure to meet in El Calafate, Argentina on the Perito Merino Glacier. Would Mark manage a week of vegetarian fayre I wondered to myself as his face contorted at the sight of Lentil and Kidney Bean soup with extra pulses, vainly trying to pluck off the white hairs sticking to his black fleece, courtesy of Nic and Julians little princess, Chebbie. Seriously, we had a wonderful time slobbing out in their smart flat while they commuted to their highly important work places, interspersing huge cooked breakfasts with strenuous trips to art galleries and museums, Federation Square and the Luna Fun Park in St Kilda. Here our friendly Melbournians decided to pay me back for my slovenly ways by frightening me out of my pants on the oldest roller coaster on the planet seemingly made of balsa wood and old chewing gum and having a remarkable propencity to sway in time with the gusts of wind and rain. Thanks guys..... The other highlight of our stay was the nail biter game of rugger at the amazing MCG stadium between the All Blacks and the Wallabies - Mark knew, of course , the Aussies would win and they did - don't they always win everything??!
With a short 50 minute hop to Adelaide by air and our white fur covered luggage in tow, we arrived to be met by another old KJC school friend Jeremy Goldfinger, who seemingly has struck gold in his garden or won a bundle on Canasta in the Casino Royale in Monte Carlo! The lovely Vicky, a woman of the greatest patience, sweet Laura and vivacious Matt in his wedding dress greeted us at wind and rain swept Goldeneye Castle making us very comfortable and replete, and helped us watch Wimbledon late into the night. The following day we ventured together down to the coast to tiny seaside village of Sellecks where Gold-Bond has a beach house to see how it had faired after the storm and heigh ho, how small this world is, Trents parents live down the street behind! So a merry meeting was had by all where old friends met new and hopefully last as long as Goldenpants run of luck at the Casino!
With sage words of advice about investments and MI5 Jeremy dropped us at the Adelaide train station for the next leg of the trip boarding the Indian Pacific sleeper train to cross the Nullabur Plain to Perth. Grey nomads brigade - we were searching for our bus passes before we realised we still have fourteen years to go - and 3000kms - you just get carried away with the ambience of it all!
Battling through the never ending forests of gum and the sound of it being rapaciously chewed in my ear by the now 18 months (and counting) non smoker we hole up in a pretty lagoonside town of Merimbula in a hotel motel with a peculiar sense of spatial design. The tumbleweed rolled past us down the deserted street as we attempt vainly to find a cafe, restaurant or front parlour open and warmly welcoming the disconsolate heroes with huge pies or roast of the day - and it was only 8pm. Eventually we had to 'knock up' a kindly Thai grandmother who was putting her bed socks on behind the CLOSED sign on the door and persuaded her to knock us up a quick chicken sate which we ate salaciously back 'home'.
Dawn broke behind a wall of water and leaving still fewer local smiling faces behind we set off towards Melbourne hoping to reach Bairnsdale for the next stop. We took a brave guess that this was not going to happen as we left New South Wales and progressed into Victoria....underwater. The bridge over the River Mitchell had been obscured by the torrent which had burst its banks -the road was closed. We were steered to stop overnight (but more likely 3 nights) at Lakes Entrance, the attractive tourist spot where several rivers converge into inland lakes that only a strip of land,the said township, and miles of stringy dunes,separates lake from ocean. This is where we should have used our combined MENSA score of 408 to work out that torrential rivers converge into lakes which overflow into...Lakes Entrance, and they did exactly that - into our motel car park overnight. So upon rising we were faced with the news that 3 lakes and four rivers were approaching from the rear and the full moon promised the highest tide of the year from the front - hmmn, time to leave. It became a humbling experience driving gingerly through little villages completely awash with river water, only the cross bar of the soccer goal visible above the swirling muddy soup and trees buried underwater almost to their tops. As we left the flood plains and climbed up towards melbourne the sheep in fields by the road gradually became whiter and cleaner - as they found higher ground.
We arrived in Melbourne to a very warm and fluffy welcome from Nicole and Julian, the highly fit and intelligent thirty somethings we had the pleasure to meet in El Calafate, Argentina on the Perito Merino Glacier. Would Mark manage a week of vegetarian fayre I wondered to myself as his face contorted at the sight of Lentil and Kidney Bean soup with extra pulses, vainly trying to pluck off the white hairs sticking to his black fleece, courtesy of Nic and Julians little princess, Chebbie. Seriously, we had a wonderful time slobbing out in their smart flat while they commuted to their highly important work places, interspersing huge cooked breakfasts with strenuous trips to art galleries and museums, Federation Square and the Luna Fun Park in St Kilda. Here our friendly Melbournians decided to pay me back for my slovenly ways by frightening me out of my pants on the oldest roller coaster on the planet seemingly made of balsa wood and old chewing gum and having a remarkable propencity to sway in time with the gusts of wind and rain. Thanks guys..... The other highlight of our stay was the nail biter game of rugger at the amazing MCG stadium between the All Blacks and the Wallabies - Mark knew, of course , the Aussies would win and they did - don't they always win everything??!
With a short 50 minute hop to Adelaide by air and our white fur covered luggage in tow, we arrived to be met by another old KJC school friend Jeremy Goldfinger, who seemingly has struck gold in his garden or won a bundle on Canasta in the Casino Royale in Monte Carlo! The lovely Vicky, a woman of the greatest patience, sweet Laura and vivacious Matt in his wedding dress greeted us at wind and rain swept Goldeneye Castle making us very comfortable and replete, and helped us watch Wimbledon late into the night. The following day we ventured together down to the coast to tiny seaside village of Sellecks where Gold-Bond has a beach house to see how it had faired after the storm and heigh ho, how small this world is, Trents parents live down the street behind! So a merry meeting was had by all where old friends met new and hopefully last as long as Goldenpants run of luck at the Casino!
With sage words of advice about investments and MI5 Jeremy dropped us at the Adelaide train station for the next leg of the trip boarding the Indian Pacific sleeper train to cross the Nullabur Plain to Perth. Grey nomads brigade - we were searching for our bus passes before we realised we still have fourteen years to go - and 3000kms - you just get carried away with the ambience of it all!
Monday, 9 July 2007
Aussie, Sydney
We left New Zealand on a very, very large jet and the flight was rather cool with a great new comedy on the streets called 'Wild Hogs'. John Travolta is even funnier than when he was packing a pair of pop socks in his spandex pipes in SNF. Its a great Mid-life crisis spoof with Home Improvement man 'Tim' and lots of Harleys.
We arrive in Sydney and it looks even bigger from the air than i remember, still gorgeous after all these years. We pick up a compact and make for Bondi beach, it's only 5pm and a sundowner would be fabbo on the beach with a view of the ocean.
They have really cleaned Bondi up and there are walkers, joggers and gentlefolk everywhere. Sundowner and then off to Nick and Nickys in Clovelly. Great to see N&N again and Alice has shot up and is gorgeous 14's.
Next day is to Manley at dawn to meet Trent and pick up the keys to his flat. Manley is still the most beautiful place with the fir trees round the bay and the esplanande full of joggers and cyclists. Trent is looking good and we get to chat before he is off to Melbourne. Down to the Steyne Cafe for breakie...memories are made of this.
Spend the day in Manley and then back to Randwick. We take a walk with Nicky and Lucy - the Labadoodledandy - to Bronte and Coogee beach. Surf is totally up and the surfers are giving it their all in 8 - 10m waves. Back to Cafe city in Coogee and a gorgeous lunch - for Lucy too as she cleans up the pizza crusts littering the pavement. Sydney is awash with Cafes, restaurants and people eat out here..and who can blame them when you sre surrounded by sea air and blue sky...ad this is mid winter.
Saturday we get down to Bronte fo breakie and then get our swim gear and get down to the sea-water pool where Nicky get washed around like a washing machine while swimming and Nick and i do a teenage thing and Rail-Jump at the edge of the pool with the waves crashing over the top...its sensational!!!
Fo does lots of work for the book by visiting the museum in town where there is tons of stuff from the buccaneering past. There is also two replica boats in the harbour....Endeavour and The Bounty and they look so small!!! How did they survive with so little room and so many people on board??
Well to cap it all, unbelievably, the Opera House is showing the Barber of Seville, bit of favorite Opera and we get tickets. The Opera House is really something and to arrive for a large show in the main auditorium with the Chatterati of Sydney (not discussing butter) is top potato. This is the opening night and the Auditorium is full, the actors are already on stage lolling and chatting waiting forthe gun. The set is sumptuous and Gaudi-esque with great curvaceous features, rich colours complimented with lush costumes for the actors. The whole show is delicious, Rosina sings like a lark, the story holds, the singing tight with beautiful nuances in the acting. Alice whispers to Nicky at half time 'don't ever bring me to the Opera again' but i think she enjoyed the second half which has much stronger sections. I remember seeing 'La Clemenza de Tito' - Mozart and feeling exactly the same as Alice...It was more mindnumbing than watching the England Footie team...sorry Amadeus, that is harsh...England football makes Jonathan Ross look interesting!!! Pah, anyway my highlight of the trip so far...sorry Machu Picchu, more songs, dance and light hearted orchestration to tickle the fancy.
There is a small bar on the level behind the auditoriim where you have the half time drinks...the view over the habour is beautiful and the bridge is lit up in the left corner, the whole harbour and bays lit up to the right and i think you can see the fair on the north bank with the Ferris wheel standing out like a catherine wheel...although the view of the NCP car park behind the Hexagon in Reading still resonates!!!
We leave Sydney omorrow but this will stay in the memory for a long time. Ta ta Sydney....
We arrive in Sydney and it looks even bigger from the air than i remember, still gorgeous after all these years. We pick up a compact and make for Bondi beach, it's only 5pm and a sundowner would be fabbo on the beach with a view of the ocean.
They have really cleaned Bondi up and there are walkers, joggers and gentlefolk everywhere. Sundowner and then off to Nick and Nickys in Clovelly. Great to see N&N again and Alice has shot up and is gorgeous 14's.
Next day is to Manley at dawn to meet Trent and pick up the keys to his flat. Manley is still the most beautiful place with the fir trees round the bay and the esplanande full of joggers and cyclists. Trent is looking good and we get to chat before he is off to Melbourne. Down to the Steyne Cafe for breakie...memories are made of this.
Spend the day in Manley and then back to Randwick. We take a walk with Nicky and Lucy - the Labadoodledandy - to Bronte and Coogee beach. Surf is totally up and the surfers are giving it their all in 8 - 10m waves. Back to Cafe city in Coogee and a gorgeous lunch - for Lucy too as she cleans up the pizza crusts littering the pavement. Sydney is awash with Cafes, restaurants and people eat out here..and who can blame them when you sre surrounded by sea air and blue sky...ad this is mid winter.
Saturday we get down to Bronte fo breakie and then get our swim gear and get down to the sea-water pool where Nicky get washed around like a washing machine while swimming and Nick and i do a teenage thing and Rail-Jump at the edge of the pool with the waves crashing over the top...its sensational!!!
Fo does lots of work for the book by visiting the museum in town where there is tons of stuff from the buccaneering past. There is also two replica boats in the harbour....Endeavour and The Bounty and they look so small!!! How did they survive with so little room and so many people on board??
Well to cap it all, unbelievably, the Opera House is showing the Barber of Seville, bit of favorite Opera and we get tickets. The Opera House is really something and to arrive for a large show in the main auditorium with the Chatterati of Sydney (not discussing butter) is top potato. This is the opening night and the Auditorium is full, the actors are already on stage lolling and chatting waiting forthe gun. The set is sumptuous and Gaudi-esque with great curvaceous features, rich colours complimented with lush costumes for the actors. The whole show is delicious, Rosina sings like a lark, the story holds, the singing tight with beautiful nuances in the acting. Alice whispers to Nicky at half time 'don't ever bring me to the Opera again' but i think she enjoyed the second half which has much stronger sections. I remember seeing 'La Clemenza de Tito' - Mozart and feeling exactly the same as Alice...It was more mindnumbing than watching the England Footie team...sorry Amadeus, that is harsh...England football makes Jonathan Ross look interesting!!! Pah, anyway my highlight of the trip so far...sorry Machu Picchu, more songs, dance and light hearted orchestration to tickle the fancy.
There is a small bar on the level behind the auditoriim where you have the half time drinks...the view over the habour is beautiful and the bridge is lit up in the left corner, the whole harbour and bays lit up to the right and i think you can see the fair on the north bank with the Ferris wheel standing out like a catherine wheel...although the view of the NCP car park behind the Hexagon in Reading still resonates!!!
We leave Sydney omorrow but this will stay in the memory for a long time. Ta ta Sydney....
Monday, 18 June 2007
New Zealand, South of the North
As we headed south to the south of the North Island which is north of the north of the South Island...thats for people who have bird flu...we had to stop in at Auckland just to pick up my Ipod which broke down on the first day in Argentina and never worked again, which isn't a bad thing but it would be great to hear some Van the Man again. We needed a new car as well as the X-trail isn't up to the task which we set for it!
We headed towards Hamilton to catch up with Peter and Nikki who lived on the outskirts. Stayed in downtown Hamilton for the night, went for another double drizzled dinner and were serenaded by a the Karaoke Bar over the road.
The next morning we caught up with Nikki and Peter who live to the south of Hamilton on the way to Cambridge. Peter harks from Henley and Nikki from Winchester and we caught up with the news from both sides. Cambridge is a bit of an equine centre with many famous horses trained here for flat racing and if you were top of your game you are immortalised with a pavement brass in downtown Cambridge..much like the hand prints on Sunset.
We leave Peter and Nikki, but we are coming back on the return journey. Next stop is New Plymouth in the shadow of Mount Taranaki. We are also catching up with Emma and Petit who are coming from Wellington and the opposite way round the mountain to New Plymouth, past all the surf sites to the west of the Volcano. We meet by the wind clock in the morning - a 90m high fibreglass rod with a small bulb on the tip - and head for Mount Taranaki park which runs around the base of the volcano. Its a long an winding road to the car park half way to the top and we have a great walk through the 'Hobbit Woods' before having tea and cake from the 'bed on wheels' in the car park.
Into town for pool and beer and Emma and Petit are asked what their parents (thats us) would like to drink? Aarrggghhhh, we are not grey nomads, we are not grey nomads!!!
We say goodbye to our kids the next morning but we are meeting in Lake Taupo. We head for the Forgotten Highway 43 which runs from New Plymouth all the way west past the Matemateaonga Range, through extraordinay volcanc scenery, and leads to Lake Taupo. On the way we meet the hogs fence of all hog fences with up to 100 wild boar skins laid end to end as far as the eye can see. We stop at a crossing and there are two hog hunters and a gentlewoman from the hills chatting about butter standing in the middle of the road. She explains that the skins are sabre rattling in the hog hunters parlance and this is big skin street. we accelerate fast towards nowhere but away from toon town.
Next stop is Lake Taupo. Find a place to take our kids as well and cook a well earned meal after shopping at Woolies. We overdo the shop but ths is a rare treat ....a kitchen with white mans oven and microwave. Great spaghetti, ecoutrements, chocolate ad television.
Lake Taupo is a divine volcanic event with the lake being the water filled remnant of a super-eruption. North is the two peaks
which mark the extent of the volcano and give some good skiing and restaurants half way up the hill for the faint hearted. We charter a plane...'cos we are that wealthy...and fly over the mountains through cloud to 1500m, Pureora and Hauhungaora are both majestic and covered with permanent snow. The volcanic lakes bubble with gas and sulphur slicks cover the water surface.
Emma and Petit arrive the next morning in torrential rain. We have to face the Golf challenge on the lakeside. Its 128 yards to the green floating in te middle of the lake and you can win $5000 if you can get a hole in one...its fun having a go and remarkably its happens once every two weeks! We return to pool, six holes and a 2m total length to the table.
We set off for Rotorua early in the morning and make for the Geyser park. The Geysers run constantly while we are there.
We retire to the town for lunch and then to the hot water baths for massage and a loll in the baths which vary between warmish to hot enough to worry a haggis.
Emma and Petit get on their way in the love bug and we have a date back with Nikki and Peter in Hamilton. We get back via Hawkes Bay and Whakatane which is truly beautiful with so few people, remote rolling scenery and beaches, deserted and endless. We have also spent the time well in Taupo. Fo proof read a book that Peter is writing about running a Llama racing stud. Llama racing is big in Hamilton and to get the best out of your Llama takes a huge commitment financially and from the jockeys who generally ride side saddle. Its a book that should open the door on the msterious world which will send shock waves through the Andes. Publication should be in 2008.
For the last leg of our tour we cruise through the Coromandel, the north east tip of the island and a sanctuary of rich Auckland guys and galls. We stop in Tairua and explore the coastline including Cooks Beach, Whitianga and Hot Springs Beach. Here the springs run under the beach and Fo takes a bath whilst having a photoshoot...back, just a little, thats it...oops. A very wet bottom, new boots and.... there are beautiful houses, breathtaking scenery and Kauri forests which have survived the ravages visited on their friends in the rest of New Zealand.
Its time to leave NZ. Regrets, I had a few...didn't make it to the south island but it turns out that the North Island is big enough, beautiful and it will remain beautiful if they can recognise trees as their friends...man!
We headed towards Hamilton to catch up with Peter and Nikki who lived on the outskirts. Stayed in downtown Hamilton for the night, went for another double drizzled dinner and were serenaded by a the Karaoke Bar over the road.
The next morning we caught up with Nikki and Peter who live to the south of Hamilton on the way to Cambridge. Peter harks from Henley and Nikki from Winchester and we caught up with the news from both sides. Cambridge is a bit of an equine centre with many famous horses trained here for flat racing and if you were top of your game you are immortalised with a pavement brass in downtown Cambridge..much like the hand prints on Sunset.
We leave Peter and Nikki, but we are coming back on the return journey. Next stop is New Plymouth in the shadow of Mount Taranaki. We are also catching up with Emma and Petit who are coming from Wellington and the opposite way round the mountain to New Plymouth, past all the surf sites to the west of the Volcano. We meet by the wind clock in the morning - a 90m high fibreglass rod with a small bulb on the tip - and head for Mount Taranaki park which runs around the base of the volcano. Its a long an winding road to the car park half way to the top and we have a great walk through the 'Hobbit Woods' before having tea and cake from the 'bed on wheels' in the car park.
Into town for pool and beer and Emma and Petit are asked what their parents (thats us) would like to drink? Aarrggghhhh, we are not grey nomads, we are not grey nomads!!!
We say goodbye to our kids the next morning but we are meeting in Lake Taupo. We head for the Forgotten Highway 43 which runs from New Plymouth all the way west past the Matemateaonga Range, through extraordinay volcanc scenery, and leads to Lake Taupo. On the way we meet the hogs fence of all hog fences with up to 100 wild boar skins laid end to end as far as the eye can see. We stop at a crossing and there are two hog hunters and a gentlewoman from the hills chatting about butter standing in the middle of the road. She explains that the skins are sabre rattling in the hog hunters parlance and this is big skin street. we accelerate fast towards nowhere but away from toon town.
Next stop is Lake Taupo. Find a place to take our kids as well and cook a well earned meal after shopping at Woolies. We overdo the shop but ths is a rare treat ....a kitchen with white mans oven and microwave. Great spaghetti, ecoutrements, chocolate ad television.
Lake Taupo is a divine volcanic event with the lake being the water filled remnant of a super-eruption. North is the two peaks
which mark the extent of the volcano and give some good skiing and restaurants half way up the hill for the faint hearted. We charter a plane...'cos we are that wealthy...and fly over the mountains through cloud to 1500m, Pureora and Hauhungaora are both majestic and covered with permanent snow. The volcanic lakes bubble with gas and sulphur slicks cover the water surface.
Emma and Petit arrive the next morning in torrential rain. We have to face the Golf challenge on the lakeside. Its 128 yards to the green floating in te middle of the lake and you can win $5000 if you can get a hole in one...its fun having a go and remarkably its happens once every two weeks! We return to pool, six holes and a 2m total length to the table.
We set off for Rotorua early in the morning and make for the Geyser park. The Geysers run constantly while we are there.
We retire to the town for lunch and then to the hot water baths for massage and a loll in the baths which vary between warmish to hot enough to worry a haggis.
Emma and Petit get on their way in the love bug and we have a date back with Nikki and Peter in Hamilton. We get back via Hawkes Bay and Whakatane which is truly beautiful with so few people, remote rolling scenery and beaches, deserted and endless. We have also spent the time well in Taupo. Fo proof read a book that Peter is writing about running a Llama racing stud. Llama racing is big in Hamilton and to get the best out of your Llama takes a huge commitment financially and from the jockeys who generally ride side saddle. Its a book that should open the door on the msterious world which will send shock waves through the Andes. Publication should be in 2008.
For the last leg of our tour we cruise through the Coromandel, the north east tip of the island and a sanctuary of rich Auckland guys and galls. We stop in Tairua and explore the coastline including Cooks Beach, Whitianga and Hot Springs Beach. Here the springs run under the beach and Fo takes a bath whilst having a photoshoot...back, just a little, thats it...oops. A very wet bottom, new boots and.... there are beautiful houses, breathtaking scenery and Kauri forests which have survived the ravages visited on their friends in the rest of New Zealand.
Its time to leave NZ. Regrets, I had a few...didn't make it to the south island but it turns out that the North Island is big enough, beautiful and it will remain beautiful if they can recognise trees as their friends...man!
Friday, 1 June 2007
New Zealand - North, The Bay of Islands
Travelling north of Auckland takes you to Northland and the historical home of the Maori culture. There are Maori mission houses - church meeting places, all over New Zealand and every village or settlement has a Maori name within its title somewhere. Although there are not many 'pure' Maori left, the culture is very much part of everyday life with some lessons in all primary schools conducted in the Maori language and religous customs and culture given the same importance than any christian or other dinominational celebrations. And New Zealand is a very patriotic country with the All Blacks being revered every hour on the radio and the Queens birthday celebrations playing a big part in New Zealanders lives with an honorary bank holiday,knock down prices in the shops and street parties. Look to your laurels UK...
Northland is probably the most sub-tropical part of New Zealand plenty of temperate rainforest to see and again we were lucky with the weather - even though technically its winter. We based ourselves in Pahia on the eastern side of the peninsula and had excellent opportunity to take day trips to all parts over the 5 days of our stay. Till I pranged the car that is - no, there were no maltesers involved this time!
Before this minor setback the most memorable places and events in Northland involved
a) being dressed up as giant condoms for the 'Excitor' trip around the beautiful Bay of Islands - I was excited!
b)meeting a couple of wild boars skins hangin' out on a fence of the spooky, dark, unmade 53kms long short-cut we were supposedly driving along to get 'home' in pouring rain; with duelling banjos whispering in our ears we turned around and took the long road
c)the beautiful '90 Miles Beach' which turned out to be 90 kilometres and in desperate need of a cafe at the end!
d)a visit to the Waipapa chocolate factory - mmm, now this could be a serious alternative career - macademia nuts in milk choc slabs, its paradise regained!
While on the daily road trips you can't help but notice the Kiwi penchant for stating the obvious, unusual brandnames, statements or community clubs and peculiar mixtures of foodstuffs on one plate. A road sign invites us to drive down the 'Big Flat Road' or up the 'Right Turn Road' where we pass Frog Whistle Mine to arrive at Whanaroa, 'Small Town, Big Spirit' to shop in the store with 'Knock Down Prices for the Queen - its her Birthday Sale!' We stop for lunch for some exotic 'royally roasted lamb drizzled with banana, avocado oiled vegetables nestling in brandy and sultana gravy' while listening to the Complaint Choir on the radio, complaining about the level of the NZ equivalent to council tax through six part harmony of Handel's Messiah! Phew - I need a holiday!
Northland is probably the most sub-tropical part of New Zealand plenty of temperate rainforest to see and again we were lucky with the weather - even though technically its winter. We based ourselves in Pahia on the eastern side of the peninsula and had excellent opportunity to take day trips to all parts over the 5 days of our stay. Till I pranged the car that is - no, there were no maltesers involved this time!
Before this minor setback the most memorable places and events in Northland involved
a) being dressed up as giant condoms for the 'Excitor' trip around the beautiful Bay of Islands - I was excited!
b)meeting a couple of wild boars skins hangin' out on a fence of the spooky, dark, unmade 53kms long short-cut we were supposedly driving along to get 'home' in pouring rain; with duelling banjos whispering in our ears we turned around and took the long road
c)the beautiful '90 Miles Beach' which turned out to be 90 kilometres and in desperate need of a cafe at the end!
d)a visit to the Waipapa chocolate factory - mmm, now this could be a serious alternative career - macademia nuts in milk choc slabs, its paradise regained!
While on the daily road trips you can't help but notice the Kiwi penchant for stating the obvious, unusual brandnames, statements or community clubs and peculiar mixtures of foodstuffs on one plate. A road sign invites us to drive down the 'Big Flat Road' or up the 'Right Turn Road' where we pass Frog Whistle Mine to arrive at Whanaroa, 'Small Town, Big Spirit' to shop in the store with 'Knock Down Prices for the Queen - its her Birthday Sale!' We stop for lunch for some exotic 'royally roasted lamb drizzled with banana, avocado oiled vegetables nestling in brandy and sultana gravy' while listening to the Complaint Choir on the radio, complaining about the level of the NZ equivalent to council tax through six part harmony of Handel's Messiah! Phew - I need a holiday!
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
New Zealand : Auckland - Waiheke Island
Landing in a new country at 4am having crossed the time and date line means you miss out a whole day in your life and get to know the internal workings of the airport for a few wee hours with a thumping head - mmn, jet lag! Once Auckland was rubbing its eyes awake we had a very informative taxi ride to Hotel Duxton, right in downtown, provided by a chatty Kiwi seik. The hotel was a revelation as we had our own kitchen and washing machine in our room and the chance to cook our first meal for three months. Bliss!
Auckland is a pretty and compact city, a similar size to Reading (admittedly on the large side of pretty and oceanside), but with more Asians, especially Koreans! Every second person was Korean who we found out were there for English language courses (cheapest place in the world to conjugate) and to work in every shop and cafe within the city's environs. So far quite an unusual introduction to this far flung haven of the British Commonwealth. We spent a gut churning few hours 190 metres above the city in the Sky Tower, feeling a little nauseous each time a fearless sky jumper hurtled past our noses at the speed of extreme light (they throw themselves off the tower attached to a wire from just above the cafe) The views were outstanding and gave us a sparkling geographical summary of this welcoming city. The viewing map included the Coromandel peninsula and the youthful volcanic islands in the harbour - which was our first introduction to Waheike where Mike and Karen have settled after leaving England a few years ago. Looking forward to catching up with them as I haven't seen Mike since supping Pimms at Wimbledon 4 or so years ago when he first mentioned NZ as a possibility. We celebrated our arrival with a Thai meal at 'Mai Thai' right next door. Lashings of green curry and a generous helping of Pad Prik.
Met up with Dr Karen who has a health centre in the port area of town, took the chance to moan to Dr Andrew, (one of Karens colleagues) about middle age spread, hair loss and various pains I had in all moving parts of my poor body and got some pills to stop my legs falling off in Starbucks...all is well! We caught a ferry with Karen for the 40 minute ride to Waiheke...and the harbour area of Auckland is stunning. Little volcanic islands poking up from the bay; even a nature reserve slap bang in the middle..striking similarities to the trip from Sydney to Manley. Mike, Karen, Jed (9) and Alfie (7) live in a fabulous architect designed state-of-the-art home overlooking Dead Dog Bay - all those episodes of Grand Designs I had watched intently suddenly rolled into one. We were esconced in the 'weekender' on the far side of the tennis court so we could burp and rest in peace while our hosts went about their daily business, such as going to work and school. The gardens were laid to vineyard below the house and then into gentle forest towards the bay which was deserted and gorgeous. The weather was glorious and walking tracks were trod, fish were caught, wine was tasted at vineyards, and cocktail parties were attended (in camping fleeces that looked a little worse for wear and smelt of fish and bonfires - a new cologne by 'Shabby old Brits'!) At the cocktail party Fo hooked up with a a local island heiress, gorgeously christened Cecily Devine c. 1967. You could hear RR gently cajouling as Gatsby..sisters, five altogether and all Devine we understand!
The local supermarket had a glass cabinet entirely dedicated to green lipped muscles the size of your hand and we sat on a sunny Saturday and ate a bowlful washed down with local wine with Dead Dog Bay drenched in sun below us..this is a kind of paradise Mike and Karen have found with the boys!
A trip in the pick-up around the island revealed more deserted inlets with forset to the shore and stunnng views out into the Pacific ocean. To the south of the island are the remains of the enormous guns built to protect NZ from invasion during WW2, presumably from Japan...wine connoisseurs and sushi chefs one presumes. The guns could fire 28km in a circle although they were never used in anger. Strange to think the Japanese would consider this so strategic. Ironically the town is invaded by Asians now, all desperate to learn English to finish their takeover of the world with Global knives and rehashed Burberry!
We left Waheike after a wonderful week of luxury and pampering - jet lag free and ready for the adventure that is 'En Zed'.
Auckland is a pretty and compact city, a similar size to Reading (admittedly on the large side of pretty and oceanside), but with more Asians, especially Koreans! Every second person was Korean who we found out were there for English language courses (cheapest place in the world to conjugate) and to work in every shop and cafe within the city's environs. So far quite an unusual introduction to this far flung haven of the British Commonwealth. We spent a gut churning few hours 190 metres above the city in the Sky Tower, feeling a little nauseous each time a fearless sky jumper hurtled past our noses at the speed of extreme light (they throw themselves off the tower attached to a wire from just above the cafe) The views were outstanding and gave us a sparkling geographical summary of this welcoming city. The viewing map included the Coromandel peninsula and the youthful volcanic islands in the harbour - which was our first introduction to Waheike where Mike and Karen have settled after leaving England a few years ago. Looking forward to catching up with them as I haven't seen Mike since supping Pimms at Wimbledon 4 or so years ago when he first mentioned NZ as a possibility. We celebrated our arrival with a Thai meal at 'Mai Thai' right next door. Lashings of green curry and a generous helping of Pad Prik.
Met up with Dr Karen who has a health centre in the port area of town, took the chance to moan to Dr Andrew, (one of Karens colleagues) about middle age spread, hair loss and various pains I had in all moving parts of my poor body and got some pills to stop my legs falling off in Starbucks...all is well! We caught a ferry with Karen for the 40 minute ride to Waiheke...and the harbour area of Auckland is stunning. Little volcanic islands poking up from the bay; even a nature reserve slap bang in the middle..striking similarities to the trip from Sydney to Manley. Mike, Karen, Jed (9) and Alfie (7) live in a fabulous architect designed state-of-the-art home overlooking Dead Dog Bay - all those episodes of Grand Designs I had watched intently suddenly rolled into one. We were esconced in the 'weekender' on the far side of the tennis court so we could burp and rest in peace while our hosts went about their daily business, such as going to work and school. The gardens were laid to vineyard below the house and then into gentle forest towards the bay which was deserted and gorgeous. The weather was glorious and walking tracks were trod, fish were caught, wine was tasted at vineyards, and cocktail parties were attended (in camping fleeces that looked a little worse for wear and smelt of fish and bonfires - a new cologne by 'Shabby old Brits'!) At the cocktail party Fo hooked up with a a local island heiress, gorgeously christened Cecily Devine c. 1967. You could hear RR gently cajouling as Gatsby..sisters, five altogether and all Devine we understand!
The local supermarket had a glass cabinet entirely dedicated to green lipped muscles the size of your hand and we sat on a sunny Saturday and ate a bowlful washed down with local wine with Dead Dog Bay drenched in sun below us..this is a kind of paradise Mike and Karen have found with the boys!
A trip in the pick-up around the island revealed more deserted inlets with forset to the shore and stunnng views out into the Pacific ocean. To the south of the island are the remains of the enormous guns built to protect NZ from invasion during WW2, presumably from Japan...wine connoisseurs and sushi chefs one presumes. The guns could fire 28km in a circle although they were never used in anger. Strange to think the Japanese would consider this so strategic. Ironically the town is invaded by Asians now, all desperate to learn English to finish their takeover of the world with Global knives and rehashed Burberry!
We left Waheike after a wonderful week of luxury and pampering - jet lag free and ready for the adventure that is 'En Zed'.
Sunday, 20 May 2007
Santiago and La Serena
We had finally arrived to visit Santiago city having spent so many nights and days in the airport on the way to other countries or places. We had a recommendation from David on the Island for a hotel in the centre. So we took a taxi from the airport to the centre and as we approach downtown there is a naked body being fished out of the river...its like a scene from CSI Santiago! No trepidation for the stay in Santiago...muchos!
We located the hotel and check in..a bit squalid and there is some confusion as to the identity of the hotel as 'Hotel Paris 1' is posh and 'Hotel Paris 2' doubles as a whorehouse..I think we are in two. Still judging by the Madame in reception who looks all the way a Latin Dolly Parton (best little whorehouse in Texas) with more rouge, we are in the right - or wrong - place dependng on your religious hankering. The interior decor and ambience was somewhat different from the Refugio Nautico we left only 6 hours ago - sigh!
We were warned not to venture more than a couple of blocks from the area around the hotel so we paid a brief visit to the Plaza des Armas and witnessed the traditional chess expo in the central bandstand - where some of the better players were older than the bandstand itself. There was an interesting changing of the guard ceremony taking place at the governmental palace and we could only find an Italian cafe that was a) open, b) had other people eating in it and c) had no aggressive looking drinkers inside - so that was our choice of repaste! After loosely-what-could-be-termed-breakfast the next morning we get our arses up to the airport and on a flight to La Serena tout suite!
La Serena was a favorite with the pirates and it was sacked more times than Larry Tsonka! Wills D and the other pirates are notorious here and there was still trepidation about a visit by the Ingles up until the late 1800's...not so now. We checked into the poshest hotel in town..they didn't do rooms by the hour...and took a lovely walk into the best preserved colonial town in Chile.
The original church sacked by the Captain Morgan still exists and there is enough left of the town from the early years to get a feel for the panic that would ensue as the Ingles Invaders were spotted from the headland and the townsfolk made for the mountains with their valuables. This is also market town with markets down every little street from food to glorious Inca posts with stuff all the way from Peru.
One of the mornings I jump out of bed as the whole hotel shakes and make for the window. It is an all too common earthquake. It doesn't even register with the people in the hotel as they shrug and say that they happen two or three times a week. It was a strange sensation and a reminder that the whole Pacific coastline from here right up to Oregon is on the move constantly.
This area is also the centre for Stallar Observatories and the production of Pisco grapes in the Elqui valley not far from here. We paid a visit one of the observatories near Vicuna on a night where the stars reach to the horizon and fortunately we haven't had too much local Pisco. Saturn is clear in the sky and even clearer through the telescope...Mars also, and we get a glimpse of Alpha and Beta Centuri which are so beautiful through the lens.
Following our celestial evening we drove up the Elqui valley where they produce all the Pisco grapes you can drink and where the Nobel poet Gabriela Mistral lived and worked. It is a beautiful barren valley which seems to go on forever, the vines growing in such an inhospitable place but with such vivid red and yellow foliage set against the stark arid desert..no wonder it tastes so good.
We leave La Serena with a little sadness as it is our last hours in South America and we are off to NZ this evening...desole!!! Goodbye South America or Adios...you have been a good friend, ciao
We located the hotel and check in..a bit squalid and there is some confusion as to the identity of the hotel as 'Hotel Paris 1' is posh and 'Hotel Paris 2' doubles as a whorehouse..I think we are in two. Still judging by the Madame in reception who looks all the way a Latin Dolly Parton (best little whorehouse in Texas) with more rouge, we are in the right - or wrong - place dependng on your religious hankering. The interior decor and ambience was somewhat different from the Refugio Nautico we left only 6 hours ago - sigh!
We were warned not to venture more than a couple of blocks from the area around the hotel so we paid a brief visit to the Plaza des Armas and witnessed the traditional chess expo in the central bandstand - where some of the better players were older than the bandstand itself. There was an interesting changing of the guard ceremony taking place at the governmental palace and we could only find an Italian cafe that was a) open, b) had other people eating in it and c) had no aggressive looking drinkers inside - so that was our choice of repaste! After loosely-what-could-be-termed-breakfast the next morning we get our arses up to the airport and on a flight to La Serena tout suite!
La Serena was a favorite with the pirates and it was sacked more times than Larry Tsonka! Wills D and the other pirates are notorious here and there was still trepidation about a visit by the Ingles up until the late 1800's...not so now. We checked into the poshest hotel in town..they didn't do rooms by the hour...and took a lovely walk into the best preserved colonial town in Chile.
The original church sacked by the Captain Morgan still exists and there is enough left of the town from the early years to get a feel for the panic that would ensue as the Ingles Invaders were spotted from the headland and the townsfolk made for the mountains with their valuables. This is also market town with markets down every little street from food to glorious Inca posts with stuff all the way from Peru.
One of the mornings I jump out of bed as the whole hotel shakes and make for the window. It is an all too common earthquake. It doesn't even register with the people in the hotel as they shrug and say that they happen two or three times a week. It was a strange sensation and a reminder that the whole Pacific coastline from here right up to Oregon is on the move constantly.
This area is also the centre for Stallar Observatories and the production of Pisco grapes in the Elqui valley not far from here. We paid a visit one of the observatories near Vicuna on a night where the stars reach to the horizon and fortunately we haven't had too much local Pisco. Saturn is clear in the sky and even clearer through the telescope...Mars also, and we get a glimpse of Alpha and Beta Centuri which are so beautiful through the lens.
Following our celestial evening we drove up the Elqui valley where they produce all the Pisco grapes you can drink and where the Nobel poet Gabriela Mistral lived and worked. It is a beautiful barren valley which seems to go on forever, the vines growing in such an inhospitable place but with such vivid red and yellow foliage set against the stark arid desert..no wonder it tastes so good.
We leave La Serena with a little sadness as it is our last hours in South America and we are off to NZ this evening...desole!!! Goodbye South America or Adios...you have been a good friend, ciao
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
Santiago and Isla Robinson Crusoe - In the footsteps of Will Dampier
Our voyage to the archipelago Islas Juan Fernandez (the main island was renamed Islas Robinson Crusoe in 1972) is the first real concrete connection with William Dampier and his published journals of buccaneers antics, natural history and mapping remote parts of the world. If I am honest this part of our route round the world was the place I was most looking forward to visiting - since I was a child and reading Defoe´s version of the Selkirk story and hence discovering the Dampier legacy in history. It was a long time coming and turned out to be a pain in the neck to organise – and nearly didn´t happen at the last minute. We intend to warn Marcelo and Monika on the island´s top class Refugio that the company operating flights to the island seldom pick up the phone and even less often answer emails or direct questions about times and dates of flights! So unless you have a punter willing to persevere for another 46 years they may lose some trade...
But we were not disappointed and all that time waiting and hassling was rewarded with the highlight of our trip to South America – Las Islas Robinson Crusoe a brooding crag with jagged peaks so sharp you could sharpen your cutlass, uninhabited in Dampiers day and with 500 friendly fishery folk three hundred years later in 2007 in the only village/town San Juan Bautista. Sleek black fur seals were the first islanders to greet us as they were to William and crew of the Trinity on Christmas Eve 1680 when he recorded they ´swarm as thick about this island as if they had no other place to live….big as calves, the head of them like a dog, therefore called by the Dutch the Sea-hounds´ They were ‘forced to kill them to make a path to the shore” There were colonies of thousands of seal like creatures with their shaggy collars lolloping ashore with their ´´great goggle eyes´´ and sharp teeth from which men made dice. Dampiers account is credited as the first to give them the English name of sea lion.
Since this time Dampier and his pirating friends killed hundreds of the Juan Fenranadez sea lions for meat and used their blubber for oil and preservative and once the islands became more established on the Pacific nautical route seal hunters and skinners came from England, France and the United States to exploit the colonies. Between 1788 and 1809 American hunters alone arrived in 74 different ships and exterminated 5 million seals with the result of the Juan Fernandez seal becoming an endangered species.
In 1935 the islands were made a national park and a World Reserve to protect them from any further dangers to their fragile eco systems – and are renowned for having the highest rate of endemic species and one of the greatest diversity eco systems in the world. In Dampiers time Robinson Crusoe Island was populated by endemic fragrant sandalwood and pimento trees now sadly extinct, chopped down for ship repairs, building and firewood.
Happily the beautiful endemic Juan Fernandez hummingbird , tawny red male and azure blue-black female are still very much evident - we patiently watched them, listening to their noisy hummingbird meeting around the ‘cabbage tree’ on the path to Pangal on our first day of discovery on the island. Once we had established who these little busybodies were , we seemed to stumble across them at every turn – a real treat!
Much of the island is uninhabited and uninhabitable by man, starkly vertical mountains or barren martian-red landscape of volcanic bombs and eroded soil. There is an underwater volcano at the end of the island near Santa Clara which last erupted in 1835 covering some of the facing ridges and peaks in the harsh red ash which interrupts the glowering black of rock and the deep green of the few fertile valleys which manage to sustain trees and plants. And then there is the wild and turbulent sea surrounding the islands coloured the deepest petrol blue with radiant turquoise in the few and far between shallows.
Lobster, rock salmon and cod fishing is the main economy for the islanders, and we were joined by hundreds of flailing lobsters squeezed into tens of cardboard boxes onto the little aircraft in the hold and the cabin, taking priority over passengers in seats and displacing the flights life-raft which was stowed away under the passengers belongings and the post for the mainland. These lobsters would find their (pan of hot water) destination as far away as Germany and were treated with obvious pride by the fisherman whose livelihoods they governed. It was fascinating to walk along the pier to watch the fisherman bring in their catches sometimes literally throwing the fish over the edge of their boat from the lines as so many could be caught at a time – and huge lobsters scuttling along the concrete making a bid for freedom. While we were there the fisherman who had carved the Guilliermo Dampier plaque we found on our bedroom wall, caught a 22kg squid and had cut it up in pieces sharing it out between many families, carting it home through the village in various wheelbarrows.
Mark caught a splendid Amberjack which he then gutted and cooked over a campfire on our night sleep over in Puerto Frances… our attempt at being marooned for 48 hrs … but also with Carlo our wonderful guide who knew all things botanical, vegetable and mineral about the islands and many more dodgier tales as well! The best of these – and some may say a bit of a tourist attraction – is the tale of Lord Anson of the Admiralty no less and his partner in dastardly deeds, Cornelius Webb who in 1741 or so had somehow found the vast treasure of gold, jewels and precious stones pirates had stolen from the Governor of Mexico in Dampiers time, buried it again in Puerto Ingles then blown up the ship and crew so no living person would know where he, Cornelius Webb had buried it – apart form Lord Anson who had earlier agreed with Webb where the secret hiding place should be. Webb required a new ship and crew to be sent from England so he could dig it up again and share the spoils with Anson, and dispatched several letters to Anson back in Blighty to send him such a ship. However the postal service in that day was sadly lacking and letters could sometimes take two or three years to reach their destination. By the time Webb’s letter got to England Anson was dead, and then Webb died waiting for his reply – the result is the treasure is still buried somewhere in Puerto Ingles! And guess what – an American spends every island summer digging up Pto Ingles rock by rock looking for the treasure – by hand – as no mechanical equipment is allowed on a World Reserve site….there’s always one isn’t there?!
I have hundreds more stories and adventures to tell from our trip to Islas Robinson Crusoe but these may wait for a future tome – but not to spoil the fun or detract from the fabulous hospitality and kindness of Marcelo and Monica at Refugio Nautico, the creative cooking and care of Maralena and Myriam and the smiling Pado who all made our stay truly remarkable – we didn’t want to leave them and sincerely intend to return to this truly mystical archipelago of enthralling landscapes, famous maroons and curious bucaneers who had a penchant for writing down their thoughts and recording natural history.
But we were not disappointed and all that time waiting and hassling was rewarded with the highlight of our trip to South America – Las Islas Robinson Crusoe a brooding crag with jagged peaks so sharp you could sharpen your cutlass, uninhabited in Dampiers day and with 500 friendly fishery folk three hundred years later in 2007 in the only village/town San Juan Bautista. Sleek black fur seals were the first islanders to greet us as they were to William and crew of the Trinity on Christmas Eve 1680 when he recorded they ´swarm as thick about this island as if they had no other place to live….big as calves, the head of them like a dog, therefore called by the Dutch the Sea-hounds´ They were ‘forced to kill them to make a path to the shore” There were colonies of thousands of seal like creatures with their shaggy collars lolloping ashore with their ´´great goggle eyes´´ and sharp teeth from which men made dice. Dampiers account is credited as the first to give them the English name of sea lion.
Since this time Dampier and his pirating friends killed hundreds of the Juan Fenranadez sea lions for meat and used their blubber for oil and preservative and once the islands became more established on the Pacific nautical route seal hunters and skinners came from England, France and the United States to exploit the colonies. Between 1788 and 1809 American hunters alone arrived in 74 different ships and exterminated 5 million seals with the result of the Juan Fernandez seal becoming an endangered species.
In 1935 the islands were made a national park and a World Reserve to protect them from any further dangers to their fragile eco systems – and are renowned for having the highest rate of endemic species and one of the greatest diversity eco systems in the world. In Dampiers time Robinson Crusoe Island was populated by endemic fragrant sandalwood and pimento trees now sadly extinct, chopped down for ship repairs, building and firewood.
Happily the beautiful endemic Juan Fernandez hummingbird , tawny red male and azure blue-black female are still very much evident - we patiently watched them, listening to their noisy hummingbird meeting around the ‘cabbage tree’ on the path to Pangal on our first day of discovery on the island. Once we had established who these little busybodies were , we seemed to stumble across them at every turn – a real treat!
Much of the island is uninhabited and uninhabitable by man, starkly vertical mountains or barren martian-red landscape of volcanic bombs and eroded soil. There is an underwater volcano at the end of the island near Santa Clara which last erupted in 1835 covering some of the facing ridges and peaks in the harsh red ash which interrupts the glowering black of rock and the deep green of the few fertile valleys which manage to sustain trees and plants. And then there is the wild and turbulent sea surrounding the islands coloured the deepest petrol blue with radiant turquoise in the few and far between shallows.
Lobster, rock salmon and cod fishing is the main economy for the islanders, and we were joined by hundreds of flailing lobsters squeezed into tens of cardboard boxes onto the little aircraft in the hold and the cabin, taking priority over passengers in seats and displacing the flights life-raft which was stowed away under the passengers belongings and the post for the mainland. These lobsters would find their (pan of hot water) destination as far away as Germany and were treated with obvious pride by the fisherman whose livelihoods they governed. It was fascinating to walk along the pier to watch the fisherman bring in their catches sometimes literally throwing the fish over the edge of their boat from the lines as so many could be caught at a time – and huge lobsters scuttling along the concrete making a bid for freedom. While we were there the fisherman who had carved the Guilliermo Dampier plaque we found on our bedroom wall, caught a 22kg squid and had cut it up in pieces sharing it out between many families, carting it home through the village in various wheelbarrows.
Mark caught a splendid Amberjack which he then gutted and cooked over a campfire on our night sleep over in Puerto Frances… our attempt at being marooned for 48 hrs … but also with Carlo our wonderful guide who knew all things botanical, vegetable and mineral about the islands and many more dodgier tales as well! The best of these – and some may say a bit of a tourist attraction – is the tale of Lord Anson of the Admiralty no less and his partner in dastardly deeds, Cornelius Webb who in 1741 or so had somehow found the vast treasure of gold, jewels and precious stones pirates had stolen from the Governor of Mexico in Dampiers time, buried it again in Puerto Ingles then blown up the ship and crew so no living person would know where he, Cornelius Webb had buried it – apart form Lord Anson who had earlier agreed with Webb where the secret hiding place should be. Webb required a new ship and crew to be sent from England so he could dig it up again and share the spoils with Anson, and dispatched several letters to Anson back in Blighty to send him such a ship. However the postal service in that day was sadly lacking and letters could sometimes take two or three years to reach their destination. By the time Webb’s letter got to England Anson was dead, and then Webb died waiting for his reply – the result is the treasure is still buried somewhere in Puerto Ingles! And guess what – an American spends every island summer digging up Pto Ingles rock by rock looking for the treasure – by hand – as no mechanical equipment is allowed on a World Reserve site….there’s always one isn’t there?!
I have hundreds more stories and adventures to tell from our trip to Islas Robinson Crusoe but these may wait for a future tome – but not to spoil the fun or detract from the fabulous hospitality and kindness of Marcelo and Monica at Refugio Nautico, the creative cooking and care of Maralena and Myriam and the smiling Pado who all made our stay truly remarkable – we didn’t want to leave them and sincerely intend to return to this truly mystical archipelago of enthralling landscapes, famous maroons and curious bucaneers who had a penchant for writing down their thoughts and recording natural history.
Thursday, 3 May 2007
To Pisco and Lima
Its a very sad day to leave Cusco which has been such a good friend. We take a 60 minute flight to Lima, the alternative to a 21 hour bus journey through the mountains that separate Cusco from Lima. We are meeting Mabel in Lima and we have a cheap flight from Lima to Santiago. In the meantime the naughty doctors have messaged to say they are holed up in a paradise hotel in Paracas just south of Lima.
We jump straight on the bus from Lima and make the three hour trip to Pisco and then Taxi to Paracas and the aptly named Paracas Hotel. This is truly a garden paradise with bands of gardeners seeing to the vast flower beds that surround all the cabins at a ratio of 1:1 with the shrubs. To top it all there are many swimming pools and if you lift a finger a waiter comes to attention and ice cold drinks are rushed to cool your brow. When you think you have seen it all, mother South America always comes up with a surprise and this is no exception!
The hotel is a good 60 years old judging by the black and white pictures showing all the towering palm trees as shoots. Paracas is also the playground of the rich and famous who have large houses along the bay from the hotel, mostly guarded by razor wire and hot and bothered looking security guards. The bay area reminds you of Egypt with great hills and sand dunes rolling down to beautiful blue crystal water, capped with a blue sky with some rare clouds. There are wind surfers and kite surfers; yachts people are busy in the bay with the gawdy sails highlighted against the dunes and blue sky. The houses in millionaires row which run around the bay are witness to the fortunes that are the vanguard of a few mega-capalists who have wealth beyond the dreams of the average Peruvian. They are in the million dollar bracket and there is a boat escort for most of them whether it be a fishing boat or a yacht parked at the end of the drive.
It is also fiesta time in the town of Paracas and there is an insane South American band marching around the town. We try to follow the band but it is always blithely in the distance and as we turn a corner expecting to see it, low and behold it has disappeared around the next corner..it feels like being on the set of 'Don't look now'. We do eventually catch up with the band and also Vanessa (although victor is at home in Lima) who we met in the Colca Canyon and the band is playing as we munch our way through 'strangely black' scallops in the cafe in downtown Paracas. There is the screaching trumpet and bumping Tuba which wail up and down relentlessly on the same vaguely recognisable tune, 'swaggering tunelessly', but it/they, has/have the charm and enthusiasm to carry it off, urged on by bandalleros in 'ridiculously' large hats and full of Pisco..i'm guessing? Its great to catch up with Vanessa who is accompanying some 'high ranking' madridaeros to the Hotel Paracas on their own 5-star 11 day circuit of the entirety of South America...it makes me feel thorough!
Eventually we have to leave this oasis of pleasure to go back to the grime which is Lima. This is made a little easier by the venue for our soiree in Lima, the Sheraton Downtown and the fact that we are catching up with 'marvellous Mabel' who is back in South America again. We go for dinner in Miraflores, a cliff top restaurant overlooking the great sweep of beaches below, waves crashing on the beach and the smell of the surf all the way from the west Pacific, beautiful.
In contrast, Lima is a grubby place in the centre...there is a layer of car exhaust mixed with cooking fat on every surface in the town centre and it is really run down. Even the marvellous colonial buildings look really dejected and like they really have had a belly full too....all very depressing and in stark contrast to the magificent austerity of Cusco and Arequipa...i just want to leave...we get the quick plane to Santiago!
We jump straight on the bus from Lima and make the three hour trip to Pisco and then Taxi to Paracas and the aptly named Paracas Hotel. This is truly a garden paradise with bands of gardeners seeing to the vast flower beds that surround all the cabins at a ratio of 1:1 with the shrubs. To top it all there are many swimming pools and if you lift a finger a waiter comes to attention and ice cold drinks are rushed to cool your brow. When you think you have seen it all, mother South America always comes up with a surprise and this is no exception!
The hotel is a good 60 years old judging by the black and white pictures showing all the towering palm trees as shoots. Paracas is also the playground of the rich and famous who have large houses along the bay from the hotel, mostly guarded by razor wire and hot and bothered looking security guards. The bay area reminds you of Egypt with great hills and sand dunes rolling down to beautiful blue crystal water, capped with a blue sky with some rare clouds. There are wind surfers and kite surfers; yachts people are busy in the bay with the gawdy sails highlighted against the dunes and blue sky. The houses in millionaires row which run around the bay are witness to the fortunes that are the vanguard of a few mega-capalists who have wealth beyond the dreams of the average Peruvian. They are in the million dollar bracket and there is a boat escort for most of them whether it be a fishing boat or a yacht parked at the end of the drive.
It is also fiesta time in the town of Paracas and there is an insane South American band marching around the town. We try to follow the band but it is always blithely in the distance and as we turn a corner expecting to see it, low and behold it has disappeared around the next corner..it feels like being on the set of 'Don't look now'. We do eventually catch up with the band and also Vanessa (although victor is at home in Lima) who we met in the Colca Canyon and the band is playing as we munch our way through 'strangely black' scallops in the cafe in downtown Paracas. There is the screaching trumpet and bumping Tuba which wail up and down relentlessly on the same vaguely recognisable tune, 'swaggering tunelessly', but it/they, has/have the charm and enthusiasm to carry it off, urged on by bandalleros in 'ridiculously' large hats and full of Pisco..i'm guessing? Its great to catch up with Vanessa who is accompanying some 'high ranking' madridaeros to the Hotel Paracas on their own 5-star 11 day circuit of the entirety of South America...it makes me feel thorough!
Eventually we have to leave this oasis of pleasure to go back to the grime which is Lima. This is made a little easier by the venue for our soiree in Lima, the Sheraton Downtown and the fact that we are catching up with 'marvellous Mabel' who is back in South America again. We go for dinner in Miraflores, a cliff top restaurant overlooking the great sweep of beaches below, waves crashing on the beach and the smell of the surf all the way from the west Pacific, beautiful.
In contrast, Lima is a grubby place in the centre...there is a layer of car exhaust mixed with cooking fat on every surface in the town centre and it is really run down. Even the marvellous colonial buildings look really dejected and like they really have had a belly full too....all very depressing and in stark contrast to the magificent austerity of Cusco and Arequipa...i just want to leave...we get the quick plane to Santiago!
Monday, 30 April 2007
Machu Picchu - ida y vuelta
We have booked a 2 day tour of Machu Picchu with Maria Sottomayor..had to mention the name as it is so colourful! The day we leave, not the day we were supposed to leave, it is the day for marching bands to herald the entry of Machu Picchu into the New seven wonders of the world - N7W - competition. The town is choas with hundreds of the usually frenetic taxis and buses at a standstill..what a relief.
We are going via the Sacred Valley: Pisac, Ollantaytambo and finally to Aguas (smelly) Calientes where we stay for a night before the obligatory 5am thrust for the summit and Machu Picchu itself. The roads wind up and down the immense valley which all adds to the already whoosey altitude sickness. The views are stunning and many buses litter the route which is thoroughly established for all the tour operators and hawkers alike. This makes you feel slightly like herded flocks but the sights are so large and spread out you can sometimes be on your own with just a few Llamas and the marvellous indigenous folk. From the twenty or so years since i was mountain goating up all the goat paths up to all these sites they have definitely got their mierdre together and this is money spinner par excellance. This doesn´t add to your feeling of intrepid explorers as you join the throngs of people for shoeshines and blanket purveying but it is still a thrill when you see the towns which probably haven´t changed a greast deal for 500 years..apart from the ´llamadas girls´ who litter each corner with mobile phones which are like feline phone boxes...the current equivalent of the pony express I suppose. Yes mobile calls are available in the sacred valley between the towering peaks from these feline highwaywomen thanks to a network of ariels which dot all the highest points.
Pisac is a incredible little town and the ruins are staggering nestled 1500 feet above the town keepig a cursory eye on the town planners and their worldwide incompetence. We visit the ruins here before another stop at an Almuerzo (lunch) joint with the statutory Alpacha stew and sopa...all the same very delicious. I can only suggest the spanish must not have genetic faults with their knees, they conquered this whole region - albeit on horseback - but the relentless peeks and valleys take a huge toll on the knees coupled with breathlessness from thin air and a late night at the Mystic club the night before.
Next we make for Ollantaytambo which is a real Inca town in its layout, beautiful water systems and houses. The ruins here are even more remarkable as the hallmark, enormous beautifully carved stones here were bought from a quarry 2000m up on the other side of the valley. Some of these blocks weigh in at 150 tonnes and they were rolled over wooden rollers to finish perched and carved in the current positions. The ruins tower over the town again and we break for a visit to the ´Hearts´ cafe for a bite before getting on the train to Aguas Calientes. We meet the incredible Sonia and she gives us the low down on the tough lot of the people who live in Huaran, just up the valley. She provides the moral support and some cash from the profits of the cafe...its a battle. I feel slightly guilty and promise myself never to moan about lifes trivialities again..unless United get pipped for the league by Chelsea...justifiable moansoming i feel.
We rush for the train, we have forgotten the time and get on board to be whisked (or sloathed) to Aguas.
Now when i was last here this was a one halibut town with a couple of inns. My god it is a metropolis of teetering houses, hostals and the pumping heartbeat of the trip to Machu Picchu....termite mound comes to mind.
Straight to bed...5am for a sunrise.
We are whisked up to Machu Picchu by the army of buses awaiting the masses. We arrive, it is a race to get up for the sunrise which suddenly fills the valley and crowns MP in Yellow. It is justifiable as world wonder and the sight takes whatever breath you have left right out of you...it really is totally and utterly breathtaking and even for the second time you wonder at the skill of the people who put this together. Not only that but it is so perfect in its form they didn´t build it just for it to exist, it transcends that and is truly a temple to the senses.
The sun rushes across the valley and the clouds rise of the forest and the whole place is shrouded in mist which only adds to the beauty.
Why would you leave this kind of heaven and go down to Cusco to be quartered...aside from the ample supply of virgins, you could even forgo the champions league for this
kind of paradise. The silence is deafening and the views all around are eye candy but finally at 3pm we leave to go back to Aguas, although we won´t be tempted by the boiling soup which is the baths. The weather was perfect and each person leaving adds a vote for the N7W competition which will hopefully see Machu Picchu in at least
the top seven...although i don´t think it will nose past the Oracle centre in Reading
which gets the grey vote.
We are going via the Sacred Valley: Pisac, Ollantaytambo and finally to Aguas (smelly) Calientes where we stay for a night before the obligatory 5am thrust for the summit and Machu Picchu itself. The roads wind up and down the immense valley which all adds to the already whoosey altitude sickness. The views are stunning and many buses litter the route which is thoroughly established for all the tour operators and hawkers alike. This makes you feel slightly like herded flocks but the sights are so large and spread out you can sometimes be on your own with just a few Llamas and the marvellous indigenous folk. From the twenty or so years since i was mountain goating up all the goat paths up to all these sites they have definitely got their mierdre together and this is money spinner par excellance. This doesn´t add to your feeling of intrepid explorers as you join the throngs of people for shoeshines and blanket purveying but it is still a thrill when you see the towns which probably haven´t changed a greast deal for 500 years..apart from the ´llamadas girls´ who litter each corner with mobile phones which are like feline phone boxes...the current equivalent of the pony express I suppose. Yes mobile calls are available in the sacred valley between the towering peaks from these feline highwaywomen thanks to a network of ariels which dot all the highest points.
Pisac is a incredible little town and the ruins are staggering nestled 1500 feet above the town keepig a cursory eye on the town planners and their worldwide incompetence. We visit the ruins here before another stop at an Almuerzo (lunch) joint with the statutory Alpacha stew and sopa...all the same very delicious. I can only suggest the spanish must not have genetic faults with their knees, they conquered this whole region - albeit on horseback - but the relentless peeks and valleys take a huge toll on the knees coupled with breathlessness from thin air and a late night at the Mystic club the night before.
Next we make for Ollantaytambo which is a real Inca town in its layout, beautiful water systems and houses. The ruins here are even more remarkable as the hallmark, enormous beautifully carved stones here were bought from a quarry 2000m up on the other side of the valley. Some of these blocks weigh in at 150 tonnes and they were rolled over wooden rollers to finish perched and carved in the current positions. The ruins tower over the town again and we break for a visit to the ´Hearts´ cafe for a bite before getting on the train to Aguas Calientes. We meet the incredible Sonia and she gives us the low down on the tough lot of the people who live in Huaran, just up the valley. She provides the moral support and some cash from the profits of the cafe...its a battle. I feel slightly guilty and promise myself never to moan about lifes trivialities again..unless United get pipped for the league by Chelsea...justifiable moansoming i feel.
We rush for the train, we have forgotten the time and get on board to be whisked (or sloathed) to Aguas.
Now when i was last here this was a one halibut town with a couple of inns. My god it is a metropolis of teetering houses, hostals and the pumping heartbeat of the trip to Machu Picchu....termite mound comes to mind.
Straight to bed...5am for a sunrise.
We are whisked up to Machu Picchu by the army of buses awaiting the masses. We arrive, it is a race to get up for the sunrise which suddenly fills the valley and crowns MP in Yellow. It is justifiable as world wonder and the sight takes whatever breath you have left right out of you...it really is totally and utterly breathtaking and even for the second time you wonder at the skill of the people who put this together. Not only that but it is so perfect in its form they didn´t build it just for it to exist, it transcends that and is truly a temple to the senses.
The sun rushes across the valley and the clouds rise of the forest and the whole place is shrouded in mist which only adds to the beauty.
Why would you leave this kind of heaven and go down to Cusco to be quartered...aside from the ample supply of virgins, you could even forgo the champions league for this
kind of paradise. The silence is deafening and the views all around are eye candy but finally at 3pm we leave to go back to Aguas, although we won´t be tempted by the boiling soup which is the baths. The weather was perfect and each person leaving adds a vote for the N7W competition which will hopefully see Machu Picchu in at least
the top seven...although i don´t think it will nose past the Oracle centre in Reading
which gets the grey vote.
Friday, 27 April 2007
Cusco City - Capitol of the Inca Empire
That man again...Francisco Pizarro. He caught the Inca empire when it was on its knees, thoroughly exhausted after a civil war between two brothers wrestling for control of the whole capudle! A great time to walk into the capitol also coinciding with orion disappearing over the andes signalling the arrival of evil spirits to the Inca´s and old Francisco walks into town with 100 Conquistadors...the rest is history and another great people are brought to their knees. With Cusco as the spiritual capitol, one of our heroes limps of to Machu Picchu to lick his wounds and revive some of his ebbing fortune with the 150 or so vestal virgins that kept the place clean and tended the fields..well not a lot else to do if the main man is in Cusco. Foolishly he re enters Cusco after some languishing and is immediately arrested and hung, drawn and quartered. Thus the Spanish take over a kingdom of incredible proportions to go along with all the other territories they are putting to Spanish colonialism around South America. Next thing to do is to impose the catholic church and knock down the temples. They leave the foundations of the Royal Inca stonework and build their temples atop these. All the Inca stonework is Earthquake proof and the remainder of the stone is used to build the upper sections. Thus we have the beautiful combination of styles that exist today in Cusco.
The whole city was built in the shape of a puma (see below) with the head being up at Sacsayhuman, the beautiful stonework shown in the photos (below) representing the forehead wrinkles.
There are 1 million people in Cusco today and like the structures the people are greatly variegated, all mixed together to make for a busy, colourful and multicultured city. The whole town is surrounded by ruins from past occupiers and of course not far away is the Sacred Valley: with Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu to name but a few of the famous towns.
To add to the stew there are lots of people just trying to scratch a living and certainly the section of the population who comes of worse is the kids. We are staying in one of a number of hotels run by a charity headed by Yolinda, a native dutch lady who has taken on the incredible task of trying to bring some normality to the lives of the street children who are evident everywhere yo go in Cusco, whether helping their parents sell street food or artesania or running around like urchins trying to survive.
We are staying in Ninos 2 and as it suggests the second refuge renovated to supply accomodation for travellers and profit to put into supporting some of these children.
There is also a Hacinda in the country and they all pump mooney into the support agency for the kids. The great moment of the morning is to see the kids arriving through the hotel, we share a common entrance, in various levels of dress. Some of them work before they come to school but also some of them live in very poor conditions. they are provided a uniform and gym kit but they have to clean their own clothes which are often like the urchins clothes in ´Oliver´ with similar parallels in their lifestyle.
They are attempting to provide food, two meals a day if possible, medical and dental care along with general hygiene. This is foreign to the children along with general behaviour which again they lack in terms of social skills. It is a great charity and
staying in the hotel provides a little profit for the running of the shelters. These kids really are not given a fair chance and are likely to follow in their parents footprints. It is even harder out in the country where hardship is the norm, electricity is provided but most can´t afford the cost of it and the diet is paltry and inadequate to say the least, and anyway dental hygiene is shocking and anybody with teeth after the age of 30 is considered rather odd.
There are many other charities working in the rural areas trying to make the lot of the people here a little more bearable but it is difficult work and trying to break down long instilled patterns of male and female behaviour is possibly the most difficult task. On the way to the Sacred Valley we met a charming lady called Sonia who runs the `Hearts` cafe in Ollantaytambo. She runs the cafe and helps the ladies of the community try and salvage some self esteem from a difficult male dominated society...quite a task.
Aside from the social problems, Cusco is the most fantastic city and has some of the most incredible buildings weaved in to a fascinating social fabric and thousands of photo opportunities which would make even the most bungling of photographers a world class photo anorak...a beautiful city.
The whole city was built in the shape of a puma (see below) with the head being up at Sacsayhuman, the beautiful stonework shown in the photos (below) representing the forehead wrinkles.
There are 1 million people in Cusco today and like the structures the people are greatly variegated, all mixed together to make for a busy, colourful and multicultured city. The whole town is surrounded by ruins from past occupiers and of course not far away is the Sacred Valley: with Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu to name but a few of the famous towns.
To add to the stew there are lots of people just trying to scratch a living and certainly the section of the population who comes of worse is the kids. We are staying in one of a number of hotels run by a charity headed by Yolinda, a native dutch lady who has taken on the incredible task of trying to bring some normality to the lives of the street children who are evident everywhere yo go in Cusco, whether helping their parents sell street food or artesania or running around like urchins trying to survive.
We are staying in Ninos 2 and as it suggests the second refuge renovated to supply accomodation for travellers and profit to put into supporting some of these children.
There is also a Hacinda in the country and they all pump mooney into the support agency for the kids. The great moment of the morning is to see the kids arriving through the hotel, we share a common entrance, in various levels of dress. Some of them work before they come to school but also some of them live in very poor conditions. they are provided a uniform and gym kit but they have to clean their own clothes which are often like the urchins clothes in ´Oliver´ with similar parallels in their lifestyle.
They are attempting to provide food, two meals a day if possible, medical and dental care along with general hygiene. This is foreign to the children along with general behaviour which again they lack in terms of social skills. It is a great charity and
staying in the hotel provides a little profit for the running of the shelters. These kids really are not given a fair chance and are likely to follow in their parents footprints. It is even harder out in the country where hardship is the norm, electricity is provided but most can´t afford the cost of it and the diet is paltry and inadequate to say the least, and anyway dental hygiene is shocking and anybody with teeth after the age of 30 is considered rather odd.
There are many other charities working in the rural areas trying to make the lot of the people here a little more bearable but it is difficult work and trying to break down long instilled patterns of male and female behaviour is possibly the most difficult task. On the way to the Sacred Valley we met a charming lady called Sonia who runs the `Hearts` cafe in Ollantaytambo. She runs the cafe and helps the ladies of the community try and salvage some self esteem from a difficult male dominated society...quite a task.
Aside from the social problems, Cusco is the most fantastic city and has some of the most incredible buildings weaved in to a fascinating social fabric and thousands of photo opportunities which would make even the most bungling of photographers a world class photo anorak...a beautiful city.
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Arequipa to Cusco via Puno
The trip form Arequipa to Puno was uneventful and Puno is unremarkable except that it lies on Lake Titicaca and we will probably have to pass through here again on the way to Bolivia and to see the lake and its sights. For the trip from Puno to Cusco we had opted for the more expensive bus which also included a tour guide and some stops on the way to take in some sights. Plush coach and regular stops for the slackbladders! The scenery was reminiscent of Scotland and the lakes rolled into one and we stopped at Pukara (museo archeologico) , La Raya (highest point on the trip), Raqui ( a remarkable Inca settlement) and the most extraordinary church at Andahuaylillas...before we finally passed the gate at the entrance to Cusco...people were counted in and out of various sections of the Inca empire to keep headcounts of population movements. It was a fabuous trip and reinforces how spectacular Peru is in terms of culture and scenery and we are now in the gem of Peru, Cusco.
Friday, 20 April 2007
Arequipa - Convento Santa Catalina
Our brief visit to the Convent of Santa Catalina threw up a few suprises. Surrounded by imposing high walls,the convent had ´streets´,plazas, cloisters, an aquaduct laundry, the bedroom ´cells´, and modern day additions of a cafeteria, shop and gallery - a city within a city. We discovered that the seventeenth century nuns, mostly daughters of high ranking spanish families knew how to have fun and the convent was known as the House of Babel until a stiff dominican prioress was appointed by the Bishop and straightened those party girls out. From that point the vast majority of nuns that lived there never ventured outside those high walls and the convent was shrouded in mystery until it finally opened to the public in 1970. A tranquil sanctuary of fascinating architecture and lifestyle...but I don´t think I´m tempted!
Arequipa - The Colca Canyon - El condoro passo
Why are all trips at stupid´o´clock in the norning? We get picked up hours before we should get up and meet our bus partners looking equally as sleepy and horrified by the hour! We set off along the Cusco road for our destination in Colca Canyon to the north. We pass through the Barrios of Arequipa which are common to all South American towns. These are unique in the fact that they are in the desert that flanks Areqipa which appears completely uninhabitable...this is no deterrent and large provinces are springing up living mainly it seems on repairing punctures for all the lorries that pass this way between Arequipa and Puno/Cusco....´The Vulcan Valley´.
We reach the Altiplano and there are large amounts of Vicuna, Alpaca and Llama families roaming around the grassy flatland. Baby Vicuna demands about US$120 a kilo whilst Alpaca about 20 sols a Kilo (US$6). In addition you only shear a Vicuna once every two years, Llamas and alpacas every year. Unfortunately walking around Arequipa the variety in price is evident...Alpaca sweaters being about a tenth that of the baby Vicuna....also all the designs seem to have been stolen from ´Frumpy Jumper´ or the ´leaping reindeer foundation´
We arrive in Chivay check into the hostal and then set out to see the Colca Valley from higher up in the hills where there are pre-columbiano tombs. All the South Americans bound up the hill like Alpaca, the europeans (thats us) and pacific rim teams (Callum, mark and Hannah from NZ) come up the rear with their tongues lolling out of their mouths like pink duvets gasping for any available oxygen! The tombs are a little dubious, the skeletons seem a little too fresh (perhaps the last tour that ventured off the path) but the view is spectacular. We stumble back to the hostal to get ready for an evening of ´celebrity come nosh and dance´ at the local hostelry. This turns out to be more fun than ´ritual humiliation in local dress´ and the evening passes without incident.
We have to be up the next day at ´sparrows´ so we all make our way back to the hostal to listen to the unidentifiable animals scurrying across the ceiling.
In the morning we go for a photo-shoot at the local town of Yanque...the locals have been dancing since sunrise for our benefit, with a collection of hawks and llamas. They are fantastic people and exhibit patience beyond the calling.
Finally we get to the lookout point for the Condors. This is a very deep canyon, the deepest in the world bar the one in the next valley...3845m -ish, a pop deeper than the Grand Canyon. Immediately the Condors start rising on the thermals and come towards us down the valley on their way to the coast or other hunting grounds. Road kill is a good bet judging by the quality of the roads and driving! As they pass close by you can appreciate their size and it´s also possible to hear the wind swishing through their enormous wings...what a sight!
In this area you can tell the difference between the two major groups of people, the Cabanas and the Collaguas. The Cabanas have tall hats which is a current manifestation of their propensity to squeeze their children at the temple from birth to make their skulls tall and thin...the Collaguas wear flat hats..they squeezed top and bottom to produce flat skulls. I prefer the hats...
We make our way back to Arequipa and revel in the scenery once more....it was great to return to the Casa de Melgar...it really feels like home and Arequipa is a gem in Peru.
We reach the Altiplano and there are large amounts of Vicuna, Alpaca and Llama families roaming around the grassy flatland. Baby Vicuna demands about US$120 a kilo whilst Alpaca about 20 sols a Kilo (US$6). In addition you only shear a Vicuna once every two years, Llamas and alpacas every year. Unfortunately walking around Arequipa the variety in price is evident...Alpaca sweaters being about a tenth that of the baby Vicuna....also all the designs seem to have been stolen from ´Frumpy Jumper´ or the ´leaping reindeer foundation´
We arrive in Chivay check into the hostal and then set out to see the Colca Valley from higher up in the hills where there are pre-columbiano tombs. All the South Americans bound up the hill like Alpaca, the europeans (thats us) and pacific rim teams (Callum, mark and Hannah from NZ) come up the rear with their tongues lolling out of their mouths like pink duvets gasping for any available oxygen! The tombs are a little dubious, the skeletons seem a little too fresh (perhaps the last tour that ventured off the path) but the view is spectacular. We stumble back to the hostal to get ready for an evening of ´celebrity come nosh and dance´ at the local hostelry. This turns out to be more fun than ´ritual humiliation in local dress´ and the evening passes without incident.
We have to be up the next day at ´sparrows´ so we all make our way back to the hostal to listen to the unidentifiable animals scurrying across the ceiling.
In the morning we go for a photo-shoot at the local town of Yanque...the locals have been dancing since sunrise for our benefit, with a collection of hawks and llamas. They are fantastic people and exhibit patience beyond the calling.
Finally we get to the lookout point for the Condors. This is a very deep canyon, the deepest in the world bar the one in the next valley...3845m -ish, a pop deeper than the Grand Canyon. Immediately the Condors start rising on the thermals and come towards us down the valley on their way to the coast or other hunting grounds. Road kill is a good bet judging by the quality of the roads and driving! As they pass close by you can appreciate their size and it´s also possible to hear the wind swishing through their enormous wings...what a sight!
In this area you can tell the difference between the two major groups of people, the Cabanas and the Collaguas. The Cabanas have tall hats which is a current manifestation of their propensity to squeeze their children at the temple from birth to make their skulls tall and thin...the Collaguas wear flat hats..they squeezed top and bottom to produce flat skulls. I prefer the hats...
We make our way back to Arequipa and revel in the scenery once more....it was great to return to the Casa de Melgar...it really feels like home and Arequipa is a gem in Peru.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Arequipa ´the white city´
It seems to me Peru has everything - wonderful cities, landscapes, culture and people....and its relatively cheap! We were not to be disappointed when we arrived in Arequipa, the ´white city´, and whisked to the Casa de Melgar, a beautiful hostel and former religious building it is assumed, as the rooms are plain and simple with serious parallels with the Franciscan monastery across the road. Like the monastery and many other buildings in the centre of the city the thick solid walls are built from sillar, the gorgeously white petrified product of the many volcanic eruptions eminating from the surrounding volcanos. It has beautiful gardens and is a tranquil sanctuary from the thousands of cheeky little taxis that constantly peep, bleet and whine down all the ancient cobbled streets. Their hope is to compact you into their tiny interior for the cheapest taxi ride I have ever come across - the equivalent of 40p anywhere in the city.
The colnial city was founded by the illustrious Francisco Pizarro in 1534 and nestles in a fertile valley under the perfect cone shaped volcano of El Misti.
There are a plethora of sights - mostly left from the colonial days. Spanish biuildings of all styles: churches, mansions, catholic convents and monasteries all built atop the original Inca buildings. The Plaza des Armes could be Cordoba with the cathedral dominating the plaza also built from sillar, white and gleaming and a survivor of all the earthquakes the city has...in fact there was a tremor on Good Friday..4 on the richter scale. There are occasional Inca remains but mostly the native indian hawkers remind you whose country you are in.
The history of Peru as of the rest of South America sings from the same hymn sheet - native indians pootling along happy to run the gaff when the Spanish turn up, invade, burn all their temples and make them go to catholic church every day! The native indians in most of the countries, whats left of them, seem second class citizens and many live in poverty - very visible to us westerners. We have to discrimminate in the end giving our change to the children or really old men and women - we can´t help everybody....its all guilt anyway....
On our arrival the first night we were plucked from the cloister in the Plaza des Armes by Ruben who took us to the very top of the plaza, the roof no less where we had the best meal in our south american adventure - not suprising as the chef was the professor in the local catering college. We sat there chomping and listening to a french choir singing a choral work in the catherdral next to us, which was broadcast to the whole plaza by loudspeaker and video as the cathedral was full. Quite ethereal.
The following days in this beautiful town consisted of visiting a Franciscan monastery,a Dominican convent of 17th century party nuns, trekking to Colca Canyon with a tour bus of international funsters, eating more fabulous meals (making sure we missed out roast guinea pig)and getting to know Emma and Rosie, just qualified medics on a months rotation at Cusco hospital and who were later to be bad influences on your intrepid friends!
The colnial city was founded by the illustrious Francisco Pizarro in 1534 and nestles in a fertile valley under the perfect cone shaped volcano of El Misti.
There are a plethora of sights - mostly left from the colonial days. Spanish biuildings of all styles: churches, mansions, catholic convents and monasteries all built atop the original Inca buildings. The Plaza des Armes could be Cordoba with the cathedral dominating the plaza also built from sillar, white and gleaming and a survivor of all the earthquakes the city has...in fact there was a tremor on Good Friday..4 on the richter scale. There are occasional Inca remains but mostly the native indian hawkers remind you whose country you are in.
The history of Peru as of the rest of South America sings from the same hymn sheet - native indians pootling along happy to run the gaff when the Spanish turn up, invade, burn all their temples and make them go to catholic church every day! The native indians in most of the countries, whats left of them, seem second class citizens and many live in poverty - very visible to us westerners. We have to discrimminate in the end giving our change to the children or really old men and women - we can´t help everybody....its all guilt anyway....
On our arrival the first night we were plucked from the cloister in the Plaza des Armes by Ruben who took us to the very top of the plaza, the roof no less where we had the best meal in our south american adventure - not suprising as the chef was the professor in the local catering college. We sat there chomping and listening to a french choir singing a choral work in the catherdral next to us, which was broadcast to the whole plaza by loudspeaker and video as the cathedral was full. Quite ethereal.
The following days in this beautiful town consisted of visiting a Franciscan monastery,a Dominican convent of 17th century party nuns, trekking to Colca Canyon with a tour bus of international funsters, eating more fabulous meals (making sure we missed out roast guinea pig)and getting to know Emma and Rosie, just qualified medics on a months rotation at Cusco hospital and who were later to be bad influences on your intrepid friends!
Arica to Arequipa, Peru
Tickets or no tickets, that is the question? Feeling like í´d been ripped off for the first time and holding tickets which were possibly non-tickets we arrived at Arica bus terminal. In order to get to Arequipa you have to get a collectivo from Arica to Tacna in Peru with all the border-bolleaux to go through...there you catch your bus to your chosen port of call. Our miserable nail-filer of the morning looked at us as if i had smudged her freshly painted nails with a egg flipper... begrudgingly she accompanied us to the collectivo park. On the way we met Rodrigo who had accosted me the day before for a fare to Tacna...this was fate. He had a ´88 Chevvy...Classic with big bench seat and he was going to get his alloted 5 personas in the car and all the luggage come hell or...Fo and I were on the front bench snuggled up with rodrigo. He was thirty, had three children and was charming company to the border. The other people were all Peruvians who worked in Arica for Chilean Pesos which was considerably more than they would get in a similar job in Peru. His dad had the next collectivo to us in the lot at the border. Formalities were quick..we were in Peru! He dropped us off in Tacna and we hopped on a Economico bus to Arequipa. The first police checkpoint in Peru, a small distance out of Tacna we were all unloaded with all our goods. Extranjeros were left alone but all the other rice sacks, cases, boxes and chickens were thoroughly checked. There were tears, shouting, flailing limbs and retribution. Good idea not to try and sneak your favorite cheese back home where transport of dairy and vegetable goods is forbidden.
We moved on. The scenery was desert all the way with small oasis in the valleys.
In front of me was a charming Indian fellow and his family who had been subject to most of the searches. He had a beautiful ´Inca konk´ and looked all the way an Inca prince although he was dressed in civvies. His wife was still tearful, all their possessions were in 4 rice sacks and a case and they were returning home to a village in the Vilcabamba valley just north of Cusco after four years of working in Arica. He was charnming and gave us a running commentary of the areas as we ran through them. He was very proud of his country and this enthusiasm hadn´t been dampened by harsh treatment at the hands of the checkpoint `bastardos´. All the villages we went through were now thoroughly peruvian with wonderful Indios in traditional dress offering all manner of fayre to eat on the bus. Lomo saltado, Chiclos con Queso y pollo any way you like...fabulous. Bus journeys in Peru are very special and you can start a journey in Peru and end up ten pounds heavier if you take all the food options. Refusing most on offer we eventually arrived in the Arequipa Valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides with the Misti volcano dominating the town..is this the ´Led Zep..misty mountain hop´? nobody seemed to know. Ola! Arequipa, the ´white city´ never disappoints. I said goodbye to our Inca prince and his lovely family, he had three more bus stations before he returned to the bosom.
We moved on. The scenery was desert all the way with small oasis in the valleys.
In front of me was a charming Indian fellow and his family who had been subject to most of the searches. He had a beautiful ´Inca konk´ and looked all the way an Inca prince although he was dressed in civvies. His wife was still tearful, all their possessions were in 4 rice sacks and a case and they were returning home to a village in the Vilcabamba valley just north of Cusco after four years of working in Arica. He was charnming and gave us a running commentary of the areas as we ran through them. He was very proud of his country and this enthusiasm hadn´t been dampened by harsh treatment at the hands of the checkpoint `bastardos´. All the villages we went through were now thoroughly peruvian with wonderful Indios in traditional dress offering all manner of fayre to eat on the bus. Lomo saltado, Chiclos con Queso y pollo any way you like...fabulous. Bus journeys in Peru are very special and you can start a journey in Peru and end up ten pounds heavier if you take all the food options. Refusing most on offer we eventually arrived in the Arequipa Valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides with the Misti volcano dominating the town..is this the ´Led Zep..misty mountain hop´? nobody seemed to know. Ola! Arequipa, the ´white city´ never disappoints. I said goodbye to our Inca prince and his lovely family, he had three more bus stations before he returned to the bosom.
Monday, 16 April 2007
North to Arica
It was time to move in a large step and we booked flights to Arica, 1500km north, from Temuco via Santiago. The alternative was a 42 hour bus journey...hmmm. The prime motive was to go to Arica, the final town in the north of Chile before the Peruvian border but also a place Will Damps visited on a number of occasions. One of the visits was a bungled attempt to sack the town, although Will didn't leave the ship, along with the other 94 tooled up buccaneers hoping for a easy kill. Unfortunately the towns fort was full and the spanish were ready for them. They moored some miles to the south of Arica and made their way into town. They left empty handed and depleted in numbers (down to 48 from 94)after a skirmish near the town culminating in the spanish dropping boulders on them from the cliffs above and peppering them with shot. We walked along what seemed to be the most likely route and it was easy to imagine our hapless group getting into trouble along the hot arid boulder strewn passage coupled with the dark and being chased out of town by the garrison looking for blood.
We put ourselves up in the posh Hotel Arica which included a pool under its list of services...after all it was time for a treat as we say farewell to Chile for the present.
Arica is a small, slightly unremarkable town with a border feel to it but with a beatiful Pacific coast aspect. Crashing waves, rocky beaches with great surfing to the north. Not much to do and less to see but with glorious weather and gorgeous tropical flora and deserts all around. Unfortunately due to its various industries and its total disregard for 'Poo disposal' a lot of the beaches to the south were unusable. We stared at the gorgeous rollers and sand rather crestfallen and went back to the safety of the hotel pool. In town we visited the two sites of interest, both built by Eifel, the church and the Douanes. We went to the Arica/La Paz station which is now defunct but still conjured up images of rather grander days of steam, buffet cars and lengthy mountain passes between great Andean centres of trade.
We booked a bus to Arequipa via Tacna and it is Peru 'here we come', Llamas and all...
We put ourselves up in the posh Hotel Arica which included a pool under its list of services...after all it was time for a treat as we say farewell to Chile for the present.
Arica is a small, slightly unremarkable town with a border feel to it but with a beatiful Pacific coast aspect. Crashing waves, rocky beaches with great surfing to the north. Not much to do and less to see but with glorious weather and gorgeous tropical flora and deserts all around. Unfortunately due to its various industries and its total disregard for 'Poo disposal' a lot of the beaches to the south were unusable. We stared at the gorgeous rollers and sand rather crestfallen and went back to the safety of the hotel pool. In town we visited the two sites of interest, both built by Eifel, the church and the Douanes. We went to the Arica/La Paz station which is now defunct but still conjured up images of rather grander days of steam, buffet cars and lengthy mountain passes between great Andean centres of trade.
We booked a bus to Arequipa via Tacna and it is Peru 'here we come', Llamas and all...
Sunday, 15 April 2007
Pucon 5-10 April 2007
Naturally we went to the station in Puerto Montt and a rather surprised ticket master in her booth stared at us as if we had dunked our chocolate bourbons in her morning cuppa. ´´No trains till next week!´´ A beautiful new station and no trains to put in it... Railtrack you have competition! We turn the taxi man around and head for the Bus-station. Rather remarkably 20 miles out of PM and the sun came out, birds chirruped in the trees and small rabbits skipped in a world with no Coronation Street. Had we entered Toon-town or was PM just a sufficient distance behind us for the world to start spinning the other way? Good riddance PM. The land was transformed to lush, fertile rolling hills with verdant valleys running to the Pacific, westwards.
Arriving in the beauty of Pucon after the hell-hole of the-place-that-shall-not-be-named was an ethereal delight for your two venturing heroes! We checked into Ecole! a vegetarian hostel, all dreamcatchers and sandals, that made Marks face turn inside out for a bit but he grew to love and appreciate it after a couple of days. We had the tiniest cabana to share, our lumpy beds covered in hand crocheted blankies and Mark was close enough for me to whack him in the night with a vegetarian leg of ham. His snoring even woke the german vegans next door through the hardboard wall and mutterings of ´sheise englander´ didn´t disturb sleeping beauty you will pleased to hear....are vegans allowed to swear?
Pucon is to the southern end of Lake Villarica, very lush, mountains to its foot and the crater of Volcano Villarica to the north, a stunning backdrop. And it is smokin´! Luckily Pucon is a spiritual community, we even had a white witch in the bar at Ecole (ola Asmi...only the eighth white witch I have met in person, one other being Lucy...Ola Lucy!!) and this helped dissipate all murderous thoughts I had been closeting since PM. We spent our Easter weekend there and needless to say we didn´t go to church or touch one iota of chocolate - instead we treated ourselves to Reike sessions, thermal spas, reflexology and full body massages! - oh, and a little choccy fondue! The only thing vaguely cardiovascular was an inappropriate mountain bike ride up to a waterfall - Salto Claro - so high we never reached it - and inappropriate for a girl of my stature and inbalance who hasn´t ridden a bike since Eastbourne 1980. You can imagine the toll it took on the parts other beers cannot reach - never to be repeated. Nada, niet, nein.
Nevertheless Pucon was an oasis in our Chilean desert, we have high hopes that Arica where we head next, will also prove the saving grace of a country that has great and varied landscapes but awful coffee and the customer service skills of Basil Fawlty. Dampier himself had a similar opinion as his ship moored to the south of Arica to sack the town...but he himself refused to get off! Nuff said......
Arriving in the beauty of Pucon after the hell-hole of the-place-that-shall-not-be-named was an ethereal delight for your two venturing heroes! We checked into Ecole! a vegetarian hostel, all dreamcatchers and sandals, that made Marks face turn inside out for a bit but he grew to love and appreciate it after a couple of days. We had the tiniest cabana to share, our lumpy beds covered in hand crocheted blankies and Mark was close enough for me to whack him in the night with a vegetarian leg of ham. His snoring even woke the german vegans next door through the hardboard wall and mutterings of ´sheise englander´ didn´t disturb sleeping beauty you will pleased to hear....are vegans allowed to swear?
Pucon is to the southern end of Lake Villarica, very lush, mountains to its foot and the crater of Volcano Villarica to the north, a stunning backdrop. And it is smokin´! Luckily Pucon is a spiritual community, we even had a white witch in the bar at Ecole (ola Asmi...only the eighth white witch I have met in person, one other being Lucy...Ola Lucy!!) and this helped dissipate all murderous thoughts I had been closeting since PM. We spent our Easter weekend there and needless to say we didn´t go to church or touch one iota of chocolate - instead we treated ourselves to Reike sessions, thermal spas, reflexology and full body massages! - oh, and a little choccy fondue! The only thing vaguely cardiovascular was an inappropriate mountain bike ride up to a waterfall - Salto Claro - so high we never reached it - and inappropriate for a girl of my stature and inbalance who hasn´t ridden a bike since Eastbourne 1980. You can imagine the toll it took on the parts other beers cannot reach - never to be repeated. Nada, niet, nein.
Nevertheless Pucon was an oasis in our Chilean desert, we have high hopes that Arica where we head next, will also prove the saving grace of a country that has great and varied landscapes but awful coffee and the customer service skills of Basil Fawlty. Dampier himself had a similar opinion as his ship moored to the south of Arica to sack the town...but he himself refused to get off! Nuff said......
Puerto Montt
Two things about Puerto Montt, one its s%*!...the other...? All I can say whoever now has my credit and debit cards, my driving licence and my address book, I hope all your teeth rot and you have to have the most excruciating dental treatment forever! BTW the Gendarmerie building is an architectural bottom and....well....Bastardos! Pleasure is PM in your rearview mirror on a tourbus full of vegetables...with best regards Fo xx
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt...Il Barco Bizarro
We arrive back in Puerto Natales in driving rain and the wind whistling around any creaky signs it can find...Puerto Natales is shrouded in a blanket..we make our booking at the Crazy Darwin Inn for a second time and the price has halved since we went away...such are the vagaries of Inn pricing in Chile! The boat is delayed and we revisit Il Maritimo where all the crew and passengers are in the same boat...or not.
The weather remains bracing all night and into the next day and we are set for a boarding time of 9pm after watching the boat being blown around the bay for most of the morning like a feather in a bird-bath..Fo intimates she has womanly feelings of forboding about the trip...understandable and slightly parrot on shoulder, spooky screeching one toothed tarot reading, blackbeard, squeeky sign of the ´Old Crow´ kind of forboding...i´m looking forward to this little trip..nyet!!
We board at nine, with all the other victims err....i mean passengers. We are all taken..a la ¨Man from Uncle¨ on a large metal moving floor to the deck and we notice the moos coming from all the trailers parked on deck..Oh no a ´livestock holiday´ boat-trip. Many cows are crammed into their respective trailers and a truck load of horses, live stock or dinner tomorrow night?
The cabins are great and there a many familiar travellers from Torres and other trips.
The weather beats at the Porthole. By a combination of gross negligence to the budget and consideration for other human beings (primarily my gentle cat like snoring) we have a four person bunkhouse for two...thankfully in all considerations.
The trip is due to take 3 days and four nights and it is really a booze cruise with Glaciers. Its takes a 1300km route through the Fjords with a deft swipe into the Pacific ocean for 12 hours with hopefully Whale watching and other wildlife joining us periodically.
The first day is overcast , blowy and foggy but the silence is deafening, the views
beautiful. Nothing but glacial hills, festooned with trees and black, cold, deep fjords beneath us, 900m in some cases.
The weather remains close for the first two days and high stakes Poker is going 24 hours a day, largely amongst the teenage german students, the cows are mooing their discontent and the Fog is set in. We venture out into the Pacific stretch, it is rough, the students are revolting (into plastic bags), the whole boat retires to their quarters. On the third day the sun welcomes the dawn. We all race to the deck. Its 360 degrees of beautiful panoramic Chilean Fjords. On this day the whole boat suns itself on deck and we spot whales, seals, sealions?? and a couple of towns, the only sign of life on the incredible virgin 1300km stretch of coastline.
The last evening a Blue whales hump..perhaps..rises majestically in the water beside the boat and there is a great spurt of water..was it a bluey? It makes the trip worthwhile.
A mention must be given to our tour guide. She had a voice like a songbird, was actually 'fast show` material throughout and the last night of Patagonian Bingo should be filmed for a anyone who appreciates vaudeville and ritual humiliation. Her tannoy announcements will ring in my ears for many months until i seek psychiatric help or i get my iPod fixed...thank you Navimag!
We arrive in Puerto Montt with a final Tannoy announcement at 4.30am just after the last aussie ´tot` full of rum has passed out...would the driver of the red truck...sleep is short...Ola! Puerto Montt and hotel bed, the moos are silenced at last, their fate is probably a lomo somewhere....
The weather remains bracing all night and into the next day and we are set for a boarding time of 9pm after watching the boat being blown around the bay for most of the morning like a feather in a bird-bath..Fo intimates she has womanly feelings of forboding about the trip...understandable and slightly parrot on shoulder, spooky screeching one toothed tarot reading, blackbeard, squeeky sign of the ´Old Crow´ kind of forboding...i´m looking forward to this little trip..nyet!!
We board at nine, with all the other victims err....i mean passengers. We are all taken..a la ¨Man from Uncle¨ on a large metal moving floor to the deck and we notice the moos coming from all the trailers parked on deck..Oh no a ´livestock holiday´ boat-trip. Many cows are crammed into their respective trailers and a truck load of horses, live stock or dinner tomorrow night?
The cabins are great and there a many familiar travellers from Torres and other trips.
The weather beats at the Porthole. By a combination of gross negligence to the budget and consideration for other human beings (primarily my gentle cat like snoring) we have a four person bunkhouse for two...thankfully in all considerations.
The trip is due to take 3 days and four nights and it is really a booze cruise with Glaciers. Its takes a 1300km route through the Fjords with a deft swipe into the Pacific ocean for 12 hours with hopefully Whale watching and other wildlife joining us periodically.
The first day is overcast , blowy and foggy but the silence is deafening, the views
beautiful. Nothing but glacial hills, festooned with trees and black, cold, deep fjords beneath us, 900m in some cases.
The weather remains close for the first two days and high stakes Poker is going 24 hours a day, largely amongst the teenage german students, the cows are mooing their discontent and the Fog is set in. We venture out into the Pacific stretch, it is rough, the students are revolting (into plastic bags), the whole boat retires to their quarters. On the third day the sun welcomes the dawn. We all race to the deck. Its 360 degrees of beautiful panoramic Chilean Fjords. On this day the whole boat suns itself on deck and we spot whales, seals, sealions?? and a couple of towns, the only sign of life on the incredible virgin 1300km stretch of coastline.
The last evening a Blue whales hump..perhaps..rises majestically in the water beside the boat and there is a great spurt of water..was it a bluey? It makes the trip worthwhile.
A mention must be given to our tour guide. She had a voice like a songbird, was actually 'fast show` material throughout and the last night of Patagonian Bingo should be filmed for a anyone who appreciates vaudeville and ritual humiliation. Her tannoy announcements will ring in my ears for many months until i seek psychiatric help or i get my iPod fixed...thank you Navimag!
We arrive in Puerto Montt with a final Tannoy announcement at 4.30am just after the last aussie ´tot` full of rum has passed out...would the driver of the red truck...sleep is short...Ola! Puerto Montt and hotel bed, the moos are silenced at last, their fate is probably a lomo somewhere....
Friday, 30 March 2007
Los Torres del Paine - and they did!
From Puerto Natales (where I rounded a breezy corner of the bay to find some.....university student accommodation - aarghhh!but those pesky students have such a great view) we were picked up kindly at our hotel by JB bus to take us into Chile´s highlight of all national parks - Los Torres del Paine. How little did we know what pain really was until we climbed those mothers!
A truly beautiful mountainscape for 360 degrees, with the longest snowfield in the Americas (300kms), radioactive coloured salt lakes, glaciers to die for and volcanic peaks to swoon over in the big, big sky. Almost heaven, apart form the cost and the pain,oh the pain!We also met up with Nicky and Mark from Ealing and proud to say Mark is a true Nottingham Forest fan to the last (keep all those fingers crossed UK, they have to go up, for Cloughie up in the sky) who had a similar budget issues in the hotel lined with gold (ours)! The photgraphs will show the grand scale of the landscape we had to scale in our quest to reach the base of Los Torres, the towers, all over 2700mts high.
Like stupid English fools we misread the map when it said four hours walk/climb we thought it meant round trip! Alas no, and your intrepid explorers spent 10 hours all told on foot returning down the mountain in the dark with Phils fab lithium battery torch saving our souls and preventing us falling off the precarious edge of the boulder strewn path with scary noises in the dark! The scene at the peak of our quest was worth the pain in hips, knees and achilles, with an azure blue lago footing the sheer granite vertical towers, catherdral like in their immensity standing another 800metres above us. Los Torres del Paine - and they most certainly were!
The following couple of days were spent recovering or at least trying to walk between the room and the breakfast restaurant and back without swearing , groaning or a grimace! When we had arrived at the hotel we had arranged a 2hrs guided tour to Lago Nordenskjold and the rear view of those Torres. So it was a good test for old sporty muscles and joints to see if they could function 36 hours after they had been so abused! More fantastic views and thanks to our knowledgable-about-all-things guide the yummy Rodrigo (he´s coming to England in May girls)we learned a lot more about the park, natural history, Chile and its social cultures than we would talking rubbish to each other for another afternoon! Plus the added bonus of another forceful waterfall Salto Grande and only 2 hrs walking on the virtual flat this time with a full body massage booked on our return (no extras for me though!)from the diminutive Rebekka. A beautiful bottle of Maipu Valley Merlot joined by four cheeses and followed by a puma spotted just outside the window by the waiter which they tried to highlight using the jeep headlights and steer him away from the horse corall - we felt we had found paradise - then we got the bill......
A truly beautiful mountainscape for 360 degrees, with the longest snowfield in the Americas (300kms), radioactive coloured salt lakes, glaciers to die for and volcanic peaks to swoon over in the big, big sky. Almost heaven, apart form the cost and the pain,oh the pain!We also met up with Nicky and Mark from Ealing and proud to say Mark is a true Nottingham Forest fan to the last (keep all those fingers crossed UK, they have to go up, for Cloughie up in the sky) who had a similar budget issues in the hotel lined with gold (ours)! The photgraphs will show the grand scale of the landscape we had to scale in our quest to reach the base of Los Torres, the towers, all over 2700mts high.
Like stupid English fools we misread the map when it said four hours walk/climb we thought it meant round trip! Alas no, and your intrepid explorers spent 10 hours all told on foot returning down the mountain in the dark with Phils fab lithium battery torch saving our souls and preventing us falling off the precarious edge of the boulder strewn path with scary noises in the dark! The scene at the peak of our quest was worth the pain in hips, knees and achilles, with an azure blue lago footing the sheer granite vertical towers, catherdral like in their immensity standing another 800metres above us. Los Torres del Paine - and they most certainly were!
The following couple of days were spent recovering or at least trying to walk between the room and the breakfast restaurant and back without swearing , groaning or a grimace! When we had arrived at the hotel we had arranged a 2hrs guided tour to Lago Nordenskjold and the rear view of those Torres. So it was a good test for old sporty muscles and joints to see if they could function 36 hours after they had been so abused! More fantastic views and thanks to our knowledgable-about-all-things guide the yummy Rodrigo (he´s coming to England in May girls)we learned a lot more about the park, natural history, Chile and its social cultures than we would talking rubbish to each other for another afternoon! Plus the added bonus of another forceful waterfall Salto Grande and only 2 hrs walking on the virtual flat this time with a full body massage booked on our return (no extras for me though!)from the diminutive Rebekka. A beautiful bottle of Maipu Valley Merlot joined by four cheeses and followed by a puma spotted just outside the window by the waiter which they tried to highlight using the jeep headlights and steer him away from the horse corall - we felt we had found paradise - then we got the bill......
Thursday, 29 March 2007
Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales
We leave Ushuaia under a cloud, or many...so to speak. It is very early in the morning and we hop on the bus for Road trip 2...Punta Arenas, Sandy Point. It is an 8 - 10 hour trip. There are many recognisable faces on he bus but we have 50 seats and 8 passengers..very exclusive. The terrain here is flat, grassy and windswept with beautifully sculptured smooth hills disappearing into the distance. The road is unpaved for much of the way and the driver has certain rally driving qualities with magnificent sliding manoevers accompanying the sweeping corners. Reassuringly you can see for miles into the distance and the approaching vehicles are usually accompanied by a pall of dust. There is much wildlife and farms are dotted on the horizon. It has many of the qualities of South Island, NZ without the lovely green hues you get there.
Finally we approach Punta Arenas, get ourselves checked in and wander to the plaza. There are some grand maisons, financed by the wool trade and mostly imported brick by brick from Europe. Shackleton watered here on is way to rescue his comrades sometime around 1914 and it probably hasn´t changed much since then.
The following day we visit the Magellan Strait. This was avoided in most part by the ships sailing in Dampiers day as it is difficult to navigate and treacherous with its changeable weather, even for Pilots with Dampiers skill. Remarkably they opted to go round the Horn!
We take a trip to Magdalena Island to see the Magellan Penguins.
It is penguins as far as the eye can see and they are clearly slighty peaved by the presence of us humans and nip at your ankles as you pass.
Punta Arenas is a stopping off point on the way to Puerto Natales and Los Torres National Park. We head for Puerto Natales toute suite. It is also a charming little town full of hostals and restaurants but with the most exquisite wood framed houses clad with tin and painted in variegated colours. It also has big skies and grand sunsets as the sun disappears in the direction of Los Torres, our next stop.
Finally we approach Punta Arenas, get ourselves checked in and wander to the plaza. There are some grand maisons, financed by the wool trade and mostly imported brick by brick from Europe. Shackleton watered here on is way to rescue his comrades sometime around 1914 and it probably hasn´t changed much since then.
The following day we visit the Magellan Strait. This was avoided in most part by the ships sailing in Dampiers day as it is difficult to navigate and treacherous with its changeable weather, even for Pilots with Dampiers skill. Remarkably they opted to go round the Horn!
We take a trip to Magdalena Island to see the Magellan Penguins.
It is penguins as far as the eye can see and they are clearly slighty peaved by the presence of us humans and nip at your ankles as you pass.
Punta Arenas is a stopping off point on the way to Puerto Natales and Los Torres National Park. We head for Puerto Natales toute suite. It is also a charming little town full of hostals and restaurants but with the most exquisite wood framed houses clad with tin and painted in variegated colours. It also has big skies and grand sunsets as the sun disappears in the direction of Los Torres, our next stop.
Monday, 26 March 2007
The push to Ushuaia
Push to Ushuaia
It was sad to leave the hotel gang and El Calafate which had a village feel about it and a relaxing air in the town. We were in danger of settling into a routine which would have been a welcome change from packing the dirties into the sackie every three days. Catch a shrunken jet from the airport and make an alarming unscheduled stop in Rio Gallegos which was turbulent but not as turbulent as the landing at Ushuaia..the airport being on the windy tip of land thrusting into the
Beagle channel. Ushuaia sits on the Beagle channel and is the very last town going south before Antartica.
It started life as a penal colony and is now the point of entry for most ships going to Antarctica. It is surrounded by mountains, the Tierra del Fuego National Park and Chile is directly in front of you standing in the dock of the bay.
Its cold!!! Hotel great and straight into town for an AYCE Parilla - its all your sunday roasts in one elongated lamb noshage. I think I ate 10kg of lamb with salad sledges to get it down....Fo has delicate rafts of fish but caves in to Parilla madness inevitably and eats the wrong end of the pantomime horse...still in ketosis though...phew!
The Beagle Channel is a possible haunt of the deft capitano Dampier so we arrange a trip in a yacht up the channel.The weather is more changeable than The Shetland Islands...we leave in warm sunshine amd make for H Island to see the barbecue sites of the Ona Indians. Now they didn´t wear clothes from Primark but smeared themselves in Seal fat and ate the rest of the seals to give themselves a blubbery hi fat protective coat, spending their days fishing around the islands in their birthday suits.
This kept them warm in the perishing winds which whip up the channel. We experience this on the way back as the wind whips in from the west, the journey back is sails reafed and bolt down the portholes. Elka and Fo brace themselves in the rigging at the stern in their yellow popeye suits and we defrost Fo back in port with submarinos (hot chocolate)
The extraordiary feat of navigating through these inlets and channels is something it is impossible to imagine. Drastically changing weather, wind dependent, limited manoevrability and no navigation lights on land in these forbidding passages. My admiration for the 17thC mariners is increasing all the time as we see the difficulties they faces and paltry provisions they travelled with. Coupled with constant in fighting, mutiny and a boat full of alpha males...
Wednesday 21st we take a trip up to the Martial Glacier via a chair lift and a brisk walk up through the moraine. This affords fantastic views of the Beagle Channel although we are only at 1000m. Interestingly, the trees that cover the lower slopes get smaller as you ascend becoming ravishing little Bonsai´s by the time you reach the tree/snowline interface. Autumn is coming also and the leaves are turning giving a lovely red hue to the herbaceous carpet on the lower slopes.
I have an appointment with Dr Gustavo Gonzalez Bonorino at the Cadic Institute in the early evening. He is a charming Sedimentologist and very well known in Chile and world Geologial circles. Even more bizarre, he knows Pat Brenchly, our Sedimentology lecturer at Liverpool Uni and recently gave a talk there...Ole! He is incredibly kind and gives me a brief chat on the geology of the area and a window on the paleoecology of the south of Argentina from the last Ice Age, 20000 - 15000 ya, with the Antarctic Ice sheet lipping in the Beagle channel, the sea level was 130m or so lower (worldwide...sorry)....global warmin...ugh
Anyway thanks to Gustavo for a fascinating 90 minutes.
Thursday is Road Trip day and we pick up Julien, Nicole and hefty supplies from the Supermercado all packed in to a two door ice cooler. We set of on the RN3 through the Tierra del Fuego National Park. Scenery suitable dramatic and the freedom of the open road. Reach Tolhuin which marks the end of the road and the end of civilisation, we turn back, but not without a large helados from the disproportionately large ´Burt Reynolds´ heladeria and Banjo rifts tinkling in our ears...
We drive to the other end of the 3 back through Ushuaia to the western end of the TdF National Park. Beavers introduced for their pelts have multiplied like rabbits, the other abundant resident. With no known predators, its a great place to live.
We visit a beaver dam, puts french engineering in the dark, and find two freshly noshed trees and lie in wait. Its a beaver no show so we leave having not spotted any one of the 90,000 residents. We reward our painstaking research with a meal in the poshest restaurant in town....a change from Lamb and Panto horse, the wines are indomitable...its goodbye to Julien and Nicole for the present...or au revoir we hope...tomorrow Punta Arenas
It was sad to leave the hotel gang and El Calafate which had a village feel about it and a relaxing air in the town. We were in danger of settling into a routine which would have been a welcome change from packing the dirties into the sackie every three days. Catch a shrunken jet from the airport and make an alarming unscheduled stop in Rio Gallegos which was turbulent but not as turbulent as the landing at Ushuaia..the airport being on the windy tip of land thrusting into the
Beagle channel. Ushuaia sits on the Beagle channel and is the very last town going south before Antartica.
It started life as a penal colony and is now the point of entry for most ships going to Antarctica. It is surrounded by mountains, the Tierra del Fuego National Park and Chile is directly in front of you standing in the dock of the bay.
Its cold!!! Hotel great and straight into town for an AYCE Parilla - its all your sunday roasts in one elongated lamb noshage. I think I ate 10kg of lamb with salad sledges to get it down....Fo has delicate rafts of fish but caves in to Parilla madness inevitably and eats the wrong end of the pantomime horse...still in ketosis though...phew!
The Beagle Channel is a possible haunt of the deft capitano Dampier so we arrange a trip in a yacht up the channel.The weather is more changeable than The Shetland Islands...we leave in warm sunshine amd make for H Island to see the barbecue sites of the Ona Indians. Now they didn´t wear clothes from Primark but smeared themselves in Seal fat and ate the rest of the seals to give themselves a blubbery hi fat protective coat, spending their days fishing around the islands in their birthday suits.
This kept them warm in the perishing winds which whip up the channel. We experience this on the way back as the wind whips in from the west, the journey back is sails reafed and bolt down the portholes. Elka and Fo brace themselves in the rigging at the stern in their yellow popeye suits and we defrost Fo back in port with submarinos (hot chocolate)
The extraordiary feat of navigating through these inlets and channels is something it is impossible to imagine. Drastically changing weather, wind dependent, limited manoevrability and no navigation lights on land in these forbidding passages. My admiration for the 17thC mariners is increasing all the time as we see the difficulties they faces and paltry provisions they travelled with. Coupled with constant in fighting, mutiny and a boat full of alpha males...
Wednesday 21st we take a trip up to the Martial Glacier via a chair lift and a brisk walk up through the moraine. This affords fantastic views of the Beagle Channel although we are only at 1000m. Interestingly, the trees that cover the lower slopes get smaller as you ascend becoming ravishing little Bonsai´s by the time you reach the tree/snowline interface. Autumn is coming also and the leaves are turning giving a lovely red hue to the herbaceous carpet on the lower slopes.
I have an appointment with Dr Gustavo Gonzalez Bonorino at the Cadic Institute in the early evening. He is a charming Sedimentologist and very well known in Chile and world Geologial circles. Even more bizarre, he knows Pat Brenchly, our Sedimentology lecturer at Liverpool Uni and recently gave a talk there...Ole! He is incredibly kind and gives me a brief chat on the geology of the area and a window on the paleoecology of the south of Argentina from the last Ice Age, 20000 - 15000 ya, with the Antarctic Ice sheet lipping in the Beagle channel, the sea level was 130m or so lower (worldwide...sorry)....global warmin...ugh
Anyway thanks to Gustavo for a fascinating 90 minutes.
Thursday is Road Trip day and we pick up Julien, Nicole and hefty supplies from the Supermercado all packed in to a two door ice cooler. We set of on the RN3 through the Tierra del Fuego National Park. Scenery suitable dramatic and the freedom of the open road. Reach Tolhuin which marks the end of the road and the end of civilisation, we turn back, but not without a large helados from the disproportionately large ´Burt Reynolds´ heladeria and Banjo rifts tinkling in our ears...
We drive to the other end of the 3 back through Ushuaia to the western end of the TdF National Park. Beavers introduced for their pelts have multiplied like rabbits, the other abundant resident. With no known predators, its a great place to live.
We visit a beaver dam, puts french engineering in the dark, and find two freshly noshed trees and lie in wait. Its a beaver no show so we leave having not spotted any one of the 90,000 residents. We reward our painstaking research with a meal in the poshest restaurant in town....a change from Lamb and Panto horse, the wines are indomitable...its goodbye to Julien and Nicole for the present...or au revoir we hope...tomorrow Punta Arenas
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