When Captain Cook was sailing past Queensland on the 17th of May 1770, he noticed a number of mountains reminded him of the glass furnaces in Yorkshire where he came from, so he named them the glasshouse mountains.
(more…)Tag: australia
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Swimming in Sydney
I woke up early this morning so that I could get out when the sun was rising, whilst the Rainbow Lorikeets are still asleep in the trees and before the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos wake to pirouette on telephone wires as if they have discovered them for the first time.
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Sydney’s Ocean Pools from North Bondi to Coogee
Wally Weekes
Around the turn of the last century people built many seaside pools around Sydney, so I decided to visit a few and am now standing above the Wally Weekes pool which is at the north end of Bondi Beach.
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Australia
I arrived in Australia and had a little shindig with friends I know in Sydney. The hospitality of the Krasnowskis knows no limits, so Jon, Rob, Sean and Dai all had a great evening out topped off by attempts to play coherent 12 string guitar in Jon’s back garden. I needed that and felt refreshed enough to make the train journey to Bellingen the next day.
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Santiago to New Zealand
For a last wave at South America Valparaiso was a double edged sword, but certainly an interesting one. I loved the place but should have tucked myself in bed safely after dark, but the alternative certainly leads to an interesting life. (more…)
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David Byrne and goodbyes
The friends I am staying with in Perth bought me a ticket to see David Byrne play at the city zoo so we ambled over there via some nachos and a pint and settled in for what turned out to be a wonderful night.
Byrne built the evening up from low key to spectacular in a similar way to the ‘Stop making Sense’ gigs of the eighties, only this time it was subtle. He played a lot of the Byrne Eno songs and I think most people went home feeling like they had seen the best that Byrne could deliver – a few people were shouting for Psycho Killer at the end but I’m quite happy he didn’t do that song, It was always a song for opening the night, end the night on something a little less psychotic.
So here I am waiting to go to the airport. The hospitality I have recieved in Perth has been the best yet, but perhaps that’s because they are valuable old friends I am visiting and a few bridges have been mended. Life is short and we can’t afford to waste such beautiful people, so it is on a note of reconciliation and friendship that I leave this wonderful country on. I am also happy that such a warm welcome was afforded by people from back home, I had begun to think that it was an Australian cultural quirk to throw the doors open with such warmth, but no. Good.
So I am in love with this country, it took me a wee while to get my head around it’s warm and very big heart but I think I have an idea of it’s nature now and feel comfortable just being here.
I think we’ll be back.
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It’s Just Not Cricket
Well Mike and I stayed up until 5am eventually moving to the shed so as not to wake up the family. We put the world to rights and figured out what to do with it so don’t you worry.
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Not So Cheap Car Hire
Ok, so I did rally the hire car (more…)
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The Grampians, Halls Gap and Mckenzie Falls
I slept in the car again last night as it was too dark to find hammock space in Port Fairy, so I reclined in a dark spot off of the highway with a six pack of cold beers and the radio to keep my company. I had a wonderful evening howling along with the songs.
The next day I drove through the heat hoping to find cooler air up in the Grampian Mountains, but it was hot there too – 43 degrees Melbourne and probably the same or hotter inland.
But I did find this to swim in…
Mckenzie falls, for me the reason the Grampians came in to being. There is a big sign saying ‘don’t swim’ as you descend to the falls but it would have been a crime not to on such a hot day. The basin is deep and if I had had anyone to show off to I’d have been leaping off of high things, but as it was I just swam about steaming off the heat of the day until the sun went down.
Then I went and sat here…
Which was a lovely place to ponder for a while.
Later on I managed to find a place to pop my hammock up in a wooded clearing, I paid the $14 camping fee as it was going to a good cause and slept for 12 hours straight.
