19 June 2015

It’s the start of our big trip.  This time no passports, visas or queues to get through body scans.  No avoidance of international roaming and checking international rates for currency conversion.  We have a general idea of where we are going but we are having lots of rain and the country is looking very wet.  It’s a guess whether some of the roads we want to travel will be closed due to flooding or wash outs.  Here goes for the first couple of days:

 

• Today it was the torturous last  minute packing when you are constantly wondering what have I not packed and what will I need over the next 3 months.  Airlines do us a favour when they say you can take one bag of a certain size and weight.  When you have a car and van the limits know no limits.
• It’s also very hard to leave a warm and dry house and head off for a camping adventure when is cold and wet.  That wood fire looked so inviting – we left home why?  To quote our friends in the middle of the Gobi desert ‘What for’?
• The road we travelled today is also a stock route.  It’s the main highway between Sydney and Adelaide but we were lucky enough to come across a herd of several hundred steers being driven along the road.  The steers fell into almost two groups; those that walked on the left and those that walked on the right.  Of course there was one free thinking cow who walked along the white line, right down the middle, regardless of the cars creeping past.  The cows on the right occasionally looked over at the cows on the left.  There was a hesitation about changing sides but then they would stay on their side.  The cows on the left did the same.  A quick glance to those on the right, hesitation and a hint of changing sides.  I am sure the cows were mooing ‘cross the road and join us’ but there was very little crossing of the road.  At the back of the herd was a drover on a quad bike.  I am sure he thought he was in control but I am equally sure the cows set the pace and decided who walked on the right and who walked on the left side of the road.
• The cows seemed to be an allegory for politics.  There is always those that walk on the left and those that always walk on the right side of the road.  Never the twain will meet.  There is also that free thinking non-member of the herd who insists on walking the white line.  The guy on the bike is the one who thinks he is one of those up front influencing the cows but really they’re at the back following the butt end of the herd and the one cow they are worried about is the one following the white line.  Dam those independent thinkers!
• The Australian bush is supposed to be hot and dry so days of wet and cold with creeks running in flood and the paddocks all flooded is almost an out of body experience.
• Day Two:  We drove from Hay to Renmark.  Along this road we saw something that many would assume were huge bales of cotton.    Do not be confused, they were in fact enormous, evil witchetty grubs crawling across the landscape.  All the way to the horizon there were scores maybe hundreds of these witchetty grubs, all crawling towards the highway.  Marching toward destruction and havoc on the main highway from Adelaide to Sydney.  Excellent material for a B Grade horror movie.  For my foreign readers checkout:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchetty_grub.
• The display from our video camera at the back of the van was for most of the day upside down.  Its amazing how quickly the brain can adapt to an inverted image and make sense of it.  The image eventually fixed itself. One of those weird technical situations when you realise the technology is in control.
• The website for closed roads tells me the roads we wanted to drive are closed or only open to heavy Sounds like  a change of plans is required.  Of course our travelling companion who is ahead of us and is now out of mobile phone coverage, so no emails, SMS or phone calls to adjust our plans. Sounds like life in the 1980s!  Not sure how we will cope.
• Today I heard someone refer to us as ‘grey nomads’.  How insulting; I might be greying but nomad suggests a lack of a sense of direction or purpose, just aimless wandering.  I know where I am heading!
• Whilst many think accent, rugby and the haka are the only things that separate Australia and New Zealand.  No, there is one more major difference.  In Australia there are signs telling you about the camp grounds in the town you are approaching well before you get there.  This is something NZ should really consider.  It’s too late when you are already lost in the town looking for accommodation.
• Finally, every major undertaking has a vision and mission statement and we have decided our Vision is ‘High Quality Recycling Across Australia’.  We will achieve this through our Mission  statement  which  is “The distribution of containers that once held high quality wine and beer across the recycling bins of Australia”.  We think this is a socially responsible vision that somehow will save the polar bears.  These mission and vision statements were developed without a workshop or any stakeholder engagement. No consultants were  injured in the development of these statements.

 

That’s it for the moment. More to come.  Not sure where we will be next but we are heading to the town where Barb and I met 41 years ago.

27 April 2016

It’s no surprise that this last log did not get written in New Zealand and it remains my last job after unpacking and putting stuff away, filling the laundry basket, checking the credit card accounts for damage and checking the voicemail.   I have now reached a point where I feel I can legitimately download my last thoughts on the trip to SI NZ.  So here goes:

• The Chinese middle class are on the move and travelling.   No longer sequestered in air conditioned coaches, they are now confident travellers hiring motor homes and camping in campgrounds often with their extended families.  On a recent fishing trip there were nine in the boat fishing, seven of whom were Chinese, none had been in a boat before or had ever fished.

Unfortunately the average Chinese traveller has not quite got the notion of clothes for travelling.  They are generally dressed for a stroll through Central Park in late autumn.  Flat soled shoes, business trousers, city styled overcoats and frilly pink umbrellas were de rigueur on rocky and steep tracks to view the glaciers.  Audrey, I think there is a Marketing opp for Frederick.

• Deleting photos.  Do you remember the good old days when you only had 36 photos on a roll of film so you made sure you didn’t waste any.  You would get the photo right before hitting the shutter.  People were posed, the pic framed, the focus right.  You dropped off the film at the chemist and a week later picked up your memories of your trip.  If they were slides, some weeks later you would receive a small package in the mail.  You would then go through your work, discard any duds and mount them in a photo album.  It all seemed pretty simple.

Now we have technology to make everything so much easier.  So we snap away collecting megapixels with gay abandon.  Clicking away in the knowledge I can always delete any I don’t need later. And so by example when we travelled for a year in 1979 we took 700 photos (slides actually) and in three weeks in New Zealand we took 654 photos!

When the nice young lady from Malaysia offered to take my picture with the glacier in the background she didn’t take one photo, oh no, she took three.  So now it’s up to me to make a decision on which one is the best, which is well framed, is the colour and focus right, do they meet the rule of thirds and so it goes on.  Why didn’t she get it right the first time.  The solution, I keep all three pics because I can’t choose.

So now we face the question of how do you store your photos, do you need backup copies, which ones will you print or will you create a book, do you delete them from the SD card, do you create an album on your iPad, will you view them on your TV and so it goes on.   Technology has made it so much easier (as spoken with a heavy sense of sarcasm).

• Butterflies on boats – one of our young fishers was resplendent in black tights with sparkles.  It was like the Milky Way emblazoned on her legs.  The bling was there as was the colourful shoes.  We had a butterfly on the boat.  Butterflies don’t like the ocean, they get seasick.  It’s so relaxing looking out over the ocean swells hauling a double header of blue cod with the sound of someone filling a plastic bag in the background.
• Whale watching – we got to see sperm whales off the coast of Kaikoura.  They could have just been large logs that periodically let forth with a geyser of steam.  That was until the fluke lifted and the whale returned to the depths to catch squid at about 1000 metres.  It seems the young males stay in the area all year; in contrast the females stay in the tropics where the water is warmer. Go figure.
• Crayfish and fillets – after two hours of fishing we returned to our motor home with a crayfish each and six fillets of deep sea fish.  That night we ate the crayfish and following we exceeded all standards of appropriate meal size and ate all six fillets, with chips.  Eating so well created an interesting comparison with the food being prepared in the camp kitchen that night.  It ranged from peanut butter and jelly toasted sandwiches or breakfast cereal for the impoverished backpackers, through to noodles, steamed vegetables and soup for the Chinese families or maybe bouillabaisse for a French family.  We went for steamed crayfish and later fish fillets in beer batter, simple but honest.
• Airports, they are all the same.  Yeah, I know they are a bit different but fundamentally all airport architects came out of the same school.

You start your wonderful adventure in an airport with security queues, display screen, shops selling overpriced souvenirs, all in air conditioned comfort and your pockets stuffed with passports and exit or entry paperwork. Three weeks later you are back in an airport with security queues, display screen, shops selling overpriced souvenirs, all in air conditioned comfort and your pockets stuffed with passports and exit or entry paperwork and you wonder if it was all a dream, did it really happen?  You then realise your megapixel collection will reassure it did in fact happen as will your credit card – but there is that moment of doubt when you are back in that airport waiting for the return flight.

• Travelling with a rugby team of teenagers filling the back half of aircraft – not my preferred travelling style.
• Observations – New Zealanders are great entrepreneurs and proud of their country.  They create fantastic opportunities for tourists to empty their wallets in return for a good and often frightening time.  They have bungee jumps, cliff swings, mountain bike runs, jet boats, train rides, hikes along the coast that start with a water taxi delivery, fishing trips that end with you receiving a crayfish and just overwhelming scenery.  The country is incredibly clean, neat and tidy, and pretty empty.  There is no graffiti, no litter and no delaminated tyres strewn along the roads.  There are no derelict and abandoned buildings, no farm yards filled with rusting old farm machinery.  The shopping malls display pictures of people bike riding, sailing and hiking.   I reckon I could live in New Zealand if only I could learn how to correctly pronounce the word Maori.

That’s it until the next adventure which might be on a river or a trip through the Oz backyard.  As always if you have had enough of these emails just say so and you will see no more.  I was encouraged by a UK journalist one evening in Wanaka to move to a blog site. If that happens your inbox will offer a sigh of relief and I will tell you what the address might be.

Yours in perpetual motion.

21 April 2016

Since the last Log we have experienced an overnight cruise in some amazing wilderness and have driven the entire length of the west coast and are now in warmer weather camped by a beach.

• The overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound started with a 50min boat ride across a lake, followed by a 45min bus ride over the mountains and then embarking on a larger boat with accommodation for the 70 or so adventurers.  The predominant attire amongst the travellers was of the ubiquitous beige, black, brown, blue and other similarly non descript colours of fleece jackets.  Amongst this group was one young woman from Japan who wore light coloured shorts with a lace fringe, red tights and bling in her hair, around her neck and hanging from her ears.  Faux fur formed the collar of her jacket.  A butterfly amongst the moths.
• The cruise included a two hour kayak paddle.  The group included a wide range of water skills but all were very aware of the cold water, the depth of the fiord, the remoteness of the location and the vulnerability of a kayak.  Into this mix there is always one paddler who is somewhat less spatially aware of others and would seem to have a knack of getting too close to others, causing fear of a collision or worse still tipping.  It was in this atmosphere that without a word said the less spatially aware paddler was suddenly on their own with a wide margin between their kayak and other fellow paddlers. As they moved so the margin around them flowed.
• It’s a challenge trying to swat sand flies while ensuring your kayak remains upright and you dry.  There is a sand fly season in New Zealand and if you are planning on travelling here you should attempt to manage your time around these pesky little biters.  For your edification and for planning purposes the sand fly season runs to a day from 1 January to 31 December.
• At the end of the paddle a few brave and might I say younger members of the troupe jumped off the back of the boat for a swim in less than tropical water – ah youth.
• Dinner was a sumptuous feast of varied meats, seafood and salads.  Our table included  two other couples, one from the UK (Peak District no less) and the other from San Francisco.  At this stage conversation is about our mutual agreement that the scenery is overwhelming, the cruise was a great choice, the food is pretty good and that tomorrow will be amazing.  We are all a reasonably homogenous group in appearance, age, quality of photographic equipment and appreciation of the experience.
• It is over dinner however that you suddenly discover the fellow travellers at your table are a senior law lecturer who now runs a ballooning business and a CEO of a multinational advertising company.  Not so homogenous after all.  Both are full of wonderful travel recommendations and email addresses are exchanged.
• Some of our company spend the entire afternoon and next morning taking pictures of themselves with selfie sticks with the fiord, waterfalls and mountains in the background of their own magnificence.  Confession – I do not own a selfie stick.
• New level of self indulgent photography –  taking a picture of the comments you made in the Visitors Book – and what for I ask myself.
• The end of the cruise and we are exhausted from the experience.  As we drive back towards Queenstown we realise that what two days ago was amazing is now hum drum. All scenery now comes a poor second to Doubtful Sound.
• I thought the south of New Zealand was pretty empty with little traffic and no major towns that might include a Maccas or even a traffic light.  Let me say the west coast is even more empty.  It was two days of driving before we came to a town of any significant size.
• We head to the West Coast and discover the town of Haast and its offering of fish and chips for lunch.  Now the town of Haast is pretty much a café, a petrol station and a collection of houses.   It’s a tiny place in a windswept location, trapped between the Tasman Sea and the mountains.  In this remote setting we enjoy fish and chips comprising a large filet of Orange Roughy and for just $16, including the chips.   It was the only fish they offered. These are the gems you find in remote and windswept fishing villages.  Imagine what you would pay for Orange Roughy in a fancy Sydney restaurant, not $16 with chips!
• From Haast our journey takes us to the two most accessible glaciers in New Zealand, Fox and Franz Josef.  A word of warning to all readers if you want to see these glaciers, go now they are retreating rapidly.  Its confronting to see where these glaciers were in 2008 and where they are now.
• Amazing fact; the west coast mountains of New Zealand continue to rise faster than any other mountains in the world and if it wasn’t for glaciers and other forms of erosion would, over the past few million years, be six times higher than they are now.  Well I was amazed.
• I said at the beginning of this trip that we were not good at planning and that our destinations are often decided on local advice as we travel through the country.  And so it was with Ferge Burgers and Doubtful Sound.  We can now add the Abel Tasman national park to that list.  Over the past week when we asked fellow campers where they were heading we often got the reply – Abel Tasman. And so we now find ourselves camped opposite a wonderful beach on the boundary of Abel Tasman national park.  Tomorrow we have a boat ride up into the park where we will be dropped off for a 11km hike and then picked up in the afternoon for our return home.  This afternoon we did yet another kayak tour.  This time it was just us in a double kayak and our guide in a single, so no spatially challenged paddlers, oh no.

That’s it for Log 13.  Our time in NZ is coming to an end with just whale watching and crayfish (lobster) dinners to go.  There will probably be a Log 14 before we return to Oz.

8 April 2016

Dear All Travel Log Addressees,

After a break of about 4 months we decided the time was right for new adventures so we are now travelling through the South Island of the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand for the uninitiated).  The great thing about NZ is its close to Oz, they pretty much speak English and they understand you when you order a flat white.

We have come to the conclusion that our approach to travel is a little bit organic.  We are not good at planning and so it is with this trip; the flights were booked as was the first night in a motel and the motorhome that would be home for the next 21 days, after that we are making it up as we go.  Regardless of the lack of planning we are thoroughly enjoying our NZ wanderings.  NZ is similar to Oz but then again so different which inspires the following stream of consciousness:

• Before leaving Oz, our first OSM was at Sydney international airport.  We have all experienced Cattle Class when flying. Well, we have now discovered Goat Class.  It seems we export by airfreight live goats, packed tightly in wooden crates.  I am guessing reaching their destination is not a happy time for the goats and they are certainly packed in closer than the aforementioned Cattle Class.  So maybe on reflection Cattle Class is not so bad when you consider the alternative.
• I wonder if we will ever see stock yards at airports with drovers and their dogs working the passengers stock onto aircraft.  Is there an airport design option developing here?
• New Zealand is about the most neat and tidy country I have visited.  Even the trees on farms are trimmed so that they form tall, narrow barriers between fields; amazing.  The traffic is sparse and the scenery overwhelming; from amazing coastal vistas to mountains comparable with the Swiss Alps. And its empty; no freeways, no massive car parks, no long queues anywhere and no rubbish.  Rarely do you see a farm surrounded by rusting old cars and expired farm equipment.
• New Zealand is a bit like Scotland but with better roads and you can understand  what people are saying.
• The voices at the campgrounds are like the UN.  There are Germans, French, Koreans, Australians, Japanese, Chinese, even English and more to be heard on an average night at the camp kitchen.  The range of food being prepared is better than a food court at a Westfield shopping centre.
• The range of international visitors creates  a number of challenges on the road which is highlighted by the desire of the NZ government to stop these people killing themselves.   Over the men’s urinal in one town was a sign in about six languages exhorting drivers to stay on the left amongst other pretty obvious driving suggestions.  Accompanying the sign was a map depicting all the deaths on the local roads over a five year period with a key to how people had died, like driving on the wrong side of the road, driving too fast, too tired etc etc.  Seems this sign was only on display in the Men’s toilet.  Obviously the women don’t stay long enough in the toilet to read such a comprehensive piece of public information.
• Have you ever packed away the camera about 2 seconds too early?  We had decided that enough megapixels had been collected and so the camera was put away at the very moment we drove under a hawk that was hovering probably two metres above the road and just to the side.  We virtually drove under it with no pics to prove the event.  It was amazing.
• Last night we spent the evening chatting with our neighbours, a couple from Taiwan.  It was a great conversation about running a farm, life and politics in Taiwan. Tonight the camp kitchen is full of high school students from Thailand along with families from China and India (I think).
• Amusing sign yesterday “Stay Left, It’s That Simple”; you have to chuckle at the New Zealand ability to be so blunt and should this sign be in more languages and not just English.
• As an example of cultural challenges, tonight’s campground toilets include instructions on how to use the loo and where to put the paper.   I wonder if the same instructions are in the ladies loo; maybe they just know these things or again the ladies don’t have the time to read such instructions? Whatever, it’s always nice to have something to read in the loo. NZ is not the most exotic location but it continues to entertain.
• Amusing road sign today “Hidden Queue Ahead”.  Why is there a queue in the middle of nowhere and more importantly why is it hidden?
• There are signs everywhere that NZ is doing OK, be it the number of Land Cruisers, BMWs, Mercedes and fancy boats owned by the locals or just the quality of shops and restaurants.  Seems there is money in sheep and dairy.

3 November 2015

Dear All Travel Log Addressees,

The following reflections have been inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii, specifically the island of Maui to catch up with Barb’s three sisters and one sister-in-law who shall be referred to in the collective form as The Sisters throughout this piece.

• This was our 14^th trip to the US to visit family and the first that did not involve 30 hours of travel, a multitude of security queues and the ever changing TSA rules on what you must remove from your person or bags in order to move to the next level of the game.   This game is also designed to bring forth the grumpy old man within me, to insight Pele, the Hawaiian fire goddess to come forward.  Fortunately, like Pele there are no violent eruptions just small releases of steam.
• Apart from being the token male my role on this trip was not dissimilar to that of Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy.  From the moment we arrived I had become the designated driver.  Now whilst I enjoyed that job, gleaning accurate driving instructions from five different voices with a multitude of simultaneous conversations overlaying the instructions, whilst driving on the other side of the road was entertaining.  Regardless of our efforts we observed no road rage in Maui.
• I believe the role of driver was in recognition that I could never keep up with or contribute to the ten different, simultaneous conversations that were occurring in the back of the vehicle.
• We attended a Luau.  The Sisters were very pleased to receive leis as they entered the venue.  I had a string of black nuts hung around my neck.  I am told they are Kukui nuts.  So while The Sisters got flowers I got a string of nuts.  I wondered why this was and have come the conclusion its part of a game conducted by the waiting staff at the Luau.  The way the game works is the guy handing out the necklace of black nuts selects the guest with the daggiest, and most colourful Hawaiian shirt and he indicates his selection by awarding the necklace of nuts.  Now throughout the evening the waiting staff move amongst the guests checking out the other Hawaiian shirts.  They then award points for whether the guy who had awarded the necklace had picked the worst shirt.  Each night this process continues and at the end of the season the votes are tallied and the person with the most points wins the money. So I am assuming I got the black nuts because of my outstandingly colourful shirt!
• When it comes to travel there are all sorts of new high tech gadgets designed to make your travel easier.  We have high wicking, quick drying, SPF50 clothes that protect us from the sun, they breathe in high humidity and yet keep us warm in the cold.  There are sandals with super comfortable heals and grips designed to take us to the slopes of Everest. And there are more, however all these new fangled items pale into insignificance when compared to a disabled parking permit, the ultimate travel accessory.  US parking spaces are large by world standards but disabled spaces are huge and they are at the front door to resorts and places of interest.  We did have some mobility issues in the group including the very recent installation of a titanium knee so the parking permit was very much appreciated.  My challenge now is how to get a disabled parking permit that will be recognised in all countries.  Imagine, like an international driving licence, having an international parking permit.
• In the UK you will see cars from Germany and France.  In NSW you will see cars from Victoria, Queensland or even WA.  Yet in Hawaii you will see only cars with Hawaiian rego plates.  I can only conclude, and this might be a long shot that people don’t drive to Hawaii!
• Hawaii and in particular the island of Oahu has a very unique homeless problem.  It seems some homeless people in North America have decided homelessness in Hawaii is a much better option than on the mainland.  I would have to say the choice between winter in Alberta or Waikiki is really no choice.  Whole families are arriving without jobs, money, or shelter or even knowing anyone in Hawaii.  One story involved the estranged wife in Florida who bought her ne’er-do-well ex-husband a one way ticket to Honolulu.  It’s the Hawaiian version of illegal immigrants and the proposed solution – you wouldn’t believe it, the local politicians want to house them on an island and off the streets of Honolulu.  It’s amazing how wherever you go the preferred solutions seem to be the same.  (reference to Australian treatment of illegal boat arrivals)
• We enjoyed a morning snorkelling in the Molokini crater.  The crater is an extinct volcano just off the coast of Maui.  The snorkelling was great fun but after about one hour in the water a subtle change occurred.   No it wasn’t the tide or the arrival of sharks or something similar.  After about an hour about nine more snorkelling tour boats had arrived and suddenly the balance had changed- there were more looking at the fish than there were fish to look at.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration but there were an awful lot of people in that crater.
• In Australia we introduced the cane toad to eat a beetle that lived in the sugar cane where the toad couldn’t venture.  The toad has gone on to become a huge ecological disaster.  In Hawaii they introduced the mongoose to control rats and mice in the sugar cane.  The rats and mice were nocturnal and the mongooses were active in the daytime.  Result, the mongoose ate all the ground based native birds in Hawaii; same story in New Zealand with weasels.   The end result Maui is infested with Indian Myna birds and native birds are long gone.  The other wild animals on Maui are goats, pigs and deer – yep none native to the islands.  A familiar story maybe?
• Definition of remote in Hawaii – your cell phone doesn’t work.  Car rental companies don’t like their cars on the south side of Maui because there is no cell phone access – where would that put most car rental companies in Australia?   The road had a section of dirt (500 metres) and was narrow in a couple of places (better than most roads in Scotland) and yet this was remote wilderness.  I guess it all depends on the local context.
• In contrast Honolulu with only 347,000 people enjoys freeways of six lanes in each direction.  It’s like LA in the middle of the Pacific.
• Final comment and a bit of consultant speak.  (Consultant speak in italics.)   To make the seven days work to everyone’s satisfaction I won the job of facilitating a planning session.  The planning identified the desired outcomes that were common to all participants and those specific to the few.  We agree a way forward and importantly, and almost uniquely when compared to organisational business plans, we stuck with it and made no changes.   This ensured the shared goal was achieved, namely to have a good time whilst allowing for lots of variation from sunset dinners at sea, to helicopter rides and snorkelling tours all according to the preferences of the individual team members.  All done without the use of PowerPoint.  In future reunions I am sure we will unpack this trip in order to better define what team dynamics came into play that facilitated the success of this coming together of The Sisters.

All travel has been suspended for the upcoming summer and fire season.  There will be a No 11 in the series I just don’t know when or what the subject of No 11 might be.  As always if you don’t want these emails cluttering up your inbox just drop me a note.

Yours in perpetual confusion when it comes to the TSA

20 September 2015

Greetings to any new addressees to this email travel log.  This is number nine in the series and the first to come from SE Asia.  I had intended completing this piece while travelling but that didn’t happen so here it is, a little late.

Aircraft Travel:

• After spending lots of time in airports especially in queues and suffering the interruptions caused by other people I have concluded airport design needs to be re-thought.  There are great similarities between airports and farms and my thinking is based on the Australian sheep farm or maybe a train shunting yard. What I envisage is each passenger wearing a bar code, similar to the ear tag worn by cattle.  As you move through the airport the bar code would be scanned and barriers and gates would open and close, rise and fall, quietly directing you to your departure gate without you (the sheep) having to read a sign.  This would be efficient and would reinforce the whole airport experience of processing fresh meat.
• My second design concept is moving walkways as you approach the immigration and security gates.  The moving walkway would avoid the frustration caused by people not moving according to my expectations and allowing large gaps to develop between them and the next group.  Everyone would move forward and be processed at the right speed.
• During the flight I have discovered that dark energy and dark noise exist within the plane fuselage.  These dark forces, like the universe make up 90% of your experience on the plane but they have never been truly identified or measured.
• At takeoff dark noise might sound like a small person screaming ‘I want a window seat, I want a window seat, I want a window seat.’  During descent and landing dark noise is like a lot of screaming similar to the noise left over after the Big Bang.
• Dark energy is again unseen but is more focussed.  Typically it comes in the form of sudden flexing and pressure in the lower part of your backrest.  It’s not dissimilar to a small person kicking the back of your seat.  I use that example purely for illustration purposes, no child under the supervision of their parent would ever do that – it’s dark energy.  Dark energy also causes the seat in front of you to come crashing down just as you are eating your meal.  These are very dark forces and yet to be adequately explained.
• Dark energy and dark noise have mass and are affected by the velocity of the aircraft   How do I know this you ask? I realised these two forces are only found at the rear of the aircraft.  In the front of the fuselage they are only in small amounts and hardly noticeable.

Vietnam and Cambodia.

Traffic:

• Did you know there are five sides of the road on which to drive?
  • Drive a right hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road (Australia)
  • Drive a left hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road (USA)
  • Drive a right hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road (UK vehicle in Europe)
  • Drive a left hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road (European car in the UK)
  • Its discretionary; anywhere you like (Vietnam and Cambodia)
• The best way to describe traffic in Vietnam and Cambodia is to compare it to blood flow or fluid dynamics.  Motor bikes are like red blood cells carrying the oxygen and nutrition (people and goods) the city needs to operate.  The motor bikes flow down arteries and veins in a fluid motion, only occasionally slowing at stop signs and flowing around intersections filling the entire space available including both sides of the road and the footpath.
• To cross these roads you have to understand you are part of a flow, nothing will stop for you, it will simply flow around you. This includes the time you are riding a motorbike (as a passenger) and a bus wants to cross the road right where you are.  There is no road rage just thousands of people on motor bikes trying to get to their destinations.  9 million people in Saigon and 6 million motor bikes!

History:

• Helipads from the Australian army base of the Vietnam war era are now soccer fields and the runway at Nui Dat is now a country road.  There is a kindergarten built by Aussie Vietnam veterans.  The field where concerts were performed for the troops is now an open field at a cross road of two minor country roads. What was so important 40 years ago is now quietly reverting into the local landscape.
• History in this part of the world can be very confronting, be it the Vietnam war (known as the American war in Vietnam) or the times of Pol Pot in Cambodia.  And yet regardless of the history and the traumas experienced the people just get on with life and the challenges of living in a developing country.  The past is the past.
• While Pol Pot was not held to account for his crimes there is a view that he will get his in his next life.  It’s all about karma and his next incarnation many believe will be as some low life, maybe a cockroach.  This attitude allows the people of Cambodia to move and not be dragged down by its past.  This is quite different from other cultures that continue to passionately celebrate battles from 300 years ago!

The People:

• When asked about politics in Vietnam the response was we have two systems; the government is communist and the economy capitalist.
• The Cambodians have a wonderful saying: We smile to change the world and don’t let the world change our smile.
• A description by a Cambodian of their neighbours and their attitude to life:
  • Vietnamese they are running
  • Cambodians they are walking
  • People from Laos, they are sleeping
• We visited the largest Buddhist monastery in Cambodia and received a blessing.  At lunch time we were looking into a large pavilion that had a large number of lay monks preparing for lunch.  In the front of the room close to the alter with the Buddha was a lay monk chanting. I think he was chanting something along the lines of whether people  wanted the banquet for lunch or whether they wanted to order off the menu.  The response, in chant, was they wanted the banquet or wanted to order on their own and then there was the one guy who didn’t want chillies. This goes on for some time until they all agree on the banquet.  At this time the bell is rung.  The bell is a brake drum from a truck and it has perfect tone.  The monk rings the bell and has a wink and a wicked smile.  He either knows it’s a truck part he is ringing or he is pleased they have agreed on the banquet.  At that time the monks, in saffron robes walk in procession from the pagoda to the pavilion where lunch is served.  They are very quiet and solemn, clearly wondering what they are getting for lunch today.
• The Cambodians have their own form of Vietnamese boat people – who would have thought!  The Vietnamese came to Cambodia in 1979 and since the Cambodian government won’t give them identity papers they live in floating villages on lagoons just off the Mekong river.
• The flooding season comes every year and people just move themselves and some of their livestock to higher ground.  There is no panic, no 24 hour news reporting, no scenes of sand bagging they just move on and are happy with a new layer of silt in their rice paddies.

Wildlife in Cambodia:

• There is none, it was eaten.  Time were tough under Pol Pot and the Vietnamese so all the wildlife was eaten.  Cambodians will eat anything with four legs except a table and anything that flies except an aircraft. Tarantulas, crickets and cockroaches are all up for consumption.

Tourism

• The wet season is great; the tourists avoid the place.  It is however very hot in the morning and wet for about an hour in the afternoon.
• Narcissism rocks.  All of your photographs must now be of you and all your friend’s photos will be of them.  No longer is it sufficient to photograph a 1000 year old temple.  You must photograph yourself with a 1000 year old temple in the background or maybe you with a stone causeway in the background, or you with an ancient moat in the background.  All pictures must be of you striking a pose similar to the cover of Vogue. I’ll say no more.
• In Vietnam everyone is a millionaire; they must be a round of drinks costs VND240,000 and a massage VND1,320,000.

The Future:

• Cambodia and Vietnam are developing as fast as they can.  Cambodian GDP growth is about 7% pa, up there with China.
• In Saigon they are building an underground rail network.  In years to come the motorbikes will be vastly reduced and maybe you will see pigs on trains.
• New buildings and multi storey office blocks are going up. The people of Saigon are very proud of the European labels that are available in their city; Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Chanel etc.  Of course the tourists come to see the old French colonial architecture and the chaos of a developing country.    In 10 years the place will be very different – go now.

That’s it, I’ve said enough.  As always, if you don’t want these emails just drop me a note and you will be off the list.   For the new readers, previous emails have covered travel to Queensland, New York, England, Scotland and SA.  The next stream of consciousness is likely to occur in four weeks and will align with a family reunion; I’ll say no more.

13 August 2015

The return home:

We spent our time wandering along the Murray River and into SA, the Flinders Ranges and the Clare Valley.  The car, filled with cartoons of wine and the credit card feeling a little overworked; we agreed it was time to go home.

This has been another adventure that has been based on very broad ideas like lets go somewhere along the Murray River and beyond that it’s just evolved as we have travelled.  We are not good at detailed planning, it happens as we travel and as opportunities arise.  The best example of this organic style of travel is after a excellent dinner at Rawnsley Park in the Flinders Ranges and a bottle of Seven Hills Shiraz we decided that Clare Valley was a place we needed to go since that was where the wine came from.  We now have a dozen bottles of their wine on board.

The final observations for this trip:

• We cleaned up the mandarins expecting to go through another fruit inspection station but that didn’t happen and so we planned to get more fruit down the road and guess what, we had left the citrus country and therefore no fruit stands on the side of the road.  We are now in the country where fruit comes from supermarkets.  The lesson for all; never assume mandarins will always be there and grab opportunities when they arise.
• We travelled across the famous Hay Plains on our return.  We have heard much about the Hay Plains but had never experienced them.  We have been told they are flat and boring.  How wrong can they be, there were several highlights for us on this section of the road.  There was a hill, two curves in the road and a tree.  The hill and the tree were in the same place so that was very exciting and when I say hill what I mean is a slight rise.  I could see a truck that had past us for about another hour, at that time it was just a tiny black square on the horizon, just a pixel on a very flat landscape.  This section of road was over 110kms (70 miles) so it was pretty exciting.
• We did see a cow.  She was about 2 kms or  maybe a mile from other cows which suggests she slept in that morning or was the type of cow that just didn’t need the company of others.
• The Hay Plains are so flat you could use a sextant and a good time piece to calculate your position.  The horizon is visible in all directions.  If you were away from the road it would be very easy to get lost since there are no landmarks not even farm buildings!
• You get a sense of how hot it gets out here in the summer with property names like Hells Gate.  It is believed Hells Gate property is the reference in Banjo Patterson’s poem Hay, Hell and Booligal, an Australia classic.
• I mentioned this country is flat and dry.  Flat is good for agriculture but how is it we grow so much rice in such dry country.  All through this area are vast rice farms.  What isn’t under rice is dedicated to cotton, again a heavy user of water.  We could not see these fields since they were well away from the road, closer to the river and irrigated water.
• You know its cotton country by all the cotton on the side of the road.  At first I thought it was litter but there was just too much even for the grubby individuals in this country who think chucking stuff out the window is ok.  For miles and miles cotton decorated the side of the road – may be they could harvest the cotton fluff on the side of the road and avoid having to grow it.
• The country towns out here have that look about them that says their best days were in the past.  Boarded up and empty shops are everywhere.  Farms have gotten bigger and people are able to drive great distances to buy their supplies. However what remains in these town is that country pace to life where everyone has time to chat, no one is in a hurry.  You can park your truck, leave the motor running and walk into the bakery to buy several pies and sausage rolls (obviously for your mates); where people drop into the store grabs six loaves of bread and call out to shop assistant to put it on the account as they leave the shop.  That would never happen in the bigger towns and cities.
• We visited Lake Mungo, which although described as a lake and it was for about 40,000 years has in fact been dry for 18,000 years.  Is calling it a lake overstating the congeniality of the area just to attract more tourism, I wonder?  Let me say don’t take your ski boat to Lake Mungo there are no launching ramps.  Regardless, it is in this area that they found the remains of a woman and man.  She died 41,000 years ago and he somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago (his dates are still being debated).  There have also been footprints found that are 20,000 years old.  This is a very long time ago when you compare it to the 227  years since Capt Phil turned up in Sydney cove with a bunch of convicts.
• Imagine for a moment Mungo Woman and Mungo Man finishing a meal of mussels, fish and some left over giant kangaroo, maybe the last of giant macropods.  As the sun sets over the lake, Mungo Man suggests a good coffee would finish off their dinner.  She replies, “Mate, it’ll be 40,000 years before they’ll get a decent barista out here”.  And she would be right, because now in the middle of nowhere you can get an excellent coffee at the four star Lake Mungo Lodge.
• Final comment about footprints.  Whilst the evidence of modern man is seen in all the campgrounds you can still see evidence of Cobb and Co coaches (stagecoaches) near the lake.  These tracks are over a 150 years old.  Cobb and Co coach routes covered all of outback Queensland, NSW and Victoria.  In its heyday they would on an average day have 6,000 horses in harness or about 1500 coaches on the road.  Imagine the blacksmiths, harness makers, stables, and stock feed suppliers required to maintain such an organisation. No wonder there were so many small towns.  And all of this was achieved without an Excel spreadsheet or TripAdvisor.com.au!

5 August 2015

After a hiatus of 10 months I decided it’s time to put finger to key board and to tap out a new travel log.  We are not travelling through any exotic foreign setting rather we are travelling through the southern parts of Australia along the Murray River and then on to South Australia, the Flinders Ranges and the Clare Valley wine region.  Of course for the foreign readers of this log these locations would be very exotic – it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.

I have found trying to view my own country through fresh eyes is a challenge, it’s not like driving through the wilds of Scotland and seeing everything for the first time.  Maybe that’s why it’s taken me a while to get inspired to write and to appreciate what is quirky and different about this place. So on a cold and rainy day a number of observations come to mind.

• In his book Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond described  Australia as the oldest, flattest, driest and most infertile continent of all the continents.   Clearly he wasn’t here when mandarins were on sale from road side stalls for $3 for a huge bag.  The tricky bit is the Quarantine stations are down the road from where you bought the fruit and you  now have two days to gorge on mandarins.  Once you cross into the next Quarantine zone you get to buy a fresh bag of mandarins. Maybe this is just a very clever marketing strategy.
• Beyond the irrigated citrus groves the country is flat, rocky and covered in salt bush.  Only good for sheep, roos and emus.
• Jared Diamond was on the mark about FLAT.  We started this trip at the Murray river for a four day trip on a houseboat with two other couples.  This is a trip we have done before and we are getting better at manoeuvring this floating two storey apartment complete with four bathrooms, spa, five flat screen TVs and a barbeque.  It handles like a brick and there is an art in navigating it around the many meanderings of the river.   Back to FLAT.  We call it the Murray River however in a little over 1700 river kms (1061 miles) the river drops just 96 metres (315 feet) that means it falls 1metre in every 17 kms (approx 3 feet every 11 miles).  So maybe it should be described as a really long and skinny lake rather than a river, after all in most years it doesn’t even break through to the ocean.
• From Lake Murray we drove into the Flinders Ranges.  The rocks that make up the ranges are about 650 million years old.  That’s well before the Vikings invaded the UK and a few years before Mungo woman died in southern NSW.  Her skeleton indicated she died 41,000 years ago and foot prints near Lake Mungo are about 40,000 years old.  Unfortunately someone walking the tracks we covered in the Flinders felt the ‘millions’ was inaccurate and removed the word from all the information boards, suggesting the rocks were 650 years old.  I don’t mind creationists believing what they believe, I do object to them vandalising informative panels in a national park. And are they suggesting these rocks are younger than the pyramids?
• Since we are not travelling in traditional holiday periods ie summer or the school holidays, means we are surrounded by people who like us are not locked into work or school timetables.  This means we see ourselves everywhere we go, in bakeries, at the camp grounds, in the stores, at the petrol stations.  When I say we see ourselves I mean people of our age demographic.  That’s ok, what gets weird is when you are in a camp kitchen and you find all these older people on their smart phones, tablets and laptops because this is the only place in the camp where you can get the internet and mobile coverage.  Gone are the days when it would have been masses of 13 year old boys on their hand held Gameboys.  Now its older people checking their emails, downloading photos to Facebook, Skyping grandchildren and arguing with their partner about what app they can’t download.  How times have changed.  Have you noticed the voice grandparents use when talking to their grandchildren over the phone or via Skype?  Its kinda high pitched with a rising inflection and used exclusively for grandchildren.  It’s so hard to have a private conversation in a large room with 20 other people!
• Emus and non traditional families.  We have seen many emu mobs of 20 to 30 birds and were curious about these large gatherings.  It turns out after the eggs are laid dad emu incubates the eggs.  He then looks after the hatchlings for the next 2 years while mum has cleared off to follow her own pursuits.  Now if there is a dad who decides child care is not his thing he hands over his brood to another dad who seems to be doing the job.  In this way it is common to observe one dad emu looking after 20 to 30 young birds who are almost as big as he is.  After a couple of years the chicks are independent and I guess he goes looking for another female to start the process all over again.  Is this why the emu is on the Australian Coat of Arms?  Are we recognising his perseverance, willingness to forgo hanging out with his emu mates and being a good dad?
• Speaking of our national symbols; a couple of nights ago we enjoyed dinner at a very remote pub in the middle of nowhere.  The proprietor challenged me on this observation commenting the pub was equal distant from Oodnadatta,  Broken Hill and Adelaide and was therefore in the centre of everything.  For the USA based readers see if you can find these locations on Google maps or Google earth.  Back to the national symbols; for dinner we enjoyed emu, kangaroo, camel and wallaby.  Two of these meat sources make up the Australian coat of arms.  Isn’t it great that we can enjoy our national symbols with a nice shiraz.  I am not sure US citizens are ready to eat bald eagle but maybe the turkey could be your national bird.
• We are now in wine country and today we sampled wines from a Jesuit run winery.  Being a church they pay no taxes on their wine which I am sure is appreciated by their local competitors.  And even though they pay no taxes their wine is no less expensive. I have to say their wine has been one of the highlights of the trip.
• Final comment.  On this trip we are enjoying our new truck which has now received its first chipped windscreen and rock damage on one of the doors from a passing vehicle.  Don’t have to worry about keeping it pristine any more.

That’s it for the moment.  As always if you would prefer to be removed from this email list just drop me a note no offence will be taken.

26 September 2014

This is the last for this trip.  We are safely ensconced in the Admiral Club at Heathrow having gone through the new security regime.  I am glad we got here very early and I would not like to be going through that process when the hordes descend.  No upgrade this time.

I have been asked to provide some ideas on where one might go if travelling to the UK.  So here are some of my random thoughts based on the experience of this trip.

• First consider what it is you want to see.  We decided that for this trip our attention would be given to the countryside, places off the normal tourist route, to stay in places for several days to get the feel of the area and an avoidance of the big cities like London.
• Our approach on this trip was to spread our time in four areas, spending about a week in each.  The places we visited were Derbyshire and the Peak District, the Scottish highlands and specifically the western islands, the York district and finally Gloucestershire and the Cotswold area.
• Next time we would probably visit the Lakes District, Cornwall, the northern parts of Scotland and maybe the Portsmouth area.
• I would also repeat our approach of staying in self catering cottages preferably within walking distance of a village (pub) and for the time when you are travelling distances, B&Bs.
• Rent a 4 cylinder, diesel, compact car with a manual transmission.  Driving those country lanes is a lot of fun.
• Bring your unlocked iPad and buy a data only SIM.  Great for research, bookings and navigation.
• Chat with the locals.  Our most memorable conversations were with the maintenance guy at York Minster (he’d been there for 40 years and had all the stories), two chaps who were doing a 100 mile walk in the Hadrian wall area; one argued that Durham Minster was the best and the other argued for York, so we had to visit both; the guy in the coffee shop out of Mallaig was very articulate about the vote for independence, as was the guy walking his dog in the Forest of Dean.  Of course Eddie Groves, our host at Riber must be included in this list.  Eddie is a sculptor, biologist and a man who has travelled all over Britain.     These conversations made the trip and provided us with lots of material for the where to next Things we didn’t see but should be on the list:
  • Governor Lachlan Macquarie, the first  governor of NSW and maybe the father of Australia is buried on the island of Mull.  His mausoleum is maintained by both the Scottish and Australian governments.  We drove past the sign but didn’t have time to stop, ferry timetables and all that.
  • Check out the island of Gigha.  It’s just off  Kintyre and is described as the Bahamas of Scotland.  Seems it has palm trees and sandy beaches, something to do with gulf streams.  Of course the Scots are prone to exaggeration and regardless of the comparison I would not trust the water temperature.
  • Check out Whitby, lots of Jimmy Cook stuff here.
• Some random thoughts on the places we saw and would recommend and other just random thoughts:
  • Visit the Peak District and for your walks start at Fox House, where all the best walks start.  Also check out the industrial revolution history in the area.
  • Go to Bakewell on a Monday  (its market day) and visit the cattle auction, full of characters who speak in strange grunts and inflections.  Try a Bakewell pudding (it’s better than the tart)  but be sure to go to the bakery next to NatWest bank.  Park outside of the village because in the village parking is impossible.
  • The Scottish highlands are amazing.  Be prepared to walk and maybe invest in trekking poles – they help the knees and back.
  • Nothing like a Minster to get you questioning what you forgot from history lessons at high school.
  • Visit in September – the kids are back in school and the weather is at its best.
  • We thought joining the National Trust would be the go, free entry and all that.  Seems there are two organisations in town  The National Trust and British Heritage.  After we bought National Trust membership all the sites we wanted to visit were British Heritage!
  • Remember to pace yourself, the distances may not look far in Australian terms but driving in the UK is different.
  • Read the websites closely.  If you are allergic to cats read the detail about the B&B, the owner might be cat crazy.  I’ve said enough.
  • Over 60s get at least £1.00 off entry, everywhere!
  • If you a railway buff this is the place for you.
• Be prepared to be surprised, the British are exceptionally intuitive.  To my amazement I could walk into a pub, order a pint and the bar man or woman would say, What part of Oz are you from?  How do they know that?  It’s got to be intuition, ESP or maybe it’s the fairies that tell them.
• When driving through the western islands of Scotland it’s important to have the right music.  We found the soundtrack to the Shipping News worked as did the music to Braveheart.  The music needs to match to landscape.  Australian country and western or any C&W would not work.  BBC2 Radio has great interviews but listening to Jimmy Hendrix this morning didn’t match the Gloucestershire scenery.
• Do not get drawn into the badger issue its more controversial that Scottish independence.
• Remember the mantra of all visitors / travellers you can’t see it all.  This can be difficult to accept but it is reality.  The more you uncover the more there will be to explore and even if you lived there you won’t see it all in a lifetime.

That’s it.  I hope you have enjoyed these ramblings.  I am now looking forward to 26 hours of flying (not) and then dealing with 6 weeks of mail (not) but seeing Jess and Emily will be something to look forward to.

24 September 2014

This will be the penultimate tale before we end these travels and head home.  If time permits there may be a final rant at the airport, the airport is such a rich environment for spleen venting.

Scotland

• The Scottish have voted and independence is off the agenda but now everyone is arguing about devolution of law making to not only the Scots but also the English.  This referendum hasn’t resolved anything just made the question more complicated.  The way they are heading they will end up with four States and one federal government – don’t do it.

History

• We are now in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire near the Welsh border.  We visited an iron ore mine that dates back before the Romans and into the iron age.  Here 9 year olds worked 10 hour days hauling 60kg loads of ore.  They started the working day in the dark, worked underground all day and finished after the sun had set.  They worked by the light of a candle held between their teeth.  Ah, the good old days.
• History has a very different context here in the UK.  You can be on one site that includes iron age, Roman, Norman, Saxon and medieval remains; it’s quite overwhelming.  In Durham Minster there is tomb that may hold the Venerable Bede’s remains.  Now this guy dies in 735AD;  400 years later his remains are moved to Durham where they have been these past 900 years.  Australia as a westernised country has existed but for about 225 years.  Compare our timeframe with that of the history of the Venerable Bede.
• The Roman ruins at Vindolanda are really interesting and you can see the roads and various buildings.  You can walk around these ruins and think well that’s it.  A quick chat with the archaeologists and you discover this site goes for another mile to the north that is still cow paddocks, that it was occupied for 400 years (see comment re Australia) and that in excess of 6000 people lived here.  He went on to say there is 250 years of archaeology work to be done.  At this point my brain is full.

Roads and Navigation

• We continue to enjoy these narrows roads.  The Forest of Dean is punctuated by substantial villages in almost every valley. You can be driving through sheep and cattle farms and then around the corner come across a village of several hundred houses and as you approach the village be prepared for a double-decker bus coming toward you on that same narrow road.  Nothing like the Australian bush.
• When I asked for directions to the local village I got the classic, ‘turn left where mill race used to be’ (this needs to be said with a broad southern English accent).  I followed the directions through a cow paddock and followed the brook.  I proceeded down a footpath that seemed to be within someone’s backyard to emerge on the main road.  On my return I discovered the house beside the footpath was the Mill House so maybe I did follow where the mill race used to be.  These directions remind me of Wamboin directions to turn right where the shop used to be or in Queanbeyan where the Post Office used to be.
• I would add the paddock I had to walk through was full of some very bad cows.  Everyone of them had an electronic tracking bracelet on their leg so I am assuming they have been bad and had to remain in that paddock.  One large group congregated right where I had to walk; it was a direct challenge but I pressed on and got a lot of very serious cow stares.
• I have gone on about the narrow roads but I thought I would explain how close the houses are to the road.  In some villages the front door opens onto the road.  For some houses you could fit a lawn chair at the front of your house but it couldn’t be a recliner, your feet would be scraping the sides of passing traffic.  Think I am joking?
• In the UK events and places sometimes get quite grand names.  In Scotland a local map recorded an area that was tidal, it was called The Great Muck.  There is regular reference to a major storm back in 2005, it is referred to as The Great Storm and motorway signs for south or north describe The North or The South.  Maps even record the name of a wood which for us would be a couple of acres of trees, but no in the UK its Smith Woods.  The farms are also listed by name such as Browns Farm.  If you had a sign just outside Canberra that said The West you right assume the road took you to Perth.  Of course in the US a sign that said The South would have political and historic implications that we aren’t forgetting!

People

• I know stereotypes are never accurate and can be dangerous but here goes; the UK local on a summer day is:
  • Eating an ice cream
  • Has a least one dog on the leash
  • Is probably smoking (difficult I know with the dog and ice cream)
  • If in a couple may well be holding hands (even more difficult with the dog, ice cream and cigarette)
  • Is not wearing a hat.  Hardly anyone here wears a hat, not even the school kiddies.  Might have something to do with the weather.
• In any earlier tale I mentioned the cattle auctions in Bakewell.  What I didn’t mention was that just about all the farmers looked and sounded like characters from Thomas Hardy’s book Far From the Madding Crowd – see the 1960s version.  The auction also caused me to think about the Roma Queensland cattle auctions where 7000 cattle were auctioned in a day versus 700 in Bakewell.  In Roma it was an outside affair, dusty and hot, in Bakewell it was in a very comfortable inside arena where 2 or 3 cows are auctioned at a time and driven away in trucks appropriate for that number of cows.  In Roma it was B Doubles and road trains.  Farming here is very different, more intense and in country that has been farmed for thousands of years.

Sunshine in general

• The camp grounds here  generally are just an open field, not a tree in sight.  No shade anywhere.  Wouldn’t work in Australia.  And in Scotland a campsite was called a pitch.  Maybe that’s where we get cricket pitch.
• No one chases the shady carpark so your car isn’t too hot when you come back to it.  Don’t they know how important it is to get the best shady carpark; better than everyone else.

Food and drink

• If you ask for a beer in an English pub you will be asked; an ale or a lager?  What no one asks that in Australia, so be prepared.  Ales tend to be heavier and less aerated.  The ales and lagers here are amazing and there seems to different ones on offer in every pub.  Some many pubs and so little time!
• Pub food is often fish and chips, steak and ale pies, roast beef, pork or lamb and lots of other stuff.  You can guess my focus.
• For breakfast you can get courageous and try black pudding (one try was enough for me), maybe kippers (smoked herrings) which were pretty good, or in Scotland smoked haddock and egg or haggis.  I never tried the haggis.  Of course in Scotland porridge is also offered.
• Eating time is also such a fun time to observe the table and eating habits of other cultures.  No judgement just observation, although I do have my mother’s voice in my head telling how to eat properly when I see some more of the more unusual approaches.  Doesn’t everyone eat like I was taught; don’t they know what’s right and what’s wrong.   You don’t lick your knife and you don’t put the cereal bowl to your mouth to drain the last bit of milk, I mean geez!

That’s it for the moment.  Today will be one last jaunt and then the packing thing – remember the reference to black holes.