Festivals and Park Life

(This week I 'ave been mostly taking pictures in Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park.)

It's a weird thing but the more I want to concentrate on regularly updating the big trip site and the more enjoyable I find writing blogs and trying to catch some great photos to stick on here, the less often the site gets updated.

Actually, it's not a weird thing. I'm just too busy and distracted... And when I do find myself in front of a computer I just have a whole host of other things to do, and always plenty of emails to get through - which is a good, nay great, thing (thanks to all of you who are keeping in touch and apologies for any tardy responses on my part).

Anyway, enough excuses...

Big event for me in the last week was the V-festival. Australia will always struggle to do music festivals the way the UK can as most bands have quite a bit further to travel. In fact, Sydney's festival 'season' has tended in the past to be dominated by The Big Day Out, which I managed to miss by about a week when I arrived here in January.

Fortunately for me, this year saw Australia's first ever V-festival. And in spite of the aforementioned travel issues, the line-up was pretty impressive. It was great to be a festival-goer again and Beck, the Rapture, the Pixies and Nouvelle Vague were the highlights for me. Graeme, i have to say NV were very impressive live. I think it helps to have two gorgeous French singers in your lounge-fi band.... ...The Dead Kennedies have never sounded so alluring.

(some 'varied' photos of the gig will follow as soon as I can find an internet cafe that will accept a connection from my phone... honestly, updating this website is sometimes a labour of love)

Thanks to Ed for his cocktail-themed after-party. I have never drunk anything quite so green in all my life.

(Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park has some famous aboriginal engravings, which got me thinking on how the aboriginal people must have felt when, after 50,000 years of isolation, they first saw sailing boats appear on the horizon. I've tried to capture the expanse of the ocean and the sudden appearance of land. I'm not sure about the origin of the boat or what it was doing there but it gave me quite a nice shot.)

In other news, I met up with Alan, an old friend from the Scottish Executive last week. A few jars turned into a scramble for the last ferry, so a pretty good evening's drinking and catching up... Alan is making his own big trip with his girlfriend Rowenna and they have just arrived in Sydney. They have only been travelling for a couple of months so far, but already have a number of hairy stories from their trip round Africa, including broken ankles and truck crashes... check it out at their website: http://www.getjealous.com/alanrowena

Talking of Africa, I've made a slight refinement to the big trip plan. Life here in Sydney is going so well that I've decided to prolong my stay here, providing that John Howard agrees to extend my tourist visa. This will allow me to carry on with the work I am doing here at Opportunity International... which continues to go well. I have now completed the two articles on India that I was originally taken on to write. I've also been involved in a couple of other projects and they must like what I'm doing to some extent as I'm now moving into the strategic services team. This means I'll be working more on implementing projects than assisting with marketing the charity's work to donors.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I'll need to extend my visa to stay here and finish off the work. I still have some sponsorship money left over and I hope no-one objects if I use some of that to finance my application for a visa extension - John Howard is charging me an eye-watering A$205 for the privilege!! He obviously fails to appreciate the economic contribution I'm making to the Australian brewing industry...

The downside of this is that I'll have less time elsewhere. I've shortened my tour of Africa from 73 to 51 days. Lost time is mainly in Kenya, and I also won't be able to go trekking in Uganda to see the gorillas in the mist, although that's been less attractive anyway since I realised that I wouldn't actually be guaranteed to meet Sigourney Weaver as part of the experience.


(I've been scaring the wildlife again...)

Talking of wildlife, my exploration of New South Wales continues apace. I've got into a routine of working Monday to Thursday and being a tourist on Fridays (and Sydney socialite Saturdays and Sundays). Last Friday I went to a national park which is literally at the edge of the suburbs of Sydney. One minute you can be strolling down a city street and the next minute you can be almost stepping on a brown snake. And, erm... that's exactly what happened. I'd just nipped off the path for a second to answer the call of nature when this brown thing almost two-foot long (steady!) went shooting out from virtually under my foot and disappeared into the brush. Once again I almost very nearly literally had an accident in my mankini.

The brown snake is highly poisonous and the most aggressive snake in Australia. It has been known to chase people through trees and across open ground! No photo of the snake this time, but the couple of shots here can testify to the amazing wildlife opportunities within an hour of the city centre...

(What the heck is this fella?)

Off to Melbourne this weekend and at last getting to see the inimitable Ross Noble, and possibly even a game of Aussie Rules Football... the next update should also include mention of an appearance on Australian national TV (can it top the Bolivian debacle?) and further media exposure back in the UK!

(A tree.)

75th and 34th Birthday celebrations

(Deja vu. This looks like the start of the last blog... but click on the picture to open it and you'll see it's actually a mosaic made up from hundreds of classical paintings. This was produced with a great program that's free to download from http://www.aolej.com/mosaic/download.htm. Well worth trying!)

As if all the permanent attractions weren't enough, Sydney is one long series of events in the summer. I'm off to Ross Noble's show in the comedy festival soon and still hoping to see a film in the French film festival before it finishes. V-festival at the end of the month will be a real highlight for me, and a chance to see the Pixies, Beck, Groove Armada, Jarvis Cocker...

Sunday was the last day of Sydney Harbour Week (which actually lasted a fortnight if my arithmetic is correct) and the 75th anniversary of the opening of the harbour bridge. No fireworks, but some unusual lighting made for original pictures.

(Two hundred thousand people walked across the bridge, which was closed to traffic for the day.)

(A fire-boat in the harbour)

(There were plenty of 'events' on the day including fly-pasts by aircraft from each decade since the 1930s. The parachutists were a particular crowd-pleaser. In fact, the crowd seemed pretty easily pleased to me - there was a great atmosphere all day, which just proves that Australians really know how to hold a party.)


Talking of events, Chris' 43rd birthday (surely not 34??) passed off without serious incident at the weekend. Thanks to Caroline for cooking us all dinner on Saturday night. That kept us going until craving for kebabs hit us at 4am. Boy was I tired. I'm starting to pine for Glasgow's restrictive opening-hours legislation...

I've done plenty of work in the past week and I've also been working again on Chris' house. This time I was flooring the balcony. Given the precarious position and hard-manual labour, I did feel a kindred spirit with the builders of the Sydney Harbour Bridge... it was a disappointment when Chris refused to provide me with hob-nail boots and a billie-can.

Retreat and Advance

(the fabulous main pagoda at Nan Tien Temple, Wollongong)

I was feeling like a break from the big city last Friday. So I took myself out of Sydney for a long weekend and explored the South Coast of New South Wales.

(Coastal scene at beautiful Kiama)

My current obsession with photography led me to the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong. This is reputedly the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere and so seemed a fantastic place to grab a few interesting photographs.

And so it was. I had a really enjoyable stroll round the pagoda and temples grabbing a few pics. As I was exploring I happened to notice a small leaflet advertising a one-day Buddhist retreat for the Saturday. On further enquiry, it emerged that this was the first one-day retreat they had run since the temple opened ten years ago and there was one place left on the course. This seemed to be somewhat fateful to me - so I signed up on the spot.


So, after an evening in the beautiful town of Kiama, just a little further down the coast, I returned to the Nan Tien Temple on the Saturday and had a very relaxing and enlightening day with the Reverend Ning and about a dozen fellow students. We didn't have to wear robes (that's the two-day retreat) but we did do sitting, standing and walking meditation, Tai Chi and contemplation of Buddhist paintings. The day was thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing, ending with the daily drum and gong ceremony.

There's something quite grounding about being reminded of the importance of: compassion, mindfulness, self-awareness, respect for others, appreciating what we have, living in the present and not the past… In fact, almost all wisdom in Buddhism – to me at least – sounds like something I’ve heard before. But it’s no less important to hear these things as it’s so easy to forget them day-to-day.

(I like this photo. The wide-angle lens makes it appear as if the pagoda is about to fall over backwards, or perhaps more as if it is about to launch off into the sky. This seems satisfyingly apt, given that Buddhism is about enlightenment, and the quest to reach a higher state.)


Buddhism is a quest to find enlightenment through looking within. Meditation is a method of stilling the everyday thoughts . I found this really quite calming. However, it had been a particular struggle in the morning as I managed to 'misplace' my wallet and spent much of the first couple of meditation sessions wondering whether I'd left it in the backpackers or dropped it on the train.

Luckily I didn't have much in my wallet and besides making embarrassing calls to credit card companies - and not for the first time - it wasn't too traumatic.

I should of course be getting used to this by now. If Buddhism is about mindfulness, then my chances of changing career to become a monk are somewhat limited, given my incredible capacity to lose my posessions (wits, marbles...I hear you say).

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Lost to date at various times and in various countries: travel tickets, hotel room key (Easter Island), prescription sunglasses, prescription glasses (Belize), travel books, travel towel (Chile), penknive (confiscated as I was getting on the plane at Honduras airport), credit card (left in the cash machine at Honduras airport), sunhat, sunscreen, and most recently the legs for my trousers (they zip off), which lends credence to the idea that I would lose my own legs if they were detachable.

Footnote:

Interestingly, this just appeared on the BBC News site today!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6441631.stm

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A group of Buddhist monks in Malaysia is appealing for help to solve a problem with ants. Buddhism forbids devotees from harming any living creature. So the monks are looking for a creative and non-violent solution to deal with the insects, which are biting worshippers.

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The chief monk at Ang Hock Si Temple in Georgetown on Penang Island told the BBC that the ants are dropping from the temple's sacred bodhi tree onto people meditating below - and when they bite it causes painful swelling. While the chief monk practises "letting go" meditation to "let go" of the pain, out of consideration for worshippers less far along the path to enlightenment, the monks are looking for ways to persuade the ants to go.

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An attempt to remove them using a vacuum cleaner failed, so the Buddhist community is appealing for help. They cannot encourage anyone to harm the ants, but the chief monk says that if someone turns up unbidden and deals with them without the monks' involvement then that is the will of the universe.

Filling the gaps

(North Sydney - sunset)

Been so busy 'doing' 'stuff' in the last month that it took me forever to galvanise myself and update the website on Tasmania. That feels like ages ago now and I've been up to lots of other stuff...

Main news is that I have found somewhere to live... And it's not a youth hostel....

In fact it's really posh.

Sydney can be split into north, south, east and west regions. At least, that's the way Sydney Buses carve up the city for the purpose of organising their bus routes. East Sydney covers all the beaches and posh areas south of the harbour (eg Bondi, Bronte, Paddington etc). South Sydney covers everything from the central business district to the airport. West Sydney is best forgotten about and North Sydney is everything north of the harbour, including all the posh little bays that the ferries go to from the main ferry port. Through persistence and sheer luck I've managed to get myself a room in the poshest postcode in town.

(Surfer - Kiama beach)

I'm living on a little peninsula called Cremorne Point. Originally a park and gardens in the nineteenth century, most of the houses were built in the 1920s and 1930s and are designed in a fantastic artistic and ornate style with touches of art nouveau and classical architecture.

(Above - view out of the dining room window.)

The house I'm living in has been converted into five apartments and I am sharing one of these apartments with an Australian couple. The flat itself seems very comfortable and 'well presented'. More exciting is my commute to work, which consists of a one-minute walk through the trees to a tiny ferry pier, from where I catch a ferry for a 15 minute journey across the harbour between the Opera House and the Harbour and then have a 5 minute walk to work. To be honest, it's not the most practical location in town - especially when leaving the 24-hour bars in town - but it's a pretty special place to stay for a couple of months.

(Below - view from the ferry on the way to work.)

Another big development - for the blog at least - is an investment in a new camera. This was a bit of a birthday present for myself. I've become very keen on photography since starting this trip and wanted something a bit more professional that would give me better results. The camera arrived just in time for the Tasmania trip so hopefully you can tell the difference!

(Right - ok it's only a seagull! But it was pretty far away... Hopefully a sign of better wildlife photography to come.)

I've also since bought wide angle and telephoto lenses for the camera. The wide-angle will allow for panoramic shots, while I can now get 24x optical zoom which should be able to get some extreme close-ups and hopefully more effective wildlife pictures.

(Canon S3-IS. 6.0MP and 12x optical zoom. Right with telephoto lens.)

(Really pleased with results so far as the following shots hopefully show...)

(Above - wide angle gives a pretty satisfying panoramic shot. This is taken from the roof of the hostel I stayed in for a few days in Darlinghurst. The Sydney Tower - tallest building in Sydney - is in the centre of the shot, at a distance of about a mile)

(Above - at maximum zoom (24x) you get a pretty good close-up of the top of the Sydney Tower from the same position)

Work on Chris' house is going a great rate and he hopes to be in by Easter. That's largely due to professionals taking over the trickier work! Above shows the end of a long day back when the amateurs were running the show.

Lastly, it was good to catch up with fellow travellers from South America on email last week - and to catch up with Alison in person. Here's a great photo I just got sent to me from Christmas Day

Tasmania (Part Three - The Final Reckoning)

After many months of blogging on my own (on-and-on-and-onanism you could call it), it's time for a bit of balance on the Big Trip website.

It's with great pleasure that I welcome a guest contributor to the website. With his own perspective on the great Tasmanian adventure, here's a word from my fellow trekker, Chris...

Being in Australia , so far from home and on the far side of the world, its been really great to have an old friend to stay. It is great to follow Calum carrying out his charity work in Belize and I must admit his recent interest in philanthropy has certainly put me to shame. After a hard weeks charity work in Sydney he can now spend all weekend with a hangover on Bondi beach (dodgy Speedos by the way Calum!), totally guilt free!!

As this section of the Blog is ‘Tasmania Part 3’ i should give you some info on the trip. Despite Calum enthusiastically ticking the questionnaire at the end of the Overland Track – “it was just another bush walk really - I’ve heard there is absolutely amazing scenery in Patagonia” his judgment must have been dulled by the prospect of another meal of dried pasta and spending another sleepless night with huntsman spiders, tiger snakes, possums, and ‘Kevin the ipod wearing teenage backpacker’. I meanwhile was communing with nature and generally ticking – “one of the best things I’ve done in the last 12 months”.

(Before - Possums to the left of us, foodbags to the right, and a two-man (two-midget) tent in the middle.)

(After - with several measures of whisky, drunk straight from the (plastic) bottle, Calum eventually gets some much-needed shut-eye)

On reflection I think he felt he had sold it short. The crystal clear skies, really unusual rock formations, which reminded me of monument valley in the States, the amount of wildlife, pristine rivers,..etc! really amazed us from start to finish. Combined with the manly, physical pursuit of climbing mountains every day (yes – every day – most people climb one every year or so but we got so into climbing mountains towards the end we were springing out of bed at dawn, racing to our destination and quite frequently getting there before anybody else in the track – even young Kev!) I must say we were in our element. The photographs speak for themselves.

The long hours of walking also allowed us time to catch up and discuss some really big topics like..erm…erm..drinking, women and cars - as those of you who did some walking with Calum on the mammoth 500 mile fund raiser can probably testify to. It’s interesting how, despite the fact you have more space than you can shake a mammoth stick at, how small your world becomes when you are walking for days in the middle of nowhere. Literally the size of a tent or a hut and the people you are with or meet along the way become so interesting to you. Needless to say we had psychoanalyzed every single person walking on the track by Day 2 – poor Kevin!! - and it was amazing that even when we bumped into the same people in Hobart as few days later it was a though we had known them for years.

Really though – it was great to catch up with Calum over the miles after about 10 years of separation and it is going to be sad to see him leave Australia for the rest of his amazing trip. I must admit I am doing all I can to talk him into staying (or returning after the rest of his trip) - for at least a few more years.

A big hello to all our mutual friends who are following Calum’s progress.

(End of an adventure - the final Day.)