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.)

Tasmania (Part Two - The Haunting, The Howling and The Blood Sucking)

(Wallaby? ...mine's a Castlemaine XXXX)

Tasmania's Overland Track is one of the most feted wilderness walks in the world. The track stretches from north to south through the middle of the Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park, one of UNESCO's World Heritage List sites, alongside Machu Picchu, Easter Island and New Lanark (Scotland) amongst others.

But despite its well-organised nature and volume of walkers, we had been told that it was not a trek to be undertaken lightly. Popular theory suggests that the toughest day of the Overland Track is the first one. This is not due to the route itself, but rather the amount of gear (20kilos plus) you find yourself lugging around on your back. The Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Overland Park booklet carries dire warnings about the consequences of not taking sufficient food and equipment - "you have to be ready for seven days in the wilderness". It wasn't exactly clear what the Australian definition of wilderness was but we assumed that the route wouldn't be characterised by an abundance of Starbucks and 7-11s.

(Chris packs in preparation for the trip. Or gets ready for Mardi Gras, I'm not sure which...)

So we packed all the usual gear - tent, camping stove, sleeping bags, rain-macs, clothes, first-aid kit - plus a good weight of dried food. We budgeted for eight days worth of tucker, including no less than 21 cereal bars. This, of course, lasted six days.

As always when packing, i couldn't resist a few luxuries.

Chris had his pillow, his smoking jacket and p240-277 of the ladieswear section of the 1987 Kays Catalogue.

I packed a hard-back book.

But it was an essential one. Not the travel-friendly edition of Madonna's Erotica, but "Carniverous Nights:On The Trail of The Tasmanian Tiger", a book I can thoroughly recommend as an extremely apt and atmospheric companion to a trekking holiday in Tasmania. (Actually that may also apply to the Madonna book - if anyone can provide a first-hand opinion, please post a comment.) The book is a non-fictional account of a recent trip by two Americans across Tasmania and the creatures they encounter there.

They were actively seeking out the rare and the unusual. I would never have suspected we would find so many of these creatures ourselves.


It all started 30 minutes into day 1. As the park shuttle bus disappeared back towards civilisation and we lifted our rucksacks for the first time, we had to decide who would lead the expedition and thus be at greatest risk of standing on a snake. Chris pointed out that he had a distinct displeasure of snakes. And that he was concerned at his approaching responsibilities as a provider for a family of three. I thought it was very nice of him to include me in his financial planning as I had only been lodging with him for a few weeks, but on reflection he may have been referring to the fact that Caroline is six months pregnant.

So I took the lead - what could we possibly encounter on the first day? Quite a lot as it happened.

So there we were, less than a mile into the path, I having taken only about 100 photos and Chris having scratched his backside less than 20 times, when we rounded an overgrown corner on the track and - still within site of the car-park - a 6 foot-long Tiger Snake passed across the track, just 18 inches ahead of where I had just put my left foot.

I very nearly literally soiled myself. This rather lessened Chris' relief at having been directly behind me at that moment. The Tiger Snake is not only venomous but known to be deadly. It is timid and will avoid human contact, but will aggressively defened itself if attacked... or trodden on.

Fortunately, the snake shot into the scrub on the other side of the track and I was amazed at how quickly it disappeared. I could have been disappointed not to get a photo of it, but though I didn't know it, there would be plenty more opportunities...

(Tiger snake! In defiance of his natural fear of anything long and slimey, Chris did spend a fair share of the time walking first and spotted this monster terrorising birds' nests on day 4. )

Over the next 7 days Chris and I spotted 15 (yes, fifteen) snakes. Eight of these were Tiger Snakes, the other seven being copper-head snakes and white-chinned green snakes, all of which are poisonous.

After our first encounter, we spent much of the rest of that day tentatively creeping round corners and were more than relieved when we reached the camping ground that evening.

Our conversation round the camping stove was dominated with retelling the story of the snake, which i have to confess got several inches longer and several inches closer to my feet with each retelling.

Little did we know as we turned out the light (by which I mean head-torch) and put down our books (by which I mean Kays Catalogue pages) that our bestial encounters weren't over for the evening. Before you think Brokeback Mountain, I'm talking Tasmanian wildlife at it's wildest and cheekiest.

(Left - Oi!!!!! The Plundering Possum shows his posterior as he disappears into the eucalypts.)

(Right - Bennet's Wallaby is accustomed to trekkers - with a good zoom lens you can get some pretty good shots.)

We were woken at about 11pm by a possum unzipping (who needs opposable thumbs!?) my rucksack trying to get at my packets of tuna and jammy dodgers. I had my earplugs in and was only awoken by my rucksack being pushed into my legs at the bottom of the tent. On folding back the flap of the tent I found a possum the size of a small dog looking belligerent and somewhat short-sighted as it ripped a plastic bag out of my belongings.

Typically, he scarpered before i could get a good photo of him. But he wasn't the last nighttime raider. Chris was continually pestered by possums on the second night (he had most of the food on his side of the tent), who stubbornly returned at regular intervals, possibly because his deterent method (sitting up and saying "Oi!!!!" in a gerr-off-moi-land style voice every now and again) wasn't any deterent to a gang of hungry possums. When we woke up in the morning they had ripped our rubbish bag apart and strewn tuna packets across the clearing.

(Left - snake food. These skinks are the reason snakes are so common on the overland track.)

(Right - leech food. Chris' unfashionable legwear couldn't deter this gruesome hitcher.)

Our other scary encounter was about half-way through our trek. A particularly long day's walking finished in a hardy hike uphill through dense and marshy forest. At the end of this, during a much needed break, Chris found an unwanted 'hinger on' taking a drink from his shin. Luckily I was able to raid our condiment cupbard and got the beggar off with a good dose of salt (a well rounded tea-spoonful sprinkled liberally does the trick).

Our other wildlife encounters were more peaceful but no less interesting. Above is the fairly rare Echidna. According to the reknowned taxonomist George Gaylord Simpson, mammals can be subdivided into two groups - monotremes (the echidna and the duck-billed platypus) and therians (everything else, including you, me, whales, bats, you-name-it). So to see one of these beasts creeping around in the wild, sucking up ants was quite a privilige.

We also saw wombats, which i followed excitedly to their burrow, and pademelons - a rather sorrowful looking close-relative of the more staturesque wallaby.

(Left - wombats) (Right - pademelons)


Aside from making for some good photos and fireside yarns, there is a serious and fascinating message in all this. Tasmania's wildlife is beautiful, unique and perhaps surprisingly abundant, at least in remote places. But much of it almost certainly wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the fact that the island is at least partially protected from man's influence by the Bass straight. This stretch of water cuts Tasmania off from the mainland, where Tasmanian Tigers and many species of Pademelons, Quolls and other marsupials have become extinct over the past thousand years.

Though none of the animals we saw are classified 'endangered', these species are nonetheless in a fragile state. In the last five years, fears have grown that the common red fox has reached Tasmania. If foxes became established on the island, all but the largest marsupials would be in dnager. As well as threatening the animals above, this could spell disaster for other endemic species that we didn't see - in particular, the Duck-billed platypus and the Tasmanian Devil.

I read my Carniverous Nights book from cover to cover over the course of the week. And I was particularly touched by the plight of the Tasmanian Tiger. The Australian government had once paid a bounty for the animals' skins, driving the species to the brink of oblivion. And though possible sightings have sprung up at regular intervals in the 70 years since the last animal died in a zoo in Hobart in 1936, the animal has now been classified extinct.

In 1936, two months after that last animal died (from exposure, incidentally, because the zoo staff didn't care sufficiently to let the animal into its hut one night) the Australian government conferred protected species status on the Tasmanian Tiger.

As with Easter Island, I'm moved by the lessons we can learn from the remotest and most unusual places.

(Lastly, a picture of some nice swallows. Don't have nightmares.)