13/02/09
Tour day today! Very exciting…
:D
I get myself out of bed just in time to have a quick shower, and I think I managed to avoid waking anyone else up, despite my pottering! I grab a bottle of water, a Trail Bar for breakfast (well, I wasn’t going to pay $6 every morning for three days for the usual boring sort of thing, when $4 would buy me 6 trail bars). I get down to the entrance of BASE; I’m a little late, but trying to be silent makes you slower! There are two other people waiting there, a guy and a girl, and they are both from Britain too. After a few minutes, the tour bus pulls up.
Good grief! It’s sporting loud Neighbours livery, leaving anyone local who can see in no doubt at all that we are tourist backpackers out for the sights. Why not just write ‘Tourist!’ on my head while you’re at it!
However, it suggests a fun morning ahead…
The (slightly crazy) mini-bus driver certainly makes the journey to pick up the other tour-members interesting. There is much beeping and swerving, mostly around other idiots, but we are glad to arrive at the official Neighbours shop in one piece, where we meet the other tourees.
We all pile in and the driver, Donna, discovers that we are all Brits! Apparently the Neighbours tour is usually full of Brits, who seem to be much bigger fans than the Aussies. They’re a friendly, slightly rowdy bunch on the bus and we are driven off into the hills to find Erinsborough. A DVD of Neighbours and various highlights and commentaries plays while we travel.
Donna slows down in a quiet suburb and points out the school which was used as Erinsborough High. It was only ever the outside which was used; the inside is always at the studio. It is now a language school and no longer used as the Neighbours’ school, but was fun to see all the same.
The whole area is extremely dry, you can see why the bush fires were able to take hold – quite scary really…
Through a rather scruffy and tired-looking fence, we see a tiny glimpse of what used to be the back end of Lassiters, the gazebo and the lake. They are all very dry at the moment and some of the plants have quickly fried in the heat, which can be tricky for the storyliners, wangling in replanting and the like.
We also pass places in the same street that were used for gaol, airport and hospital. The ‘gaol’ frontage was also used for ‘Prisoner: Cell Block H’.
We pull into the backlot of the studios. Donna shows us a few shop frontages, the Neighbours cars, a Neighbours police van, to be used today (the police logo on the side is a big magnetic strip), which is rather exciting, a ‘local’ bus stop and Carpenter’s Garage. I make photo buddies with a chap called Stephen and we take each other’s photos in front of the sign. J
We move on to the actual street itself, the iconic Ramsay Street. Except it isn’t. It’s called Pin Oak Road, and looks very small compared to the vistas of street on the soap. It’s nice though, small, friendly, neat, pleasant. They stick the numbers on with blu-tack for the soap; the actual numbers bear no resemblance to those of Ramsay Street!
When we exit the bus, I notice a pleasant scent; it’s almost like incense, sweet, musky, tarry, pervasive and fragrant.
Then I remember the blue haze visible over the Dandenongs.
This is bush fire smoke.
It is unnerving to smell, as it has been the cause of so much sadness, yet smells so sweet and delicate.
Next, Donna suggests we have our photos taken next to the sign…
[Disillusionment spoiler alert! Look away now!]
It came with us on the bus…
:P
The reason why all the photos you see of people at Ramsay Street consist of them propping themselves up on it, or leaning on it with both hands, is not because that’s how the tourguide suggests they take it, but purely because it is a loose piece of plastic tubing with the Ramsay Street sign duct taped to the top so it needs holding up…!
But it’s still the sign – so who cares??
;)
Next stop St Kilda to meet a Star! We don’t know who it will be; there is a faint hope in the bus that it might be Harold… However, I am not disappointed to find that it is the Irish guy called Pat who used to play Connor (I always thought he was cute!). He keeps us entertained for a good while, poses with us for photographs and amiably chats with us all as he signs postcards before bouncing off on his own private business. He looks carefree, and has various hopes for a comedy writing and performing career, and is currently voicing a cartoon rabbit. His comment about the fact that you can do cartoons and voiceovers in the nude, should you so wish, mean that I will never be able to watch a cartoon without a slight moment of revulsion again! :P
Donna deserts a few of us in St Kilda (we are two minutes walk away from the hostel, less from Acland Street) and says, ‘Hop in those of you who need to go back to the City; you guys in St. Kilda, I’m not taking you back! But there’re really good cake shops down there, go check ‘em out!’ I am only too happy to comply, having not had much breakfast at all…
There are three cakeshops in Acland Street, but I head for the one that had me drooling in the window yesterday – the Acland Cake Shop, whose tartes, biscuits and big blue meringues had me transfixed and dribbling.
I am delighted when I step in the door and am engulfed by a heavenly smell. It is old fashioned, alluring and very distinctive. It is hard to describe but seems to consist of various ingredients, making a scent greater then the sum of their parts; fruit, flour, spices, cream, strawberries, chocolate, cool air and pastry. It is like walking into the past, and the cakes gleam and sit, crumbily on glass trays in the window, peeping out to beckon people in, and waving alluringly at you as you walk through the door… ‘Ooh! Me! Me! Pick me! I’m the tastiest! I’m gooey and interesting with hidden crunchy bits!’ They are all calling too loudly, but I succumb to the lures of a peanut macaroon and a Viennese fancy, since that is all I can afford with my $4 and pocket fluff.
Sniff.
I decide to do a spot of shopping this afternoon now I’ve been fortified with tasty biscuits, so I wander around Acland Street. It’s nice during the day, interesting, Bohemian, with fun clothes shops, a few little Indian-style boutiques and many cake shops and cafes! I wander around with an ice cream, a combination of two sorbets: lychee and lime and lemon. Very tasty and refreshing… J
Before lunch I head back to the hostel to sort out my emails and photos and remember to find time to drop an email to John and Linda who live in Melbourne and see if they are about sometime before I leave. I wander towards the beach and gather a banana on the way, as I’m feeling decidedly lacking in fruit today!
I decide I don’t like St Kilda beach very much. It’s known for being a drug den at nights, so you can’t walk on it barefoot if you’re a little nervous of stepping on used syringes. :P
It’s currently full of toasted sun-addicts reading, and lying around reading lazily in the sun.
Boring!
I can’t take ‘Trendy’ St Kilda any more, so I decide to leap on one of the local trams and find myself somewhere a little more cultured… I find myself in the City area, and wander into a little Anglican church, St Peter’s, right next to St Patrick’s Cathedral, which isn’t open. I decide I like the little church, and enjoy its cool, quiet, stained-glass peace for a while.
John calls me back later on in the afternoon to see if I am free later on in the evening. It seems I have company and somewhere to go for tea! I wonder if I will have the time and inclination to check out Luna Park later and maybe finally brave having a drink at BASE later… I pootle back towards St Kilda and look for a lovely (and inexpensive) maxi-dress I saw earlier, but the shop has either disappeared or I can’t find it… Ah well, probably a good thing! I put my ‘Raffles’ dress on and find John and Linda where they have kindly offered to meet me, out the front of BASE. We decide to go to Brighton for dinner, which amuses me… Brighton seafront in Melbourne is far nicer than its equivalent in the UK – it is under the late evening sun, which is copper with smoke. The sky is pale milky blue and the copper-red light spreads across the sparkles on the water in a shimmering carmine path. The white boats on the Marina are all blushed rosy-gold and the wind whips in from the ocean, sighing as it goes.
We have pizza and pasta for dinner – it is a takeaway from a restaurant run by an Italian called Sam… He certainly knows what he’s doing – the dinner is excellent, and the salad, wine and fruit that accompany it are very nice. There is also a dessert wine, which I believe was a Borbyritis Reisling… It is sweet, and curls, crisp as autumn leaves, across my tongue after releasing its raisin sweetness of the fermented grapes, tinted almost treacly by the B. virus which improves the flavour. I have a lovely, civilised, friendly evening and thoroughly enjoy myself (thank you!) before being dropped back at St Kilda – where I feel much more kindly disposed towards backpackers in general…
;)
14/02/09
Today I am woken at 7:30 by workmen drilling, clanging and bonging.
Huh?
Pleurgh!
Hmph…
The workmen here are not like English workmen, who start at 8am with a cup of tea, have a bit of a chat until half past, then have another cuppa and read the essential parts of page three until 9…
Clang! Bash! Crash!
And this was after the rowdiness in the bar until gone 1am last night.
Either rowdiness or workmen is fine… Both just isn’t playing fair!
LOL
Still, it does at least mean I’m up early, so I have a chance to use the day pootling about instead of snoozing until check out time, which is 10am. My airport transfer bus is at 10.20, so that all seems to be fitting in rather well this morning.
Aha!
I think I might be able to just make it to the Markets and back this morning… J
I grab a croissant and a glass of milk for breakfast and head for the tram stop, which I am told is near McDonalds.
The tram comes and I hop on.
It seems rather a long time getting through the streets to the market… I wonder why?
Ah.
Oops.
The reason this looks like a nice south London suburb is possibly because it’s a nice south Melbourne suburb.
In the opposite direction from the Markets…
D’oh!
Ah well, still, have had a brief taste of the Other Side of Melbourne! And reinforced the lesson that you cannot navigate intuitively by the sun Down Under – because it’s the wrong way around!
There is a Jewish Orthodox Church ejecting its faithful as I go by on the tram – there are men in skull caps and interesting outfits everywhere.
I decide, as I failed to get to the markets, to go down Acland street again. And finally get myself a Blue Meringue! Hooray! I try to put it in my (large) handbag, but fail as it’s simply too big and too blue. However, I get it back to BASE to help me with my packing up and scampering out!
After a moment of panic when my card key mysteriously won’t work, separating me from my baggage, I get myself together, well, mostly, and wait for the bus. It’s not long before it arrives, and there are several people already on it, heading for the airport. I stare idly out of the window at Melbourne City – it’s quite pretty in its own way. We pass a shop called ‘SexyLand’, which makes me chuckle – I don’t think the Aussies Do subtle!
It seems a long way to the airport, and I worry that perhaps the bus is going to the wrong airport for me... My moment of ‘eek!’ is, however, unfounded, and I arrive safely at the airport and check in to my Jet Star flight. Security poke and prod my bag, worryingly… It doesn’t emerge from the X-ray machine for a while, which is a little disquieting. They make me unpack it and rummage around in it as they are sure they’ve seen something sharp like scissors. I think it unlikely, as I don’t actually own any nail scissors and my jewellery pliers are most definitely in my hold luggage! Still, after turfing out all the coins and things (keys, necklace, earrings, phones, many coins, pocket fluff, radioactive hamsters, illegal man-eating fruit,) I flung in there to keep them safe away from the walk-through X-ray machine, it transpires that I merely have too much stuff in my bag, which has obscured the view… Hmph.
Then I demolish half of the blue meringue. It’s very nice… I have made a new friend… Although I save some for Trina and for later as it really is rather huge!
The flight is delayed by a 7 day old baby… The captain, in accordance with the regulations, refuses to fly with such a young infant on board, checks with medical staff, and the conclusion is reached that tot can’t travel, so mum and baby and stuff all have to be offloaded, which takes a little while, so we depart late. Fortunately, this is one of the few flights I am on which is operated by JetStar instead of Quantas – Quantas had industrial action today!
I feel smug.
Ha ha…
Melbourne is cloudy and still hazy from the smoke as we fly away. I eat some more of my gooey, sky-blue, sprinkled meringue and feel slightly sick… I get a Solo to wash it down. I think I might be slightly addicted to Solo, it’s a lemonade-style drink made with real lemons! This may not sound like rocket science, but given much of the flavoured rubbish on the market these days, it’s practically a gastronomical epiphany! They don’t make it like the unpleasant clear tooth rot, they actually put lemons in it! None of thos random clear fizz made with sugar and toxic sweeteners that they’ve waved a lemon over at the beginning of the day and said ‘now, this is what you’re supposed to taste like’ in the factory in the vague hope that some of the flavour might permeate the syrup vats before its fizzed and bottled! Nope, Solo has real lemons in it and no nasty sweeteners. Hooray!
Tasmania arrives under the wings of the plane – it is a clearer sky than Melbourne, and has a great range of mountains, fading away to purple in the distance. There are jagged, tree-dotted hills below, and a sky-blue lake and valleys. A field nestles into the side of a hill in a peculiar half-moon shape.
There is a round one too, and another, slightly larger, half-moon. What on earth?
Everything looks fairly dry and dessicated. A sprinkler in an abnormally green field makes a tiny, glittering rainbow far below.
Ah!
I see why the fields are circular! It’s because they are custom-sown so that they care covered by an elaborate watering system, involving long poles and squirters. Clever…
We pass over a lake, which has lines in it – shellfish farming perhaps? It seems very shallow.
We land – jiggly, wiggly, bounce, bump, rattle, braaaaake!
We trot across the tarmac in the warm sun and toddle through customs, relatively ujnbothered. There is only one luggage carousel which is helpful!
Trina is there to meet me, and looks happily tanned. J
My luggage is safely collected and we head for the beach, where her friends are playing volleyball. It is warm on the beach with a stiff southerly breeze. The meringue wasn’t REALLY sufficient lunch, so we head off to get chips and chat along the beach.
Back at the house, there are flowers waiting for me in the room I am to sleep in – Trina fetched them on Andrew’s initiative, which was very sweet… I feel a little overwhelmed. J
Then I am introduced to Wolf and Witch, two German Shorthaired Pointers. They are beautiful animals, but very large, very powerful and rather scary. However, it seems that I am introduced to them the right way as they cease to try and kick my nose off with their forepaws and seem content and waggy to be patted and fussed. I would NOT like to annoy them…
The evening consists of a concert by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, under the stars. I remember bug cream and jumpers and Trina and I are picked up by another of her friends, along with five polite, friendly and cute kids.
The concert programme is very good and even includes Saint-Saens’ ‘Danse Macabre’ which I am really looking forward to! We sit on a blanket and snack while the music is played. Saint-Saens is every bit as magical, if not more so, under the wide sky, with accompanying bird noises. This is in despite of the mosquitoes and the appearance of an ‘inchman’ on one of the party. An inchman is an ant about an inch long, unsurprisingly, with startling and evil orange fangs…
The stars eventually emerge from behind the clouds where they have hidden, and join in too. I am wistful that it is Valentine’s evening and my prince is elsewhere, but I am also very happy just to be sitting, in good company, listening to amazing music, played by a fantastic orchestra, under a tree and the stars in one of the cleanest, freshest places in the world.
The crawlies here have obviously got wind of my fondness for all things leggedy…
In the kitchen on our return, Trina grabs my cuff and pulls me slowly away from the work surface in the kitchen… A tiny scorpion is nestled amongst the sweet-packets. He is only about an inch and a half long, but I am told his sting is much lie that of a wasp, maybe a little worse. He is chocolate brown, with gleaming claws and raised segmented tail. He is also soon squashed by the intrepid Trina, saviour of sweets and vanquisher of scorpions. However, even she is surprised when a little head pokes around her door later in the evening and says, ‘I think there’s a scorpion under my bed…’.
I felt about six.
She comes into the room armed with kitchen tongs (for finding and squashing) and kitchen paper (for inhuming). However, he has obviously realised that, whilst I might be an interested English naturalist sucker, Trina isn’t and he’s hidden underneath something. This is unusual; usually its tiled rooms they seem to find. Still, if he’s happy ignoring me and hiding under the bed then that’s fine with me!
It’s amazing how many of the creatures here have such poison and innovation. I mean, how much venom can one fly realistically need to be killed and digested by a spider?? It wouldn’t actually come as a huge surprise if some of the butterflies turned out to have fangs and homicidal tendencies!
Ah well, as long as they don’t join the mosquitoes in assuming that I’m Clare-sized, sun-cream-condimented, bug-kibble, I should be okay!
;)
Tour day today! Very exciting…
:D
I get myself out of bed just in time to have a quick shower, and I think I managed to avoid waking anyone else up, despite my pottering! I grab a bottle of water, a Trail Bar for breakfast (well, I wasn’t going to pay $6 every morning for three days for the usual boring sort of thing, when $4 would buy me 6 trail bars). I get down to the entrance of BASE; I’m a little late, but trying to be silent makes you slower! There are two other people waiting there, a guy and a girl, and they are both from Britain too. After a few minutes, the tour bus pulls up.
Good grief! It’s sporting loud Neighbours livery, leaving anyone local who can see in no doubt at all that we are tourist backpackers out for the sights. Why not just write ‘Tourist!’ on my head while you’re at it!
However, it suggests a fun morning ahead…
The (slightly crazy) mini-bus driver certainly makes the journey to pick up the other tour-members interesting. There is much beeping and swerving, mostly around other idiots, but we are glad to arrive at the official Neighbours shop in one piece, where we meet the other tourees.
We all pile in and the driver, Donna, discovers that we are all Brits! Apparently the Neighbours tour is usually full of Brits, who seem to be much bigger fans than the Aussies. They’re a friendly, slightly rowdy bunch on the bus and we are driven off into the hills to find Erinsborough. A DVD of Neighbours and various highlights and commentaries plays while we travel.
Donna slows down in a quiet suburb and points out the school which was used as Erinsborough High. It was only ever the outside which was used; the inside is always at the studio. It is now a language school and no longer used as the Neighbours’ school, but was fun to see all the same.
The whole area is extremely dry, you can see why the bush fires were able to take hold – quite scary really…
Through a rather scruffy and tired-looking fence, we see a tiny glimpse of what used to be the back end of Lassiters, the gazebo and the lake. They are all very dry at the moment and some of the plants have quickly fried in the heat, which can be tricky for the storyliners, wangling in replanting and the like.
We also pass places in the same street that were used for gaol, airport and hospital. The ‘gaol’ frontage was also used for ‘Prisoner: Cell Block H’.
We pull into the backlot of the studios. Donna shows us a few shop frontages, the Neighbours cars, a Neighbours police van, to be used today (the police logo on the side is a big magnetic strip), which is rather exciting, a ‘local’ bus stop and Carpenter’s Garage. I make photo buddies with a chap called Stephen and we take each other’s photos in front of the sign. J
We move on to the actual street itself, the iconic Ramsay Street. Except it isn’t. It’s called Pin Oak Road, and looks very small compared to the vistas of street on the soap. It’s nice though, small, friendly, neat, pleasant. They stick the numbers on with blu-tack for the soap; the actual numbers bear no resemblance to those of Ramsay Street!
When we exit the bus, I notice a pleasant scent; it’s almost like incense, sweet, musky, tarry, pervasive and fragrant.
Then I remember the blue haze visible over the Dandenongs.
This is bush fire smoke.
It is unnerving to smell, as it has been the cause of so much sadness, yet smells so sweet and delicate.
Next, Donna suggests we have our photos taken next to the sign…
[Disillusionment spoiler alert! Look away now!]
It came with us on the bus…
:P
The reason why all the photos you see of people at Ramsay Street consist of them propping themselves up on it, or leaning on it with both hands, is not because that’s how the tourguide suggests they take it, but purely because it is a loose piece of plastic tubing with the Ramsay Street sign duct taped to the top so it needs holding up…!
But it’s still the sign – so who cares??
;)
Next stop St Kilda to meet a Star! We don’t know who it will be; there is a faint hope in the bus that it might be Harold… However, I am not disappointed to find that it is the Irish guy called Pat who used to play Connor (I always thought he was cute!). He keeps us entertained for a good while, poses with us for photographs and amiably chats with us all as he signs postcards before bouncing off on his own private business. He looks carefree, and has various hopes for a comedy writing and performing career, and is currently voicing a cartoon rabbit. His comment about the fact that you can do cartoons and voiceovers in the nude, should you so wish, mean that I will never be able to watch a cartoon without a slight moment of revulsion again! :P
Donna deserts a few of us in St Kilda (we are two minutes walk away from the hostel, less from Acland Street) and says, ‘Hop in those of you who need to go back to the City; you guys in St. Kilda, I’m not taking you back! But there’re really good cake shops down there, go check ‘em out!’ I am only too happy to comply, having not had much breakfast at all…
There are three cakeshops in Acland Street, but I head for the one that had me drooling in the window yesterday – the Acland Cake Shop, whose tartes, biscuits and big blue meringues had me transfixed and dribbling.
I am delighted when I step in the door and am engulfed by a heavenly smell. It is old fashioned, alluring and very distinctive. It is hard to describe but seems to consist of various ingredients, making a scent greater then the sum of their parts; fruit, flour, spices, cream, strawberries, chocolate, cool air and pastry. It is like walking into the past, and the cakes gleam and sit, crumbily on glass trays in the window, peeping out to beckon people in, and waving alluringly at you as you walk through the door… ‘Ooh! Me! Me! Pick me! I’m the tastiest! I’m gooey and interesting with hidden crunchy bits!’ They are all calling too loudly, but I succumb to the lures of a peanut macaroon and a Viennese fancy, since that is all I can afford with my $4 and pocket fluff.
Sniff.
I decide to do a spot of shopping this afternoon now I’ve been fortified with tasty biscuits, so I wander around Acland Street. It’s nice during the day, interesting, Bohemian, with fun clothes shops, a few little Indian-style boutiques and many cake shops and cafes! I wander around with an ice cream, a combination of two sorbets: lychee and lime and lemon. Very tasty and refreshing… J
Before lunch I head back to the hostel to sort out my emails and photos and remember to find time to drop an email to John and Linda who live in Melbourne and see if they are about sometime before I leave. I wander towards the beach and gather a banana on the way, as I’m feeling decidedly lacking in fruit today!
I decide I don’t like St Kilda beach very much. It’s known for being a drug den at nights, so you can’t walk on it barefoot if you’re a little nervous of stepping on used syringes. :P
It’s currently full of toasted sun-addicts reading, and lying around reading lazily in the sun.
Boring!
I can’t take ‘Trendy’ St Kilda any more, so I decide to leap on one of the local trams and find myself somewhere a little more cultured… I find myself in the City area, and wander into a little Anglican church, St Peter’s, right next to St Patrick’s Cathedral, which isn’t open. I decide I like the little church, and enjoy its cool, quiet, stained-glass peace for a while.
John calls me back later on in the afternoon to see if I am free later on in the evening. It seems I have company and somewhere to go for tea! I wonder if I will have the time and inclination to check out Luna Park later and maybe finally brave having a drink at BASE later… I pootle back towards St Kilda and look for a lovely (and inexpensive) maxi-dress I saw earlier, but the shop has either disappeared or I can’t find it… Ah well, probably a good thing! I put my ‘Raffles’ dress on and find John and Linda where they have kindly offered to meet me, out the front of BASE. We decide to go to Brighton for dinner, which amuses me… Brighton seafront in Melbourne is far nicer than its equivalent in the UK – it is under the late evening sun, which is copper with smoke. The sky is pale milky blue and the copper-red light spreads across the sparkles on the water in a shimmering carmine path. The white boats on the Marina are all blushed rosy-gold and the wind whips in from the ocean, sighing as it goes.
We have pizza and pasta for dinner – it is a takeaway from a restaurant run by an Italian called Sam… He certainly knows what he’s doing – the dinner is excellent, and the salad, wine and fruit that accompany it are very nice. There is also a dessert wine, which I believe was a Borbyritis Reisling… It is sweet, and curls, crisp as autumn leaves, across my tongue after releasing its raisin sweetness of the fermented grapes, tinted almost treacly by the B. virus which improves the flavour. I have a lovely, civilised, friendly evening and thoroughly enjoy myself (thank you!) before being dropped back at St Kilda – where I feel much more kindly disposed towards backpackers in general…
;)
14/02/09
Today I am woken at 7:30 by workmen drilling, clanging and bonging.
Huh?
Pleurgh!
Hmph…
The workmen here are not like English workmen, who start at 8am with a cup of tea, have a bit of a chat until half past, then have another cuppa and read the essential parts of page three until 9…
Clang! Bash! Crash!
And this was after the rowdiness in the bar until gone 1am last night.
Either rowdiness or workmen is fine… Both just isn’t playing fair!
LOL
Still, it does at least mean I’m up early, so I have a chance to use the day pootling about instead of snoozing until check out time, which is 10am. My airport transfer bus is at 10.20, so that all seems to be fitting in rather well this morning.
Aha!
I think I might be able to just make it to the Markets and back this morning… J
I grab a croissant and a glass of milk for breakfast and head for the tram stop, which I am told is near McDonalds.
The tram comes and I hop on.
It seems rather a long time getting through the streets to the market… I wonder why?
Ah.
Oops.
The reason this looks like a nice south London suburb is possibly because it’s a nice south Melbourne suburb.
In the opposite direction from the Markets…
D’oh!
Ah well, still, have had a brief taste of the Other Side of Melbourne! And reinforced the lesson that you cannot navigate intuitively by the sun Down Under – because it’s the wrong way around!
There is a Jewish Orthodox Church ejecting its faithful as I go by on the tram – there are men in skull caps and interesting outfits everywhere.
I decide, as I failed to get to the markets, to go down Acland street again. And finally get myself a Blue Meringue! Hooray! I try to put it in my (large) handbag, but fail as it’s simply too big and too blue. However, I get it back to BASE to help me with my packing up and scampering out!
After a moment of panic when my card key mysteriously won’t work, separating me from my baggage, I get myself together, well, mostly, and wait for the bus. It’s not long before it arrives, and there are several people already on it, heading for the airport. I stare idly out of the window at Melbourne City – it’s quite pretty in its own way. We pass a shop called ‘SexyLand’, which makes me chuckle – I don’t think the Aussies Do subtle!
It seems a long way to the airport, and I worry that perhaps the bus is going to the wrong airport for me... My moment of ‘eek!’ is, however, unfounded, and I arrive safely at the airport and check in to my Jet Star flight. Security poke and prod my bag, worryingly… It doesn’t emerge from the X-ray machine for a while, which is a little disquieting. They make me unpack it and rummage around in it as they are sure they’ve seen something sharp like scissors. I think it unlikely, as I don’t actually own any nail scissors and my jewellery pliers are most definitely in my hold luggage! Still, after turfing out all the coins and things (keys, necklace, earrings, phones, many coins, pocket fluff, radioactive hamsters, illegal man-eating fruit,) I flung in there to keep them safe away from the walk-through X-ray machine, it transpires that I merely have too much stuff in my bag, which has obscured the view… Hmph.
Then I demolish half of the blue meringue. It’s very nice… I have made a new friend… Although I save some for Trina and for later as it really is rather huge!
The flight is delayed by a 7 day old baby… The captain, in accordance with the regulations, refuses to fly with such a young infant on board, checks with medical staff, and the conclusion is reached that tot can’t travel, so mum and baby and stuff all have to be offloaded, which takes a little while, so we depart late. Fortunately, this is one of the few flights I am on which is operated by JetStar instead of Quantas – Quantas had industrial action today!
I feel smug.
Ha ha…
Melbourne is cloudy and still hazy from the smoke as we fly away. I eat some more of my gooey, sky-blue, sprinkled meringue and feel slightly sick… I get a Solo to wash it down. I think I might be slightly addicted to Solo, it’s a lemonade-style drink made with real lemons! This may not sound like rocket science, but given much of the flavoured rubbish on the market these days, it’s practically a gastronomical epiphany! They don’t make it like the unpleasant clear tooth rot, they actually put lemons in it! None of thos random clear fizz made with sugar and toxic sweeteners that they’ve waved a lemon over at the beginning of the day and said ‘now, this is what you’re supposed to taste like’ in the factory in the vague hope that some of the flavour might permeate the syrup vats before its fizzed and bottled! Nope, Solo has real lemons in it and no nasty sweeteners. Hooray!
Tasmania arrives under the wings of the plane – it is a clearer sky than Melbourne, and has a great range of mountains, fading away to purple in the distance. There are jagged, tree-dotted hills below, and a sky-blue lake and valleys. A field nestles into the side of a hill in a peculiar half-moon shape.
There is a round one too, and another, slightly larger, half-moon. What on earth?
Everything looks fairly dry and dessicated. A sprinkler in an abnormally green field makes a tiny, glittering rainbow far below.
Ah!
I see why the fields are circular! It’s because they are custom-sown so that they care covered by an elaborate watering system, involving long poles and squirters. Clever…
We pass over a lake, which has lines in it – shellfish farming perhaps? It seems very shallow.
We land – jiggly, wiggly, bounce, bump, rattle, braaaaake!
We trot across the tarmac in the warm sun and toddle through customs, relatively ujnbothered. There is only one luggage carousel which is helpful!
Trina is there to meet me, and looks happily tanned. J
My luggage is safely collected and we head for the beach, where her friends are playing volleyball. It is warm on the beach with a stiff southerly breeze. The meringue wasn’t REALLY sufficient lunch, so we head off to get chips and chat along the beach.
Back at the house, there are flowers waiting for me in the room I am to sleep in – Trina fetched them on Andrew’s initiative, which was very sweet… I feel a little overwhelmed. J
Then I am introduced to Wolf and Witch, two German Shorthaired Pointers. They are beautiful animals, but very large, very powerful and rather scary. However, it seems that I am introduced to them the right way as they cease to try and kick my nose off with their forepaws and seem content and waggy to be patted and fussed. I would NOT like to annoy them…
The evening consists of a concert by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, under the stars. I remember bug cream and jumpers and Trina and I are picked up by another of her friends, along with five polite, friendly and cute kids.
The concert programme is very good and even includes Saint-Saens’ ‘Danse Macabre’ which I am really looking forward to! We sit on a blanket and snack while the music is played. Saint-Saens is every bit as magical, if not more so, under the wide sky, with accompanying bird noises. This is in despite of the mosquitoes and the appearance of an ‘inchman’ on one of the party. An inchman is an ant about an inch long, unsurprisingly, with startling and evil orange fangs…
The stars eventually emerge from behind the clouds where they have hidden, and join in too. I am wistful that it is Valentine’s evening and my prince is elsewhere, but I am also very happy just to be sitting, in good company, listening to amazing music, played by a fantastic orchestra, under a tree and the stars in one of the cleanest, freshest places in the world.
The crawlies here have obviously got wind of my fondness for all things leggedy…
In the kitchen on our return, Trina grabs my cuff and pulls me slowly away from the work surface in the kitchen… A tiny scorpion is nestled amongst the sweet-packets. He is only about an inch and a half long, but I am told his sting is much lie that of a wasp, maybe a little worse. He is chocolate brown, with gleaming claws and raised segmented tail. He is also soon squashed by the intrepid Trina, saviour of sweets and vanquisher of scorpions. However, even she is surprised when a little head pokes around her door later in the evening and says, ‘I think there’s a scorpion under my bed…’.
I felt about six.
She comes into the room armed with kitchen tongs (for finding and squashing) and kitchen paper (for inhuming). However, he has obviously realised that, whilst I might be an interested English naturalist sucker, Trina isn’t and he’s hidden underneath something. This is unusual; usually its tiled rooms they seem to find. Still, if he’s happy ignoring me and hiding under the bed then that’s fine with me!
It’s amazing how many of the creatures here have such poison and innovation. I mean, how much venom can one fly realistically need to be killed and digested by a spider?? It wouldn’t actually come as a huge surprise if some of the butterflies turned out to have fangs and homicidal tendencies!
Ah well, as long as they don’t join the mosquitoes in assuming that I’m Clare-sized, sun-cream-condimented, bug-kibble, I should be okay!
;)
This is a long read. I feel out of breath! lol.
ReplyDeleteCould we have a pic or two to break it up,please? It is quite hard to read all in one go.
Ta.
Am waiting eagerly.
Glad you are enjoying meeting the creatures. lol
WOW, that was quick! A pic appeared almost immediately! Telepathic or what??
ReplyDeletexx