Hills, sheep and great balls of fire!

16/03/09

We wake to a lovely sunny day today; a warm sunny Monday. What freedom awaits, what world is ours! :) We decide that today will be a good day to go up Queenstown Hill, a small mountain opposite the one with the Luge. The sun glows warm and golden, peeking in the living room windows, beckoning with little sunbeams and tempting us out to play as we stuff our bags with things like lunch, water and cameras…
Thus prepared, we stride out towards the hill in the blazing, golden sun. It is not too warm, just pleasant, as we make our way through the houses to the base of the hill. Arriving at the bottom, we clamber up behind some more houses – a VERY steep hill, I wonder at the cars parked on it and muse that they must have excellent brakes – I’m struggling after all! Behind the last set of houses there is a little wooded patch, which looks ethereal in the sun, the light glinting off leaves of various textures and seed pods, some familiar, others outlandish. Through a new development and we’re out in the open at last, and pass a large sign with a simple map showing the various routes to take. We opt for one of the longer ones, which takes us winding up to the summit of this hill. There are others which continue over towards the next peak, but one summit should be enough for today I think!
Especially as my knee has begun to complain slightly again.
Grrr.
We scrutinise the sign on our way past and there are little notes on some of the flora and fauna which may be found here. There is an almost unbelievably perfect photograph of a lovely Fly Agaric toadstool, with dire warnings about how toxic they are! I smile, hoping to see a small one, and we hike on up. It is a steep climb in the warm air but we are soon well above the city of Queenstown and looking down upon it. There is a glorious view out over the mountains and we are about level with the paragliders in no time at all.
A tall gate offers the entrance to a different world. Mirkwood surely beckons from behind the cast iron fish and creatures which adorn it. I am loath to leave the sunshine and enter the dim pines but that is the way the path takes us so we step through and keep walking. Some of this walk feels rather spooky, but surrounded as we are by nature and her glories, I am less perturbed. Someone had also thought very hard about making this walk mentally accessible and there are many interesting boards up at notable points along the route, explaining the local flora and fauna and native customs relevant to the area and its local Maori tribes.
We are walking through one particularly dusty, grey and dim patch of forest and I notice a leaf.
Just one leaf.
One green leaf, turning gold, lit by a single shaft of sun.
Idle in the sun, it is hanging here alone, one of the few deciduous leaves here, and it is lit by a single shaft of light, brightening it oddly amongst its darker brethren, noting it as it turns gold with impending autumn.
We emerge into a slightly clearer patch, with a rock. There is a small plaque here saying that Queenstown Hill used to be sacred to the Maori, and probably still is, though there are no objections to visitors sitting down on bits of it, so we do! The Maori name for it is Te Tapu-Nui: ‘sacred’. We pause here for a drink and I notice that my breath mists in the air. It is not cold at all, so I suspect it must be very damp instead, to produce such bonsai clouds. As we sit and refresh ourselves a little bird flits directly overhead, worried. It’s a fantail. He or she must be protecting something as she flies around us, agitated, and flips her fan tail in the trees above is, chirping and flicking anxiously. We photograph her and move on, leaving her to flick her tail in peace.
The forest grows thick and dark again and the path is springy with needles beneath our feet. As the trees close in, I spot a glimpse of red, a small speckled globe nestling at a root.
Fly Agaric!
This is rather exciting and we kneel to inspect and photograph this little toxic toadstool. I, with my inferior lens, have finished first, and toddle on upwards, towards the summit (I’m slower you see) and let out a yell of excitement with the breath I have remaining after a steep climb.
It’s huge.
Enormous.
You could eat your dinner off it.
(At least, you could if you were feeling suicidal.)
It’s the biggest Fly Agaric I’ve ever seen. Wide-lipped, white-skirted, soft enough to stroke and with dainty flecks of white clinging to its glossy red hide. Andrew appears imminently and we both slide down the small slope in a shower of needles. We photograph this monster, and then spot some more a little further down, baby ones, not yet entirely popped out of their baby shape and looking diminutive and round, clustered together like little, freckled eggs. The entire forest is littered with these beautiful nasties, and I am a little afraid of leaving the path. Despite the fact that this isn’t actually Middle Earth, I am nonetheless wary of straying too far from the beaten track. We scramble back up onto the path again and continue climbing.
Eventually, we emerge from the forest into the bright sun again; I bask. The path is gravelly here, and the world seems alive with insects and plants to either side. Grasshoppers sizzle in the sun and sporadically there is a strange popping noise around us. I pause momentarily and recognise it.
It’s gorse bushes, popping, hot in the sun.
Pop!
Patter, patter, patter…
I inspect a bush, squinting at it vaguely, and am rewarded with a little cluster of bursts and a shower of seeds as I watch. I could stand here for ages, watching the little explosions curl back the dark, downy pods and fling their seeds wide, but we press on, hot now in the noonday sun.
As we walk up the dusty, grass-lined path, a flock of little birds darts from one massive gorse bush to another. They are little yellow-eyed, dip-dyed, green and grey jobs; hihis perhaps. We have walked right into the middle of a flock of them, skipping and tweeting about us with the grasshoppers. They dart away, looking like little siskins on bad acid.
We reach the first little top, sporting a huge sculpture called the Basket of Dreams, and a German couple… They are silent and disinterested at first, but as they peer at us trying to take photographs of each other, the gentleman kindly leaps up and offers to take our picture and we begin to chat. It turns out that they are German, but have lived in California for a number of years and always come to Queenstown for their holidays. They used to go up to the summit but the years have meant they now stop here and eat their lunch overlooking the bay. It is peaceful here, bright, clear and beautiful. The mountains rise behind us and Queenstown is spread out below, the lake stretching away, crystal blue, into the distant mountains beyond. We watch the lake for a while, with the Germans and our lunch, and see the TSS Earnslaw, Queenstown’s original, working, vintage steam boat, leave on the 2pm trip. She pulls slowly away from the jetty, tiny with distance, and turns in the small bay. She steams away, a miniature model, leaving a long and beautiful plume of coal smoke trailing out behind her as she heads stocially across the lake to Walter Peak. Seen from so high up, she seems like a child’s toy, and her distant progress seems laboured and slow… We’ll find out for ourselves tomorrow! :D
We reluctantly leave the Basket of Dreams. It’s a large sculpture, a long and organic twist of metal, spiralling around to form a basket, about ten feet across, finished with a delicate swirl. It ought to be a plain lump of metal, but its skilful crafter has made it one with the landscape, and it blends and enhances the beauty already here, in a meditative way. Heading upwards again, I find shrouding cobwebs of odd silk on the gorse and scrubby, spiny bushes, rather like the ones I saw in the North Island. I believe they are strands from the same creature, making nests for itself. They are very strong and don’t rip or shred when touched, or even tugged at. I wonder who lives there…
Soon we are at the top, after a bit of effort. The light is perfect, golden, pure and brittle. It is a heady sensation, being so high up, and feeling the purple bulk of the mountains behind and seeing the whole of Queenstown and the surrounding towns spread out like a child’s map in 180 degree perfection far below. The sky is a pure and delicate blue and the bright air is fresh and crisp. There is a little set of cairns arranged in a chunky arch to mark the very summit, and they lend themselves to photographs of all kinds, artistic, dainty, proud, exciting, Armageddon poses, the lot!
Andrew and I explore the photographic possibilities at the summit then I bounce off (unsuccessfully) after a deep brown and russet butterfly over the rocky, spongy ridge. There are many tiny plants up here, which make chasing the butterfly tricky as I try not to step on them. Mainly mosses, though there are also a few other little plants, particularly one minute plant which has tiny white flowers, nestling amongst the moss and peeping over the tops of rocks, like tiny, fallen, five-pointed stars. Some of the tiny alpine plants here have a russet or pinkish blush to the tips of their foliage, which lends an autumnal hue to the hill, which I suppose it would, being quite late on in the Antipodean summer…
As we head for the path which will take us back down the hill again (well, more a trainee mountain than a hill really!) I realise, with excruciating clarity, that I am going to have trouble descending again. Both my knees have protested at the treatment I have been foisting upon them in the past month or so and, following them delicately going ‘spang!’ a few days ago, they have been getting steadily worse. The trouble is, they are all happy and energetic going up the hills, then treacherously desert me at the top, just as I want to come down again, leaving me fuming and impotent and facing a rather painful walk to get back to food and civilisation again… Still, I wince, grit my teeth and bend them to my will; until I can’t actually walk I’m damned if my body’s going to stop me doing what I want to do in the short time I have here… In fact, that’s not a bad philosophy in general! :P
Maybe I’ll go and see a physiotherapist before I hit health-service-bereft America…
I hobble with Andrew back down the first little bit.
And stop, wincing…
Andrew has a bright idea and, as if by magic, retrieves two knee support bandages from his bag. I clearly have fat little legs as they barely fit over my sore knees, but the meagre support they offer is infinitely preferable to none at all and gives me a little light cushioning to the jarring downward steps, which can only be a good thing.
I rail silently at my traitorous knees and sulkily ignore them for the remainder of the descent.
We pass the Basket of Dreams again, that lovely, swirled basket. One could almost imagine it holding anything ephemeral, especially in this light, in this place.
Clouds, dreams, spirits, love, hope, beauty… I inspect it from all angles. It looks empty but feels full. Maybe it is filled by whatever you bring to it; an appreciation of the beauty here, the joy of the weather, elation of being alive and here… All these things. There’s something about this place, to which this odd but elegant, simple sculpture only adds. It also seems to hold sunshine; Andrew and I both take interesting pictures of the descending sun in his blue sky blazing through the swirls in the basket.
We sit and sip water too, and are entertained by a small flock of sheep. We hear them before we see them and they trot purposefully along, a few feet from us, before heading into the gorse a few yards to our left, we hear them bleating for a while yet. They fade off into the distance. A few minutes later, a freckled grey and white woolly head peers up accusingly out of the scrub below the Basket and stares at us with pale slot eyes.
‘Maaaaa!’, she says, glaring at her two youngsters who are frolicking off to the left along the path.
We look at her blankly.
‘Maaaeeeeh!’, she insists, trotting out of the scrub and up towards us and the path.
I giggle and we both rummage for our cameras.
‘Maaaaaaeh!?’
She looks at us again, uncertainly and I bleat back, ‘maaaah!’. She answers and I feel foolish and unfair.
She stares at me and I point the way the others have gone some minutes before, while she looks quizzically at me, ‘Maaah?’.
Having been exhausted by this brief interchange with someone who clearly had no idea what she was saying, she calls her lambs to order and with as much dignity as she can muster, she sweeps off stiffly, with her staccato woolly walk, into the gorse to my left with a rich, resounding, parting belch, presumably a scathing comment on my interspecies communication skills.
Watered and refreshed, Andrew and I set off again. How like Yorkshire this area seems at times: sheep that look like Swaledales, walking and bleating through the scrub and heather to a backdrop of purple hills and mountains.
Sometimes, I notice, while waiting for Andrew to finish at a photograph spot, gorse pods rattle when you touch them. I spend a happy few minutes patting the gorse pods growing in the bank next to the path. Some of them are silent, others give a lovely, tiny, dry rattle when patted… Occasionally, as I stare at them, one will suddenly explode, twisting back its velvet pod with enough energy to spring the seeds several yards and send them flying about, then rattling down through the gorse spines, over the path (and me!) and into the grass below and round about. I love watching these little natural fireworks: I’m a simple creature!
We decide to take the other loop on the return trip, marching back into the silvery green shadows of the fir trees, where the merest, occasional speckle of sunlight freckles through the thick needles above. As we are walking back we pass a little silvery clearing with only a few spindly trees in it. Andrew stops to take a photograph, so do I. However, in the few seconds I take to frame and press the shutter I am enveloped by a wave of negativity so profound it has me practically running to be away from that one spot. I don’t know what happened here, what lived here before or what ley lines converged, but there was an intense feeling of something not right here; something wild and free and untamed, which really doesn’t want me to be here and is prepared to be malevolent about the whole thing.
I bolt. And champ at the bit when Andrew is still taking photographs while my unease grows. And then, nothing. Just the sun shafting again through the silver needles, dotting flecks of light on the forest floor. Andrew follows me down the path.
We pass into greener forest with some deciduous trees here and there and a distant Tui bird pipes its tuneful, liquid song from the tops of the sunny green trees. The grasshoppers sizzle and the pop of seedpods can be heard in the still afternoon sun. Cicadas sing in the long grass. We pause briefly at a large log, carved into a seat, up on the bank. I scramble into it and perch on the slightly splintery top, grinning at my new view of the world as Andrew takes my picture.
:)
What a pleasant afternoon…
The Germans we met at the Basket of Dreams said that California would be like this by the time I got there too – that will be lovely; warm sun, cool breezes, crisp air. Sounds good to me! Andrew and I keep walking downwards, through the wooded area, and pause briefly at a break in the trees where we can see the cable cars and the luge area. A distant ‘woo-hoo!’ floats down the mountain either from the Luge or the paragliding centre, and I can see why, exciting times in this weather in this place!
We are both hungry and feel like second lunch, so we head for a little bakery for a pie… The Antipodeans (particularly the Aussies) really know how to do pie… Of all shapes and sizes, with no profit margin under the lid! I have a feta and spinach roll, and Andrew has a nice little meat pie. The vegetarian culture seems to have taken off a little better in New Zealand than it has in Australia. I’m not veggie, but do enjoy veggie food sometimes, and here they will offer you ‘green’ things like tofu or mushrooms and cheese rather than saying, ‘I heard you were vegetarian so I made chicken especially’…
;)
Next stop on our way back is the Remarkable Sweetshop. It’s not being pretentious in the name, it’s just that it’s in the town at the base of the range known as the Remarkables. However, as I step in I realise that this would be no misnomer even if it were trying to be pretentious! Wood panelling and shelves line the walls but these are scarcely visible behind all the SWEETS… It is like walking into a child’s heaven, specially designed for the likes of Just William and the Famous Five. In the window nestles the most enormous, tooth-destroying, virulent-green, stripey lolly I have ever seen. The epitome of lollyness, it covers an entire pane of this old fashioned window and its label proclaims it to be 1kg… That’s practically diabetes on a stick! I suspect it may be more for show than eating, but it is definitely for sale.
I picture the recipient of such a gift, small, sticky and grateful but ultimately very green, in more ways than one…
:O
We venture further in to this Aladdin’s cave of sugary treasure and my eye is drawn upward, like Alice’s in Wonderland, through the various shelves, right to the top. Each shelf is carefully labelled, and samples of each sweet are set out in baskets at convenient snatching height. Such childhood delights as massive gobstoppers, coconut teacakes and cinder toffee (known by so many different names) rub shoulders with peculiarly Antipodean things, like chocolate-covered aniseed rings. I have stopped being quite so confused by the Australian and Kiwi habit of calling all sweets lollies indiscriminately, regardless of whether or not they have a stick shoved up their bottom for ease of sucking. However, it still feels peculiar to see a bag of mixed sweets flagrantly labelled ‘Mixed Lolly Bag $3’. Funny how it is the tiniest of small things that can still make you feel so very Other, the things the guidebook doesn’t deem necessary to tell you. It’s not the big things like, ‘what’s that tentacle doing waving at me out of my chilli soup?’ that surprise, because you are prepared for those, that’s presumably why you’re here, to experience new things and challenge yourself. No, it’s the little things, like finding that sweets are all called lollies, or realising that Marmite isn’t the same down here (I’ll tell you about that later… Yeuch!), that are invasive and disorientating; but it’s fun to feel different, then you can go home and feel different too because you’ve begun to adapt!
Anyway, where was I?
Ah yes, the Remarkable Sweet Shop.
Beyond the dribble-worthy ranks of sweets of every hue and texture in big glass-knobbed jars, enough to make any child’s eyes blaze with avaricious delight, there are dainty chocolate animals on sticks, in bright foil and tassels of ribbon. These little Easter treats, decked out as rabbits, grin toothily, promising sticky jaws and chocolate on the sofas.
Let the overloaded and greedy eye travel around to the right and look away from the ranks of jars. Here is a different sort of heaven. Stripey, sticky chewy things in jars decorated with bright ribbons may delight the younger tooth, but for a more discerning palate, there are cold cabinets…
Full of dainty little moulded chocolates, dark and shiny, white and glossy, marbled and dotted with nuts or cocoa beans, striped with subtle swirls of white chocolate... They all look delectable-
But my eye is caught by the next cabinet along, a cabinet which reminds me of a bizarre, sweet- and colour-filled childhood dream I repeatedly had.
Big chunks are nestled carefully on little sheets of parchment paper. Slabs in a few delicate colours make up the base, shown off like cheeses in the cabinet.
Fudge!
Of so many flavours!
And naturally colours to match…
And there is none of this, ‘taste of the day’ nonsense. You see one you like the look of, and get to taste a chunk, cut straight from the enormous slab below…
They’re good…
Really good…
They are a variety of textures, but most seem to be delicately creamy with just a touch of crumbliness here and there. Not as soft as Jim Garraghy’s (which, to be fair, is pretty damn good) but much softer than crumbly tablet fudge, they are on the cusp of perfection. We taste several and I also buy a lucky bag of many colours. The mango fudge is a bit peculiar, rather like sweet, solid sorbet, and a little too fruity for a lactose-based confection, but interesting nonetheless. The chocolate ones are wonderful, a little dose of smooth cocoa bliss, but not as good as the ginger fudge (pale and fragrant, with a slight and very real gingery edge) or the apple crumble fudge, about which I am dubious at first.
But one taste and it is an entire crumble, with all the trimmings, fresh out of the oven, just nestling on my tongue. Somehow, they have managed to encapsulate the aroma and flavour of an apple crumble in a very good fudge. Not a gimmick, it contains little chunks of spiced apple and is dusted on top with cinnamon-flavoured crumbs.
And they do international postage…
We tear ourselves out of the shop, pointing out things to each other in delight as we exit (if only I had more luggage space!) and head off to do research and shopping. We are thinking about hiring a car for one part of the trip so that we can spend more time looking around Christchurch and Dunedin without being trapped to a particular locale. I spot a Flight Centre and pop in to see what they have to say… They’re very helpful, particularly the lad whose desk I plonk myself at (funnily enough he’s from the UK – I guess the Kiwis are all working in the ones in the UK so they had to send some back in return!) and he finds us an inexpensive car we can both drive in no time.
I also head for a pharmacy to try and find a knee support bandage that will help. Funny how, in the shops here, when they ask if they can help you, they really mean it. The lass behind the counter is, I think, grateful for the distraction, as she spends a while with me, pinging, stretching and poking various bandages with me to see which one might be the best. I settle on a fairly light one, so as not to do anything too medical without a doctor’s approval and look forward to the moment I can put it on and start feeling better… I may have to head for a physiotherapist before I hit the USA and their extortionate health fees!
In the meantime, I am compelled, no, magnetically drawn, into another shop called ‘Global Culture’ where Andrew finds me, drooling happily over the clothes therein. They have good-quality t-shirts bearing iconic Kiwi phrases like, ‘Sweet As…’ and definitions of them, which are much in evidence in Queenstown, though my eye is caught more by the Maori and blossom-inspired designs on some of the girly tops… The Koru is much in evidence, as is the Tiki, as well as some newer, new-age-style designs with elegant green sea-creatures and generic tribal swirls.
I potter happily here for a while, and acquire myself a subtle duck-eg blue hoodie with a Koru on one corner and a couple of t-shirts, my favourite one being for my dad: ‘I need an upgrade to understand my computer, more memory would be helpful too’. I accost a passing customer (with the help of the friendly assistant) who looks about the same size and shape as my dad, and he cheerfully holds up t-shirts against himself and suggests that he’d probably want a large one. He grins happily through his whiskers as we thank him and I muse with the assistant that it’s usually the other way around, with lads coming in and saying that they want something for their girlfriend, who’s, ‘…about your size…’ ie, anything from 8 to 18 generally… :P
The assistant is very helpful too, and genuinely interested in helping. She’s perky and cheerful and full of good ideas and happy thoughts. We natter as she helps me and other customers find what they are after. She also has a nice necklace, with matching hair bobbles, of interesting and brightly-coloured buttons of various sizes. Now there’s an idea…
Andrew and I decide to go Out for dinner… So we head back to the Lodge and get changed before pondering the options. We go and take pictures of the gilded, rosy sun setting over the wharf while we think. The sun paints the Remarkables with a deep, warm copper glow and tints the wisps of snow on the peaks a fragile pink. The clouds rise in dainty shreds above the peaks and wisp away, blushed on delicate zephyrs. The dark pine trees at the lake’s edge are reflected in the water, with the clear peaks rippling in mirrored pairs beyond.
It is breathtaking.
Tummies rumble and food becomes more pressing as the rosy sun sets and dusk falls. We have decided to go to Flame for dinner, a highly-recommended steak house, which is across a lawn from the wharf. This lawn is home to a bronze kiwi and a big bronze moa. Both of which are rather imposing… Particularly the moa, standing at well over eight feet tall with its huge thighs at head level… Cue amusing photos!
We smell Flame almost before we see it, the tantalising aroma of sizzling meat and fine herbs. We are drawn in by our noses and tummies and peer at the menu, dribbling in anticipation as we enter the restaurant. We have both decided what we want to eat as we sit down in the queue for tables. Waitresses sweep past in neat black, bearing salads and sizzling pans aloft to swoop them down in front of people. One waitress, staggering beneath her load, neatly deposits a gargantuan rack of ribs in front of an equally sizeable, chortling lady, and then furnishes her with a large number of napkins and a big plastic apron… We see from the menu that these items are essential couture for this dish!
Once seated ourselves, we order food. I fancy the Chicken Caesar, but somewhere that specialises in all these sizzling, tantalising cuts, it would be rude not to… So I go for a dainty, medium, sirloin and Andrew picks the rib eye. They arrive, served with jacket potatoes and sour cream (and a tiny bowl of well-dressed salad as a nod to our ‘Five-A –Day’). They’re good… Very, very good… We attack them vigorously with our sharp knives, only realising partway through that the waitress has muddled up our orders, so we just swap and carry on!
The thought of dessert is rather too much at the moment, so we pass on the rather ordinary dessert menu (but who needs dessert after a meaty feast like this??) and have a Thought.
Patagonia.
More specifically, the Patagonia Chocolate Shop, just around the corner, where we’ve been dribbling in the window every time we’ve been past for the last few days. We’ve had a couple of chocolates from them, but really ought, purely for the sake of research you understand, check out their desserts too…
We are both quite full, so we drool lovingly over the chocolate gateaux but pass them by, planning to spend some quality time with them tomorrow instead… In place of gateau, we investigate their range of gelato, ice cream and sorbet instead… Mmm… It’s very civilised here. Like many good ice cream shops, they have a little stock of tiny lolly sticks which they dunk into the ice cream to let you taste before you decide – This has several times persuaded me into the shop and several times saved me from being stuck with something I didn’t like after all! We taste our way along the cabinet. I send the poor guy behind the counter off to find out if the strawberry ice cream has anything other than strawberries in it which might make me feel horrible, and he returns a few moments later with the happy news that it really is just strawberries. I am delighted and order a cone at once! Andrew indulges in Dulce du Leche, which I taste too… A very refined flavour which I like, but I particularly fancied strawberry…
Om, nom, nom…
We clutch our cones tightly, lest they drip or escape and wander out into the cool evening air. Licking happily at my ice cream I follow Andrew along the waterfront until something catches my eye.
Along the waterfront, beyond where we intended to turn off, is a twist of gilded light, swirling and dancing in the darkness. An intermittent burst of flame stretches high behind it with a faint, drawn-out ‘whoomph’ noise… I am intrigued and we wander closer, whereupon I realise that it’s a few people doing a fire display! I drag Andrew closer and we come to a halt by the four flaming guys. Finishing off our ice cream, we watch them intently; they’re rather good…
The first one we see is a slim young man, with long blonde dreads and a narrow face, who is clearly an adept at Devil Sticks, twirling them expertly between his hands, he tosses the fire in great arcing curves from hand to hand, swirling and twisting through the air, roaring gently in the flow of oxygen. They swing around his head, his hands, his legs and leap and spin to his bidding, carving bright slashes through the wine-dark night, flaring and dancing until he is spent and passes the fire neatly to his colleague. This chap is a stocky, Scandanavian student-type, with lots of facial hair and a friendly, open air. He balances the flame inexpertly between the sticks but is soon on his way, spiralling and flinging the flames to and fro, occasionally catching one fleetingly on his foot before kicking it skywards again to curve its bright glimmer in the wharf’s dim glow. A third man, taciturn, olive-skinned and slim, steps briefly out of the darkness with a flaming brand in one hand. He sweeps it to his rugged face and sends a vicious plume of orange fire flaring and roaring several metres up straight into the night sky, dancing back and bowing away in one fluid movement before it can singe his features. A briefer spurt of flame follows the first ferocious burst, hand brought to uptilted mouth and then hands and body swung elegantly away from the severed but lingering flame. Their mate is in charge of the music, which flicks between new age rhythms and salsa beats. Andrew and I join the moment and briefly dance to their tune, salsaing across the square. They don’t seem to mind and we earn a few smiles ourselves, later striking up a conversation. None of them is local, in fact the Scandinavian one is, actually, Scandinavian! He is big, blonde and friendly and tells us he has been juggling with fire for only a few weeks but wanted to get some practice in. The slimmer one comes over a little later and chats to us briefly; he has been doing it far longer and is clearly more immersed in the lifestyle which allows him to practice such things. They both have long hair, I wonder how neither of them is bald! The third man, they tell us, is the most foolhardy of them all. One droplet of the flavoured paraffin which he fountains in incandescent droplets into the sky, will kill you if inhaled and make you wish it had if swallowed. I stare at his antics with renewed respect.
I am surprised that more people aren’t watching and clapping; rather a pity I thought. But we leave some goodwill behind, to go with the money we leave in the cracked, chipped, floral teapot peeping pleadingly out of a bag in the centre of the path…
Back to the Lodge in the gentle darkness now.
Goodnight…