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QM2 – Part 4 – South Africa and UP

Half a world cruise on Queen Mary 2. Find part 1: leaving Sydney, part 2: cruising around south Oz and part 3: sea to island hopping. Caught up? Enjoy the next quarter!

Straight wake from above, single spa on deck 6, two spas and pool on deck 8
Straight wake from above (maybe deck 11?), single spa on deck 6, two spas and pool on deck 8 QM2

Day 21 – at sea – Routine back in full power, together with satisfying work on my writing project. After dinner, tablemate Elaine and I ran to the cinema, from one end of the ship to the other. I was wearing one of my excellent wraps (gifted to me as Kate Winslet cosplay) which I held flying behind me like a cape. It was glorious and funny and, as we pounded through the plush carpet of the grand foyer, I began to hum the old tv theme from Batman between chortling gasps. Our fellow cruisers, some leaning on their walking sticks, looked on with approval. Flying within the QM2. Speaking of flying, you may be interested to learn that airlines are expecting a much greater profit this year. How are you travelling?

Arriving just in time, we watched a film set in Port Isaac where I had a WorkAway booked in a month. My tablemate, Elaine, had been there recently. Her photos, showing locations we’d just seen in the silly film, brought my future into sharp existence. There would be an end to this cruise, and I would be there, in Cornwall, in the film, with rugged coastline and cold outcrop of hard buildings nuzzling into cliff-edged harbour. The port featured one of those constructed sea wall barriers that must have been an engineering marvel in its conception, just as surely as it must have killed a percentage of its builders. What with Doc Martin and the Fishermen’s Friends, there’ll be tourists in them there hills. Reassuringly, Elaine seemed to have enjoyed her experience there. And there’d be Cornish pasties.

There was sea to cover. Tomorrow would be an early start. Up, dressed, coffee, breakfast at 05:50, meeting at Royal Court Theatre to read my book while we wait in a queue before we landed in

SOUTH AFRICA

– a place I never imagined I’d ever go.

DAY 22 – DURBAN

Port of Durban in the early morning
Port of Durban in the early morning from QM2

Woke as we began to enter the harbour around 03:00. Finished reading Donna Leon and began to prepare. From the ship the city looked big (4.3 million souls). The large office buildings looked like big black flags as we entered the harbour in the early morning darkness. They did not have their lights switched on. There was a deep red smear across the sky which warned of rain – I considered my raincape, but we were only out for the morning. Cruise passengers wouldn’t have to worry about the weather. Expected 29 degrees.

Litter lay like crocodile skin on the water.

Very grateful kitchen opened for toast and marmalade. Waited in quiet theatre with murmuring ‘guests’ in comfy seats waiting, waiting, waiting, for Border Control.

Waiting tour buses parked in front of interesting 'spy' ship at Durban Harbour
Waiting tour buses parked in front of interesting ship at Durban Harbour. What could it be?

Once in our bus, we drove through the port of Durban. The streets were littered and the buildings were covered in scraps and the bus shelters were enormous and littered. People were everywhere, ignoring the litter. Our tour guide, white and elderly, had splendid memories of the old days when everything was great. He said he tried hard to avoid speaking of politics but could not help veering back into his opinions about corruption in government: from road builders right up to international policy. He would start talking about educational progress and swerve right into his strong opinions again. He was a real downer. Perhaps that is South African life.

Trevor Noah billboards grinned from the tall sides of buildings. Could his show cheer folk up?

I felt some cynicism regarding my game reserve Shore Experience, perhaps influenced by this guide. There’d be two more tours going to the same place later in the day. Would it just be a photo opportunity to see a wild animal in a farm? Well, yes. But how could I say I’d been to South Africa and not seen a beast?

The large 'jeeps' for our Wildlife farm tourist experience
The large ‘jeeps’ for our Wildlife farm tourist experience – glad to see the woman in her zebra outfit.

We arrived and piled into ‘jeeps’. Tala Wildlife Reserve was a sort of open plains zoo where herds of zebra and wildebeest roamed together with impala and rhinos (with sawn off horns to prevent poaching).

And then there were giraffes. They came quietly, elegantly, down the hill towards us. Like goddesses or spirits, swaying forwards and backwards as they roamed.

One of the group of giraffes in the Wildlife Park near Durban
One of the group of giraffes in the Wildlife Park near Durban

What beautiful creatures. Beautiful.

The giraffes decided to keep going, bypassing their optimal viewing station, so our driver stopped the truck, got out to run down to the river and flush them up to us tourists. Only, he left our open-sided jeep running and the fumes (you’d think we’d be used to diesel fumes, wouldn’t you), started to annoy some of our more sensitive ‘guests’. He was gone for quite a while and soon people began to stand and worry and debate and eventually moved to turn the engine off. These ‘jeeps’ are built on the bed of a five-ton truck. We sat in silence and watched the chased giraffes run back and mingle where they ought and the other jeeps were afforded good picture opportunities as well.

Sadly, on his return, our driver knew right away he would have to push the sturdy vehicle to get it started. And, after turning on the key, being a valiant fellow, he began to heave. Only the heavy machine rolled back into a muddy puddle. A muttering became consensus and all the blokes leapt to their feet. (Some of the men got to their feet.) Some of the wives gave their fellows an elbow in the ribs. Many of the males made it outside to give an old heave ho. I will tell you I had my pack wrapped around my legs so it wouldn’t fall out of the open sided ‘jeep’. I promise you I was trying to disentangle the awkward macrame so I could get out and be useful too, struggling with my knotted legs and climb over the American bird lover beside me, when all of a sudden, the engine roared and the gents clambered back on board to get a pat on the knee from their admiring partners. I really would have helped …

As cameras clicked and jaws slackened, the driver climbed out of his cabin and made his way around the outside of the cage, leaning up against where I sat. I asked him if these were the sort of animals that might have lived in this area before white invasion? Oh, yes, absolutely. We could see the large chicken farm across the road. I meant to ask him about indigenous plants and grasses – given this had been cattle producing farmland only a few years before – but we had to move on. There were small acacias around the hippo pool. I think I saw some hippo eyes, but the sea eagle distracted me.

Wildlife lookout tower in the Wildlife Park near Durban
How can you tell where the animals might be?
Close up of Acacia thorns near Durban
Close up of Acacia thorns at Tala Wildlife Reserve near Durban

Our continually depressing drive through the outskirts of the city back to port took us past many low chicken farms. I saw no solar panels and no wind turbines visible from the bus windows. Our guide said much of the electricity came from diesel generators.

Even the Captain thought it was a 'spy' ship in his daily report. Durban Harbour from the QM2
Even the Captain thought it was a ‘spy’ ship in his daily report. Under Chinese flag in Durban Harbour seen from the QM2 – not quite as big as us.

DAY 23 – at sea – When life stays at the same ship’s time, the gym is almost empty on opening, also a bonus for my ‘office’ (the Chart Room with no charts) and my morning routine went along as normal until I signed up for the Galley Tour with Executive Chef James Abhilash.

Barbara Broekman's enormous tapestry of QM2 in the Britannia Restaurant
Barbara Broekman’s enormous tapestry of QM2 in the Britannia Restaurant. I believe the large round table in the middle is the Captain’s table but I never saw or heard of him there.

A few hundred ‘guests’ sat in the dining room, waiting, waiting, for the chef’s talk and then, divided into smaller groups, paraded single file through the Britannia kitchen rotating doors with cameras/phones at the ready.

Galley Tour day with Exec chef James Abhilash and his team of Department Heads in the foyer of the Britannia Restaurant
Galley Tour day with Exec Chef James Abhilash and his team of Department Heads in the foyer of the Britannia Restaurant. Taken from the Captain’s table, my back to the tapestry

On board the QM2 there’s the Queens and Princess Grills and King’s Court, the Steakhouse, Room Service and the Crew Galley as well as the Boardwalk, a little burger/hot dog joint up on the sports deck. The Britannia kitchen is huge, stainless steel and spotless. There’s hundreds of staff walking around: major cleaning happens overnight with constant clean-ups through the day, plus the more picturesque chopping, stirring, plating, serving and then more cleaning. Nothing is left to chance. The orders are supervised to the last minute to avoid waste.

Potable water is created by 3 huge salt water plate evaporators. They process around 1900 tons of water for crew and guest showers plus all the drinks. The water is treated and filtered numerous times, especially by the time they arrive in the drink machines in the restaurants.

There are 157 chefs on board of different ranks and specialities, and there’s 85 support staff such as dishwashers and cleaners under the supervision of the Galley Manager. Plus there’s 13 strong Provision Team headed by the Inventory Manager. There’s 21 refrigerated and frozen rooms for storage. About 16,000 meals are eaten every day – with attendant plates, cutlery and linen to be washed.

For us passengers, there’s only entertainment. Sadly, 680dotcom’s first attempt to try shuffleboard was cancelled due to wind. Tried afternoon Trivia but remembered nothing. Back to work. Then decided to try the plant-based option in the room service menu. Fast and delicious. Watched a movie about Val Kilmer. Persistence. Serious intense man with throat cancer – continuing to strive.

Sunset over African seas from the QM2
Sunset over African seas from the QM2

DAY 24 – PORT ELIZABETH

Port Elizabeth from the QM2
Port Elizabeth from the QM2

Woke at 05:00, pleasant routine before enjoying breakfast. Supposed to be reading in the theatre at 07:00 but accidently late – no matter – we weren’t called ‘til 07:30.

Refuelling boat - no smoking please
Refuelling boat alongside QM2 – no smoking please

Fifteen of us piled on to a little bus and off we went with guide Siswayle – a smart urbane young man with beautiful leather shoes and cool trousers.

During our drive through grey, littered city streets, into orange farmland, I sat next to Melanie, who turned out to be a mum of a 27-year-old man (snap!), divorced, and having herself a surprise cruise romance. She was trying to remain positive despite her qualms. During our chat, I couldn’t help noticing our bus was lost – more than once. The guide and the driver had several urgent discussions, telephone calls, and changes of direction. I surmised our team had not been to our destination before. The final phone call resulted in our arrival at a walled compound. The wall had electric wire along the top.

Here was Criss-Cross Adventures and we were allowed toilet-time before entering the ‘jeeps’ – and the gates opened into our new riverside experience. I had expected safe nana-rafts, but no, the six canoes on the back of our ‘jeep’ were fully big, two-person, solid canoes. I’d be up a river with a proper paddle. Gulp.

Criss-Cross Adventures unload our canoes into the lazy Sunday river
Criss-Cross Adventures unload our canoes into the lazy Sunday river

Luckily, as a single, I was able to sit next to the driver, the manager of the business, an intelligent young woman who agreed our bus driver and tour guide had not visited Criss-Cross before. She was frustrated by the system which meant every day she had to guide the guides as well as the tourists. She’d been brought up both in South Africa and England and spoke four languages fluently. Lucky Criss-Cross.

After parking, we watched the three workers manhandle the ships towards the river. I meandered outside cruise control which allowed me to be allotted Andrea, a German tourist not on QM2, for a partner. I don’t speak German and their English wasn’t great, but I saw he and his girlfriend were wearing actual boatie canoe shoes and I understood they were both super experienced. His girlfriend was partnering her friend and there were two others in another boat. So, their party of five got a Reluctant Cruiser as a plus one.

Most of the time the current floated us gently along the khaki-coloured water with Andrea acting as engine while I coasted along gaping at the surroundings. How fantastic, to be in South Africa, on a river, in the fresh air, using muscles. Well, sort of.

The beginning of our river paddle
Paddling up Sunday river: https://crisscrossadventures.co.za/

Under a brilliant blue sky, we paddled down the brown, lazy river, looking up at eucalyptus hanging hot above sandy cliffs rising over the rushes and bamboo. Is everything introduced? A good example of the mixing of plants around the world. The guide shouted clear instructions and safety warnings for a couple of reasonable white-water encounters. We took turns to get through tricky bits, calling out that yes, we were safe, before the next vessel started off. Andrea told me to leave it to him, but I suspect it was my cleverly placed and strong paddle strokes that helped us get through unscathed. We got on well, especially after his girlfriend, in another craft, was stung by some wild unnamed South African beast. There were screams and fears of every wild animal, caught in hair and nibbling on soft white tourist flesh. We made our way over the water to the panicked duo, and I applied my best motherly soothing queries to the trouble. As I mentioned, my bag was in their canoe waterproof container, and I encouraged them to open the outside pocket and give me the small white spray bottle they would find therein. STINGOES! As every Australian knows, with one spray, you’re away. Within five minutes the pain and terror had subsided, my bag was reinstated into waterproof container, and I had five new German friends. Who says language is key to communication?

We saw a bee-eater and the most extraordinary Goliath heron, huge, like a brolga, with a massive knife-sharp beak. We saw a malachite kingfisher, lots of African darters, crows, and a magnificent fish eagle. There was a section of the river where weaver birds had created little lantern nests. They dangled from the bank of the river swinging from bamboo stalks as if lighting a parade. The poor male must build, weave, and knit grasses into clever designs to attract a mate. But if she’s not impressed, she nips off the endeavour and it lands on the ground, never to be any baby’s home. All or nothing for the weaver bird.

We were invited to park up and take a break at a twist in the river: juice or beer, snacks and chips, and a good dousing of mud for our shoes as we climbed in and out of the canoes. Back in the boat, with his long legs, Andrea artistically swooshed his little canoe shoes in the water to rinse them as we pottered downstream. This was not an option for my heavier boots and the fact I was cornered in the bow. Back on the land, we waited while the workers loaded up the heavy canoes. This was not a job for a weak person and presumably it would only be possible to do it for a limited time. Our guide admitted that he would be doing a National Park tour that afternoon so perhaps he was transitioning to an easier life.

We were returned to base where everyone rushed to the toilet, then connected with wifi and rang up their families. I said goodbye to my new German friends, asked to scrape off the worst of the mud from my boots, and rejoined cruise life. The next instalment of our shore experience was the Braai – a South African barbecue.

South African Braai. Man cooks meat at large covered BBQ. A stuffed baboon and a boar's head watch him.
South African Braai. Man cooks meat over a fire watched by stuffed boar, baboon and live dog.

Our busload of hungry cruisers lined up at a long table by a huge fireplace while the drivers and guides prepared our food. I was offered a huge plate of salad and steamed veg while the carnists scored toasted cheese sandwiches and salad, sausages, and IMPALA.

As he gnawed on his impala chunks, fellow cruiser Mark shared information about the ship’s engines gleaned from an article: beyondships.com, Nov 2009. Inside view: “What makes QM2 go? A conversation with QM2 Chief Engineer Brian Watling”, by Richard H. Wagner.

In short, Mark told me, QM2 has four enormous engines in the depths of the ship’s hull using diesel, or heavy oil. Two turbo engines are on the top of the ship, behind the Queen Mary 2 sign, using the equivalent of expensive aviation gas. They’re designed for extra boost power through rough weather or to make up time. Most of the time the ship is running on diesel.

The four Wartsila engines can each burn 3.1 tons of heavy fuel oil per hour at 100 % load. The two General Electric turbos can each burn 6.1 tons of light oil per hour at 100% load. That’s a lot of tons of oil on board. You can read that again.

There are no drive shafts turning propellers, taking up massive space inside the ship. Instead, there are four Rolls Royce Mermaid Pods weighing 260 tons each, suspended under the ship. These tractor units – like propellers but backwards – they pull the ship through the water – are powered by electric engines. Two of these azimuthing pods (azipods), used as rudders, can rotate 360 degrees, which explains the ease of manoeuvring the ship into tight spaces. Two are fixed in position. There are also three bow thrusters that help move the ship sideways.

Electricity is generated by both the diesel and gas turbines. The biggest user of electricity are the azipods but air-co, refrigeration and heating – everything – is distributed by a main switchboard.

I thanked Mark. This information would be invaluable when I found an engineer to (interrogate) talk to – at a cocktail party – or somewhere!

Us cruisers finished our lunch, the workers thanking us even more than we thanked them, and I climbed back onto the bus to hear Melanie’s tale of woe. An experienced canoeist, she had partnered with our smart young tour-guide, Siswayle, a surprise learner. I had noted his beautiful shoes were covered in mud when we’d reconvened. Melanie was able to debrief after her near-death white-water troubles. Siswayle agreed. He had not enjoyed canoeing up the river. He prayed more than he listened to his partner. And his trousers were ruined. Melanie would also need time to recover.

Glossy green leaves of citrus trees contrasted with the orange dirt. Piles of oranges and lemons at the corners of the farms. Pickers at lunch or gone home by the time we’d finished. A warthog ran out in front of us, and the driver barely slowed down enough not to clip it. The poor thing ran in front of us for 100m or so and finally decided to swerve for the verge. No roadkill in evidence, unlike Kangaroo Island.

Many people hitchhiking, the public transport unpredictable at best and non-existent the rest of the time. Some folk didn’t bother looking both ways, taking their lives in their hands and striding across the road. As with the warthog, the driver barely slowed but we all survived.

On the way back to the port, us cruisers fell silent as we drove through the townships. Siswayle explained they normally avoid that route because there are often protests, burning piles of tyres and throwing bricks. But today everyone was calm and, in his words, minding their own business.

Dramatic contrast between rich and poor areas – Siswayle called the poorer suburb, ‘Get up and Go’ or ‘Move Up’, perhaps rephrased as start small and succeed. He used to live in these shanty towns and, as he grew up, moved to the cleaner, tidy suburbs. We passed his old school and wondered at his determination and the power of prayer. He would have to buy new shoes.

Survival as seen from the windows of a tour bus.

Then there were cars, manufactured here in South Africa and positioned to load into car transport ships.

Port Elizabeth new car parking system seen from QM2
As seen from the deck of QM2, each new car was moved in groups of 6 – a van picking up the individual drivers who would then drive from one section to the next, get in the van, go up to the top block, get out, drive their car to be parked neatly and get in the van … repeat …

Full moon already? Couldn’t it wait for Easter?

The Admirals Cufflinks featured in the foreground are replacement propeller blades
The ‘Admiral’s Cufflinks’ featured in the foreground are replacement propeller blades bolted to the bow

DAY 25 – at sea – passing Cape Aghulas, the most southerly point of the continent of Africa.

View from the overflow panel in the sheltered balcony
View from the overflow panel in the sheltered balcony

Met Jane at the bow deck. We watched a trio of white birds suspected of being gannets. When one flew sideways, she named it a Cape Gannet with the aid of her trusty bird ID app. She’d been initially undecided as they looked small, and she’d thought perhaps shearwaters or petrel.

The library has no book on seabirds – not even a poster – and it wouldn’t really matter because of the dearth of wildlife so far.

Sir Bob Geldorf is offered up as enrichment for the ‘guests’. He appeared in the Royal Court Theatre clad in a crumpled white suit, lounging louche low in his chair. His talk was livestreamed to the cinema next door and to the internal tv system. I chose to skip art class and watch the speech from the comfort of my own cabin. I was impressed by Neil, the Entertainment Director’s interview skills. He welcomed the knight, asked him ‘How did it all begin?’ and sat back to let the great man answer, only coming in at the end to admonish the speaker’s spicy language.

Sir Bob spoke with eloquence, learning and prescience. He feels the problems of the world: climate change, nuclear proliferation, economy, are global. Current UK and USA leaders are nationalistic, and, amongst his other aims, Putin is trying to destabilise the EU.

Sir Bob admitted to being a pattern-seeker, and feels we are on the brink of some great thing. He noted the build-up to WW1 began with new technology leading to a new economy and the old guard resisting. He pointed out WW2 only finished when the Berlin wall came down and the internet was invented. Now there’s a new global economy and the old guard is resisting strongly. Change is coming. What will it be? How will your grandchildren survive? Can they?

His advice to cruisers was to put the news away, talk to children and try to avoid shouting at each other. He shook his hairy grey tired head and said,

‘Just be kind.’

Easter Melon in the Kings Court Buffet QM2
Easter Melon in the Kings Court Buffet QM2

DAY 26 – CAPE TOWN

Cape Town arrival SA from the deck of the QM2
Cape Town arrival SA from the deck of the QM2

Today we were to visit the city: The Fort, The Company Garden and Signal Hill.

Table cloth coming down over the mountains as seen from QM2
Cloud known as the ‘table cloth’ coming down over Table and Signal mountains as seen from QM2

It was rainy and our guide was strict and stressed. Kaaaren loved to count. Unfortunately for her, this group of cruisers preferred to look at things like adults and didn’t like to be counted. A group of elegant ladies up the back of the bus began to giggle early on and eventually reverted to sixteen-year-olds running away from the big, bad teacher. We would have preferred Kaaaren to count us at the beginning and end of the excursion and not during. She liked to gather the group together and count whenever she could, and her strategy failed early leading her to further stress. As we approached, she thought the Fort was shut, but some of the naughty girls had run on ahead, returning to report that it was in fact open, so Kaaaren had to get marching and do some organising. She found a young guide who could recite his lessons very fast with some panache.

It was a typical military place, with grounds and pleasantly furnished buildings for officers and less comfortable spaces for soldiers, and even a torture chamber for naughty people with a cat o nine tails. Not even that threat could stop our well-dressed ladies sniggering.

Kaaren invited our busload to walk through the oldest garden in South Africa, the Company Gardens, with her in the light drizzle but also pointed out the museum and the gallery. Given the inclement conditions I chose the South African National Art Gallery and loved the mashup of old and new. I found some of the work, and some of the juxtapositions inspiring, passionate, and provocative.

Death wanders through the South African Art Gallery
Death, by Maurice Mbikayi, sycthes through the South African National Art Gallery

Due to the rain and mist Signal Hill had limited sightseeing opportunities, like to about three metres. Kaaren would have liked us to stay on the bus and get counted, but the gang piled out and milled around regardless. She only began to relax when she realised she’d not lost anyone and it was time to go home.

Sight seeing through the table cloth over the top of Table Mountain, Cape Town, SA
Sight seeing through the Table Cloth cloud covering the top of Table Mountain, Cape Town, SA

Two of our 680dotcom team, Andrew and Ray, endured their own thwarted bus tour due to the mist. They drove all the way up Table Mountain and could see nothing. Apparently the cloud is common and known as The Table Cloth. On their return to the bus, their guided counted, recounted and and recounted in vain. Someone was AWOL. Due to the clash of the numbers, they waited for the missing person to return. And waited. Had the person become lost? Fallen off the Table? There was no return and it took an hour of waiting before they were informed the missing person had returned to ship on another bus.

I suppose the paper ticket system has been going for years but, as all the information is on electronic record, it should be a simple matter for each guide to have an ipad with a list of their class. Why, it could even include notes about naughty children!

On our return to ship, I jumped straight on the shuttle bus to a big waterside shopping centre near the port. It was a mall offering all sorts of restaurants, supermarkets, and specialty shops but no postoffice. Given it was Easter holidays it was packed. Found lots of snacks.

In food notes: speaking with Richard, our Head Waiter, I mentioned my minor disappointment I would miss a hotcross bun as they contained cow and egg wash. He said he would place a special order for me. When would I like it? I didn’t like to be a trouble. He said, nonsense. Would I like it tomorrow? On consideration, given I was only having the one, I felt I should abide by tradition and said the Sunday breakfast would be ideal. He was only too happy to organise it for Ms Osborne, the only vegan in the village. (He didn’t say that.)

Two seals lie on the prow in Port Capetown, South Africa seen from QM2
Can you see the seals on the prow? Port Capetown, South Africa from QM2

DAY 27 – CAPE TOWN

Major excursion day to Cape Point. And the Cape of Good Hope. And MORE!

Warning. The Cape of Good Hope does not have a lighthouse or tourist facilities. It’s just a car park and a rocky outcrop.

All in all, it was a pleasant, traditional bus tour with entertaining guide PLUS a fantastic meal overlooking the water. Tofu ‘fish’ slabs with chips and salad. A berry fruit salad that made all the bored ice-cream eating carnists sit up and pay attention. They began to look around and cry out that indeed, they were vegan too! Too late, flesh munchers!

When your party is jealous of your vegan dessert ...
When your party is jealous of your vegan dessert …

At the Royal Court Theatre that night saw a 23-year-old ventriloquist called Max Fullham with good puppetry skills and lots of cute in-jokes. But, notes, Max: not enough delineation between the characters. Need to be strict about what each character knows. If your main gag is that puppet ears can hear and puppet eyes can see, then a bare puppet head won’t have those abilities until their ears and eyes are available. But a youngster holding the attention of people older than his grandparents, that’s an achievement.

April full moon over African waters seen from QM2
April full moon over African waters seen from QM2 – must be Easter

DAY 28 – at sea – left SA very late. I was awake to watch the delicate manoeuvres, reversing and exiting a slim margin into potentially dangerous winds. Because the side of the ship is so wide it can catch the wind and cause all sorts of trouble. We were five hours late and all safe.

Very strange to leave the cinema where I’d been immersed Benin’s landscape with Viola Davis in The Woman King – absorbed – beautiful moments – full on violence. I feel a sequel coming on. As I stood up to go, an elderly lady wearing a necklace of glittering stones behind me, the only other in the room, asked what the film had been as she’d been late. I told her and made admiring comments about the performances and story matter. She said it sounded interesting and thought she might like to stay for the second sitting. Did I think she’d like it? I asked if she liked violence? She said, ‘Oh no, not at all.’ I told her I didn’t think The Woman King was for her.

I listened to more of my talking book, Les Mis. So much information about Cosette’s nunnery. He bangs on, does our Victor. An info dump is still an info dump even if your book is a classic. At least I got through the battle of Waterloo – almost my Waterloo really. But the story of Cosette’s rescue is riveting. The greedy innkeeper vile, stubborn and persistent.

Richard saw me coming and sped off to fetch the hotcross bun. After some time, lucky Ann was there to chat with, he rushed up with two buns! I can’t really comment on the quality. The thought counted.

On the way to Namibia. It is surreal.

Sea meets sky from the QM2
Sea meets sky from the QM2 teak deck

DAY 29 – NAMIBIA – WALVIS BAY – Africaan for Whale Bay

QM2 arriving into Walvis Bay, Namibia
QM2 arriving into Walvis Bay, Namibia

The port is the centrepiece of heavy industry. Surrounding that are new suburban estates and further out are sandy buildings and then there’s sand dunes and the desert.

Small selection of many flamingos, Walvis Bay, Namibia
Small selection of many flamingos, Walvis Bay, Namibia

Very nice to begin our tour with striding flamingos in a lagoon. From tidal flats we were then taken to a dry dune. The specific tourist dune was closed for some anti-tourist reason so this one was given as our option, a popular destination for dune buggies, dune bikes and short walks. Our guide was more about the fun than the facts. She said it was her birthday. Was that fun enough for you? We dutifully clambered up the dune.

I wondered about some little marks I’d seen on the sand – away from the tracks and foot prints. The guide thought it could have been side winder snakes, black widow spiders or scorpions? If creatures live in the dunes should people be riding rough shod quad bikes over them? I guess where we walked in our little bare feet the scorpions would have been long squashed.

Then we were driven to a suburb organised by German settlers. Of course, as part of history they’re no longer allowed to alter colour or shape but Germans still pay a large part in education and development of Walvis Bay. We parked opposite an open air market where trinkets and fabrics could be bought from apparently authentically dressed tribal people. But if you went anywhere near, to pass to the museum, for instance, you were swamped by blokes crowding and pushing stuff at you and making continual suggestions about the provenance and quality of their wares, and, as a single female, I found it overwhelming enough to bypass entirely.

The museum was mildly interesting.

Museum Swakopmund showing how passengers used to be transferred between ships in a large wicker basket
Museum Swakopmund showing how passengers used to be transferred between ships

Ended up in a quiet, clean, touristy Made in Namibia shop. Paid top dollar for some hand printed cushion covers as a gift for son in Australia. Had delightful chat with woman behind till with long fingernails. She’d also enjoyed watching The Woman King and would love to work in the movies. I encouraged her to find out where the sure to be sequel would be made and, keen as, she put her long-nailed hand up. She would do it! She would even learn karate!

I have no idea why I chose that shore experience. I even forgot to mention the crystal museum – essentially a rock/gem shop – very boring but nice rocks. Avoid.

Elaine, one of our 680dotcom team, had chosen to visit a community where everyone lived in tiny tin and cardboard shacks. Andrew had been taken to a desert where a strange looking plant with only two leaves lived for hundreds of years. I went to a shopping centre and a museum with a fun guide. She did drop us off at the beach and encouraged us to photograph the sand. Then when we returned to the beach we enlarged the image to reveal hundreds of different minerals and coloured stones in the sand. She also pointed out the massive offshore ship repair unit. It looked like an oil rig from the distance, but apparently Namibia is known for the ability to run repairs on fishing vessels without them having to go into drydock.

Namibia is also known for working with Sea Shepherd. Recently Walvis Bay was the scene of a dramatic search and seizure of shark fins.

The container cranes near our ship were lit with bright green. They look like Christmas dinosaurs with red eyes.

Dinosaurs in Port of Cape Town? Seen from QM2
Dinosaurs seen from QM2 in Port of Cape Town

The Captain’s report on departure mentioned an almost 360 degree turn. It was certainly a remarkable thing to witness. I went up to the Observatory to stand directly over the bow as we proceeded out of the long, thin (130 metres across) shipping lane to get out of the bay. Taken slow and quiet on smooth waters, the journey was hypnotic and some of the buoys went by very close.

The next eight days would be all at sea.

Mixing it up

Do homo sapiens have a purpose?

A model of a large ocean cargo liner arches over the entry to the Eden Project Rainforest Biome
Part of a large ocean cargo liner arches over the entry to The Eden Project Rainforest Biome

Nik Meergans, a British artist now living in France, once remarked that if we humans have any purpose in life, it is to mix things up. Humans like to take things (plants, minerals, people) from one place, one country, to somewhere else, and stir things up. It’s what we’re good at. Why, I’ve often been called a stirrer. We take minerals from one place and make steel train lines, we take coffee beans, load them on ships and send them off to Melbourne to be pressed into service. The Eden Project explores the idea of mixing to the max: one crop, one exploitation, and one cargo ship at a time.

It was a quiet walk through mist-rain from the YHA down to The Eden Project in Cornwall. Past fruit-flavoured (strawberry, melon, mango, pineapple, lime … ) carparks (they expect a lot of cars!!), past a gorgeous orchard surely older than twenty years (the Project’s age), to join a stream of people arriving into the visitors’ centre. I was one of the first of the day to buy my £35-year-pass. Only, I shan’t be back this way. Is it a little bit expensive for a day trip?

I took the information booklet that acts as an entry pass and went straight away to coffee and cake. (Is it vegan? I think it’s gluten free? Shall we look that up and read out all the ingredients to make sure the customer is well and truly reminded they’re a weirdo?) Once seated and relaxed I perused the information book. It’s so thorough I couldn’t really grasp the concept on one quick read. However, it is a great reminder of what you’ve seen after the event. I dressed in my waterproofs and walked outside into the Eden Project.

Previously, I was under the impression the Project was a glorified botanical garden, and initially I wasn’t impressed as I marched the long way through the Climate System and the incessant light rain (Cornish mizzle – cross between mist and drizzle). I asked a gardener about frogs (silent in the rain) and he said there were lots. They find them in random places, but he dodged the question of them singing. Maybe English frogs are quiet?

water running off the Core Building roof at the Eden Project
Water gushes from the Core Building roof, pouring into a rock chip filter system, then channelling through into a water garden.
One of the displays from the Core building 'Invisible World' exhibition
Display from the Core building ‘Invisible World’ exhibition – from macro to micro

Into the Core, where a museum display illustrated big universes and microorganisms, and then I turned a corner and saw ‘Blue’. It’s an 8.5 metre ceramic cyanobacteria, the smallest form of life, emitting random scented smoke rings like a giant hookah-smoking blue peanut. Here art and science began to provoke thoughts.

Blue is an 8.5 metre sculpture blowing perfect smoke rings for O - oxygen
‘Blue’ by Studio Swine – 8.5 metre ceramic sculpture

The smoke forms a perfect O for oxygen, the beginnings of life. There’s an inspiring film about the origins of the sculpture and the international team (Studio SWINE) that created it. I enjoyed watching different people interact with the rings. One boy would make up his mind at the last minute; either smash it or loop it over his arm like a bracelet.

The Core houses a variety of changing exhibitions and displays to inspire and create wonder. The current is ‘Invisible Worlds’.

After examining the inner world, I went outside again to find a biome. Two of these giant bubble shapes nestle into the hillside of what used to be a quarry. Built like insect eyes, in the misty rain of the morning, they appeared ghostly and perfectly suited to their environment.

The Eden Project, the Core building and the smaller biome, nestled into the hillside in the mist
Paths leading to the Core building and the Biomes

The Mediterranean Biome is smaller, built up into a cliff, and represents plants and crops found around the Mediterranean, South Africa, and Western Australia. Now, I really was intrigued, as only recently I’d visited both WA and SA on my journey to the UK. Olives, grapes and bougainvillea, oleanders and proteas, fine leafed SA rarities and WA banksias side by side, describing my shore experiences! And if you want good mixers, geraniums and agapanthus, amarylis and gladiolus are all originally South African.

But it was when I entered the Rainforest Biome, probably twice the size as the drier climate, with tall lush canopy trees almost brushing the inside of the dome, walkways through the glossy green treetops and that enormous ocean liner sculpture at the entrance that I began to feel a real affinity with the scope of the Project.

Rainforest canopy leaves
You can just see the walkway up over the rainforest canopy leaves

Not only are we treated to a recreation of a rainforest, seeing a collection of plants from four different zones: Southeast Asia, West Africa and Southern and Central America, but also industrial crops such as sugar and coffee, cacao and rubber, palm oil and spices, giving more than a hint of past exploitation and colonial greed. As we travel through the Amazon rainforest photos of indigenous tribal people describe their vulnerability as ongoing destruction continues.

Vulnerable tribes in the Amazon
Highlighting plight of vulnerable tribes in the Amazon

A great, international story unfolds, from seed to plate, soil and microorganisms to tall trees and orangutans. The story is enormous, yet school children run across a rope swing bridge that highlights how a rainforest creates its own rain, screaming cheerfully when the fog cloud is turned on. They don’t get wet, but you can be sure the teacher will expect them to talk about their canopy experience when they get back to school!

You can climb to the very top where the temperature was 31 degrees Centigrade the day I visited. Many clothes are shed in this biome! I noticed a school group participate in the chocolate adventure – one youngster even dressed as a Mayan God. I attended a coffee tasting and discussion as we stood near a group of arabica and robusta bushes. What countries grow coffee successfully? Who is exploited? What happens when the plants escape the farms and invade native forests? I also happened upon a tea tasting – guess the spices – you’ll have to visit yourself; I’m not going to tell you.

Thinking of Australia, very little interest was ever taken in First Nations’ use of plants as medicine or food. Instead the mixers brought English trees and vegetables, European fruits and insects and, of course, foxes and cane toads. There was even a group called The Victorian Acclimatisation Society who amongst other imports made the deliberate decision to bring in rabbits: ‘if it lives, we want it’. Destructive ignorance and trade above all other considerations.

Orangutan hiding in the rainforest
Orangutan hiding in the rainforest

The immediate Eden Project message is clear, your weapon is your wallet. Gentle suggestions encourage consumers to try single origin, certified products. If supported by Fairtrade or the Rainforest Alliance, even better. You’re supporting farmers to grow more sustainably, more intelligently and feed their grandchildren into the future. We’re a multicultural world. But are we?

Underlying stories of colonial domination and oppression are present for those who have had their thoughts provoked.

For adults in any doubt about climate change, there’s a chance to see some well-presented evidence. If they don’t ‘see’ it, then their children might. There’s a hopeful assumption that we’re all working together to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and we are developing enough new technology to get moving yesterday and there’s more Eden Projects all over the world. Look for them in Hobart and Angelsea in Australia and the redzone in Christchurch, NZ. Theres a new water project in China, which will also be reflected in Cornwall due to a destructive earth slide in 2020. There’ll be one in Costa Rica, one in Chad, Northern Ireland, Morcambe, Dundee and Dubai. Visit if you can.

The Eden Project is projecting a grand future - watch out for one near you!
The Eden Project is projecting a grand future – watch out for one near you!

The art continues in the extensive gardens and surrounding displays. For locals there are concerts, playgrounds and changing exhibitions. What a wonderful way for us mix-it-up humans to reconnect with history and look at the entire planet as it was and is and how it could be. All this within a few hectares. Travel without travel. But I have traveled; I’ve sailed halfway around the world on a liner. I’ve brought things to the UK: my Taiwanese iodine, Canadian moisturiser, Australian metal water bottle, some biscuits from Cape Town.

I docked at Southampton in late April after spending six weeks at sea on The Queen Mary 2, the only ocean liner in active service. She’s not a cruise ship – she’s a liner – due to the deeper keel, higher speeds, greater engine power, the pyramid shape for stability and overall endurance. At least, that’s what the designer, Stephen M. Payne told us in his presentation.

From indulgent cruise to cargo liner in a plant museum. How long can humans keep shipping avocados from Peru to London? Potatoes from NZ to Australia?

QM2 in Sydney harbour waiting to dock at the Ocean terminal
QM2 in Sydney harbour waiting to dock at the Ocean terminal April 2023 (ship to ship photo: Jeff Bartolomei)

Here are my QM2 accounts: sustainable or not? One, Two, Three, Four, Five

And try this on for size …

Searching for Mervyn Peake in Sark

Arrrr, those pesky pirates! You know the sort; nasty, violent, GREEDY? Take what they want, arrrr, and care not one whit for the contentment of the many, nor even of the few wealthy owners, nor even for that super royal family to whom tax is most certainly due.

Peake pirate from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/f1/86/cef186f038796cc4d647be6035063f1f.jpg

Queen Elizabeth I (arrrr) knew all about pirates and she didn’t like them. She’d seen too many ships disappear, together with her income, and she wanted the pestilence fixed. Looking toward the Continent, she could tell Jersey and Guernsey were populated and policed enough, but Sark, a teeny island, a craggy outcrop of rock, drilled through by the sea until it resembled Swiss cheese, was trouble. Sark, even now holding the honour of the most caves of the Channel Islands, was riddled with pirates.

Peake’s first published work was Captain Slaughterboard, written and illustrated by Mervyn himself

Queen Liz wanted Sark cleaned up. She gave the entire island of 4.5 square miles (Sark 2017 Official Map) to a Lord, The Seigneur, and charged him with protecting her waters and getting rid of the blasted bandits.

The Seigneur, in his turn, allowed thirty-nine of his closest armed friends to rent a cheap piece of Sark so long as they kept guard. All they had to do was keep it free of pirates and enjoy the sort of dreamy rural existence made romantic by HE Bates. It can’t have been easy, I’m sure. The early settlers might even have had trouble finding topsoil on that windy place. But they soon found enough to grow sheep, vegetables and send their children off to fee-paying English schools and eat delicious French food. They invented lazy summer holidays and horse-drawn tourist peace and all was well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=0yCccWcFbXw

After a few hundred years came World Wars and German invasion. This was difficult but eventually the locals overcame the barbed wire and life went on in the same idyllic manner. But, what if, after 450 years of dutiful protection, the locals became complacent? What if they forgot their obligations to the crown and their duty to protect Sark? What if modern pirates began circling the island in their helicopters with their fancy new technologies? What would happen if the Sarkese didn’t realise they were under attack until it was too late?

Peake apparently knew Treasure Island by heart http://fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ea29c77f532850e2945dc298b35da651.jpg

I was awarded the Titus Groan trilogy for debating at a small girls’ school in Dunedin, New Zealand. Even when staring at the pencil illustrations on the covers, I knew I’d been handed the key to another world.

http://mervynpeake.blogspot.com.es/2011/05/illustrated-gormenghast-anticipation.html

The Gormenghast books were satire, adventure and a description of enclosed society. Mervyn Peake, artist and writer (as much as those two roles can be separate in his life) conceived and wrote much of the trilogy when Peake and his family lived on Sark. Much has been written about his childhood in China and how that experience might have contributed to the strangeness of his creation, but having visited Sark, I think that’s where he found the core of Gormenghast.

The Peakes moved to Sark in 1946 and lived an arcadian lifestyle for three years as he planned the series. As a single man he had lived on Sark for four years before the war, in an artist’s colony. He was an eccentric fellow with a pet cormorant and a penchant for nudism. He became an art teacher and a war artist later. 

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07779/Mervyn-Laurence-Peake

Seventy years on, I went to Sark in search of Peake, hoping to find evidence of his inspiration. He was the first world builder I’d ever encountered, in words or pictures.

“My voice has all the lushness
of what I can’t abide

And yet it has a beauty
most proud and terrible
denied to those whose duty
is to be cerebral.”

To me, Peake was more than a friend. He was a soulmate.

Waiting to buy tickets for the ferry at Granville

To get to Sark, one must travel by sea. Port de Granville of France was not colourful. The buildings were grey, beige or cream or a clotted mix and the sea was slate grey. The sky was filled with ashen clouds. The boats were once white with an odd faded blue for contrast. As I waited for the ferry I watched the floating world go by. As the ferry prepared to leave, I watched two men and a clump of fishing rods bump out of the protection of stone walls in a surprising bright yellow inflatable.

This is not the ferry. A fellow traveller.

It’s difficult to imagine how those old sea walls could possibly have been built without the aid of cranes and heavy engineering equipment. I suppose each wall, built on the remains of the previous, becomes stronger over the ages, like nearby Mont Saint-Michel, a dramatic medieval castle-cathedral, which may also have influenced Peake.

Mont St Michel

Au revoir La France! A bientôt!

From Granville we sailed to Jersey. “In Transit” whilst at Jersey meant walking off the boat, waiting for customs to look at the passport, getting a new boarding pass, walking to the waiting room and, without sitting down, getting in the queue to return with treble the amount of people wanting to visit Sark. In less than an hour we were on our way again, past a proud fort crouched on the Jersey coast fringed with cranes poised this way and that. Jersey, as far as I could tell, was an island plagued with developers.

Jersey fort

On board the ferry, I stood on deck, leaning into a bend in the rail, loving the rise and fall, the spray from the ploughed waves stinging my face. The wind was icey but there was warm sun on my back and soon enough we neared Sark waters. Rocky waters. Great dark craggy outcrops jagged from the white water all around the cliffs. A black tidal mark or plimsoll line bruised the rocks just above the water where the waves have engraved a thinner waist for the island.

Black lichen high water mark around Sark

Extraordinary harbour walls featured steep steps up to a road, which wound through a tunnel in the cliff. I found it difficult to imagine the grasping hands and burning backs, tearing muscles and broken legs; the vision and the technology that had to be utilised to build these sea walls.

Maseline is the main harbour of Sark, where the ferry and the mail boat visit – and not every day. The weather conditions are extreme. The sailors must be very skilled indeed to negotiate their paying customers up and down the steep steps to the ferry.

I puzzled, how could those early tenants have tamed the fierce thundering waters long enough to build towering stone walls right into it?

Welcome to Sark

There, through that proscenium cliff archway, was a walk up the hill. You could catch a tractor ride if you preferred but I chose the lovely green twisty path, and on, straight up the dusty thin carless road to the Sark Visitor’s Centre.

Leading us up the Sark garden path

My first impression of Sark town centre was ‘English Country Garden’. It was all very picturesque and human scale, apart from the giant vibrant begonias in all the bridesmaid colours of the world. I had no idea they could grow that big!

Over-sized begonias in the Sark garden experience

Sark seemed almost too good to be true.

The information officer told me that not many people come to Sark to seek Peake. What? REALLY?! The only reason I came was Peake. What else could there possibly be?

On the way up the main road it was difficult to ignore the amount of shops for rent and closed businesses. One entire side of the street was empty. Shut. This was peak tourist season – the middle of summer – August. The information woman told me crossly it was because of the cost of electricity. Far too high. (And not one solar panel in sight.)

I trooped off to La Vallete Campsite (a couple of paddocks on the cliff edge of a farm) where I put up my borrowed tent. When I fronted at the campsite ‘office’, more a mud-room entry space really, Linda said she found all her emails blurred into one – which camper was I? What did I want? Exactly? Just a place to lay my weary head.

Incredibly grateful that Roseann, Olivier and Mike lent me their tent!

I was unused to camping, unprepared and unskilled. I chose a site close to the edge of the cliff, though fenced in on two sides with blackberries. It appeared someone had desecrated the corner with some toilet paper streamers. They had been rained on. I tucked them back into the blackberry bush with the tent-peg mallet, of which there were several on offer. I put the small end of the tent into the prevailing wind but who knew where the wind would blow next?

There were a few puffy clouds looking thoughtful and attractive about this intense blue sky while the sun beat down meaningfully. Several charming yachts were drifting below, parked in La Grève de la Ville like a school of tethered white and blue tuna.

What sort of pirates sail the high seas?

What to do next? Obviously I had to go to the Vicar’s Fête, one of the Sark calendar highlights. Apparently the Peake family had lived nearby in a housed called Le Chalet. While I struggled to decide what book to buy at the bookstall (couldn’t) the auction began. I assumed the auctioneer was none other than the vicar himself and he proceeded to give a progress report of the Fair. There was a loud cry of despair from two women next to me when they heard there were no cakes left. A chap muttered to the bookseller, ‘Well, I’m not surprised. There weren’t many to start with.’ Suddenly I looked left and right. Was I in an episode of Midsummer Murders? The all white and cashmere Vicarage workers were certainly over fifty years old (many harking back fondly to their seventieth birthday). A small gang of vaguely Gothic teens/early twenties lounged on the grass to prove the exception.

The Bank. Summer outfit.

As I left the Fête, I noted a few summer visitors – I suspect you wouldn’t get called tourists – harrying their children around on bicycles. Because there’s no cars and you can easily hear a tractor on the way, or one of the horse-drawn carts, children hoon about freely.

Up by the path to the lighthouse (now an Airbnb with no public access) I found a well-placed bench overlooking the yachts to my left and several rugged rock islets scattered over the waters to my right. The waves were rustling below, tickling the shore. I could hear seagulls crying out somewhere and behind me in the bush grasshoppers (or crickets) sang a high-pitch bed of noise.

With lighthouse to the right and La Grève de la Ville to the right, my dinner bench was a peaceful spot

As I ate my dinner I watched currents moving under the water. The current coming around to the right (towards Maseline Harbour) was smooth, in contrast to choppy scuff marks sweeping the current along. It was as though someone had come through with a big wooden spoon and made a curvy pattern across my sea view. A speedboat ripped across the water. Dark navy depths rejoined as the white zipline faded away. The water then had a nap, brushed wrong way in a pleasing curve around me and smoothed further out like a rainbow arc but all tones of navy stripes. Then came a flotilla of small jet boats – possibly fisher folk returning for their dinner? Possibly cocaine smugglers for cocktail hour?

Les Fontaines where there are definitely smugglers caves just out of frame

The next morning I skittered down steep stairs to La Fontaine Bay, a sheltered and rocky smuggler’s cove where the sun blasted down. A seagull in the distance tangled with a plane far too high, altogether there were far too many planes roaring overhead. There were two great caves on the opposite side of the bay. I thought the tide was out because the seaweed was still fresh wet on the rocks. I thought of Peake, and Titus, as he might have walked these rocks and pathways, and how the woman in the tourist information office said, ‘Well, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, is he.’

A local grandfather made the Epeguerie rock pool many years ago. It’s leaking now. And, look, there’s George’s boat taking a load of tourists around the island!

I spent a good part of the day in my togs staring in a rockpool instead. The rock pools were heaving with little fish. When I assumed the gazing position, rubbernecking into the shallow twinkles, two fish came to look at me as if they were watching telly. They watched me watching them. Another swam through. Quickly. Then another. One of the watchers changed position, coming a little closer. They all kept a steady eye on me.  A darker one took shelter on an outcrop, just under the surface. As a fragile cluster of guppy things swam by, the dark one up above slapped the water somehow, making a surprising snappy clapping. I took up various positions around this Grandpa-made pool, leaking slightly now, but still absorbing viewing.

I marched up to the nose of the island, Bec du Nez, where seagulls sit like complacent white crowns on royal lumps of rock, their soft feathers littering the sheep-gnawed grass around them. It’s called the common and the guide suggests counting butterflies. Too many flutter by and I take it the counting is a joke. Mostly quiet brown creatures, perhaps with a spot or a bit of pale and some colourful ones too with flashes of orange and yellow. I mainly walked around the Eperquerie area, eating far too many blackberries. I wanted to get to the historical society in time to enquire about the ruins up there and ask what that black stain is. I took a bit more of a stroll to examine the Buddist carving on a rock. Not sure why it’s there. And then a snooze in the sun.

Perhaps the Buddhist carving is simply for us to ponder while relaxing in the sun or, maybe, it is to protect the island from evil.

When I eventually regained enough strength to eat more blackberries I got back on track and hit town too late for the historic society. Turned off by the Sunflower Café but admired the Sunflower Project, a two acre field donated by the farmer to grow sunflowers and other plants for birds and insects. Very happy to see Shenanigans Café open where a friendly young lady from Cardiff lent me her charger, made me a coffee, and a cherry jam sandwich. They even employed a solar panel or two. All well with the world.

Although impressed by the ancient windmill, I was saddened the bakery was no longer used. In fact, there’s no bakery open at all on the island. Here’s an opportunity for someone to run the place the way it used to be. Or stick up a new windmill to get things cooking. (Could they afford the thousand-pound-a-week plus rent the owners are asking for the bakery on the main road?)

The windmill’s wings are clipped (off)

The next day I woke to the tent flapping briskly in the wind. I had a dream in which I was picked up (while still in the tent) and moved to a hall. In my dream hall, many people were sleeping next to each other. I woke up (in the dream) to find myself between two bickering young men. One stretched out, over me, to annoy the other and I slapped his arm lightly. He was upset but I didn’t care. A young doctor came to look at my prone self. She looked worried. They hadn’t been able to wake me previously. I reassured her that I was in fine fettle. I must have fallen into such a deep sleep because I’d been awake after I thought I’d lost my wallet.

This last bit was true. I wanted to see the famous Dark Sky so when I woke I jumped at the chance to wander over to the toilet block. But I didn’t need a torch. The sky was bright. There was a full glorious moon. As I watched she pulled an elegant cloud-veil across her face. I dreamily went to watch the lighthouse flashing around the bay. This was the sign-posted lighthouse, now closed to the public, certainly a working warning light so that was reassuring. No big boats about to crash into the cliff. When I arrived back to the tent I discovered my wallet missing. Panic. Flashed the torch everywhere it might have been. Raced back to the loo and the lighthouse viewpoint. Started planning survival strategies. Got back to tent, tried to avoid dew soaked tent flap, began sorting and found wallet straightaway. Thank goodness. Asleep immediately to dream the wind picked me up. But it didn’t.

It was all just the wind in the tent. 

La Coupée is a very thin and wind vulnerable connection between Sark and Little Sark. Note the droppings left by the most popular form of tourist transport.

The next day I walked over the steep, curving La Coupée, a road built and fenced by prisoners of war, to Little Sark. Believing strongly in discretion above valour, I decided not to climb down to the Venus Pool alone. Looked arduous and I still had time to return to the historical society. If no one hears you scream did you actually fall to your death off a rocky cliff?

At the peak, I lounged on a soft patch of vivid green with tiny stalks bearing little cups of crispy white petals. Sark. Blackberries, sweet as desire. Butterflies, light and mobile as an already forgotten thought.

Sun bore down in full force, sea birds wheeled around and overhead. Many spattered brown birds – herring gulls? No wonder Peake thought of angels when he came to write Mr Pye, his book actually set on Sark. The jagged landscape is covered in fluffy white feathers.

I was so KEEN. Arrived at the historical society office 12:25 with plenty of time before they shut. Popped in to the loo, no potable water there and came to stand in line at the Heritage Room. Or rather, I waited in the corridor. A man held forth to a small elderly lady. She did not see me but I sort of bowed to the gentleman to indicate that I intended to move into the room, was that allowed? He met my gracious greeting with a blank stare I took to be assent so I moved into the space. Glass cabinets and folders of information about Sark surrounded me. I looked up the meadow pippet in birds of Sark, as the meadow pippet is my favourite bird. I think I may have seen a rock pippet near the old mines. I could find, as I slowly perambulated around the room, precisely nothing about Mervyn Peake. Nothing about pirates or the dark plimsoll line.

Meanwhile, the man held forth about the crimes of the British education system. He used to be a headteacher. He despaired at the constant measuring to which children are subjected in the current British system. As does his wife, a sixty percenter, but working full-time. As it turned out, you wouldn’t believe it, he, Richard, came from Wollstonecraft (or somewhere), which is EXACTLY where the thin, elderly lady’s brother and sister-in-law reside. Extraordinary coincidence. After that they spoke about the exhibits in front of them, neolithic axe heads and other items of geological interest. I believe he may now be a geologist of some sort. They were getting on splendidly and I’d perused the flowers of Sark and the rocks of Sark and the moths of Sark and the interesting beads, possibly made from Baltic amber found around Sark, when I realised these two had just begun to warm up. I took my departure (unnoticed) and headed to the Post Office where I intended to buy and post postcards.  And there, at last, in The Gallery Stores and Post Office, I found Mervyn Peake and his creations.

All the Peake Offerings in the Sark Post Office and Gallery

After dealing with postcards I went back to request the nearest potable water tap at tourist information. While I waited I looked through a beautiful coffee table book, ‘Art for the Love of Sark’. This is the record of an inspirational visit to Sark by twenty artists from Artists For Nature (http://www.artistsfornature.com/projects/sark/) It is a remarkable venture and I urge you to peruse the website and buy the book, if you can. One of the artist members, Rosie Guille, runs a delightful little gallery on the main street of Sark where you can pick up the book, perhaps one of her own evocative paintings or practice the art yourself. Here is her online gallery: https://rosanneguilleart.com/

http://www.sark.co.uk/958-958/

Back in the Sark Visitor Centre, the kind officer offered me the still warm water from her kettle. She preferred to boil the bore water. They have a good water table. Don’t need to go down too far. I remarked upon the lack of visible water tanks and that bore water is, of course, finite. She felt not. A good water table is a water table for good. I continued in my strident, visitor knows best sort of way, surely that’s the problem in California? She said, ‘Sark gets more rain than California.’ I said, ‘Isn’t that a good reason for water tanks?’

Didn’t seem like a smooth conversation did it, so I bought up Mervyn again. I wouldn’t let him go, I just couldn’t, and I said what a shame it was there was no shrine to this great writer. She said, ‘There’s a lot of artists that came from Sark. They couldn’t possibly commemorate them all.’

I said, ‘Like who?’ She said, ‘Cheeseplate and Topless’, people I hadn’t heard of so I added, ‘Oh yeah,’ I muttered dismissively, ‘And let’s not forget Victor Hugo!’ 

One of the closed hotels features a bar honouring Victor Hugo

Wasn’t it amazing that Victor Hugo had only been on the island for two weeks and he had a cave and a bar named after him while Peake had lived here for seven years? ‘Oh, she said, ‘Hugo was here longer than that.’ I said, ‘Not according to the pamphlet over there … ‘ And she looked askance at me.

Well, they hedge their bets, don’t they …

In order to lighten the atmosphere I added that I had started to see Gormenghast as a satire about Sark itself, what with all that inherited fifedom, and the enclosed nature of the island. She hadn’t read it but agreed that although many people had wanted democracy in 2008, many had wanted the island to stay the way it was. Is that so? To swing it all back to Mr Peake and his glory, I said it was a shame there was nothing available in the tourist information shop about him and she said, ‘Perhaps there’s nothing of his available to sell?’ And I said, ‘Well, there is in the Post Office!’

After a desperate pause in which we both wanted to be polite, she said, ‘Did you know he used to live there?’ And I said, ‘No, really?’ (Which was a lie because I did know by then) and she said, ‘Before it was the Post Office, of course. They had some pictures up once, showing him painting there.’ After making all the correct admiring sounds I said, ‘I had heard when he first lived here, when he was freezing in a barn, he worked in the fields to get money and had a pet cormorant.’ She looked askance again, ‘Well, you know better than I do, for sure.’

So I said that she was lucky to have the books to look forward to, that they were wonderful and thanks for the water. I could have reminded her that the books were all available in the PO but you know, I’m proud of myself. I knew when to stop.

There was the dead bakery on the main road. CLOSED. Another shop on the main street, CLOSED. Then, on the way to Dixcart Bay, a great swimming bay, I passed a large fancy hotel. CLOSED. What was going on? Time for some research.

Sark, straight ahead?

The price of electricity has little to do with the price of politics in Sark. Turns out Sark does have a darker side. Sark really is too good to be true.

Under all those pots of petunias, pretty tree-lined laneways and those quaint seventeenth century stone buildings lies a squawling ten-year-old democracy, fighting a 450 year-old-fifedom. Or is it?

Shady laneway in Sark – around the bend?

The democracy was apparently born of twin media barons, David and Frederick Barclay, trying to buy their way into tax-free law-making power. Come on. Did Mervyn Peake write that stuff? (NB: There were twins in the drama of Gormenghast but they were victims. Cora and Clarice were killed by Steerpike, a young man thirsting for power.)

Peake certainly loved pirates as described by Rob Maslen in a fine blog post but I don’t think Mervyn would much care for these boys. The Barclay Brothers have caused a sort of disease, a kind of cancer, in the form of untended grapevines, empty hotels and falling down buildings holding up the land.

Vines in apparent summer disrepair

I really felt at home in Sark but what a beastly thing this duo of billionaires have done. They’ve bought a good percentage of the ancient tenements but have not yet managed to sway the democratic elections enough to get their chosen people in power to make the legal changes they require. They want to make their bit of the island a separate tax haven. They normally live in Monaco but they’ve built a showy castle on a their private mini-island called Brecqhou.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81spGYC1al4

They’ve installed a helipad and roads and landed cars – against the rules, nay ethos, of Sark. They own all the empty shops and most of the main island’s hotels; those now standing empty. So there’s no work in those CLOSED hotels and no paying visitors. Which means the population of the island was half its normal summer number last year.

You can watch a Panorama episode available on You Tube that explains how these two media moguls have been trying to play monopoly and throw the board over when things aren’t going the way they like. (I’ve seen my sister do it. Definitely a thing.) 

The next morning was cloudy. I eyed the tumbling impending rain clouds suspiciously as I rushed to finish my breakfast before it came down again. I managed to bring everything over to the shed where there was a sort of veranda. I stretched the tent out over the ground and sipped my coffee while weak shards of sun stroked the damp nylon into submission.

Once I figured everything would not rot away if rolled up, I packed and left the stuff ready for the appointed pick up. I managed to walk the delightful garden dell path to the harbour five times that day. Once, when the friendly bank ladies thought George wouldn’t go out in this weather and I imagined I’d better take a look at this enclosed bay, Creux Harbour, to see how small and cute it really was, and how the water smashed up through the stairway.

While waiting for the Non Pareil to arrive I strolled around the picturesque Creux Harbour

I strode back up to find a phone which just ate my money and refused to connect with anyone. Luckily I ran into Rosie rather than have to face the Information Officers again. She put in a call to George for me and we were in business. Back down the windy path I went. On the way past, I couldn’t help myself, I popped into the smart corporate looking real estate company office. The smartly-attired business woman at the desk agreed there were a lot of closed shops on the main road and, yes, it was a shame.

I mentioned I came from Australia and there was an interesting phenomenon, started in Newcastle a few years back, called ‘Renew‘. The idea was that local officials would make empty, run-down shops or premises available to artists and small desktop computer type start-up businesses for peppercorn rents in order to bring life back into blighted areas. There was quite a lot available on the internet about it, I pressed on, Renew had been a great success. She agreed wholeheartedly, making no move to search her computer. She pretended to take a note in her diary and promised faithfully the Chamber of Commerce would be discussing it at the very next meeting.

I marched back down again and found the eighty-year old George and his son, Morgan, waiting in a jolly little boat, the Non Pareil. They took us from hightide Creux harbour, round the island with the most caves in the channel (Sark, remember?) and back to a low tide harbour. Here could be a clue for a renewable energy source – tidal power must surely be an option on Sark. Watch Morgan move the Non Pareil quick smart out of there!

George had met Mervyn Peake. He reported he was a very nice man. And George’d been in the tv series, Mr Pye, too. In fact nearly everyone on Sark had been involved!

Low tide at Creux Harbour reveals how those harbour walls might have been built!

When we went past the castle, George spoke unenthusiastically about the lack of community spirit of the Barclay boys.

George and his son Morgan take the tourists around Sark in all the weathers

These modern pirates, the Baron Boys – Barclaydum and Barclaydee – came in helicopters, spread fake news that makes German propaganda look like nursery rhymes and when they didn’t like the way their game of Monopoly was heading, they threw the board over so no one could finish the game. They made several families, true descendants of that first Seigneur, the friend of Elizabeth I, walk the financial plank. They bought up houses, hotels and disgraced the local Doctor Kindness himself.

The sad thing is that this isn’t a draft of the fourth (or fifth) Gormenghast book. This is life on Sark today. Unless the Royals, who happen against all reason, to be good buddies with the Barclay Media Barons – those very same Media Barons relishing once-private information about royals, celebrities and other saucy scandals – unless Prince Charles – whose architect pal built the pseudo castle on BB island with, I kid you not, real canons balanced on ramparts artlessly covered in Spanish stone, unless the Crown can come to Sark’s rescue somehow, it’s difficult to see how this stalemate will end. The Pirate Twins themselves are now old men kept alive by the wonders of modern medicine. What of their heirs? What will become of Sark in the long run?

If the parliament or the Lord (Seigneur) could somehow regain control of the tenements belonging to the main island, I wondered if it might be possible to let the Barclay Barons have Brecqhou Island on a long-term lease? Surely they did not sell the land freehold? If the community could retrieve the hotels and shops on the mainland, they could get their own economy functioning once more.

Sark’s situation put me in mind of another David and Goliath story, that of Cuba. There was a thrown monopoly board if ever there was one. In my humble opinion Sark urgently needs to bring in permaculture experts, as they did there (Power of Community: How Cuba survived peak oil) particularly those knowledgeable about burning rubbish and making renewable energy. The stench of foul smoke overhanging the harbour is awful. Sark clearly has wind potential, and the tidal variation is powerful. Sark could surely become self-sufficient in energy one day.

Is it possible the Barclay Twins, their heirs and the Royals could join the community to build such a forward-looking and clean energy exemplar for the British protected Channel Islands?

My dream? Where I was picked up by the wind? Have I been asleep all this time? 

Seville, land of artifacts

Ah Sevilla, city of the sun …

El Torre del Oro – The Tower of Gold – built in the 13th Century – across the river Guadalquiver. Like Valencia, Sevillians tired of frequent flooding so they split their river in two. This is really only half a river. The rest is round the back somewhere, dilapidated and ignored. Smell that honeysuckle!

My recent visit to Seville highlighted the built environment; how, after centuries of habitation, cities were arranged, paved and decorated for the use of humans, exclusively. Why not? What’s wrong with living in a place and making it comfortable? It’s home, isn’t it?

Holy Thursday in Triana, across the Guadaliquivir from the centre of town

In Seville, the streets, shopping strips and housing areas were regularly hosed, swept and in many cases mopped with soapy water. The smell of bleach rose from the roads. Certainly in the tourist hub of Cathedral and Alcázar I imagined the use of weed killer to be high. There were no insects or creeping things to be found. I didn’t even see a cat in Seville, although that may have been due to the Holy Week (Semana Santa) processions underway each afternoon and evening. The crowds were so intense that all God’s little creatures may have decided to retire.

Parque de María Luisa : when a frog pond may not include live frogs

Some creatures were still in evidence; I saw pigeons and in the Parque de María Luisa, I saw a skink. There was a larger lizard climbing the wall of the Casa de Pilatos. There were plenty of horses dragging tourists around in shining carriages and lots of little dogs trotting through the crowds.

Compare the variety of wildlife on show today with those recorded in tapestry housed in the Alcazár.

I pondered the notion of our enclosing environment as I wandered around the picturesque streets of Seville, watching cheerful families, dressed in their finery, looking utterly glamorous, attending to the needs of the very young and the very old with assiduity. Small boys marched with toy drums. Small girls ate lollies.

With so many of the penitents being children there were a lot of helpful parents supplying water and treats to keep the kids going

In the processions, parents walked beside their disguised youngsters, some of whom gasped for air during the heat of the day, others handed out saint’s cards or sweets to audience youngsters with their hands out. The penitents walked with large candles, their heads covered by cones of different colours, high and pointed, best to reach heaven. After dark some canny kids collected wax from different candles as the processions waited, pausing in the streets, until they held large balls of wax drips.

Keen youngsters collecting wax from waiting penitents

Holy Week this year was marked by beautiful, consistent, sunny weather and, once lunch was over, people flocked to watch the processions. If not their own church and family, I guessed people knew where to find the best sounding bands (for there were some astonishing musical encounters that cut straight to the emotions) or perhaps where to see the best sculpts or flowers in the pasos.

A Paso waits by the Metropol Parasol (also known as Las Setas, the mushrooms) the largest wooden structure in Spain

The pasos did seem to be the biggest draw cards, the enormous weighty displays of the sacred family; grieving Mary and Joseph, or Jesus suffering under the weight of the cross.

Jesus Paso from above. I think the flowers were iris?

Thirty to fifty men labour unseen under each sculpture, which were heavily decorated in precious metals and fabrics as well as candles and flowers. They could weigh up to two tons.

Costaleros – sack men – who carry the pasos in groups of up to fifty men.

Each team had a different style; lifting and shifting the sculpture to bring the agonised sacred faces to life on their journey into the Cathedral for blessing. Shadows flickered across the carved tragic faces caused by banks of candles or flaps of thickly embroidered canopies shaking in a huge puppetry display. Some specialised in the beginning, perhaps a dramatic lift (like a Citroën) jerking powerfully into the air while others gained approval by a shimmery ending as they sank to their supports. Others needed to perform intricate turns in the twisty lanes of their way, shifting back and forwards in a dance.

Oasis Hostel watches a Semana Santa procession go by, just outside our window around 10:30pm heading to the Cathedral to be blessed. Then they came back again around 1:30am. Band still sounding good. Even through the earplugs.

The men did not come out for a breather. They were handed water in a cup under the velvet curtain and only once did I see the officials around them lift the heavy curtains around the base to let some air flow through. It was a feat of strength and teamwork, similar in my mind to the feat of Castelling that happens in Cataluña. While that teamwork endeavours to go up to heaven as high as possible, the outcome of carrying these pasos is to bear as much weight and decoration as possible, to work as one to bring a symbol of family and humanity to the Cathedral to be blessed. That’s how I saw it anyway.

Paso with tree near the Cathedral

A live tv broadcast showed the same Paso with tree. The tv was in a bar near the Cathedral where I enjoyed a refreshing gazpacho. I could hear the band playing outside as I slurped. Note the two young penitents refueling – not all the brotherhood were men.

As family groups gathered on the streets they bought bottles of water, packets of crisps, puffed corn snacks, and tons and tons of sweeties. There were packets of assorted nuts and lots of pipas – sunflower seeds – that folk chewed and spat out as they sipped their beers.

Settle in and make yourself comfy in the living room of Seville

People sat in lines on the edge of the road as they waited for the processions to pass – there were timetables printed in booklets or printed on posters along the way – seventy churches (or parishes or brotherhoods) would bring their offerings to the Cathedral during the Holy Week. Several different routes wound their way through the streets.

There’s no crossing the roads when the processions are moving. Even when they are waiting, the light says stop.

Bars were open to buy beer, pizza, calamari and tons of different ice creams or gelatos were available. And the rubbish piled up. Not just in bins but also near bins and, in the case of the folk waiting in line, just dropped at the feet. It was as though they were at home watching tv, knowing mum would be along to pick up after them. And she was; those ever-present cleaners got to work immediately after every procession. The last penitent, the last paso, the last official, the last band member filed past and the onlookers fell in behind like Titanic victims sucked into the vortex of the sinking ship (I know it’s a myth, I saw Mythbusters too.) In an hour the streets would be free of litter, the washing truck would have done its work and the officials would have removed all barriers and chairs to stack them neatly for the next day.

Nice and tidy by the Museo del Belle Artes early in the morning

Any plant life in this built environment had to be tough. Big fig trees featured in Seville, and in Cadiz, the first I’d seen since Sydney. Where in Sydney, lawn, or even a fringe of deep-green clivia knife-leaves might surround those big dripping trees, most of the Spanish figs I saw were surrounded by paving. There might have been a myrtle hedge or a spindly rose garden nearby but instead of lawn there would be weeds (whose days were clearly numbered). Attempting to avoid the crowds I decided to take a daytrip to Cadiz on the Costa de la Luz (Coast of light), another historic area.

Tempting soccer pitch in Cadiz

I love a good embrasure but this, in a seaside fort called Castillo Santa Catalina, failed to defend Cadiz from unsightly development

Looking over to Castillo de San Sebastián in Cadiz – an evocative fort that must have witnessed many a battle on land and sea. Note extensive paving.

Back in Seville, I relaxed in the famous Alcazár’s natural-looking grassy area called the English woodland. Surrounding it were formal paved gardens, always keeping nature in straight lines. Perhaps it was this contrast that made me realise just how much of Seville is paved.

Pot plants at the Alcazár

The patios I saw around Seville featured gorgeously decorated glazed tiles, pot plants and imprisoned trees. As I peered down from the Cathedral’s tower, the green of the orange grove looked park-like, but it was really just trees in boxes.

The view from the Giralda, the tower of Seville Cathedral. The Giralda is the former minaret from the mosque that the Cathedral is built upon. Check out that office tower! (Don’t you think town planning is an art?)

Vines in the Parque de María Luisa, particularly bougainvillea, with some wisteria or clematis, raised the riot-colour above pergolas while horses hooves clopped and scraped along the paved roadways. All those paved areas must be incredibly hot in the summer.

The Plaza de España is regarded as alien architecture, which is why it featured in Star Wars II. Also, this is not a horse.

Plaza de España was the site of the 1929 Expo. Given it was such a success, Seville thought they’d get into the act again and, in 1992, hosted another Expo. I explored that site with great interest.

Trains not running on time at Expo 92

No, really, there’s no train today at all

You’ll probably have to drive

Plenty of parking at Expo 92

The site of Expo 92 did not enjoy the same success as its predecessor.  Some industry has been injected into the area but mainly it’s a paved ghost town. Which leads to the question, can the processions not move to the more spacious part of the Seville built environment? No. They can’t. The pasos have to go to the Cathedral. Through ancient winding thin streets crowded with people.

From Genesis – ‘Let the waters team with countless living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of heaven,’ as quoted in Edward O. Wilson’s Half-Earth; our planet’s fight for life. Mr Wilson points out that wilderness is remaining land that is not used by humans. It may or may not be pristine, it might be weedy for instance, but it has been left alone. And clearly there’s very little of it in Spain and other European countries where humans have evolved, developed and paved. To me, coming from Australia and New Zealand where human footprints have left lighter scars, a thousand-year-old castle is almost beyond comprehension. And you couldn’t pave all of Australia. (Yet.)

One of the results of this manicured, cleaned and organised built environment was the paucity of diversity. There were plane, pine and palm trees aplenty. There were rose bushes. There was lantana and some oleander. But there was not great biodiversity. There were plenty of pigeons, doves and few ducks. But there were not thousands of species alive and well living in harmony with humans.

See the many different plant species surviving in the Alcazár.

See cute little tourist attractions at the Alcazár

Given the built environment in Seville, although lovely with Cathedral, palaces and windy streets, is not a great habitat for animals, I began to harbour doubts about how safe it might be for people (a kind of animal after all.) I happened to get caught up in a couple of stampedes, or avalanches, during the dawn service, La Madrugada, on Friday morning. Known as the highlight of the Semana Santa, the crowds pressed together to watch the pasos near the Cathedral all night long. I did not see any children.

The panic began as a swelling of sound, dreadful and ominous, and it swept up hundreds of penitents, thousands of onlookers and dashed us all amongst each other, screaming, weeping and falling. It was a demonic thunder in the night, the ground reverberating, people pushing and running and looking around to find it; the truck, the terrorist, the anything? It was just plain, simple, bare, terror. That was all. And it only lasted a moment.

Thank goodness, brave people, like a man near me wearing a grey jumper, lifted their arms and lowered them, palms down, urging the crowd to calm. Those various people saved lives, I’m sure, that night. As I turned back after the panic wave had landed me on the footpath, I noticed a shoe in the gutter in front of me. A cardigan lay crumpled to my left. A pair of glinting eyeglasses had been crushed under a hurried foot. Everyone could see there was no truck or shooter but equally everyone could see the man lying akimbo on the ground in front of the kiosk, and a girl weeping, sitting in the gutter, and all of us, shaken to the core, gasping and thinking of Christmas markets, Westminster Bridge and Nice. Police arrested eight people. They had incited the riot by shouting and crashing metallic objects together. Apparently in 2002 there were more serious incidents and I was told the penitents were schooled to go to the walls or lie down if there was a stampede. So the ones urging tranquility were indeed trying to prevent greater harm.

Just before my first stampede

And so the band played on, with their tiny trumpets carolling into the guts, the encouraging applause echoing from the buildings with the clouds in the sky acting as a roof, shutting in and magnifying the noise. The crowd approved and the procession continued, relief and alarm in awkward balance. As I made my way back towards my hostel the way became impassable. The panic happened twice more. People climbed light poles and trees. There was simply nowhere to run.

An elderly lady watched from a window above the procession. She looked so alarmed as people screamed and jumped out of the way of the phantom truck her hand went to her heart and then she too tried to press down with her hands, like that man in the grey jumper from before. Pressing down with all her might to smother the fears of the people surging in front of her. She made the sign of the cross over her heart and looked to the party-people crowded into the flat over the shop next to me, shrugged, sighed, shook her head, all the time trying to calm the crowd. I’m not sure but she could have said, or gestured, ‘It’s just panic’. The third time less people moved after something crashed and a high young female voice screamed in eerie isolation. The crowd remained skittish then, like cattle about to be drenched or horses led to the starting line, turning nervously and rolling their eyes toward any strange sound. An ice-cream parlour with five young employees lined up by their wares, obviously closing early, rattled down their metallic-grill door; a dad holding nervous girls in a duckling-line sought the least disruptive way through the continuing silently moving procession. This paso featured Jesus and his cross. He struggled on with his burden and the forty odd men under him worked together with all their might to bring heaven to earth for one night.

Once reassured, the paso was worthy of admiration and many videos

The golden light glowed as people regrouped, found their friends, realised they were safe with their families and prepared to leave. The elderly lady spoke at length on her telephone, her hand either on her heart or gesticulating with worry. Young people left the march with worried parents, distress and alarm writ large on their faces. After a while more parents pushed through to pick up their young people – the meetings clearly the result of texting – to embrace them and to carry them away even as they removed their cone hats, some walking in their socks or bare feet. As I left, further away, more people, with fresh picnic hampers, little fold-up stools and happy anticipation walked toward the epicentre. Perhaps dawn was near.

A few days later, back in Barcelona, I decided to visit the Maritime Museum. It’s near the port, at the end of Las Ramblas. (Well worth a visit for the Royal [slave] Galley.) Some colourful costume players who entertained the crowd of merry tourists grabbed my attention. A classic Alien creature, performed extremely well, slyly embraced a short hipster while his friends doubled up in laughter and tried to stop shaking enough to take their photo. On the other side of the footpath a duo of monster warriors had captured a father/son pair and were preparing to behead them with scimitars; warriors, costumes and scimitars all painted the same shine of silver. The father/son pair squirmed in hilarity while granny raised her phone to record their silly troubles. A jolly throng, dressed in colourful summery gear, soaking up the sun and Barcelona atmosphere, surrounded these ‘scary’ pantomimes. And so I continued around the corner and in front of me stood a giant, black, armoured vehicle, flanked by two large police officers holding machine guns at the ready.

In my lifetime the population of the world has more than doubled. Our home is smaller and smaller. There is no room for terror. There is barely enough room for us.

Seville, city of cleans

Odsherred – protecting land formed in the Ice Age

People have inhabited Odsherred for centuries

I was incredibly lucky to spend Christmas in Denmark, the smallest Scandy country. Denmark is made up of a peninsula, Jutland, attached to Germany, and 443 islands, including the highly populated Zealand. (Copenhagen is on Zealand.) The tallest point of Denmark is 170.86 metres, on Jutland. The tallest point of Zealand is 122.9 m. This is before the elevation of buildings and burial mounds …

As a general rule Denmark is low rise …

At the top North-West tip of Zealand is a UNESCO Geopark in an area called Odsherred. It’s about an hour and a half by train from Copenhagen.

An information sign near Asnæs shows Odsherred. The area I visited is up to the left, overlooking the curving bay.

Created in 2014, this Geopark exists to protect and enhance landscapes created by the Ice Age. In general, European Geoparks exist to protect items of interest, geological, historical or ecological and promote development of the surrounds, mainly by tourism. Many information signs are available throughout the park, especially on the many walks. Apparently when the thick layer of ice melted it left deposits of silt which provided fertile soils useful for farming.

Informative signage dotted through the Geopark reveals how ice formed the land and stories of the earliest settlers.

Much of the smooth landscape was reclaimed and drained from swamp. It’s now used to grow potatoes and carrots. You wouldn’t think a park would encourage farming, or in fact any industry. But whole towns and many lives are entwined with the Geopark.

Wintery farmland Odsherred showing the curves of the land. I just missed a little family of three deer trotting down the hill.

I’ve been listening to a podcast, ‘Scotland Outdoors’ from BBC Radio Scotland. On a recent episode, The National Parks Special, the discussion ranges between Scot and American park experiences, both of which have to include people. Scotland encourages development in their two National Parks; housing, communities and schools grow within park boundaries. In the USA, the rangers are aware that in order for parks to survive, indeed, nature to survive, people have to visit, have to experience looking up and looking out into distant vistas. There’s just no getting away from it. The Scots and Yank’s problems are the same. How to manage the amount of people using the park so that the treasured beauty and original purpose of the park is preserved for the next generations while still encouraging people to feel free enough to enjoy the place – without trashing it or doing something humanly possible.

Mike Reynolds from the National Park Service in the USA said, “People that visit National Parks come to generate babies in these parks and then they come to bury ashes of their relatives. The full spectrum of the human experience is often lived through these places, and they’re very personal and they bring solace to people and they bring inspiration … ”

Not so sure about the generation (especially in chilly winter!) but burial is certainly true of Odsherred.  The Ridge path takes in several Bronze Age burial mounds.

Bronze Age Burial Mound

Aproaching a Burial Mound

Another Odsherred burial mound!

A Celluloid Age burial mound houses the ashes of film-maker Ole Olsen and his wife, close to Bronze Age mounds.

Modern Burial Mounds require doors

Esterhøj Reunion Stone celebrates the peaceful agreement to decide Germany’s and Denmark’s borders. The citizens voted to decide which country they’d prefer to live in. There’s no doubt this stone is well and truly in Denmark. It stands on a Bronze Age burial mound at 89metres above sea level.

Sejerø Bay nestles into the curving beach

The inspiration part of Reynold’s comments hold true for Denmark too. Many artists have lived in Odsherred, trying to capture the light and curves of the landscape. Two artists, excited by the creation of the UNESCO Geopark, worked with the schools of the area to create a celebration of people in the landscape. Even though there wouldn’t have been too many humans in the vicinity in the Ice Age, the park is all about people now. Lots of them!

There will be nearly 5,000 of these masks

All schools in the area contributed to the project

As well as geology, Bronze Age artifacts and medieval churches, holiday makers and visitors to Odsherred could take a look at Dragsholm Castle, the largest edifice in the area. Named after a stretch of water where Vikings would ‘drag’ their ships instead of getting caught up in dangerous northern waters, the Castle has been there in some form for over 800 years. The Baron of a century or so ago ordered nearby lands to be extensively drained and donated to the poor to see if they could scrape some subsistence living out of them. (Things have come a long way since then.) The castle has been used as a fort, a prison and now, a fancy restaurant. Apparently there are ghosts, including poor old 4th Earl of Bothwell, whose body was kept in the dungeon for seven years before they decided to bury him.

Dragsholm Slot really love their Christmas trees

There’s even a special treehouse at Dragsholm

Dragsholm Castle outbuildings overlooking remnant water

A forest of Odsherred

I imagine the forests, now still and leafless, must be completely different in their summer green wear. Even so, the forests are effective shields to wind and can block outside views even while cold and brown.

The coast is never far away in Odsherred with incoming storms quickly blown away and replaced by weak wintery sun.

Looking back to dry land from Korevle, where a sand spit has evolved into a large barrier creating the beginnings of a lagoon

Even though Odsherred is an evocative place in winter, I would love to return in Summer, when the Viking museums and art galleries are open. And, although I did enjoy the enthusiastic fireworks of New Year celebrations, I suspect I might prefer the more restrained bonfires of the summer solstice! There will be more people in summer, enjoying the amenities of the Geopark while learning about Sun worship and protecting our environment. For if we don’t have parks to share information and space to play in nature, we won’t have nature. And that’s us. It’s personal, in the end.

 

Have Yourself A Sh#*@!tty Christmas!

A Catalan Christmas is a shitty Christmas and that’s good. It’s tradition.

http://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/blogs/family-matters/holiday-season-in-catalunya/

http://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/blogs/family-matters/holiday-season-in-catalunya/

I was lucky enough to be introduced to the Catalan traditional Christmas by the youth of the English classes where I am a conversation assistant. They told me about the pessebre (nativity scene) where the main focus, for them anyway, is Balthazar, Meltor and Gaspar. That’s what they told me. Because, for them, it’s all about the presents. The Maji get into your house and deliver cool stuff on January 6th. Mind you, the Three Kings do keep the good v. evil balance going. They’re going to hand over some coal if you’ve been bad.

The Pessebre at the Blanes Library

The Pessebre at the Blanes Library, featuring the Three Kings.

The young folk didn’t use the concept of the Twelve Days of Christmas and none of the young people in the five classes that told me about Christmas in Catalunya actually go to church. Jesus did cop a mention but only in passing. Most houses will have their own nativity scene as will the local community.

The Blanes Pessebre has everything. Including the sounds of the steam train parked at the railway station and a working farm.

The Blanes Pessebre has everything. Including the sounds of the steam train parked at the railway station and a working farm.

Pessebres can extend to an entire village, including workers and trades. There is also a hidden figure, a the down-to-earth figure, the Caganer.

http://nightflight.com/more-crap-for-christmas-the-catalan-tradition-of-the-crapping-caganer-in-the-santa-hat/

http://nightflight.com/more-crap-for-christmas-the-catalan-tradition-of-the-crapping-caganer-in-the-santa-hat/

Apparently the tradition of the Shitter, hiding amongst the animals and shepherds, has been traced back to the seventeenth century, so it’s no modern comment on the current state of the church but is perhaps a leveller – all people do it. Either that, or the Fertiliser.

http://www.elperiodico.cat/ca/noticias/gent/arriben-els-nous-caganers-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-5415931

http://www.elperiodico.cat/ca/noticias/gent/arriben-els-nous-caganers-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-5415931

That’s not all the shit that goes down at Christmas. Catalan parents tell their children that a log creeps down from the forest, magically comes into their house and the family have to look after it. For around four weeks before Christmas Eve.

One of the kids from 3 ESO made this during class for me.

One of the kids from 3 ESO made this during class for me.

They put a blanket over its hind quarters. They can tell which is the back because someone has painted a jolly cute face on the front. Someone has also made two little legs, sturdy and balancing up the face for happy onlookers. And someone has put a little hat on the log. It’s Tió! Carga Tio! (That means shitty uncle, or log in this case.)

The Tió de Nadal at the Jam Hostel in Barcelona - going to eat that mandarin for SURE

The Tió de Nadal at the Jam Hostel in Barcelona – going to eat that apple for SURE

Once the Tió is in the house, and modestly covered, it has to be fed. It likes madarin and banana peels and bits of bread.

The giant Tió at Blanes. No mere blanket here - they've built a house for the log to defecate into .

The giant Tió at Blanes. No mere blanket here – they’ve built a house for the log’s defecation.

The teacher told me its actually quite stressful having a Tió because you have to remember to clean up the food each day. Her children worried last year when she forgot and the kids thought the Tió was sick and wouldn’t give them presents. Oh, yes, that’s why the children feed the log, you thought they were sorry for it, didn’t you. WRONG!

Blanes Christmas market. In case your Tió hasn't crept in from the forest yet.

Blanes Christmas market. In case your Tió hasn’t crept in from the forest yet.

It’s Christmas Eve. Everyone is anticipating fun and frivolity!

You can even get a knitted Caga Tió

You can even get a knitted Caga Tió

First up, the children need to go into their rooms and sing or pray for presents. On return to the Tió, (now suspiciously lumpy behind) the family sing a special Carga Tió song and they take a stick and HIT the Tio! They beat the Tio! Until the log has done its natural business. The song encourages the log to shit quality items or it will be hit. While it’s being hit.

<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/dB_N7-HXTlI?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

The log poops out presents for the children. Apparently it goes over big with the under 7s.

https://www.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/2ocsw2/countdown_to_christmas/

https://www.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/2ocsw2/countdown_to_christmas/

The 14 year olds who informed me of this ancient tradition told me earnestly it was not true. Gosh.

Fabric Tió in Barcelona

Fabric Tió in Barcelona

One of the young people told me a happy family beat their log not knowing that one of the gifts was a puppy. Apparently the poor thing stayed quiet during the beating but was never quite right again.

They're everywhere, I tell you!

They’re everywhere, I tell you!

So, you’ve got your presents on Christmas Eve and on the 6th of January. Hang on, haven’t we forgotten someone? Santa Claus! Yup, he’s invited to Catalan Christmas as well! Strangely, I could find no images of Papa Noel shitting.

http://www.oulala.info/2012/12/linvention-du-pere-noel/

http://www.oulala.info/2012/12/linvention-du-pere-noel/

These kids get three bites! Tió only brings small stuff, like socks and sweets, while Santa, on the 25th of December, might get you something good. The big stuff comes with the Kings.  No concept of Winter Solstice. No longest night. No reason to celebrate except getting presents. Sounds okay? What about the fact the Tió creeps in from the forest, Santa comes down the chimney and, the Three Kings? How do they invade your home? One of the kids informed me they teleport.

http://maryandbright.blogspot.dk/2012/12/poop-log-poop-aka-merry-christmas.html

http://maryandbright.blogspot.dk/2012/12/poop-log-poop-aka-merry-christmas.html

The Lie of the Land in Granada

The Alhambra from Mirador San Nicolás

The Sierra Nevada behind the Alhambra

My visit to Granada, in Andalucia, was too short, of course, but I was greatly impressed by the place. It was easy to see how the lie of the land created the terrible human dramas that unfolded there. One side of the valley is heavily wooded, with constant running water streamed in from the melting snow of the Sierra. That’s where the great fortress complex, The Alhambra, looms over its surroundings. The Alhambra was built on Roman ruins by Mohammed ibn Nasr, founder of the Nasrid dynasty

Granada valley from the Abbey del Sacromonte. The Alhmabra is to the left.

Granada valley from the Abbey del Sacromonte. The Alhmabra is up to the left. You can see the ancient city wall along the crest of the hill to the right.

The land is dry on the other side of the river. That’s where cactus and caves are found. It’s a dramatic demonstration of power and wealth on one side of the river, and poverty, desperation and flamenco on the other.

View of the city wall from the Alhambra

View of the same thousand-year-old city wall from the Alhambra

 

view-behind-abadia

The valley behind the Abbey de Sacromonte

The hills are steep. The Alhambra was well protected from invasion. It lasted three centuries before Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand got their hands on it. They are buried in Granada.

The Alhambra is up at the top of the hill - and there's a river at the foot of this valley. No casual visit from t this angle!

The tower of Iglesia San Pedro y San Pablo. The Alhambra is up at the top of the hill – and there’s a river at the foot of this valley. No casual visit from this angle!

What made the Alhambra’s position even more inviolable was the constant availability of water. Long term survival was possible even if besieged by the strongest forces.

Water courses were entirely practical

Water courses were entirely practical

 

Often decorative, all the buildings centred around water and often had water inside the rooms to add tranquility and bring down the summer temperatures

Practical and decorative. All the buildings in the Alhambra centred around water and often had water inside the rooms to add tranquility and air temperature control

The medieval water channels, still delivering water around the buildings and gardens of the Alhambra, are over a thousand years old

The medieval water channels, still delivering water around the buildings and gardens of the Alhambra, are over a thousand years old, possibly Roman ruins that lie under the Alhambra.

 

In extreme contrast, the other side of the river is baked by the sun into dry, hard territory. But here, people managed to scratch out a living for hundreds of years. People who were disbarred from society. People who were oppressed, expelled and hunted down to die. The Spanish royalty had ways of getting rid of those they considered undesirable and it was hard and terrible. But in the cracks and crevises of this forbidding dirt they managed to raise families and eek out a living.


cave-potteryflamenco-heart

And yet.

Is it not strange that, when today’s daily 7,700 visitors enter the grand palace at the Alhambra, they walk into man-made caves?

caves-inside-alhambra

 

 

 

 

Slices of heart wood

Hola from Spain! I am currently living here, working as an auxiliar de conversacion de inglis in a small secondary school, in a tiny town on the Costa Brava. I’m very lucky. I’ve visited much of the country, especially the North when I walked the Camino del Norte y Primitivo. I’m still trying to process my impressions of the last few months but here’s a little taste of the Camino – all 876km.

Now that I’m feeling more settled in my little flat overlooking the hills of the Parc del Montnegre y el Corredor, I have time to return to this blog. I am learning how to be an English conversation assistant and hopefully, along the way, be better able to teach English. In between days at school, and typing, I am still restless. There is much to see locally, of course, but I do feel the need to tick off some of the big towns of Spain. (You might find some ideas for your own travels here)

I visited Valencia on the recent long weekend. It is a wonderful town of history together with a heady vibrant energy of rejuvenation. But one visit really tumbled me and it was La Memória dels Arbres, in the University of Valencia Botanic Gardens.

sun strikes Toi Toi in the grass section

sun strikes Toi Toi in the grass section

I wandered around these gardens, a formal zoo for plants that was established in the sixteenth century, with no great aim. It is a lovely oasis. Living in one of the flats overlooking these neat and tidy sections would be idyllic. Birds flittered about. A sweet little grey bird with a pale orange chest chirped away above me as I sat on one of the many shady benches. It sounded like a little metal hammer tip tip tapping on a tiny fragile stained glass window. Or a miniature suitcase, wheeled along tiny cobblestones, tirruping along. The parrots came alive later as the sun rayed into the tops of the trees. I couldn’t see them but I thought they would have red heads and green bodies like the ones I’d seen earlier flying around the Palace. Strange how some of the flats face away from the gardens. And in this Botanic Gardens there are many cats!

cats listen to 'Imagine' by John Lennon sung lustily by a school of English learners

cats listen to ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon sung lustily by a school of English learners in the school nearby

Finally I came upon an exhibition building where I found:

poster for La Memória dels arbres

Suddenly the world was coloured by layers of music and the smell of freshly sawn timber. The building itself has a beamed ceiling of heavy wood but it was the languorous guitar that took me down through the circles of time into this extraordinary exhibition.

Silhouette of tree in Valencia, Jardī Botanic

Created by two men who apparently went into the forest, hewed, carried by backpack and arranged the pieces:

Miguel Ortega & Jesús Julio Camarero, the men responsible for the memories of wood

Miguel Ortega & Jesús Julio Camarero, the men responsible for the memories of wood

I tried to think why I was so greatly affected by this selection of lumber CAT scans. Partly because I am recently from Prague, where I learned to carve wooden marionettes with Mirek Trejtnar of Puppets in Prague. Often Mirek would encourage us to respect the wood, respect the grain, feel the timber.

Pieces of Puppets carved by Mirek Trejtnar from Puppets in Prague

Pieces of Puppets carved by Mirek Trejtnar from Puppets in Prague

The wood memories selected showed the rings of ages. Clearly some were very old indeed and, given the changes and torments wrought over the land of Spain, had stood while many human lives had fallen. The slices showed the effects of insects, cold, drought and fire. They looked soft and so like medical specimens that once again I was reminded how human beings have much in common with other species. Even plants!

Slice of sabina

Slice of sabina-negra

Although this looks bumpy it is in fact as smooth as silk

Although this looks bumpy it is in fact as smooth as silk

Almond wood

Almond wood

Heart wood

2 Sciencey Art (or Arty Science) in the public eyeball

Living in Melbourne can be inspiring. Wandering through Federation Square, as you do, on the way somewhere else, I found a few aluminum viewing stations scattered in the Atrium.

Vessels for developing platelets

Vessels for developing platelets

They turned out to be part of ‘Science in the Square‘, Melbourne’s first Art in Science exhibition.

 

Cancer Protein

Cancer Protein

Hosted by The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, there are many events to discover.  

Lung cells

Lung cells

Plus!! Underneath Melbourne, the once grungy, now Dirty exhibition space Flinders tunnelrunning from Flinders Street Train station to Degraves Lane has been revitalised.

Flinders sign

The first exhibition, Prevaricated Frequencies, has been handed over to a bunch of arty engineers, Skunk Control.flinders heartFish eye flindersEach of the Dozen windows are filled with prismatic elements and all the passers by are captivated. They must be for they are all taking photos with their phones, as was I!Cone caves flindersBecause those circles of prisms spin, the images change all the time. This is an exhibition you need to see for yourself. Catch the train! Flinders circles
Both these exhibitions encourage the viewer to reexamine assumptions both about science and art. How do we look at the world? What are we seeing?




 

It’s not all about talent

Chatting to my sister on the phone over the weekend, we talked about the Bowie exhibition and the film about Amy Winehouse. Her remarks about talent gave me pause. Is it all about the talent? But what is talent? Or is it something else?

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3139096/dark-set-to-climb-new-mountain/

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3139096/dark-set-to-climb-new-mountain/

Opera singer Jacqui Dark in her blog ‘My advice to my younger self’:

I love the Calvin Coolidge quote: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

The most talented people do not always win. Many of them are deeply, DEEPLY insecure (in fact, the MOST talented people I know are also the most full of self-doubt) and fall by the wayside at the first or second rejection. If you really want this career, you are going to have a million little rejections along the way: not getting roles you desperately want, working with difficult colleagues or bosses/conductors/directors who bully you or belittle you, being slammed in reviews. If you can’t cope with rejection, get out now.

Amy. The product. The film about the product. The film about bear-baiting. The film about prodding a little caged bird with a stick, ‘Sing! Sing!’ Amy the person lost, abandoned, crushed. She said at the outset she felt lucky to be able to sing. It was something she enjoyed doing, wanted to do well and was glad she could do it. But it wasn’t about being famous. Or rich. She just wanted to do her own thing.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/08/amy-winehouse-alcohol-poisoning-inquest

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/08/amy-winehouse-alcohol-poisoning-inquest

Her final concert; the treatment by her record label representatives, fellow musicians on stage and audience made me consider that human beings, together as a species, have bulimia. We don’t know when to stop stuffing ourselves with the good things, things we like, like pretty singers and booze and fish and fossil fuels and porn. Maybe we’re all looking for someone to tell us what to do. To be a friend. To bring us into line. To manage us. Amy portrays a desperately sad story of management gone seriously, badly, wrong.

Is this human nature?

On the other side of the talent coin, Bowie on exhibition, shows all the stuff out of his shed (admittedly it’s a way cool shed). He was allowed to grow up, possibly he was a physically stronger person to start with and he survived. The man was a dancer, trained with Lindsay Kemp. Incredibly disciplined, focused and energetic.

https://www.pinterest.com/nemer12/arts-i-love/

https://www.pinterest.com/nemer12/arts-i-love/

It’s obvious when you watch the clip of Bowie as a mime artist struggling with a mask, he is extremely fit and muscular; must have been taking all sorts of classes as well as conniving amazing frocks and sets and writing songs and finding new people to work with. Remembering that ‘collaboration’ means ‘working with the enemy’, Bowie sought input and inspiration from a wide assortment of recently graduated stars. Determined, ambitious and curious, Bowie kept seeking new things, including drugs.

Tony Bennett said about Amy, that he would have told her to slow down, that life teaches you how to live, eventually. If you live that long.

The arts are tough. There are many talented folk who want a go in the limelight and the people who spin the golden wheels need only a few to put through the grinder at any one time. And how do the ingenues come through the grind? Some survive and go on to a happy relaxed retirement, the odd brilliant cameo and wonderfully photogenic grandchildren. Really?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2220403/The-real-hate-crime-persecuting-decent-man-beliefs.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2220403/The-real-hate-crime-persecuting-decent-man-beliefs.html

All we want is an audience, and I’m speaking for myself here, just some helpful souls to recognise the work and listen/absorb/contemplate the ideas. I don’t know about creating demand for more. That’s not factored in to my story. But for those who can, who know how to take a cut, who want to be friends so they can benefit? (Lucky I don’t know anyone like that!)

At an arts forum the other night, an empresario encouraged the ‘artists’ present to think of themselves as somehow different, as the ones with ideas, the creative ones. But I think he’s wrong. I think everyone is creative, more or less, everyone has ideas, it’s human nature. You’ve just got to be allowed (by yourself as much as anyone else) to shape them and share them. So do. Make that thing! Sing that song!

Just beware human nature.

And remember Amy.