Tag Archives: throwback thursday

The white sandy beaches of Fraser Island

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Last night I had a dreams with three apparently memorable components. One was about bunking off work to go to a sixth form reunion, another was something very messy involving mashed potatoes and gravy and the last one was being back on Fraser Island.

I suspect it is in part a hankering for the sunshine as the autumn begins to encroach. I don’t feel like we had a particularly amazing summer weather-wise and as much as I find the changing of the leaves a beautiful sight, I don’t like that damp chill in the air when I get up to write at 6am. I want blue skies and warm sunshine and white sand. And peace. So it’s no wonder really that in my dreams I would go back to a place like this:

Lake Mackenzie Fraser Island

Now forgive the picture quality, because this was taken with my first ever digital camera, given to me as a parting gift from a dear friend before I set off to adventure around the world. This was back when 2megapixels didn’t mean anything to anyone but it was about the best you could get for under five hundred quid. Now you can get a burner phone with better. How quickly the world has changed in a decade.

I’m so lucky to have travelled to so many places and god willing I hope to travel to many, many more. For these are the places that are the source of my inspiration and the memories that I can keep returning to on the mundane, cold days to remind me of just how privileged I really am.

So this is a Throwback Thursday to sunshine, but a present day moment of gratitude.

Gelato and culture in Venice

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I’ve been thinking so much about returning to Italy this year. It has been a couple of years since I’ve visited and whilst I love Venice, it is probably time to visit somewhere new.  Sitting here thinking about my holidays and travel plans for the next six months, it felt like a nice time to do a bit of a Throwback Thursday to gelato and pizza.

Pretty much any post about Venice focuses first on the gondolas. So I thought I’d do something a bit different and mention the cramped stores in cobbled streets that have an amazing display of masks. The Masquerade ball was a huge part of Renaissance Italy and I love the intricacy and delicacy of the masks on display.

MasquaradeMasquerade Dress

I just loved walking the streets peering in windows, and it certainly goes on my things to do in Venice list.

There is simply so much culture and architecture to absorb, it is almost impossible to do in a single trip. Everywhere you look, you remember why Italy was the hub of culture at one point in time. It is so unique, so beautiful, that I’ve never been to anywhere in the world that has moved me as much in this way.

Venice architecture

Admit it though, this is the real reason you’re still reading. The food porn shot. No memories of Venice would be complete without memories of gelato, sold on every street, a swathe of colours and flavours.

Mmmmmmm gelato

Mmmmmmm gelato

St Marks Square is a tourist hotspot and everything costs up to four times the price you would be charged elsewhere, but sometimes it’s worth it. I loved getting a cone, a couple of flavours and then walking to bench somewhere in the sun and just soaking up the atmosphere. If you go at the height of the season it can be uncomfortably manic. At quieter times though, if the sun gods still shine down on you, it can be a little piece of paradise…

The majesty of Doubtful Sound, New Zealand

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a tbt for the Antipodean part of the world, so I thought I’d take a quick trip down memory lane to Doubtful Sound.

As this time last year I was landing in Christchurch for my writing sabbatical, the one thing I wanted to do most was make sure I travelled down the southern island to visit this unique part of the world.

Doubtful Sound (and it’s neighbour, the better known Milford Sound) is pretty much as far south as you can get in the world without setting foot in Antarctica. Not always easy to get to, it was a place I couldn’t reach the last time I was in New Zealand because that would have required all kinds of snow chains and adventuring in a campervan that I wasn’t quite ready for. This time I managed to get there during late Spring which meant the destination itself was the focus, and not the hair raising attempts to get there. Which is good, because the place itself is so remote and peaceful, those were the feelings I wanted to take away with me.

Doubtful Sound

 

The weather wasn’t the greatest, but as it is one of the wettest places in the country, the fact it hadn’t rained for nearly three weeks was being considered a drought. Of course, given our gift of making rain happen, we soon brought the spell of good weather to an end as we set sail into the low hanging mist.

Doubtful Sound Boat

 

The thing about the Sounds in New Zealand is that they have very little top soil, with the hard bedrock of the mountain being just below the surface. This means that even a moderate amount of rainfall causes the steep mountainsides to erupt in an abundance of waterfalls. Despite the cold and wet, as night began to fall we took some kayaks and went off to see these up close and personal. The silence was astounding. There were only fifty or so of us within miles and no other manmade sound.

Waterfalls of Doubtful Sound

If there is any possibility left for peace and quiet on earth, I think this is where I would always like to find it.

For anyone thinking of travelling to this part of the world, I would definitely recommend it. Having spoken to a lot of people, Doubtful Sound jumped to the top of the list over Milford Sound, which is a bit more of a commercial operation. To fully experience the qualities this part of the world can bring, the fewer the numbers with you the better. You can get all the loud hijinks you want later as you travel back up to Queenstown.

The best city on earth: Sydney

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Sydney Opera House

Given the events of this week, it seemed a perfect choice to do a Throwback Thursday to Sydney. Sydney was my home for a while a few years ago, and a place I’ve once again visited in the past six months. In fact, as I sat here twelve months ago, the plan was to be living in Sydney right now. So the siege this week was something I saw with the detached sense of someone who wasn’t there, but could quite easily  place myself at the scene mentally.

The ‘I’ll ride with you‘ hashtag, appearing so quickly and easily during the events, reminded me of why I love Australia (and Aussies) so much. While much of Europe takes its typical approach to these sorts of things – I’m thinking the approach that always seems to lead to war – and America certainly isn’t much better, Australia instead embraced the theory of mateship that it knows itself for. No one needed to feel unsafe because of the actions of a madman. We’re all in this together. Not send them back to their own country or they’re all coming over here and stealing our jobs/benefits. It is a different culture. A different world. One which is far away, but always in my heart.

This is how it looked when I first saw it and digital cameras were very much in their infancy. There is something about being in Sydney that is so unique – there is no way you can confuse it with any other part of the world:
 DSCF0316

Sydney is my favourite city in the world. I’m not a huge fan of cities. I never dreamed as a kid of wrapping up all my possessions in a knapsack and leaving home to find my fortune with the big lights. But Sydney gets so many things right it’s hard not to fall in love with it a little bit more every time.

Sydney Water Views

Of course, the fallout from one madman’s events will continue to land for a while to come. I just hope that the people of Sydney are able to continue with their first response of compassion and understanding as the grief rolls through.

It’s no understatement that my time in Sydney went a long way towards shaping who I wanted to be and what I wanted from my life, in terms of quality, writing, experiences and relationships. And this summer, when I walked back to Manly Wharf, it was a place that still felt like home…

Manly Wharf

Traveler’s nightmare: Thanksgiving in Miami

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I thought I would do a special tbt today, in honour of the only time I’ve actually been in America for Thanksgiving. The holiday as a whole was amazing, but Thanksgiving, not so much. It’s easy to see why.

Thanksgiving is like Christmas. It’s a time to be with family. It is not a time to be a tourist alone looking for a restaurant that will serve you the closest thing to a traditional dinner. That is my strongest memory of Thanksgiving. The whole nightmare that was the restaurant.

But first, the positives. In November, when it would be grey and rainy and generally miserable back home in England, at least I was waking up to this view:

Miami Beach

 

So no complaints there.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Rascal House. Why? It was near, it wasn’t too expensive and most importantly, it was open.

It was also the worst experience I’ve ever had eating in America, and that includes the time we were accosted by a crazy lady wearing a wedding dress in a McDonald’s in downtown LA. True story. Who knew someone could care so much about chicken nuggets on their imaginary wedding day?

Anyway, the food was mediocre at best, and looked like it had been carefully plated from a distance of about six feet by someone with a slightly better than average pitching arm. It was the kind of food you poke at suspiciously when it comes out, making sure there are no nasty surprises underneath.

Perhaps the waitress delivering it – the one with the twitch and track marks of a seasoned heroin user – was another reason I was uncertain. In fairness, she looked like she wanted to be there less than anyone else in the room, and that’s saying something.

Waiting for my pumpkin pie (I wasn’t going to have anything else now, was I?) gave me even more opportunity to look around the room. The restaurant was actually rammed, but I’m assuming by the conversations I overheard that it was full of families who didn’t want to be with each other enough to cook and invite their relatives into their actual homes. Several arguments, a sense of seething animosity that cut through the air – it was like being in one of those hidden camera shows of the 80s, but with a stronger hint of desperation and danger.

The pumpkin pie, as it turns out, was not worth waiting for either. Forgive my British assumptions, but I thought it was meant to be sweet. And cooked.

Luckily, we could see the funny side (maybe the waitress did slip something into the gravy after all) and spent much of the meal in fits of giggles as we watched one disaster unfold after another.

The best bit of the whole day was grabbing a beer and watching the football game back at the hotel room. But it was certainly one of those once in a lifetime experiences.

New Zealand must do activity: Mount Cook Stargazing

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Last week I did my quarterly review and it was incredible to reflect on all the changes that have happened in my life this year. So I thought I would do a Throwback Thursday to one of the most amazing experiences I had shortly before leaving New Zealand back in July.

Of course, July is Winter down under, so whilst my friends from the northern hemisphere were cheerily talking about the prospect of a long and warm summer, I was travelling to the snowcapped peaks of Mt Cook.

Mt Cook Stargazing

 

I was there to do the Mt Cook Stargazing Experience and I can hand-on-heart say that if you are ever in that part of the world, it is a must do. I’m known to be a bit hard to please sometimes (who doesn’t demand perfection every now and then? ahem), but I would truly give this experience 5 stars. I was completely blown away. Plus, it’s a handy stop off between Christchurch and Queenstown, so you’d really have no reason not to.

Attached to the in-the-middle-of-nowhere, zero light pollution hotel, is the Sir Edmund Hillary museum. Apparently, despite his own rather well known adventures, Mt Cook remained his favourite mountain. Which makes it pretty special when you think about it. I love the way his statue faces outwards towards it, with a faint sense of longing.

Mt Cook Star Gazing

 

Such longing is inspirational, but I’m not foolish enough to grab a set of crampons and go crazy climbing. I did manage to do a bit of a hilly walk though before the sun began to set. Which was amazingly beautiful in itself.

 

Mt Cook Stargazing

Once it is dark, part of the experience is an hour talk explaining the universe. I found it fascinating, and clearly everyone else in there did as well, regardless of age or culture. It was a great way to prepare for what lay outside, a short drive away.

As part of the experience, they set up astronomy telescopes to be able to see planets. The stars themselves need no such human intervention. The last time I saw stars like that, I was out in the middle of the ocean in a sailboat. The amount of light pollution on this planet is astounding and I’m sad that, despite all my travels, I’ve never been able to see a sky like that in the northern hemisphere. Without a proper night camera I couldn’t get a photo worth putting up here, so I will simply have to do my best to describe it.

Remember those huge pieces of black cardboard they used to have in school when you were a little kid? You’d put transparent glue on there and then throw silver glitter in what you thought was an artistic fashion, but was in fact too much to create anything but a mass of sparkle. Then you’d get that one kid who wouldn’t shake the pot gently over the paper, but instead fling it straight out with a stiff arm so there was just a thick line of glitter through the middle…

….that was the Milky Way I got to see that night.