MONA

 I know nothing about this man called David Walsh. he came from Glenorchy which is a suburb of Hobart and he made a fortune with some Gambling system.  I have to say watching the regular TV channels here in southern Australia there a slew of gambling ads. All very artistic and clever, but have to wonder…..

I’m sure that is music to David Walsh’s ears. He declares himself a “ rabid Atheist.” He walks to a different drummer. But when I drove up to the place, I parked, but was having trouble working out how Cynthia could negotiate her way down to the entrance in her electric wheelchair . There was a “ guy”. He was in the car park. He was handsome and fit and well dressed. He saw I was pulling things out of the back of the car and he asked if he could help. I explained that the wheelchair wasn’t good at cambers or uneven surfaces  and I wanted to know the best way my friend could get to the entrance. He said, “ Well there, if you go down the driveway and turn by the olive trees, or you could go down by the zig -zag ramp, can she do a zig zag ramp? Hell, I can take her down the ramp. No problem. You park. No worries.”<

 The “guy” was Dylan. He wasn’t hanging around in the car park park to help people.  He was a big wig. A man close to the man. But help was help. And he walked beside her down every zig of the zag. Until she was safe on flat ground.  I parked. I met her by the entrance on the carpet tennis courts. Dylan…. Good man.

MONA. Dark, as I said. Quirky, as I said.  We went down corridors of sound, corridors of light. We saw political headlines being spelled out in waterfalls. I sat on a sofa and had a computer instruct me on the 3 minutes and 15 seconds it would take between a lethal injection and a shutting down. A lot was morbid. There was an odd Renoir to mirror a modern photograph. 

There was a piece by Maria Abramovic. You sat down. You were given a scoop of lentils and rice. You were told to separate the rice from the lentils. You were told not to talk. You were given ear plugs. You were told to count the rice  and the lentils. It was an opportunity to step outside of busy and concentrate. I have seen her work and been moved by it. I do know about being quiet. I do not know how to count. But I believe that Maria Abramovic will not lose faith in me.

the uncounted rice and lentils

We went and had lunch outside. A joyous cacophony. Wine. Water. Cider. Beer. Live music. A vineyard. A playground. A bar-b que cafe with a wallaby wrap on the menu. Seriously.

David Walsh… how great that you weren’t born in Queens or Berlin or Bermondsey where you could have been absorbed into “ new” innovation.  You built your “ indigestible-but-oh-so-tasty” collection in the green and pleasant hills of the suburbs of where you were brought up.

And where you live still and stand proud, rightly so,

On arriving in Tasmania

Australians shorten everything. Breakfast = brekkie. Avocado = avo. Tasmania= Tassie. Tassie is an island south of south Australia. A square sort of thing with Launceton in the north and Hobart in the south. People who live on Tassie, love Tassie. I had been graced with a rough guide from a friend of my friend Carl’s… ( I could actually travel round the world graced with rough guides from friends of Carl’s, but that is another story.) On the strength of this we drove down through the Huon Valley. Leaving behind our modern hotel in Hobart with a jazzy carpet that reminded me of convention center in Birmingham. It was green There were sheep. 

Millions of eucalyptus trees. A fair amount of road kill that was hard to identify but certainly there were a few almost intact kangaroos,and wallabies. The hills rolled, the light was soft. There was this fabulous river that followed us down, wide and blue. Doing my own bit of navigation I took a road that turned into a dirt track alongside water that would eventually became the Tasmanian sea. Stopped at a place called Poverty Point. It felt rich in everything but buildings to me. 

Poverty point. I’ll take the pennies.

People waved at us from their gardens where they were doing something with a spade. Nobody ever looks at you like you are doing anything other than what you were meant to be doing somehow. Down in the south there are fields and fields of apple trees. 

Because this is the land of cider. The King of which down here is “ Willie Smith.” I was always a cider girl. When I went to pubs, which I did when I was younger because everybody else did, I never knew what to drink. I didn’t like beer. I wasn’t a spirits girl and it was before wine entered the world of pub drinking. Mine was a half of cider. Which I would nurse all evening. it was dry and fizzy and packed a punch if you drank too fast or too much. I have drunk about 4 glasses of cider since leaving Britain and they have all disappointed. But let me tell you about Willie Smith’s 2022 sour apple vintage…..Oh yes. Smooth and sharp and tastes like it was made down the road by someone who cares….which it was. 

A half pint of proper cider ,,, be still my beating heart.

All the towns in Tassie were small. There were sheep and barns and shops selling farm equipment. There were small hotels and cafes alongside all the things that people living in a country town would need. Laundrettes, and grocery stores and a shop that I was sure was a hairdressers called “ Tassie Toners,” But no, it was for home office supplies. 

Main Street , Geeveston.

We needed some lunch and we had missed the cafe that was recommended by the friend of Carl’s in a small villlage called Franklin, so we ended up at the place called Geeveston , opposite “ Bears went over the Mountain” and I got the only vegetarian pie and Cynthia , my friend, got a chicken leek and bacon pie.

THE SANDWICH SELECTION

THE PIE SELECTION

MINE

 I had a good time with mine. The pastry was bright and soft and it was filled with lentils and vegetable. Cynthia said hers was missing the leeks and the bacon which was a bit of a let down. The were some women in the cafe with us. One in front, one behind. They were having a conversation about their plans for the day. The woman behind said, “ Are you going to the park? We’re going to the park. Nice day for the park.” The woman in front said “ I’ve got a friend. I’m going to see my friend.” “ Ah well”, the woman behind said. “ There’ll be other nice days.” Geeveston had a Main Street of about 50 feet. At the end of the street was the park. It was a lovely park. Good choice I say.If it is that or the parking. Bring your friend, lady in front.  Best wishes. From lady in the middle.

Melbourne

Melbourne was named after a Primeminister whom Queen Victoria was very fond of. Maybe we  and Melbourne should be relieved she was not so fond of Benjamin Disraeli. 

I didn’t get to see much. We were staying in the inner city without a car. It was a modern hotel where my bedroom had a kitchen. I got excited for just a fleeting minute as I imagined alternatives to pizza and sandwiches. 

I don’t do well in hotel rooms. I know some people love them. But for me, a kettle and a small fridge with a carton of milk does not replace a window that opens, a saucepan with heat to warm up soup and a little alarm clock. Clean sheets are a bonus obviously. Who doesn’t like clean sheets. But I can do clean sheets. I have a washing machine, the Italian laundry detergent that smells of sunshine and I have a carousel washing line that whips them into dry very quickly.

I make my bed when I get out of it at home or in a hotel. But there is this new fashion in hotels where they sandwich the duvet in between two sheets. It looks very impressive when you walk in to a sea of starched white, but it falls apart when you get into them as the top sheet is folded back over and stays in place for less than thirty seconds with you in the bed. 

Melbourne is so much more than anything I got to see. I went to the museum and was introduced to wonderful indigenous art. I had lunch at a restaurant serving indigenous food… which in my case turns out to be steamed sweet potatoes with warrigal greens. 

NGV Museum

I went on a river cruise down to the docklands under a series of frighteningly low bridges. There were stories of settlers who wanted to declare themselves king after having traded all the land that would be Melbourne, for some blankets. It was the state funeral of aboriginal elder, Uncle Jack Charles a 79 year old Boon Wurrung. There were deck chairs set up in Federation Square for everyone to be able to watch the ceremony on a big screen. 

Melbourne : Hundreds of coffee shops. Hundreds of restaurants. Lots of pubs where people stood outside drinking as they would in Waterloo. Because I was staying in the inner city there were lots of young men in suits. Lots of law offices I was told. There were hundreds of well dressed young Chinese people. They were sent here to the University by their parents who had the money to spend I was told. There was a lot of wealth and style in the clothing and haircuts of women of an age. Navy Blue was the color of choice. Clothes, not hair.

The Melbourne I saw was like standing in Oxford Circus and sending a postcard saying it was from London Town. Shocking really. 

However, there was a moment of redemption. I was near the river and breakfastless. So I wandered around and did that ridiculous thing of joining a queue outside a coffee shop because I decided they must know something I didn’t. It was called LUNE. 

The queue of the patient lemmings

I tried looking inside through the window, but all I could see were groups of young people with cups of coffee and pastries in front of them.  I am not a coffee drinker.  And I can easily pass by a pastry. There must be something more I thought. Do not give up your hard earned place in this queue.  The only sign I saw was 7.30 till 3 ( or sold out). Inching further I looked everywhere for a menu, there was none. When I got to the counter I saw that “ the menu” were the choices laid out in front of me. If it was there, it was available. Take it or leave it. 

Apparently I had waited 30 minutes for croissants called “ Birthday cake”, “ Cherry Ripe” and ‘ Kouign Amman”…. But then I spotted it. My unknown prize in this short visit to Melbourne, a “ Cheese and Vegemite “ croissant for 10 dollars. 

Australia’s Marmite elevated to it’s rightful place. 

“I’ll have one of those” I said and took it in it’s fancy bag to a bench by the Yarra river where I consumed it carefully like it was exotic foam.

Oh yes……

When I return to Melbourne I know where I’ll start.

Trams and Kindness

 I went to catch a tram around Melbourne. The famous circle tram that allows you to whizz around the central city going clockwise or anti and hop on and off. 

There are many things to say about the public transport system in Melbourne.

“ Bloody Marvelous” might be the first thing that comes to mind. There are buses and trams going north and south and east and west. And for the central area of Melbourne, it is totally free.

Jump on. Space. No homeless people sleeping. Most people standing as they chat their way from one stop to the next. 

I was standing on La Trobe street waiting for the number 35, wondering whether it was a clockwise or anti day. The number 30 on it’s way to Docklands stopped. The “ stations” are in the middle of the road. The road is divided into a bicycle lane at each side then the lanes for the cars and in the middle are the four tram lines and every so often a short space for people to wait.

When the tram number 30 came by, I stood back. I wasn’t sure where the docklands was. The door where the driver sits was pulled open. 

“ waiting for the circle tram?” The driver asked me.

“ Yes,” I said.

“ Haven’t seen one all morning” , he said. “ I don’t think they’re running.”

“ Oh dear” I think I said.

“ Where are you going?” He asked.

“ Flinders Station” I said, Hoping that was a real place.

“ Jump on mine,” He said. “ two stops and get on the 58 that will get you there.”

“ Thank you, so much,” I said.

I was thinking about the bus ride I had made to partake in the Cyclavia event from 4th street in Santa Monica to West Hollywood. I had to load my bike on the front of the bus. I had never done it before and had to look at all these angry faces on the bus peering at me as I tried to work out how I could possibly balance my bike on this strip of metal and it not fall off. I eventually sorted it and got on for my ride to the joyous freedom of the automotive free Santa Monica Boulevard. We hadn’t traveled more than a few stops when a gentleman couldn’t line up his walker with the platform that the driver had activated for him to get on the bus. This guy was upset long before a bus came on the horizon. He started screaming about how he had served his country and this was the respect he got. He accused the driver, a man of Hispanic descent, of racism. He would not sit down as he hurled abuse on the grievous slight he had received. Everyone sat still on the bus. Not knowing on this Sunday afternoon whether they were watching something that would pass or stick and turn into violence. 

“ Sit down.” The driver said.

“ You call me Sir. “.

“ Sit down Sir.” The driver said.

“ You don’t have the right to address me. “

“ Just sit down” came the muffled murmur from the bus. Nobody wanting to move their lips loud enough for him to turn and spit at them. We weren’t moving. The bus was purring but not moving until angry man sat down. 

He sat, yelling as he went, for All the disappointment in his life and his thwarted moment of reckoning.

Maybe it’s because we don’t have trams anymore in Los Angeles. The tracks are still there in odd places. But the tire manufacturers and the car factories let them disappear without a whimper and made more roads for cars and buses to bump into each other . 

If we still had trams could I be standing on Santa Monica Boulevard, and have the tram driver lean out of window  and say “ are you heading away from the Ocean or towards it?”  

 I don’t know,” I could reply. “ is sunrise or sunset better?” “ You come with me and we’ll rattle along till the wheels hit the sand.  Then we’ll decide. “ Not in my City of Angels I fear.

Christchurch and more

 Christchurch, where my brother lives, has had trouble recovering from that devastating earthquake. It is 17 years now and the cathedral, which sat in a large square at the center of the city, is still in pieces and surrounded by fencing. The wonderful White Transitional cathedral made out of cardboard, still stands. The river Avon still does it’s beautiful job, and there is the most extraordinary children’s play park that was built as part of the Recovery Plan and opened in 2015. The Margaret Mahy Playground is simply the largest playground in the Southern Hemisphere and surely one of the most inventive in the world.

Maybe it says something about the New Zealanders that the stone Cathedral of religion remains unrestored, but building water dams and careering down metal slides seemed more important.

When we were there , hundreds of children were racing from one unbalancing act to the next. Or, with their parents, working out how to turn on and off the water to make a small lake.

We drove over to Akaroa, one of my favorite places near my brother’s home of choice.

 A tiny little town at the end of the road that takes you up and round a mountain. On the edge of the ocean. Calm, blue, happy. A place for ice cream licking on a bench looking at quiet water.

On the way to Akaroa

On the way we stopped off at a fete in Governor’s Bay. So called because once the Governor had his residence there. There is no longer a governor, but the bay remains. There were lots of odd things like potato crisps on a stick. And a collection of vintage cars. But they did have scones with cream and jam.  And sack races for the children. And lots of people selling cuttings from their gardens. There was a young girl, a local I am thinking, with a guitar and an amp singing her own compositions and a smattering of American classics like “ Welcome to the Hotel California.” Not one note, not one, was in tune. But nobody seemed to mind.

Just another generous observation about a very generous society. And I got over my disappointment at there not being a cake stand where I could buy a Victoria Sponge.

the girl and her guitar

The sack race

 I can’t leave New Zealand without a visit to my brother’s lovely wildlife reserve.

So here is my brother 

The CFO in duty

and here is the moment when he let a Kea bird climb on my head telling me not to worry.
He said the bird just wanted my little shoulder bag. Not helpful . Not generous. Not at all. I may have to reasses.

The Lakes of the South Island

 I love water. I do. Big bits of water. And some are more gorgeous than others.

 there are purposes for them all.

The English Channel is dark and choppy and 21 miles wide.

The straits of Gibraltar are blue and strategic.

The Irish Sea is turbulent and political.

The Lakes of the South Island of New Zealand are just there. Left over from some volcanic something. You drive over a mountain and there they lie, lie some haphazard reminder that we may wear cashmere but they need nothing other to have a shaft of light to wake them up.

Lake Pukaki. Let’s start there. Under the Southern Alps. Looked over by Mount Cook.

Lake Tekapo. let’s pause there. Same Southern Alps. 

They take the turquoise I have never seen in nature and coat themselves in it, like it is easy.

So on a totally colorless note; I went on a dark sky experience whilst I was staying in Lake Tekapo. Wearing an arctic jacket loaned to me because it was very late and very cold.

 It was conducted by an astronomer from France who had made New Zealand his home. Lake Tekapo is a dark sky reserve. One of a few in the world. There is almost no ambient light. The French guy says that the Southern Hemisphere is far better than the North for access to the dark skies. 

I have no photos of Jupiter or Saturn. Or the Southern Cross. or the Milky Way. or Billions of star constellations that are billions of light years away that I looked at through a telescope.

But if I close my eyes now, I can still see them. And maybe that is how it should be.

Queenstown

 I didn’t know I had a problem with heights. Or maybe I am fooling myself. 

It started to creep in when I had to cross a gorge on a rope bridge when I was working on a film in Belize. The first few steps were fine and then I crumpled and went the rest of the waving way on my hands and knees. Since then I have stayed away from the edge of high balconies. Turned down the chance to skydive. Stood at the bottom of ladders. 

I remember now, as I think about it, that I never climbed a tree as a child. I never swung across a river on a rope. It may be that I was always a height coward.

So, I was in Queenstown. The sporting capitol of the South Island of New Zealand.

 There were centers offering zip lining and snow boarding and, oh, I don’t know. All these things that require proper muscles and flinging yourself off heights with less than an umbrella to help you.

None of that for me…. 

Crazy activities available on every street corner

I wandered the town. Oddly filled with young people that I suspect were on an elongated gap year. Working in coffee shops or clothing stores. Not New Zealanders. Travelers, still traveling.

It wasn’t warm. They were wearing shorts. In restaurants they were making a pot of tea last for hours. 

It was too busy for me. Lots of visitors getting togged up in life jackets and whizzing around the lake in speed boats. Or carrying shopping bags from clothing stores that would not make any sense whatsoever when they got home to their home which had a temperate climate and a village pond.

Not the worst view before going to sleep

But I did go up the Gondola. I got into a little car thing on my own and only remembered a few minutes up that I had voluntarily chosen to do something that scared me sideways.

I managed it. I breathed. I sang to myself.  I wandered around at the top and wondered if I could come down or just stay up there forever.

 I came down. Backwards. So I couldn’t see how high I was. 

Honestly. How ridiculous is this story? 

Or is it like the one I always remember about Cleo Laine, the jazz singer, who said that she didn’t like olives but if someone offered her one, she would always try it, just in case she had changed her mind.