A few Australian Wildflowers

(and in the future, let this be a warning to you, there will be many, many more)

Finger Orchid (no, really, that is its name, promise. Unless I identified it wrong. In which case, please correct me!), Boar Gully, October 2011.

Having been ramblers for the past few years, we are now bushwalkers again.

I had wondered how we would get on with bushwalking without a car as, unlike UK, Australia’s parks, forested areas and bushland is not usually easily accessible by public transport.  Serendipitously, I did not have to wonder long as the job I got came with a car.  I like it when difficult decisions are taken out of my hands.

The next hurdle was to find walking spots within a reasonable distance for a day’s worth of hiking.  Surprisingly, there are plenty.  Our first trip out was to a park no more than a half hour drive from home: Organ Pipes National Park.  It was such a tiny park that our walk was but a short stroll.  We paused to admire the eponymous rock formations, paused for longer to admire some Superb Fairy Wrens (and they really are rather superb indeed) and paused for even longer still to read our books in the sunshine, surrounded by the sounds of the bush: high-pitched clicks and whistles from wrens berating us for invading their space and the creak and swish of tall eucalypts.

We forgot to take a camera with us on our walk.  I was glad of this because I know I would have tried and tried to get a photo of the superb fairy wrens, only to fail.  Instead, freed of the burden of documenting, I just watched and delighted.

No idea pink heath like bell flower (not its correct name; tell me if you know!) Boar Gully, October 2011.

Next, we headed towards the Brisbane Ranges National Park.  A guide book (Daywalks Victoria by John Chapman & others) informed us that the area had excellent wildflowers, especially in late Winter / early Spring; the day was overcast with the sun intermittently shining through rather ominous clouds.  I think I’ve mentioned before that we’re fairly sanguine about the weather.  It does its thing; we do ours.

We packed our waterproofs; we hunted around for our compass and could not find it. We looked into our first aid kit and discovered that it was empty of contents.  Presumably, I had binned everything before we got on the flight from Germany back to Australia and we’d yet to replenish it.  Ah well.  I tossed some bandaids and some paracetamol into my back pack and called that our first aid kit.  In the past, they are the only items I have ever used from a first aid kit.  We also had no sunscreen.  Before I left for the UK, I would never have gone on a bushwalk without sunscreen.  Never, ever, never.  But I shrugged and went anyway, surmising (correctly) that we would mostly be under tree cover for most of the walk.

The walk we did – Boar Gully Circuit – was a fine and fairly easy yomp through dry eucalypt forest with lots and lots of grass trees.  I like grass trees.  They have a stump from which long stalks of grass sprout like a fountain.  You can run your hand through the grass and it makes a delightful swishing sound.  I camped among some grass trees, once many years ago, and was lulled to sleep by the sound of the grass in the evening breeze.  In the morning, I listened as some creature rustled about inside the grass, finally emerging with a surprised plop somewhere near my head, scuttling away from me and leaping back inside the grass before I could focus my eyes sufficiently to attempt an identification.

Twining Fringe Lily (I'm fairly confident of this identification ...) Boar Gully, October 2011.

The flowers, too, did not disappoint – as demonstrated by the photos interspersed throughout this post -, although perhaps we were a wee bit early for the best show.  There were certainly a few buds promising something more spectacular in a week or two.  I’m still somewhat photography-averse post cycling trip, so I was rather lackadaisical in my photo-making.

A promise. A reason to return. Boar Gully, October 2011.

October Miscellaney

September and October were busy, busy months as my post on Solo Lentil Soup alluded to. On having a wee think about October I realise:-

1. October opened and we were in Ireland. Prior to that I had been away for a conference on the weekend. Law conferences are mean.

Dandelion Clock from Mean Law Conference, Oxford.

2. We came back (from Ireland) and started a language course – my first formal learning environment since finishing my law degree. Studying again is disconcerting and makes me rather nervous.

Raindrops on Crocosima, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, Oct 2009.

3. We went to London for a weekend and a couple of weekends later, I went to London again. Although I have traipsed to London on quite a few occassions while living here, I very rarely take photographs. This time, I tried a bit harder to take photographs but even still, we did not have many. Partially, it seems as if everything is over photographed. Partially, the crowds bother me and I just want to escape them. And now, there is the added annoyance of wondering whether I am taking a photograph of something that I am not allowed to photograph because I might use that photograph for my terrorist plots.

Japanese Windflower. The photos are tangentially related to the immediately preceding paragraph. Except for this one. I just like this one. (And I have not sorted my London photos yet.)

4. On our first free weekend in about 2 months, we filled it to the brim with cycling. As we had house guests, we had not been for long rides; so we went for a long ride. Except that the long ride ended up being stop-start-abortive because I got two punctures (or one puncture not fixed correctly the first time).

The first puncture we fixed at a roundabout junction of two A-roads, with many passing cars, motorbikes and pedestrians. That sure was fun.

The second puncture we did not bother fixing, but instead changed the inner tube. Thankfully, the second puncture occured on the bike path, so we were surrounded by trees and it was blissfully peaceful. The only sounds were my grunts of annoyance as I struggled to (1) remove back wheel; (2) remove tyre; (3) replace inner tube; (4) replace tyre; (5) re-affix back wheel.

Naturally, the next day we had to go for another ride (plus the weather was glorious – my favourite crisp cold blue skies). We went for a less long ride but together, both rides made for a lot of riding plus one lovely long lazy Sunday lunch at a fabulous pub in the English countryside.

Gentian or Campion? I always mix those two up. I think it's a campion. The Burren, Ireland, October 2009.

5. Our next free weekend we ruined by staying up way too late at a friend’s place, nattering, playing computer games, watching silly Youtube videos (you know that party game, Have you seen, “Charlie bit me?” No? It’s on Youtube, you must see it. And so it goes.) On Saturday, we woke rather late.  Sunday was miserable weather. I spent the weekend crafting, cleaning my bike chain and, surprisingly, whooping my partner’s ass in Carcassone. Yay me!

Carcassone is a board game, in which you place tiles that have roads and city parts on them. You have a set of characters – known as Meeples – which you place on the tile to claim it; once placed the Meeple can become a Knight (city piece); thief (road piece) or Farmer (land piece). The aim is to gain points by building cities, roads and farms. Cities and roads are scored as they are completed and farms are scored when all tiles have been placed.

I don’t really have a strategy for Carcassone and what “strategy” I do have would not be called a strategy as such by more serious players. Usually, I try to place my Big Meeple (what my partner and I call a Beeple but I don’t think that’s orthodox) as a farmer as soon as possible because his continued presence in my ranks of Meeples stresses me out. Mostly, I play with an eye to aesthetics and how the land is developing. Sometimes I decide, “This game, I’m going to make lots of cities.” Often, I play and develop the land physically closest to me. I try to resist these tendencies but I’m not very good at it.

I never was very good at chess; I could not help wanting to save all my pieces. Losing even a single pawn would get me quite upset. As a war leader, I would more likely retreat or negotiate a peace settlement than make a, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead,”* type speech. My chess strategy involved dodging around evading capture until I did something stupid like expose my king to check and, sometimes, to checkmate. Conversely, when I used to play Lemmings (the computer game) I would rescue just the percentage I needed to get past that level and then blow all the rest up because their posture with the bomb above their heads and increasing panic as the numbers counted down made me giggle. Every. Single. Time.

Dear Partner, if you read the two preceding paragraphs, please erase all memory of it. In truth, I have excellent game strategies with multifarious strands and clearly developed endgame manouvers, which you will never learn. Never.

And, as of this weekend, we are off to France to cycle in that alleged cycle-touring mecca. In November. (We like cold weather.)

* Henry, from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Did a lemming go down there? Me at the Cliffs of Moher, Ireland, October 2009.

Florence & The Cinque Terre

Two months ago my partner and I went to Florence and the Cinque Terre.  It feels like a lifetime away.

I still have some chores to do in relation to the trip:-

1. Send thank you card and email to the lovely, lovely people we stayed with in Florence;

Well, I took a break from writing this post to send off the email.  And now, it is done.

2. Show you pictures from the trip;

That’s the whole point of this post, right? I’ve been a bit conflicted, however, because many of the better photos were taken by my partner.  I feel like a fraud showing you HIS photos.

The Tuscan Countryside and the house we stayed in. <photo taken by my partner>

3. Send off the postcards that I bought for specific individuals because the cards were just so ‘them’.

My partner and I are notoriously bad at sending postcards from our holiday destinations to our family and friends.  Often, I write on them while we’re away.  Then, the postcards come home with us and I look at them and think, “Argh! I can’t send that now, with a UK stamp.”  Sometimes, I defiantly send them anyway.  Sometimes, they languish with all my other travel paraphernalia (I am an incorrigible collector of receipts, tickets, pamphlets and business cards because I am thoroughly rubbish at buying souvenirs) and years later I am startled by them when I procrastinate from other tasks by tidying my travel miscellany.

Mostly, I find writing postcards thoroughly unsatisfying. I can never think of anything interesting or witty until right near the very end by which time I am out of room and have to sign off.  Postcards, unlike letters, seem completely divorced from their audience.

I must remember though that I love receiving postcards.  Therefore, I should send them because I am sure the recipients, too, love receiving them, irrespective of the pap I write on the obverse.

A postcard-esque picture <if I say so myself>: view of the River Arno from the Ponte Vecchio.

Our visit to the Cinque Terre was an exercise in serendipity.  We had planned to hike in the Apennines for half of the trip.  I thwarted this plan by twisting my ankle on our first day in Florence.  The ankle twist was worsened by the fact that I was carrying a backpack weighing approximately 15kgs and, for comedic effect, had just declined an offer for someone else to take the pack off me.  Stupid pride (comes before an ankle sprain I hear).

My partner, because he is cruel and horrible, finds this picture hilarious. Me, exiting the duomo, with walking stick. <photo not taken by me>

After tossing ideas back and forth about what we could do with the last half of our trip, we suppressed our fear that the Cinque Terre would be overflowing with tourists and decided to go there as it was (1) easy to get to, (2) easy to get around  and (2) not a city.  I craved countryside, a dash of wilderness, open spaces.  Florence was claustrophia-inducing and overrun with tourists like ourselves.

Does dinner get more idyllic than this?

On our first night, we bought a picnic dinner of antipasti (salami piccante, prosciutto al crudo, pecorino cheese, olives and the most deliciously sweet tomatoes ever), which we ate at a deserted cafe and lookout point in the Torre Guardiola.

Our idea of a ‘relaxing’ holiday is not like most people’s.  But my ankle and the need to change accommodation halfway through our holiday enforced a more relaxed holiday upon us than we would otherwise have had, had we been left to our own devices.  Though we walked the entire coastal path linking the five villages (hence the name Cinque Terre), we did so over two days, with rest days between each, during which my partner drew, I read, and we meandered down to the sea and I was too afraid to swim in it.

We sat upon the white rocks for a solid two hours, idling. Riomaggiore Harbour by me.

The very picture of peace. Riomaggiore Harbour.

To take the above photo, I lay sprawled on the rocks trying to get as low down as possible, without falling into the water.   I wanted the blue boat on its own, but no contortions (and I tried a few) enabled me to frame the picture without other boats.

And, lastly, there were many, many window boxes filled with flowers and I thought of you, Wandering Chopsticks, and your love of them.  So here’s a photo that I asked my partner to take for you:-

It was midday. The light was not great but the flowers are.