Overview of Holiday, December 07

My recent trip was taken in three parts. I flew to Perth airport the day after school finished and was met by my longest friend Jane and Sam her son. I stayed with them for 4 nights, celebrating Rickie's birthday (Jane's daughter) on the Sunday.

I caught the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide over the next two days. We stopped at Kalgoorlie for 3 hours the first night, Cook for an hour or so on the second day and then just long enough for a quick ciggie at Port Augusta on the second night before arriving in Adelaide, fairly tired on the Friday morning.

I stayed at the Adelaide YHA until Monday morning when I flew back for Christmas. It was my first taste of Adelaide and I intend to return.

I will post more later with photos some of the things I enjoyed whilst I was away. I felt like I was away for more than 9 days, I think in part because of the variety of surroundings I got to experience. Interestingly it rained in both WA and SA whilst I was there. It's the first holiday I've taken on my own since I met Andy and whilst it was different not having him to share the journey with, I managed ok and was probably a lot more social than I am when travelling with others.

'the best thing' by Margo Lanagan

First Impressions
'the best thing' by Margo Lanagan was a very interesting read. About half way through I nearly abandoned it, finding it mundane and sad and too real to be readable. I'm glad I hung in there.
Mothering
I loved the way Margo Lanagan describes the passage of pregnancy and childbirth and the early days of mothering. Her protagonist is a young woman, yet I found it a description that closely resembled the feelings I had when I was a slightly older young mother.
Margo Lanagan's Writing
I discussed Margo Lanagan's writing today with a colleague and we both agreed it wasn't always easy to read, not that it was difficult to understand, it was emotionally confronting. I always find her writing rewarding though precisely because it is confronting.
Short Story vs Novel
When I started the novel, I wondered if I didn't prefer Lanagan's writing in short story form as I had loved the three anthologies of short stories I had read 'Red Spikes', 'Black Juice' and 'White Time'. At the conclusion of this novel, I find that I love her writing in both forms. She cuts to the heart of what's really important and describes it beautifully. It is truly a vibrant and triumphant tale that is gutsy in it's subject choice as well as the depth it delves into.

Poor Ned, You're Better Off Dead

I loved the Redgum song about Ned Kelly when I was a teenager, Poor Ned. Today I have been immersed in the legend of Ned Kelly.

First stop was to the State Museum in Melbourne to see their Ned Kelly exhibit and to participate in some art activities. The State Library of Victoria has the Jerilderie Letter online. They have the real thing at the library as well as the armour. My students completed an art activity making the armour in a well prepared session. I learnt today the letter was not published until the 60's as it was held by the government. When I say letter I would like to add this was an 8000 word document and was dictated to Joe Byrne (one of the Kelly gang) by Ned Kelly.

From there it was off to the Arts Centre to watch a performance called 'The Legend of Ned Kelly'. This performance was inspired by the Sidney Nolan Paintings and these paintings were featured in the performance. The performance was a mixture of puppetry and video and light. Some of the effects were quite impressive.

It was not mentioned today but I think it is interesting that 'The Story of Ned Kelly' was probably the worlds first full-length feature film. There have been many books and films made about the legend of Ned Kelly, the notorious Australian Bushranger. There was much discussion between teachers and students as to whether he was a hero or a villian. I was interested to note that many students saw him as neither, but rather a victim of circumstance. The Irish in my ancestry makes me want to believe he was a hero, yet I think the students were right.

Films during the Easter 07 holidays

The film '300' was based on a graphic novel. I found that interesting as I brought a pile home from the school library to read. I haven't made much progress with them. There is an interesting one on Chinese Myths that I will use with the year 7's for Imperial China topic. Getting back to the film though, I really enjoyed it. It was a great heroic, action film.

Children of Men was a futuristic look at a bleak reality where no more children can be born. It was a really well done film and is one of the best I've seen lately. Great characters, particularly Jasper, played by Michael Caine.

I finally saw The Prestige on DVD these holidays. I have been longing to see it and will watch it again because it was great. I wanted to see it because of my long term facination with David Bowie and Tesla. It was also a good story with an interesting outcome.

I partially viewed the DVDs The Guardian and Memoirs of a Geisha I couldn't really get into 'The Guardian', even though I am a big fan of Kevin Costner usually. Andy loved it though. 'Memoirs' was ok but I kept getting interupted and only really partially saw it after restarting it three times and now I can't be bothered with it. Not meant to be!

The real dissappointment for the holidays was the Australian film Boytown. It was corny and terrible. I guess it was the subject matter of a boy band that killed it. I usually enjoy Glenn Robbins and Mick Molloy, but think this movie was pushing it a lot of the time.

The Diviner's Son Gary Crew

I know I have said it before, but I just love Gary Crew books. I have just finished 'The Diviner's Son' I thoroughly enjoyed the both the setting and style of the book. Crew used actual historical articles throughout the novel about spritualism to enrich the setting of the novel. The characters were interesting and multiple perspectives were used. I like the ability to follow different characters and their point of view of what is occuring.

It was a good story too and although I considered the murderer at one stage as a suspect, I was totally surprised when the ending revealed him. I had been completely distracted by other events.

This novel was set in Tasmania. My parents are there on holidays right now.

Wollongong Trip - Cooma to Nowra

We left Cooma quite late and had to shop for socks at Rivers as Andy hadn't packed enough! We drove to Braidwood for a late lunch in the park and had a stroll down the historic streets there. They had a great display on the local National Parks and Architectural features of the town, which had buildings from many eras.
We headed through Morton National Park on our way to Nowra. It was like driving in the clouds and we stopped and checked out a beautiful waterfall in the late afternoon.

We camped on the river at Nowra and read and had an early night. I was woken a couple of times by young people celebrating New Years Eve, and the next day I waited for the decent hour of morning to arrive before phoning my kids to ensure they had survived the revelry.

Wollongong Trip - Mt Kosciusko

We spent our next day at Kosciusko National Park. Andy wanted to do the walk to Mt Kosciusko, which was a 20km round trip.We were departing from Charlotte's Pass.

I opted for the walk to the glacial lake, which was 8km return. I think I stopped about a km short. It was really steep and being as unfit as I am I kept looking back at the steep downward slope I had come down at the start and knowing that was going to be at the end, wore me down mentally. Andrew’s walk was a round trip so he had to come up that climb at the end and admitted it was the steepest part of the walk.

As we headed back to Jindabyne to go through on our way to Cooma, a hail storm struck. It was amazing that only a few days ago we had been worried about bushfires. I believe the bushfires eventually got to Kosciusko National Park earlier this month.

We stayed in a motel at Cooma as we were tired and the thought of camping didn’t appeal.

Driving to Charlotte's Pass from Jindabyne clips are here and here

Lookout 1, 2 and 3

Walk clips 1 and 2

Leaving the National Park

The Hail Stones

Trip to Wollongong #1

We took almost a week to arrive in Wollongong on the 1st of this year. We experienced a range of weather. We left the smoky Latrobe Valley on December 27th, although we had intended leaving on Boxing Day, we were delayed by a day. Heading towards the hills, literally, we passed through Seaton on our path towards the ranges. Many of our planned routes were closed due to the bushfires that were burning and we saw lots of smoke and burnt out areas.
Our first night was spent at a delightful creek where we had our first swim. It felt invigorating to wash off the dusty, smoky aura that had surrounded me. The chill of the river water had me breathing deeply.
We camped here for the night. I must admit I felt nervous as I could hear in the distance trees falling in the bush. I heard 3 or 4 and that was enough for me. At some point during the night gentle rain fell on the tent and this soothed my fears enabling me to sleep deeply.
The next day we headed back on the dirty, churned up 4WD track heading across a river crossing first then up a hill. The road had been graded, probably due to the fires and we had some difficulty with it. We headed towards our planned route towards Mt Angus, hoping to make the Moroka River that night. The road became totally impassable with huge trees blocking the road entirely. We found another path, and from there we headed to Bairnsdale with the intention of staying in a motel and revisiting the route from there. We were tired. It had been challenging. My challenge was fear. I was apprehensive about the fires and the roads and the heights, Andy had to do all the decision making and concentration on driving. The road was the worst we had traveled on and the car, hit rocks underneath on two occasions, once causing damage that he had to repair. I am pretty blessed to have such a competent companion.
The video links below are of the creek we camped by and the roads and countryside we travelled through on that first day.


Rough Road
Creek
Burnt Bush

Summer Viewing

I haven't watched many films this summer, whilst we were away we mainly watched our new 'Battlestar Gallactica' DVDs that Andy got for Christmas. Season one was great and I am now looking out for season two. When they were on TV, we didn't always catch them because they were on late, so having the DVDs has been a great way to see them, no ads!
I really enjoyed the ABC show 'How the Hell Did We Get Here?'The Baby Boomers Guide to the Movies'. It was a top 20 of Australian Films and I had seen most of them and truly enjoyed the show. It reminded me how much I love Australian film, even the older films that were mainly included in this list!
We went to the cinema at Woolongong to see 'Casino Royale'. I wasn't keen, because I'm not traditionally a big James Bond fan, but I did enjoy this film. My favourite James Bond was always Sean Connery but this new guy gives him a bit of a nudge. The cinema was looking a bit sad though. It felt dirty and dusty, so lucky it was a good film, or I possibly couldn't have sat through it.
I saw 'Children of the Revolution' on pay TV at the motel we stayed at in Kiama. It was Aussie and quite funny. It's an Australian movie from 1997 and had Rachel Griffiths in it,among others.
I was delighted to see another Australian movie on the guide 'Dalkeith'. It was based on a story from the Traralgon old peoples home by the same name and I had always wanted to see it. I was seriously dissappointed though and couldn't watch it all. Too stereotypical, although the reviewer I have linked to was more positive.
At Ulla Dulla I watched the new TV series 'Men in Trees' and loved it. Andy dislikes the main character, but I'm sure he will tolerate it for me! I am going to watch this series, I can tell. It reminds me of my old favourite 'Northern Exposure'.
PS. Tomorrow, when hopefully I have uploaded the clips I want to include, I will share some tales from my trip.

Holiday Reading

I was limited to taking 2 books away for my holidays. Andy works hard to keep what we take away to a minimum, which is good common sense, but a challenge for me when I read so much. I took Isabel Allende's Ines of My Soul and totally enjoyed it. It was kind of violent though in parts. I enjoyed the character Ines though and as always enjoyed the way Allende writes.
The second book I took, one that I had already started was 'The Tesla Legacy' by Robert G Barrett. I have always been interested in Tesla, since I read about him years ago in Linda Goodman's book 'Star Signs'. I am looking forward to seeing the movie 'The Prestige', David Bowie, whom I am a fan of, is playing Tesla in this film. It looks like a great film anyway and I love fantasy. Hugh Jackman is another of my favourite actors, he's an Aussie too!
Anyway getting back to the book,it was a light and easy read with lovable characters and some interesting ideas. Andy read it also and agreed it was a bit childish in parts but still enjoyable.
I finished these books in Woolongong, so set out to find some second-hand bookshops on the way home to fulfil my need to read. My first find was 'Maestro' by Peter Goldsworthy in a fabulous second-hand bookshop in Kiama, where we stayed on the first night of the trip home. My son Tom has it on his booklist so I thought that would be a good buy. I loved it. I was quite surprised by it to be honest. I have read 'Keep It Simple Stupid' and thoroughly enjoyed that, yet found this to be a very different style. It deepened my love of Baci chocolates! I intend to read all his books this year.
Maestro was a short book, so my next find was 'The Moon and Sixpence' by W. Somerset Maugham in an op shop at Bateman's Bay. It was a very hot day and we had walked the streets in a frustrated search for a second-hand bookshop. Eventually we found the op shop and I couldn't see anything that interested me and Andy recommended this book as one he had loved. I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the beginning it was a shift in concentration because the language is less contemporary, but once into the story and characters, I couldn't tear myself away. It is a real journey. This book is freely available from Project Gutenburg here,as are a number of Maugham's other novels, which I will also read this year. In fact after this experience these holidays I think I will get some ebooks one of my memory sticks to take on holidays. The problem is when you are camping it's a challenge.
My final book purchase was from the shop in Mallacoota that has lots of second hand stuff and a range of books. I found a book there called 'Briar Rose' by Jane Yolen, which was another enjoyable read, but unfortunately I consumed it too quickly and was without a book for our last night at Orbost.

Amanda Bloom - WoW

Last night I heard Amanda Bloom's 'Magdeline' on the radio. It is an amazing song. I loved it on first hearing. I remember the first time I heard Tori Amos and it was a similar experience. She is like Kate Bush. I love Kate Bush.
The lyrics of 'Magdeline' are moving and you can read all about them on her myspace blog.

She is a Sydney woman. Her voice is magic and I look forward to hearing more. I would buy a CD of hers today if I could. The Triple J radio announcer said last night she was classically trained. You can hear that discipline and excellence. I can't say enough. If you go to Triple J Unearthed, you can download Magdeline and listen for yourself. I am going to register today and vote.

The Winners of 2006 CBCA

When I read the honour books I wondered what could possibly be better and win the Children's Book Council Awards. I read 'The Story of Tom Brennan' by J.C.Burke recently and it was great. My son also enjoyed it and as a very dear friend of ours has become badly injured from an accident, we could both really relate to parts of the novel, that dealt with the aftermath of a tragic accident. It was almost therapeutic we both felt to read it and discuss it afterwards. The author has captured the numbness well. It is a frightening tale, yet I highly recommend it and feel it was well researched and written.

Watch a clip

I found this new site today called Revver. You can upload little video's that you have taken on it and if anyone watches them and then clicks on the ads on the end, you get paid. This is probably not going to make you a fortune but the thing is that you can put your clips on there and share them. It is pretty cool I reckon. I have put one of the Road to Broken Hill that I took when we went on our holiday. It's pretty basic. It will be interesting to see what the process is like though. Last I checked it had 10 views. I find this kind of thing quite amazing to be honest.

The Weir

The weir has extended my holidays now that we have returned home. The weather has been warm and each afternoon we have driven out and had a swim. I've enjoyed the water this year like no other since I was a kid. These holidays have lasted longer and been more pleasurable.

The first day we were there, a family of kids was in the water where we were swimming and it was fun listening to the kids conversations. One kid (a girl I think) jumped in and said "oooh seaweed." The boy replied "It's not seaweed, you goose, it's weir weed." It was funny. The weed put me off a little at first, but the rest was too good to be skittish about that. After all I walk through grass to get there, what's the big deal?

Above the clouds

Our last camping night was spent above the clouds at the Mt Skene lookout. I was so tired from the fear and supressed rage of the day that I retired to the tent before the sun left the sky. I am glad I took this photo of the wildflowers and the tops of the hills or I may have missed the beauty of the place entirely.

Camping on the banks of the Murray

One of my favorite stops on the trip home was on the Murray. I loved going for a swim in the evening and in the morning. It was warm when we stopped at Echuca. It was delicious.

I was amazed at the number of people in all different kinds of boats using the Murray. We stayed at Picnic Point, NSW, one night and then camped at the banks at Echuca. They were both great.

Got to visit Auntie Angela and Uncle John whilst I was there who both provide accomodation in Echuca. There places are great, but naturally booked out at this time of the year so I didn't even try them, visited them the morning later.
I do worry about the Murray though, we seem to use it so much, I just hope it can be kept healthy and flowing because it is such a provider to that part of the world.

Murals

Broken Hill has heaps of murals painted on the walls of plenty of buildings. They show all different aspects of the Hill as the locals call it.

Broken Hill & Women

There was a wonderful woman who looked after us when we stayed at Broken Hill. She told me when she arrived she was the first woman to get a job at the previously male dominated club there.
Married women were not able to work, the theory was this would retain jobs for single women and naturally it would retain the male as breadwinner in the family.
This memorial in the picture is in the middle of the outdoor shopping mall in Broken Hill. I liked it.

Living Desert

Living Desert Sculpture Park

The sunrise was definately the time to go. The place has amazing 180 degree views. Andy has much better photo's than mine so I will frame one of his.

We always manage to get up for one sunrise on our holidays. It really is the best time to take photo's and this was a great place.

The Journey

The roads were long and dusty and hot. I loved it from the comfort of the air conditioned car. The sky was huge. It will take me a few days to work out where all the photos are.

This was on the road to Lake Mungo.

I'm home now and I had a sensational 3 weeks. It feels like I've returned a different, happier, freer person. I love these kinds of holidays.