gbpilgrim

Wanderings in the world. Meanderings from the mind.

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  • Big smokes

    Supposedly some of the world’s most liveable cities are in Australia; yet surely not when the climate sears. A haze of dust and smoke blows... Read More
  • Flying by

    It’s been a while since I’ve driven so far on consecutive days. The passage of years dulls the memory of cruising on straight, flat roads... Read More
  • Mission possible

    I think a general principle of Australian exploration is the further north you go, the quirkier things get. For quirkier you could substitute odder, weirder,... Read More
  • I got chills

    With the undeniable passage of nature there are sure signs that winter in Canberra is slowly ebbing away. There have been a few recent days... Read More
  • Marvellous

    Late Friday afternoon on the road between Braidwood and Bungendore and the wind is buffeting my car as it trundles into the sleety clouds of... Read More
  • Warming

    It is a fact truer than anything to have ever come out of the British Prime Minister’s mouth that I will always take up an... Read More
  • Hop, skip, jump

    Or how to catch up two months in one thousand words. Can it really be more than two months ago that I was faring well... Read More
  • Clotted cream is not the only fruit

    On holiday, and at home, food is such a focal point to the activities of the day, whether that be a walk over hills to... Read More
  • The doorstep

    A habit of mine is to go for a walk somewhere every day of the week. Or at least try to, even if this is... Read More
  • Exhausting

    I love how there are so many different roads meandering through the English countryside, linking villages that you never knew existed; undistinguishable places called something... Read More

The Green Bogey Down Under

December 7, 2019December 8, 2019
— 1 Comment

SPF 50 is no longer enough

The country is dry. The country is burning. Seeing and hearing of places I have loved broken, it breaks my heart. But I’m just a bystander. I have not lost. I am not broke. Even heroes cannot repel the brutishness of nature, more vociferous than it has been in the past. While villains busy themselves... Read More
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November 17, 2019
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Big smokes

Supposedly some of the world’s most liveable cities are in Australia; yet surely not when the climate sears. A haze of dust and smoke blows in, hanging with diesel fumes unimpeded by a reverence for... Read More
Read More
October 28, 2019October 28, 2019
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Flying by

It’s been a while since I’ve driven so far on consecutive days. The passage of years dulls the memory of cruising on straight, flat roads under an endless sky; pausing at a bakery in a... Read More
Read More
October 5, 2019October 5, 2019
— 1 Comment

Mission possible

I think a general principle of Australian exploration is the further north you go, the quirkier things get. For quirkier you could substitute odder, weirder, crazier, madder than a dozen cuts snakes lurking in the... Read More
Read More
August 26, 2019
— 1 Comment

I got chills

With the undeniable passage of nature there are sure signs that winter in Canberra is slowly ebbing away. There have been a few recent days in which I have left the house without a coat,... Read More
Read More
August 18, 2019August 18, 2019
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Marvellous

Late Friday afternoon on the road between Braidwood and Bungendore and the wind is buffeting my car as it trundles into the sleety clouds of winter. I’m returning from the coast, where two hours before... Read More
Read More
August 3, 2019August 3, 2019
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Warming

It is a fact truer than anything to have ever come out of the British Prime Minister’s mouth that I will always take up an opportunity to work in Brisbane in July. While the locals... Read More
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July 21, 2019July 21, 2019
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Hop, skip, jump

Or how to catch up two months in one thousand words. Can it really be more than two months ago that I was faring well an England seemingly destined for Johnsonillae exitium philanderus? Well, yes,... Read More
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A to Z

February 25, 2014October 19, 2015
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Zzz…

...and so to bed, a closure of sorts on this long-winded journey that started off so awesome and finishes in a cocoon of fluffy pillows and cosy doonas. Among all the wonderful things seen, the delights tasted, the rants aired, it is sleep that has allowed them to happen, recharging the body and mind just... Read More
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January 29, 2014October 19, 2015
— 1 Comment

Yurt

It was like wakening in a miniature circus tent, though with just the one clown stirring from an overnight slumber. Through a plastic window daylight was seeping into the octagonal space, the hard wooden floor... Read More
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January 24, 2014February 18, 2015
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Xenophobe

If X is a difficult letter then why not take on a difficult subject to make it even more difficult? Perhaps it’s because I am some culturally deficient rosbif, a soap-dodging pom who has come... Read More
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January 6, 2014October 19, 2015
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Waterfalls

It was always going to be hard for me to steer clear of a road named The Waterfall Way. Linking the tablelands of Australia’s New England to the mid north coast of New South Wales,the... Read More
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January 2, 2014October 19, 2015
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Viewpoints

We all have viewpoints. Mine tend to be moulded in a woolly leftish laissez-faire egalitarianism which is open to paying extra tax for everyone to be educated, receive healthcare and live in an environment less... Read More
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December 23, 2013October 19, 2015
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Umbrella

We need to talk about the weather. It’s part of my DNA: within one of my chromosomes that have also determined a reticence to introduce myself to strangers and a fondness for orderly queues linger... Read More
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December 3, 2013February 18, 2015
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Trek

It is pleasing to know that there is a minibus to transport you around on a Trek America tour. I guess this means Trek America is a bit of a misnomer, given that technically it... Read More
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November 24, 2013October 22, 2015
— 2 Comments

Sidetracked

Back towards the start of 2013 I decided I was going to write this piece regarding the word ‘solo’. Not a whole two thousand words dedicated to the tangy Australian lemon drink, but an exposition... Read More
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October 16, 2013October 19, 2015
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Red

Red is surely the most schizophrenic colour. It is the blood that pumps through our body, and sometimes spills out in horror. It is the heart of the fire that warms us, the fire that... Read More
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October 7, 2013February 19, 2015
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Queen

One wonders if the Queen would care to be seen wandering the wonders of a London scene. Dressed as a stranger, flirting with danger outside of the comforts of pastel green Hats shoes bags and... Read More
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September 22, 2013October 19, 2015
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Petrol

“The ball-breaking torque combined with the twin thrust turbo delivers an astonishing rear wheeled hardon that isn’t good. It’s absolutely MASSIVE!” So says Clarkson on almost every episode of Top Gear ever. Like most of... Read More
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September 17, 2013October 19, 2015
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Oceans

I grew up by the sea. Not in a romanticised way, where snug cottages overlook glistening seas and fishing trawlers bob up and down in weather-worn harbours. Neither in the glamorous manner of those doing... Read More
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September 13, 2013February 19, 2015
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Neil

Okay, this is not going to be the ultimate in self-absorbed egotism revealing the characteristics and complexities of just one soul among the seven billion on this planet. In fact, it’s not even going to... Read More
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September 13, 2013February 19, 2015
— 1 Comment

Momentum

I do tend to like a song that builds; one that’s all tender and melancholy to begin, subtle layers of sound layered with every soft verse until they rise into a crashing crescendo of strings... Read More
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July 26, 2013October 19, 2015
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Lost

It must have been the third time I had come across the unassuming facade of a small church, white columns illuminated at night in a dim yellow glow and reaching up to a plain second... Read More
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July 23, 2013October 19, 2015
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Kangaroo country

Nothing can be quintessentially more Australian than the sight of a man in a cork hat and grubby white singlet riding a kangaroo to work. Apart from a man on a kangaroo in a cork... Read More
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July 14, 2013October 19, 2015
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Journeys

If I was Alain de Botton I would have a superbly incisive sentence about journeys with which to begin this piece. Nothing like ‘a journey is the means by which one moves from A to... Read More
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June 9, 2013February 19, 2015
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Icefields

Despite being composed of perishing frozen particles there seems to be an inherent allure to the presence of snow and ice. I wonder if Eskimos feel the same way. Maybe this romantic view is nourished... Read More
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May 6, 2013October 19, 2015
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Home

Home is where the heart is, only pieces of my heart are scattered in so many places. The largest two chunks are undoubtedly at polar opposites of the planet, making for an interesting tug of... Read More
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March 31, 2013February 19, 2015
— 2 Comments

Golfing

There must be an age in the life of every male in which you suddenly find it desirable to slash a thin stick of metal at a small ball in every which direction over the... Read More
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February 26, 2013February 19, 2015
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Fairytales

Once upon a time there lived a curious fellow with salt and pepper hair and ten year old T-shirts that had faded in the sun but, he thought, had not quite worn enough to really... Read More
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January 21, 2013October 19, 2015
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Elements

The problem with travelling around the Pacific Northwest, at any time of year, is the range of gear you need to have on hand ‘just in case’. October especially is the most transformational of months,... Read More
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January 13, 2013February 19, 2015
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Dawn

The dark cloak of night was yet to loosen itself from the town of Santander as I crept up from a creaky bed onto the creaky floorboards of a creaky guesthouse. Desperately trying not to... Read More
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January 5, 2013October 19, 2015
— 1 Comment

Cream

I grew up in Devon, England. On paper it may sound idyllic for Devon surely conjures images of rolling green hills and tinkling rivers, bobbling their way down to the sea past thatched cottages and... Read More
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December 19, 2012October 19, 2015
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Beery

As an Anglo-Australian male in his thirties it is inevitable that beer has accompanied me on many occasions on the road and at home. At such times when one needs to know, like a doctor’s... Read More
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December 15, 2012February 18, 2015
— 1 Comment

Awesome!

Well what a jolly upbeat place to start, no doubt setting the scene for the boundless enthusiasm that lies ahead. So, in order to put an immediate dampener on things, let me tell you some... Read More
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Instagram photos

Went for a little country drive today and it’s all very droughty. So I did my best to support the bush, buying coffee and cake, fish and chips and a full tank of cheaper-than-Canberra fuel. #buyfromthebush . . . . . #australia #bush #drought #landscape #capitalcountry #travel #roadtrip #countryside #nsw #visitnsw #sky #explore #outdoors #summer
Smoke meet sun. Again. Welcome back pestilent friend . . . . . #sunset #australia #sky #silhouette #summer #bushfires #smoke #canberra #visitcanberra #dusk #colours #tree #bush #outdoors #walk #views
Code red . . . . . #sunset #sky #clouds #silhouette #australia #summer #canberra #parliamenthouse #visitcanberra #red #light #dusk #outdoors #explore #seeaustralia #redsky #view #climate
Volunteers in the making. Happy International Volunteers Day! @orangeskyau . . . . . #volunteer #IVD2019 #community #volunteering #orangesky #education #canberra #homelessness #laundry #volunteeringact #connection
A little pocket of bliss . . . . . #nature #outdoors #freshair #creek #forest #trees #peace #explore #walk #hike #australia #visitcanberra #wilderness #thebush #actparks #canberra #scenery
Tallaganda fire from Red Hill . . . . . #bushfire #climate #smoke #australia #canberra #view #clouds #spring #summer #heat #nature #weather #visitcanberra #abcmyphoto #lookout #landscape #news
Australiana . . . . . #bluesky #trees #bush #nature #morning #walk #summer #sunshine #canberra #australia #light #eucalyptus #drought #visitcanberra #redhill #strewth #landscape #thebush
Spring what spring? . . . . . #sunset #light #glow #outdoors #walk #australia #canberra #golden #explore #nature #sunshine #spring #heat #mountains #view #redhill #visitcanberra #actparks #landscape
Sun meet dust #australia . . . . . #sunset #canberra #dusk #sky #colours #silhouette #visitcanberra #canberra #outdoors #nature #walk #spring #heatwave #drought #climate #tree

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  • SPF 50 is no longer enough
  • Big smokes
  • Flying by
  • Mission possible
  • I got chills

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