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Miles on the clock

Road trips. I’ve had a few. Enough to be wary of the romanticism surrounding them being eroded by the reality that is the sheer size and starkness of Australia. Particularly in high summer when the blue sky is almost too harsh, the golden plains searingly brutal, the never ending bitumen writhing like a red bellied black. Radio stations crackle in and out, much like the throats of the cricket commentators gasping for water.

A dry golden landscape of grass and mountains

Road trips here can be weary affairs but ultimately beguiling and entrancing and, after a little while, addictive. The latest pill of addiction kicked in for me on our drive home, somewhere between Albury and Gundagai. There’s not a lot along the road here other than an easy cruise control in mid morning light, hay bales and cows under ribbons of eucalypts, lumpy, rocky outcrops grazing the sky. We’d just stopped beside a giant submarine and had a scalding hot country coffee, and naturally I didn’t want this to come to an end.

It was barely a week ago that we started out in a similar, familiar landscape. Better coffee picked up barely out of the big smoke in Murrumbateman and the second day of the Boxing Day test on the radio. Rounding Yass and pointing towards Melbourne, days that could, or could possibly not, go on forever.

A distinction of this road trip was in it being fully electric powered. And despite a battery percentage of 60% our very first stop was at an Elon data harvesting facility in a rundown car park in the middle of nowhere. I say nowhere, but I mean Coolac, where a parade of mostly Tesla wankers were inching towards their next connection with the almighty. I felt the need to discharge in the portaloo.

What struck me was the opportunity beside these chargers…a rundown pub fenced off and seemingly out of business. Oh to have a coffee or beer or sandwich and buy some discounted MAGA hats signed by Barnaby Joyce while the slower-than-advertised supercharger does it work.

Being post-Christmas excess days, lunch was thankfully already packed. We wouldn’t go hungry. Think meat and cheese and sausage rolls and pickles and crackers and pretzel nut mixes and plump Aussie cherries and eternal shortbread. But this was hardly the most scenic spot in which to eat. So we moved on and dispelled much of our extra charge to reach the far lovelier Tumut and picnic beside the river.

Our route to Melbourne was a little off the beaten track, heading instead through Tumbarumba and Corryong. Not far out of Tumut, the first of the random oh let’s stop for some fruit which may have also been turned into alcohol stops. A sharp u-turn to take us back into the home of the Apple Thief on the outskirts of Batlow. Ciders for off the road.

After cakier refreshments at Tumbarumba (and a genuinely super charge), we paused for a lovely short walk down to the base of Paddys River Falls. As much as road trips are about a car, it is also rather welcome to get out of the car. To be in nature, to smell the dried out warmth, to hear the piercing crescendo of a cicada frenzy eventually drowned out by torrents of water. And, once sated and feeling a little sweaty, enjoy a comfortable seat and fresh cooling as you return to the road.

A waterfall plunging into a gorge

It was new road for me, skirting the western fall of the Australian Alps. Rounded and snowless, more a cattle-driving, fly-buzzing style of high country than the old ski goggles and an overpriced Orangina. Somewhere there, Mount Kosciuszko, a hillock among hillocks on the horizon.

The countryside here seems particularly vast and sunbaked. A borderlands aching the eyes with perennial glare and jarring contrast. Only the Murray River, and its sinuous offshoots, pacify and give the place life. A whole abundance of it.

Several views of the wide Murray River

Such as a deranged fairy wren tap-tapping at a window at six in the morning. And when there is no answer there, doing the same with my car’s wing mirror. I can only assume the bird hasn’t worked out its reflection and is threatened by that rather handsome chap in blue, leaving a mess all over an EV.

A blue fairy wren on a car wing mirror

We were staying beside the river for a couple of nights, easing into road tripping life. This gave us a gentle day to relax in an oasis, to admire the serenity and – I foolishly assumed – lounge in front of the cricket. But with one of those things off the table, we ventured out to the nearest town with a coffee, Corryong, and followed this up with a country pub lunch in Tintaldra. Home of the slippiest steak sandwich in – wait – the state of Victoria.

And so, the next day, much of Victoria beckoned. After a pleasing drive along the Murray Valley Highway towards Tallangatta, a further detour took us to another most excellent charging stop in charming Yackandandah. For as the car replenishes quickly and cheaply, the humans treasure Beechworth Bakery cream donuts and good quality coffee under the cooling shade of broad leaves.

This corner of Victoria is really quite delightful, worthy of more than a quick pass through. As we drive through tree-lined roads and undulating pasture, I note the cycling track weaving underneath the shade. Linking up small towns with bakeries and breweries and wineries and cheeseries. Former rail lines reincarnate into gourmet gateways.

Cakes, fruit and wine in country Victoria

We pause at a fruit farm and this is like a blast from the childhood past. Pick-Your-Own strawberries and raspberries, which taste a thousand times better than anything featuring in an Australian supermarket near you. Having initiated Avery in the joy of English strawberries, this is the next best thing.

The fruits of our journey kind of fill the gap of what should have been lunch, and make the trip on the now more conventional Hume Highway of mild interest. Benalla makes for a belated sandwich but little else, and ticking off junctions – Violet Town, Euroa, Seymour, Kilmore, Wallan – the car reaches the sprawling outer fringes north of Melbourne. There are billboards and lifestyle plots and tradie ute parades and roads that simply end in a field and, from several vantage points, a city skyline distant.

A distant view of the skyline of Melbourne CBD

Civilisation proclaims itself with a Dominos and Woollies and Maccas and eventually you’ll find a Bunnings. Making hay while the new builds rise. Holding on, lapped at by subdivisions as jets descend towards Tullamarine, a winery stands on a hill. More fruits for the growing collection.

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You plan things on road trips and you don’t plan things. I never imagined during my youthful flights of fancy in the chill gloom of England that one day I would be standing in Colac Bunnings buying an extension cord so my Chinese wife could boil herbal tea. I never imagined this when I woke up this morning, but we are where we are.

The car is happily plugged in and charging, and the battery percentage is heading in the opposite direction to the temperature. Those on day trips from Melbourne bedecked in the shorts befitting thirty degrees are in for a rude awakening. The benefit of carrying everything with you is also the awkwardness of changing pants in the driver’s seat in a car park. There is always an old dear passing by, carrying a bag of vegetables, just at the wrong moment.

If the contrast in climate from Melbourne to Colac is a shock, the change in a few hundred metres in the Otways is next level. We reach our destination which is buffeted by cold gales, shrouded in the cloud. Some sad looking tents with sad looking people flap about next to the car park. The occupants sheepishly smile at us, an expression attempting to project we’re having a wonderful summer holiday with the kids vibes, belied by kill me now eyes.

A person walking through a green forest of trees and ferns

Other day visitors pause, get out of their cars, get back in, and flee. Some video the wildness for their feeds. We feed in the car and resolve to stick with the plan. To go for a walk to Beauchamp Falls.

The power of trees. Step down into the forest, the beautiful, spiritual forest, and there is almost instant tranquility. The clouds rise and the winds fade, replaced by a still calm now only pierced by patches of birdsong. Fern umbrellas and a crystal brook decorate the trail, gathering pace to cascade in natural splendour. The reinvigorating shower.

A view at the base of some lovely waterfalls

Those idiots who parked up, got out of their cars, got back in and fled are idiots. Ha. Though this practice tends to be de rigueur for the Great Ocean Road, often with a quick snap of a rock formation. Cutting across to Lavers Hill and towards Port Campbell eventually we see ocean on this ocean road, and quickly bypass any busy rock formation stops for later in the day. First, a warm drink and some Christmas biscuits.

For peak holiday season, Port Campbell had a bleak, almost abandoned air about it. I suspect people were hunkering down in their caravans, or still off looking at rock formations. A few were hanging around a car park waiting for their Teslas to revitalise for the trip back to Melbourne. Others, like us and the seagulls, were fuelling up on chips.

The landscape around is stark – the aptly named Skeleton Coast – and today it is especially windswept. Under blanket cloud, we walk off some of the chips with a tour of the nearby formations, which are still popular and still populated by the odd freak in shorts and T-shirt. The temperature reads 13 degrees and declares a feels like of 7. I detect some Yorkshire accents among the sightseers – taking advantage of a bonus day of non-cricket – clearly enjoying the summer.

Wild coastal rock formations lapped at by the ocean

Some of the famous Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road

Various lookouts at Loch Ard Gorge prove suitably rugged and mystical, and befitting of a blurry photo or ten. Other than the odd professional with a five metre lens, there are largely two types of photographer bumbling around. Many, like us, are of the hold on to your hats and try to stop your cameraphone from shaking too much brigade. At the other end of the spectrum, I can only say the proliferation of posing and pouting and prancing and performative poppycock on display was of another dimension. It turns out one of my loves in later life is lingering in shot, lurking in the background.

I guess I’m not dissimilar to an Apostle then, one of the twelve or seven or five or whatever it is standing in formation, providing a backdrop to people’s holiday memories. Some Apostles are more photogenic than others however, particular when some welcome and wonderful late in the day lighting emerges. Though tantalising, it’s too cold to wait for sunset. Plans can change. Let the sky redden from the coziness of a warm bed.

A cold and windswept couple ready for bed

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By no means was it summer the next day, but there was a gentle warmth in the shelter of the dunes at Apollo Bay, sipping on a coffee from one of the many options lining the main drag. By Port Campbell standards, this place was a pulsating melee of humanity, outwardly catering to the day trip coach stop morning tea and lunch crowd. A few fairground rides on the foreshore reserve hinted at the fact that it was New Year’s Eve and numerous groups of wee nippers of varying ages engaged in their surf lifesaving holiday drills. The water was relatively benign too, the bay sheltered by a soothing landscape of gentle green hills, bisected by meandering gullies.

Drinking coffee beside the ocean

On the way to Apollo Bay I spotted a koala dangling from a tree hanging out into the middle of the road. It was not at all suitable to stop, so we resolved to amble along the banks of Kennett River seeking lumps of grey snoozing in the treetops. It is a good workout for the neck, especially as none are to be spotted.

It seems the koalas are on holiday, and you can sense from the faces of the people returning along the track that they too had no success. This, of course, makes me regret not slamming on the brakes and performing a dangerous U-turn and parking on an unstable grass verge earlier in the day.

It’s a lovely drive onto Lorne, hugging the coastline with numerous headlands and bays. And while it is far from a sporty festival of testosterone, the EV is a pleasure to drive. No continuous crunching up and down gears, instant acceleration out of the corners and onto the next, freewheeling and charging down to one inlet after another.

A bay backed by a forested hill

The car deserves a recharge in Lorne, as do we, with what seems to be the last of the Christmas picnic leftovers. We don’t do much else, for Lorne seems even more chaotic than Apollo Bay, a sure sign of an impending big city.

But we bypass Geelong and soon enough reach the sprawl of Melbourne. Where it seems almost everyone is at Lorne. Scouring the streets near where we are staying in Preston, we settle for dinner at one of the few places open which turns out to be a very fine and popular Vietnamese.

It is a relief to eat something that isn’t based around the anglicised nutrition of Christmas. A good way to set course for 2026. Now for the fireworks. Or the top of one or two fireworks if you look closely enough at the distant city skyline from a hill in Coburg. At the end of the display, some of the kids were still asking their parents whether it had started yet. Sorry Melbourne, but Sydney wins this one by a landslide.

The rest of the stay in Melbourne was a rather languid and, to be honest, relatively unexciting time. I avoided the city centre and we ended back at the Vietnamese on New Year’s Day, having scoured a few other nearby suburbs for anything different that might be open. We did find a coffee spot earlier in the day which was both grungy, pretentious and what any middle aged white person on Sky News would shrilly denounce as woke. And to be fair, it was a bit ridiculous that you could only get one cup size. On New Year’s Day when you might, feasibly, require a little extra boost.

But they were open so fair play to them and by the second day of the year things were a little more bustling. It was good to finally see Preston markets in all its technicolour effervescence and summer felt like it was back in swing as temperatures once again nudged over the 30s. My wife took to the air-conditioning with a friend in the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere, leaving me alone to tackle the first day of being back at remote work. The shopping mall was clearly larger than I expected for the afternoon progressed into a solitary, non-Vietnamese dinner, followed by a cheeky jaunt to Fitzroy for some gelato and a car top up. I was 99% looking forward to hitting the road again.

Our trip back was a less ambling affair, taking in much of the soporific Hume Highway to quickly reduce the kilometres remaining. Before we got too bored though, we pulled in to see the relloes in Beveridge and later stopped at Euroa for some lovely lunch. It was a blessing in disguise that the motorway service centre was chokka and the EV chargers were impossible to find, for we went back to the small town centre instead and enjoyed a much more pleasant experience in a local café, supporting the locals instead of McColonel Hamburglar. Euroa had a nice feel about it, and I can imagine having a very relaxed stay in the local caravan park. At least for a few days.

Towns like this in Victoria seem to come at conveniently regular intervals and our next stop in Beechworth is the final one for the day. There is time to relax and recharge and amble the well-preserved and elegant Victorian streets, browse the independent stores and plan what fine local produce we can sample over dinner. In the end we go for the brewery and wood-fired pizza, though both of us choose a glass of local red instead of the many ales. This would be a good choice for perhaps another time, with a pair of bikes in tow.

Scenes of the buildings in Beechworth, Victoria

Beechworth of course hosts its namesake bakery and we called in the next morning to stock up for the final leg of our trip home. The road from here to Wodonga was charmingly beautiful in the early morning light. And then you hit the NSW border and everything changes.

The landscape is more indistinct and ordinary and being back on the Hume Highway hardly helps. The next ‘big’ place after Albury – Gundagai – is a mere 166 kilometres away. But there is always a random town with shit coffee and a giant submarine to break things up. And isn’t that a wonderfully reassuring fact, a beauty in its own right, another pill swallowed on the road to road trip addiction.

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Bowlin’

As I disconcertingly approach twenty years in Australia I forget how many times I have been exposed to “the most highly anticipated Ashes series in history.” Only to be either irritated and / or bored senseless within the time it takes to make a dubious TV umpiring decision.

So, here we are again.

It’s funny how Australia (the cricket team) has irked me over the years, causing me to seek solace in Australia (the country). Give it thirty minutes or so among the gum trees and almost all is forgiven Warnie, Gillie, Mitcho, Smithy, Patty, Garry, and usually some guy slapping it about on “dayboo”. Even if the kookaburras knowingly cackle to rub salt in the wound (or sandpaper on the balls).

Meanwhile, the only time I get to wax lyrical about England is here on these pages, when I am focused on sharing the latest updates on pasties from Cornwall and vistas from a coast path. Indeed, there seems to be more English content for AI to regurgitate to the level of an eight-year-old than there is antipodean. Perhaps because England feels so exotic these days, what with its M&S biscuits and quirky place names and increasingly chaotic populist edginess.

Corners of Australia offer sanctuary from much of the nonsense, helped in part by third world internet and mobile blackspots. Purer, halcyonesque days of sandy toes and salty air, of flip flops floating on the incoming tide as whales flap within a deep blue sea. Places where some numpty on Facebook will film a short video montage to the title of ‘It kills me when people come to Australia and miss this pristine secret hideaway.’ If that’s what bloody well kills you then a) wait until you hear about the snakes and b) please, be my guest.

Since those sojourns in England we have been to the south coast of NSW at least three times by my reckoning. Twice in or around Tathra, where whales thrash their way down the Pacific Highway and prawns land upon the plate. There are friends to catch up with and walks through spotted gums to serpentine lagoons. And trips north or south to an array of small, unassuming coastal towns.

Eden made a change, a place I had not walked upon for several years but reassuringly familiar. There have been catastrophic fires and a pandemic and Trump x 2 and still the prospect over Twofold Bay is soothing to the soul. There is a lost paradise about this place, hidden within the rough edges.

Hidden too, the Bundian Way. An ancient 365km pathway from Turemulerrer (Twofold Bay) to the mountain ranges of Targangal (Mount Kosciuszko) that Aboriginal people from Yuin, Ngarigo, Jaitmathang, Bidawal Country have walked for thousands of years. Now rising in consciousness again following an impressive book and the development of an easy, accessible, beautiful couple of kilometres to start.

On the topic of hidden paradises, a golf course next to the sea would tick many boxes, especially for English cricketers busily training. Just north of Merimbula, Tura Beach has one, although the sea often remains hidden behind dunes and tea tree and banksia. These hazards are supplemented by protective plovers and swampy ponds and numerous retirees doddering along with their dogs. I never realised the entirety of Tura Beach was effectively a Goodwin retirement village.

Still, I might qualify soon. And being ‘of an age’, I have been trying to get into the swing of things again. This includes packing my golf clubs in the car and bringing them along for a coastal trip in the hope my darling wife will fancy a break from me and I’ll kill this time by hacking at a little white ball with a metal rod.

In hindsight perhaps I would have been better off with a siesta too. The recovery shots seem to be my forte, but then I get plenty of practice. Why don’t I just pretend I am smacking a low shot under some trees all of the time?

I could try fishing instead. Which takes me now to Mollymook and a tenuous link with Stein and his seafood cookery. Last time here we stayed above his restaurant overlooking the ocean eating noodles in a cup. This time, we stayed down in the Pavillion, eating at the golf club bistro. I guess, barring the noodles, this was a more downmarket affair.

This is possibly the most privileged paragraph ever written but I guess the problem with staying at Bannister’s Pavillion after previously staying at Bannister’s By The Sea is that you had previously stayed at Bannister’s By The Sea. The comedown is like being, say, 1/105 at lunch and then bowled out for 164. I mean the rooftop pool is pretty and that but what is with all the random gurgling and banging and knocking? Not to mention the parade of 5am Ford Rangers commuting back to the eastern suburbs of Sydney on a Monday morning just outside your room.

But, well, happy birthday me. The sun came out and the pool was inviting enough to dip in and we travelled a road well-travelled to get back home with familiar highlights along the way. Like Bendalong Bays and Kangaroo Valleys and Fitzroy Falls and Bundanoon Bakes. Familiarities becoming more familiar than scones and cream and Tesco and paying for air and countryside pubs. They, like test match wins, are the rarities. They the exotic.

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A coastal landscape
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The comeback kings and queens

A coastal view of cliffs and wildflowers

There is jeopardy in revisiting a place of joyous memory. Risk in the raised expectations that many of the same ingredients will result in the same, delectable cake. But a second time around some ingredients are missing and some have additives and there is the chance they won’t combine in quite the same way. Not to mention the unpredictable variable of temperature. Why does it always come back to cake?

Sausage rolls are more the thing in St. Agnes, a stop off point on the migration to The Lizard. Sixteen humans, four cars and a dog, all bound for a holiday park mere miles from the southernmost point of the British mainland. But first, a brief foray on the north coast, for dramatic lines and vibrant hues and curious children. Minecraft takes on a whole old meaning.

An old tin mine overlooking the sea

We are decamped and scattered across fibro structures near Mullion. On site there is the usual mediocre pub food, a playground festering with past scrapes and tears and an outdoor pool that only seems to open between the hours of 12:87 and 3.574 on the first Tuesday after a blood moon. The staff are largely from the disgruntled set of Camborne Comp, moonlighting between here and Aldi and a quick vape after bingo.

This is all to be expected, all priced in, and I cannot fault our bungalow nor the location nor the amusement arcade with its strangely captivating spell of coins and tokens teetering on a precipice. Armed with buckets of bronze several people drift from one machine to another possessed. Convinced it is just a matter of one more tuppenny bit to score that Tweety Pie Tazo.

Being Britain I have no doubt some people will spend their entire holiday in this square mile. To me a shame, but whatever floats your boat. But there are real boats afloat just down the road. And sandy beaches and rugged cliffs and flowery lanes and pastel villages and scones and tea and beautiful birdsong and fluttery butterflies and ice cream.

Two identical cups of coffee from different years

And even good coffee. Coverack a case study in discovering whether things will be just as satisfying the second time around. It feels harsh to relegate Coverack to grey morning filler but I think the benign nothingness of the conditions make the place feel even more appealing. Cottage For Sale signs even more alluring.

A small old harbour and village

Things were busier at Roskilly’s, where this time around on top of savoury lunch I made sure to take in the staple produce of ice cream. I made sure Avery made sure of this as well by ordering one of those ludicrous sundaes that comes in a ridiculous glass and is peppered with delicious garnish.

Now, I’ll sound like a right jerk here but I have to say Cornish ice cream has underwhelmed a bit ever since I became addicted to Gelato Messina. Which is a shame when you consider the natural, rain-soaked bounty of this westernmost county. It’s the Jersey cows that make all the difference, rain-soaked or not.

Rain soaking was proving pleasingly elusive as parts of Britain crept towards something like their twentieth alleged ‘heatwave’ of the summer. And the wall-to-wall sunshine was blazing just overhead… the layer of low cloud obstinately stuck to the granite mounds and precipices of The Lizard. A situation ripe for conjuring up that legendary Cornish mizzle.

Looking through a rusted ring at a misty harbour

At first the conditions were an acceptable background to evoke scenes that a used car salesman would describe as atmospheric. The historic quay wedged into Mullion Cove eerily calm, the flat silvery seas vanishing into an unknown horizon. Film noir moods satisfying for as long as it takes to get to the underwhelming chocolate factory up the road.

It’ll burn off soon, is the oft-thought line which is looking increasingly ludicrous, especially back up on the wild heights of the holiday park over lunch. But there are some scouts out and about on the WhatsApp family chat and there is a picture with blue sky on it. We pile on down to Poldhu, where the sun is tantalising just offshore. An hour later, I’m in shorts eating another so-so ice cream and some people are up to their neck in ocean.

A sandy bay and blue water, with lots of white cow parsley on the cliffs

Despite a very slow start, the sun lingers long into the midsummer sky. There is time for a rest and an infuriating wait for dinner, somewhere, anywhere, that will still serve you anything, please. The sun is well and truly up in Mexico by time a burrito bowl lands in front of me. In Cornwall it is now sinking faster than a taco and cold cerveza. Indigestion is just around the corner, as is the boomingly popular Kynance Cove.

At around 9:30pm it is relatively serene. Well of course there’s someone waving some ropes and smoking pot in a tribute to the sun gods, but there’s still enough room for everyone to space out on rocky outcrops. With a quiet car park and cast in lingering light, it is phenomenally beautiful to experience, even if the sun sinks beyond the land.

Golden sun setting over cliffs

Fast forward twelve hours to a stunning mizzle-free Thursday in early July and the fluoro-vested National Trust parking assistants are out in full force. Roger, head to Annabelle in a north-north westerly bearing and turn 270 degrees to line up next to the brambles with a clearance of 425 millimetres to starboard sir. Are you a member? Jolly good.

To be fair, if there is a need for National Trust parking attendants (I suspect the job is actually advertised as ‘Access & Experience Facilitator’) it is here. You can only imagine the carnage and open warfare in their absence. Like the emmets of local infamy, a procession of all sorts march downward from their cars, laden with striped bags, snorkels, blankets and buckets and spades. It is one endless conga line of flip flops, but the epic landscape consumes them fairly well. The tide is – thank the moon gods – out.

Clear sapphire waters and white sands

Sunny scenes at Kynance Cove

What follows is a wonderful couple of hours delving into sandy inlets and timidly inching feet into fresh waters while many others frolic unencumbered in the deep sea. For relaxation there is a trip to the café and a laze on a raised ribbon of sand. But relaxation can only be fleeting, niggled away by the inevitable turning of the tide.

You start to notice the changes slowly – a submerged rock here, disappearing seaweed there – but all the while you are wondering when it is best to leave. Once that small pool starts to link up again with the ocean, ankle deep. Others linger and incredulously a line of tourist ants continue to rock hop down to the shrinking bay. Destined to become as congested as the Northern Line at eight in the morning.

You may well think Insta-friendly Caribbean waters and Marbella vibes are as good as it gets but, for me, peak Lizard satisfaction was a more understated affair. It was a simple walk down a lane to Housel Bay in late afternoon sun. A Cornish summer’s day in which life was burgeoning and bountiful, much of it packed into the high hedgerows leading down to a placid, inviting sea. Timeless – and like the time before – producing a longing to linger longer. To happily comeback again.

More cliffs and water and a dragonfly on the hedges
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A lady walking along a coastal path
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Influential

There can’t be any more secret hideaways only the locals know about left. Someone calling themselves something like Travel_Insider100 has no doubt filmed a 10x speed video and overlayed it with circa 1998 fonts and shared it with their 22.8K followers who are all stunned at the location you would never believe is actually England and have since endeavoured to wild camp / swim / block the narrow lanes as soon as possible. Thus crumbles the likes of Pedn Vounder.

Now, if I had any influence whatsoever you would have known about the following secret hideaways more than fifteen years ago because they are places I go back to time and time again, usually to eat the same things, walk the same walks, take the same pictures, and espouse the same waffle. But you can’t blame me for any sudden influx of drones or sugar hit superficiality with a jingly soundtrack. I mean, you’d have to read my stuff for a start.

So off we go, again…

I believe I saw Kingsand and Cawsand recently pronounced as twin fishing villages like going back in time but without the crowds. Now in my earliest memories, there have always been some crowds, just not the crowds of St. Ives or Padstow. Unless it’s a stormy February, the ferry is always busy, the shorefront simmering away, the narrow lanes dotted with people gawping into tiny porthole windows. But there does linger a peaceful charm, even with Plymouth being just around the corner.

A calm cove with pink flowers in the foreground

A newer and arguably welcome development is a spot of half decent waterfront dining / snacking / drinking just as you scramble ashore from the ferry. There is an ice cream van also conveniently adjacent. In between eating savoury and sweet you can wander the lanes, bumble with the bees, cram into a tiny deli to suss out the local cheese, and just semi-seriously enquire as to the price of that vacant cottage. The ice cream is at least within reach.

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You’ll never believe what I have seen two or three times in the last few weeks. Someone has had a camera with them and had the ingenuity to discover one of the best half day walks on the South West Coast Path. It goes between Looe and Polperro, and, like many, I have discovered it before. It’s lovely and reasonably convenient and, yes, you can check out the top ten landmarks of Shipton Abbott if you wish. But for me the highlight is saving for a home deposit by skipping the car park fee at Polperro. There you go, a free travel hack.

A wonderful lady with a pasty and a seagull waiting with menace

Save your pennies instead for a Sarah’s pasty or two in Looe, only enjoyed on edge as murderous-eyed seagulls encircle. This provides more than enough nourishment for the undulations all the way to Talland Bay, where you can stock up again on cakes or ice cream or simply refresh with a cup of tea. Tea and tranquility the antidote to salty seagull frenzy.

I thought it was a short hop, skip and jump from here to Polperro but I underestimated the climbing which turns into a bit of a wheezy slog all the way up to a memorial cross. But it is the Polperro Parish memorial cross so that is something to commemorate, despite the village still out of sight.

A view of coastline and green hills through the trees

Walking along the coast path you’d have no idea Polperro is even nearby, such is the abrupt cleft in which the ocean creeps. It is only as you are almost upon it that an entire Cornish model village reveals itself in a glare of whitewashed cottage and kaleidoscope of bunting. The soundtrack is all gull and diesel trawler, the smells seaweedy pilchard with the odd waft of tidal mud. Lobster pots are as ubiquitous as postcards. Lanes are there for getting lost.

A picturesque harbour with cottages and boats

As we pottered about gradually inching towards the top of town and a bus stop, it was pleasing to see that some evil genius had propped open the toilets with a container of kerosene. No 60p fee today, times two. Maybe this is the best budget-saving half day adventure in Cornwall after all? Just make sure you use the toilets, free or not, because it sure is a long two pound bus ride back to Plymouth.

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Bus wankers. But check this out. People in 2025 actually being friendly and talking with one another on a bus! How quaint in white lettering with a black background. This amazing experience can happen on the 35 from Ham Green to Plymouth City Centre, where every stop is bustling with old dears and yet another hopeful pram. An old geezer in a flat cap is the latest addition, greeting the blue rinse set with a healthy morning ladies in dulcet Janner tones and a twinkle in his eye.

It almost seems a shame to pick up a car, but also not a shame at all because this is offering the chance to revisit places virtually out of reach of public transport. In cool late afternoon sunshine we head to the north coast of Cornwall, where I am keen to nudge speed limits in a quest for lush green pastures and sparkling blue sea and dream-like cake. Is Boscastle Farm Shop the best place for refreshments on the South West Coast Path?

Tea and cake and clotted cream and green hills with cows and blue sea below

The happiness of life at this point in time is amplified by free parking after 4pm and a walk out to the headlands of Boscastle Harbour. It is a tad blustery and the waves are reasonably wavy, a state of affairs garnishing the dramatic beauty of what may or may not be Dragonstone. Dark slabs of rock at angles forged in the earth’s furnace mighty enough to stand up to the swelling, pulsating ocean. Cosplay Targaryens blissfully absent.

A sinewy harbour in a narrow valley

Coastal plants with a bridge and rocks in the background

A dramatic island linked to the coastline by a suspension bridge

So another travel hack is to arrive at places like this late in the day, but not so late that the farm shop has closed. Tintagel is equally as quiet, the town sleepy with an air of desperation, the headlands peaceful with an air of salt and ozone. It’s late enough for the castle to be closed and free entry to a little part of it, the mainland part of it. Good value if you are walking the coast path penniless, fabricating encounters and manipulating illness to write a book or something.

It turns out all the characters are down at Trebarwith Strand, seemingly gathering for some kind of birthday or Friday night supper in the encroaching gloam. Bodies adorn and litter the rocks and I can only imagine slow shutter speed sunset seekers tut-tutting and rolling their eyes. The beach is disappearing as quickly as the light and even quicker than any remote hope of a majestic sky.

A rugged beach with late sun and reflections from a rock pool

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Hey, have you heard of this crazy type of rain? The locals call it mizzle and you should definitely not check it out. Despite looking innocuous it soaks you to the bone and lures you towards cliff edges. There is a sea down there somewhere but you can hardly hear it because this incredible precipitation phenomenon also absorbs sound. Wow, living my best life.

Yet for its very damp bleariness there is cocoon-like comfort associated with a walk in the mizzle. From far-reaching vistas the focus shifts to the immediate and mundane; your breath and your footsteps, the infinite shades of long grass below, the teardrop of water coagulating upon the tip of a leaf. The outline of a shady Hotel Camelot and a cat on a wall. It’s not clearing, so bugger it let’s go and get a hot drink.

A misty view of cliffs with a signpost and overlooking wild seas

If Tintagel was a little downbeat the evening before, early morning was positively ghostly. There is probably a tall tale of the spectre of a headless knight roaming the streets here seeking plastic swords and a genuine pasty. Today they are reincarnate in the bus load of German tourists that have found themselves in a branch of The Cornish Bakery, ordering pasties and bitter black coffee at ten in the morning. I feel both delighted and deflated at the realisation that their lasting impression of an iconic delicacy will be that thing there.

I just hope their cream tea experience proves more impressive. Mine certainly does. It’s a scene almost worth filming and sharing a smartarse clip where you break open the scones and zoom in on the jam and slather the cream all over a camera lens and then stroll beside the sunny cottages decorated with bright flowers hand in hand. But I don’t want to influence you or, frankly, encourage you. It is all mine to remember. Or mostly mine, for there is nothing finer than seeing your new wife embrace this experience with gusto. Totally under the influence.

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A waterfall nestled among green undergrowth
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Free falling

I don’t often shout very loud. or make much of a fuss. Or do anything whatsoever to bring too much attention to myself. Hence my throat and lungs were aghast when I bellowed out the most almighty call from a train stood at Platform 7 of Crewe station. Before promptly apologising to everyone on board. Naturally.

The trip was never in doubt. We had journeyed from Preston where another wonderful Avanti service came into the opposite platform to that advertised, triggering mass panic and stressed luggage wheels. Inevitably departing late, we enjoyed the short journey to Crewe wedged between our luggage and the toilet. This despite having seat reservations, which are about as much value as the paper they are not printed on anymore because everything has to be on another dysfunctional app.

With connection times getting tighter by the second the train did that thing it does when you think it is pulling into the station but stops just outside for no apparent reason. We inched forward at the pace of a geriatric snail, eventually lining up with Platform 6. Encouraging as 6 precedes 7 but annoyingly across the tracks.

In the melee, several passengers shot up the steps, swinging cases and coats and bags laden with sandwiches and fruit shoots. At some point over the bridge and down the steps Avery lost some ground, while I jumped onto the first open door of the train I could reach. She looked at the carriages, lost. A group of emo teens who might well have been on their way back from the Nantwich Loser Festival separated us. Please, look for the silver hair. “AVVVERRRYYYYYY!”

Of course what’s especially silly in retrospect is the high prospect of the train waiting for everyone to connect. It’s not like the Swiss railways or anything, where trains depart on the exact second of the exact minute of the exact hour. Besides, even if we missed it we’d have an hour until the next, which we could easily pass with tea and cake.

As it was, we settled down with luggage space pleasingly spare, ordered some scalding hot tea from the disgruntled trolley mandolly and ate gingerbread as the weather brightened and the borderlands rolled by. Footballer’s Cheshire, Escape to the Country’s Shropshire, Richard Ham’s Herefordshire and then a new country entirely. Prince’s Wales.

We arrived in Cwmbran, which is barely into Wales but feels very Welsh. It also feels slightly akin to Canberra in the way you can circulate the town for ages and feel like you have been here before. I know our accommodation was on the edge of town but have no idea on its relationship to everything else.

Still, some of the other relationships were a little clearer. Fathers and aunts and cousins and then I guess all manners of association by blood, breeding and beer. Coming together somewhere out of town for a renewal of vows and a hog roast. If I dare hazard to feel I have mastered marriage in 135 days, try doing 35 years.

A feature of our time in Wales was the supposed heatwave that was coming any day now. Ideal for catching up on laundry and finding it damp after a day in the cloud. Ideal for getting sunburn that catches you unawares in the mist. Ideal for packing shorts with optimism and never using them. And ideal for cooling off beneath waterfalls if you are local and/or socially influential.

A collection of waterfalls

A waterfall taking a bend in the river

It was a good idea to head to the Four Waterfalls Walk even if the reality was tinged with little annoyances. Like not so little steps and not so little an amount of people gawping like us at nature. The volume of visitors – of which we were admittedly an additional three – necessitated car park marshals, path closures and one-way systems. People-powered erosion is working at a faster rate than that prompted by the force of water. Only one is more captivating.

With such popularity, a trick is being missed with the absence of a good tearoom at the end of the walk; on a day such as this not only would the shortbread be millionaires. As it was, sketchy phone signal and scrambling detours led us to a potential opportunity that may well still be open, though it was touch and go along the single track lanes towards Pontsticill. The Old Barn Tea Room sounds just about perfect on paper and it delivered exactly what was needed. Warm sunshine in the garden the extra icing on the cake.

A lady sitting at a table with cake and tea

Perhaps this heatwave was finally happening after all. Certainly there was evidence of bathing along the banks of Caerfanell as we ambled up past countless cascades and swirling pools. There were people here too – including a party precariously firing up a barbecue on a 45 degree slope – but the mood was calmer and more ambient. And it felt like good grace from above that the final plunging falls of Blaen y Glyn were shared with us alone. We walked back through sun-dappled woodland lifted, hearts singing inside like the birds chirruping all around.

A plunging waterfall

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The promise of shorts was finally realised on the Monday, a day in which Avery and I would leave Wales by train without too much drama. Of course, being borderline hot, the only condition was that air conditioning would invariably falter. Like Australia in the cold, Britain does not deal well with the heat.

Scenes of a supposed heatwave

Britain does do a good supermarket meal deal. Provisions aplenty for a picnic beside a Mediaeval pile. As a second choice (behind an under renovation Caerphilly), Raglan Castle offered everything one could wish for in such a facility: crumbling walls, lofty towers, regal thrones and cooling dungeons. Of course, a proximate cafe was too much to ask for but there is plenty of satisfaction in a £3.50 sandwich, snack and drink.

A castle with crumbling walls and a flag in the tower

A scene of rolling countryside under a blue sky with a castle in the foreground

While not wishing to cut things too fine, our train back into England was still a decent stretch away so we were transported to the outskirts of Newport for a coffee and slice of cake. Unbeknown to me, Caerleon is a small town rich in Roman history. Think amphitheatres and baths and all those Latin excesses. This corner of the world truly has been hotly contested.

Nowadays, one wonders whether anybody would bother to ransack Newport. They may arrive thinking someone had already beaten them to it. Although having time to wait for the train is a luxury, now it cannot come soon enough.

For not only are we escaping Newport, leaving Wales and returning to England, we are also heading home. To the Westcountry, to Plymouth. Changing trains with time to spare at Bristol Temple Meads. Time to spare, indeed, to find Feathers McGraw outside the ticket hall. A neat and tidy conclusion to This Most Whistlestop Adventure.

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A person with arms raised in the middle of nowhere
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Cracking

There is nothing more British than an opening sentence about the weather. And nothing more British than weather which has you sweltering in a London backyard with charcoal aromas one day and freezing your arse off in a tumbledown seaside resort the next.

Britain doesn’t quite have the same climate regions as Australia – think tropical and desert and temperate and alpine. But it does have the North, a land where train stations are always freezing, hotpots and brews keep wildlings sated and 18 degrees is positively balmy. It’s a different kind of eet, reet?

Imagine all you had to look forward to was a summer holiday in Blackpool. In a Travelodge. Next to the Pleasure Beach. To be sure, there are enough rollercoasters to fill a week and enough fish and chip and donut combos to fill an obesity clinic. In a fleeting visit, we managed two hours of rides and an escape for pub grub with a dear friend.

A brown sea next to a promenade

The drive south along the promenade is a journey of transitions. From the grimy Bleasdalesque terraces and windswept tackorama of Blackpool South, things pick up towards St. Annes, yet giant sand dudes are still dotted with empty cans of Monster. Onward, the understated main street of Ansdell is almost the sweet spot. Go any further and you are into Lytham w*nker territory.

While this journey offered a 15 minute encapsulation of the British class system, Wallace and Gromit’s Thrill-O-Matic offered four minutes of fun and silliness. Which is far more satisfying on a holiday. And set the wheels in motion for A Most Notable Detour.

Green fields, dry stone walls, and dark barren hills

We were off to The Lake District by way of Wensleydale. The many positives of this included leaving the M6 to plunge into fine, single track countryside and encountering roadside services far superior to a Costa and Greggs. Crossing from Lancashire into Yorkshire, that most happy of road trip staples popped up in Ingleton – an independent and delicious bakery – boosting moods for the climb up into the Yorkshire Dales.

In a scene oft to be repeated over coming days, I felt as though I was driving across a Postman Pat landscape. Drystone walls and dotted sheep lace the valleys, yielding to desolate brown-green hilltops and low cloud. At Ribblehead, the model train set comes to life with its standout viaduct and the 12:07 to Carlisle inching its way into the mist. It is bleak and summery cold and definitively Yorkshire. Mustn’t grumble.

A wide viaduct with a train crossing into low clouds

The scenery as we overlook Hawes is a bit more of the cosier Yorkshire Tea variety. Things seem brighter and less foreboding, a sanctuary from the moors where you foresee being welcomed with a strong brew and fruit bun. As a result, Hawes is bustling and parking is tricky. But many are not here for tea or fruit buns. Instead, cheese. Served with extra cheese.

Hawes equates to Wensleydale which is inextricably linked to Wallace and Gromit. They don’t labour the point but it is quite likely that a couple of gurning plasticine figures saved this creamery from extinction. Cranberries can only go so far.

Several gurning plasticine fools

We wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t introduced Avery to Vengeance Most Fowl. I was pleased to find cheese without fruit though, and enjoyed the light-hearted cheese-making demonstration and learning about the history of the industry in this area. Two words: French Monks. As it so often is. The road to heaven is obviously lined with fine wine and pungent cheese.

The road to Cumbria is a slow and winding one but breathtaking in a downbeat, overcast kind of way. We reach the M6 again and briefly take it south, bypassing Kendal and reaching the hills above Windermere. The skies are looking more cheery and it is a relief late in the day, after a sublime pub pie laced with cheese, to wander not at all lonely in breaking cloud.

A walker in the fields with sheep and a small village in the background

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It is inevitable that lyrical waxing flows with many a visit to the Lake District. It is the crumpled lay of the land that arranges itself into lofty fells and sinuous valleys. It is the patchwork necklaces of stone walls marshalling flecks of sheep. It is the wooded glades and butterflied meadows, the babbling brooks and glassy meres. It is an old cottage and a pub and a church spire.

High mountains above a narrow green valley dotted with cows

It is probably not a gargantuan coach causing mayhem on The Struggle. I mean, the clue’s in the name and if that’s not enough a sign impishly advises of 25% gradients. Perhaps the coach was doing what we were doing though, escaping the parking lot that was the A591 between Bowness and Ambleside, detouring via Kirkstone Pass. It was a pleasant detour with some wonderful views to pass the time as a coach inches its way past opposing vehicles.

Eschewing Ambleside we amble along concrete in Grasmere, hotfooting it to famed gingerbread and an interminable wait for a coffee. The UK coffee update 2025 is much the same – avoid dreadful chains and it’s a coin toss between acceptability and dreadfulness. Though I am finding the creaminess of oat milk can mask some of the bitterest tears.

Someone in the cafe remarks it is busy today because the weather is good. I can only assume because it is not raining. We pace back to the car under cool, leaden skies and decide in such jovial weather there’s nothing better than being out on the water. Derwent Water in fact, layered and wrapped in coats, sheltering under flimsy caps, refreshing spray cooling the only bare bit of skin peeping out.

But it is hard to look away, particularly at the mountains in the distance, one protrusion piercing the cloud and flooding its upper reaches in sunshine. Perhaps there is a surprise in store after all, though not at Surprise View which is entirely as telegraphed. It’s a fine outlook over Derwent Water and beyond and a good spot to eat a lunch involving Co-op crisps and caramelised onion infused Wensleydale. Cracking.

A lady looking out over a large lake

With two W&G days in a row I thought we were having a break, only to be more surprised than the surprise at Surprise View to pass a cyclist wearing a Lycra jersey emblazoned with the face of Gromit. There was a fair chance the cyclist was gurning like Wallace too, embarking on the climb up to Honister Pass. With clouds parting, here was the Lake District providing elevated beauty and drama all the way down to Buttermere.

Sometimes a name can overpromise but Buttermere is every bit the delight it sounds. Water smooth as a knife, meadows plump with buttercups and bees and butterflies, cows cheerily chewing away, transforming green grass into ice cream and cakes and tea and – as Avery was subjected to – dire coffee. The cosiness of the place is heightened by the wild heights all around, deflecting the clouds to form a golden paradise. There is even that Buttermere tree.

A lone tree sticking out of a lake with mountains in the background

Ice cream, butterflies and bees

A field of buttercups in the sunshine with green mountains in the background

It would have been appealing to stay overnight here but it is overly popular and overly small. Queues for the bus suggested some may be in for an unintended night; we took solace in the hire car and an out-of-the-way B&B a little further north. This took us through more glorious scenery fringing Crummock Water before bravely praying for no oncoming tractors among the lanes around Brackenthwaite and Thwackwaite. Splendidly Northern names if a little lisp unfriendly.

On nearby place names, it is fairly obvious that Cockermouth is going to be pronounced Cockermuth. But there is something about Cockermouth that makes one forget and – to the despair of locals – often results in both a hard ‘Cock’ coming out with a hard ‘Mouth’. And accompanying tittering.

Before things get too hot to handle let’s go to the reality of Cockermouth: Sainsbury’s in the drizzle. While a Sainsbury’s was a welcome sight (and sign of civilisation), the drizzle was not. It was a dampness that persisted overnight and into the next morning, on which we returned into town to post a pack of biscuits. I never expected sending a pack of biscuits would take longer than an hour and require more security questions than entry into the West Wing. But at least it passed time for the drizzle to lighten and the cloud to lift.

Plunging back down into Loweswater there was an optimism returning with the reemergence of hills and languid liquid shores. With some urgency to get out into it all, we devoured a Sainos meal deal for lunch and headed for the hills.

A view from a summit of a sweeping lake surrounded by rugged high hills

Pastoral scenes of farmhouses, fields and hills

While this wasn’t really the day for high moors and ridgetops we managed to get above the canopy at Brackenthwaite Hows for some lovely, quintessential Lake District vistas. South of us the sun was sparkling off Crummock Water, bisecting the steep-sided fells of Grasmoor and Mellbreak. Scattered amongst this drama, seemingly in miniature, occasional farmhouses fringed with cows and sheep. A serene scene abruptly punctuated by RAF jets flying a hundred metres overhead. Both breathtaking and almost pant pooping.

There was much to get confused about when talking about the air force and Aira Force but we made it there in the end. This was via a spontaneous tea stop – which always makes for a good stop – at Whinlatter Forest. And while I wouldn’t call it the full-on cream tea it would have been rude not to opt for the scone and jam and cream, with a cup of tea, safe in the knowledge that greater greatness awaits.

Tea, scones and a waterfall

By the time we reached Aira Force it was late afternoon (only another 7 hours of daylight remaining folks). A good time to arrive given some of the crowds had dissipated and a subsidised National Trust parking spot was easy to find. The woodland and the falls were undeniably lovely, even if my lovelier wife went on to utilise this spot to both puerile and hilarious effect.

I come from a land down chunder

We had come this way, beside the shores of Ullswater, to locate a mysterious field on the top of a hill for a spot of serious dogging. I think that’s the term they use. No, wait, shepherding. Ironically, as we drove up a small lane, the Skoda was doing its own piece of shepherding as three dumb ewes tottered before us. Greeting us beside a gate, a farmer’s son looked bemused. Ah, city folk.

Upon this hill it was blustery and cool, and we had to layer up in everything we had. But it was a charming and enlightening hour or so, greeting an array of border collies (surely the best type of dog) and a friendly, attention-seeking Old English Sheepdog. The dogs were lined up roughly in age and a demonstration ensued of different skills and instincts, supported by Come Bys and Aways and remarkable variations of whistling. There was talk of farming and nature and the intertwining of the two, of thousands of hens eggs a day and farm shops and the bond between one man and his dogs. All the while, the sheep looked dumb and all I could focus on going round my head was Kaleb and I Can’t Stand Sheep.

Sheepdogs, farmer, sheep

After sweltering in balmy London not so long ago, it was fair to say we were freezing by the end of the sheepdog demonstration. I couldn’t feel my feet and my ears felt like two flattened crumpets that had got lost down the freezer two years ago. But this was a wonderful place and wonderful time, and there was a cosy pub not too far down the road to cap off our final night. Further down the road the M6, Preston, Wales, Plymouth. Some Equally Notable Detours yet to come.

A road winding down into a valley from a high mountain pass
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Sunset over the water with trees and ferns in the foreground
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Like ships that stay static in the night

I would still, I think, shirk a cruise. Or at least shirk a type of cruise on a gargantuan ship with casinos and cabaret and eleven varieties of norovirus, where a life on algae seas is punctuated by a stopover at some out-of-town docks in a shady part of the early hours.

What concerns me the most is the difficulty of escaping what is – in essence – a well-watered, well-fed and well-pampered prison. However, being well-watered, well-fed and well-pampered I can see why many can be charmed.

There has to be some kind of happy medium. Somewhere, say, you can feel as if you are being suitably glamorous and pampered and within touching distance of lifestyles of the rich and the famous without the prospect of throwing up the remnants of those prawns from the captain’s table down a series of portholes. Something like the spirit of a cruise ship anchored upon land.

Well, maybe there is such a place. And if you were hoping for some really daggy Australian novelty, such as a submarine in landlocked Holbrook, you’ll be disappointed. This was all class and not at all designed in the shape of a liner. A beacon to living the fancy life – with a handy 25% discount – on a headland in Mollymook. The good ship Bannisters by the Sea.

Now usually ‘by-the-sea’ is a British adjunct denoting a place that is very sketchy and boasts access to brown tidal mudflats and a generous array of ASBOs. But no such qualms here, the ocean pounding on three sides, views north towards Jervis Bay from our very stationery balcony, not a hoon in sight. The pool below competing with a small rocky cove for either domesticated or wild swimming. Or just stay close and soak in the spa bath.

A series of coastal views

The little cove – known as Jones Beach – was far from the golden sweeps of sand more typical of Australia, more typical of Mollymook. If you squint a little you can see a piece of – maybe – South East Cornwall here. The kind of place where Mr Stein would cook up some pilchards on coals in a Covid-era travel show when he couldn’t really travel all that far. Before embarking on a wild swim or just a swim if you prefer before it became a ‘wild’ thing during the early 2020s.

Back on the ship, we dined on breakfast at Mr Stein’s eponymous eatery, an expectedly tasty affair without ever being too fussy. A place where after your choice of omelette you could spend a fortune on cookbooks and souvenir tote bags. I sometimes think we might bump into the owner, coming up from a swim in the cove and I’d be all like “Hey Rick, I’m from Plymouth” and he would say something smart like “Oh I’m sorry to hear that, though I once found terrific lobster at the Barbican fish markets from some guy called Bodger who later took me round the Mewstone in his boat.”

And I’d be all rose-tinted reminiscing of Britain-by-the-sea and we’d share a moment under the deep blue southern skies as the kookaburras cackle. Thinking home to a place that keeps pulling you back on its seaweed and shopping trolley tide. See you around Padstow, boy.

Waves at dusk lapping onto a pebbly shore
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Something somewhere

Just wondering if my blog-writing is to go the way of logic, civility and sanity. A rare thing. Also wondering if a cabal of egotistical gazillionnaires will employ their artificial intelligence superkingbot to steal everything published on the interweb then distort it into simpering testimony to the BIGGEST MOST LOVED GENIUS MAN KING the world has ever seen? Oh, they already have. And on the subject of artificial intelligence, don’t call an obvious moron a moron, it’s the kind of free speech that might just trigger World War 3.

Anyway, eucalyptus trees and cake. I can’t blame the state of the world for my dithering and delay in writing about distant life in Australia. There’s been plenty happening, of varying sorts. And plenty more still to come.

There was a wonderful pre-Christmas trip down around Merimbula. Wonderful in many ways for the rather splendid outlook from the bath, situated just a little up from Bar Beach and offering commanding views across the bay. Alas, stretching out in the swimming pool next door was off limits, but there were plenty of free spots to choose from in nature. Sparkling sapphires everywhere.

A view over a pool and blue bay

Scenes beside a sapphire river

It wasn’t quite a scorching bushfire kind of lead up to Christmas but a far more pleasant and settled outlook than recent years. Having said that, ’twas the night before Christmas Eve up on the Monaro Plains and a strong southerly wind from the Antarctic heralded greater comfort for portly old men dressed up in red and white. Christmas cheer was hard to come by in Bombala, though at least hot chips were available. And out of town a remote cottage with a log fire which could be put to surprisingly good use.

Without mobile, without internet, without a TV, just some crackly tunes on the wireless, a glass of wine, and a roaring fire. You can see why people get nostalgic for days of old, it’s just unfortunate this nostalgia often extends to empire, intolerance and a love of preventable diseases. But oh to be in 2024 again.

An old cottage in the middle of nowhere

From somewhere far away in the middle of nowhere fast forward to a long weekend in Melbourne. Where a day before it was forty degrees, now twelve. Where the only answer when you mention this to anyone local or farther afield is a rather knowing “yep, Melbourne”. Something that’s baked in so much that it fails to impact the city’s often strong performance in those ratings of the best place to live in the world.

On this visit, the wind tunnel of a CBD was largely eschewed for jaunts out in the south-eastern suburbs meeting people, drinking coffees, eating lunches and dinners, being plied with afternoon tea. In many ways it was a journey of discovery and calorific intake. And for the most part the grid-like layout made it reasonably easy to navigate. One discovery that stood out to me was the inevitability of a McDonalds and servo every time two roads crossed at right angles and traffic lights. It made me wonder if Melbourne has the greatest number of Maccas per square kilometre. And do many of its residents also feast on cheeseburgers while tweeting a flurry of disinformation when sat on the toilet?

beach with a city skyline in the background

If the McMelboSuburbs can get a bit wearying after a while, there are some variations that add a bit more colour and spice. It was nice to get bayside, to blow away the cobwebs down in Mordialloc and – on a more sedate kind of day – beside the beach huts in Brighton. People elsewhere will often roll their eyes and smirk at the thought of Melbourne beach life but I think it’s rather understated and lovely. Tell someone in the other, pebble-strewn Brighton this is a lousy beach and they will think you too have become as deranged as a supposed leader of the free world.

blue seas, golden sands, coffee

Sorry, back to, what was it, eucalyptus and cake. Afternoon tea followed by a walk in the Dandenong Ranges. Where better to marvel at the gift, the comfort, the peace granted to us by nature. I don’t need no church, no temples, no ghastly solid gold AI-generated icons. Give me a cathedral of ferns and imperious Mountain Ash in which to linger, whether in cold, showery rain or glowing golden sun. Resilient, steadfast and full of grace.

Green forest and ferns

I’m pretty sure I embraced and advocated for nature’s healing before it became a podcast or something you pay someone to guide you towards. Whether that’s balm for inside or outside, from suburbia or the world. Just look up at a tree or down at the ants. And hope you don’t get knocked out by a sudden limb fall or paralysed by a bite. It’ll almost always be fine.

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Up and down under

Yes it’s that time of the year again where I feel contractually obliged to say something, anything, about Australia. Have I been here so long that delightful sandy weekends and forays into that once mythical bush are so run-of-the-mill? Usurped by exotic escapes to Tavistock, ambles through brambles in Wiltshire, train station sandwiches in Preston?

I went to Sydney fairly recently and it hardly warrants a paragraph. To be fair it was a fleeting visit offering little new or enticing other than a convenient Gelato Messina. No ferry ride, no beach bums, just a quick visit to see the Opera House in the drizzle. And a sigh of relief farewelling the marching tentacles of Campbelltown.

a sandy beach with waves from the ocean

If Sydney seems all a bit of a chore these days there is sufficient antidote down on the south coast. Even if you do exactly the same things over and over again. The Braidwood coffee, the Tuross Boatshed, the Bodalla Dairy. Little appetite left to wander indecisively around Bermagui Woollies. Waiting to be inspired by a quick sale.

After all those stops on the way down I feel like the size of a whale but then I see a whale and it makes me feel better about myself. I see a lot of whales in fact, both out on the open water and from numerous outlooks on dry land. None of them breach Free Willy style but there are plenty of flapping fins and tails to keep things just the right side of awe-inspiring.

An image of a whale in a deep blue ocean

The best vantage came around the Blue Pools of Bermagui, further consolidating the town’s position as the most likely to make you say ah sod it let’s quit this place and run an Airbnb/mushroom farm/Chinese import business on the coast instead. Judging by the postcards on a board outside Honorbread, it seems others have done similar, though largely with a tantric meditation crystal hemp cleansing forest kind of ambition.

A man fishing with a mountain in the background

The board is well-read given the wait for coffee on a public holiday weekend. I fondly remember a quieter time here, when I managed to nab a very fine pain aux raisins to take onto the beach along with coffee and Dad. No such luck this time thanks to the irritating cliché of a man in front of me deliberating like a moron on which exotic unpronounceable pastry morsel to take away and then opting for that last “snail”. A disaster. I was bitter, resentful, hateful and I still haven’t found a decent pain aux raisins since.

This includes in the hometown of Canberra. For which I hear you ask, what of Canberra? Well, still infinitely liveable, mildly interesting, a little needy but well stocked with common browns. I have enjoyed a few Monday mornings at the Botanic Gardens, a pale imitation of my father in pursuit of butterflies. Peak rice flower action precipitated an attempt to grow one at home, but so far all I have observed upon it is a single, unaccompanied, inevitable common brown.

Butterflies on a pink flower

The tomato experiments are going better and – in recent days as we near the frightful weather outside of Christmas – are cheerily ripening. Fruits like plump baubles on a wilting wreath, waiting to be ransacked by a possum. The surreal juxtapositions of the festive season down under.

It is almost midsummer and I have pumped out a batch of cheesy marmites and about two million gingerbread men from the oven. One Christmas event at a winery was cooled by a slight breeze, another to come will require icy liquid relief. There is officially a heatwave, but what to make of such declarations in December. I just feel sorry for all the Westfield Santas, even with their air conditioned red satin thrones.

Sunset over forest and hills

Maybe the coast will offer relief. And prawns. Let’s hope so, for a few days prior to that 25th of December. So whether it’s in humdrum Australia or exotic England with your crazy storms and hype around minor celebrities ballroom dancing or eating kangaroo testicles on the Gold Coast, have a good one. 2025 promises much of something or other. Whether it makes the blog or not is another matter.

Merry Christmas!

A mountain with a tower reflected in a lake
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The size of England

For many people, three weeks anywhere is a very generous holiday. And for many of these many, three weeks solely in England would be more than enough thank you very much. Escape before you get addicted to supermarket meal deals and the BBC weather app. Flee in rapture at a 6/10 coffee.

England really isn’t that big and, prior to that three week Contiki odyssey across 22 European countries, you might just ‘do it’ in a weekend. Start with a selfie under Big Ben, lunch in Oxford, overnight in York, across to Liverpool, south to Bath, and back to London via the A303. See it. Say it. Sorted.

I had two whole weeks in the southwest corner of the country and in a shocking turn of events didn’t even make it to Looe for a pasty. Hence a heavier than usual melancholy upon leaving, a sense of something unfulfilled. And it wasn’t just the pasty lacking, the biggest absence being a rugged hike along the coastline of North Cornwall. Perhaps followed by one additional cream tea.

Some village scenes with flowers, cottages and boats

Oh to turn back the clock as we pass by Shaldon with its bumblebees and bowls and bacon and eggs. The sun is out, the tide is in, but the train doesn’t stop, and we are impelled to drift on through a countryside canvas of villages and fields, of cottages and cows, of silage and sheds.

We make it to Pewsey in Wiltshire, close enough to a must-see attraction for internationalists touring England in a weekend. The mysteries of Stonehenge are celebrated and often weird. Of note are the way it deploys magic powers to slow traffic on the A303, its ability to attract flat-earthers with healing crystals and unemployment benefit, and its successful maintenance of impressive Neolithic potholes. Chuck in some YMCA and it all sounds a little bit Trumpy.

Despite this garbage, in late afternoon hazy sun it is an interesting and attractive proposition standing in a field somewhere in Wiltshire. A steady procession of people saunter along, pause, reflect and construct some kind of comical selfie. But best of all are the sheep, who don’t really give a shit. They’re only here for the grass.

Sheep in a field underneath some rocks

Us humans, or at least us English humans not encamped on a byway off the A303, prefer roast dinners to grass. Situated in a business park on the fringes of Amesbury, the Toby Carvery is hardly an idyllic country pub but who cares when the Yorkshire Puddings are so grand and there are three types of gravy? It does do a decent impression of cosy pub warmth and dingy darkness, meaning you may be liable to leave behind any sunglasses that were atop your head.

Sunglasses or not, the light is fading as we walk it off a little by the River Avon in Durrington. You could spend many happy days following this river, as best you could cutting through brambles to bypass grand estates with exclusive frontage. While the water quality has no doubt been unable to escape the ravages of modern neglect, there is a tranquil timeliness to it all, an inescapable fact of English life and landscape nurtured by water. The veins and arteries keeping a country alive. And the green refuges keeping it sane.

A bridge over a muddy river

The next river we see is perhaps the most famous of all and – at least here – far from the peaceful meanderings of the Avon. We are waiting on a pontoon bobbing up and down on a wide, brown body of water, boats and barges nipping back and forth. A ferry passes under Tower Bridge – which is not London Bridge – approaching London Bridge. It is burdened with people and we await the next with Americans, Irish, Spanish and Chinese. Seeing England.

To my eyes it is a sad fact that many international visitors’ only experience of England takes place in London. But also what a place to take it all in. Who doesn’t know of the Thames, and Big Ben and some guys in funny hats who can’t crack a smile and the misconception of what is and isn’t London Bridge? With a first-timer tagging along even I am susceptible to a selfie and sense of wonder.

A beautiful couple in London

The thing is, it is so easy to get out of London. You can even do a day trip to Ansdell and Fairhaven, way up north in Lancashire. 99% of people in England would think this ludicrous but then they don’t tend to drive a solid two hours just to have fish and chips on the coastline of New South Wales. Everything is so much closer, but also so much more jam-packed. You can see why Portillo can still find content for Season 27 of Great British Journeys with a Seniors Railcard Visiting Shoelace Factories and Unexploded World War 2 Ordnance.

Even places you have visited in the past can be unveiled in a new light. I think it was sunlight, a rare thing in the northwest, that made Preston seem actually not too bad. I had an hour to kill for a train connection and wandered a by-now almost deserted high street, admiring grand edifices of industrial heritage, welcoming civic squares and the meal deal options of Sainsburys Local. Such was my indecision I needed to adopt a brisk pace to reach the train station for the two hour journey back to London.

Remaining days were a combination of Central London highlights and North London reminisces. Under a Travelodge in Finchley, arguably the best coffee of the trip (reflected in the slightly eye-watering price). Around the corner, the reliability and reassurance that is the nearby Tesco, reminding us how we yearn for more supermarket competition down under. Spreading out south, the parks and wooded avenues of Highgate and Hampstead and proper good pub gardens in the sun. And on the doorstep the reasonable functionality of the Northern Line, to take us into this country’s beating heart.

Coffee, a sunset and some people outside a station

A painting and statue and church

So much to see and so little time to see it. The British Museum is simultaneously bewildering, amazing and tainted. M&Ms World is much the same. Lunch at a Ramsay restaurant comes with a touch of relaxed refinement. If I were being a critic – and isn’t everyone – I would say the Idiot Sandwich was just a bit too greasy, but then it does have American origins after all. We need to walk this off, meandering through Mayfair, past the Palace, along Hyde Park where the Royal Albert Hall seems to be forever on the horizon. Finally it is upon us and I am pleased for a sit down in the shade, in history, in the company of some world class performers. Something I probably wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t had Avery by my side.

A concert in a grand hall

She made it, she survived England, we survived and thrived in England, COVID, cool winds, clotted cream and all. And we only just scratched the surface, barely broke the crust. In this mammoth little country, eager to see that little bit more. Many an encore to come.

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The size of scones

Do you ever get asked to recount the favourite part of your holiday? Or to share the best thing about <insert multifaceted, dynamic, diverse country you have just visited>? Usually it’s a question posed upon returning home when people want to take an interest but not too much interest. And it’s a struggle to answer.

As an indecisive Libran who treasures so many little things and rarely chooses favourites unless they come from Cadbury, I find it an infuriating question. Just one thing? However, in true contrarian fashion, this year I may just have settled on something. As memories fade with each day, one that stands out stronger than the rest, when time could happily stand still.

I won’t head there yet because I’m going to resume talking about the weather. A gorgeous morning in Plymouth, clear and calm skies offering the best beach prospect of the entire trip. When Plymouth shines usually the South Hams shine stronger. So there is an even greater feeling of despondency as we drift through sunny villages towards a distinct band of cloud. ‘Typical’ is the exasperated utterance of choice. Why didn’t we go west?!

With glimmers of promise becoming sparser, we decamp at Kingsbridge under an atmosphere of light grey. The mission here is to get a bite to eat, and what a mission when there are nine of us. Still, I was surprised to find quite the high street tucked away from the quay, rising up in a Totnes kind of vein. Not enough bakeries and tea shops but I’d already done some noteworthy coffee and cake down by the bus stop.

The cloud was lingering as we arrived at Thurlestone, a site steadily establishing itself as the South Devon go-to beach of choice, mainly because of reasonable parking and accessibility which was made all the stronger by bringing a footstool for that one last big step down to the sand. The beach here is essentially one end of South Milton and while that area involves regimented National Trust-controlled fleecing and pop up Instabars, this quieter side has more of a traditional bury your kids in a hole after they have mild hypothermia from the water kind of vibe.

Certainly my tippy toe experience ascertained hypothermia would take a matter of minutes. But at least in one direction there was hope on the horizon with acres of overhead blue progressively creeping closer. Finally bright spells transform to basking weather, when the outside temperature is marginally warmer than the sea.

A beach and the ocean

Hope was also on the other horizon, or just over a headland. This meant navigating an increasingly naked stretch of South Milton, admiring some highland cows and other bovines. A couple of undulations later and we overlook Hope Cove, bustling and bursting, a long way from my first acquaintance with the place a couple of decades ago on a cool and cloudy late winter’s day.

A cow standing in some water

There are a few memories from Hope Cove, the most enduring being on that first occasion, retreating to an empty pub and becoming acquainted with the joys of a perfectly baked treacle tart paired with local clotted cream. It’s something that hasn’t been replicated or improved on since. Today, the pub is busy and treacle tart is absent from the menu. I make do with a dollop of Salcombe Dairy from the general store. There will be sweeter, creamier days ahead.

Three people standing on some cliffs overlooking a village

And so that brings us to Trago Mills, undoubtedly not the highlight of the trip but a necessary forerunner. A space to wait out some time as the day warms up, the sunshine bringing extra sweetness to massive trays of strawberries for a pound. I once remember a friendly debate with an Australian when I lauded the superiority of English berries. And while I concede the blueberries and raspberries are broadly on a par, I challenge anyone in Australia to come up with a strawberry as succulent as that of an English summer. My partner, Avery, says she will never eat an Australian one again. We both can’t handle the disappointment.

What goes with strawberries I hear you say? Cream. Cream also goes with treacle tart and brownie and ice cream and plum pudding and meringue and anything really. Scones of course are the natural partner, a marriage made often in Devon. There is always a risk that the second time round will not live up to the first, but I doth my cap to Lustleigh. And forever will pay it homage.

Scenes from a village with a church, tearooms and thatched cottage

Scones and cream and cream and scones

This is an occasion that lingers, but in a way which sets up a perfect moment in time, a perfect holiday memory. Sated in warm sunshine, meandering along the brook in the village orchard. Through clumps of apples, the swings and benches and thatched roofs and church spire cluster around a tearoom. Avery and I wander, attracted by the vivid blue and green demoiselle zipping above the water. Spread out, family are equally soaking in their own little thing, their own quiet corner of contentment. Time feels like it stands still here and you very much wish you could stand still with it. But we have to move on, there are questions to face.

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The size of seagulls

It’s not the most refined accent. I mean you’re never gonna hear James Bond strut into the Monte Carlo casino and loudly proclaim “tooe fowzund orn red me luverr an whyul yer at itt get me a razzbrie jinn an tonik and a monsder, ulryte.”

Strolling on The Hoe for what seems the umpteenth time, there is nonetheless something welcoming and endearing and genuinely warm in those Janner conversations. From the gentle ribbing of old fellas on the bowling green to the underdressed sass of bored teens flirting with each other like primitive amoeba beside the red and white lighthouse, Welcome to Plymouth. So often a staging post, but also a refuge.

A red and white lighthouse with a sunset

I was exploring The Hoe again on my thrice daily walk from the Crowne Plaza hotel, an unexpected but probably not surprising Covid ‘holiday’ (yes, remember that?!). Booked hastily and not inexpensively with sketchy Wi-Fi I was hopeful for a sea view and comforting extras but, apart from a fluffy dressing gown, we were greeted with concrete wall vistas and an experiment in faded 80s minimalism. All very Plymouth. But still, at least the window opened slightly and I had an outlet into the world.

The need for fresh air was paramount, the problem being the howling winds buffeting against brutalist architecture at three in the morning. It has been rare on this trip to experience a still day, equally as rare to feel hot. At best I think I have felt pleasantly warm three times: an afternoon at Thurlestone, utopia revisited in Lustleigh, and in a tiny Cornish microclimate.

I’ll tell you about them in time but, for now, let’s journey up to Brentor. A landmark church sitting atop a rocky outcrop from which there are sweeping views of Dartmoor and half of Cornwall. Visible as we sauntered around Yelverton, disappearing as we whizzed to its base. As murky and disappointing as a coffee van beverage. One might kindly describe both as atmospheric and moody. Or perhaps just typical.

Some hills in fog

Still, give it a couple of hours and a helping of Tavistock chilli and all will be swell. Post-lunch sunshine beams down on glowing moorland and hazy glades. Cows amble nonchalantly across the tarmac while sheep chill out on the grass. German caravans pause on single track lanes to admire the zeitgeist.

My brother sates himself on Willys before we soak up the splendour from Cox Tor. Gorse and granite and ponies pepper the surrounds, leading to outlooks upon a wildness that is rare for these isles. As the uplands creep down into river valleys and patchwork fields, an outpost stands resolute in the west. The unmistakable landmark of Brentor, aglow.

Barren moorland under blue skies

Views of green countryside with ponies in the foreground

Downhill and back in Plymouth there continue intermittent spells of sunshine with which to grasp some form of hope. I quickly adjust to checking the BBC weather app and buy into the unfounded optimism that is going out without an extra layer in August. And briefly it seems the right call, as sun breaks through on the Barbican and we can sup on okay coffee as oversized seagulls strut their stuff and oversized men in green shirts strut theirs.

Then we head to Argyle and a gloom sets in. A chill wind, a portent of life under Rooney perhaps? Sure we have a padded seat and two free, unsurprisingly mediocre pasties, but that wind is reminiscent of a 0-0 draw in February against Grimsby rather than a lively one-all in August versus Hull. I have been there countless times.

A lady in a football stadium

I sit and wonder what Avery thinks of thousands of grown men and women belting out Janners? A what-the-heck moment both incredulous and incredible. I sense some awe and bemusement, and she embraces the moment by pulling on a recently purchased argyle top. Mostly because of that chill.

Travelling with someone coming to England for the first time you can tend to forget all this is a little weird. Like meal deals and massive bumblebees and little dogs on trains heading for a day out in the drizzle. Not to mention the size of those seagulls. All I notice that’s different are bottle tops no longer separable from their hosts. Out of habit, I endeavour to tear them apart anyway, frequent dribble resulting on my pants.

A local trait I may have lost is to not put too much trust in the weather forecast, although this results in occasional merry times when it surpasses expectations as well as the regular underperformance. Scones in a shower at Mount Edgecumbe? Why not, especially since this is the last such occasion (scones not showers) for the year. And the sun will radiate in the thousands of flowers and the warmth of loved ones anyway.

scones, jam, cream, tea and a garden full of red and white flowers

Having low expectations is the birthright of a Plymothian (and is most manifest when it comes to Argyle). So it is a merry time in and around Noss Mayo when the clouds hold back. A walk of such dear character, of such Devonian charm. Farmhouses (or Airbnbs) surrounded by fields of wheat, cows and sheep peeking above the hedgerows, true blue sea and green, green grass, cottages, flowers and bunting galore. A pub on the water, a Ploughman’s and some local murky brew like Otter’s Arse. All just in time before the sumptuous plop of a first raindrop.

a red robin, a signpost by the sea and boats on a river

A village of cottages beside a creek

The rain sets in on the Barbican. We hunker down in a café and bike shop, optimistic about the chances of decent coffee when it’s associated with Lycra. It’s not bad; the flat whites remain too small and strong and the lattes a little weak. All they need to do is find that middle ground. Maybe one or two more years.

I’ll be back to taste. Next week, next year. Always Plymouth, Janners, Seagulls and all. Semper Fidelis.

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Parks

Sky fades to pastel as the sun sinks west. City lights twinkle in haphazard fashion, playing illuminated noughts and crosses on towers of glass. A glow shimmers off the water as a ferry glides through. There is a hum and buzz and the squawk of a seagull, amplified many times over by that of a hen party. Glasses clink under the off-white orbs of an opera house. We have cocktails. And toast the Sydney sweet spot.

It takes a while to get there, and a great deal of patience and effort and cost. Sydney is not the easiest of erstwhile friends, rarely offering a simple parking spot or vacant intersection or route untainted by a hefty toll. And, rather than chill things out, Easter seems to exacerbate them, as everyone wants to do the exact same thing in the exact same place.

Undeniably the city is at its most accommodating on a ferry, but you have to first get to the ferry and then hope you can get on. Yet, aboard, the veer right around Bradleys Head never fails to provoke a slight tingle, a just about pinch yourself moment of relief. An unfolding panorama of a city skyline flanked by prized jewels. You can see this feeling on the face of others too.

Rewind a few days and it’s not too dissimilar a mixture of frustration and delight in the Blue Mountains. Even on a weekday the lookouts are popular and – in parts – pricey. Staying here overnight helps, day trippers dissipating and local councils offering a rare parking freebie after six. With the going down of the sun, remnants of hubbub coalesce on top, gazing over the edge at that most natural of wonder. Space.

A landscape of trees and escarpments at dusk

The Blue Mountains proves a good Mum spot. Many of the best lookouts are easily accessible. There are countless cafes for coffee and chocolate and cake. There are – of course – snapshots of a landscape that will etch memories for a lifetime. And there is the option to embrace a range of these vistas from a cablecar or railway. Swiss style.

Scenic World is exactly the kind of tourist trap I would normally tend to avoid. But with exaltations from that pioneering election night loser, Portillo, and the benefit of easy accessibility and free parking, it proves a no brainer. A cool cloudy start up top breaks as we plunge rapidly down into the Jamison Valley, courtesy of the much proclaimed steepest railway in the world. For once, not only the Southern Hemisphere.

A railway dropping into a forest

The experience is akin to the dive of a rollercoaster, including that initial gentle roll forward that kids you that this is all going to be rather pleasant and somewhat overhyped. But hold on folks, and hope your bag and walking stick is tethered. All this is quite surreal when you look around and realise you are not hurtling toward a gaudy pleasure beach but gazing upon a UNESCO world heritage listed wilderness.

Down amongst the millions of trees there is now a boardwalk, complete with fairy lights and Gruffalo trails and scuffling lyrebirds. This links up with a cablecar which can take you back up top, where you can either plunge down ad nauseum (we go one more time) or take another cablecar over a small canyon carved by Katoomba Falls. Up here you can also buy many, many varieties of cuddly Australian marsupial in the gift shop or even some stodgy pizza. We opt for a more refined lunch in nearby Leura.

A chocolate desert and lady with a chocolate milkshake

After lunch we make note of places for a potential afternoon treat. In between food, a stop at Sublime Point for another sublime view. Only here we were stung by parking for a mere 20 minutes and a rockiness just a little too severe for Mum. The pain eased by an overdose of chocolate back in Leura.

I wouldn’t say all we did was eat and congregate atop spectacular viewpoints. But with evening light fading within the Grose Valley and a quick stop off for megalithic outlooks at Evans Lookout, the day culminated with leftover chicken and salad at Govetts Leap. Peace and serenity among the drama, a fitting end to wild Australian majesty fading into the dark.

A wilderness landscape of gorges and escarpments lined with trees

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Coming down the mountains was a quiet affair, the back road via Bell and Bilpin feeling remote and sombre as clouds lowered upon densely clad hills. Fine drizzle intermittently coated the windscreen, necessitating frequent adjustment of wiper speeds. It wasn’t as inspiring as I would have liked at Mount Tomah, the Botanic Gardens offering mediocre coffee among a commendable variety of plants, not quite dazzling in an autumn peak. For the first time on Mum’s trip, a pervading feeling of winter crept onto the horizon.

A scrumptious apple crumble slice lifted spirits in Bilpin, even if we sat and ate it in the car, British style, as rain gathered force. It was only a passing shower, a few more grazing the route down into Sydney, where summer swiftly returned. Here at last to a city high on bucket lists and – on balance – rightfully so. Especially when you can find that sweet spot.

Sydney attracts people from all over the world and high among them are the Irish. It was a very large coincidence that a few weeks before, flicking through TV channels in despair, I stumbled upon Sydney Weekender. A largely vacuous program plugging the merits of Sydney and surrounds, a feature on food options alerted me to Big Dave’s Chipper. Big Dave himself was the star attraction, promoting his authentic and barely nutritious Irish cuisine and what looked like ‘proper chips’. The chunky sort that may just come with ‘proper vinegar’ if, like Mum, you protest loud enough.

We sat and ate them overlooking a choppy ocean near Maroubra. This meant accumulation of tolls that continued apace all weekend, transitioning from south to north to south to east and inadvertently through city tunnels. We were staying north, up on a hill among lush ferns and frangipani with rainbow lorikeets for curious company. A quiet Ramsay Street in the suburbs a short drive from Manly, with free, on-street parking.

A rainbow lorikeet

Manly itself was another matter. A fine place to feel and smell the ocean air, to breathe in Australia with its surfboards and vitality and golden prospects, so enviable in many ways. A drawcard for many, many people on a Good Friday, transported by frequent ferries and occasional bus services and millions of cars. Cars congregating along every single street, making it especially challenging to find an empty spot and jump on a ferry into town.

I circled for a good 30 minutes before luck came my way, and achievements followed, namely parallel parking a hire car on a steep slope in a four hour space little wider than a hire car. It was a decent walk to the ferry terminal from here, but close enough to launch a foray onto that harbour, around Bradleys Head, towards that iconic skyline. Docking at Circular Quay to mill around like everyone else, ants drawn like honey to the white shells of an opera house.

Three people in front of Sydney Opera House

So much for people escaping Sydney over the Easter holidays. They were all here and pretty much everywhere else too. A few escapes into the bush provided some relief and – on terra firma at Bradleys Head – million dollar views without million dollar parking. Our lodgings also offered a breather from being one of the tourists. All too briefly a place we could pretend at living a privileged Sydney life.

A view through trees to the city skyline of Sydney across water

While it was tempting to linger on the deck with the lorikeets, Easter Sunday was the last full day of Mum’s visit to Australia. There was one gaping hole to be filled, one superlative cliché to pop in the bucket. For any Brit, Australia is as much about Bondi as it is kangaroos and cork-strewn hats. Sweltering in late summer heat, thousands of people browning and reddening and frolicking in the surf.

A view of a crowded beach hyped up by everyone despite being quite disappointing, along with a swimming pool that is very pretentious

We stopped for little more than 30 minutes for obligatory photos, before heading to Watsons Bay for what I envisioned would be a fine, lazy lunch. The reality proved a no-go, an impossibility, a narrow isthmus way beyond capacity. So a quick brainwave drove me towards Bondi Junction and the Southern Hemisphere’s most scenic Westfield food court. It was blissfully quiet here and easy to park too. Suspiciously so. Westfield was closed, and by now travellers were getting a little hot and bothered.

And so, just down the hill from our Airbnb, we resorted to some takeaway at two in the afternoon. I know the Koreans love this stuff for Christmas, but I hadn’t really imagined we would be having KFC as Easter lunch. It was hardly living the glamorous Sydney life. And while hunger ensured it went down with satisfaction, I was keen for this whole game to be lifted.

Cue a post-nap turnaround, an ‘ah f*ck it, let’s get an Uber, and have some cocktails.’ Dropped off close to Manly Wharf, squeezing on a ferry again, passing Bradleys Head, entering Circular Quay as the sun heads under the bridge and towards the horizon. A table underneath an icon, a bustling hum, a squawking seagull, twinkling city lights. Cocktails and snacks and a cool relief of a breeze. A sweet spot amplified by all the love. Park right here.

A seagull perched underneath a sunset and city lights
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Shoal havens

Alongside death and taxes it seems a certainty in life that you will be greeted by heavy rain on your first day of holiday. This after many weeks of glorious weather, hotter-than-average temperatures, and hours stuck inside on a computer, gazing out at it all.

I suppose it was all due, departing a chilly Queanbeyan car pick up point, heading into weather fronts through Bungendore and Braidwood and down the sliding mountain road to Batemans Bay. At least there was finally rationale in Mum packing a raincoat and good sense in waiting out a particularly heavy burst in the shopping mall.

Back it is to BOM radar viewing then. This was more promising than times past and a gap allowed at least a foray to the waterfront for a big bowl of prawns and some deep fried snack packs. Eating passes time and weather fronts and when we made it through the majestic forests and potholes of Mt Agony Road, the sun appeared to enliven the greens, blues and yellows of Pebbly Beach. Sopping wet kangaroos sought vantages from which to dry, positioned perfectly for wandering tourists to capture Australia. Potholes also dried out a bit.

A kangaroo beside the ocean

Almost unbelievably the rest of the day featured ice creams and dips in the pool and one of those early evening ambles on Mollymook Beach that bring a singular satisfaction that can only be fostered by golden light with seaside sounds and sandy, salty sensations. Hardly a wash out.

Water lapping at a sandy beach

A lady eating fish and prawns and two people at a beach

Still, a potential wash out was forecast for later in the week so with fair weather we hot-footed it to Jervis Bay the next day. Things started a little cloudy but were blessedly calm; calm enough to exit the marina at Huskisson and venture out looking for dolphins. A distant flap in the water proved a signal beckoning the boat to hang out with them for a good hour or so. Animals and humans enjoying the ride.

A dolphin in the water

A path through forest and views of a white beach

The day won’t get too much worse with lunch among the spotted gums and an almost empty white sand and aqua bay. And while Mum was more than content to bask in the middle of Greenfield Beach I conformed to type and wandered off into the trees and out upon another almost empty white sandy beach.

With boat trips and beaches this may have been peak holiday, the only blip being the iced coffee hastily gathered in Vincentia. It is rare that I would waste something but Mum and I agreed this would be better served to the plants than to us. We’d make up for it with cocktails later.

A drink beside a pool overlooking the ocean

And so to make the day even more insufferable we gathered at the Pool Bar at Bannisters Point as the daylight faded to gold and red and indigo and black. Yes, it is the cheaper option to Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant next door but with what I imagine is less formality and fewer bisques. The salt content – if you have ever seen one of Rick’s TV shows where he adds just “a little pinch” – was certainly on point.

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And so to that day of heavy rain which turned out to be an early morning spell of rain clearing to drizzle and mackerel skies. Among all the excess it was kind of nice just to mull around; to dawdle over breakfast, to take a short drive out for morning coffee, to lightly lunch and to nap. It was far from a write off either, with steps gained on a looping afternoon ramble around Mollymook itself while Mum prepared a warming, home-cooked dinner to go with some wine.

And with that day ticked off, the next was certainly clearer if a little cool thanks to a wind change. The kind of breeze that sets you thinking where can I go to maximise advantage of the sun with natural shelter? Well, bustling Milton wasn’t such a bad start, basking in the concrete next to the Princes Highway, coffee on tap. And then along many a bend to the peaceful shores of Bendalong, for a spot of paradise.

It wasn’t the friendly rays or the handsome bay or, indeed, shelter from forest that put Bendalong a touch above. It was our very own ocean swimming pool, formed by a quirk of tide and rock. A clear water haven warmed and bejewelled by the sun. A gentle place to wallow.

Clear water next to an empty beach

A fitting final taste of the beach, before a fitting final dinner. Sure, it was at Mollymook Golf Club which was less Pringle sweaters and plus fours and more meat raffles and franking credits. I’d usually do my best to avoid an establishment where you need a membership card, one additionally thriving from the misery of gambling addiction. But it was nearby, had a reasonable menu and – with a little extra effort to snare a table – oceanside views.

Perfect to watch as surf rowers charge full on over the first white cap, the reddening sun lengthening shadows and softening the skies. Gulls scatter and soar while – finally – the last winning ticket of the never-ending meat raffle is loudly aired. A few murmurs, the odd shuffle and – now all out of slabs of minute steak and glutenous pink snags – the club practically empties. Until next week.

For Mum and I it is until some other time and probably some other place. We linger one final morning beside the sea before meandering towards charming towns and verdant valleys of the Highlands, pausing to admire precipitous falls and rugged sandstone wilderness. A taster of – come rain or, more likely, shine – a little more still to come.

A lady taking a photo of a beach
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The old appreciation post

Stuck in Sydney traffic? Bored of South Coast beaches? Looking for terrific sunsets and nation-leading coffee? Then you’re in for a treat courtesy of yet another Canberra appreciation post, taking on both familiar perspectives and fresh views.

With Mum staying here for a significant duration I was pleased to see she quickly adapted to the local custom of a morning flat white and was equally as fond of lakeside ambles, bushland meanders and golden sunsets. I was also pleased Canberra was able to throw on a few shows and spectacles involving balloons, lights and fireworks. Oh – and apart from one stormy afternoon – finally some proper summer weather.

A building illuminated at night

The Canberra day begins for many with a labradoodle walk, a run or a cycle. More often than not mine is a cup of tea in bed first. The absolute shock of not having time for a cup of tea, throwing on some clothes and scrambling out in the dark shakes the very foundations of the household. And with usually quiet avenues peppered with SUVs, things are definitely amiss. I can’t even park close to where I want to, as if this was like Sydney or something.

From a distant parking spot the sky gently warms and people throng and inflatable bits of fabric fill with hot air, popping into the sunrise, drifting over the misty vapours of Lake Burley Griffin, perilously bound for a close encounter with the sharp needle of Telstra Tower. It is the balloon spectacular and it never fails to be spectacular, especially so when it is topped off with a long-awaited coffee and breakfast.

Balloons rising over a lake

Later coffees are more typical and a particular favourite for Mum was an iced version down by the lake. Curtin proved reliable, often tied in with a quick pop into Coles. Even the poorer coffees – such as at the perennially disappointing Lanyon Homestead – were compensated by sunshine and flowers and the fact this was still better than 95% of British establishments.

Flowers in front of a cottage

Lanyon would be a prime cream tea location, though that would deliver inevitable disappointment too. But other local foodstuffs excel and tempt. From Banh Mi to Kingsleys to ice cream from Messina, there are numerous dollops of delight which often pose the question, where can I get one of these at home?

Ice cream, roast dinner, BBQ

At other times, it is the home-cooked variety of cuisine which provides content. A belated Christmas dinner from Mum feels both right and wrong in 30 degree heat but there is – as always – no room remaining for Christmas pudding. More climate-friendly BBQs – whether on the balcony or beside a river – are always popular; public BBQs another wonderful asset of the lucky country which can’t really get a run ‘back home’.

Fish and chips are more contestable in the culinary Ashes. In Australia we experience usually excellent seafood frequently let down by salty fries lacking malt vinegar. Mum is astounded that they don’t do proper chips and they don’t do proper vinegar, so much so that it becomes a FaceTime conversation piece with the relloes back home. But it’s only a small blip on a golden evening at Snapper & Co. If only I remembered to bring the bottle of malt vinegar gifted by Dad.

As the polite seagulls dissipate (another win for Australia), the sky glows in that most typical Canberra flourish. One of several satisfying sunsets as daylight savings stretches on towards the end of March. With each rise and fall, there is only a hint of coolness after dark and a slight yellowing in the canopy.

Sunset sky over a mountain

A selection of images at sunset

From late summer to early autumn the changes are only subtle as temperatures remain steady and some of the coffees remain iced. But the clocks tick and the calendar turns and nature knows this is a time in which to make hay, to harvest, to revel in abundance and prepare to turn your thoughts to the prospect of a winter.

On the fringes of Canberra, Tidbinbilla offers a couple of immersions into the natural Australia, a literal sanctuary in which this weird and wonderful land can do its thing. In late February, the same table at which I sat with Dad is now hosting an evening picnic with quiche and bubbles. In late March, the same type of snake is again putting on a display for British tourists to tell tales back home.

A landscape of mountains and forest

And if snakes ain’t your thing there are cuddlier critters to hit you in the face with the realisation, the dream that you are here in Australia. The birds chime and squawk in different tones and melodies. The lizards bask uncaged. The flies occasionally irk. And the platypus remain mysterious.

A koala, bird, snake and potaroo

From here, half an hour to coffee, half an hour to cuisine, half an hour to home. Doorsteps rarely get any better.

Australia Food & Drink Green Bogey Photography