countryside – gbpilgrim

October 4, 2025

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

A person with arms raised in the middle of nowhere

August 2, 2025

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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.

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.

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

…………………………………

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Driving Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

November 1, 2024November 1, 2024

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography

October 11, 2024

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The size of pasties

Cornwall. Finally a chance to soak up the landscape and imbibe the delicacies. And not just any old Cornwall, but West Cornwall, where the Atlantic and Channel come to blows against heaving granite battlements. Sandy residue forms into gold and emerald bays while fishing boats scatter out to the deeper, bluer sea. Tin mines and stony relics dot gorse and heather uplands, granite thrust from the earth like blades from an iron throne. In the towns and villages, lobster pots and window boxes and coloured stone walls lean into constricted, sinewy lanes. A sometime paradise challenged in August by a voluminous throng.

After some brighter weekend weather it was a dreary Monday morning travelling west, a race against time before a band of rain once more made landfall on British shores. And by time we reached St. Erth, archetypal summer scenes packed in on platform 3 for the branch line to St. Ives. People and dogs and pushchairs in raincoats, laden with paraphernalia for a day at the beach. Simultaneously muttering variations of “it’s not too bad.”

Given the weather it seemed St. Ives was the best option for us to while away a few hours before we could check in. I was hesitant, but what other options were there? Join the masses of masses pretty much doing the same thing.

Despite the gloom, there was an undeniable vividness in the waters trundling along the rails beside the bay, an essence of palm tree and other exotica exuding warm vibes and expensive lettings. And there were even a few surprise sunny breaks, as if the skies wanted to tell you, look, this could be the French Riviera, oui?

A view over water to a harbour and some houses

That was about as good as it got. St. Ives proved 90% summer holiday horror show, 10% charm. That 10% largely came from the first glimpse of colour at Porthminster Beach, a brief beam of sunlight in the sandy harbour, and a fortuitous walk for fifty metres along a side street absent of cars wondering where the hell they were going and pedestrians from the West Midlands pretty much doing the same.

Otherwise it was all dreadful battles through crowded streets, seagull angst, soggy sandwiches in a squall, and a lacklustre coffee in the only café with any space whatsoever (compounded by sightings of spectacular cake on the way back, an opportunity missed). Still, at least the Co-op was okay, and goodness knows what else we might have picked up in St. Ives apart from some bananas and emergency crisps.

Boarding the 15:06 to Lelant was a relief as heavier rain set in. Such inclement conditions meant we could explore the entire confines of our Airbnb. This wasted two minutes but uncovered the world’s noisiest wine fridge and an inexplicable absence of toiletries. And while blissfully quiet outside, the downside to staying in Lelant was that we couldn’t stock up on provisions. No shop or petrol station but at least there was a pub. Priorities.

I don’t know if it was the pub, the train, or the cool, damp weather that made Avery wake up with a sore throat the next day. But we are blaming St. Ives because, well, the place hasn’t been pilloried enough already. Heaving, horrid, infested, infectious St. Ives.

Given she wasn’t feeling so well, my plans for a busy schedule of sightseeing, of stunning, sandy waters and epic landscapes and most of all some treasured coast path on the edge of Britain were put on a back burner. We headed instead for a seemingly more sedate experience at St. Michael’s Mount.

This island sure has a presence, loftily rising out of the shallows of Mount’s Bay as we double decker bus it down towards Marazion. The bus naturally inches its wing mirrors between stone walls and parked cars, depositing us near flat, tidal sands leading out towards the Mount. The sea is out and still receding, meaning we can try not to slip up on the causeway. But before that, there is a queue to get on it. And much expense, naturally.

A boat on sand with an island and castle in the background

Arriving on the shores of the island is like transporting yourself to Kings Landing, only with a couple of coloured plastic tokens for entry instead of a lust for jousting and regicide. Immediately there is a shop and café and we make use of the latter before joining the trail up to the castle. Once more, finding myself treading in the footsteps of Portillo, Lumley, Humble, Robinson et al.

Of course, those guys tend to receive exclusive, unimpeded access with a personal tour from Lord Wazenose of Loftingsnout, who points out the many previous family owners and esteemed visitors hanging on the walls. There are a lot of them, and a lot of walls and it is indeed a thoroughly fascinating place to wander around, even without a personalised talking-to from the establishment. Occasionally the procession of people breaks and you get a room all to yourself to imagine being an aristocrat. And, even in a crowd, space never feels far away with breathless, blustery views over the seas and much of Cornwall. An egalitarian outlook.

An expanse of vivid blue sea with land in the distance

It was a bright but cool day, cool everywhere but the rather exotic gardens spilling down the southern ramparts. The contrast in temperature was akin to exiting an easyJet flight from Manchester to Granada. And the plants here were themselves pretending to be thriving in the Alhambra rather than growing just off the A30 near Long Rock.

With most of the West Midlands by now accumulating on the island it all started to feel a bit St. Ives. And with the tide on its way in, we headed back to the mainland and another huge queue for a pasty, some cheese straws, a couple of drinks and a tote bag decorated with pasties. The pasty was fulfilling, more than satisfying a quota or two but I felt a bit rushed to eat at least half of it before the bus arrived. I needn’t have worried. In fact, it would have been prudent to save some lest we become emaciated on a bench in Marazion, two skeletal remains still waiting for the Land’s End Coaster, a seagull picking away at any remaining sinew.

Some exotic gardens and a Cornish pasty by the seaside

Before the bus didn’t arrive for more than two hours I was still marginally hopeful of an early evening sunset jaunt. Get back, have a nap, hop on a later bus to transport us along the rugged north coast to Botallack, and marvel at the golden light projecting onto the rocks and waves and iconic Cornish landmarks. But the lesson learnt is that there’s no point making plans based off a bus timetable in August.

In the end we just got a bus, any bus, which deposited us in Penzance. The plus side to this was we could pick up some reduced price snacks from Tesco Express and – tucked away in a dusty corner filled with spiderwebs in Boots – a pack of Covid tests. To think these were all such a must-have accessory circa 2021.

Back at the bus station it was with expected irony that the Lands End Coaster via Marazion was waiting. I have no idea if this was the 12:30 or 1:30 or 2:30 or 3:30 but it left at 4. And it stopped at Marazion, picking up two older ladies who I recognised from our time at the bus stop, looking slightly more emaciated than before. Eventually we got ‘home’, wiped away the day with no toiletries and started the process of reluctant snacking.

A tad infuriated at how the day had panned out, thank goodness for a five minute walk to Porthkidney Sands. Along a leafy lane, past the chocolate box stonework charm of St Uny’s Church, across the alluring fairways of West Cornwall Golf Club, over grassy dune hummocks in which a rail line somehow weaved. The tide was in, but there was still some sand. And some waves. And some birds. And very, very few people. A chance to breathe again, to experience the magical in West Cornwall. Definitely feeling positive. Both of us.

Great Britain Green Bogey Photography

September 16, 2024September 16, 2024

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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.

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.

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

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.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Walking

January 13, 2024January 14, 2024

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You better watch out

I imagine people imagine spending Christmas in Australia on the beach. Barbecues sizzling, beer stubbies and glasses of Chardonnay clinking, the background soundtrack of pounding, refreshing, aquamarine surf. Dress code: thongs, budgie smugglers and Santa hats. Perhaps the odd singlet professing No Wucken Furries. She’ll be right maaaaaate.

I imagine Dad was not quite imagining this when arranging his first Christmas in Australia, but perhaps not far off. I doubt he was imagining a sodden suburb of Canberra, confined indoors as thunderclaps rage and the decision, the very right, to wear shorts on Christmas Day is a brave one. Family warmth proves consoling, food nourishing and, all in all, she’ll be right maaaaaate. I guess it was far from clichéd.

The sun came out on Christmas Day, the only downside being it was 7:30pm and not a lot of it was left. But still, BOM Radar viewing could be downed for a brief period and I could go for a quick walk before again imbibing quantities of ham and other saturated fats. The sun set and would, hopefully, come up once more.

And it did and for a moment outside Doubleshot waiting for a coffee on Boxing Day morning it felt truly Australian Christmassy. The test match started on time, Australian openers plodded on and Dad and I sat outside to eat traditional mashed potato with ham and an arrangement of pickles. To snooze or walk it off? Snooze appeals, but the sun is still out and the BOM radar looks okay. We shall walk.

The walk quickened on the way back to the car as rumbles of thunder intensified and evil clouds spilled down the mountains into the Gudgenby Valley. What started out promisingly was now an escape from paradise. A paradise of chirping birds, grassy meadows and fragrant eucalyptus. A footstep into the wild, sedated by the meandering waters of Rendezvous Creek and the encircling mountains. A spot to dwell and marvel and appreciate. Usually.

At some point on the road out of Namadgi someone up in the sky tipped a massive bucket of water down on the earth all in one go. A few minutes later it was dry again. BOM radar episodes were confusing, using the classic dramatic device of leaving things hanging. Would it, wouldn’t it, where and when and why? I pity the poor forecasters who have been lambasted for their forecasts of late (hint: the clue’s in the word forecast). It’s like forecasting an overlapping cohort of people will go apoplectic about a food store not selling tacky plastic flags the wrong shade of blue made in China which will probably end up in the stomach of a turtle on a degraded barrier reef. How unpatriotic of them.

I tell ya what’s proper Aussie. A majestic red-bellied black snake nonchalantly crossing your path and disappearing into the bush like it couldn’t give two fucks. They must be liking the humid sunny mornings followed by thundery downpours as much as they like putting on shows for Englishmen to tell terrifying tales to all the folks back home. You beauty.

This one was in Tidbinbilla, prior to the inevitable emergence of a thundery downpour. It was a highlight of what turned into a good day… largely because the thundery downpour came late enough to be able to do things first. It was a day which started off closer to home, down by the Murrumbidgee River and a walk to calendar-worthy Red Rocks Gorge. Greeted by a resident Peregrine Falcon, it was a perfect site for a flask of tea, a couple of pieces of shortbread and a watchful eye on potential snakes.

At the end of the walk, BOM Radar still looked pretty clear so Tidbinbilla came as a bonus. We picked up some takeaway lunch, spotted a new butterfly close to our picnic spot and continued on into the Sanctuary. Focused on elusive platypus, when someone says to you “watch out for that black snake” you do tend to almost fall over yourself. I have almost stepped on them before. At least this time there was warning and chance to admire, from a little distance.

* picture credit: Dad (don’t get too close!)

There seemed plenty for a snake to eat in Tidbinbilla. As much as there was plenty to eat at home. Having said that, I was tiring of ham and leftover desserts and a homemade lentil couscous salad thrown in to create the illusion that I was eating healthily. I was also tiring of being subjected to magical storms appearing from nothing in the space of half an hour when out in the middle of nowhere. Like at London Bridge Homestead, billowing clouds gathering upon all sides, the only hole being where we stood. Wondering whether to shelter in the dilapidated ruins of a shed or driving home with the assistance of BOM radar akin to an airline pilot weaving around tempestuous anvils of doom. Crash or crash through.

Old sheds among some hills under a cloudy sky

I was over the drama. What I needed was a settled, uncomplicated day. And also giant prawns. What I needed was some Australian Christmas.

It came a few days late on 28th December, driving to the South Coast to feel sand and sea and waves and a bit of congestion as people gather in pilgrimage to the ocean. Shady Murramarang forests delight and walks to untouched beaches are a blessing. Kangaroos hop along the sand, sea eagles soar and people frolic in thongs, budgie smugglers and Santa hats. It takes a while to arrive, but there are also giant prawns to be had under a cloudless sky. No wucken furries.

A drongo in the ocean wearing a santa hat

Australia Food & Drink Green Bogey Walking

October 21, 2023October 29, 2023

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Trailing

Something didn’t sit right with me. Trying to get to sleep in a single bed on creaking, turn-of-the-century floorboards. Below, a bar serving the last of the whooping and hollering, the cackling shriek of a drunk Australian lady all the more painful when you know you need rest. Mind ticking over like the cycle of a misaligned wheel.

The remnants of merriment below had cowboy vibes. With Gucci trimmings. Equally at home in Fortitude Valley as downtown Linville, partying like they are 1999. On a night in 2023 when Australia received what to me at least felt a simple, unremarkable request from a broad representation of its first peoples for them to actually matter and said “yeah nah we’re alright thanks”. Whooping and hollering – as innocent as it may have been – struck a dissonant chord. And I edged closer to sleep with doubts about what it meant to be crossing country the next day.

The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (Part II) traverses Waka Waka Country and Yuggera Country – or at least I think as much based on the little I can glean from local council pages. Today proclaimed as the longest continual recreational trail in Australia (if not the southern hemisphere), it intermittently welcomes people on bikes and horses and feet to roughly follow the course of a disused railway line from Yarraman – deep in the electorate of Maranoa – to the fringes of Ipswich. A manifestation of intrusion and industry and inevitable decline once quick riches had been cut down, torn, eradicated and washed from the earth.

In a sign of hope and rejuvenation the old rail line is now transformed into a place where people can come together on a shared journey, even if some of the newer locals remain deeply conspiratorial. Avid readers may realise this is my second time along it (and with my back now going through all sorts of agony it’ll probably be the last). From a pair of lone rangers we doubled in size as a group of four. Not quite MAMILS but only really lacking the Lycra. Starting off on brand by getting confused over where to start.

In many ways the first 20 kilometres is the hardest, adjusting to seats and handlebars and pedals and pace and the actual realisation of exercise. Things are a little undulating and already hot, and the approach to Blackbutt seems to drag on forever. But eventually bakery rejuvenation occurs, some tuning and top ups ensue, and we are full steam ahead.

The run to Linville is mostly bliss if a little jarring in places. Forest creeps in on both sides and the gradient works in your favour too. The breeze of momentum keeps you cool and a slice from Blackbutt survives well enough to sugar-rush the journey east. Beaming white in the afternoon sun, the Linville Hotel is a very beacon of balustrades and cold beer. The store next door a welcome purveyor of ice cream.

After a little recovery, day all too soon turns into night because Queensland doesn’t bother with daylight saving (probably because it is seen as another way the government are trying to control you with 5G vaccines or whatever). As much as I try, I cannot find the ideal beer to accompany a local steak and a background band mostly playing the entire catalogue of Crowded House. Only at the end, as encore way past their bedtime, do they strike up Farnham’s Voice. I cannot tell if this is a brave call, a lost opportunity, or a musical smirk.

Linville is in a pretty position among rugged hills, folded and contorted and topped with natural Australiana. Just beyond a few of the folds you’ll find Kilcoy, where in 1842 flour was laced with strychnine and given to a large group of Aboriginal people by two shepherds at a squatters station. Reports – like many of the time – are vague and swept under the carpet. At least sixty Aboriginal people were killed. A death pudding massacre.

I share this clearly not for entertainment or as a segue into some cycling incident but merely to share it, to acknowledge and make it known. I had no idea, freewheeling downhill, what happened among those hills until I got back home and decided to look into the Aboriginal origins and history of the country I had just crossed. Where the squatters came first, farms and forestry followed, towns and people sprung up and eventually a rail line was constructed. Large swathes of land were stripped of trees, including the unique Bunya Pine, which only now exists in small pockets to the west. Worse, the land was largely stripped of its inhabitants, sent to missions if not a fate more terminal.

The second day of pedalling through the present and the past is more open and exposed, the cursed removal of trees a bane to modern day cyclists exposed to the searing sun. Already the land looks a bit sick and brown from the latest evolution of drought. There are few animals, other than the occasional cluster of cows hunkering down under a lone tree or dilapidated shed.

There are also a few magpies and – miraculously – they are leaving me alone while going for the other mamils in my crew. This is wonderful, so much so that I whizz on and almost decapitate a snake that I didn’t even see until after I passed it. I feel somewhat blessed and incredibly fortunate in hindsight. It’s like they knew or something.

The towns – or what pass for towns – tick off at fairly regular intervals. Early on there is Moore with its three cafes, of which one only seems to be open and doing a good trade in weirdness and antipathy. It was here I discovered a publication called The Light which from a brief glance before I felt the urge to use it for toilet paper proclaims to shine a light on all things the establishment don’t want you to know. Likely bankrolled by such establishment figures as Rinehart, Hanson, Palmer and co.

Next along from Moore, after one of the bigger climbs of the trail is Harlin, which appears little more than a pub and a servo. Still, giant bottles of knock-off Gatorade are welcome, as is the cooling 90 metres of the Yimbun tunnel a little further on. It’s a good place to pause, adjust padding and apply sunscreen before persevering with more open, baked-earth riding to Toogoolawah.

You know Toogoolawah is – in relative terms – big because it has a choice of two pubs for lunch as well as a sprinkle of cafes. Closer to the highway you can even find some homemade fudge and maybe decent coffee but the old rail line has other places in mind. With a local recommendation we decamp outside a pub and have a hearty lunch in the shade. Pizza topped with so much topping it takes a while to discover the base. Welcome and delicious, but I am wondering how all that salami, olives, capsicum, tomato, feta, mozzarella, parsley and bread, pepped up by a lemonade, is going to sit.

There was a bit of gas departing Toogoolawah, an uphill grind but one that I quite enjoyed. Dropping into a nice low gear and spinning gently, consistently, without any real rush to get anywhere. Bare country eventually cedes to a line of boundary eucalypts that accompany us to a cutting where the railway peaks, and it’s downhill from there. Suddenly speed is a thing again, the ruts and stones bouncier, gripping on to handlebars that much tighter, the air flow providing welcome ventilation. In hindsight it feels like this all the way to Esk, but there was definitely still pedalling involved.

I was a little concerned about getting to Esk around 3pm, just as everything was no doubt closing. But a new addition along the BVRT, a very BVRT business in fact, was kicking on into a Sunday arvo session. Brisbane Valley Roasters no doubt attracts the hairy mamil with single origin roasts and cold brews and almond milk. There are bike racks and large wooden benches and probably some of those fake succulents you get from IKEA. After such high dose rustic rural, you may temporarily feel an inner Melbourne vibe, or at least central Tuggeranong.

But then Esk happens. For some reason today all the staff appear to be about 14. There are no lightly bearded hipsters or man buns dosing double shots and feathering foam. I opt for an iced coffee anyway, given the heat outside which is now well into the thirties. A solo performer mistunes his guitar and is gearing up for some gently grating entertainment, supported by a handful of friends and family. A lady from out of town accosts us and talks about love and secret hideaways up on the Darling Downs and how hard she has worked all her life and that young people don’t know what hard work looks like and they should stop buying avocados or something. I fear 5G radiation PayPal vaccines might be next. Still, at least it’s not sitting, working, sweating on a bike.

I assumed all the young people of Esk were working at Brisbane Valley Roasters that day, but it turns out there are even more of them in the IGA. I suppose as well as providing cheap labour for hard-working business owners it’s something for young people to do other than vape. And they’re all rather friendly in the IGA, even as Jason – by now high on morphine or something – rambles on about (and looks like) the Esk Yowie while I am trying to buy some reduced price tabbouleh from the girl behind the deli counter. Young people are nothing if not resilient in the face of the weirdness they encounter.

Dinner turns out to be an IGA affair since the pub is closed and the Thai is also – due to unforeseen events – closed. We stock up on food, too much food, for breakfast as well. Thinking, quite rightly, that nowhere will be open at five in the morning. And also thinking, quite wrongly, that we could eat two apple crumble cakes reduced to 99 cents, along with several pots of yogurt, cereal bars, a tree of bananas and a two kilo bag of rolled oats at five in the morning.

It is an uncivilised hour to rise but the final day is also the biggest and longest. And some of us have a train, and plane, to catch. While initially confronting, the early hour is by far the best on the bike. The light glowing soft, the air calm and cool and infused with that dewy, earthy fragrance of something akin to dried straw and peppermint. The trail is subdued too, enclosed by forest pretty much for the whole 20 kilometres to Coominya.

The last of the bananas disappears at Coominya, meaning I force myself to buy a chocolate éclair from the bakery at Lowood, a little further down the line. Brisbane feels closer now, the river widening, water to rinse off the humidity, feed the production of insipid beer, pressure wash four million Toyota Hiluxes. Yet after Fernvale and its supposed amazing pies, there is little to interrupt until reaching the very edge of Ipswich.

In the bush and scrub around here, 12 Aboriginal people were killed in 1843 when they were pursued by a vigilante group of soldiers, settlers and stockmen, seeking reprisal following the battle of ‘One Tree Hill.’ We all cruise on by unknowing and unthinking. An ignorance that is all too common, all too often the easiest option, the path of least resistance. Because if you don’t know you won’t actually feel impelled to reconcile.

Wulkuraka – an Aboriginal word meaning either red flowering gum or plenty of kookaburras. I see neither today, but they are assuredly there somewhere. Holding on, adapting, waiting to burst forth and laugh. May well they laugh at a troupe of four sweaty middle aged men trying to cross a finish line in tandem, the youngest with a wheelie. Having crossed country where, despite it all, there is embedded in the earth and the sky a profound resilience. Something which can never be washed away, tunnelled through or eroded. A line much older, deeper and enduring. Always.

Australia Green Bogey

August 5, 2023August 14, 2023

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Life cycles

While closing an impromptu trip to England with cream tea nirvana may convey the archetypal happy ending, life – even curated online life – isn’t as simple as that. Endings are rarely happy affairs otherwise they would just keep on going. And more often than not, an end is also a beginning and a middle and any other indeterminate point on the march of civilisation, a turn of the wheel in the cycle of life.

It’s nice when that cycle is electric powered, even if this may ultimately lead to the downfall of civilisation. There is nothing like the fillip of pressing a switch to give you a boost at the very moment you are flagging. Especially when one of those switches says TURBO.

I always thought of Salisbury Plain as flat. The clue’s in the name after all. It should be a doddle to cycle through, barring confrontation with tanks and gunfire. But tanks need steep inclines to be put through their paces and bullets have to travel uphill or something. The plain is far from plain.

And so, when offered the services of an e-bike to join that of my Dad’s, I was happy to give it a whirl. Funnily enough, pride and that old man in Lycra tut-tutting in my head made me pedal au naturale for as long as possible. But when you flick that switch there is no stopping you.

I was quite the passenger that day, in more ways than one. Usually in awe at my map memory, if was to retrace our route across the plain I’d be as lost as a ray of sunshine in Manchester. Each chalky track seems to lead down to a tangled thicket then up past a copse and left towards some squaddies and then 180 degrees avoiding gunfire and then straight through a paddock before joining what looks like where we were an hour ago. Somehow this 3D puzzle spits you out in a village and you find yourself recuperating with a cider and delicious battered fish sandwich.

It was worth all the pedalling (and quite frequent button pushing) to be in that pub garden. British country pubs in the sunshine are really like nowhere else. I wasn’t expecting to be in another one an hour or so later, but even e-bikes get punctures. And unfortunately the pub was the nearest point of refuge as Dad turbocharged his way to the rescue vehicle.

Fast forward a few turns of the wheel and white chalk becomes white sand, fish sandwiches become fish cocktails, and electrical assistance becomes all my own willpower.

Returning to a classic bicycle has been tough, any incline – however short – feeling like a mission to reach base camp. Maybe riding in Australia is just more of a challenge, what with the limited number of proper teashops, the higher proportion of fit athletic types putting you to shame, and near certain harassment by magpies.

From sweating in Salisbury Plain my first foray back on the bike in Canberra was a freezing affair. Okay, maybe seven degrees but there are simply not enough layers to shield the core from that breeze which whips up no matter what direction you face. I struggled for barely ten flat kilometres, and that included a stop for coffee and a M&S mostly chocolate biscuit.

But over time, on those rare occasions when the temperature makes it into double figures and the wind is below 15kph, I have been getting more acclimatised to cycling without electric again. Just little jaunts two or three times a week. A few more inclines, but nothing too steep. And still coffees and biscuits.

It’ll be handy for the bike legs to come back as I feel like my car might be stuffed! Something with the electrics, the transmission, the gears. Not as simple as a flick of a switch, the crank of a derailleur and a couple of allez.

I may have harmed it going to and from Jervis Bay, not that it screwed up at the time. Perhaps it didn’t like the moisture as the first rain in weeks dampened activities for the journey down and back again. Still, the Sunday was sunny, if not reaching the globally heated summits of earlier that week. And with reasonable enough winds there was an opportunity to once again revert to pedal power.

In my head it was flat between Sanctuary Point and Vincentia but I hadn’t been to Jervis Bay in many years. The reality is more lumpen but can I just put it on record that I made it up that hill whereas the younger, fitter-looking guy who whizzed past me on the flat got off and walked. I probably have a bigger rear cassette.

Between Vincentia and Huskisson it is all bliss. There are more young, fit athletic types but also oldies shuffling and dawdling and standing in the middle of the cycle path chatting to other boomtime babies with their designer glasses and designer dogs. The route follows the coast, all beautiful bays and turquoise waters and that eye-watering white sand. Plenty of escapes for a bike to bask.

Of course returning to Sanctuary Point required a good coffee and biscuit as well as inching over a couple of those lumps again. I almost didn’t make it but figured I could reward myself with two potato scallops to go with lunch as a reward. The downhill stretch begins.

Post-lunch fatigue was inevitable and, looking for a turbo boost, I switched to foot power to amble along a stretch of the White Sands Walk. Boasting majestic bays punctuated by lush, tall eucalypt forest, I would definitely put this in the top ten. It’s the kind of walk that would make one of those TV shows where some minor but amiable celebrity type goes for a walk, meets a few random nerds, and hangs about in a hidden World War Two bunker that they just discovered. (Talking of this genre, now Nick Knowles is titting about on trains…I mean how many middle aged white English men need to show us how to ride a train?!)

One of the best things about being here on a late Sunday afternoon is that most people have by now returned to Sydney or Canberra or Nowra or Wollongong. And, with my legs and feet now pretty much out of gas I was starting to blend in well with the retired locals. I used my last dose of energy to make it down beside the basin in Sanctuary Point, sit on a bench with a flask of tea, and watch the sun sink. Dipping behind the hills as if thinking it was some kind of ending. Just another turn of the wheel.

Australia Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography

July 21, 2023July 29, 2023

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My precious

Devon can be many things. A terrible processed meat in the deli counter at Coles. A fast bowler from the nineties. A hotbed of interbreeding rivalry between two cities. An hour of everybody’s time wasted in Escape to the Country. An elongated farmyard on the way to Cornwall. But, always, a sprawling canvas in which are sewn indelible gems, both sparkling and subtle.

The subtle, hidden ones are of course the best. These are the unassuming pockets that do their best impression of Tolkien’s Shire, before all that weird dark wizardry and multiple three hour orcfests came knocking at the door. Think thatched homes and fluffy rabbits and green hills and apple orchards and beady-eyed locals with distorted feet, living under an angle of sun that always casts a golden hue.

In a county that does a commendable impression of The Shire, it is perhaps apt that I should find myself on a special quest. Allied with a peculiar looking fellowship seeking out a special ring…of luxuriant clotted cream smeared atop treacly strawberry jam coating a fluffy, crunchy, warm cloud of a scone. It has been some mission.

Where to find this precious, last sighted many years ago lost in the valley of Badgeres Holte? Perhaps nestled among the shapely hills and sinewy estuaries of the South Hams? Possibly, but it is far too easy to get distracted by hog roast baps on the way to Thurlestone. And on glorious days beside the sea, ice cream is usually the natural order of events.

The quilted green squares of the South Hams do their best to go on forever (especially if you are driving the A379 in August), but from vantage points you can see the uplands of Dartmoor. Here it can often feel a bit more Mordor, particularly wedged between cold walls of granite as mists swirl, gusts of wind making diagonal raindrops feel like a thousand steel barbs. You’d quite fancy a dip in Mount Doom frankly.

Protection though comes in the valleys and the inns, one of which offers up one of the stingiest serves of cream tea in the whole of Devon. You can have silver platters and waistcoats all you like, but a dainty teaspoon of cream for three people is never going to fulfil a quest. Or sustain enough until a Toby Carvery.

Perhaps the pickings are too thin upon this high wilderness or perhaps this is just some benefit of Brexit or whatever (yes I went there, too soon?). There is an untrammelled and capacious beauty in the high moor, but it is somehow at its very best, at its most precious, where the outreaches of civilisation and cultivation lap at the rocky tors and sheep-strewn bracken. This could be a state of mind as much an aesthetic, reassurance that down in the fields there is life, possibly even grazing cows, and maybe a café with a nice scone.

The area around Sheepstor is such an area and one I am happy to take footsteps within time and again. Late afternoon and into evening it was pleasing to share it with fellow adventurers, though our end destination on this occasion was wholesome food and ale in the Walkhampton Inn. Another welcome staging post to add to the list of options when travelling through this way.

And so the end of the journey draws closer. It would have been difficult to eventually fulfil this quest without the insight and companionship of others. Like those who did their research among indistinguishable five star reviews proclaiming every cream tea anywhere “the best one I’ve ever had” only for reality to reveal a dry, crumbly, measly mess. And for those who – during the course of quite a few years – accompanied me to pokey cafes in seaside towns or faced National Trust disappointment or journeyed with hope through the Shire to encounter a dry, crumbly, measly mess.

And then there are also those who drove me to a small village in the borderlands between the countryside and the moor.

A small village out of Hobbiton central casting, centred around a church green, fringed by a babbling brook glistening in the golden sun. Birds and butterflies flit from stone walls to thatched roofs while walkers pass through on their way to higher places. Quiet, unassuming, charming and with a small, unpretentious, homely café in the heart. Or should I say – even better – tea room. Screw your gold disappeary ring, bring me one of those cream teas right now.

Among the excitement, among the relief there is deep sadness that there are people who cannot join us as we complete the mission. They certainly were wholesome advocates of such adventure and had their fair share of memorable bites and dollops through the years. Lovers of Devon, the Shire and the very simple amalgam of people and nature together, the simple amalgam too of jam and cream. We eat – and we eat a lot with joy and with heart and possibly with some clogged up heart as well – in their honour. Together, it is very, very precious.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography

June 10, 2023June 25, 2023

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Woodlands

The first glimpse of the sun came cascading through a spring green canopy in Central Park. Its emergence immediately lifted a weight, a heavy cloak of gloom and despair. A reminder of hope and joy and wonder simply being on this Earth. In Central Park, Plymouth of all places.

Central Park, where I roamed as a kid, played on the swings, rode my bike, swung a golf club, gorged on hot doughnuts at Sunday morning car boot sales, took my rite of passage to the theatre of greens and generally didn’t think much of it. It was just a park after all.

Sure, it is a big park, bigger still with the little legs of childhood that make every memory lane seem longer and more tiresome. As a consequence, the farthest reaches from home were rarely visited: a thin green valley leading to Ford Park Cemetery. Always shady and damp and slightly foreboding. Always requiring a walk up through thickets and brambles and the mulch of autumns past to return to sunlit uplands and open vistas.

How perspectives can change with age and leg growth and many years in a parallel hemisphere. Today it is a tranquil sanctuary, bounteous and welcoming, the plunge downward providing a sense of anticipation and relief. Peace is here, though not through silence; the gentle melody of spring birdsong a balm to the outside world. I know a couple of people who would have liked it here, on this bench. And I cannot help but think in some way they are present today.

From that point, the glories of spring transformed the month of May to one of warm morning cuppas on the deck, barbecues and even the occasional pair of shorts. A Saturday morning on Plymouth Hoe abuzz with happy, generous people sipping inconsistent coffee, gazing out to sea or even finding themselves within it. It is warm, but surely not to that degree.

There is a pleasure to be had anonymous among the throngs of humanity. To observe those moments of togetherness, to grab snatches of a random conversation, to catch a glance and exchange a smile and even – in Britain – murmur a good morning. A good morning so often appended with a “beautiful weather today innit” and – if you hit the jackpot – a “me lovverrrr” to boot. How can you not treasure Plymouth on days like these?

And should humanity become tiring and overwhelming, just pop down to the woods again. Ham Woods, rediscovered briefly in Covid isolation last year after many long years of separation. A thin but surprisingly abundant ribbon of green between council estates and parkways and incinerators. A place for childhood bike rides, rope swings and dog walks, repeated ad infinitum through the years.

Bluebells have their moment in the sun. Flowering wild garlic gathers as if some snow-speckled glade. Sparkling blue Forget-me-nots pepper the hedgerows and remnants of wall long reclaimed by nature. And always look up, into that endless, incredible green. Marching forth like it always does in May. Cocooning and encompassing you in joyous embrace. The wonder of the woodlands.

Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

February 18, 2023March 4, 2023

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Bean there, done that

It is funny how an arbitrary line on the map can make such a difference to how things feel. Like totally new government feels. Different planning rules and street signs and higher rates and corflutes advocating for the next new candidate for the next new government. It’s not quite the transformation one feels walking from France into Switzerland, but welcome to Queanbeyan, New South Wales.

Somehow in Queanbeyan the gardens feel more exotic. As if it is longing to be part of the South Coast while ignoring the spectre of winter frosts. Dusk welcomes shrieking rainbow lorikeets while engine braking emanates from the trunk road heading through town. Surprisingly cute tin and weatherboard cottages compete for space with the sturdy brick brown blocks of flats lining the river. Buzzing waterfront taqueria contrast with a roundabout Red Rooster.

This is the juxtaposition of Queanbo life. A not quite Canberra suburb, a not quite country NSW town. A probable temporary life for me, though there have been a few properties that could have cut the mustard to make it last longer. You do get more bang for your buck, but at what cost?

Okay, well rates are set to increase by more than 60% over the next three years. The Queanbeyan River can sometimes flood. Everywhere else seems just that little greater, gas-guzzling distance away. And – at least where I’ve been staying – I just haven’t had the same level of greenery from the door.

I did find a reasonable coffee shop where you can get a large coffee for less than a fiver. Yet this little miracle means walking a little along the Kings Highway and then deviating through Brad Haddin Oval where you are reminded of the irritating deeds of Brad Haddin.

It’s a graceful and elegant oval set among large shady trees. Old folk from a nearby retirement complex play bowls and shuffle upon the tennis courts. It doesn’t really feel like Brad Haddin but perhaps he has mellowed too, joining the likes of Glenn McGrath and Mitchell Johnson as somehow thoroughly likeable chaps. I have doubts if Nathan Lyon will ever get there.

Perhaps Queanbeyan will feel the same to me, if and when it is no longer in my face like an amped up baggy green rage fest. I’m sure also when I leave someone will have come up with the bright idea of putting a café somewhere between the town centre and Jerrabomberra, providing the opportunity to grab a morning coffee and head into the bush. For now, flask tea is the best option.

Mount Jerrabomberra has proven the proverbially island in the sea. I had walked it once, gently rising along the main fire trail to a summit view and radio transmitter. But there are many random tracks veering off here and there, a spaghetti network offering infinite choose your own adventure.

Even the bush seems a little different here. Maybe it is the geology or the aspect or the way in which it is or is not managed. But one thing it has in common with many a neighbour is the encroachment of sprawling suburbs, trees spilling downhill to lap at a new road, a new Aldi, a new McMansion.

Apparently the land rates in Jerrabomberra are some of the highest in the country. Technically this is a Queanbeyan suburb but feels as much as it actually is over the hill and far away. What strikes me, more than anything, is that it has a stronger Canberra air. I think in the grassy median strips and footpaths between the backs of houses, and the engineered waterways and looping crescents, moulded to the hilly contours of the land. There is even a lake, albeit small, albeit with palm trees and an island that could well be Mar-a-Lago down under.

There are secrets here to be unearthed. Transecting that fringe between the mansions and the wilderness, a lushly green gully, a flowery scent of undergrowth, a deepening expanse of gum trees and acacia. The forest seems to push on, becoming more impenetrable as you go, perhaps heading ever eastward all the way to the ranges and the coast. Or maybe coming up against Googong.

Googong is the newer Jerrabomberra, the modern type where the larger houses take up pretty much all of their small block and where a scattering of townhouses offer as much floor space as an apartment at twice the price. What’s the cost of stairs and a garage?

It took until my last Friday night of Queanbo life to make it to Googong, or more precisely the fringes of Googong, bypassed to reach its namesake dam. This is no ornamental pond with palm trees or cultivated lake with coffee shops, but an expansive, Windermere-esque ribbon of water running many miles from north to south. The Lake District parallels may come as a stretch but there was something comforting and lovely strolling upon its shores under golden evening light.

Critics may jape that this is the best view in Queanbeyan, mainly because Queanbeyan is a long way behind your back. How do I feel about the place after almost an eight week stay? The welcome to town signpost sums it up well: Country living, city benefits, though I’d argue there are also city annoyances to add to the list. But in the ultimate test of the ‘could I live here?’ conundrum, I was pleased to enjoy a decent coffee one final morning, served up from my regular go-to café. Where, just before I depart, they finally remember my name.

Australia Green Bogey Walking

January 27, 2023January 29, 2023

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Grenful

I cannot believe I totally missed the big pick and pan. I mean, it’s not like the town of Grenfell is burgeoning with tourist sights. Yes, there are the archetypal painted silos, an old railway station and various manifestations of Henry Lawson, but that’s barely enough curiosity to fill a week. I’ll have to go back.

For the many billions of people unaware, Grenfell is situated in Central West New South Wales, a crossroads (or roundabout) between Young and Forbes, Cowra and West Wyalong. In many ways you may find it indistinct from all those other towns which regularly pop up every fifty clicks or so. In this indeterminate swathe of country, only gentrified Orange and an Elvis-upped Parkes may rise above the fields of canola, waiting to be cut down.

Still, I wasn’t really in Grenfell for touristing. Just being homeless and getting my laundry done, just like the good old days. Working remotely and staying with dear friends. Being grateful. And frequently offering entertainment for a three-year-old.

Oh to be three in Grenfell, where the world must seem full of stimulus. For us adults there is the Main Street and its chain of pubs which offer their own unique character. For me, it was hard to beat the Railway for its old school ice cold midis, the same again please on a warming summer afternoon. Quietly infiltrating a semicircle of locals with hats propping up the bar, one eye on the cricket.

In between work breaks and play breaks I sampled the local country coffee, taking on board various recommendations. I dunno, I think my friends have been living here too long because not once was I any more than mildly accepting of the coffee quality. I could blame the skim milk, but what else is token recompense for a caramel slice?

Given the abundance of caramel slice, I was pleased that among the essential items of life filling my car (clothes, water, mobile office) I had managed to fit in a bike. The roads of Grenfell are quiet and mostly flat and trips to the Main Street become more inviting with a breeze. The week endured hot, with early mornings proving the most comfortable for galahs and humans alike.

Yet it was a couple of evening rides that garnered more joy, despite the heat and surprising hilliness on the way to Company Dam. Three’s company you see, even if my two buddies, Howard and Henry, are benefiting from electric power. It was nice up here, replenished by La Niña rains and golden evening sunshine. Plus it was (mostly) downhill all the way to ice creams at the servo.

Servos – formerly known as petrol stations – tend to take on extra responsibilities in country towns such as Grenfell. For as well as U91 and chamois, you can usually buy an array of deep fried beige coloured goods: hot chips, chiko rolls, potato scallops, meat pies, fish bites. Most of the home cooking I was treated to was excellent but occasional chips on the side never hurt anyone.

Indeed, chips on the side were a highlight on the one foray out of Grenfell, to the neighbouring and larger town of Cowra (size being measured by the presence of Maccas and Aldi). In between, Conimbla National Park punctuates the farmland and proves both bountiful and sparse.

It is highly probable that both Norz and I were the only people walking the only tracks in the park that morning, the Wallaby linking up with the Ironbark. Beautiful swathes of flannel flower were a highlight but the other vegetation was tending towards the spiky and overgrown. Throw in a few spiderwebs for added spice and I was satisfied at my choice of long-legged activewear. Norz, on the other hand, had prioritised temperature control. The resultant encounters between nature and bare leg frequently provoking a soundtrack of short, sharp oohs and ows.

At least there was a lookout, and morning tea strawberries. The view a less dramatic and more modest interpretation of gorges visited in the past. Devoid of humans other than us two, it was a sensation to be replicated down in Cowra on a Sunday lunchtime.

I once had a nice pub lunch in Cowra but it must have been on a Saturday. Today, pub closed. Norz heard of a cute cafe that had recently started up, today closed. An ad hoc Aldi charcuterie or McAussie burger? Or the local chook shop on the main road, which appeared to at least be open? How can you look past chips on the side, with chicken salt.

In servos and chook shops and old fashioned bars with the cricket on in the background and average coffee and building heat and (admittedly overlooked) big things, it turns out this week in country NSW was fulfilling the quota of much that is regional, rural and remote. And when it came time to leave, I felt like I was only just getting used to there being nothing much going on at all. The journey back to Canberra heralded relative hustle and bustle and more trawling through the stairwells and cupboards of open homes. While the most open home of the lot, a home of warmth and friendship, was fading away in the rear view mirror. Until next time.

Australia Driving Food & Drink Green Bogey

December 29, 2022December 29, 2022

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A tale of two valleys

Well, I hope you had yourself a merry little Christmas. In a clear sign of ageing gracefully I was pleased to unpack a new, lightweight, bagless, cordless vacuum cleaner and a brand new thermos flask in pastel hues. I think part of the joy was in unpacking something rather than packing it up. Other festive highlights included a love-hate relationship with a ham (I’m so over you) and sitting in the dark in the middle of the day. I haven’t felt so hot since being in, um, England.

So it seems I’m at the point where vacuum cleaners are exciting, too much heat is wearisome and I find ample satisfaction in ambling around the NSW town of Tumut. It was noticeable how many times I was asked Why Tumut?, including from the Airbnb host making money from people actually staying in the town of Tumut. But it’s just nice. Cute and a little cosy, I could live here in something actually affordable. There is a decent café and a Woollies and an awful McDonalds all out of Caramilk McFlurries but most of all there is the river swishing fulsome through leafy parkland and cow-filled meadows.

The Tumut River joins the Murrumbidgee River which joins the Murray River, feeding gigalitres of water downstream during the La Niña spring. For once there is almost too much water, and too much Dorothea Mackellar, espoused by the usual suspects to justify this as normal. Even my pretty little Tumut is not immune.

Feeding into the Tumut River, the Goobarragandra shows signs of flood in its flattened banks and weedy debris. It’s been a lovely drive through luscious countryside to Thomas Boyd Campsite and a trailhead for the Hume and Hovell. I walk a little of the track, barely decipherable through tall, snake-infested grass. It’s okay but nothing to write poetry about.

I pause for coffee (in an old flask) and a Macadamia slice purchased from Gundagai bakery. And decide the best means to perk things up – and fulfil the clichés of middle age – is to hop on the bike.

Flat and sun-kissed, the going is joyous as the road nears the banks of the river, seemingly wilder and more dramatic than it was around the campground. Grassy plains yield to undulating meadows, the shadows from cotton wool clouds projecting onto higher, bush cloaked peaks.

All too soon the river meanders away from the road and those undulations kick in. I climb one and decide that will be enough. And dream of Christmas futures when I can unpack an e-bike.

Is another sign of getting old waking up with the kookaburras? I certainly have evidence to support this theory but then there are also those outliers. Or inliers, so to speak.

In truth the Christmas break has produced some relative lie ins, but this has been countered by a desire to get out early before the furnace is at full force. So there have been a few mornings where instead of sedately lying in bed listening to Radio National and sipping tea I have hopped and skipped out into the bush.

I entered Namadgi National Park around seven and was surprised to find a number of cars at the visitor centre. I suspect they had smartly set out for Mount Tennent while it was still cool and fresh. I wasn’t going to join them, instead heading further south to a rendezvous with a creek.

I do believe the Rendezvous Creek walk is one of the few marked trails in Namadgi I have never set foot on before. And with relatively low expectations (I find that can be the best approach here) I discovered utter delight. At first shady and fragrant, the trail opens out into a hills are alive style valley. The only sound being the rustle of grass in the breeze, the trickle of water, and the buzz of the great Australian blowfly.

Who needs touchscreens and Twitter and endless ham and Michael Buble schmaltz and David Warner tons and lightweight vacuum cleaners and Caramilk McFlurries when you can simply be blessed with the vastness of nature, the blueness of the sky and the buzz of a fly? But allow me one modern day indulgence. Make that two. A brand new pastel flask filled with tea and a Walkers shortbread mince pie. Well, it is Christmas after all.

Australia Driving Green Bogey Walking

October 21, 2022October 22, 2022

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Moving somewhere

So it turns out my last blog post was premature. As I left the UK, the dystopian psychodrama of Who Wants To Run The Country Into Disrepair appeared to be finally coming to a conclusion. But lo and behold it seems we only reached the credits of the extended opening episode of Season 6. Brought to you by the writers that gave us Black Mirror amped up twenty-four hours a day on LSD. God only knows how the denouement of this one goes.

Talking of writing, I see there has been much criticism of The Crown of late for making stuff up but seriously you couldn’t make this shit up. And now we have the prospect of a comeback about as endearing as the return of Kevin Spacey.

With its revolving door of Prime Ministers and warm, elongated summer full of crispy grass and fire dangers, the UK has been doing a fine job imitating Australia. All that is left is cheating at cricket and making proper coffee. Meanwhile, Australia feels more and more akin to England these days. Overblown commemoration of a monarch, escalating lettuce prices, train strikes and days in which the only hope is for a slight chink in the rain. Car picnics will multiply and tea and Digestives will soothe. If only the strawberries were better.

When I bathed in morning sun by the sea in Dorset I knew the next time I would gaze upon the ocean it would be from an Australian shore. Passing through storms, over washed out rainforest roads to a beach in Kiama. A cool breeze whipping off the surf, relieved with spells of sunshine. It was all a bit Devonesque.

I’m pretty sure I read Kiama was one of those places that had a decent pandemic…if you sold or managed to buy a property here. One of those places with tidy shops, decent cafés and a railway station. A fine work from home destination, where you can head for a lunchtime run to the Blowhole and pop on a train to Sydney for an important meeting about advertising.

Today the trains were running, though not quite on time. I was commuting to Wollongong for a glimpse of many more wheels rotating at far greater speeds. The train trundles along like a Home Counties stopping service, only with Australia-scale double decker carriages and that unique easy-going flexible seating. At Wollongong station, bright red hibiscus belies the pretence of being anywhere else.

For a whole week the city of Wollongong was hosting the UCI World Road Cycling Championships, an annual event that is usually far more comfortable threading through venerable piazzas and over short, sharp cotes topped with a medieval church (although next year, Glasgow). Rarely have these elite athletes whizzed past a suburban Supercheap Auto under the ferocious defence of a newly parented magpie. Wout van aaaaaaagghhhht.

Still, they made a good fist of it and today was the turn of the women’s elite road race riders to run the gauntlet. After some scenic made-for-TV coastal ambling and a climb up into the verdant escarpment, the race route made multiple laps of a Wollongong city circuit. With each lap taking around half an hour there was just enough time to intersperse glimpses of a frenetic bundle of colour and energy with coffee and cake, ice cream, fish and chips.

When I broke for fish and chips the heavens well and truly opened again. Seeking protection to feast under a Norfolk Pine, I was astonished to observe a seagull warding off other numerous seagulls and leaving me in relative peace. In what kind of world does this happen? Certainly not back in Swanage.

With the last chip, the shower had passed and the sun came back out as the race reached a conclusion along the Champs du Marine Drive. Two hundred metres from the line, some people whooshed on by and that was that, for today. Back to the station, back on the train, back to Kiama, and back over an alarming mountain of more gushing rain in the pitch black. I felt my car handled it as well as an Alaphilippe, and was pleased to safely bed down to that classic Australian sound of rain on the tin roof of a Ford Territory.

I was camping in Kangaroo Valley, mainly because I couldn’t really find anywhere closer to stay at a reasonable price. This came with added benefits though, including Fitzroy Falls on the way down and a Sunday morning in which disappointing mist quickly lifted to leave glorious blue skies. Ringed by rugged rainforest mesa, its a landscape burgeoning with abundance, a valley carpeted with pasture as green as anything in Devon. It really is quite the enchanted spot.

It was a bit of a shame I couldn’t linger longer now that the weather was fine, but I had another train to catch. The road over the mountain to Berry was much better with light and sun, leading to the bonus of great coffee and pastries in Berry itself. Since I was last here a bypass for the Princes Highway has opened up but Berry itself doesn’t seem to have suffered. It is still, after all, within Sydney Weekender and mass wedding party range.

Unlike yesterday I skirted around Kiama and instead caught the train from Albion Park. This is the kind of area where Australia more closely resembles the United States: freeways and intersections, monotone warehouses, concrete car parks, fast food strips. For later I note a KFC and a servo with cheap petrol, something to help me up over the Illawarra Highway towards Canberra. For now, more frenetic two wheel action was in store.

Today was the jewel in the crown, the World Men’s Elite Road Race. I think the kilometres covered would take them back to Canberra if they wished, but instead more scenic coastal roads, lofty escarpment, and seemingly endless laps of that Wollongong circuit.

Thus I was able to position myself in various spots to watch them stream by, thinning and stretching with the revolution of every lap. Coffee and ice cream and fish and chips was harder to come by as I moved into the suburbs and it was with great envy that I passed parties on decks and could smell the aroma of barbecue lunches. For the most part I lingered in and around Ramah Avenue, a Ramsay Street of clichés beamed to the world. Seventies concrete brick homes, Utes in the drive, magpies warbling from atop bottle green gums. In between laps some hoons played cricket in the street.

Unlike Ramsay Street though Ramah Avenue possesses fifteen percent gradients, which made it a hotspot for crowds with cow bells, fancy dress dinosaurs, imitation devils. At times, cyclists would pass by slowly, though still – to my despair – at a speed I can just about muster on the flat. With each repetition the weariest fall back and you can sense their eyes roll at yet another climb. Dripping with sweat, thoughts perhaps turning to those snags on the barbecue and a cold one at number 52.

Eventually one of them pops clear. A frontrunner who can no longer be caught. A diminutive Belgian, a rising star. Remco, a racer who looks about 12 but acts in a way far more mature than many who should really know better. Real inspiration, real leadership, a long, long way from a Big, Big Dog. And let’s just hope I’m not too premature about that.

Australia Green Bogey

September 23, 2022October 8, 2022

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Moving on

There is probably so much I have skipped. Top of mind: tranquility at Talland Bay, Dartmoor and chips, Bedruthan jackets and English wines, clubhouse iso, that really hip cafe on Mutley Plain, Mount Edgecumbe, Whitsand and the rest. More pasties in Looe (naturally), Tavistock ambles with coffee and walnut cake, blood tests, Tamerton Foliot creekside discoveries with Ernesettle reminisces, and just those sunny morning cuppas in the garden.

But time moves far more quickly than I can write and there comes a point (sat in a campground in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, for instance) where you simply have to draw a line under it all. Not to consign it to history but as something to live on in your mind and to seep into your heart, as opposed to a memorial of mere letters on a screen. Oh, also: London, crowded Northern Line wearing no mask, train delays to frigid Preston station, Ansdell walks with surprise sunshine and delicious Fairhaven ice cream. But I digress.

I stayed a long time in the United Kingdom, but not as long as it takes to appoint an even more diabolical Prime Minister. And that includes extra time, which was not so much a gift but a sad consequence of the turning of the world, the passage of life. Thank you for all the happy memories, memories that don’t need to be written here but live on at random moments, in places and patterns, in smells and sounds, or simply when a certain light shines through the trees.

Back in Kangaroo Valley, I could’ve had a beer this evening at the Friendly Inn (and with this stream of consciousness you may think this the case). But I didn’t. I had a takeaway pizza and thought I could wile away that black period before it was acceptable to go to bed by catching up with this blog. Occasionally I hear cheers in the distance from the pub, the eels are playing the dingoes or something in a semi-preliminary final or some such. I’ve been away too long.

The pub looked enticing, and far more enticing than where Dad and I ended up in Swanage. However, the first pub we went to was always going to be tough to beat. The Bridge Inn on the River Avon a little out of Amesbury, sparkling in Sunday afternoon sunshine. How good a cider tastes in such surroundings. Swiftly polished off to get away from that guy.

Having started here in June it was interesting to witness how two months had progressed. Upon the Pewsey Downs a landscape of golden grass, sweeping along ridges and hummocks and down into the Vale. A combine below creating a cloud of dust as it sets about its work under a searing sun. On the horizon, more dust, or is it a fire? And just around the corner, maybe Gundagai.

I guess these could be those much vaunted sunlit uplands but to extend the metaphor let me tell you they took a great deal of bashing through prickly, unruly, needless crap to reach. The Ordnance Survey is something great and British but even they cannot always steer us upon the right path (probably, I imagine, because they had their funding cut). The wrong kind of hedge fund.

I always like to have intimate encounters with the English countryside but this was taking it a little too far. A touch more sedentary (and bramble-free) were walks within the Wiltshire villages and towns. Salisbury, with its markets and bunting and majestic cathedral, admired the world over. And Bradford-on-Avon, melding that gracious, Brunel-era industrial heritage with wooded riverside walks and resident kingfishers.

The kingfishers have a following and you catch people lingering for a glance; some simply pausing with the kids on their way to the Co-op, others equipped with shiny lenses and tripods on their way to the Countryfile calendar competition. While the kingfishers remained hidden in town, teasing their audience, Dad and I made our way to Avoncliff, bought a cider each to cool down by the river, and enjoyed the accompaniment of several blurs of vivid blue darting from bank to bank. This is the way to bird.

They were hot days – another plume of continental airmass – and there was appeal in sedentary nature-watching. Like sitting on the sofa and being alerted to the presence of a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth. And another. And another. And, what, how many is that today? And eventually, even though you know it will be a pale imitation of the master’s work, sitting there waiting with your camera to capture this amazing little creature.

The heat didn’t quite last; in fact it inevitably disappeared when we went away to the Dorset coast for a few days. Standing ankle-deep in the water in Devon, I had a feeling I would see the sea again. And, of course, encounter the South West Coast Path.

We were practically straight out onto it, reaching Durlston Country Park on the southern side of Swanage. From here a jaunt along the south coast on a placid nothing kind of day – occasional haze interrupting a bluey-grey sky as small boats on the horizon inch westward toward Portland Bill. With its crumbling chalky cliffs and thicketed combes, the coast path here is a different beast from the western edge of Cornwall. But always, there is ocean.

We ended up walking a fair distance in the end, overlooking the rock formations at Dancing Ledge. These were heavily peopled by those having a ball: bathing, picnicking and, for the most part, engaging in adventure pursuits that require a wetsuit and fluorescent vest. Perhaps the vests aid discovery when they get lost in the brambles and gorse as they make their way up to the ridge away from the coast. Another foray through the rubbish to reach those uplands which, today, were not even sunlit.

We worked up appetite for an ice cream in Swanage and possibly the fish and chips that followed a little later. They were enjoyable enough beside the water, shared with hundreds of other people doing likewise. Yet despite this abundance there are not enough fish and chip eaters to go around to satisfy the voracious seagulls espying any remote opportunity to ruin a moment. Effectively, for protection, we were eating fish and chips from a bag and that somewhat diluted the ambience.

The ambience went further downhill in the only pub in town with seating. And then again the next morning thanks to some persistent rain. I mean I shouldn’t complain, we need the rain, but I will complain anyway. Why don’t you wait one more week when I am far, far away persistent rain? Still, um good weather for golf. If you can call it that.

Victorious on the first play-off ‘hole’ I went to celebrate with coffee and cake, and Dad was all too happy to tag along. Mine was some tiramisu concoction which I feel was born from baking an odd number of chocolate and coffee sponges and deciding the best way to use them up is to slather them with cream and dust with cocoa to entice passing Anglo-Australians on two month holidays who cherish the Britishness of escaping woes with a slice of cake. It was perfect.

Like the gigantic crumbs falling upon on my plate, the dazzling formations of Old Harry Rocks are deserving of attention. Proving almost as busy as the cake shop, a procession of visitors walk the fairly tame path to witness iconic chalk piles crumbling into the sea. On a cloudy, drizzly day, there is a welcome brightness to the rocks and a jollity in communal gathering, with some rather unique TikTok takes and selfie set ups.

Over the ridge from Swanage Bay, we were now in Studland, which is a rather alarming or invigorating prospect depending on whatever floats your boat. I had visions of Dad and I leaning wearily on the ‘Welcome to Studland’ sign in our sexy waterproofs, each sporting a large package. On our back. Unfortunately ladies it never materialised and you may be better off making the trek to Penistone instead.

Thankfully though, finally, some brightness materialised at the end of our walk, which was conveniently next to a pub. I can’t say it was the best ale but the setting was exemplary and ambience was back on the way up. So much so that the sun came out, Dad went into the water, and I watched on at these Englanders embracing chilly water and a green algae fringe.

It felt more like summer holidays again. An alfresco pizza as the sun sets over Swanage and a morning breakfast bap as it heads up into the sky again. There was, of course, a tinge of Australia in this beachside kind of morning. Something I was all too quick to use as an excuse as to why I wouldn’t take a loyalty card for more awful machine-generated coffee in an otherwise lovely spot. Sorry mate, I’ll be in Australia next week.

Indeed time, extra time, was drawing to a close. Swanage was in the rear view mirror, as was Corfe Castle, as was Dorset and Devon and Cornwall. A Prime Minister was still not appointed but they were now down to two. The sun shone again and there were a few days remaining to walk among golden hay-bales, eat another tub of clotted cream, be bombarded by Hummingbird hawk-moths and say farewells. It was time to move on but with farewells that are never really final. For you take with you all the people, places, pasties and they add up to constitute your very being and shape every step forward you take. Whether that is to a cake shop, a mountain top or sat in a glade in the forest, soaking in sun-dappled light.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

gbpilgrim

Wanderings in the world. Meanderings from the mind.

Tag: countryside

The comeback kings and queens

Cracking

The size of England

The size of pasties

The size of scones

You better watch out

Trailing

Life cycles

My precious

Woodlands

Bean there, done that

Grenful

A tale of two valleys

Moving somewhere

Moving on

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