Blog life seems to be taking the form of a brief flurry of updates followed by months of silence followed by simmering guilt that I should be creating something and sharing it followed by slowly creating something and sharing it followed by a brief flurry of inspiration and productivity followed by months of silence.
In real life, 2024 started with a bang in Sydney as one parent flew home, another arrived and, in between, the weather got better, I hung out in a pizza truck, held down a job, looked for new butterflies and scored some gold. And then sapphire.
What further superlatives can one spout about the Sapphire Coast in southern New South Wales? Visited once again but on this occasion seen through the fresh eyes of my Mum, down under for the very first time. Pinch yourself moments on white sand, vivid blue water, dense green eucalyptus. We’ll get there, with some fuel.
Alas after a week of heat and sunshine in Australia’s capital we hit the coast just as the cloud started to roll in. This didn’t stop obligatory visits to Tuross for waterfront seafood and Bodalla for sublime ice cream afters. A stop overnight in Narooma was pleasant if a little gloomy while morning coffee in charming Tilba brightened things up a touch.
It is at the parental intersection of Bermagui where glimmers of sunshine again reemerge. With vintage cheese from Tilba, bread from Honorbread and assorted extras from Woollies, we decamp at its lovely bay just as a blue hole in the grey opens up, like a portal into the upside up. A few regulars wade into the water for a swim, while the summit of Gulaga emerges beneath the receding sheet of cloud. The sapphire has tepidly begun.
By the time we reached beachside in Pambula, the atmospherics were notably more sparkly. A short walk from our cabin past delinquent kangaroos led to the sweeping arc of sand disappearing all the way up to Merimbula. A decent chunk of sun livened things up and illuminated the colours of the water. Here was – wrapped up a little because of the wind – a chance to unfold the seating contraption and maybe just doze. And then to open the eyes and be dazzled.
For dazzling it is hard to look past the shallow waters of the Pambula River, lapping at powder white sand and banks of eucalyptus chiming with the sound of bellbird. A cloudy start the next morning magically evaporated for a perfect amble. Peaceful apart from the occasional fisher and brisk walking lady having a cathartic meltdown on the phone.
It doesn’t take much to consider how this must look to virgin, English eyes. The vibrancy as if the TV has gone on the blink during an episode of Eastenders. Deep blues, shimmering gold, blinding white, blanketing green. Gently lapping translucent water, warm and pristine. Nature largely uninterrupted, heard in melody but rarely seen. Apart from a resting Orchard Swallowtail.
We returned to the Pambula River later in the day, just because it was there, around the corner. In between, the hustle and senior shuffle of downtown Merimbula, where millions of tax rebates are frittered away on hot weak cappuccinos and chicken parmigianas annually.
Bar Beach is a favoured spot, partly because you can get a good coffee overlooking a small, sheltered aquamarine bay. It is calm and appealing enough to swim in, especially with those English eyes. Thus a mother is submerged while I inch out just past knee high.
It would be good to come back here for a double bacon and egg roll. So we do just that on Monday morning and not for the first time in my life I am facing abject disappointment at a sign proclaiming the availability of a limited menu only. There is no double bacon and egg today, at least not this side of the estuary. Tomorrow will be fine, I am told. But there is to be no tomorrow.
And so sometimes fate dictates change, a new experience for me too. Nothing radically different of course, but a bacon and egg roll across that channel of sapphire on an isthmus of land known as Fishpen. A takeaway taken away to a small pontoon, bedecked by self-funded retirees living their best life. With ample time to dwell and, should they wish, write about another day in paradise. Such luxury.
Growing up, Christmas TV viewing used to be such a big thing. A double episode of Eastenders in which someone and/or something sizzles in a suspicious blaze. A blockbuster movie that was so new it had only aired in the cinema little more than a year previous. A Father Ted comedy special which was really fecked. And of course – usually avoided because of concurrent feasting on dried up old turkey – The Queen.
While others still go crazy over Love Actually or A Muppets Christmas Carol or even the old royal turkey himself, I have mostly been watching the BOM radar this holiday season. Only Big Bash cricket – for all its stupidity – competes for airtime, though usually in the background, usually while looking at the BOM radar. It’s riveting viewing, where you simply won’t believe the biggest twist yet.
They say Christmas comes around earlier every year and it was just ticking over into December when BOM radar became the must watch event of the year. Was Mount Kosciuszko up in the clouds, was that storm clipping Thredbo, would it ever stop raining in Jindabyne? Would Yarrongobilly Caves provide best refuge or how about the local pub? As long as you get in after the meat raffle and before the Christmas karaoke, yes.
Rain, rain go away and come back in the form of a waterfall. A lull in weather drama one morning providing relief and release and joyous, primitive, natural freshness. Sawpit Creek plunging and fizzing and totally out of mobile range to check the radar. Ignorance and bliss and all that.
Nimmitabel also produced sketchy mobile data and all I can say about that is it was a stroke of luck that I fancied a pie. Or, supposedly, Cornish Pasty. While discovering the sacrilege of sweetcorn the heavens opened, rapid rivulets formed and I prayed for the car outside. By time I forced down the last corner of dry pastry it had stopped, and Dad and I plunged down towards the coast.
I wouldn’t quite say the rain followed us. At least not until after we navigated flooded detours in the Bega Valley, stopped the car, and went to discover sea foam oozing through Wallagoot Gap. Only then did the rain return, obliterating the scenic drive to Bermagui and forcing fish and chip consumption in the car.
There was clearly a bit of a British summer holiday vibe going on. This extended to the following day when it was – in spite of more downpours forecast – only really mostly cool and cloudy. Relativism a conduit of positivity, low expectations a nurturer of delight. Mustn’t grumble. Things could be worse. We could do something.
It wasn’t really a peachy beachy day, unless seeking moody shots of rock formations and blustery coastlines. So we ended up in Tilba, drinking coffee and eating cheese. In between, taking a tour of its lush environs under the brooding hulk of Gulaga. Briefly the sun came out, and so too the flies.
With all the runoff of recent days the normally sapphire seas around Bermagui were a bit more Bognor. But Monday – the day of travelling back to Canberra – was much better. Radar viewing indicated little going on, much like a filler episode of Home and Away (or a normal episode to be fair). There was good coffee on the beach to kick things off, good waterside coffee again in Narooma and fish and chips by the lake in Tuross for lunch. Filling the time between dining stops, beach views and maybe the risk of sunburn.
In fact we stopped stopping at beaches because we were tiring a little of golden sand and fabulous blue waves. A bushwalk among the spotted gums was calling. A search for elusive butterflies and a surprise sugar glider, taking advantage of a respite in the weather to feed on nectar and ambrosia. Inspiration for the ice cream at Bodalla Dairy.
For a day, BOM Radar was barely a thing. The Australian summer in all its glory was back. Even the sea started to look that little more sapphire. But then I heard they commissioned a second season. Featuring a Christmas special. In which there will be some even bigger twists you never ever saw coming in an unprecedented TV first. Oh how I hark back to a spot of arson among the mince pies in Eastenders.
I’ve skipped a bit. A deficit of time rivalled by that of inspiration. But I seem to have discovered a free half hour without internet on a veranda in western Victoria. Sat within a world which spurs me to wax lyrical. In offline mode.
The veranda is on the outskirts of Halls Gap in The Grampians. While I was napping, Dad has disappeared to stalk emus or swear at Common Browns I presume. He’s been in Australia for nearly six weeks and to chronicle everything will be a feat never accomplished. But this chunk feels manageable and interesting and special. And, like many of our stops to get here, bite-sized.
The Grampians – Gariwerd – proves antidote to Melbourne which itself is antidote to Canberra. Initially I loved the in-your-face life and buzz and noise and food and even the humidity with a freakish shower. But then it all got too much, tipping over the edge at a Big Bash cricket mess at the MCG, where feral kids run hyper on additives and everyone seems to be engaged in some kind of White Lightning inspired disco.
Plus the weather turned cool and grey, the coffee was, meh, just coffee Melbourne get over it, and I felt ready again for the volume to be dialled down. Which it is right now, other than for the singing of birds and a grown man swearing at butterflies in the distance.
Gariwerd is absolutely my cup of tea, and I like cups of tea. There are multiple lookouts for a start, walks in nature, plunging cascades and – yes get excited people – rock formations. Often these are all combined in the same place, in just the most perfect arrangement. Laid out as they always have been, and always will be.
Here, nature charts its course and writes its own story. And like the Mackenzie River deep in the heart of the bush, it’s a story of twists and turns, serenity and drama. Then, at some point, it all comes crashing down. The MackenzieFalls.
As stories go I feel like Dad could have an exhibition of the most beautiful waterfalls of Australia from this trip. And in a poky alcove on the side I would be allocated a small section for grainy photos called behind the scenes of the beautiful waterfalls of Australia exhibition. These would largely feature a man with white hair and a red hoodie hunched beside a borrowed tripod in front of a water feature. Included will be one or two of my own attempts, just for comparative purposes. Craft and patience versus laziness and luck.
Since I had taken a few happy snaps and went off exploring downriver, I missed the slightly awkward moment where a young chap got down on one knee to propose to his partner, Dad off to the side. He was probably waiting for a guy with a camera and tripod to leave, but could delay no more. Fair play, it’s a good spot to ask a girl to marry you but if they had been on the ball they could have booked a wedding photographer at the same time.
As the lovers moved on to chart their own story, our honeymoon took on spectacle with grandstand views. From Reid’s Lookout and TheBalconies, it is impossible not to marvel at the scale and essence of Gariwerd. A sea of wilderness lapping at encircling zigzag ranges, the sun sinking lower to spark the landscape aglow. You don’t really expect this approaching a few hills from the plains around Ararat.
It is vast, and breathtakingly epic. Yet there are so many intimate spaces and contemplative spots. The Grand Canyon proves grand, but in a different way. Nature’s brickwork is masterfully constructed with a water feature and exotic plantings. The narrowing walls cocoon and seem to concentrate calm and peace and a certain spirituality. It doesn’t take much to feel connected to the eons of time and the billions of stories past. To feel the land is part of you and you part of it. To follow footsteps special and sacred.
Modern day footsteps appear to largely belong to lithe German backpackers packing it all in. Or families of ten alighting from a Kia Carnival, emerging ever more incredulously like props from Mary Poppin’s bag. The steps they take, we take, are many and often upward. ThePinnacle is a pinnacle of sorts for all sorts. A craggy protrusion overlooking Halls Gap, the final few hundred metres taking longer than expected, navigating boulders and crevices and fellow walkers. Many, including Dad and I, stop for lunch. Others inch out to perilous outcrops for unforgettable photos. All leaving crumbs for future pasts.
Crumbs which scatter and seep into the earth, ground in by the footsteps that follow. Washing out in heavy rains, joining many other leftover tales on their way to a creek. Meandering around shrubs and wallabies, cutting a swathe in the rock, gathering and spilling over a cliff face. A sliver of water splitting an ancient amphitheatre, a silver band reuniting with life in the forest. There, a red hoodie huddles over a camera and composes. The final serene score of a most exquisite symphony.
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.
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.
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.
In unprecedented developments I went to Looe and didn’t buy a pasty. Instead my bag was packed with a leftover barbecue sausage sandwich and bag of crisps. It was one of those cost-of-living crisis kind of days, what with the £2 bus fare as well. As if a £2 bus fare balances out a decade of incompetence and self-sabotage and party time plunging living standards.
Anyway, walking is free, as they say. And the bus dropped me off at West Looe, a tidally fulsome river away from cellars of lard and pasty caverns. If only I were a seagull. About to hop along on two webbed feet all the way to Polperro. After a snack.
This was a walk I had started once before, in my youth on a hot, sunny day. Quite probably commencing at Looe Guildhall, where antique plates or boxes with flowers stuck on were being flogged. I felt flogged climbing one hill too many and turned back to make sure I could get my body-sized slot in the back of a red Citroen van. To think I was younger and allegedly fitter then.
Let’s say some thirty-something years later, the weather wasn’t so hot but it was sunny and the shelter of the coast path, straddled between perpendicular hills and scrubby cliffs, made it feel nice. In some ways this was a reacquaintance with and continuation of my three day walk along the southern Cornish coastline last year. Only in the other direction and missing a chunk (Polperro to Mevagissey 2024 anyone?). Amazingly, it was like I’d never been away, I muttered as I hauled myself up the first skyward incline.
The steepest part of this stretch is likely to be when leaving Talland Bay, a gorgeous enclave and half way point populated by a small beach, a church on a hill and a café. The café is the kind of thing that makes the South West Coast Path such a civilised affair, despite the occasional wild meandering through shrubbery. Walk a bit, have a cream tea, walk a bit, regret cream tea as you sweat your way up the world’s steepest footpath.
I spent a bit of money on the cream tea, so after some more gentle walking surrounded by exquisite beauty I was overjoyed to enter Polperro for free. This is an unprecedented state of affairs. Normally I require a bank loan at eye-watering interest rates to visit Polperro. Today, not a penny…although I later found out to spend a penny I would need fifty pennies. The fleecing is still alive and well, including the tacky plastic King Charles Coronation flags that – a week or so after the event – were at least discounted to a pound.
Anyway, this is a far better way to arrive into Polperro than the car park of extortion. Turning a corner that you wouldn’t know was there until it is in your face, the sea surges into the embrace of a snug harbour fringed by whitewash and kaleidoscopic bunting. Lobster pots pile up along the sea wall and old bits of rope look as though they would barely tame a seagull, let alone a trawler.
A poky old pub tempts with Tribute, a bakery window is piled with scones, Roly’s fudge is being freshly made. And all I can pay for today are crumbs… admittedly delicious fudge crumbs that will be adorning ice cream for many months to come. I’ve still got to fork out for the bus ride home.
The £2 bus fares continued to tempt during May but I wasn’t convinced about taking a two and a half hour ride to Bude or Padstow. Not only because of the duration but also because you would get 15 minutes in either place before having to board the return journey. Either that or you could take a connecting bus to Launceston and then wait another two hours for a tractor to Liskeard via a maize maze and then hitch a lift to Carkeel roundabout before rolling down a hill.
So I took a train to Truro instead, got incorrect bus times online and then eventually made it to St. Agnes, a total journey time of, erm, about two and a half hours. Still, I got there around lunchtime which made it prime time for giant sausage rolls. And an iced bun for takeaway. I had utopian visions of savouring the iced bun with a cup of tea at Chapel Porth, several miles away. But following the plunge down to Trevaunance Cove and the goat track up again, icing was in a perilous state of affairs and needed rescuing.
Unlike the Looe to Polperro adventure, this was reasonably familiar ground. I had first discovered St. Agnes’ penchant for novelty sausage rolls several years back and ended up doing the same walk as today. This is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. For not only do you receive an abundance of the essence of Cornwall (azure seas, rolling surf, plunging cliffs, tin mines, seagulls, thrift, heather and gorse and Poldork), but it ends with a hedgehog.
This is Chapel Porth‘s signature dish, an almost impossible to control combo of ice cream, clotted cream and roasted hazelnuts. Shame that iced bun never made it here, though I still would have been quite satisfied with it alongside a cup of tea. As it was, I took the ice cream down to a rapidly shrinking beach, the tide high and a keen wind mustering the first sensation of being a bit cold today. Perfect ice cream weather, right?
All this eating might make one plump but you can pretty much guarantee you will burn it off again on the next climb. For me, this involved veering away from the coast and cutting back to St. Agnes via the beacon. It was a walk I may have enjoyed more, were it not for the fact I seemed to be in an increasing hurry to meet the bus.
With five minutes to spare, I settled under a shady tree near the bus stop, pleased to have a sit down and gather myself for the journey home. Five minutes became ten and twenty and an hour and there it finally was, grinding up a hill in a puff of diesel. Delivering me back to Truro where trains were delayed because a boat had hit a bridge. This is almost as Cornish as the old cows on the line excuse. Suddenly the two pound buses don’t sound so bad.
Not that it really mattered. What else was I to do? Other than sit at the platform and take salvation in an emergency bag of M&S crisps for dinner, thankful once again for the sunshine and the South West Coast Path. A strenuous brute of a thing that yet is so comforting, so uplifting, so more beautiful than pretty much anywhere else there is.
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.
Drilling into brick ain’t easy. But at least it’s – via a series of chunky payments over 360 weeks – my brick. The small hole above the bathroom window where I eventually gave up proving to be an imprint. My signature. The final flourish being the calls to the tradies that follow.
I did fix a wonky cupboard door, rip up a small piece of carpet, revitalise a cooktop and cleanse a stained sink. And I did manage to find a good plumber to repair a leaky tap and got some people around to do measures and quotes and hopefully install new flooring. The flooring has taken on an almost mythical quality, the promised sunlit uplands of when I finally feel I can properly unpack and organise rooms. At the moment, it’s somewhere on a ship trying to get into Sydney.
I think the delineation between non-homeownership and homeownership must be how many times I have been to Bunnings in the last month. It may be double figures though not once have I succumbed to a slimy morsel of cooked entrails with onions loosely encased in a slice of bread. I’ve been to Ikea three times and Kmart at least the same, plus some carpet showrooms and the expensive kitchenware section of David Jones, to browse. It is like I have entered a parallel universe I never knew existed, where a few hundred dollars here and there is offloaded with hardly the bat of an eyelid.
In the meantime, the regular universe has been doing its thing. In my neighbourhood there are some tall dark conifers under which sit a carpet of needles and the occasional crazy person. But there are also some wonderful deciduous trees putting on a rainbow spectacle as the Canberra autumn seeps in. The red and green king parrots blend into the canopy, only startling with delight when whizzing overhead. The cockatoos are voracious, wanton in their pursuit of abundant, nutty delicacies. Leafy detritus scatters the ground.
A week or two of still days in the low twenties has offered much. It’s great for a bushwalk and I took the opportunity of a somewhat back to normal Saturday to head up into the hills. It had been quite some time since I had last walked from Corin Forest out to Square Rock, fresh and pepperminty in the morning sun. At the rock, expansive views west and a flask of tea to go with a Creme Egg. Before popping into Bunnings in Tuggers on the way home.
A couple of four day weekends have propelled April into even more genial heights. While the first over Easter was a bit of a homestay, the second turned into a tale of two weekends, with Monday and Tuesday enjoyed on the South Coast. Narooma was my last minute overnighter, hastily arranged when I decided I was too tired and achy and old to camp. This at least meant plenty of room in the back for the bike, to burn off some of the cakes / ice cream / fish and chips via beautiful boardwalks.
Cognisant of Tuesday being a public holiday I was especially keen to feast on staples on the Monday lest everything be closed the next day. Setting out early meant perfect timing for coffee and a muffin in Mossy Point, enjoyed down on the public jetty. For the most part this was a picture-perfect setting for sipping and munching and soaking up the salty air, prior to the appearance of a wet dog keen to get in on some of the muffin action. I’m not sure if the remainder of my coffee comprised half dog seawater blend.
Next on the agenda after a morning coffee stop was lunch so really I needed to create at least a little time and exercise between the two. A diversion to Moruya Heads offered up a fine way to fill in the gap, taking in golden bays, tranquil lagoons and a blend of dilapidated shacks and multimillion dollar homes. This a scene practically replicated up and down the coast, including in the next town down, Tuross Head.
The Boatshed in Tuross Head caters for prince and pauper alike. While most people drive and park up for a spot of lunch, the more fabulous way would be to pull up in your boat while a member of staff hands out your seafood platter from the deck. If more people were doing this there may actually be somewhere to sit, but I contentedly took mine away anyway, around the corner and beside the lake. The one disappointment being the depletion of salt and pepper calamari from the menu. As I waited for mine to cook, piles of chips topped with calamari taunted me as they were delivered to happy people sitting on sunny tables.
I resolved to make amends with ice cream, filling the next gap between eats with a small but sometimes steep bike ride beside the Tuross beachfront. The ice cream came further down the road in Bodalla. An obligatory stop when anywhere slightly within the vicinity. It never fails to disappoint and I made the point of checking if they were open Anzac Day as well. Store that one in your back pocket.
With a heavier car I eventually make it to Narooma as the afternoon was heading into that moment of low light and lengthening shadows. Enough time to wander beside Wagonga Inlet as it twists its way towards Bar Beach and the small, hazardous outlet into the ocean. In the calmer waters, resident seals await patiently for leftovers from the fishing boats returning from the sea, or maybe to munch on dark chocolate digestives instead. Whatever floats your boat. And I think about the necessity of a light, leafy dinner.
While I missed the dawn services of Anzac Day, I arose early enough to sample the warming glow of a rising sun reflecting off the sea. With barely a breath it would’ve been inexcusable not to ride my bike along the waterways and Oceanside beaches up towards Dalmeny. And back again to Narooma where what I think is a fairly new cafe fulfilled my hopes for simple, waterfront coffee sips.
All that was left was to paddle in the ocean, lie on a beach, eat another ice cream and meet up with friends in Malua Bay before the journey home. Waiting for me there an unexpected delivery of flat pack furniture. Still flat and still packed, ready for that tremendous day when they can be assembled on a fake oak floor. Hoping to make it into the world without any more careless signatures – unless I need to anchor them to the wall.
There’s a folksy Australian song that rattles off numerous place names in rapid succession. You know the one, something like Tumbarumba Cootamundra Gooloogong Corryong Arawang Wee Waa etc etc. Macca will play it on his weird Sunday morning radio show, Australia All Over, in which Tony from Mungallala will tell us about the weather in western Queensland before an out-of-tune ukulele solo and some tips from Brenda of Bendigo on making a mint courtesy of franking credits while decimating the countryside in a f*ck off caravan. I sometimes tune in to keep my finger on the pulse.
I bring this to mind only because I feel like I have been living through that song during the first quarter of 2023. A less catchy but almost as infinite Phillip, Wallaroo, Grenfell, Crestwood, Queanbeyan, Nirimba, Lyons, Duffy. Like all good journeys it seems the final destination will also take me back to the beginning, a grande boucle finishing in Phillip. A few hundred metres from my old apartment. Just a matter of selling my soul to a hopefully solvent bank and one or two handshakes away.
Ah, handshakes eh. Remember how they were the norm? And then how a raccoon dog got sick and people thought we would never shake hands again, bewildering the Australian Liberal Party leader. And then we pretended the raccoon dog thing had gone and we went back to shaking hands again as well as not talking to our neighbours and not pickling vegetables and not walking an hour every single day? I tell you, I could live without those pesky handshakes.
For the sake of a good story I like to think it was a soul-selling handshake with a mortgage broker that not only meant my Australia All Over tour was destined to end but gave me the added bonus of COVID-19 on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Most people get a little cashback or a year of insurance with their mortgage. I got an illness that shattered my delusion at being one of the invincibles.
Frankly, this sucked given I was somewhere between Queanbeyan and Nirimba at the time and continued to see the Cs and Ts in Lyons and Duffy. And what of it? I can’t say it was ever too serious for me but it drags on like an episode of Vera and is just as sure to make me feel sleepy. It also has impeccable timing at emerging just at the time when I thought I might have a break away from everything.
Nirimba is also known as a part of Caloundra which is also known as a part of the Sunshine Coast which is also known as a part of Queensland. Needing a few weeks of fill-in accommodation why not spend a little of it on the Sunny Coast instead of, say, Queanbeyan? With the offer put out there, why not seek some payback for those domestique duties back in the rail trail days? Why not celebrate Canberra Day with that time worn custom of fleeing Canberra? I mean, it’s not like anything could go wrong.
Indeed, apart from the terrible option of a Red Rooster dinner off the G’day Bruce Highway, things started off fairly well. A dawn start down by the beach with coffee and a brekkie wrap. Yes, it was a bit dull – the Sunshine Coast doing its usual thing of lacking sunshine – and, yes, it was a bit too early given the backwardness of the time zone, but there were good, healthy, fresh air vibes. In the water, surfers lay as bait for sharks while landlubbers strode with purpose along the boardwalk before settling down to read about rugby players in the Courier Mail. Happy Valley life.
Later in the morning the activewear extravaganza continued as I took a mountain bike along the smooth bike paths of new suburbia and found an island of remnant forest. As islands go it was more of the Drake variety than, say, Greenland, a small reminder of how abundant this ecosystem once was before bulldozers and progress. Just a koala-less snippet enough to take a sexy bike photo and at least pretend this was deep in the heart of the wilderness. Before popping to the IGA.
Perhaps this was the turning point. On the way back, laden with sweet potatoes and a cauliflower, the gloom that had threatened all morning decided to unleash its saturating dampness. It wasn’t especially cold nor especially refreshing but a chore that made the short ride back bitter and infuriating. The only solace coming in brief moments imagining I was some Wouter Van Aert whizzing through the lanes of Flanders. And remembering that there was also an apple turnover being transported in my backpack.
What made me sick? Mortgage brokers, rain, apple turnovers, red roosters, plane flights or, perhaps in keeping with such things, a work planning day? I will never know but on Saturday things started to emerge. Unfortunately this came after a good two hours hard labour on a building site, sweeping up all sorts of dust while musing on the ostentatiousness of so much floor space. A smoko Beefy’s pie and slice of carrot cake wasn’t the only thing irritating my throat.
Do you know how many times I have shoved a swab up my nose and sometimes down my throat and watched as a bit of fluid rises up a small strip of paper on a cheap white plastic thing ironically made in China? You know that moment where the march upward reaches the T and you start to vision a line forming, convinced this time is the time, yet it proceeds up to C without a second thought? Well, the answer is I don’t know how many times that has happened to me, but at least plenty. In some ways it was a relief to finally see that T line glow bright and true, for at least there is a clear reason for how I am feeling. In other ways, my dreams of superhero status were dashed and I was stuck homeless and hopeless in Queensland.
I will not bore you with descriptions of too much sickness as surely we’ve all had enough of that to last a lifetime. In the end it was a blessing to be in Queensland yet also I longed for my own retreat, my own place of solace, my own bed, my own home. The blessing was that I had friends care for me and look out for me and even vacate their own home. I had a bedroom and a bathroom and a dose of warm, humid air when I wanted relief from air conditioning. I had Netflix and a domestique making me coffee, and two generous doggies to pat. I had taste and smell and, mostly, an appetite. Even if gathering treats from the IGA by bike was out of the question for a few days.
If only the home was closer to the beach. I would have gone on soothing strolls away from people, feeling the salty warmth of the ocean on my feet and shutting my eyes to absorb the rhythms of the surf. As it was I had the Dinosaur park and display homes to scrutinise, a sporting oval with distant views to the Glasshouse Mountains and, occasionally, the company of the dogs who will go absolutely bananas at the sense of any other dog in the neighbourhood. By day five, a trip to McDonalds was starting to sound like the most exciting thing to do, if I could make it.
But fast forward several days and it is back to the early morning beachside vibes of Happy Valley. This time, the morning sun is rising, shimmering off the mirror-like sinews of Pumicestone Passage. Surfers stroll down the steps with vigour into a golden glow. The water is gentle and soothing and delightfully warm. The air is still and the day is already on its way to becoming hot. I breathe it in as best I can, this bounteousness of ocean air. Just with a little regret at what could have been.
Now I enter the post-COVID era, superpowers extinguished. Really, how on earth did I last this long? It caps off what has been quite a rubbish start to 2023. All those place names might sound jaunty and adventuresome in a folk song but everyone could do with a place to hang their hat. A place to call their own. A place to mull over kitchen benchtop resurfacing and vinyl tiles and a new vanity. A place to put pictures on the wall, my pictures on a wall! Let the homeowner era finally begin*.
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 MainStreet 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.
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.
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.
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.
Devon. It feels far from ambrosial when hunting for chicken wings among the half-empty shelves of Lidl on Union Street. Outside, cars circle a small concrete plot as people embark on their quest to endure the least amount of walking possible. Further along the street, once grand facades appear sullen and decrepit, run down by time and indifference. Only pigeons call them home, foraging on the pickings of kebab spilling out like the desperation and menace exiting shady clubs in those dark, seedy hours.
Pan out from Union Street, across the shanty town of cash-in-hand workshops and inevitable vape shops and things will begin to change. Urban renewal they may call it or – worse – gentrification, as if in some way what had gone before was base and unworthy. Waterside apartments in Millbay, loft conversions in Stonehouse, renovated terraces in West Hoe. Far from the wages of a labourer or carer or teacher. But at least they can still afford a bag of chips and a round of crazy golf at West Hoe Park.
And Plymouth Hoe itself acts as a great leveller, a place where anyone can stroll, picnic, kick a ball, or gather in a cluster with several other yoof and create tiktoks. Old ladies may wild swim and Vodka Dave may dance and most people can get a coffee of bitter tears that may mercifully be saved with cake. The sun may shine and, sat beside the glistening water of Plymouth Sound, one may wonder if anything could really be that much finer. Especially when visible in the distance pockets of ambrosia await.
Immediately out of the city limits a web of narrow lanes burrow through trees and hedgerows to places like Heybrook Bay, Bovisand, Down Thomas and Wembury. Wembury is by far the largest of the lot, a virtual suburb of Plymouth renowned for its untamed beach and extortionate parking. Many Plymothians make the trip here but only tight arses like me park up in the village, content to embrace a longer, circular walk promising a different perspective.
I was heading past garden allotments and lone cottages once more towards the River Yealm. This is a river whose waters I have so many times witnessed from the other side. The side with lofty views atop the summit of Revelstoke Drive. The side with densely packed woodland cascading down to sea level. The side with a narrow lane leading to the charms of Noss Mayo and its creekside inns.
Hello from the other side. A similar world of bobbing boats and shingle shores, of dense thickets and a scattering of homes, sitting as neatly into the landscape as they do in my mind when it turns to an idyllic life of fantasy. You could summon a ferry out of nowhere to cross to the pub, but I’ll leave that for another time. And taste the caustic coffee beside Wembury Beach instead.
Not that the Ship Inn was to be bypassed altogether, an addendum for a sunny afternoon in a summer of sunny afternoons. A Friday beer o’clock escape, when you can briefly picture this as your local. Tribute and a pack of pork scratchings among the minions and the millionaires. All the time, the tide imperceptibly creeping in to imperil the cars of those from out of town.
When it comes to millionaires, you’d be hard pressed to encounter a denser population than on the streets of Salcombe. Well, not the streets per se but the grand designs surrounded by moats of lush exotics overlooking sparkling bays. And if not found on wooden deckchairs in the garden absorbed in the Daily Mail, the likelihood is of frequent sightings upon those opal waters below, sweater and chinos all aboard the MV Smug.
With some world-beating inflation in the UK, I could just about afford a millionaires shortbread from M&S. However I opted instead for a bag of Monster Munch left over from some far off Tesco meal deal. Still, with those pickled onion morsels come million dollar views, situated around the corner and down towards Soar Mill Cove. The coastline here is about as dramatic as it gets in South Devon, all ups and downs and ups again. The cove – in its sheltered enclave with raggedy rocky outcrops and see-through waters – a kind of mini Kynance. Only without the million dollar parking fees.
There are, of course, other priceless coves down this way. Conjuring the prospect of Friday night dinner down by the sea, I persuaded someone else to drive down the A379 for a change (thanks Steve). This came with the omnipresent soundtrack of my niece, Brooke, but at least afforded me the chance to be drawn into views of beautiful countryside, stone bridges, tunnels of trees and the wilds of upland Dartmoor in the distance.
We all disembarked at Hope Cove which seems caught somewhere between a rustic fishing village of lobster pots and an upmarket resort of eco-pods. For a while you can play at millionaire here too, taking a perch for some refreshment overlooking the bay. And the coast path is always free. Dinner, however, seems another prospect, with the few places around busy and focusing on menus of the hand-caught goujon of Start Bay Sea Bass served with a melange of Rosemary-flecked Kipfler potatoes and wild lemon-infused baby samphire variety. A pizza on the beach or something would’ve been nice.
So, feeling increasingly hangry, we shifted a few miles up the road to the biggest town around – Kingsbridge. To emphasise its size, Kingsbridge boasts a Tesco and a Morrisons, plus several pubs, restaurants and takeaways. We practically did a tour of them all, before ending back at the first place we saw next to the car park. Of course. But this was pretty close to the town square and quay, and we sat outside alongside summer holiday vibes and terrific weather. The only downer was the early closure of the Salcombe Dairy Ice Cream booth. Off home to count their millions.
I did eventually manage to ingest some Salcombe Dairy at a predictably inflationary price. It came as icing on top of a final Devon cake of a day. A concoction that is so wonderful and blessed but tinged with a background air of melancholy that comes with imminent farewell. For once, the goal wasn’t really to gorge on cake, just the icing on top.
There were cakey temptations at Heron Valley Cider Farm, where it was too early for a cider but perfectly suitable for a coffee. Signs that I had been here for two months were starting to show in the agreeableness of the coffee, an agreeableness that was only usurped by the luscious setting. What is it again? Green, green grass, blue, blue sky? Thank you Heart, as continually always two months on.
Now, normally finding myself with Mum in such a location around eleven o’clock in the morning I would feel obliged to support local business by purchasing one of the many slices and treats arranged on the counter. Mum would murmur things like “oh I probably shouldn’t” and then we’d look at each other with a knowing glance that I would quickly succumb. “Oh sod it, I’m on holiday” I would say, mildly aware that it’s not the best idea when it’s a two month holiday.
Yet today, of all days, I was steadfast. A coffee was enough. But before I pat myself on the back too much, it’s only because lunch was a mere matter of miles down the road.
Farm shops can be funny affairs. In the golden days before Google you would turn up never quite sure whether you’d encounter a smorgasbord of local delights or a few cartons of mismatched eggs next to a pile of withered green beans. Nowadays, the more savvy enterprises promote their wares with funky Instagram stories and filtered Facebook posts.
So I knew beforehand that as well as eggs and green beans and no doubt meat, Aune Valley Meat, just outside of Loddiswell, advertised a hog roast bap in their Valley View Café. I would usually bemoan the strict ordering times and a lengthy wait but this just served to amplify pangs of hunger to the point of drool. And when the food eventually arrives upon its wooden board (oh dear), salivation soon becomes salvation.
Like Beaufort in Beaufort and Pizza in a Piazza, that additional ten percent elevating the taste all comes from the terroir. Those lush, bounteous hills of the South Hams that – thankfully – are not dotted with potential future hams. At least not from our vantage. The Devon flag flutters, the tractors make hay, the tourist caravans tentatively inch past towards their constricted destiny.
Moving south, the terroir of the sea tends to induce thoughts of fish and chips and ice cream. Given the scale of lunch, the fish and chips are quickly ruled out, but perhaps there can be an ice cream in the offing. First, some recovery on the beach at Thurlestone, where crystal waters once again tempt with Caribbean vibes. Caribbean in colour only.
Unwilling to freeze in the ocean for long, I hotfoot it along the coast path. That enduring friend who I shall miss as much as anything. It takes me past Thurlestone Golf Course, adding the hazard of wayward balls to the potential to stumble off a hundred foot cliffs. Looking west, I see the distinctive mount of Burgh Island and, further still, the entrance into Plymouth Sound. Rame Head, Cornwall sticks out beyond. But let us not speak of Cornwall here.
In the other Devon direction lies Hope Cove, Bolt Tail and then Salcombe. I discover their dairy ice cream has made it this way, just along from Thurlestone at South Milton Sands. But its arrival is only in tubs and only in the most preposterous National Trust café I have ever come across. For here, not scones and jam nor crisps and sandwiches. But alcoholic drinks and a DJ. This is what happens when Boris Johnson becomes PM, I tell you. Not that he was actually doing much at the time, but nobody seemed to notice.
Boris and Carrie might have been there as the tunes began to bang and the bouncers evicted non-patrons from the wooden tables outside. It seemed that kind of place. Locals need not apply, except between the months of September and May. Just stick to the farms, thank you very much.
The hog roast roll at Valley View Farm felt a long way from a chicken wing hunt in the heart of Union Street. But wondrously they really aren’t so far apart. And that is probably why the people of Plymouth – unbeknownst to many of them – find themselves in one of the most fortunate locations in the UK.
I thought I was done with Devon with that final day out, but an uplifting Saturday morning and a spare hour encouraged me to see the sea here one more time. I whizzed through Plymstock and around Staddon Heights to Bovisand. Here, warm sunshine beamed down upon a grassy bank as I lingered over another agreeable coffee. A couple of small, sheltered coves welcomed a handful of bathers and boarders who were welcoming the weekend. Life was as sweet as Ambrosia Devon Custard.
It felt like we were here in a forever summer and none of us wanted it to end. Could not every morning be as agreeable as this? Can we not just press pause and dwell in this unreal reality? But time and tide move on, seasons shift, people come and people go. And I had to get back to Plymouth one last time to barbecue those bloody chicken wings.
gbpilgrim 