A lady walking along a coastal path
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Influential

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

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

So off we go, again…

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

A calm cove with pink flowers in the foreground

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

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

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

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

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

A view of coastline and green hills through the trees

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

A picturesque harbour with cottages and boats

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

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

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

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

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

A sinewy harbour in a narrow valley

Coastal plants with a bridge and rocks in the background

A dramatic island linked to the coastline by a suspension bridge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A person with arms raised in the middle of nowhere
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Cracking

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

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

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

A brown sea next to a promenade

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

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

Green fields, dry stone walls, and dark barren hills

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

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

A wide viaduct with a train crossing into low clouds

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

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

Several gurning plasticine fools

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

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

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

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

High mountains above a narrow green valley dotted with cows

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

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

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

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

A lady looking out over a large lake

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

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

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

Ice cream, butterflies and bees

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pastoral scenes of farmhouses, fields and hills

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

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

Tea, scones and a waterfall

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

I come from a land down chunder

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

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

Sheepdogs, farmer, sheep

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

A road winding down into a valley from a high mountain pass
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The size of seagulls

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

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

A red and white lighthouse with a sunset

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

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

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

Some hills in fog

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

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

Barren moorland under blue skies

Views of green countryside with ponies in the foreground

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

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

A lady in a football stadium

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

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

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

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

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

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

A village of cottages beside a creek

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

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

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A tale of two valleys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We need to talk about Devon

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.

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English salad

The glow of the sun kissed my face, smoothing weary creases and tired eyes. I stretched my legs free, unfurled my arms and breathed in air unguarded. A salty, doughy morsel touched my lips, comforting and contented, filling a roiling void somewhere in my stomach. And then I took a sup on a coffee from Pret and came down to earth. With a bump.

Not for the first time today, meeting Great British tarmac at Heathrow Airport. A concrete scene which diminishes with miles, through the leafiness of Surrey, the crops and commuter towns of Hampshire, the river valleys and chalky plains of Wiltshire. The proportion of sunshine to concrete proves related, as cool, cloudy skies greet me in Salisbury, alongside Dad.

To leave Australia at this point in time seems fortuitous given the dreadful weather before I left. And here we have a UK bathing in the after effects of a jubilee, a promise of summer to clutch on to as you avert your eyes from the petrol pump. A summer of pretending a pandemic has gone, crowds feasting on fresh salads with iceberg cheap and plentiful. Not that I’ll be overdosing on salad.

Every return I make I am struck by the burgeoning salad of the English countryside, even though this time I left an oddly verdant Australia. Wiltshire presents the kind of gentle introduction I need, an ease in to a Britain that is still to be treasured for its tranquil waterways, butterflied meadows and rolling downs. A Britain of bunting and thatch and country piles interspersed with the odd pocket of chaviness. This Country indeed.

Ably guided by Dad it is splendid what you can simply embrace within a small radius of Durrington. The River Avon never seems far away and a small stretch is but a mere five minutes walk from home. The background buzz of mowers competes with the chirping of the bird life. Around each corner lies the possibility of catching a kingfisher in flight or an amorous couple in fright, each as frisky as the other. A melange of nettles, weeds and grasses rise to a height in which other things no doubt hide. But blessedly not so many snakes.

A greater danger around here seems to be the prospect of emerging from the long grass to face a head-on confrontation with a tank. The armed forces war-gaming upon Salisbury Plain makes walking a slightly more interesting proposition. For centuries these have been venues of military endeavour, evident in the many iron-age hill forts punctuating the landscape. Obvious staging posts with expansive views out to marauding invaders.

Today Sidbury Hill is a quieter affair, though two men in combats linger beside a Land Rover near the top. I can’t decide if they were discussing the strategic ramifications of ground assault in Donbas or eating lunch. Dad and I ate lunch, looking out for butterflies.

The plain isn’t all that plain, and an impromptu detour on the way down the hill takes us through a patch of woodland. Fresh off a plane I remind myself to look up into the canopy at the shapes of the leaves, broad and green, forming into layers which intertwine their way towards the sky. Leaving hobbit-like tunnels and corridors of natural art through which to stroll.

There is little strolling for the squaddies however. We encounter backpack-laden platoons traversing water and nettles and unbearable banter during another walk over the plain and down alongside the Avon. It is, almost, tolerable shorts weather but I’m glad I didn’t succumb given the undergrowth to navigate. Not quite squaddie style, but a little track-hunting through the long grass nonetheless.

Nature infiltrates everything here but so too is it tamed. That could be a slogan for Wiltshire, the taming often coming in the form of genteel cottages clustered together in the midst of industrious fields. It frequently makes you feel as though you are in Escape To The Country, only without the two million quid on which to prevaricate.

Our own escape in the country culminated with a flurry of thatch in the small hamlet of Ablington. Here it was as if everything had been deliberately arranged for my convenience. Under sunny skies dotted with cotton wool clouds, a row of whitewashed cottages sit higgledy-piggledy along the lane. Gardens and window boxes pop with colour, hedgerows hum with insects, and glimpses of perfectly manicured lawn conjure images of scones and jam on a latticework table. A Union Jack waves proud, and underneath a Mini in racing green. And everywhere, rambling, decadent, undeniable English salad.

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Still well

Freedom. We hear much about its supposed decline. Personally, I’d quite appreciate the freedom not to be exposed to a bunch of conspiracy nutjobs freely protesting about their lack of freedom and flaunting their undeniable individuality through exemplary selfishness. The freedom not to have my head done in.

Sometimes you just want to say “oh f*ck off” and sometimes I do just that when a news story about freedumb fighters forcing cancellation of a charity book fair or abusing a masked-up pensioner or accosting a sixteen year old in a supermarket trying to support the safety of the community gets an airing on the radio. Seriously fuck right off you fucking freeloading fuckwits. Excuse the language but free speech and all that yeah.

At other times it would be nice just to get away from it all, lose radio reception, lose phone signal, lose the presence of moronic people. A solace fairly easily achieved on a comfortable drive down to Kosciuszko National Park and then via your own two feet. Nature, fresh air, rugged wilderness, freedom from freedom.

On the pursuit of freedom I’ve been finding appeal in the idea of multi-day walks of late (or bike rides). Admittedly most of that appeal gravitates towards the South West Coast Path or the Hadrian’s Wall Path or the Cleveland Way or any other number of routes traversed by Portillo, Humble, Green, Reeve, Robinson et al. and delivered to me via the SBS evening schedule. The kind of walk where you can stop after a mile for tea and cake, pushing on for a lunchtime pasty before reaching a quaint coastal village for a pint, feed and cosy room for the night.

Thanks largely to its wildness and locking up of much of the land, such walking experiences are harder to find in Australia. Instead, multi-day hikes are more intrepid affairs requiring the portage of camping gear and emergency beacons and snake bite kits. I would probably quite like these too, if I had a Sherpa. Many people head into Kosciuszko to do as much, and the cars parked at the trail head in Guthega on a Friday indicate some are out there now.

I too park my car up to join the Illawong Walk, slightly anxious about leaving my new second-hand toy overnight. My backpack too is full, but compact in size. Mostly it contains a change of clothes and extra layers and, of course, a flask of tea and accompanying treat from a Jindabyne bakery. Passing the upper stretches of Guthega Dam, through herbaceous meadows and spiky wildflowers, it doesn’t take long to reach the suspension bridge across the Snowy River. An opportune spot for tea and cake already.

I had first come here almost a year to the day. Back then it was warmer and glowing, a delightful surprise full of sunshine, vanilla-honey aromas and Sound of Music earworms*. At the bridge I noticed a new track under construction. Destined for Charlotte Pass. And one year later it is clear. It is free. It leads – sort of – to a hotel.

And so the walk continues to follow the Snowy as it meanders through open valleys and rising hills ever nearer to its source. While at times the vistas are expansive, at others the experience feels enclosed, contained, inching through tunnels of achingly beautiful and impossibly smooth snow gum. Alpine flowers form in clusters of white and yellow and pink. From near and far, the crystal waters of the river alternate between wide, placid pools and frenetic ribbons of white.

The walking is good and never especially steep, with much of the route marked by a metal walkway elevated from the ground to protect the rare and fragile environment underneath. Its newness is clear and sometimes you feel as if you are the first to tread its course. There are other people testing it out, but even these are few and far between.

Closer to Charlotte Pass people become a more common occurrence as the trail intersects with the Main Range circuit. More familiar views open up, from the stepping stones across the river to the outline of the trail weaving upwards towards Blue Lake and Mount Carruthers. One of these rounded humps is Mount Kosciuszko itself, so indistinct and underwhelming as the nation’s highest summit. But this is still a lumpy topography, something I am reminded of once again in that arduous push up to the parking area at Charlotte Pass.

Charlotte Pass village is nothing more than a cluster of ski lodges and cabins which are no doubt a lot more abuzz in winter. It’s another kilometre or two down the road, a fairly uninspiring drag that will be worse in the morning when walking in reverse. At the road junction down to the village a truck displays a massive red billboard promoting food, drinks and coffee. The one and only thing open.

This is the Stillwell Hotel and it also has beds for the night. It becomes clear pretty quickly that I am the only guest. I find it strange and sad that these places are so dead in summer, given the access to many walking routes and biking opportunities and extreme running and perhaps some fishing and possibly just a lovely picnic amongst the wildflowers. Still, at least there is something open (this is an improvement on past years) and there is food and drink being served. For me, a pizza overburdened with cheese will hit the mark, and provide catering for lunch tomorrow.

I theorised I could make this a proper multi-day walk by heading to Thredbo the next day, stopping over at another inn for the night. But there wasn’t much room, Thredbo now the mountain biking mecca and hosting some x-games rad-fest over the weekend. Instead, my hiking adventure merely involved a walk back to the car along the same route. Still, there are new perspectives to be had from a different angle.

Not that I could see the next morning, negotiating the incessant upward angle to the end of the road high in the clouds. Mist and drizzle swept into the valley, adding to the bleakness of Charlotte Pass village and its Stephen King feels. I decked myself out in every layer I owned, hood pulled up and wedged tight by a hat. A few cars passed as I lumbered my way toward the parking area, and I wondered if they thought I was some intrepid adventurer and / or serial killer.

Many, many cars are parked here and it is interesting to see how many days they have booked to be in the national park. Expiry dates on windscreens provide entertainment in the mist and you wonder how those people with three days left are going out in the wild. Other people are just here for the day, and a few gaggles embark optimistically for the lofty summits somewhere out there.

They should be fine. As I re-join the trail back to Guthega the clouds are starting to break up and passing glimpses of hillside and snow-dotted summit provide hope. The dour, swirling air seems to accentuate the beauty of the snow gums and the fragrant shrubs and the pin pricks of delicate flowers scattered among them. Small spider webs are bejewelled by the rain. The river sounds closer and reassuring, a clarion call to guide through the grey.

With a gradual descent the clouds rise and there are pockets of blue sky ahead. A series of summits are illuminated bright, bare hills erupting in shattered outcrops of rock. There is a sense of Dartmoor at times, and in other places a sense of Wales. But no refreshments in a cosy teashop a mile away.

Instead I have my flask and a big bar of KitKat, though it took some time to locate a suitable rock to sit on for morning tea. Further on, past the suspension bridge and close to the car, I finish up the pizza. By now, there are many more people setting out on a Saturday, lugging hefty backpacks with rolls of canvas and sleeping bags and kitchen utensils. Seeking their own freedom.

I am unsure why the final half a kilometre of a long walk always involves a ridiculous uphill drag. I probably could have parked closer. But I am pleased to see my car there, and pleased to see that it opens and starts. Now I am free to drive and free to stop in Jindabyne again and free to fill up with the very opposite of free petrol. Freely cruising up the Monaro and back to my home in Canberra, free of vaccine mandates and usually free of morons. Until they arrive from elsewhere. Both sitting in the nation’s parliament and camping at Exhibition Park. Strangely doing, pretty much, whatever they like.

* current earworm: Hasselhoff. Freedom. Oh, you too?

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Under the shadows

And so, that year that everyone was so looking forward to when it commenced draws to a close. If the sequels to 2020 continue to pan out like the Police Academy series then we are all in for a very unamusing time. Unless you’re really into these boorish characters, crass jokes and ridiculous plotlines.

Despite its ups and downs, I was surprised to be able to find myself for a couple of weeks at the latter part of 2021 in the United Kingdom. So thank you lax borders and frequent flyer points and negative lateral flow tests and annual leave build up and, most of all, thank you science. It was a bonus trip, taken with a wariness that things could so easily change again and again.

It was amazing and I would do it all over again. This, despite the shadow of coronavirus always lurking in the background, sometimes coming to the fore. At times – such as high upon a clifftop overlooking the Atlantic, roaring with laughter during an early Christmas gathering, scouring verdant countryside for lens hoods – the pandemic disappeared altogether. At others – shopping for cards in an almighty hurry, shoving swabs up my nose, double-masking when others breathe “freedom” – it was all that was going on.

The journey back to Australia is never really a good one and pandemic travel adds an extra layer of crap. Which is exactly what was lathered all over my hands from a Great Western Railway dispenser at Plymouth station. Awaiting a train to Exeter masks were – mostly – back in fashion but no-one was rocking the dual surgical-cloth combo quite like me.

Eschewing my reserved seat for a quieter clump further down the carriage, it was a peaceful journey twisting through the ambrosia of South Devon. Along the Teign the low winter sun inched into the sky and flickered golden upon the caps of gentle waves as we wound towards Dawlish. A silhouette upon the beach swiftly passed by and I felt a yearning to swap places.

At Exeter a breath of fresh air before trundling on through a litany of country villages and towns straight out of Wessex – Whimple, Sherborne, Templecombe, Tisbury, and then finally Salisbury. For a meeting with Dad, a bakery and – yes – a PCR test.

At £99 (AU$200) I was expecting a gold plated swab and free lollipop, not a tiny pharmacy offering a ten second poke up the nose. Oh well, hopefully it will get me on a plane to Australia within the mandatory 72 hours. Hopefully.

I stayed with Dad and Sonia for a couple of days, happily partaking in Tartiflette traditions and Saturday night quiz shows. The main activity was a delightful Wiltshire walk around the Vale of Pewsey, that ultimate pre-departure injection of countryside England, of green and pleasant, of great outdoors. Of surprising blue skies masking a chill winter wind.

Much of the route took us along the top of a characteristic chalk down, plunging curvaceously into rich, bounteous farming country. Beyond far-reaching vistas over loveliness, memorable features included a white horse, old burial mounds, brambles, crawling through gaps in a fence and slipping in cow-trodden mud. Oh and did I mention the Belgian Bun? Should’ve brought a flask though.

Despite blue skies, winter finally touched me with its bone-chilling menace. This occurred right about the time Dad lost a lens hood. Buffeted by the arctic, layered up with everything I had, unable to feel my nose. What the bloody hell am I doing? My mind switching to Australia.

It is quite feasible that some people in Pewsey felt that I should have stayed put in Australia. I dunno, spending my Dad’s money in their out-of-the-way town on instant hot chocolate. And while I can appreciate perspectives on non-existent pandemic control at the borders, I couldn’t help but feel this was borne from a place of zero foreigners whatsoever. Perhaps, Little Britain style, a deluge of vomit ensued after my revelation that I was over here from Australia.

Not that anyone appeared to be really minding a pandemic the next day at Honeystreet Mill. Full tables feasting on bacon and eggs and sausages and beans and mushrooms and toast, emanating vapours with every loud voice and legume fart. I had come here with cake in mind, but it was hard to look past English bacon and sausages and HP sauce one last time. And besides, they do take away.

And so, packing cake, the journey continues onto that great city of London, steeped in drenching drizzle. It was a scaled-back visit in keeping with the times: one night only in a Paddington hotel, enabling an early start to the airport the next day. The hotel was everything you would expect of a Paddington terrace: behind the elegant façade, a labyrinthine warren of creaking floors and random stairs and polite notices. Washing muddy shoes in the shower wasn’t one of them.

For the remains of the day I endeavoured to make two brief encounters. This necessitated an adventure ride on the Underground to get to North London. From Edgware Road I hopped on the Circle Line which in my experience has always been a voyage that never seems to go anywhere in a hurry. On the plus side – I reasoned – it’s a subterranean affair, with opportunities for fresh air to mingle as you wait for no good reason at Baker Street. Occupying time, mask-counting is the new Metro-reading, and I would say an average of six and a half out of ten managed to comply on the Circle Line.

From Kings Cross I hopped onto the deeper, murkier Northern Line once more. Here I positioned myself by the windows at the end of a carriage to allow that sooty centuries-old air to take on my twin mask protection. I guess there are probably traces of the Spanish flu down here, along with Churchill’s cigar smoke and aromas from a Wimpy burger.

Maybe I just got lucky, but it was quiet, with mask-wearing approaching nine out of ten heading to those affluent, sensible suburbs of the north. The emerging light after Highgate never fails to bring relief, despite having done this trip hundreds upon hundreds of times in the past. And soon, at East Finchley, I hopped off into the late afternoon air.

The skies had brightened a little, prior to their disappearance into night. Cognisant of being on an aeroplane for days, I was keen to walk and talk with Caroline, aided by the thoughtful and cherished gift of some M&S chocolate biscuits. Through Cherry Tree Wood I remarked how I vaguely remembered walking this way once to Muswell Hill and lo and behold after not having a clue where we were heading we ended up in Muswell Hill. From there it wouldn’t have been so far to the Ally Pally but the drizzle set in once again and the pub sounded a better prospect.

Despite all the ridiculous nonsense spouted about freedom days and the sanctity of pubs from our self-styled post-war yearning libertarian warriors I rather enjoyed my two pints in the pub with an old friend. It just felt, well, normal. Like old days, like old lives. Yes we had our masks at the ready and sat far from the smattering of patrons, but it was almost as if a pandemic didn’t exist. Despite talking for 80% of the time about the bloody pandemic. I guess the alcohol maybe went to my head, but I remember that hour with much fondness.

I also remember dinner with much fondness, again propped up by a glass or two of wine and the company of more old friends. It was all too brief with Melita and Geoff and Orla and how I yearned to just linger and crash on the sofa and get up the next morning to walk to Victoria Park or up to North Finchley Sainsbury’s for hummus, edamame and more wine. The hope is for this sometime in 2022…

The final day of 2021 finds me sat writing this under a shady tree beside a lakeside bay in Canberra, Australia. A few families are scattered upon what counts for a beach, while a fluoro-white cockatoo shrieks from somewhere within a tall eucalyptus. Nursing me along, I managed to find one of the few coffee shops open – an Omicron lover’s dream – to pick up a takeaway. Accompanying shortbread comes courtesy of M&S at Terminal 3 of Heathrow. I had a lot of time at Terminal 3.

But I made it. After a PCR test, a cancelled flight, an airport hotel with buffet food, early coach pick-ups with whinging people, a nonstop coughing, nose-blowing man, Darwin, Sydney, driving down the highway to Canberra, three days of home quarantine followed by another bonus four, two more PCR tests and about six lateral flows. Horrible jet lag and a tired achy feeling that just wants to linger. Delights at being back and some disappointments. It was worth it all.

For the duration of my flight I was sat next to a well-masked older lady who was off to Sydney to see her son, his partner, and their son. A boy born under the shadow of COVID-19. This was her third attempt and I shouldn’t have been surprised at the obscenities flowing from her mouth at the first aborted take off. She just wanted to see her grandson for the very first time.

For ourselves and for others. This is why we do it and would do it all again. All the time holding on to the hope in our hearts that some sequels are better than the original.

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‘Twas four weeks before Christmas

Is December 25 any more than an arbitrary date? That one day where it was decided the shops would be shut and we should horde food as if the end of the world was nigh (possibly true). That one day when we all pretend to love Brussels sprouts and Christmas pudding. That one day when instead of miserable news on the radio in the morning, there is earnest preaching and high-pitched singing about miraculous events from afar. That one day when we are supposed to gather with loved ones. That one day to share things before the next lockdown.

I will happily oblige in the festivity and jolliness of December 25 and even tolerate a few Brussels sprouts as long as there is enough gravy to mask their evil. I shall do so again this year, perhaps taking in a prawn or two and a glass of chilled wine as I sweat profusely under a thirty degree sun. It should be pleasant enough, but in reality I feel like I have had my Christmas Day in 2021 already.

To be frank, by time it reaches November 28 in the UK it feels like you should all bloody well have had your Christmas Day by now! For weeks beforehand, the same five Christmas songs have been playing ad infinitum on Heart. Soft toy carrots have been flying out the doors of Aldi. Christmas lights from Poundland sparkle and shimmer outside every three or four houses as you drive down the street. Shopping is madness and the insanity of retail staff bombarded by Christmas music is plain to see.

Besides, the Christmas Day of November 28 2021 was one of the most magical in years. It was a day that dawned crisp and clear in the little town of Plymouth. All was calm. All was bright. While magical mother elves stayed at home to prepare a feast, I set off across the rolling green fields of South Devon. Follow the car. It stopped initially in some free parking alongside the river in Dartmouth. For a coffee before getting going, out onto the infinite gift that is the South West Coast Path.

It is here that I need to bring in a fictional character who wears bright clothes, often bellows with much jollity and possibly keeps a list of good and naughty children in a little red book. Naturally, I always thought of Michael Portillo as a bit of a posh tory twerp. But in his reinvention as doyen of trains and intrepid traveller who displays surprising warmth and rapport with the people he comes across, he is – well – incredibly likeable.

During the latter half of the year in Australia a show came on which was – for me at least – dream lockdown viewing (naturally it was on SBS). Michael Portillo going on a walk along the South West Coast Path. It was a bit of a departure from train japes Michael. A COVID-era Michael, who was wistful and introspective and possessing of fewer lime green jackets. It was simply a guy going for a walk along the most beautiful path in the world. On my country.

I remember an episode that commenced at Start Point and finished on the edge of Dartmouth, and the scenes on my walk today followed a small part of the same route. I set off from a car park at a spot called Little Dartmouth, quickly connecting to the coast path. There was an unmatched tranquillity about today, from the placid blue of the sea to the gentle undulations of the fields. Occasional sail boats emerged out of the Dart. Cows grazed contentedly. Robins flitted and chirped unseen among the browned hedges and trees.

After a delectable snack on a delectable bench overlooking serenity, the path soon led to Michael’s massive pole – a signpost at a junction ensuring everyone is kept on track. Only weirdoes like me would give this a second glance, but the signpost boasts a unique feature – installed by M.P. 2021. In locked down Canberra, taking comfort sharing in Michael’s frequent torment (somehow, a pleasant walk on a gorgeous coast path is way outside of his Kensington & Chelsea comfort zone), I thought there would be something fitting about making the pilgrimage to this spot. In many ways, it was still unbelievable that I could be here, just a few weeks on.

Anyway, no camera crews and gold-plated chauffeur driven cars for me, I must trudge on. Before long the path turns from the sea and follows the Dart estuary. Here, the other main motive for my walk today emerges – Dartmouth Castle and, more specifically, the presence of a café. I opt for the safety of a cup of tea and pick up some form of caramel and chocolate and biscuit. Many others are doing the same, sat outside overlooking the river from a generous array of benches. Attracted by my crumbs, a robin comes to offer company. And I am reminded how I shouldn’t eat too much and ruin my dinner.

Luckily, there is a fair chance to walk off some of the food with a steep climb up to Gallants Bower, an old hill fort offering lofty views back towards Dartmouth and, of course, out to sea. With this effort and the still sparkling afternoon sunshine I am actually starting to feel quite warm. For what I believe was the only time outdoors on this trip, I peel down to just a jumper.

I should get a move on for a date with another jumper though. Whenever the last time I was here during Christmas (maybe 2015?), I was lovingly gifted a Christmas jumper. It’s not the kind of thing that suits Australia and so it has sat gathering that musty smell in a drawer in a small room in Plymouth. In many ways I am surprised it is getting more than the one use, thankful that it is allowing me to fit in with the other elves who assemble for our Christmas dinner.

Roast pork and potatoes and parsnips. Veggies and stuffing and gravy. Pigs in blankets with crappy crackers and paper hats. That warm, rosy feeling of bodies crammed in a small space accompanying wine and noise and condensation on the windows. The lights, the very many sparkling lights. Secret Santa presents adding to the complexities of fitting everything in a suitcase. Funny quizzes and roaring, unstoppable, contagious laughter. Comfort and joy and belonging, providing culmination to a Most Perfect day which has been so long, too long, in coming. The gift of family and home. Merry November 28.

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About town

A part of me was dreading going into Plymouth City Centre. The goal: obtain cheap greeting cards, find a secret Santa present and see if I can pick up any of those free tests for the covids. Entering Card Factory double-masked felt every bit the gauntlet run, as old dears shuffled slowly through the narrow aisle, perusing every single Christmas card for every single family member. I swiftly picked up a box of impersonal festive cards, another random selection of five for a quid, and – unfortunately in haste – a birthday card for a non-existent sister-in-law. Meanwhile, my secret Santa exceeded the five pound limit, an extra two pounds worth it for the relief of not venturing into multiple stores rubbing up against bare faced contaminants.

The fresh air, ah the fresh air. Unfortunately it is also quite dull air as I reserve such conditions for trips to town, rather than waste good sunshine on Primark and Costa. This means the view from Plymouth Hoe today is rather monotone. The red of Smeaton’s Tower is subdued, while the placid water of the Sound passes a blur of Drake’s Island as it meets a similar shaded horizon.

By time I reach the Barbican, the gloom lifts a little and I feel in the mood for a coffee on the quay. Nearby Boston Tea Party offers potential for something half-decent but ends up with me confronting the prospect of sitting inside for a whole five minutes. It’s something to do with the worthy cause of not using takeaway cups. Never have I drunk an average latte in such rapid a time.

It’s kind of nice to wander Plymouth, even though it feels as if I am skimming through. As I pass, people continue to vape like there is no tomorrow (or airborne virus), queue along Royal Parade for a Citybus home, arrive en masse at Poundland. There are new things and old things and things which have simply changed their position. New things like ‘The Barcode’ and ‘The Box’ – while hardly inspiring in name – at least offer the sense of a city progressing. Old things either decay with neglect or prosper in their complex history.

One thing unchanged for a while are the two bridges crossing the River Tamar. I head to these later on the same day hoping for some kind of repeat of a previous sunset. I was intending to view proceedings from the Devon side but inadvertently get stuck crossing the road bridge and end up in Cornwall. While this provides a touch of charm down by the river in Saltash, I am fuming inside at the prospect of paying two pounds toll on the way back. I walk over to Devon nonetheless, and back to Cornwall again, as the daylight fades.

From this lofty vantage I can see further down the Tamar as it passes the Dockyard and enters the Sound. It is around there that Devil’s Point and the adjoining Royal William Yard provide a pleasant outlet from city noise and grime. I find myself in that vicinity the next morning, the gloom having well and truly lifted to a blue sky day. Being November, a chill remains in the hard stone buildings and shady wind tunnels of the Yard. Better seek the sea for reflection of warmth.

Nearby, Firestone Bay has risen in prominence thanks to the growth of wild swimming, visiting wildlife and posing figures on Instagram. I take time for a coffee and delicious slice of some kind here; these slices always propel the quality of the coffee in my memory. It’s only then that I notice the latest resident seal, chilling out on the shingle as the odd swimmer and paddleboarder lathers up. Calm and sparkling, it feels a long way from the city, and the congested aisles of Card Factory.

This is the Plymouth I could see myself in, the one where it is eternally sunny and I am literally strolling around beside the ocean with a decent coffee without having to work or shop for cut-price greeting cards. It is an unattainable Plymouth in reality, only appearing in these brief snippets of circumstance and good fortune. In such fleeting passage, they are of a Plymouth to treasure and remember. And to hope for in time again.

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Off track

Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t say I’m especially fond of a cracked phone screen on top of a magpie attack on top of an earthquake on top of a lockdown on top of a pandemic. Served up with a hearty dollop of impending nuclear Armageddon intersecting with blistering fire and dust super tornados. No, Wednesday you didn’t particularly rock my world.

Frankly, out of all those, the bloody magpie irks me the most. How dare you take away the satisfaction and soothing of my allotted outdoor exercise time in lovely spring sunshine. And mean another pathway is added to the blacklist. The pathways are busy enough as they are with all these people in various states of mask undress discovering pathways for the very first time. Why don’t you attack them, stupid magpie? Oh, that’s right, you remember me, but yet conveniently you don’t remember how I have never once tried to steal your babies in all those years, you bloody shit.

If there is any positive, the magpie at least adds a bit of frisson to another daily outing in the same part of suburbia. Six weeks in, the confines of living within a vague radius or region are starting to grate. There are only so many times – for instance – you can wander upon Red Hill without getting weary of the same route. On the most recent occasion, I found myself annoyed with an endless procession of joggers and dogs not on leads and family gatherings. Eroding the sensations usually associated with an escape to and immersion in nature. Sounds, sights, space shrinking.

An actual problem looking for a solution, I find myself more often than not heading off track. A little out of the way. Not exactly bush-bashing, more weaving between weeds. There are still a few spots in which to escape around the Woden zone. I probably shouldn’t share them here but figure a readership of six people – many of whom are not in Canberra – is not going to cause a sudden ruination of my life. If it does, I’ll know who to blame. And set that magpie upon you…

The Old Mugga Mugga Way

If Red Hill is akin to Fitness First every goddam afternoon, Mount Mugga Mugga Reserve is more like that rusty bench press underneath a pile of boxes at the back of the garage. Fringing the weirdness of O’Malley, it seems the varied diplomats and consuls who inhabit the area rarely go out to exercise. Perhaps like most aliens they have been cowed by those great tales of deadly inhabitants of the Australian bush. Preferring the safety and comfort of their own little piece of soil.

The Centenary Trail runs through the reserve and introduced me to the area back in the good old days of 2020. A few people still come and go along this thoroughfare but it’s simple to veer off onto a number of faint tracks and choose your own adventure. The landscape is a very Canberra mix of weedy incursions and precious Yellow Box-Blakely’s Red Gum grassy woodland, replete with gnarly old eucalypts and their generous, homely hollows.

One particular tree has fallen, and I have taken to it on several occasions to perch and drink tea from a flask and eat a treat and watch Gang-gangs fly past while kangaroos graze and deadly inhabitants of the Australian bush lurk in the crevices of the fallen tree on which I am sat.

The whole flask of tea thing has become another more frequent happening in my life in recent weeks; I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it much before. Perhaps I simply wasn’t quite of an age. But pandemics and magpie attacks have a way of adding on the years, transforming a simple flask of tea in the middle of the bush into something that feels much more precious.

Isaacs Off Piste Ridge

Mount Mugga Mugga itself is scarred by a quarry and the summit appears fenced off, thus remaining that rare Canberra hill not trampled upon by my own two feet. Yet it’s just one lump in a broad range extending from Red Hill south towards the Tuggeranong Valley. Adjoining Mugga Mugga, Isaacs Ridge proves popular for its pine trails and dog walks and boasts an archetypal trig marker summit loop with 360 degree views.

That all sounds a bit mainstream for me at the moment, so I veer off the fine balcony trail lapping at the foot of the ridge and decide to head up cross country. There is a very faint track at first, which slowly blends into a landscape of open grassland and rocky scrub. Over a false summit, a field of thistly plants remains quelled by winter – give it a month or two and the going will come with greater hazard. A random copse of casuarina appears as if some long-forgotten scientific experiment, offering a landmark to follow slowly upwards to the top of the ridge. And lo and behold, a photogenic gum tree, with some fallen logs for a rest (and possible tea).

From here, there are views east to that far off land of New South Wales. There is countryside and Mugga Lane and quarrying work and possibly even just a little part of the tip. But mostly it’s countryside. There is also the white trig marker visible to the south, acting as a beacon to aim for, navigating the rocky boulders and grasses of the ridge and returning to the mainstream.

The Murrumbidgee Vista Rocky Outcrop

For several weeks, Cooleman Ridge was proving one of those ambiguous places in the application and interpretation of local coronavirus restrictions. Is it in the Woden, Weston and Molonglo region or is it Tuggeranong? Is it within five kilometres of home or six and a half or eight? The answers are yes and sometimes you just have to ask the question does it actually matter?

One of those days was a lunchtime and instead of a flask of tea I packed up some crackers, nuts and cheese and went on a quest for the perfect place to snack. Eschewing the usual, well-defined summit rocks and strategically-situated benches I veered off towards a hillock I had eyed up in the past. A few gum trees stood atop resistant, hosting flurries of wattlebird and passing rosellas. Imagine by delight that under one of them was the perfectly positioned, home-crafted seat.

Someone had been here before looking for the ideal situation to escape to the country. A kindred spirit. And if a backdrop of lush farmland cloaking a river valley beneath forested hills isn’t enough, check out those crackers and cheese and nuts from Kingaroy. Off track snack pack perfection.

The Oakey Dokey Hill with bonus Hummock

Along with off track adventures one of the permissible things I have been doing virtually every day is picking up a takeaway coffee. It is the stuff of contact tracing nightmares and triggers the inner COVID police in me every time. Quit loitering. Stand away from me. Stop touching your face. Don’t order multiple coffees with various shades of milk for your entire bubble.

I’m also – naturally given current confines – alternating my takeaways between a mere handful of proximate cafes, constantly hoping they fail to materialise on the exposure site listing. In Lyons, Stand By Me offers something that is walkable from home and – should I wish to venture further – can be incorporated on a climb of Oakey Hill.

Of the six hilly nature reserves forming a horseshoe around the Woden Valley, Oakey Hill is probably the least fashionable and most unkempt. Power pylons compete with decommissioned water reservoirs and temporary fencing. The flora seems more degraded, more weedy, more battered and bruised by the elements. Still, there is a nice bench beside the trig marker if it’s vacant and a little used side track that offers good views out to the mountains.

Across from the reserve, a green corridor lines the divide between Lyons and Curtin. From here, more slivers of green penetrate into suburbia, one of which hosts a determinedly vicious magpie. Nowadays I avoid that particular route and instead continue around the outside of Curtin on a track that at one point takes on the appearance of pasture. It forms part of what has become a fairly regular ten kilometre bike jaunt which culminates in a different takeaway coffee at Red Brick.

Along this way, at the back of Curtin, there is a hummock which takes me away too. Behind, fences protect garden refuges with trampolines and lemon trees and potting sheds and shrubs of shady bottlebrush. But in front there are fields of green and skies of blue. On the horizon, the distinctive angles of the Brindabellas promise at much more freedom. And I am whisked away to a place far from busily exercising humans and irritating magpies and daily case numbers and limited coffee options. I am taken again off track.

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No business like…

While we waver towards probable lockdown at some point down the road, a certainty to hold on to is the march of spring. I can start to sense it in the evenings that are still light at 5:30, in the alarm call of birds beginning a stout defence of their nest, in the explosion of green and gold wattle somehow reminding me of many a repeat during the Channel 7 Olympic coverage.

In Australia, winter doesn’t always feel as distinguishable. What Queenslanders call winter certainly is not. In Bondi you can quite comfortably be parading minimal activewear in July, taking essential exercise to hang around in the line for takeaway coffee. Even Canberra – while frequently subjected to alarmist rhetoric and gloating Queenslanders – is still no Ice Planet Hoth.

Snow remains a novelty, especially in the city. Occasionally, hail masquerades or something between drizzle and sleet briefly descends. The only real flurry is in the resultant Facebook posts proclaiming snow. If it is snow, it is a very Plymouth kind of snow, with the same building anticipation and ultimate let down.

As in Plymouth, you must head up. And up and up, towards the high country in the sky. You can drive there on a weekend with thousands of others to enjoy traffic jams and diesel slush or put in the hard yards and discover a pristine winter wilderness by foot.

I go for the latter, though the hard yards are harder and many more yards than I initially hope. At Mountain Creek car park in Tidbinbilla I hope for a rerun of a previous time in this spot, when a good covering of fresh snow blanketed minty forest trees and the fire trails nearby. I hope to experience winter in its fullness in a matter of minutes, with enough time to retreat and find a warming café. I hope I have not dragged myself, my car, and my friend Alex out here in vain.

We set out on the Camels Hump Trail, with no intention of actually going to Camels Hump. Just enough altitude gain to reach the snow line. It’s steep at first, but that would mean we get to the snow quickly. Eventually, the first speckled dusting appears on some leaves. The first sprinkling upon the muddy brown fire trail emerges, disturbed by the tracks of a vehicle that has been fortunate enough to climb this way. By time the tracks vanish under a proper covering of snow, we are closer to the top.

The trail has levelled off enough to encourage continuation, each step forward bringing incremental increase in snow cover, providing that uniquely satisfying sensation that comes with a Size 9 imprint. Between the laden eucalypts, views to the bare countryside glow from down below. Ahead, a pyramidical outcrop looks very much the mountain.

This was Camels Hump. After a year and a half I thought I may have exhausted all possibilities, but this was a new one. The fire trail ends, and the remaining track to the summit is through tunnels of low trees iced in white. The way ahead is almost indecipherable, the thought of descent alarming. I call it quits on a particular slippery rock and wait for Alex to return. Happy to watch the weather rapidly pass over Johns Peak.

After what seemed forever, Alex does return. I’m relieved there is no need to call on emergency services. I’m equally as relieved to hear the summit is enshrouded in dense shrubbery, without any visual reward. The visual reward is simply all around me, in this very winter wonderland.

And now with that achieved, roll on Spring.   

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Tour de ACT

The buzz. The excitement. The nerves. The never-in-my-lifetime strangeness underpinned by a back catalogue of disappointment. The sense of hope, exhilaration, and gut-wrenching drama more often than not deflated by events. The inevitable post-mortem punditry and scapegoating and resignation and acceptance. But maybe – just maybe – this time will be different.

If ever there was a weekend to finally come home this would be it. But I’ll be in bed, 12,000 miles away, turning on the bright lights of a laptop at five in the morning. Thinking about Italian coffee and chocolate digestives to perk me up. Minus three degrees in my shirt.

It’s a bed in a home that I haven’t written about for a good half a year, what with other more exciting jaunts. Canberra is still here, still going through its motions, still – touching wood – absent of coronavirus despite the best efforts of our neighbours. Still understated and beguiling, fortunate and free. Offering abundant life and opportunity if only you should look.

Over that time, Canberra has been doing what Canberra does, transitioning slowly but surely through the bursts of colour of autumn towards morning fogs which (usually) lift to reveal brilliant blue afternoons. It’s the time of year when continental superspreading sporting events disrupt sleep and sub-zero mornings add to the challenge of getting out from under the doona. A time when travel bubbles pop and masks finally become a thing. But do not despair. There is always fresh air.

From the reliable vistas atop Red Hill, a quick jaunt up the road once the laptop powers down. Winter light always doing something special just before five in the afternoon. A warm angelic glow spreads over the rising towers of Woden, the hospital and the Pfizer vaccination hub. Kangaroos munch unaware. Some things change and some things don’t.

A sunset scene over Woden and the hills

Rapidly contesting with Red Hill as my favourite nature reserve, Cooleman Ridge offers great reward for minimal effort. Fringing the west of Weston, the reserve boasts fine views back over Canberra but the real splendour is on the other side. Paddock. Hills. Forest. Mountains. A Murrumbidgee Valley creation. With suburban sprawl and hoonish echoes fading behind the ridge, it is a country walk in a city. And because so much of the Australian countryside is shamefully locked behind fence and gate and no trespassing signs, this is a real treasure. 

A view of mountain ranges and countryside

The treasures of Mulligans Flat are perhaps a little less obvious – and much more likely to emerge at night. But this place is a sanctuary for humans and animals alike. It is another place that has grown on me through a pandemic, from the initial Centenary Trail crossing to volunteer tasks hassling echidnas and wallabies and turtles. As is oft-mentioned on a twilight tour, the dams were dry back when we were enshrouded in smoke. Today they come alive. 

Sunset reflection in a dam

A bigger dam sits further west, lapping at a much bigger wilderness. When you stop and think about it, it is quite something that you can be picking up a good coffee at the neighbourhood shops and fifteen minutes later staring out towards this. Cotter Dam vistas shrink and stretch as you rise further into the sky, reaching a new summit at Mount McDonald.

A large reservoir surrounded by forest and hills

Another new summit is added to my life experience when I take the dirt trail up to Mount Jerrabomberra. I have ventured beyond Canberra, though only just, and only before the latest Bondi-fed outbreak (just in case some paramilitary border goon decides this is reason enough to bar me from Western Australia for twenty years). I have come to Queanbeyan for the rare opportunity of coffee and cake at three in the afternoon, discovering a café that actually opens beyond two. Why is this not more of a thing? Especially when you can easily walk a few crumbs off afterwards.

Last rays of sun over the silhouette of a landscape

It is becoming harder to discover new things like this in the backyard, but I am not there yet; Coronavirus may have to last another twenty years for that to materialise, something I would dearly love not to happen. I would love instead to walk in the Alps again, to hike along the downs of southern England chasing butterflies, to stroll through the Barbican and up to Plymouth Hoe, snaffling some fudge and an ice cream along the way.

But do not despair. I discover a winter’s walk alongside the clear water of the Tidbinbilla River, striking out through green forest singing in the aromas of fresh peppermint. Occasional early wattle pops golden and soothes like honey. There are views towards rocky crags and precipitous ridges and – down the track – a little home: Nil Desperandum. It has been restored to cuteness and if only they had a kettle with some tea and perhaps freshly baked scones waiting, the walk back wouldn’t have seemed such a chore.

A homestead set within forested hills

Nil desperandum. Whenever or whatever might come home, do not despair.

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For higher

It is beyond doubt that coronavirus has altered our perception of the exotic. Whether it be Gundagai or the garden centre, there is much greater thrill to be had in what was once so mundane. I kind of like this revived appreciation for what is immediately around us, as we persevere in seeking out that which can still be discovered. A new view, a different seat, a random town. Or even just a change in how we think about the same place.

My first impressions of the Snowy Mountains in Australia were underwhelming; being neither snowy nor particularly mountainous. With more than a passing resemblance to Wales, it was a bit odd in 2006 to come all this way for – well – Wales. But a few years ago, back when such things were possible, I had a brilliant time in North Wales. And in the context of what is and isn’t possible today, the Snowy Mountains seem to eclipse even a perfect hike to Snowdon.

A multitude of brown tourist signs and a $17 entrance fee help to create an expectation around Kosciuszko National Park. A spacious campground in a peaceful setting at Island Bend adds to the holiday feels. It’s only for the one night but when you have an instant tent, one night is as good as a holiday. An hour later, with instant tent finally erect, a cold beer is clearly required.

But this is no place to sit and drink beer all day, well not for me at least. In between a reasonable night of comfortable sleep, there is the Welsh countryside to explore. And, oh boyo, does it deliver far much more in 2021.

Illawong Walk

Smitten at six in the evening. I think this walk was as much about an ambience, a mood as it was about the open upland panoramas and shimmering river views. It was about the pure sound of that river and the glow of the light. It was about a subtle fragrance like jasmine tea, emanating from the small shrubs and grasses through which a narrow track forged. It was about finding a little lodge perched into the hillside and reaching a swing bridge which would take those more intrepid further. It was about a time and place in which each new step came with the thrill of discovery.

The walk starts in Guthega, one of those small clusters of lodges and chalets which counts as a village up this way. Bustling in winter, these places are weirdly soulless in summer, relative ghost towns seemingly abandoned as a result of a nuclear meltdown or similar. Only occasional voices from balconies hinted at a weekending populace, and numerous cars and trucks formed towards the trailhead, many destined to greet their owners returning from overnight jaunts in the wilderness.

Guthega also exists I suspect due to the dam, where the Snowy River is first brought to a halt on its journey to Marlo. It will be tampered with and drawn from many times on its way to Gippsland, but above the Dam it is truly free to roam. It’s a freedom that rubs off on those who follow it.

The trail officially comes to a terminus at Illawong Lodge, the small building tucked into the hillside. It looks and feels idyllic right at this moment, gazing out over the valley as the sun sinks low. A cold, amber ale would be perfect followed by a bed for the night, but my bed is presumably still standing back at Island Bend.

There is one last hurrah, just down from the lodge. The swing bridge across the river acts as a landmark, a destination, a place to be daring and frolic and to possibly carry on along unofficial, unformed ways. The landscape certainly does its best to suck you in further, and perhaps one day it will. Near the bridge, a new path appears to be undergoing construction, following the river further into the wild to someplace somewhere. There is still more to discover.

Main Range with diversion

I have climbed Mount Kosciusko several times and while there is much to enjoy it’s barely an achievement to rival Kilimanjaro or K2. The route from Thredbo, cable car-assisted, is a family-friendly jaunt, while the quickest way from Charlotte Pass follows a wide trail that incrementally rises without much of a fanfare. By far the best route is to follow the Main Range, crossing the Snowy River and rising to a ridgeline over 2000 metres which plunges over to the west.

Up with the kookaburras I reached Charlotte Pass for brekkie and a cuppa on the most exquisite balcony, the first rays of sun hitting the lofty heights out in front of me. I was heading for somewhere in that direction but hadn’t particularly finalised where. My main desire was to reach a point where I could marvel at the spectacular Western Fall disappearing into the horizon. Carruthers Peak or Mount Twynam would more than suffice.

Immediately the trail is a joy, largely because you are heading downhill to that free-running Snowy River. Halfway down, I encounter another new track being constructed and – guess what – find that it will lead east to Illawong Lodge. An accompanying notice suggests this is part of a planned multi-day walking track and I can again picture a night at that lodge with a cold amber ale on the deck.

For now, I have the Snowy to cross without a swing bridge. A series of boulders offer stepping stones, with only one jagged pyramid causing some complexity. After that, it is easy and getting to the other side without making an absolute tit of yourself in front of experienced hikers coming down from a night in the wilds is almost as satisfying as simply being here.

It is a good job life is sweet because there follows an incessant drag uphill and the prominent hulk of Carruthers Peak (2,145m) still seems a long way off. Along the way, the view down to Blue Lake offers a break and not long after the trail reaches the point at which the landscape plummets dramatically over the other side. It is a spectacular view, heightened by the big reveal as you come over the rise.

It is at this point that the Main Range trail veers left, and you can trace its outline steepening up to the lofty heights of Carruthers. To the right, an old, faint four wheel drive track is not promoted but neither is it barred. My research tells me this leads towards Mount Twynam (2,195m) and while I may not make it that high, I can at least aim for a rocky outcrop closer by.

There, mosses and flowers and hills upon hills upon hills stretching into the distance. Among these hills, the nearby Mount Sentinel stands out as the most jagged, traditional-looking mountain. This could be discovered one day too, but I would like someone else to come along for the ride, as a safeguard.

As tempted as I was to push on from this outcrop, I also figured I had reached my goal for the day with such epic vistas. I had also run out of sunscreen and broken my seven dollar sunglasses, so there was good sense in deciding to return before the day raced towards high noon. Good sense continued with a sandwich stop closer to Blue Lake, a baguette loaded with ham and brie beside a glacial cirque conjuring the pretence of France. C’etait la vie.

After such good sense at not being sucked in by the landscape at previous points, the sandwich gave me fortitude to have a nosy closer to Blue Lake. And then a faint track led towards Hedley Tarn before it simply vanished.

I spent a good 40 minutes trying to figure out a way back across to the Main Range trail, barely a kilometre away and visible thanks to its regular flow of people walking up and down. Encountering boulders and impenetrable shrubs I eventually resigned myself to retracing steps the way I had come.

All this extra energy consumed, and a sun now high in the sky, made me fearful for the final surge: the re-crossing of the Snowy and that godawful climb back up to Charlotte Pass. But in the end, it wasn’t so bad. The other half of my sandwich boosted the energy, and strategic photo stops offered necessary breathers.

While there is pleasure in an ending, those final stops proved bittersweet; captivated with the wild beauty and melancholy that it would soon be left behind. If it takes a pandemic to make me realise how special a place Kosciuszko National Park is, let’s please not have more pandemics. But instead let’s try and remember what it is like to cherish that which we had previously overlooked. Like Wales.

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Plenty

Many of Men at Work’s lyrics from that infamous song are undoubtedly insane. And for a sparsely populated continental land mass frequently sun-baked and on the very fringes of survival, there are legitimate question marks about its plentifulness. Plenty in size and scale and cultural history. Plenty in coal and iron ore and brazen luck. Plenty in toilet roll, despite everything.

Today, in the natural world around me, there appears again this land of plenty. Turn back a year and there would have been much head-shaking at such a thought. A cruel fantasy. But since that point, we’ve had plenty of rain resulting in plenty of growth leading to plenty of productivity. Not all of this is welcome, with rabbits and mice and locusts replicating at the rate of viruses in Kent. And the plentiful fruits of this rejuvenation are proving challenging to reap without a stream of acquiescent backpackers.

Still, “she’ll be apples” as they say. Surprising apples if you find yourself on a road between Bundanoon and Marulan. I was heading back from a day of plenty when I spotted a small sign saying ‘Big Apple’ pointing to the left. Already astounded by the incredible-in-so-many ways Big Potato, the apple emerged as a more subtle dessert.

Giant fruits and vegetables are apt in the Southern Highlands given the land is – for the most part – rich farming country. Babe was also filmed around here, combining perfectly with some of the local apple sauce and roast spuds. I could see snatches of Babe country throughout, supercharged by the verdant green rolling landscape, scattered with fine weatherboard homes and lacy verandas. Such is the well-groomed nature of this land, that it comes as a dramatic contrast when the countryside falls suddenly towards the sea. Delivering plenty.

This happens at Carrington Falls, situated within Budderoo National Park to the south of Robertson. It was a misty, head-in-the-clouds morning, the kind that lends itself to Jurassic Park moments. Tall white trees disappear into the clouds, giant ferns at their base dripping with beads of moisture. The air smells earthy and rich, peppered with wafts of cool mint. Only the fizzing sound of water signals a break in this most stagnant of scenes.

Several lookouts provide the wow factor, the intake of breath, the magnetic allure of millions of litres of water falling fifty metres into a deep pool. It is unclear whether the mist swirling through the eucalypts are remnants of waterfall or lowering fingers of cloud. I suppose they are all part of the same big cycle taking on different forms. Steaming glasses and feeding natural spectacles.

I’m surprised by how busy the place is on a cool, damp Monday. A steady flow of visitors park up, loop along the lookouts and leave again. Most pause for a picture or two, alternating between ultra-serious brooding to comical selfies. One senior lady poses with what looks like a car windscreen shade over her head, arranged to resemble Mickey Mouse ears. The youth – students from Wollongong I suspect – brave the waters of the creek before they succumb to gravity.

There is another turn off near Carrington Falls that suggests further valley lookouts. I head to the first and closest, greeted with even denser mist and a disappearing view. Fine rain is now falling and – for February – it’s cold.

Back near the car and now thinking of a warming lunch, a sign points to something called Nellie’s Glen. It’s only a hundred metres, which is hardly going to delay the arrival of comfort food. And what a pleasant surprise this turned out to be, a gorgeous pool fed by gently cascading waters. The kind of place on a warmer day to soak and swim and avoid water dragons and hope that leeches aren’t longing for a bit of attachment.  

With other lookouts and a campground I feel there is unfinished business in Budderoo National Park. But my mind – and stomach – has become fixated on pie. At the junction with the Illawarra Highway stands the self-proclaimed ‘World Famous Robertson Pie Shop’. Have you heard of it over there? It looks exactly the kind of place that would disappoint and end up on the news as a COVID hotspot. A pie of plenty instead came at the Robertson Pub, no doubt known as The Robbo, oppo the big potato.

It was perfect weather for pie and mash and gravy, washed down by a surprisingly good local ale whose name I sadly do not recall. Such feasting naturally induces a contented lethargy that makes the thought of further activity, further driving, further walking, further gazing at amazing, just that little bit less enticing. But I had to get home somehow, and there was still a waterfall way to go.

Thus the afternoon heralded Belmore Falls, a double delight viewed from afar. Some people had managed to find closer views next to the top of the falls and a couple – spied through my zoom lens – had made their way between upper and lower falls. I figured, judging by the size and athleticism of said couple, that it couldn’t be too hard to reach, though how they did so remains very much a mystery. Perhaps abseiling or helicopters were involved.

The drive from Belmore Falls to Fitzroy Falls proved joyful, a pocket of pure Babes country starting to welcome a brighter, afternoon sky. At Fitzroy Falls itself – the trustiest and most accessible of the waterfalls in this area – I felt a little as though I was going through the motions, but walked and stopped and took photos and gazed out in awe nonetheless. As well as both Fitzroy and Twin Falls adding to the daily tally, the view into the Yarrunga Valley never fails to enchant.

By the time I passed through Exeter and Bundanoon and abruptly turned to the left in Tallong, the sun had started to reassert itself and offer some welcome warmth. Better conditions for ripening apples I would imagine, and less potato friendly. A landscape now drier and more typical of great swathes of eastern Australia.

As a final stop before joining the highway I detoured to Long Point Lookout, where a spur of land thrusts itself out into an incredible wilderness. Below, some five hundred metres, the Shoalhaven River turns 180 degrees, carving out the steep hills and ravines which disappear off into the distance. All that water has to lead somewhere, and the Shoalhaven is quite a remarkable gathering of natural forces.

I spent a good half hour at this spot, as the late afternoon light cast itself in fits and starts upon the scene. Not one other car, not one other person stopped by during that time. Somewhere else, in another continent, in another country I couldn’t imagine such absence, such indifference. It would be a highlight, a spectacle, hustling with people and coaches and tacky souvenirs.

Here, it was as if no-one else knew. Here, in a country of vast open space, of forests and gorges still existing untouched, still largely unexploited, it was nothing special. Just another view, just another scene, just another place. And surely that is what makes it a land of plenty, he said, smiling with a Vegemite sandwich.

Australia Driving Food & Drink Green Bogey Photography Walking