weather – gbpilgrim

September 5, 2025

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.

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.

May 4, 2024

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Shoal havens

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

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

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

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

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

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

A path through forest and views of a white beach

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

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

A drink beside a pool overlooking the ocean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australia Food & Drink Green Bogey Photography Walking

January 13, 2024January 14, 2024

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You better watch out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old sheds among some hills under a cloudy sky

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

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

A drongo in the ocean wearing a santa hat

Australia Food & Drink Green Bogey Walking

December 27, 2023January 8, 2024

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Holiday viewing

Growing up, Christmas TV viewing used to be such a big thing. A double episode of Eastenders in which someone and/or something sizzles in a suspicious blaze. A blockbuster movie that was so new it had only aired in the cinema little more than a year previous. A Father Ted comedy special which was really fecked. And of course – usually avoided because of concurrent feasting on dried up old turkey – The Queen.

While others still go crazy over Love Actually or A Muppets Christmas Carol or even the old royal turkey himself, I have mostly been watching the BOM radar this holiday season. Only Big Bash cricket – for all its stupidity – competes for airtime, though usually in the background, usually while looking at the BOM radar. It’s riveting viewing, where you simply won’t believe the biggest twist yet.

They say Christmas comes around earlier every year and it was just ticking over into December when BOM radar became the must watch event of the year. Was Mount Kosciuszko up in the clouds, was that storm clipping Thredbo, would it ever stop raining in Jindabyne? Would Yarrongobilly Caves provide best refuge or how about the local pub? As long as you get in after the meat raffle and before the Christmas karaoke, yes.

Rain, rain go away and come back in the form of a waterfall. A lull in weather drama one morning providing relief and release and joyous, primitive, natural freshness. Sawpit Creek plunging and fizzing and totally out of mobile range to check the radar. Ignorance and bliss and all that.

Nimmitabel also produced sketchy mobile data and all I can say about that is it was a stroke of luck that I fancied a pie. Or, supposedly, Cornish Pasty. While discovering the sacrilege of sweetcorn the heavens opened, rapid rivulets formed and I prayed for the car outside. By time I forced down the last corner of dry pastry it had stopped, and Dad and I plunged down towards the coast.

I wouldn’t quite say the rain followed us. At least not until after we navigated flooded detours in the Bega Valley, stopped the car, and went to discover sea foam oozing through Wallagoot Gap. Only then did the rain return, obliterating the scenic drive to Bermagui and forcing fish and chip consumption in the car.

A black and white image of a wild seascape

There was clearly a bit of a British summer holiday vibe going on. This extended to the following day when it was – in spite of more downpours forecast – only really mostly cool and cloudy. Relativism a conduit of positivity, low expectations a nurturer of delight. Mustn’t grumble. Things could be worse. We could do something.

It wasn’t really a peachy beachy day, unless seeking moody shots of rock formations and blustery coastlines. So we ended up in Tilba, drinking coffee and eating cheese. In between, taking a tour of its lush environs under the brooding hulk of Gulaga. Briefly the sun came out, and so too the flies.

A decorative garden and a view of some hills

With all the runoff of recent days the normally sapphire seas around Bermagui were a bit more Bognor. But Monday – the day of travelling back to Canberra – was much better. Radar viewing indicated little going on, much like a filler episode of Home and Away (or a normal episode to be fair). There was good coffee on the beach to kick things off, good waterside coffee again in Narooma and fish and chips by the lake in Tuross for lunch. Filling the time between dining stops, beach views and maybe the risk of sunburn.

In fact we stopped stopping at beaches because we were tiring a little of golden sand and fabulous blue waves. A bushwalk among the spotted gums was calling. A search for elusive butterflies and a surprise sugar glider, taking advantage of a respite in the weather to feed on nectar and ambrosia. Inspiration for the ice cream at Bodalla Dairy.

For a day, BOM Radar was barely a thing. The Australian summer in all its glory was back. Even the sea started to look that little more sapphire. But then I heard they commissioned a second season. Featuring a Christmas special. In which there will be some even bigger twists you never ever saw coming in an unprecedented TV first. Oh how I hark back to a spot of arson among the mince pies in Eastenders.

Australia Driving Food & Drink Green Bogey Walking

October 21, 2022October 22, 2022

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Moving somewhere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australia Green Bogey

May 5, 2022

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Freefalling

There is a quaint tradition that takes place in Australia around every three years. Puffed up on bombast and / or desperation, the Prime Minister of the day boards a private jet to Canberra before being chauffeured through its leafy streets to tea with the Governor-General (almost ubiquitously a retired military general). He (almost ubiquitously a he) asks the Governor-General to dissolve parliament and allow for a general election. Outside, the nation celebrates in one almighty eye roll and stocks up on paracetamol to get through a six week headache.

In 2022 when we have all been Zooming and Teamsing and FaceTiming like forever, this ritual seems quite the preposterous exercise. Not to mention overly excessive in the use of fossil fuels. But the mining donors will love it and, of course, the media lap it up. Cue live coverage of the Prime Ministerial jet landing, the man himself ushered into a shiny white car, frenzied speculation about what weekend voting will fall on and the odd reference to a democracy sausage (like the sausage sizzle at Bunnings, tastes awful and often comes with a sick feeling several hours later).

Should the PM look up before pressing the flesh with the GG he might notice the beautiful tree-lined avenue of Dunrossil Drive. A road that – like the GG – gets its moment in the sun every three years. Spring elections will be accompanied by a tunnel of vibrant, lime green. Autumns, the golden shimmer of industrious nature gently on the wane. Cycles of nature and political fortune.

If the Prime Minister is anything like me (hopefully not), he will get out of his car and walk around taking surreptitious pictures of suburban streets with his phone. Every March, April and May they stack up, a photo reel transitioning from green and yellowing hues to fluorescent pinks and purples. Every now and then a picture of a cake interrupts the timeline.

Some of the photos manage in landscape but more often than not portrait mode is required, creeping ever backward and breathing in to fit the entire scene in frame. Should the Prime Minister find himself in such a situation he might want to beware of falling backwards into a hedge or car park or sports hall or absence of policy on women’s equality or word salad on climate change. But admiring the scene, how good is this climate change?

As the days, dress ups, press conferences and weeks pass, the Prime Minister may or may not make it back to see the Governor-General to get sworn in or (should this transpire) hopefully sworn at. By then, the colours of the capital would have faded some more, the trees along Dunrossil Drive depositing a crisp confetti to be scattered by the wake of a Comcar. And the Prime Minister and his cabinet and his members and his friends and his lobbyists and his mentors and his donors will be stuck in Canberra in the freezing fog. A beautiful thing.

Australia Green Bogey Photography

December 19, 2021December 23, 2021

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A tale of two Cornwalls

I doubt I could have arranged things any more perfectly for my long-awaited return to the coast of North Cornwall. Brilliant blue skies with barely a breath of wind. Quiet roads and quiet towns. Views to Lundy and North Devon and down the coast to Trevose. Coffee and walnut cake under the sun.

I’d like to say I stopped at Boscastle Farm Shop because my Mum and sister were on board and they needed a wee and some retail action but of course this was entirely a brilliant idea of my own making. Something to celebrate being together and seeing that rich blue line of the Atlantic stretching into infinity. Something to pay homage to the fruits of this most beautiful county of verdant green pasture and rugged, wild coast. A fillip to start the day off with a bang and another six million calories.

Boscastle. That place you come back to time and again just because. I would have done so without the delights of a farm shop café open on a weekday in November, but I also had a little extra motivation: Calendar Quest 2022, a frenetic mission to try to include a few shots that are not Australia in my annual make-Christmas-gift-giving-relatively-easy creation. Today, the challenge might be which one to pick.

An early Christmas gift offered inspiration to go just that little further, rising high above the crumpled S of the harbour as it makes its way to the ocean. I find it quite inexplicable that I had never risen to Penally Hill before, but every step was a moment. Perhaps a moment to capture in a calendar but we shall just have to wait and see.

In continuing happy vibes, the coast path from here is relatively flat, all the way along to Boscastle Farm Shop, where you could quite easily nip in for a cheeky slice of cake even though you had already done so. I didn’t, but next time.

As night follows day and cream follows jam, the next stop on this splendid day was inevitably Tintagel. An absolute ghost town, possibly haunted by Merlin’s beard. I have never seen the main strip so lifeless; so quiet I was able to drive to the very end, pull into a driveway outside Pengenna, and pick up a steak and Stilton pasty and a few cheese straws.

Last time I came to Tintagel there was the rude shock of finding out that Granny Wobbly’s Fudge Pantry had been taken over by some young punks from not round this way who had done some market research to tell them that people preferred fudge that was non-crumbly and bore an uncanny resemblance to something mass produced a long way away. Kind of like how people prefer a sausage roll from Greggs over something homemade from an independent bakery (oh, St. Agnes, next time…). Anyway, such was the speed at being able to get through Tintagel I didn’t even see if Grandkid Wankstain iFudge Laboratory was in business.

On that same visit I also discovered that it’s largely best to skip the high street of Tintagel altogether and head down from the town and up again with a ninety degree turn on a lane barely wide enough for your vehicle to park near St. Materiana’s Church. Perfect picnic vantages, and you can walk gently down towards Tintagel Castle without the prospect of a heart-busting climb back.

As timeless as it is, I sensed something different about this view. Oh, yeah, a great big brand spanking new shiny bridge connecting mainland Cornwall with the island. It’s the kind of place some ex-politician might visit as he walks the coast path for TV, grumbling about steps and characteristically enquiring about the use of some local slate during the first world war. It is undoubtedly a bridge made for TV and I rather like it.

As ex-politician muses on the mythical and spiritual energy of Tintagel island, he retreats for a final shot with a pint in hand at Trebarwith Strand. It’s a scene easy to enjoy, thanks to the enviable location of the Port William Inn. This time around I opt for an awful coffee, but I have my fudge stash (not from Tintagel) to make things better. The coast remains calm, the sky filling with high cloud, while the sun shifts lower towards the ocean. And you wonder if there is any better place in the world.

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A lot happened between that first visit to North Cornwall and the last. Storm Arwen. Omicron. Masks intermittently became a thing for some people again. Christmas parties at Number Ten. Depleted fudge stashes.

Returning in December, what was previously idyllic turned to something more irritating. Treats yearned for were closed. Parking and toilets were complicated and costly. Seagulls possessed added rage. And the weather was far more lousy, with frequent, heavy showers blowing in from the sea. However, amongst all this gloom there were just enough bright spots emerging precisely at the right moment to make everything seem absolutely wonderful again. This seems to me a very British condition, and not just in relation to the weather.

It was my last day in the South West before commencing the elongated journey back to Australia. In spite of several previous encounters, I had in mind a final cream tea though the allure of tasty jacket potatoes was also weighing on my mind. Maybe it was a day for both?

But first, another crappy coffee at Trevone Bay. Brought to you in association with a 50p toilet visit and a £60 parking fine. Complemented by a squally shower and chill wind. Footsteps upon the fine sandy cove cannot quite compensate, particularly when they sink into oozing outposts of the ocean.

Disappointment was threatening to turn into despair arriving at Carnewas. THE CAFE WAS CLOSED! Making things worse, staff were clearly present but busily affixing bunting and decking halls in preparation for Christmas shindigs. They should have been baking scones and potatoes, just for me. Didn’t they know how far I had come for this?

Mercifully the staggering coastline centred around Bedruthan Steps offered both comfort and awe. It usually does. A cloud front passed quickly overhead to reveal a strip of blue, illuminating the unstoppable lines of the ocean pulsating upwards into the receding beach and crashing upon the feet of mighty monoliths. The slightly frenzied sound of the surf funnelled up the high cliffs, out of sync with the sights below, as if in some badly dubbed episode of El Poldarko. Over towards Padstow, a rainbow glowed, set against a threatening sky heading our way. It was brief enlightenment.

Devoid of longed-for lunch, we retreated to Padstow to find something. Relative to many other towns on this trip it was positively buzzing, though not crazy enough to make parking down by the harbour a challenge. Among the odd restaurant inflated with a 25% Padstein premium, we counted at least four pasty shops. Kind of ridiculous really. With little other choice and not a great deal of enthusiasm, we opted for the best looking one.

Mum’s phone blared away somewhere in the depths of her bag. Distracted, the local seagull population espied an opportunity. A close call were it not for my wild screaming. By now, they sensed a kill and stalked us all the way back to the car. And so most of our time in Padstow was spent eating reasonable pasties in a silver Suzuki while webbed feet pounded the roof. A long way from the dream lunch I envisioned.

Not to be disheartened I knew of a potential ace up my sleeve. Or at least a Queen of Hearts. Midway between here and home there is a café actually open at Cardinham Woods, selling a decent scone with decent jam and indecent cream. Just the way I like it. Tomorrow I would be travelling to Wiltshire. Then onto London. Then, god-willing, Australia. I can only really properly farewell Cornwall – come rain or shine – in the most appropriate way. Handsome.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

December 15, 2021December 18, 2021

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Just out of town

In November 2021 I never expected I would be drier in southwest England than I would have been remaining in southeast Australia. And while it was certainly far short of wall-to-wall sunshine, most days provided conditions suitable enough for forays outdoors. Prepare for downpours, gales, and mud and most of the time expectations will be surpassed.

The more challenging aspect of the season was getting used to the rapidly shrinking presence of daylight and then – once any sun had disappeared – bracing for six hours or so to occupy yourself before bed. Often in life I will take a walk towards the end of day but here the prospect of outdoors before or after dinner is so unappealing that you find yourself more comforted by watching The Chase with Bradley Walsh. That’s not the greatest state of affairs so the best thing to do is make sure you get out at some point into the daylight before it gets cut short. Even if this is just down the road.

Take Wembury, which is essentially Plymouth’s premier beachside suburb. A place you go to retire or fund the National Trust through parking fees. It’s not the most sparkling beach in the world but possesses a raw enough quality to blow away the city cobwebs, with plenty of nooks and crannies and pools and items on a café menu for exploration.

During the Saturday of Storm Arwen, cobwebs were certainly braced to be blown away but there was also surprising shelter to be had in the lee of a gusty nor’wester. Accompanied by Mum and Brooke, conditions were apt for a spot of beachcombing and hide and seek and trying to escape the clutches of Brooke wanting to play yet more hide and seek. Café menu exploration was a little more disappointing, a reduced list of items and takeaway only evocative of a sombre this-is-living-with-COVID-(before-Omicron) air.

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Frolicking on a bright and breezy beach there is a good case to argue that storm force winds are preferable to the old classic enshrouding by drizzle. A Plymothian occurrence so regular that it feels like an innate part of your soul. The kind of day where going into town to pick up a jam donut from Sainsburys and a pack of free test kits seems appealing.

Still, it wasn’t torrential rain and I packed my waterproof in order to escape to the moors afterwards. You can marvel at this landscape for miles around on blue sky days but it feels more at peace with itself when hunkered down in the murk. The trees seep with moisture, their trunks wrapped in bright green moss while their withered roots thrust down into the crevices of a dry stone wall. Smoke rises from the dour, sturdy blocks of a farmhouse, looking out over swathes of browned bracken and the shattered granite piercings of a couple of tors. Crossing the land, lichen sprayed boulders prove a slippery adversary in between the boggy hollows where unkempt sheep stagger around on their spindly legs.

It’s a timeless, peaceful scene, captured not so far from Plymouth around Sheepstor. Sure, the arrival of two armoured troop carriers interrupted things for a time at Burrator, but other than that it was all pretty uneventful.

I love immersing myself in the landscape on a circular walk here, a walk I have revisited at different times of the year. Starting at the dam wall, the route takes in peaceful wooded paths, narrow country lanes, a small hamlet whose cottages cluster around an old church, countryside views, sounds and smells, and the final rocky ascent of Sheepstor. From this vantage, views south to the sea, west over Burrator, the Tamar Valley and Bodmin Moor, and north and east to the rugged, foreboding empty uplands of Dartmoor.

Today, by time I reached Sheepstor the murk had lifted a touch and the world below expanded. That was probably thanks to our old friend the wind, which offered a reminder atop the rocks of the need for more clothing. Forgetting my gloves, I would be pleased to return to the car, to Plymouth, and to a warm living room watching Bradley Everywhere Walsh.

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As the crow flies (in volatile winds), Whitsand Bay is but a few miles from downtown Dempourt / Devonport. Literally around the corner yet a place that feels another world away. This sense of exoticism is bolstered when traversing the Tamar aboard the Torpoint Ferry. Nothing like a water crossing to evoke those island vibes.

I suppose at the eastern end of the bay, Rame Head is almost an island. Just a narrow neck of land bridging across to a rocky outcrop rising volcano-like above the foaming ocean. A perfect destination to head off for alone as Storm Arwen approaches.

An earlier slip on a steep bank of mud boded well, and that was before a blustery shower deposited further grease along the South West Coast Path. If there was an upside, it was the presentation of drama and wildness and awe captured underneath a rainbow. The pot of gold being this is just around the corner from a large city, remember.

Other than that shower, I somehow managed to stay dry. And upright. The crossing to Rame Head wasn’t quite as scary as I expected; wider, drier, calmer, at least until the lee of the land subsided. The small stone ruin sitting upon Rame Head possessed nooks offering refuge and in other places a full on wind tunnel. Exiting the door proved the biggest challenge to remaining upright.

As I leaned into the wind to return to wider land, further rainbows came and went over delectable countryside and plunging coastline. The small shacks littering the sides of the cliffs flitted rapidly between sun and shade, beaming and fading. One of them somewhere over there might reward me with a cuppa.

Not just a cuppa, but also a scone with jam and cream. An outcome in this part of the world as inevitable as the swell of the sea releasing its force upon the land, or the onset of a good old-fashioned Plymouth drizzle. Or the likelihood that you’ll get back to a cosy indoor sanctuary and find Bradley Bloody Everywhere Walsh on the TV. Get out of town.

Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

January 16, 2021

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Covers

The return of the traditional road trip has been another much vaunted consequence of our most recent history. With nowhere to flee overseas, we are discovering our homelands, our paddocks, our backyards. A large proportion of this adventuring has been undertaken in kitted out camper vans, luxury coaches, or simply a mattress in the back of a beat up station wagon. Canvas roofs have blossomed in trodden fields of green, the sound of mallets beating tent pegs as widespread as cicadas.

Initially when the pandemic hit, and uncertainty was rife, I thought I could do this if it came down to it. Fruit would need to be picked somewhere or fences would still be in need of repair. Possessing a swag, small dome tent and station wagon, sleeping options could be mixed and matched, while the trusty camp kitchen box could cater again for bangers and mash in thirty five degrees. There is a dreamy, deep rose-tinted quality to these visions, one that conveniently overlooks the discomfort, the dirt, the sweat and the toil.

As it turned out, I was lucky enough to be able to sit in front of a computer all day and receive the compensation of a regular income. But these wistful visions of a nomadic life have never quite gone away. The compromise has been day trips into the country, eventually culminating in a night on a mattress in the back of a beat up station wagon. Another night became aborted because – well – I could just make it home, and I began to question my commitment to life almost under the stars.

Yet a new year brings new resolution so we are led to believe, and with the prospect of more distant travel still a distant prospect there is logic to be had in persevering. What if I could make 2021 – or at least the warmest parts of 2021 – the year of the camping weekend? Could this provide – in its own way – a new purpose to fill the void that is the Centenary Trail?

Only time and possibly this blog will tell, but with this idea still racing through my mind like an out-of-control hamster wheel I swiftly purchased a new tent online. Click and collect from BCF in two hours.

I have always poured scorn on BCF, mainly because their adverts of boating, camping, and fishing escapades are layered thick with Australian drongoism. Like you can’t boat, camp or fish if you went to university. Or it is simply unheard of to do these things and care about the environment and refugees and good coffee at the same time. Only blokes in thongs with a nasal dislike of political correctness can go boating, camping, fishing.

I suspect I read too much into it. The process was very efficient. The lady in Fyshwick who handed me my tent was perfectly lovely. A new tent to add to the swag, the 2 person dome, and the mattress in the back of a beat up station wagon.

You may well ask why I even need another tent and I would say that what I need is something that doesn’t give me as much of an excuse to turn back for home. Something that – as I march towards wisdom over youthfulness – is less of an ordeal. What I need is something more akin to glamping than it is to homelessness.

And so that is how I found myself erecting a brand new ‘instant’ four person tent at Mount Clear Campground in the southern part of Namadgi National Park last Sunday. With my pristine tent, deluxe airbed, comfy lounge chair, I looked every part the newbie amateur who had just splashed out on some shiny things for Christmas. Not the hardened traveller who had done three months in a swag and persevered with bangers and mash in thirty-five degree heat.

Only the rumpled, irregular mallet hints at greater experience. With this in hand I pleasingly managed to erect the tent quickly and efficiently, as though I knew what I was doing. To say it is an instant tent is probably an overstatement once you take into account pegs and guy ropes and – should you wish – a shady awning. But it was a reasonably simple erection, and I was happy to find ample room for my deluxe mattress and comfy chair and body standing in an upright position.

The more taxing part was choosing where to pitch the thing, given so many lovely-looking spots. In this respect, an estimation of neighbours is instantly required – deciding between a cluster of boomers and a foursome of millennials, while a BCF loyalist blares out some country and his kids run amok. All potentially troublesome, yet also reassuringly present.

In the end I inched slightly closer to the millennials, which ended up a mistake when they decided to stay up around the campfire until after one. But a home is a home and not only did it stay upright and protect and comfort, but it also came with some of the most generous backyard within our little capital territory.

From settler’s huts to magical vistas, over swampy plains and through one year charred trees. An urge to pee brings staggering night skies, turning to gold as birds and boomers rise. There’s a hike through meadows, there’s wading through a creek, recovering with camp stove coffee and old Christmas cake. And then replenished, full on nature’s bounty, there’s a home to dismantle, and achievement to take.

The tent managed to fit back in its bag.

Australia Driving Green Bogey Photography Walking

May 1, 2020

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Warmth

Back in January, when we were in the midst of that horrible summer, I proclaimed out loud that I would never complain about winter in Canberra ever again. So there you go. I am absolutely loving the first day of May, with its frigid drizzle and single digit tops. It’s even better than yesterday.

On Tuesday afternoon I was still in shorts, walking up Mount Ainslie. Such are the inconsistencies of change, the indecisiveness of an autumn spanning thirty degree highs to single digit lows. Sunburn in the suburbs and snow on the hills, closed off and out of reach.

I was curious how autumn would pan out this year after the terror summer, the massive hailstorm, the rain, and now the chill. But I shouldn’t have worried because – on this most dismal of days – there are still riots of colour in every other cul-de-sac, around every empty circle. And I’ve had plenty of opportunity to investigate multiple nooks and crannies in these recent weeks. From COVID-walks around the corner to expeditions along the Centenary Trail, there is always something of wonder on offer to brighten up the dark…

Walks from home, discovering every single street in an effort to mix it up a little

If you can walk clockwise and put up with the zillions of people getting their mandated exercise, Lake Burley Griffin offers all the usual spectacle

Red Hill: the street sweeper’s dream

It’s not only the cockies causing all the shenanigans. Flocks of pretty gang-gangs, vibrant king parrots and stately yellow-tailed black cockatoos are a regular sight feasting on the fruits of summer, and not practising social distancing

Colours in Campbell, sidestepping from the Centenary Trail

Look close and there is autumn magic around every corner

Australia Green Bogey Photography Walking

March 22, 2020March 22, 2020

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Uplift

Outside is looking remarkable. Outside is looking beautiful. An almost pinch-yourself-is-this-actually-real kind of sensation. One bringing delight rather than dread.

I was sat on a random log the other day, pleasant late afternoon sunshine nourishing the world. Rarely do I sit and stop and watch all the things going on around me: the ants milling about productively, transporting their wares in selfless community organisation; the magpie creeping from one spot of grass to the other, surveying for delicacies, a curious sideways look at my presence; the chirrup, somewhere, of two crimson rosellas, partners for life. The world going about its business.

There is an astonishment in this landscape of such verdant abundance. Where so recently it was so barren. The resilience of nature bearing fruit, flourishing again.

As well as sitting on random logs I randomly tried to capture this transition, this journey, this bounce back. Scrolling my phone for past images, dusty and brown. Attempting to line up positions and angles and replicating shots. Not always easy to know exactly where you have gone before. Fiddling about so much that sometimes it’s just far easier, far more satisfying to give up, sit on a log, and just watch the world.

The Bullen Range and Brindabellas from Cooleman Ridge, 6 weeks apart

Remember the smoke?!

Scenes from Red Hill – 1

Scenes from Red Hill – 2

Scenes from Red Hill – 3, with random logs

Australia Green Bogey Photography Walking

February 9, 2020February 9, 2020

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Namadgi

It wasn’t love at first site. As national parks go, it’s not in the top tier. There are no obvious spectacles, no grand high tops, no sublime points, no copper canyons, no vernal falls. But it sits there, looking at you, consumer of sunsets and occasional catcher of winter snows. Endearing itself to you by its very persistence.

Namadgi National Park. Canberra’s park, Canberra’s playground; like Dartmoor is to Plymouth or Hampstead Heath is to North London. Before that, for many years before I came here and other strangers came here, special ground for Australia’s first people. Rising to the west, sheltering Australia’s young capital. A rugged wilderness reminding us of what we were and where we have come. And where we still have to go. Enduring still.

Igniting

The lustre of spring radiated across the valley and lifted the soul the way that spring can only do: that warming sun on your face as you cast your eyes upon a celebration of green, a chirpiness matched by the creatures awakening from their slumber. Treading into this world along the valley floor, each footstep a newfound joy, each pause a chance to breathe it all in. An enclave of life and of love, promising halcyon days ahead.

Monday 27th January: A small plume of smoke appears over a hill as I drive back home. It throws my bearings since it isn’t where I expected to see smoke today. I check Fires Near Me for probably the fifth time this morning and see a new blue diamond symbol has appeared in Namadgi National Park. It has been listed as the Orroral Valley Fire.

Taking hold

The sky had that washed out tone of winter that threatens but barely delivers. It is the colour of childhood skies beside the sea, when the excitement of snow was dashed by the delivery of icy rain. If you were being generous, you might describe it as sleet, but only that narrow, spitting variety rather than a satisfying splodge. As I climbed through the freshest forest to crest the ridge of Booroomba Rocks, a new squall spilled into the valley of gums below. A wind chill well below zero blew away the cobwebs. And cast a few shards of icy, spitting rain my way.

Tuesday 28th January: The fire quickly takes hold and becomes uncontrollable, spreading west into Honeysuckle Creek, Apollo Road and climbing up towards the crest of Booroomba Rocks. A large smoke plume intensifies as the day heats up and spreads many miles west, hanging over the Canberra skyline as multiple planes and helicopters disappear into its heart.

Consuming

We used to have adventures. These often involved hikes to lookouts and – if we were lucky – a bird roll with a view. All across Australia. 2018 offered the comeback tour and an adventure a bit closer to my home.

Older, probably not wiser, I persuaded Jill to join me on the Yerrabi Track, hoping the drag uphill wouldn’t cause consternation. Hopeful that the rocky platform at the end, with a bird roll, with a view, would appease any potential discord at my choice. May I present to you the wilderness. Close to Canberra. And a long way from Norfolk. Or Sydney. A real place to breathe on holiday, or at home.

Thursday 30th January: A few days of cooler and quieter weather provide some respite and a chance for fire crews to lay down containment lines, large air tankers plying back and forth overhead. While much is done to try to protect properties and cultural assets, the fire continues to feed on the tinder dry heart of Namadgi, spreading down towards Yankee Hat and Boboyan Trig, a key marker on the Yerrabi Track.

Threatening

From Canberra, Mount Tennent stands sentinel over Namadgi National Park, 1,375 metres into the sky. The first prominent peak as you enter south, looming over the visitor centre and the small village of Tharwa. In spite of this proximity it took me many years to climb. Cypress Pine lookout was usually as far as I made it before arriving at the conclusion that that is more than enough thank you very much.

Sometimes you need the momentum that comes from walking with friends. An encouraging peloton. A crisp morning that warms with the rising sun on your back. Views that deliver over the Monaro, its golden paddocks strewn with the fairy floss of rising mist. Each step up a shared endeavour, summiting a shared prize. Victors in a deep blue sky, miniscule among uninterrupted green.

Friday 31st January: The temperature nudges towards 42 degrees and the fire threat escalates, creating spot fires which push into NSW. Authorities publish worst case projections for the fire spread that – should they come to bear – would spill further down from the summit of Mount Tennent and consume Tharwa, before entering the far southern suburbs of Canberra. The ACT declares a state of emergency and the city is on edge.

Tearing south

I can recall the pleasure in discovering something new; a circular trail in the deepest dirt roadiest section of the southern ACT that scored high on the effort-reward ratio. It was nearing Christmas and I had been in the city that morning, catching up for coffee and passing on gifts. By afternoon I was gently climbing up through forest onto the ridge of Shanahans Mountain. The reward: a fluffy clouded blue sky hanging over the wild contours and emptiness of the Clear Range. Christmas had come early, a new vista my present.

Saturday 1st February: A brutal day of solid northwest winds and temperatures reaching 43 degrees expanded the fire quickly southeast across NSW and upon settlements around the Monaro Highway, including Bumbalong, Colinton and Bredbo. While Tharwa and suburban Canberra dodged a bullet, around a dozen homes were destroyed, principally around Bumbalong as fire raced over the Clear Range and engulfed properties.

Creeping north

I wonder if there is anything more satisfying than the scrunch of footsteps upon fresh snow. While chaotically parked cars and excitable humans rapidly transform Corin Forest into dirty slush, ahead of me is a virginal path of white. It took some effort to reach. Lung-busting in fact. But before me, the Smokers Trail slices through a forest of tall, majestic eucalypts under the deepest blue sky. It is a wonderland both un-Australian and undeniably Australian. Waiting to be scrunched underfoot.

Thursday 6th February: A week of cooler, calmer weather subdues fire activity considerably, though it continues to slowly expand, particularly to the west and north. It has passed over the Smokers Trail, nearby Square Rock, and moves over and beyond Corin Forest. The slow creep of the fire appears less destructive and the infrastructure around Corin Forest is protected. Now nearing Tidbinbilla, fire crews instigate backburning to halt progress.

Enduring still

Is it as simple, as logical, as linear as a before and after? Because a before was also an after. When I took my first steps into Namadgi it was not so long after 2003. When the hills and gullies had previously burned, arguably even more vehemently than today.

In the much used vernacular of the new normal it may not be quite the normal cycle of the Australian bush, but there is a cycle nonetheless. We may be in the immediate after now, but I can take solace that this is the start of another before. When Namadgi will again nurture love and life, expel fresh air and bounty, guide adventure and inspiration. Enduring still.

Sunday 9th February: The rain is tantalising, teasing. We’ve had a few millimetres and promises of a deluge keep getting pushed back. Another hour. Another day. Probabilities suggest something decent will come. A few spells of drizzle and blustery showers mimic England. It is only seventeen degrees and perfect roast dinner and red wine weather. That in itself is an encouraging sign.

The Orroral Valley Fire has changed status from Out of Control to Being Controlled. That in itself is an even more encouraging sign. It has consumed around 80% of Namadgi National Park and around a third of the ACT’s landmass. Taking into account various offshoots into NSW the fire encompasses approximately 113,000 hectares, or 1,130 square kilometres. That’s about the same as Hong Kong Island. Or most of Greater London if you exclude some of the crumby bits like Croydon.

Initial reports suggest significant variability in the damage caused within the park, mirroring the variability in fire intensity over its course. Positively, key infrastructure, including historic huts, culturally significant sites and telecommunications resources have been protected, while threatened wildlife within nature reserves have been successfully relocated.

It is one small footnote this summer.

Australia Green Bogey Photography Walking

August 26, 2019

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I got chills

With the undeniable passage of nature there are sure signs that winter in Canberra is slowly ebbing away. There have been a few recent days in which I have left the house without a coat, while the sunlight is waking me up well before seven and allowing me to read almost until six. Wattles explode, daffodils unfurl, the odd fly is resurrected and finds its way into my living room for what seems like all eternity.

That’s not to say winter is entirely done and dusted and – with it – the satisfaction of a roast dinner, a glass of red and an evening hunkering down until the early hours watching sport beamed direct from the sometimes sunny skies of Europe. The Ashes is the latest incarnation of late night TV toil, in which the morning session emerges during the prime time of evening followed by a drift to tea after midnight. Sometimes I stay up late and sometimes it’s worth it. Like a shiny cherry battered by Sir Ben Stokes, it can be hard to sleep straight after, such is the insane frenzy that has just taken place.

Of course, usually about now I would be in England, so it is part galling but part elevating to see Leeds bathed in unseasonal hot bank holiday sunshine. Bored of some of the drearier TV commentary I might tune into Test Match Special, delivering another evocation of Englishness. The good, wholesome Englishness involving short long legs and a discussion of cake in between bouncers. Not that other Englishness espoused by others. Without vision, the radio commentary paints a more vivid picture in my head of an England for which I might yearn.

But here I am having almost successfully navigated my first full Australian winter, in the coldest city of the lot. Has it been hard? Well, not really, partly a consequence of strategic breaks away, warm sunshine beaming through glass, roast dinners, red wine, Ben Stokes, and no doubt the upward trajectory in global temperatures as previously predicted by those pesky experts who we have all apparently become sick of.

And then it snows for a weekend and suddenly the accumulation of 200 years of temperature records can be instantly dismissed by the cast of crazy characters featured on the sitcom known as Sky News. The ‘Antarctic Blast’ delivering a bit of cool drizzle to Melbourne and a touch of breeze in Sydney, dusts the higher hills and peaks around Canberra. It’s the kind of event that happens every few years and makes a Canberra winter all the better. For there is an unmatched beauty when the snow comes to the Australian bush.

There’s certainly a freshness accompanying an early Saturday morning jaunt upon Urambi Hills, but the sun is out and the wind has dropped meaning that, before long, I’m wanting to strip off during the march upward. Even the locals are unfazed, the youngsters popping out to gaze towards the snow for the first time in their lives.

From afar, there is little hardship, little severity to be found in the sight of snow-capped hills. Getting closer to the snowline in Tidbinbilla, you do begin to feel the penetration of winds swirling over the ranges, picking up icy particles and moisture and delivering them to idiots like me waiting patiently on an exposed lookout. A sleety shower whips through quickly, before a valley of thousands of eucalypts are bathed in sun.

From this perch, the snow seems tangible, touchable. Attainable with, hopefully, relative ease. And that’s the way it proves, driving to the Mountain Creek area in the reserve. A few cars are here but it is blessedly sedate, lacking the queuing, slush-churned melee of Corin Forest after a few flakes. Close to the car park, youngsters screech and coo in delight and disappear off into the forest. A trail of footprints furrow a path into the trees, eventually joining a fire trail that will go on and on, up and up, all the way to Camel’s Hump.

It would be folly to climb to the summit today; though judging by the footprints there are a few committed mountaineers in the area. However, walking up just a little and the snow thickens, the sledge tracks fade and untouched pockets of snow lap at the ankles. There is a pristine quality to the scene, a fresh blanket filling in the imperfections of the bush. A gentleness given to a landscape so often forbidding. For a change, snakes will not be a worry.

Still, best not to linger as my feet are starting to numb and the day is drawing on way beyond optimum coffee time. As I head back down it’s noticeable how the depth of snow has already lessened, patches of mud are now creeping through, churned up by increasing traffic heading into the forest.

The snow will disappear soon enough, and the wattles will continue to burst forth, the blossom will suddenly sprout, the joeys will escape the comfort blanket of mum’s pouch. The winter will draw to a close, the light will lengthen, and I’ll be in shorts moaning about the heat before you know it. Barbecues will replace roasts and more decent sport will be on at a decent hour. Australia will return to its natural, sun-baked, fire-blasted state.

Yet a part of me will miss the cold, miss the late nights in Leeds, miss the excuse for slow-cooked heartiness. And I will miss the experience of anticipation of a spring just around the corner. Maybe not quite as badly as Nathan Lyon misses run outs, but missing all the same.

Australia Green Bogey Photography Walking

June 8, 2019June 8, 2019

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Exhausting

I love how there are so many different roads meandering through the English countryside, linking villages that you never knew existed; undistinguishable places called something like Dompywell Saddlebag or West Northclumptonbrook, typically boasting a new speed bump and a church roof appeal from the 1980s. It’s a situation converse to Australia, where a few main roads emanate from the cities and towns, off which a handful of mysterious dirt tracks disperse into nothing. Setting off from home for a country drive in Australia is exhausted in four or five trips. Whereas in England the possibilities seem infinite.

When I say roads, of course, most are only a little wider than a Nissan Micra, especially in Devon, where they are also frequently clogged with tractors. Farming is still king – I think – in the South Hams, though tourism, teashops and production of Let’s Escape To Buy An Expensive Seaside Residence With Five Bedrooms And A Private Mooring On The Estuary To Get Through Our Retirement In The Sun TV shows prosper.

When the sun does appear, there is hardly anywhere more contented; there must be some primeval appeal in the lusciousness of those voluptuous green hills and snaking river valleys, the sheen of golden sands recently cleansed by the ebb and flow of a shimmering sea.

Remembering this is England, the sun of course doesn’t always shine and in the spring-like indecision that is early May it can be a fickle environment in which to salivate. At Bigbury-on-Sea, raincoats, fleeces and hot chocolates might be required while waiting for a break in the clouds. Temptation abounds to get back in the car and turn around; but you’ve paid for that parking now and you are British, and you’ll courageously stick it out like MEPs campaigning against their very existence (Customary Brexit Reference: tick). You have to be patient staying in this particular part of the world, but the benefits in doing so are clear and tangible.

A bit further down the A-road mostly suitable for two cars to pass, the town of Salcombe boasts a rather desirable ambience, even on another cloudy and cool day. Tucked inside the Kingsbridge Estuary it has some of the most golden sand and emerald water around, lapping at elegant houses and dense woodland thickets. There is a palpable sense of envy from the smattering of visitors strolling past the homes and gardens perched with lofty views across the water. I could live here, we all bitterly seethe in our heads.

No doubt many of the loftier residents of Salcombe were in jovial mood; not only from their elevated perch surveying the ambling peasants seeking a cheap pasty, but with the news of a royal baby to join the ranks. Does it have a name yet? I can’t even remember. Have the Daily Mail criticised the parents yet? Oh probably.

One of the perks of Salcombe are the options for food and drink, many of which come with waterside tables and a brief taste of refinement. Mum and I commenced the day at North Sands and a somewhat quirky café – The Winking Prawn – serving coffee (and for future reference, buffet breakfast). We then did the amble along the water and fancy homes to the town centre, where the usual offerings of pastry products, ice creams, pub food, overpriced crab bits and line caught organic fish goujons with quadruple cooked fondant sweet potato discs were up for grabs. Probably the best looking things were a tray of Chelsea Buns in a bakery, swiftly bagged and taken home for trouncing the Arsenal.

Really, it should have been a day for a Salcombe Dairy ice cream, the delicious embodiment of the verdant landscape all around. But after a bone-chilling ferry ride to South Sands, the moment had gone. Perhaps for another day.

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Plymouth to Dartmouth is not the quickest affair despite only being around 30 miles apart. One option includes the tortuous A379 through thatched villages that become irretrievably clogged in battles between buses and B&M Bargains trucks – threading a camel through the eye of a needle is a doddle by comparison. Or there is the route via Totnes, which seems a bit too zig-zaggy to appear logical. An alternative cut through just past Avonwick was a new discovery that proved highly effective on the way almost there, and highly ridiculous on the way back.

One of the joys of that cut through, in the morning at least, was finding yet another road that took me through even more unknown villages as pretty as a picture, following river valleys and archetypal ten foot hedgerows and fields of newly minted lambs. The sun was shining too, and my meteorological calculations to head east appeared to be paying off.

It was also joyous to have a functioning car, without an exhaust dangling onto the road and probably projecting sparks onto the windscreen of a doddery couple heading to the post office. This happened later, on the A3122 at Collaton Cross, about a mile after the BP garage and before Woodlands Adventure Park. Details etched into my brain to guide the saviour that was the breakdown truck towards us.

And so, the unexpected and unplanned once again yields some of the most memorable moments. Waiting in a small layby among the gorgeous fields of Devon in the warming sunshine could be worse. Being patched up and guided to Totnes for repairs by endearing locals eager to provide a helping hand (and earn some pennies) proved heart-warming. Spending a few hours in Totnes, charmed and enlightened by good coffee, markets overflowing with abundance and leafy riverside walks. And the satisfaction of rediscovering batter bits with malt vinegar (good work Mum!)

Killing time in Totnes wasn’t too much of a chore in the end, and it was partway along a path following the River Dart that we got the call that the car was fit and ready. It had been an eventful day covering a lot of ground, but I was determined to head to where I had originally planned, several hours earlier. Another slice of succulent South Devon that oozes curvaceously into the sea.

Such are the ample proportions of the landscape here that the coast path between Strete and Blackpool Sands struggles to keep to the coast. The barriers are too immense, and the trail cuts inland as it dips down towards the bay. But this too is something of a blessing, for not only do you make it without falling to an inevitable death into the sea, but you become once again immersed into a countryside apparently so utopian. Farming must still be productive here, despite the temptation to become a campsite or a tearoom or a paddock for some pampered hobby horses.

The coast path comes back to the shore via a row of thatched cottages that could have almost been deliberately placed there to charm dewy-eyed tourists like myself. The fine shingle of Blackpool Sands lends a bright and airy light even through the sunshine of the morning is rare. And down near the shingle, a café, winding down for the day has some Salcombe Dairy on tap.

After fish and chips and batter bits there is hardly need for additional gluttony. But this is a land of overindulgence, of profligate abundance, blessed with more than its ample share of what makes life good. And I still have one of those gorgeous hills to climb to get back to the car, a climb that is incessant and delightful and my own private nirvana full of ice cream and South Devon. A climb and a day entirely, wonderfully, exhausting.

Food & Drink Great Britain Green Bogey Photography Walking

February 27, 2019February 27, 2019

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Uppish drives

If I was to analogise the lingering weeks of summer, it would be to that of a very uneventful over from Glenn McGrath. Turn at the mark, trundle in with intent, deliver a solid line and length on to the pitch and through to the keeper, stare in confected intimidation at a snivelling Pom, turn back and repeat again. And again.

There is something to be said for reliability and repetition – 563 somethings in fact – but deep down we all crave a cocky blonde disruptor to enter the scene and throw down a few cherries spinning every which way but straight. The googlies are always there somewhere; you just have to put in a bit of extra effort to discover them.

Such terrible metaphors are all to say I went to the first Test match ever at Manuka Oval in Canberra. Australia versus Sri Lanka in probably the most one-sided match in history. Still, the setting was a delight, the atmosphere abuzz, and Canberra more than held its own as a venue. Googlies may have been sparse but then, in 2019, we are talking about the trumped up talents of Naayfun Lawwwn rather than the bona fide annoying genius of Warnie.

Outside the oval, the regular line and length of hot sunny Canberra days have occasionally hit the cracks of thunderstorms; apocalyptic tempests of wind and lightning and – often – raised dust. It’s made things a bit more interesting, even if some of the places under which such conditions breed are as reliable as ever. Places like Red Hill and Mount Taylor, the equidistant escapes from home to the bush.

One of the cooler and windier days of late happened to beset the Canberra Triathlon. A temperature all well and good for exercise but a wind cruel and unforgiving when on a bike. To say I competed in a triathlon is a tad generous, strictly speaking. But a ten kilometre bike leg as part of a team relay was effort enough into a headwind. Still, this was just a minor, temporary obstacle for me, and worth it to deliver the imaginary baton onto Toby for the final, inspirational leg. Go Wheelsfortoby!

I guess a triathlon is a bit of a googly within the normal course of events. It also led me to be in Hackett one sunny late afternoon, at the northern end of Canberra nestled underneath Mount Majura. Not so much a change of scenery, but at least a different path on which to wander, all stretching eucalypt branches, golden grass and copper earth, with some snatched views of the surrounding landscape through the bush. Plus, slithering away as I marched downhill, a brown snake disappearing from the corner of my eye.

A few weeks later I would come across two snakes in the space of five minutes, having discussed them five minutes earlier with my friend Joseph as we sat upon a rock in Namadgi National Park. I’ve hardly seen any snakes…maybe five…in my entire time in Australia I said. Mostly in Queensland I said. I know people who won’t come to Australia because of snakes, how ridiculous. When you think of all the bushwalking I have done in that time, and five snakes…

Shall we see what’s down that way, he said.

Snaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkke, I said. Quite loudly, almost tripping over a red bellied black.

Let’s actually not go that way, I said, and we turned around to head back to the car, not before a second made an appearance under a fallen tree, this time with marginally greater warning.

They did say it was going to be a good year for snakes, and in my random survey of random walks through random parts of the ACT I can conclude they were correct.

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Snakes were mercifully unsighted on a longer walk to Gibraltar Rocks in Tidbinbilla during the great Australia Day day off. I’d been here before but – again seeking some variety – I approached the peak from a different side. The first couple of kilometres traversed open plains bursting with kangaroos and the odd emu, before marching incessantly upward through that low, scrawny kind of bush that excels in the higher climes frequently ravaged by fire and ice.

Reaching the rocks of Gibraltar up in the overcast skies, there were no Spanish ships, no snakes, no bogans singing Jimmy Barnes and wearing the cheap fake blue of Australian flag products proudly made in China. Just the essence of Australia fitting for today or any day. The heart and soul of its earth and its sky, sprouting the unique environment which has been nurtured over millennia and which endures and adapts as best it can.

And so, we reach the last ball of this ragged over as we once more revisit those terrible cricket analogies. The weather has cooled a touch and the mornings are showing signs that we are entering the golden age. Britain basks briefly in twenty degrees and a few of our mornings drop to single digits. The temperatures still rise to the mid to high twenties in the afternoon, and this is what we call ambient, mild. It’s all relative. And still plenty warm enough for cricket. And snakes.

Floating around in my brain for a while has been Mount Coree in the Brindabellas and – in this quest for difference, desire for new – it finally becomes an agenda item early one Saturday. It is a peak I have never climbed, mainly because I’ve never been entirely sure how to climb it. Mostly it’s a case of following fire trails and dirt roads, including up to the summit and, sometimes, sharing these with vehicles.

Commencing from Blundells Flat several hundred metres below, it is a fresh, serene meander uphill towards Two Sticks Road. Only a grader on the back of a truck passes me early in the climb, leaving a lingering cloud of fine dust particles in the air, gilding the shafts of sunlight beaming through the trees. Along Two Sticks Road it is easy going towards Coree Campground before the final traverse up to the rocky summit which marks the border between NSW and the ACT.

It’s a decent slog as the sun warms and, by now, the four wheel drives have woken from their slumber. One by one they leisurely pass in a clunk of gears and pneumatics and fumes, inching ever closer to the trig at the top. For all their engineering and technical prowess, for all their ability to get to the top quicker and revel in airconditioned comfort, they are no match for a pair of feet. A pair of feet that are connected to the landscape, an intrinsic part of it rather than something carving it apart. A pair of feet that have superior bragging rights over the indolent Saturday morning car park crew accumulating at the top. And a pair of feet that will come across one more red bellied black on the way down, completing a reliably diverting over.

Australia Green Bogey Walking

gbpilgrim

Wanderings in the world. Meanderings from the mind.

Tag: weather

Influential

Shoal havens

You better watch out

Holiday viewing

Moving somewhere

Freefalling

A tale of two Cornwalls

Just out of town

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Namadgi

I got chills

Exhausting

Uppish drives

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