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The Bretagne

The Bretagne is Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-St Malo Ferry, she is a middling to large Cross Channel ferry, some 30 years old. I suspect now on this run as it takes 11 hours to cross a not great distance at a fairly leisurely pace. Having felt the shudder as she performed tight maneauvers to exit Portsmouth i suspect that she might show her age if asked to move at more than a sedate 15 knots.

I love ferries, you won't catch me on a cruise, a ferry has the authenticity of actual work, the steel beneath the veneer. A voyage of necessity, not narcissm, purpose, not pose. I love the anticipation of waiting on the car deck for the ramp to go down and the road to open up.

The Bretagnes fittings match her age, built to a standard, not a cost, and where the food is concerned, a French standard. We return to the UK in a couple of weeks on a P and O ferry, which may have its roots in the Peninsular and Orient line, and will be amuch younger ferry than the Bretagne, but i doubt it will have half the satisfaction.

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Ferry to catch

It's possibly a mistake to travel on a Friday afternoon in the U.K. if you are on a deadline.

The Ferry sails at 20.15. we leave Manchester at 13.30, it's only 240 miles, how difficult can it be?

Choosing to go cross country for the first 30 miles is our first mistake, bands of blustery rain are hammering up the country, the roads are alternately wet or puddle ridden and piloting a slightly overladen, 29 year old car is an exercise in momentum preservation and delicate tip-toeing around the worst on the water and other drivers who seem mesmerised by the teeming rain.

Despite careful route planning the midlands are a gridlock of cars and trucks, rendering progress a crawl, and the clock accelerating round the dial, averaging 40 mph after 2 hours is nerve jangling, the ferry won't wait for us and the next one on that route is in 48 hours.

Frantic imterrogation of phones reveals we should be OK. it's just a case of making what progress is possible and gritting our teeth in the traffic, this isn't the relaxing start to a holiday we anticipated.

Against expectations the further South we progress, the better the traffic and the better the weather, we roll into Portsmouth Harbour with half an hour to spare, in glorious sunshine.

The grand old lady of Brittany Ferries, the Bretagne, looms over the dockside jetties and paraphernalia, ready to cradle us overnight to St Malo.

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Glasgow

Must have driven through glasgow at least 30 times, and never stopped, bar a couple of nights at the Airport Motels, but those were just sleep stops.

Work has pitched me up at the airport for a week, and whilst i am here to do a job and go, the chance to have a bit of a poke around this forthright, sullen, magnificent, neglected city was too strong to resist.

First, let's do the history, at least as far as it impacts today. Firstly, Glasgow , even beyond my beloved Manchester, shaped this world, wherever you are Glasgow will have had an influence, at one time one in every five 1 in 5! ships of any worthwhile size was made here. The inventions that flooded out of Scotland, through Glasgow affect everything from the screen you are reading this on, to the tyres that delivered it via the roads they rolled on, and that's just scratching he surface. Through the empire years, and assorted conflicts, Glasgow was the most important port of Empire. Glasgow was the premier workshop of the world. Trains, boats, trucks and cars poured out of this city, powered by the iron and coal the surrounding countryside is mostly made of. And that industry was solid, impregnable quality. Go to Darjeeling and the Sharp/Stewart locomotives are still toiling up one of the most improbable railway lines in the world. The Aircraft Carrier, Illustrious was such a powerful symbol, both practically and mentally that hitler tasked an entire airforce to sink her when she was in Malta, they failed, such are the things they made in Glasgow.

But that was then, and dinosaurs have impressive bones as well, what of Glasgow today?

Well, if you go by culture, Glasgow has supplied its fair share of art, music and influence, worldwide. Edinburgh and the romance of the tartan is most people's idea of Scotland, but who do you think carried that culture round the world? Got any Tiffany style interior stuff or jewellery? Go have a look at Charles Rennie MacIntosh.

Being port city, glasgows population is a polyglot mix of influences, and that shows in the music and art, which often shows a self deprecation that London would simply not compute. If you know anything about football, you know about Celtic and Rangers. Two teams from a city in a small country, yet known around the world. That's Glasgow in a nutshell, hard, influential, and still punching way over its weight.

Have a wander round Glasgow, it's magnificent, the Clyde, the architecture, the museums (The Kelvingrove is bonkers, 3 museums all mixed up in an amazing mix) and in common with the great cities that are their people, rather than a place for people to be, if you pop into a cafe, or bar, you will be treated like you have been visiting for ever not in a gushing over the to way, but a simple matter of fact acknowledgement and interest. You won't get a massive goodbye, or a wish for your day to be excellent, it will be a look, and a "bye now" like you had been in a thousand times.

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QUANTAS

I have always wanted to fly with QUANTAS, not just because of the Rainman thing, but for other, almost romantic reasons.

First, the name, Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service, which is a splendidly evocative name, and is, obviously, where the Acronym QUANTAS, comes from. Just by itself, that name sounds exotic, yet reliable. Certainly, in these globalised times, the very name is bound up in, and a part of, Australia.

Secondly, the livery, the simple all white paint job, with the red tail flash, complete with white flying Kangaroo is simple, yet striking, and leaves no doubt as to the Airline in question. The best looking Airliner in existence, is the Boeing 747-400, in QUANTAS colours it is magnificent.

Sadly, we didn't get to fly on one of those handsome jets, we had to make do with a little 717 puddle hopper, but getting on board still had a little magic looking at the white flying 'roo on the tail.

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Southern Hemisphere/When you feel a bit stupid.

It's an old English joke, when you tell people that you are going to Australia, they laugh and make comments about being upside down, and making sure you don't fall off the bottom of the planet, etc etc...

But,

you are

upside down.

And so what, you may say, spherical planet, no real up or down, just gravity pulling you down till the surface of the earth gets in the way. Well.....

Walking out last night, regarding the stars, reassured by Orions obvious presence, i let my eye follow the imaginary line from his belt to the pleiades.

And they weren't there.

In fact, nothing looked familiar, and i looked and looked and only after letting my eyes zoom out to take in the entire sky, did i work out the problem, aplologies, if you are way ahead of me.

In the southern hemisphere, Orion is upside down...

And this threw me, to the point that i had to stop and work it out, and, obviously, Orion is the same, but because the observer was now on the "botttom" half of the planet he stood on, Orion appears upside down to my normal. That something so simple had gone un noticed, mostly because it looked, sort of the same, is an interesting (to me) lesson in learning to take notice of what you presume, and what actually is.

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Money talks soft hearts lose truth only whispers now pay the whalers dues The Whalers Dues, Jethro Tull It's when you see a harpoon gun up close, for the first time, that you really get an inkling of what whaling was like. The details are unpleasant, and we pursued entire species of intelligent, social, creatures to the brink of extinction, with techniques of scarcely believable cruelty. That we managed to stop, and let Whales recover, to a degree, is one of the things we need to remind ourselves about, and remember when countries suggest the return to commercial whaling. Now, there may be little difference between a Cow, reared solely to be eaten and a Whale, hunted from freedom. To some people, meat is murder. I would be of the opinion that farmed animals tend to be ones that we cannot show to be advanced social creatures, and Humans are Omnivores, thus given we provide as stress free a life and death to our food, that is acceptable. Hunting higher mammals, is not, and trophy hunting of anything is deeply unpleasant. So, to some, i may be a hypocrite to object to the slaughter of some animals, but not others, fair enough, it's my decision, and i can live with it.

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Cairns to Brisbane

We decided to travel by train from Cairns to Brisbane, there is a service called "The spirit of Queensland" that takes 25 hours to travel the one thousand miles or so from Cairns to Brisbane.

Basic maths will tell you that this is not an express service, 1000 divided by 25 equals about forty miles an hour. Not a hugely impressive avarage speed.

The train has three options for travellers, A cabin, a "sleeper seat" and a, moderately spacious economy chair. Twenty five hours, obviously, is an overnight service. and sleeping upright in a chair must be difficult. We travelled in the "sleeper seats" a plastic pod with a comfy seat/footrest, with some limited Audio visual distractions.

I chose to listen to the best of midnight oil, whilst watching the countryside slip past. This partly explains the trains relative slowness, its roots are in goods transport, primarily Sugar Cane and Cane products, and the minerals extracted inland of the coast. Thus the main line has a myriad amount of stops, crossings, and other bits of permanent way that are inimicable to fast running.

As the train slips further south, stopping at various towns and villages, you begin to wonder just how much sugar cane there can be in the world, the fields go in for ever in sharp green leaved monoculture. But, the overall impression of the land and habitation is one of quiet prosperity, so it appears to pay.

Sleep comes quickly after the dark closes off the view, but it's a broken sleep of un expected lurches, and sudden noises. The light of dawn is an unavoidable alarm, despite the heavy curtains, and we de drain, feeling like we should be tired, but are not.

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Long Distance Rail Travel

We are travelling from Cairns to Brisbane, it's about a thousand miles.

The train is not fast, but as a way to travel it is extremely agreeable. No horrible pressurised aircraft cabin, the noise is somehow restfully, not grating, and I expect to sleep like I do on small boats, with a smile and a feeling of being held by a benign entity.

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Cairns

Cairns is quite a way up the eastern coastline of Australia, technically it's a tropical area, it sits on a flat area of land hemmed in on all sides by rain forest coated mountain ranges. A few miles off shore there is the great barrier reef.

Mountains to reef, if Cairns had a decent beach, rather than mudflats it would tick so many boxes it would explode with visitors. As it is, it's a mecca for holidaymakers from all over the world, east really does meet west, in an Australian sea side town.

The big attraction for us was the supposedly warm weather, and the reef If you scuba dive, sooner or later you will be asked if you have dived the great barrier reef.

We had a few days in Cairns and from visiting the gold-rush, mining scarred villages a few hundred kilometres into the interior, to the fain forest, to the reef, cairns has not let us down.

The weather, on the other hand has... I know the Cairns summer is cyclone season, but there hasn't been a cyclone, just a front, pushing clouds and rain at us for days. We have been chased by the rain, from Sydney, to Uluru, to Alice Springs, to Cairns.. However, we have still enjoyed most of the time, and we still have a week to go.

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Hygroscopic 2

And perhaps

i should elevate an arm

or stick out a leg

leave some limb to beg

to be cleansed

of the lingering salt

rid itself

of the permamant want

but how then to

de-salinate a mind

un saturate a head

wipe clean

the drawing

of salt from

the very air

and memory

and thought

of what was

never there

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TGB

So tomorrow

a boat out to the reef

Don’t screw this up Australia

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The stuff in between us

Our guide today i might categorise, uncharitably as

"Aged hippy" or, "Old new-ager"

But, no one deserves labels, and he was a good guide, as well as the tour guide stuff, he had a deep admiration of Aborigional life and it's, for want of a better word "Religion" The whole interconnectedness of all things, the stuff, he said, waving his arms in front of him, that connects all things. This is, to make a large generalisation, somewhat similar to other belief systems, and possibly closest to the Chinese concept of Qi, or Ch'i, the "Life force" that surrounds all things, other words connected possibly being karma amd kismet.

Part of this belief system is best summed up in the expression, "What goes around comes around" If you do evil, then evil will be visited upon you.

Obviously, as a good Athiest, i could point out that the effective removal of your entire country is a pretty big evil that hasn't been re visited on anyone, and a life constrained by belief simply results in you finding out that the spear that has served well for centuries isn't much use against a Snider Rifle, and, gosh, might it been have been a good idea to experiment with new ideas?

However, as a good Athiest, i also know that any knowledge is or could be useful, and willfully ignoring or decrying a civilisation that has outlasted every other one on the planet, including having the equivalent of Aliens of far far superior technical ability arrive out of nowhere, is a civilisation that probably has something to teach the rest of the world.

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Why did no one mention the Bats?

Cairns! what the actual flip, why did no one mention the bats?

Crimmens, it's like a flying shagpile carpet up there, they are enormous, and there are like, gazillions of them, why did no one say!

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The Red Center

The red center is pretty green right now, recent rains have turned the desert green. The earth is still a dusty red, but the countryside is not even close to the arid extremes we were expecting.

In common with many isolated places, it’s the weather that is the ultimate arbiter of your life. What we didnt expect was that it would be rain that rearranged our plans, rain, in the hottest part of Australia at the hottest time of the year. Firstly, an open air meal was comprehensively rained off, the thunder and lightening being impressive if alarming.

We had planned to use some gravel roads on our travels, however, the torrential rain would make the tracks difficult and with the remoteness and likely day time temperatures we decided to stick with tarmac roads. However, the Australian version of Rob McKenna must have been travelling near by as another night of monsoon rain and dramatic thunder and lightening rendered our only tarmac road flooded and impassable to anything this side of a boat. We decided to chance the gravel roads, and with a slightly bewildered French couple in tow we set off, with the understanding that we would turn back if I thought we were in danger of being stuck.

To start with the road was an extremely slippery layer of slime on a sandy base, but as we crossed two hill systems it gradually dried out, the worst things being nasty wash outs which left trenches across the road. However, our cars full range of 4x4 tricks was only needed twice to deal with a couple of deep washouts, and we dealt with two hundred kilometres of gravel road in three hours, admittedly three hours of constant concentration on picking the best line on the track.

The red mud and then dust insinuated itself into every nook and cranny our bags I suspect will carry a thin line of Australia’s red center in every seam for the rest of their lives!

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Ularu.

A huge great boulder plonked down in the middle of Australia, only it’s not a boulder and it wasn’t just plonked. According to the geologists latest thinking, it’s the tip of a vast up ended sedimentary rock layer. Some people insist it’s a meteorite, which kind of ignores that a meteorite that size would have vaporised most of Australasia, altered the Pacific and Indian oceans as well as inconveniencing a fair few Kangaroos.

Ularu was, for a short time, known as Ayres Rock, but, in common with a lot of appropriated places and names ownership, and more importantly, cultural control is being handed back to the original occupants. It’s not ideal, but its better than how a lot of indigenous peoples are being treated.

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Manly Beach

We had a few hours to get out to a pacific coast beach, i was desperate to see the Pacific. But given the limited time we had, where was best? The answer was provided by a nice lady who had noticed us doing the tourist thing of standing on a street corner, staring at a map.

"Where are you trying to get to"

"The Ocean"

"Well, Manly's your best bet, half an hour on the ferry, short walk and there you are"

And so, a half hour on the Manly Ferry, watching the vista of Sydney bay, a short stroll through the tourist drag of Manly, and, Manly beach, just as it appears on the TV, but, the star isn't the beach, even though the sand has apparently won every round of "best beach sand in the world" Or the surfers, or the rest of the human decoration.

The star, for this Man, who loves the salt water, was the Ocean, in reality, you can only see three miles from sea level to the horizon, so any sea looks like any sea, but, some how, this was bigger, deeper, and spoke a dozen octaves lower than any other sea, this was the Pacific, to a man brought up on the shallow, mean North sea, the Timid Irish sea, and bitter Atlantic, this was the grown ups playground, the Ocean of seas.

To even just stand, feet in the sand, staring out was to feel bigger, and simultaneously, so microscopically small, as to be part of the salt, the spray, wind and wave of the day.

We shall meet again, this Ocean and I, in a couple of weeks, and even though i matter to it, less than a single grain of sand, a little taller i shall stand.

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Two days in Sydney

It should have been three days, but the vagaries of air travel delivered us into Sydneys surprisingly efficient airport twelve hours late, thus robbing us of a full day. Sydney had a bit of a task to sooth the frustration, which it managed with ease and charm.

From the very first person we saw after sleeping off the forty eight hours travel, who said "G'day" it seemed like Sydney had taken upon itself to say "Hello, welcome to Australia"

The transport system worked, every one, even train commuters, were friendly. We did the tourist stuff, the Bridge, the rocks, the Opera House, everything lived up to the hype. Didn't have a bad meal, although it isn't exactly cheap.

Sadly we didn't have time to take in much culture. The museum of contemporary art was nicely uncompromising, much of it produced through the prism of local/pacific island viewpoints.

Although Sydney's architecture is largely big city sky scraper norm, there seems to be an appreciation of what heritage there is. And it's a pleasant place to wander about, not just the parks and gardens, but the working bits of the city as well. Part of this is that it's the cleanest city i can remember visiting, there is an absence of rubbish that is almost startling compared to London or New York.

Like almost every great city, Sydney is based on a river, only in Sydney's case, it's a whole system of bays, leading off the narrow entry from the Pacific, and this gives Sydney its trump card, for me the finest thing about Sydney are the ferries and water taxis, they are easy to jump in and off, run everywhere every few minutes, it seems, and every single trip is an event as the city and surrounding land unfold in immersive real life. When we come back, i shall spend a day just riding the ferries.

The Opera House.

Or, as Clive James put it, a bunch of shells tossed in a typewriter.

Like everyone else, i have seen pictures, and marvelled at the shape and audacity, the vision, remember it was first proposed in the 1950s, and it took time and money to build, but it's re paid for itself a million times over in what these days would be called "Brand awareness" I have always liked the shape of the Opera house, but been puzzled as to how it actually functioned within those great egg shell sails. There are five performance spaces within the buildings, the two large halls, and three smaller theatres. From the top down, it's best to think of the sails as a great marquee, covering separate buildings, sat on top of a great raft of concrete that houses the engine rooms required to navigate this great ship of performance art. Those white tiles that wink and flash out of a million pictures are not quite so brilliant white in real life, someone i heard said they looked grubby, and needed a scrub. I thought they had a near golden hue, that just deepened and added texture to the appearance of the building. However, when you take a picture, lol and behold! it's a brilliant, dazzling white!

The true test of such a building is of course, does it work, and does it allow the performances to happen as well as they can. As to that, i could only comment after actually seeing a performance, and as we were robbed of that chance by bad weather in America, i shall have to wait to find out.

Obviously two days is a stupidly short time to get to know a city, but in those two days i learnt enough to know i want to come back.