A Wild Week in Buenos Aires... by day

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - 7th March 2010

The purpose of The Daily Rod, back in September at least, was purely to allow people to know where I was and what I was up to without their inboxes being clogged with annoying and impersonal bulk emails that they'd probably ignore or forget to read anyway, and equally to stop me having to write the same thing 25 times to different people. Its remit may, arguably, have subsequently expanded into various other realms - not least as a platform for my various inane musings about the world - but with this blog in danger of losing any sort of semblance with real time, it has become increasingly obvious how useless it becomes in serving its primary purpose when it's hopelessly out of date. The earthquake in Chile put this in real perspective - I had a load of messages from people who read the blog, but had no idea where I was because the last thing posted on there was from Rio de Janeiro almost 3 weeks earlier.

So, after spending a whole week in one place for the first time since being in Mangalore, Buenos Aires seemed like the perfect opportunity to fast forward this blog to a vaguely more sensible time lapse. Whether or not that goal comes close to being achieved, we shall have to wait and see.

Most people you talk to who've been to South America usually come up with the same answer when asked "what was you're favourite city?" BA has managed to build itself a status among backpackers that seems to edge closer and closer to legendary the more you ask people. But what nobody ever mentions, or at least failed to mention to us, is that BA is damn weird.

There's no denying it's a cool city, indeed one of the coolest. However, and Anna and I agree on this (an event so rare that when it occurs it should be duly noted), the place has an undercurrent to it - both in the demeanour of its inhabitants and the general atmosphere of its streets - that is just a little bit uncomfortable. It's not that you feel unsafe or threatened - the discomfort isn't of that kind. Rather, it seems like something that is embedded in the psyche of the city - a lack of thrill, of optimism, of get-up-and-go enthusiasm seems all too prevalent - a feeling that seems totally at odds with the very essence of the reputation Buenos Aires holds among travellers. The reason for why we both felt this is not something either of us could really pin down - to a certain degree the economic collapse in the early part of the decade could provide adequate reasons for a lack of optimism, but BA's weirdness seems to go beyond reasons economic. Drawing comparison with Rio de Janeiro - one of South America's other "heavyweight" drawcard cities - Anna was bang on the money when she noted how both cities have a blend of all kinds of people - ethnically, socially and financially, but in Rio they all seem to blend harmoniously together into one big happy Rio family. In BA, there doesn't seem to be any harmony.

Notwithstanding that somewhat dire analysis of Buenos Aires' social makeup, BA is still a fantastic city - but it lives upside down. You live by night and sleep, if at all, during the morning. Dinner comes after midnight - eating any earlier is the preserve of weirdos, or tourist gringos who have yet to adapt to (or can't handle) the BA-way. You go to sleep at sunrise, and have lunch at around 4pm. This is not just students or young people on holiday - parents are walking around with 3 year-olds in tether at 11.30pm; dinner in a family home is likely to be past midnight. This is Buenos Aires life.


One week is a fairly long time anywhere - my travels are certainly testimony to that - but the week in BA has been somewhat disjointed resulting in a strange blurring of days and events. Of immediate concern upon arrival was that Anna had various other things to attend to and had vanished off into the Subte (subway metro) less than an hour after we'd arrived at Che Legarto's BA hostel. However, Ellen was still with us from Iguazú and, accompanied by Jamie (who'd also just rocked up at our hostel), the 3 of us went exploring the city by foot. Plaza de Mayo was the first destination (see photo above) - a central square of sorts that is home to various civic buildings ranging from the colonial Cabildo to the Casa Rosada ("Pink House") - as the seat of the executive branch of Government it roughly represents BA's equivalent of the Élysée Palace. The central park and pathways of the central section of the Square give more of a hint to its special political significance for both Buenos Aires and Argentina - the scene of the May Revolution of 1810 that set Argentina on its path to independence from the Spanish, Plaza de Mayo today features several mounts of Argentine flags dawbed in slogans protesting about veterans' rights and various other issues, while every Thursday the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continue their three-decade-long protests demanding information about their children who "disappeared" during Argentina's military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

The 3 of us continued random walking around the city, heading up Diagonal Norte to Avenieda 9 de Julio - the world's biggest avenue - and the Obelisk monument in the middle of it. A stroll up Av. Florida and a glance into Gallerias Pacifico brought me back to the same streets I'd walked exactly one month earlier, but we continued a bit further north up to the tree-lined greenery of Plaza San Martín before doing a U-ey and heading home. Interestingly, at some stage around then we were almost certainly within about 20 metres of Anna... but were totally oblivious to the fact until several days later.

We had the pleasure of Anna's company on Tuesday as we headed down to the famous barrio (neighbourhood/district) of La Boca - about half an hour to 45 minutes walk south-west from our hostel, heading through the artesanal shops, streets and buildings of San Telmo en route. You know when you've entered La Boca - it involves walking past the colossal gold and blue mass of La Bombonera ("the Chocolate Box"), the home of Boca Juniors FC (one of BA's two arch-rival football clubs, the other being River Plate). It's a fairly surreal experience - one minute you're walking through a fairly quiet, nondescript, residential neighbourhood with barely a person in sight, the next minute you round a corner and find yourself sharing the road with hundreds of tourists with cameras streaming out of coaches, tour buses and seemingly out of the walls - all posing in front of the multitude of blue and gold memorabilia that is dominated by a single name and face - Diego Maradona. A pretty good footballer, he's generally known round the world these days as an overweight abusive alcoholic whose cheating right arm robbed England of their rightful place in the 1986 World Cup semi-final. In Argentina, however, he's on a par with Jesus - a national hero who can do no wrong (despite the fact that his managerial ineptitude almost cost them their place in this summer's World Cup). Shame for them, really.

The intense colours of La Bombonera are mirrored across La Boca - the buildings are brightly painted and artwork ranging from grafitti to random "sculptures" to beautiful images are visible in every direction - a visage that comes to a head when you reach the street of Caminito. Although the droves of tourists somewhat tarnish its charm, the succession of pastel shaded buildings of every colour combined with simplistic architecture that hints of an Italian heritage give the place a genuine sense of identity and character that is intertwined with the area's proud history of tango. Indeed, it exudes the very feeling that seemed lacking elsewhere in BA.

With Jamie and Ellen, it was the same 3 of us that headed up to Recoleta on Wednesday that had scouted the city centre on Monday. The principle aim of the trip was to check out the famous Recoleta Cemetery - a massive necropolis of marble mausoleums that house the remains of Buenos Aires' rich and famous (most notably Eva "Evita" Perón) in a pretentiousness grandeur that is matched only by whichever tomb lies next door. The most poignant sight is the statue of Jesus Christ in the middle of the cemetery (right) - a simple statue of not great height, that is totally dwarfed in size and opulence by the tombs of those who supposedly died as his followers. If you ever wanted an example of Jesus' words, "the last shall be first, and the first last", being spectacularly ignored by the very people to which they word directed, come visit Recoleta.

The Cemetery wasn't the entirity of what Recoleta had to offer though, and a wander around vaguely to the tune of the LPG-recommended "Walking Tour" saw us check out the impressive architecture of the Buenos Aires School of Engineering, me acquire another Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt to add to the collection, a saunter across 10 lanes of traffic on a cool graffiti-strewn pedestrian bridge, and plenty of photos of the impressive Floralis Genérica sculpture in the United Nations Park. The latter, seen right, is a giant metallic flower, but is cooler than your average sculpture on the basis that its giant metallic petals open and close "based on the incidence of solar rays" - i.e. open by day and close by night. A good place for Jamie to join the illustrious group of England 2018 Bid-Backers...


A couple of journies were made to the leafy upper class Palermo neighbourhood over the week - Thursday's trip with Anna involved a walk through the parks and a couple of hours lying on the grass, while Friday afternoon saw me return minus Anna with a bunch of young'ns (18-year-old pre-university Gap Yearers) and check out the artesanal market and the general surrounding area. A fairly cool market, but the highlight on the afternoon was almost certainly a sign for "feria de la ropa" (clothes fair) on a random back street that got a few people excited; an excitement that burst like a harpooned balloon upon discovery that the "fair" consisted of a guy manning a small table and a single clothing rack - a total of maybe 20 articles of clothing. Whether it was false advertising or good marketing, you've gotta admire the guy's audacity.


Markets were also the order of the day this morning; the San Telmo area is dominated every Sunday by the weekly street market (see above) that runs the whole length of Avenieda Défensa - we covered about a kilometre of it but it could well have gone on for four. Between paintings, clothing, jewellry and the usual blend of souvenirs, there were also some unusual bits and pieces including a whole load of Homer Simpson doing the "Hand of God" t-shirts, coins with their interiors carved out around whatever design they have on the front, and - much to my excitement - a copy of Flashman in Spanish! Given that I'd just about finished my 9th book in the series I was tempted to purchase it... but common sense suggested by Spanish probably wouldn't do the book justice.

In a slightly overgrown nutshell, that largely recounts my various comings and goings of Buenos Aires during daylight hours. It is only by night, however, that BA really comes alive - but those tales will have to wait for another blog.

Plan C

PARATY, BRAZIL - 20th February 2010

Planning ahead has rarely played much of a role in any of my travels so far, but it seems any possibility of this changing with Anna's arrival on the scene can be safely put to one side. Indeed, our botched departure from Rio and eventual arrival here in Paraty was an organisational maelstrom of almost vintage proportions.

Things began back at Rita's house in Rio where, aftr several days of taking advantage of free board in one of the world's coolest cities (not to mention occupying the only air conditioned room and being chauffeured all over town by car), we were thinking we should really move on and hunkered down to some proper planning (armed, as standard, with the trusty LPGs).

The provisional scheme we had been toying with since a few weeks back (and by "we", I mean "Anna", and by "had been toying with", I mean "suggested") involved heading to the colonial hotspot of Ouro Prêto, a few hours north of Rio, before somehow heading to Brazil's western edge and the tropical wetlands of the Pantanal. However, it had been somewhat assumed that at some stage in or anound Rio, Anna - a massive surfer chick, apparently - would have had her desire to rid some waves satisfied. This assumption was slammed to pieces on the discovery that trying to rent a surfboard anywhere in this part of Brazil was going to go about as well for you as rocking up uninvited to the Augusta National for a cheeky round. Absolutely no chance.

Thus, "Plan A" soon evolved into "Plan B", which involved heading in the opposite direction out of Rio; down the coast to the supposedly lush scenic beauty of Ilha Grande (with more beaches providing more, if still extremely unlikely, potential opportunities for surfing), before continuing further down the coast to Paraty - combining the colonial history of Ouro Prêto with a seaside location that had the added advantage of being further west (and thus closer to our Pantanal goal).

Plan B was signed off by yours truly on Wednesday evening before I joined the Canadian lads (Rita's friend's boyfriend and the latter's brother, last seen up on Corcavado with Cristo Redentor) for a match at the Maracana - local Rio rivals Flamengo and Botafogo goign head-to-head in the semi-finals of the Brazilian Cup. The jist was that Anna sorted out the nitty gritty details of buses, hostels, etc., while I did manly things like drink beer and get far to emotionally involved with the tens of thousands of fellow fans in the Flamengo end, wondering how the hell they'd managed to lose a match in which they'd taken the lead and Botafogo had had only one decent change the whole game. Botafogo's 2-1 win came courtesy of a freak second goal, as well as thanks to Flamengo's inabilty to steer any one of 5 near misses around 6 inches closer to goal. Considering the non-stop noise and general intensity of the supporting masses, I thought they took the loss pretty well.

Getting a taxi home was a job and half but was eventually managed - the same, however, could not be said for "Plan B", which was lying in metaphorical tatters as I returned home. The combination of a total lack of hostels in Ilha Grande, various bus issues between there and Paraty, and the option of heading straight to Paraty being equally stymied for one reason or another, all meant we were forced to overstay our welcome by an extra day and night!

Rita was up early to work on Thursday, while Anna and I eventually made it out into town for a walk around the landmark of the Centro district - the Catedral Metropolitana standing out both for its novel exterior architecture and its awe-inspiring interior ambiance. Heading up to the quiet, arty, hilltop neighbourhood of Santa Teresa was a must, but with the queue for the tram-train that runs up the hill resembling People's Sunday at Wimbledon, we decided to man up and walk. An awesome staircase full of art and colour greets you at the beginning of the climb (its name, Escadaria Selarón, I just discovered finding the image, right) but soon gives way to a more regular street ascending at an impressively steep gradient. Good exercise all round, and soon we were looking down on Rio, and Anna was falling in love with more streets, graffiti, buildings and Rio life. My camera chose an unfortunate moment to run out of battery, but as photos from it aren't getting uploaded any time soon no one's missing out on much.

We stumbled across "Sobrenatural" and it was the venue for an excellent dinner - local fish that was delicious in its own right, but cooked to perfection with fantastic seasoning to boot. Washed down with some ice cold Brahma beer, and we were in fine fettle for our final night in Rio and, of course, finalising Plan C - namely heading straight to Paraty and sacking off Ilha Grande. A couple of gremlins reared their head - we were forced to spend our first night here in a rather expensive place as normal hostels had only single dorm beds left - but come lunchtime yesterday we were in Rio's massive rodovíaria, having said our goodbyes to Rita's family with heartfelt gratitude, and were all set for the 4 hour bus journey to pastures new.

The Longest Day - Part IV

COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO, URUGUAY - 1st February 2010

continued from Parts I, II and III...

If you, like me, have long got tired of hearing the cliché that goes something along the lines of "things rarely turn out accordingly to plan, however good the plan might be", you can probably appreciate that it is even more annoying to have it practically demonstrated in front of your eyes for the umpteenth time.

Earlier today in Buenos Aires, I was happily reporting a successful purchase of afternoon ferry tickets over to Uruguay - something that was looking somewhat dubious even earlier in the day on the other side of the Pacific. With hours to spend, I dropped my bags off at the ferry terminal's luggage room and took on the staggering heat and humidity of what the LPG sees as "still the coolest place in South America". The LPG also informed my first destination - the number one priority was, surprise, surprise, getting some grub - and it wasn't much more than a 5 minute walk to a cool little place called "Filo" located down a bit of a side street from the bustling Avenue Córdoba. Vaulted ceilings with contemporary decor, seats on the bar and an art gallery downstairs were the order of the day, alongside an excellent serving on empanadas and an ice cold beer. At under the equivalent of US$10, it was an excellent gastronomic introduction to the continent.

Avenue Florida is BA's shopping street - pedestrianised and rammed with shops, stalls and thousands of shoppers, traders and tourists looking like rabbits in headlights (or, walking mugging targets, depending on your spin on things). Not emanating the "gringo" vibe in quite the same way as your average British tourist, I blended in and around the crowds and made my way to Galerías Pacifico - a shopping centre whose interior design immediately reminded me of the Queen Victoria Building mall in Sydney - simply stunning, from towering waterfall to vaulted glass ceiling and Roman architecture.

It wasn't long, however, before I was back in the ferry terminal, recovered my bags and attempting to check in - the full (and recommended) hour before the 16.15 scheduled departure. I reach the front of the queue, hand over the ticket printout that I'd been given at the ferry company's desk on the other side of the forecourt, and was promptly imformed that my ticket was for tomorrow - the guy pointing out the "02/01/10" date in the corner of the piece of paper. Once again - and I've lost track of the number of times I've found myself typing these words on the this blog - I was far from impressed. This was only heightened when he tells me that he's changed the ticket for today, but I have to go to another desk, pay the 18 peso (about £3) difference in price, pick up a new printed ticket, and then rejoin the queue to check in. Helpfully, he added that I "probably don't have enough time to do it before the boat is supposed to leave". Great.

Details are fairly irrelevant, suffice to say I rushed around and muttered a lot of abuse under my breath, eventually got checked in and passed through immigration with a few minutes in hand. And then sat on the boat where, while admittedly drifting in and out of conscious, I sat and waited for the next 45 minutes before we actually left. Turned out there were so many people waiting to be checked in after me that they just had to delay it... and that this was pretty much standard practice. There was little care from me though - by that stage the fatigue of being about 32 hours into a day that still had 8 hours remaining had well and truly kicked in, and my cares were entirely based on sleep.

After a little trek into town, I was checked in at El Viajero Hostel and, after sorting myself out with fluids, lockers and general loose ends it was off into the time encapsulated cobbled streets of the old Colonia town - an area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Area in 1995. A few artistic clouds dotted an otherwise perfectly clear sky, leaving the buildings glowing in amber twillight as I wandered down to the riverside, and sitting on the rocks by the small harbour area I passed half an hour watching the sun perform nature's nightly show that will never cease to get me clicking photo after photo.









With the sun down and a cooler breeze wafting in from the river, I sat down at the fanciest place in town (feeling the justified need to splash out) - the seafood-speciality Yacht Club restaurant by the harbour - and enjoyed a long, drawn out dinner of fresh gambas prawns washed down with crisp local beer. 2 hours later, I sauntered back to the free computers here at El Viajero and, with minutes ticking on to midnight, draw to a close the most epic day of my life.

A seafood surprise

KAIKORA, CANTERBURY, SOUTH ISLAND - 30th January 2010

Breaking up the spare day between my relaxing couple of nights in Christchurch and today's ferry back to North Island from Picton, I spent last night in the coastal town of Kaikora, famed for the abundance of whales and dolphins that inhabit the waters just off its coast, as well as the colony of seals that pass their time dozing on the rocks on the outskirts of town.

Arriving late afernoon, I donned the hiking boots and took on the 4 hour 20km Peninsula Walk, that follows the coastline all the way around the rugged Kaikora peninsula, past the seal colony and culminating in an ascent up and over the central hilltop that runs like a spine from the mainland - the latter being timed perfectly for probably the best sunset of my travels so far.


The new camera earned its keep with photos like those above (that will appear soon enough), but having bothered to learn how to take slightly greater advantage of its capabilities over the previous 24 hours or so, I was able to take some pretty special snaps descending the other side of the hill back to town; the full moon glistening over a twillit sky leaving its eerie glow over the wild South Island vegetation.

I never miss the opportunity to talk about good food, and Kairkora can proudly claim the honour of hosting what is surely one of my Top 5 Eating establishments in terms of pure value. Out on its own, secluded from town with no other building in sight in any direction, stands the shack of Kaikora Seafood BBQ - a roadside stall located on the road/track that runs one-way towards the end of the peninsula. Here, you get the day's freshest seafood prepared in front f you at barely a cut above market prices - in effect, the best quality fish in town for the lowest price. LPG recommended, part of the reason for undertaking the big walk was the knowledge I'd be passing this place en route.

Of course, in my world things are rarely so simple, and after walking for half an hour from town to reach the shack, I discovered I had next to no cash... with time running out before the place closed. It was either a return walk back to my car and sacking off the Peninsula Walk (it'd get too dark to complete it if I turned around), or miss the some of best seafood in New Zealand. Bad times...

However, fate clearly agreed that it owed me some good cards, because after glumly walking 5 minutes up the road I starting chatting to a local who was parked on the roadside digging up weeds to take home for feed for his rabbits. I was after a lift back to my car in order to get to an ATM, but he was having none of it - he just gave me a $10 bill straight off on the basis that "it's the season, isn't it?", and dropped me off right outside the BBQ Shack. Crayfish lobster is the local speciality - you can't get it fresher anywhere else - so a few minutes later I was enjoying an excellent crayfish fritter toasted sandwich, all thanks to one geneous Kiwi!

Maggy

TOWNSVILLE, QUEENSLAND - 13th January 2010

As Ronan Keating so rightly said, "life is a roller coaster - you've just gotta ride it". It's not just ups and downs either - just like a roller coaster, when things start going downhill, they tend to accelerate. So, fresh on the back of having my camera nicked (the day I got back from the Whitsunday Cruise), I managed to spectacularly shoot myself in the foot in an attempt to be forward planning.

With 48 hours left in Australia, I'd planned to shoot up to tropical Townsville (at about 19.5°S, it's well inside the the Tropic of Capricorn and sits approximately as far from the Equator as Goa), not so much for the city as its illustrious and acclaimed neighbour - Magnetic Island. Named as such by Captain Cook on his 1770 Discovery expedition (and affectionately nicknamed "Maggy" by locals), the story went that the island possessed some strange force that sent Cook's compass off the kilt. Subsequent evidence that no such force exists suggests that the only thing off the kilt was Cook after a couple of pegs too many*.

He's not alone. For some unknown reason, I'd managed to convince myself that my 9.30am bus from Airlie Beach arrived in Townsville at 10.30 that night. Based on this assumption, and just minutes before leaving Airlie, I booked myself into an LPG-recommended joint next to the bus station to minimise hassle upon arriving that night, with the plan being to hit Magnetic Island for the day in the morning.

Whether it was the succession of 12 hour journeys up the coast that made me think the journey would be that long, or whether it was just plain stupidity (certainly the more likely), the crux of the story was that it actually took just 4 hours, arriving at 1.30pm.

This should have been good news, as it allowed me to head straight over to Maggy, relax for the afternoon, crash there overnight and spend the following day on the island before my late afternoon flight to Sydney. If only it were so simple. Because of my supposed late arrival, I had had to do a pre-arrival check for Globetrotters (the Townsville hostel) that meant my card had already been charged... and it was non-refundable.

Unimpressed, I wandered from the bus station a couple of blocks down the road to where my hostel was...and came face-to-face with a fenced off site with no semblance of a building left on it. A phone call confirmed what I was dreading - the bloody place had moved site and my LPG, published in 2004, had the old address. And the new address was anything but close to the bus station.

Long walk in savage tropical heat with massive backpack. Check in. Dump stuff on bed. Change t-shirt. Fill backpack with LPG and book to read on beach. Walk to Magnetic Island ferry terminal.

One final kick in the teeth, it transpired that ferries were return tickets valid for one month. Meaning that by not staying overnight on the island, I was going to get financially screwed if I wanted to come back again on the second day. Not happy.

The island itself is incredible, not so much for the fact that it is a jungle flanked with pristine beaches (regular readers would have gathered that Queensland essentially consists of thousands of miles of the above), but the fact that despite its formidable reputation as a tourist hotspot, the island is just oh so quiet. There is one road through it, linking the ferry terminal at Nelly Bay with the expansive Horseshoe Bay to the north, and the smaller Picnic Bay to the south (see right). Accessible only by foot are the other 20+ bays of various shapes and sizes scattered in every direction.

Arriving on Maggy at 4.30, I hopped on the shuttle bus to Horseshoe and took on a couple of recommended walking trails - the first to an inland creek that is supposedly full of birds, although apparently they all vanish on the second Tuesday in January in every 21st century year ending in '10. The second, as the sun set to the west, involved some serious physical work - a steep climb up a hundred or more rocky steps, over the top of the hill, and down a steeper, rockier descent the other side among hundreds, or even thousands of huge granite boulders. Eventually you reach the shore of Balding Bay; in my case you mistakenly take a ridiculously treacherous and quite possibly illegal off-track route and freestyle your way down the rocks after losing your way; and enjoy the sobering tranquility of having an entire beach, and indeed entire bay cove, all to one's self.

Long walk back to Horseshoe, and sitting alone by the bus stop listening to my iPod. If I were to describe it in one word? Passive.

Then, the rollercoaster turns. As down the beach walk two guys, one young, one middle age, the latter calls out "oi mate - come fishing with us!". Polite refusal, something about having a bus to catch, and "just get the next bus! You haven't got anything better to do!"

Two hours later, beers and wines were going down a treat with fresh chips, and Paddy, Pete and I had caught a tiger shark, some little fish, and had two lines snapped by big mamma barras too strong for the weak line. I'd sacked off the last bus, and was soon going so sack off the last ferry thanks to the offer of sleeping at Paddy/Pete's place. BASE bar was frequented, a few more drinks were had, and back at Pete's a controversial concoction of bacon, onions, tomato sauce and a large dose of curry powder was guzzled. Great evening.

Morning was early. 7.30am early. I called Globetrotters to let them know I wouldn't make check out time - and with the rollercoaster very much moving my way by now, the lady told me not to worry, just swing by later and pick up my stuff, and thanks for ringing!

Thoroughly pleased about the way things were working out, my Australian adventures had one final, and quite literal, high to come - Paddy, 20, born and raised on the island, took me back over to Balding Bay, but this time we climbed our way over the rocks that bend around the left edge of the bay forming the beginnings of a lagoon. At the apex stands one huge mass of granite - towering 10 metres above the ripply blue waters below, its front face flat and shear (see arrow, right). You'd be mad as a hatter to do it on your own accord - especially as a tourist - but fate's cards in the form of local hospitality were destined to provide the biggest adrenaline rush I've had since sky diving in 2007. Like a roller coaster, what goes up must come down... so it was 1, 2, 3, JARANIMO!!!...

(...*splash*)


* Strictly unofficial speculation

The Great Ocean Road, Part 1

GEELONG, VICTORIA - 20th December 2009

My general style of travelling involves a level of advanced planning that is, essentially speaking, non-existent. True to that form, I arrived back down in Melbourne from Mooroopna on Wednesday with the vague plan of filling in the 4 free days I had before Christmas with a trip over the Bass Strait to Tasmania. Come Saturday, when I decided it was high time to book said sojourn, I discovered that the combination of leaving it to 24 hours before departure to make a booking and timing it with the big end-of-school holiday rush meant that Tasmania was both very expensive, and wholly unworkable time-wise in order to be back in Melbourne for Christmas.

The Tasmania plan itself had been a plan B - my original thoughts had been to head inland to Ayer's Rock - but that got shelved a couple of weeks back when it became apparent that getting there by any non-airborne means would take days each way, and airborne means would set me back close to A$500. Pre-Christmas plans, therefore, weren't in great shape... until along came Plan C (at the suggestion of my cousin David) - and more or less 24 hours after sitting down to book flights to Tasmania I was heading west on the M1 Freeway in a brand spanking new set of wheels that I'd picked up that morning (Sunday) from the local Hertz Car Rental. Compared to the Little Beast back in England - my 998cc VW Polo - the 1.8L Nissan Tiida I've got hold of is a veritable beast (and is basically identical to the white one pictured on the linked website). The only downside is that it's an automatic transmission - like the Americans, Australians don't seem to like driving cars properly - but it certainly packs a useful punch, albeit with dark magic taking place in the gearbox.

So my new plan was to take a 4 day trip down the Great Ocean Road - a winding 250km road carved along the coast to the south-west of Melbourne, taking in a succession of beautiful seaside towns and some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere on the planet, causing it to be variously described as "one of the top 10 trips of a lifetime" and "one of the top 10 drives in the world" by various travel magazines (that may or may not have conducted fully exhaustive studies on the matter). However, with the upcoming weather looking great and the real busy season only starting on Boxing Day, it was a good time to be heading for the coast - naturally with no bookings for accommodation, or indeed any sort of plan of action or information of any kind aside from my trusty Lonely Planet Guide. Incidentally, I only got hold of this particular Australia LPG by luck, thanks to the generosity of a fellow backpacker who was staying in the Prince of Wales hostel in Singapore - she'd just come from Australia and was heading westward back to the UK so wanted to offload a couple of kilos (it's a hefty volume)!

As the whole Ocean Road trip involves a lot of stuff (plus, when I get round to it, a lot of spectacular photos), and because my lack of a diary means that if I don't detail it here I won't detail it at all, there's gonna have to be a separate blog for each day... starting here!

DAY 1:

About 120km west of Melbourne along the Port Phillip Bay coast, I arrived at the city of Geelong (pronounced Jer-long), which is basically the gateway to the Great Ocean Road, which begins about 40km down the road. It was a pretty uneventful drive - the highlight was taking the "Citylink" Toll Road and paying $12.50 for the privilege of going on a half-mile long tunnel under Melbourne. The fact that I had unlimited use for 24 hours was a fat lot of good for me...

Geelong is, apparently, the second largest city in Victoria with a population approaching a quarter of a million, but its city centre really doesn't give an impression of its size. Approaching the town from the north allows you to take a scenic route off the highway and sweep into the town from the top of a hill to the north-west, offering a beautiful view of the town centre, pier and renovated sea front that symbolises the focal point for the community (see above). All streets lead up from the sea front, including Moorabool Street, home of the National Hotel Backpackers (or "The Nash" to those down with the lingo), where I checked in for the night. After wandering around a few sights of the town, including a pretty cool art gallery that featured an excellent exhibition of works by Adrian Feint, I befriended a couple of Scottish girls from the Nash who were getting their own rented car the next morning. As they had nothing to do in the evening, they joined me for a drive around the Bellarine Peninsula, which stretches out eastward from Geelong right across the Port Phillip Bay, almost-but-not-quite enclosing it (as will make sense if you look at a map).

The peninsula's coastal road takes you through the towns of Portarlington, with its eerie views of Melbourne's skyscrapers in the distances, seemingly floating on the water like hazy shadows; St Leonards, which is an infinitely nicer place than the East Sussex town for which it is presumably named; and Queenscliffe. The latter is on a tiny little peninsula of its own, and its little High Street boasts a grand old hotel with a rooftop bar offering panoramic views from the highest point anywhere on the Bellarine - a view that was begging for an arty sepia-toned photo like the one below! It was up there, surrounded by water in every direction and enjoying the warm evening sunshine, that our conversation turned to just how crazy it was to have Christmas in the summer... but there'll be more on that in later blogs!


A couple more stops on our evening drive took us to Point Lonsdale - the Bellarine's closest point to its sister Mornington Peninsula on the other side of the bay - and, as the sun set, to the wonderful 10km stretch of golden beach at Ocean Grove. Then it was back to the Nash, sampling some of their LPG-recommended noodles for dinner (they aren't lying when describing portions as "very generous"), and time to get some good shut-eye before the assault on the Great Ocean Road proper early the next morning.


P.S. A lack of editorial process may have resulted in my last blog featuring something along the lines of "BLAH, BLAH geometry BLAH". I was supposed to go back and fill in the blahs but apparently forgot to do so... but rest assured it has now been corrected.

Exploring the bush

MOOROOPNA, VICTORIA - 15th December 2009

Place names in Australia generally fall into one of two categories. One set - predominant in the big cities around the coast - are basically the names of British people, British places, or "New" British places. The second lot, however, feature some sort of rhyming or onomatopoeic blend of alliteration and assonance to create a word that seems pretty ridiculous to us "Poms" with our wonderfully formal linguistic sensibilities. Places like "Walla Walla" always brought a snigger when I was a lad, but now that I'm here exploring Northern Victoria I've been able to visit a whole load of them first hand!

First up was the "Rural City of Wangaratta". "City" doesn't mean anything in terms of size over here - just like England, a "city" is anywhere with a cathedral, but as a result of Australia's incredibly sparse population you have a whole load of "cities" with populations akin to a rather small English town. Wang is one such place - the LPG* puts it at 15,500 - although once upon a time it was one of many places around the area to attract thousands of migrants after the discovery of gold in the mid-nineteenth century (somewhat like Bendigo, where I was last Sunday). "Wang", incidentally, is local talk - people don't like any name longer than a couple of syllables, so Wangaratta is Wang, Shepparton is Shep, and Lancaster (a tiny village with a population of about 30) is Lanky!

The first thing that strikes you about Wang is how well preserved it is - your walk up and down the colonnaded streets of the town centre takes in rows of buildings from the turn of the century - few house the same businesses as when they were created (the Telegraph Exchange is now a bar), but the facades are intact over 100 years. The wooden structures flanking a broad central street evoke a feeling of being in America's Wild West, and it's a pretty accurate description given Wang's location in the heart of what is known as "Ned Kelly Country".

Ned Kelly is an Australian icon - according to the LPG he's "Australia's greatest folk hero...his life and death have been embraced as part of the national culture". But contrary to what being a national hero usually entails, Kelly was a serial criminal and a murderer, and was hanged at the age of 24 after his last stand and capture (after trying to derail a police train). His execution was notwithstanding some 30,000 petitions for clemency - and Kelly's Robin Hood-esque "steal from the rich" populism ensured his memory lived on long after his famous last words - "Such is life".


Kelly's last stand was in Glenrowan, a little village outside of Wang, and the hotel/inn where he was captured is now the centrepiece of a celebration of Kelly and his resistance to the powers-that-be - as well as having a massive 20ft statue of Kelly and his tin-lid helmet outside (see right). Though on the side, Glenrowan also features an excellent bakery and pie shop... which brings me back to Mooroopna...

At some stage mid-week, we took a lunchtime trip to Mooroopna Bakery to sample the officially "Best Pies in Australia". I'm happy to report that they (naturally I had more than one) were indeed very good, although I'll be holding judgement on whether they're the best in all of the land until I've sampled a few more (which will no doubt occur in time).

Back to roaming around, and Saturday saw us make a trip up to Echuca - which was presumably named by accident when a colonist sneezed. Known as "Australia's Paddle Steamer Capital", it's located on the mighty Murray River, which drains pretty much all of Australia west of the Great Dividing Range. The town came to prominence when the railway arrived, which saw it grow as a meeting point between water-based transport to inland Australia and the fast link to Melbourne by rail. However, with rail expanding inland the cargo diminished, resulting in Echuca shifting to a peaceful tourist destination. That it has very much achieved - the old esplanade has been left untouched from 100 years back (complete with a British Union flag rather than its modern Australian counterpart), and leads down to a bankside pier for boarding onto one of 6 paddle steamer boats that run tours up and down the Murray. Being basically flat land, the river is amazingly windy and incredibly broad, but quiet and peaceful banked by gum trees basking in water that comes at a massive premium anywhere else in the land. Moored either side of the river are a whole series of house-boats - modern, multi-storey deals that would be right at home in Monaco... with glorious 30 degree sunshine and the cool river breeze, I was quick to add one of them to the ever-growing list of things to buy if I make a billion quid...!

Finally, there was today's trip to Beechworth up in the "High Country" - the area of land found as you make your way up the Great Alpine Road towards Australia's "Alps". Beechworth is one of the most beautiful towns you'll ever visit - lush and green (something you rarely see here after 8 years of drought) and flanked by a valley and rising hill - itself separated from the town by a gorge carved by what was presumably a hefty river, but today is a somewhat pathetic stream. The scenic Gorge Road winds its way up through the valley and hill, providing a beautiful view back across the historic town - which holds the title of the "best preserved town in Australia". I'd been impressed with Wangaratta's level of preservation, but Beechworth is something else. Everything is original - you have no problems imagining yourself walking around 100 years back with gold rush workers running around all around you. After gold was discovered, some 36 tons of pure metal were found within just 10 years, and God-knows-how-much-more for the years that followed - so it's easy to imagine just how much money was flying around there once upon a time. Today it's much more quiet, but does feature a sweet shop that's straight out of Harry Potter. Every wall is every direction is covered with sweets and chocolates of every description - if I had more of a sweet tooth I'd probably have fainted with excitement. With my departure back to Melbourne tomorrow, I invested in some Cointreau truffles as a present for my cousin... they were sampled after dinner and they were indeed fantastic!

* Lonely Planet Guide

Animal Planet

VERMONT, MELBOURNE, VICTORIA - 5th December 2009

My second day in Australia featured a trip to the famous Werribee Open Range Zoo, about half an hour west of central Melbourne. Zoos have really become a penchant of mine - since visiting London Zoo as a kid, I don't think I went to another one till the final afternoon of Pembroke College's infamous "WurstFest 2007" lads' trip to Berlin, when we went to see the world famous baby polar bear, Knut. Since then I've checked out all sorts - this trip alone has featured Bannergatta in Bangalore, the Monkeyland of Matheran, and most lately Underwater World in Singapore's Sentosa Island, the Singapore Night Safari, and Werribee here in Melbourne.

I'll start with the two from Singapore, as I patently forgot to give them anything more than a passing mention before departing Raffles' Island. Underwater Land is basically a giant aquarium on Sentosa Island, which is basically a giant theme park island with various pay-per-use attractions. The only other proper aquarium I've been to is that in London (and that was about 15 years ago), so I don't have much to compare it to, but as you'd expect from Singapore, it was really well done and featured all sorts of cool creatures, including the Japanese Spider Crab (see right) - a creature that (for reasons I now forget) reared its overgrown head in countless conversations on our India-Thailand travels last summer.

A cool feature is the underwater tunnel, which allows you to walk around completely submersed in water, and thus have fish of various levels of deadliness circling around you as you click photos. At certain times you really feel like you're just underwater with them - you'll be innocently standing there staring into the abyss when out of nowhere a swarm of fish bomb past you in an almighty rush to God know's where...

After checking a few more of Sentosa's sights (including an awesome downhill go-cart-come-toboggan track), we headed back to town with the plan of hitting the Night Safari.

The night zoo is located right in the middle of Singapore's city-state, which means that its as close to the middle of nowhere as is possible on an island that's only about 40km across. With word on the street saying that getting there by public transport would be something of a mission, Neha and I were lucky to get involved with an organised trip originating from her hostel - for S$40 we got minibus transfer from Little India to the zoo and back, entrance to the park (normally $25) and a safari bus ticket (normally $10). Great deal all round. You even get a cool "Animals of the Night" show thrown in for free, and get to see a bunch of cool creatures (wolves, sloths, racoons, pythons etc.) doing various tricks with their trainers.

In the grand scheme of things, it's basically the same as your average zoo - big area with various enclosures for various animals, with a train/tram/bus running along a set route through the various areas. However, the presence of darkness adds a quality to the experience that makes it unique beyond anything else I'd seen - with random rustling and growling among the overgrowth around you, every step you take is punctuated with sense of foreboding about what might be lurking around the corner, behind you, or indeed above you. Whereas, in a normal zoo, animals are essentially presented to the punters; the dark of the night, combined with walking trails that are flanked with vegetation of a density more akin to jungle than zoo, makes the Night Safari a whole different kettle of fish.

The highlight came somewhere in the depths of the jungle-zoo after we "hopped off" the safari bus to see some cats. Randomly walking up a side path, we found ourselves on a slightly raised platform overlooking a bit of a clearing. Just as we were wondering what we were looking at, leaves rustled and the silhouette of a huge mane danced over the rocky crest. Sure enough, out strutted the King of the Beasts, and before we could grab our cameras we unleashed the most deafening roar you'll ever hear in nature. You don't take photos, you don't take videos, you just stand in the stunned silence of admiration and, imagining being face-to-face with that sort of beastly fury, perhaps wet yourself a little.

But while Singapore Zoo had the novelty of the night, Werribee extracted novelty from the day. The Lonely Planet guide describes Australia as "the closest thing to an alien planet on Earth" - a reference to Australia's indigenous flora and fauna that have developed from its unique isolation from the rest of the global landmass. As recently as 15,000 years ago, creatures could freely walk across the entirety of what is now Eurasia, Africa and the Americas; it has been some 100 million years since you could walk to Australia.

It was natural, therefore, that we immediately gravitated to Werribee's Australian enclosure - a mass of native Australian wetland inhabited by natives of the island, from kangaroos to a multitude of emus to wombats and various birds. But this enclosure was unlike anything I've seen in any other zoo - the path through the enclosure had no fencing, no separation, no nothing. You were simply walking around in the midst of the animals. You can somewhat get an idea of the surreality of this setup in the first of the photos below - we were walking down the path and along marched a few emus merrily on their way. It's no nonsense zoology.

Seeing the kangaroos was damn exciting for me - the only shame was that they were rather lazy in the midday sun so just sat around under the trees. Nevertheless, we went from the Aussie enclosure onto Werribee's safari bus, which took us through American, Asian and the massive African enclosures, coming up close and personal with a whole host of beasts living it up in huge open grasslands. My personal favourite were the scimitar-horned oryx (see right), a type of antelope that is now extinct in the wild (due to being hunted for its horns). I don't really have a fancy reason for liking them - the rationale is pretty simple - they look damn cool.

But the real highlight came after close-ups with giraffes, rhinos, zebras and Harry the Hippo (and an army of excitable meercats running around like nutters). It came at 2.30pm, with the feeding of the lions. The setup at Werribee is awesome - there's a Land Rover Jeep parked on the edge of the lions' enclosure, with glass put up in line with its steering wheel (so that the bonnet is fully exposed to the lions). The lions' meat is plonked down on the bonnet of the vehicle, and the assembled spectators are treated to something that looks a little like this:

There are a couple of lions - brothers of the same litter (see below) - along with a lioness in the enclosure, and hot word is that the lionness is pregnant. If so, expect international headlines approximately next February...