The Importance of Eating Right

As Virginia Woolf once wrote, "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

And I'm a firm believer in that food can really make most situations an enjoyable one. You can be freezing, burning, bored, tired, embarrassed, hurting, dripping wet, dirty, or any innumerable other horrible things, and a good meal or a nice snack can make the world of difference. Food can also make good things amazing: snacking and reading, blogging and eating chocolate cake and coffee, walking and ice cream, food and sex, you name it - there isn't much that I can think of that can't be improved upon with some food!

But what do you do when you are cold, wet and miserable in the middle of nowhere, a long way from your nice fully stocked fridge and household of cooking appliances. Same thing you would do if you were there, cook! This is my kitchen out here:

I've made stews, curries, pasta sauces, roast beef, stir fry, pancakes, porridge, salads, the list can go on and on. And all on these little stoves running on unleaded fuel 6 inches from the ground.

One great time that comes to mind is when we were in Coral Bay. We headed over to cook in the camp kitchen using my stoves rather than by the tent to be a bit sociable. All around us people were cooking pasta with tinned tuna, pasta and tinned tomatoes, pasta and ketchup (!!!). And we begin chopping up all these fresh vegetables and putting together a rich, spicy, aromatic vegetable curry with the flavours wafting throughout the kitchen. People kept stealing glances in our direction the whole time. As it was dished out, steaming and colourful, people openly stared at our plates before forlornly looking back at their own camping creations. 

It doesn't take much, just a bit of thought and will to spend the extra few minutes on something fantastic!

I think Scott Adams best summed up my feelings towards food and cake, "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." - Meta, I know.

On a side note - I also won a bet that night that I could eat a curry upside down.

Until next time!

A Tribute to the Humble Without Reason

You know how hard it is to begin writing an essay? Or a job application? Or even sometimes just an email? Well, how the hell does one begin writing something when you feel that there is no way that you can do justice to the subject that you are about to try and honor through the medium of text? I wish I could write poetry or music or sonnets or even just be a better writer - I feel I have no business in even trying to compose a compendium on a persons life when I look around at all the examples of the far better, far more beautiful works that I read all the time. But, I can't write music, or poetry, and I can only write as well as I can at the moment - so you'll have to suffer through, and I only hope that I can do justice to someone who deserves nothing but.

Two weeks ago my Grannie died. Two days ago, she would have been 91. Yesterday was her funeral. 

Stealing a bit of thunder at her grandchild's graduation

I thought she was going to make her birthday, I selfishly hoped that she was going to last another couple months, I foolishly did not spend as much time as I should have speaking to or seeing her these past 13 years - but I feel that one will always think that when someone is no longer there. And here I am, over 16,500 km away, enjoying myself on the east coast of Australia. Racked with guilt for having the audacity to enjoy myself at such a time, not being there when she died, for not being there for the funeral, for not being there to support my Mum who just lost her mother and best friend; all compounded by being torn apart by feeling some sense of relief for not being there - no matter what people say to you, you feel like a terrible person for even having an inkling of those kind of feelings. 

I'm not good at emotions (and yes I've written it like that on purpose). I feel awkward, ashamed and emasculated at the prospect of displaying how I feel openly (god-forbid). I much prefer to maintain a stoic, controlled façade with which I can calmly deal with what's going on around me. Now this is great a lot of the time and means I can think clearly in times of high stress or emergencies, however, it's not an ideal way to go through life in terms of dealing with grief, etc. And I this is why I've chosen to try and write something instead. I've stayed quiet this week on the blogging front as a sign of respect for the passing, and now I will try to honor my Grannie, Wendy's, memory. 

Here goes everything...

Grannie at her 90th birthday

I've obviously known my Grannie for the past 26 years, since I was born. I have many memories of her coming to visit us in America always bringing with her British sweets, Dandy and Beano comics and ham sandwiches (quite illegally of course but also for some reason one of the most vivid things I remember about helping her unpack her suitcase). I also remember visiting her in Britain on several occasions growing up, my main memories of these times again being the sweets, collectible football stickers and the river across the road from her Bungalow in North Wales.

Outside her bungalow of  30 years, early this year with all of her children and grandchildren -  I think I have more hair there than everyone else combined...

I moved to the UK a week after I had turned 13 with my mum and three brothers. In what epitomises the very essence of Wendy, she welcomed us with open arms to her two bedroom bungalow where we lived for the first few months before Mum could find a place for herself. Just over a year later, my dad died. We had moved out by that point but we spend the next few days back at my Gran's house. My reaction when I got the news back at the house, was to promptly walk out of the lounge, away from everyone, into my Grannie's room and promptly lie face down on the bed and not talk to anyone for about a day (see - emotionally retarded from a young age). Instead of coming to bother me or move me, I was left there and Grannie happily took the fold out sofa to leave me with myself. From this point on, Grannie stepped up even more than she already had to help raise me and my brothers and support Mum. From babysitting, helping with school, preparing in the mornings, feeding or punishing (Grannie had very hard hands for a good spanking - not that I'd know of course, I was an angel and never got punished and only know this from hearsay from my brothers...).

Since that time, Grannie has been such a significant, consistent and important presence in my life, that it has yet to really click that she is no longer there. Nothing has technically changed for me yet, having been on the other side of the world for the past two years. And I can't even imagine what it's going to feel like not being able to walk the two minutes down the road to her house when I return home in a short 6 weeks time, it just doesn't even make sense in my head, as it's never happened each time I returned home to visit. It's all I can do to not try and delay the inevitable return. I'm just very happy that I decided to book a surprise trip back over Christmas so that I was able to see one last time, say some semblance of goodbye and have her see me in a considerably better spirit than I had sounded for the past couple years, else I don't know if I would have ever seen her again, not being originally due back again until May this year, though knowing her, she probably would have stoically and stubbornly hung in there until I had made it back.

My brothers and me with Grannie. I'm the upside down one (not much has changed), and I'm fairly sure that Ben has Nick in a death grapple rather than a hug (also not much changed).

Wendy was a talented and worldly woman with a plethora of talents and amazing personal qualities. She enjoyed gardening, reading, tapestry, woodwork and going to the theatre all the way through her life until she unfortunately became significantly partially sighted a few years ago. However, she never complained about this once, 'she just got on with things', as my Mum puts it, and continued to be her wonderful self. Mum aptly, summarises the wonderful person that Wendy was through the qualities that she passed on to her through example: empathy, strength, forgiveness, honesty, generosity, laughter, a sense of the ridiculous, how to listen, the importance of friendship, loyalty and an abundant capacity to live: this list could go on and on. She has even 'adopted' several children's (including my Godmother) and grandchildren's friends who may not have had a mother or grandmother of their own, fully incorporating them into her love and family including sending regular letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards and even wedding presents. As both Mum and Tina Turner phrased it - she was simply the best (the original song may or may not have been about Wendy).

Just prior to this photo, Grannie decided to have everyone yell 'Sex!' instead of the more traditional 'Cheese!'. It works very well to generate a fake or genuine smile, so feel free to adopt it for any future photos - especially in front of your grandparents, remember it was Grannie's idea!

Granny was one of the first real 'Wendys' in existence, being named as such as her mother knew James Barry, the author of 'Peter Pan' and even receiving a signed copy of the book as a christening present. She was born and grew up in Liverpool before moving to London at the age of 18 to study nursing at Guy's Hospital, working throughout the Blitz of WWII and distinctly remember trying to beat out fires in her backyard with a bin lid at the behest of her father after a particular incendiary incident. Her career perfectly suited Wendy's compassionate, empathetic and kind nature and transitioned perfectly to the role of mother and grandmother, even earning her another fairy tale nick name of 'The Pied Piper' as she took all the children from her road to school every day even after her own two children had moved on.

Wendy's life has been lived to the fullest with many adventures both known to me and unknown. These include those listed above as well as washing dishes at the Strand Palace Hotel after her date didn't have enough money to pay for their meal, getting a little tipsy and very stately on the Orient Express for her 70th birthday and even including deciding to jokingly declare that she was a lesbian if there was ever a lull in the conversation - it's definitely one way to pick the conversation back up. I can only wish now that I was able to learn more of her rich, adventure filled life in the time that I had with her.

Grannie and me before my days of being a hairy buffoon.

As only the most humble and unassuming among us can be the most deserving of a tome of recognition written about them, Wendy will be sorely missed by her friends, neighbours, community and of course her family. The world is that little less bright without her, but she is at least now at peace and without pain, having left this world "like a little flower slowly fading away" as Mum described her shortly before she died.

So please raise your glasses, hug your loved ones, love those around you unconditionally, be the best person that you can be; in the memory and honor of Wendy Stewart; mother, grandmother, friend, nurse, wife, jester, and rock to many - you will be sorely missed by many people for many years to come.

At my cousin's wedding last year, seeing the eldest of her 6 grandchildren married off from the less fighty side of the family - My brother's and my chances have dropped significantly since losing her influence.

Kalbarri, Caves and Foreign Countires

Well, it's only been a week and I've already managed to fail at my self imposed blog update target of Sunday and Wednesday... That's why I didn't quite post it on the page yet - I knew I wasn't quite at that discipline or organisation level. But, it's still Wednesday somewhere, so I can just make the once a week secondary target if I post in the next few hours! So here we go...

Overground, underground and foreign ground

Kalbarri's calling! So we decide to do the sensible thing, and ignore the tourist information advice and do the 9km Nature's Window trek in the rather warm Western Australian summer heat. So we got there nice and early (only 36C at 0730 in the morning) and had plenty of company for the walk in the guise of hundreds of flies. 500m from the car park is the main and often only destination of this hike - a lovely natural rock arch called Nature's Window, for obvious reasons. In this time I managed to drain my camera battery, go back to the car to get a charger, get back and promptly break my cord - so not many photos for me this day.

Nature's Window

There was a lovely view admittedly, but thought we could improve on it slightly before setting off for the remaining 8.5km jaunt in the now 40C heat. 

There were some fantastic views along the way (see accompanying album), a nice little scramble along the river, a wee swim in the river (on purpose) and plenty of flies and heat. By the time we got back to the car, we were all very grateful for the air con and the slightly less fly-filled car - though this required a complex and hard to master 'fly dance' in order to get rid of all the flies and run into the car with as few still on you as possible - unfortunately we never recorded this moment. The rest of the day was a spent as a well earned break after what I liked to now refer to as the 'fox's anus walk'.

Nature's Peep Show

On the way out, there were the breathtaking red bluff, mushroom rock, eagle gorge, natural bridge and island rock. These are possible to do as a 5km walk or so or driven to separately. They were many tempting times where I wanted to get down onto the cliffs, but thought the access without ropes was a bit dodgy so I resisted this time.

Mushroom Rock - shaped like a mushroom, funnily enough

After a nice scenic morning we took an off-road detour to another country. Here we learned about the country's war with Australia, it secession, shook hands with a Prince and learnt that gravity does in fact propagate instantaneously across any distance - a fact known by this king for over 50 years, and yet somehow still being searched for by the scientific community, even though this paper is posted publicly on a billboard. 

This country is of course: Hutt River, run by HRH Prince Leonard Casley. The Principality of Hutt River is the oldest micronation within Australia which seceded on the 21st April, 1970 and is now an independent nation of 75 square kilometres. HRH Prince Leonard decided to separate from Australia when he got very annoyed with the government in 1969 during the Wheat Quotas allowing the Casleys a quota equivalent to 100 acres of wheat after many years of consistently producing 13,000 acres. After being told there were to be no compensation and the government tried to illegally reclaim a large portion of his land, Leonard decided to announce his secession. After a complex argument and legal battle with the government, Hutt River finally managed a legal Sovereignty by declaring a state of war. Three days later, Leonard declared the State of War over, and through the Laws of War, Sovereignty goes immediately to a Government undefeated in a State of War. HRH Prince Leonard has now had a rather illustrious political career, with many foreign dignitary visitors and gifts and now happily gives a personal tour of the country and a stamped passport or visa for $2.

Last stop on the update this time is Stockyard Gully Caves. These caves are located about 90 minutes south of Gerladton near Eneabba. They form an part of an underground river system that has carved out the limestone with many caves in the area, unfortunately only one open to the public. This is a 300m easy walk through the caves with various side passageways and nooks you can go exploring in. There can be bats in there if you're lucky and there are definitely feral bee hives (it is in the Beekeepers National Park after all) at the entrances so be quiet and careful! The hives were incredibly interesting in that the honeycomb was hanging directly from the cave roofs and not inside any kind of hive.

Painfully tempting

The caves are 4WD accessible only (from the south is much better access than from the north), and we managed to get George bogged after foolishly not dumping him by the side of the road. So we spent a little while digging him out, putting him to the side of the track before Claire happily continued on the soft sand track. From the car park, where you get general and safety information, it's a short hike down to the cave entrance along the river bed. Be aware that if it's due to rain or has rained recently, you should not enter the caves, flash flooding can occur and there is a sign showing the exceptionally high flood levels from back in 1998 on the way down from the car park. These caves were awesome fun and I'd really love to go back to have a play in the less easily accessible ones. Unfortunately, time, equipment and personnel made that impossible on the day. 

Onwards and southwards back towards Perth.

Until the next time.

Dolphins and Emus and Sharks, Oh My!

Well it's time to start heading back to Perth, but not without a dozen or so stops along the way!

Carnarvon, Shark's Bay and a brief stop to gain some vertical elevation at a horizontal feature

First stop on the way down south is Carnarvon. We did spend a fair amount of time in the town on the way up, picking up George, so we decided to skip the town and just head straight to the blowholes. The blowholes are an impressive site on the coast, about 50km outside of the town centre. They occur on the coast on a set of limestone where the abrasive force of the ocean has worked its way through the cliffs as small passageways and now provide eruptive exits for the water hitting the cliffs as the waves pummel the coast. For maximum effect, aim to go during big swell and low(ish) tide - be aware though that these cliffs can be dangerous in big swell, and between the churning waters and jagged cliffs are not somewhere you want to end up.

After a night with the flies (and this time also massive hornets) at the Overland Roadhouse, we started making our way into Shark's Bay - unfortunately check in for most campsites ends at about 1800 and we weren't going to make it in time all the way in. About 2.5 hours from the highway, we arrive at Monkey Mia, perfectly timed for the third dolphin feeding of the day. This occurs up to three times a day and is carefully controlled by park rangers (only 500g per serving for specific dolphins) and has been going on for more than 50 years. The longest a single dolphin has been coming to the beach is 38 years, called Notch, introduced by her mother and now bringing a calf of her own. There is lots of research that also occurs at Monkey Mia around the dolphins, sharks, rays, dugongs and whales depending on the season.

There's only one campground in the reserve area, not unreasonably priced at $16 pppn, but they had a very reasonable deal for $20 pppn including a pub dinner and a drink. Monkey Mia is still very popular even in the off season and we met some very nice fellow travellers here. During the summer, there are plenty of overly-inquisitive emus wandering around the place looking for food and water in the harsh summer months. Feeding should be actively discouraged, and make sure all your food is packed up securely and out of site.

The next day, Zoe went to all three feedings in hopes of getting chosen, but to no prevail. So she consoled herself with an ice cream and off we set for Kalbarri via the Sharks Bay World Heritage Trail. Sharks Bay is one of only a couple hundred Natural World Heritage sites in the world, defined by four criteria:

1. An area of outstanding natural beauty - self explanatory
2. Hosts an outstanding example representing major stages of Earth's history, including the record of life and significant on-going geological processes - stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are rock like carbonate structures built by cyano-bacteria colonies on the surface, similar to the first forms of life on earth 3.5 billion years ago
3. Hosts an outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution of ecological processes - transition zone between major ecological ecosystems (terrestrial and marine), with many endemic species and others living at the extremes of their ranges
4. Contains the most significant natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity, including threatened species of outstanding value from the point of view of science or conservation - Shark's Bay is the home of many critically endangered plants, mammals, reptiles, birds and fish, several of which are endemic to the area. 

On top of being an outstanding example of a Natural World Heritage site, Shark Bay is also home to at least 100 species of reptiles and amphibian, 240 birds, 320 fish, 80 coral, 218 bivalves and 820 species of plant, at least 70 of which are also endemic to the area. So you will can't help but experience some incredible natural observation whilst there.

Leaving Monkey Mia, there are plenty of stops along the 'World Heritage Drive' back to the highway. There is the incredible Francois Peron National Park, unfortunately a high clearance 4x4 is required to access most of the park, so Claire wasn't quite up to the task that day. Our first stop of the day, was a beautiful lookout at the top of Eagle Bluff overlooking a bay where you can observe (best with binoculars) a large number of wildlife. We saw a good number of sharks, rays and even the dolphin pod swimming across the bay (being pursued what looked like a large number of small sharks). Luckily we had a friendly Canadian with a set of binoculars to confirm or deny our suspicions of what certain blobs were.

Three dolphins, 2 calves and lots of smaller dark patches chasing

My cockles are already warm

Next stop on the way out was Shell Beach. A unique beach made up of billions of cockle shells of a particular species that has been able to proliferate unchecked by its natural predator due to the high salinity conditions of the ocean around this area. 

Final stop on the way out were the stromatalites at Hamelin Pool. This is one of only two places in the world where living stromatalites exist and provide a modern day analogue to the earliest form of life from ~3.5 billion years ago. These were critical to the development of the Earth's atmosphere as they released oxygen as they photosynthesised. The pictures is probably slightly less than exciting for those outside of a geo background but hey.

Once we were out of the Shark Bay area there were two quick stops: the Tropic of Capricorn, and a bit of beach driving. Unfortunately, no super exciting outside footage as the GoPro is still deciding to play dead. And then we were on our way to Kalbarri, Geraldton and beyond.

Now just imagine it was 3500 Ma, a lot hotter and a lot less oxygen

Disclaimer: the actual Tropic of Capricorn is likely quite a ways back up the road, as it's moving north at a rate of ~0.47 arcseconds (~15m) per year and I don't know when this sign was installed.

Until the next time.

As Northern as a Yorkshireman

After racing up the coast to reach Exmouth, we are now as far north as we will likely be travelling in Australia. There's a possibility of getting up to Cairns on the east coast, but I'm not sure yet whether time will permit.

Exmouth Excitement

We spent about a week in and around the Exmouth peninsula. Originally developed as a World War II military base (evident by the old bunkers, monuments, the naval base and the massive radio antennae that used to be used for communication with submarines), now a days, Exmouth relies on tourism for its survival. With the spectacular Cape Range National Park and the incredible Ningaloo Reef on its doorstep, it's no wonder the town's population almost triples during the peak holiday season.

The beginning and end of our time in Exmouth was spent in the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort generally relaxing and trying to avoid the sun and oppressive heat. The staff were incredibly nice and friendly (with just a couple of exceptions unfortunately), prices on par with most of WA camping: $10-15 pppn and very nice and clean facilities, including a 25m pool that was very nice to use to wake up in the morning (alas - it had no shade for afternoon swimming). But, by far the most important and exciting feature this caravan park has, is the little Italian restaurant called Pinocchio on the grounds. Owned and run by the wonderful Sabrina and Salvatore, there are a good variety of reasonably priced (for WA) food and drink options, but most importantly is the gelato stand. This is some of the first, proper Italian gelato I've found in WA (hand made in house by Salvatore) and even though I've yet to visit a lot of Australia, I can confidently say, that this is the best ice cream that there is on offer in this country!

Every ice cream since has had the bitter taste of disappointment.

On our penultimate day, we decided to go for a kg of chocolate,
banana and amaretto ice cream.

There is a myriad of wonderful flavours that change regularly, from the regular chocolate, ferrero, etc. to some more original mixes, such as Tim Tam, amaretto, banana and tirimisu. We went back every day (and sometimes twice) to get ice cream, and I would thoroughly recommend anyone within 100km, to visit there (which is exactly what we did one afternoon whilst in the national park).

The rest of our time in the area was spent in the National Park. We camped at Lakeside, one of the few camp grounds with a a bit of shade provided by mature trees. We spent a few days enjoying the picturesque landscapes of limestone gorges, pristine beaches and beautiful near-shore and shallow reefs. In the waters are a plethora of flora and fauna to observe from rays to sharks to coral. Unfortunately we weren't there in season (winter) for any of the big migrations (whale sharks, manta rays, doogongs, dolphins and humpback whales), but it was the right time of year for turtle nesting and hatching! We went for a walk along the beach one night to hopefully see some nesting turtles but unfortunately we only saw one baby turtle being eaten by a crab and one turtle nest being raided by another crab - so a little bit of a sad ending to that venture, but we did get a great view of the Milky Way:

I love me some long exposure

Unfortunately my GoPro decided to flood at 3m on my first snorkel, so I don't have any underwater footage, but I will hopefully post some submarine pictures from Will in the album later. There are also a number of hikes through the limestone gorges, most notably at Yardie Creek and Mandu Mandu sites - here there's lots of opportunities to see an abundance of wildlife such as fish in the creek, turtles, galahs, pelicans, osprey, kites, falcons, eagles, kangaroos, hares, goats, black tailed rock wallabies and plenty of reptiles and insects.

Yardie Creek looking west towards the sand bar

When we weren't galavanting through the bush of the Cape Range, a lot of time was spent trying to rig up some kind of shade (mostly successfully and significant improvements made each day), napping in the searing heat or failing at fishing for short periods of time. There were plenty of sharks spotted throughout the week, including one feeding on something in some very shallow water by the beach one time when we were thinking about going for a late night snorkel. Gave that one a miss that night, and so I still have all my appendages to continue this blog!

Until next time.