emo_snal, posts by tag: travelogues - LiveJournal

   Okay here's he next installment of the "Apinautica." Recall our protagonist had gotten in a fight with his Turkish girlfriend and set out on his own.

---

July 12th, 2013 - I find myself standing in the serene vastness of the Hagia Sophia, the basilica turned cathedral turned mosque turned museum that for a thousand years was the largest building in the world. High above on the lofty ceiling gilded quotes from the Qur’an in Arabic seem to glow golden in the dim light, and above that, the inside of the great dome itself is elegantly covered with painted scenes from the Bible in soft pastels. On an upper balcony I find the Viking graffiti the Norse-men the Byzantine emperors had employed as guards had left. Bored and far from home, did “Halvdan” lean against that parapet, some warm July evening, looking out with jade green eyes on the same sea, thinking wistfully of his home a world away? As a cool sea breeze rustled his rust-red beard, did he contemplate impermanence and set to carving his name with his axe-blade? Or was he thinking about some far distant Erika with braided hair whom he’d last seen years previous as his boat pushed off from the banks of the river Göta? Did he dream of seeing her again and wonder why he couldn’t just settle for the convenient local girls? Or was he thinking about nothing nearly so interesting, just extremely bored with a monotonous shift at work?
   From the Hagia Sophia I continue on to the nearby palace of the Ottoman Sultan. Deep amid the geometric architecture and grassy courtyards I come to the tiled pools and baths of the legendary harem of the Sultan. For centuries this cloistered place titillated Western imaginations – dark haired circassian beauties luxuriating by the pool, nubile odalisques plucking exotic string instruments, coy looks in large brown eyes, fleshy curves, tender caresses…
   The voices of tourists echo harshly off the elegant tiles. A fresh salty breeze clears the steam of one’s imagination -- from this corner of the palace hill the open air pool looks out across the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara. A small black-hulled tanker leaves a wake like a snail-trail as it makes its way into the narrow strait known as the Bosporus, which leads to the Black Sea. The days of tender caresses are over.
   Later I stand outside the ancient Land Walls of Constantinople, still huge and imposing, though now a highway pierces through them. It is said that when the crumbling Byzantine Empire was in its very last gasps, and the Ottoman Turks finally got one of the gates open, the last Roman emperor tossed aside his purple robes, unsheathed his sword, and personally ran into the breach, disappearing forever into the melee. For a thousand years before that the city had defied all invaders. Not only were the walls impregnable, the city could hold out forever, reprovisioned by the sea. No hope waiting for her to give in. I decide it’s time to move on.


"The Terrace of the Seraglio" by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866 (He apparently managed to see the actual harem pool at Topkapi Palace because this is it, note the same star-rail as appears in the below picture!)



Into the Underworld
   I always wanted to go to Cappadocia in the center of Turkey, so I decide to head there. I catch a small bus on a nearby corner, and it winds through the narrow streets of the old city collecting passengers from various stops. Eventually, the main terminal looms ahead, a vast windowless tomb-like edifice, that swallows us as we drive down a ramp right into its dark gullet. Stepping out from the shuttlebus I find myself in a cavernous parking garage with whole freestanding ticket offices whose roofs don’t touch the dripping concrete ceiling above. Buses lumber out of the darkness like mythical beasts. Crowds of people wait in the eternal night, like some dystopian underground city. The people here are almost entirely Turks — this isn’t how tourists get around. Kebab carts vent greasy smoke into the black abyss, surrounded by plastic chairs and tables, as if on a grassy lawn rather than underground oily pavement. I ping-pong through with a few well-placed questions to people who look like they know their way around — “Pegasus? Pegasus?” I ask, and they point off into the darkness. I splash through puddles in the gloom and find the office and buses of the Pegasus line.
I climb the steps into the bus and enter a bubble of light and civilization in the gritty darkness. Soon we roll out of the catacombs, back into the gathering twilight of summer evening. Onto the highway, and soon we are rumbling through the purpling dusk, from Europe to Asia across the Bosporus Bridge, with sweeping suspension spans like the Golden Gate.
   We fly down the highway through the night, and I’m mostly able to sleep on this comfortable bus, interrupted twice by rest stops during which most of the passengers exit to stand about in the cold night air gasping out acrid cigarette smoke — not quite the fire breathing chimera Bellerophon sought when he rode the original Pegasus in legend. The sun rises over undulating hills and occasional blocky villages of small apartment buildings.
   Suddenly, around a bend, a town comes into view that looks like it was hewn right out of the face of the hill — stone houses project from the cliff face, but the windows continue up the rockface itself! Rock spires rear up above the buildings, dwarfing the man-made minarets. We are in Cappadocia!



###

Notes
I have never actually succeeded in finding the Viking graffiti but it is well attested and allegedly find-able. Only "Halvdan" is legible. I plan to directly parallel the imagined scene of Halvdan on the river Gota with his Erika in a later chapter when I'm in Goteborg, on the river Gota, on a boat, with a Swedish girl I'll rename Erika. ;) Also, though I still haven't worked in a physical description of the protagonist, the rust red beard and jade green eyes could well apply.

I'm assuming when I originally wrote in the black hulled tanker (parts of this are from a piece I wrote many years ago), I suspect I was intentionally homaging the argonaut, commonly referred to as "the black hulled argonaut" throughout the Argonautica, which had sailed through the Bosporus in the eponymous work.

"Not only were the walls impregnable, the city could hold out forever, reprovisioned by the sea. No hope waiting for her to give in. I decide it’s time to move on." by now you've probably gathered I absolutely love hidden meanings even if no one else will ever get it. Recall from previous sections I'd gotten in a fight with my Turkish girlfriend "Deniz" and was now traveling on my own -- the cause of the fight being that she wanted to get married immediately, and an unstated dimension was that she was dead set on not having children as it would hinder her career as a seafarer, so you can see how this sentence very subtly alludes to that.

I like the contrast between the soaring beauty of the Hagia Sophia and underworldly depths of the bus terminal in this section.

Pegasus as I recall was the actual name of the bus-line, fortuitous for the allusions I am inclined towards! Recall also several chapters ago I was on a ship named Pegasus (renamed from the actual Unicorn, though not a stretch, we called the Unicorn's smallboat Pegasus). Splashing through puddles was accurate to events but also serves as yet another overly-deeply-obscure reference to Pegasus being an offspring of Poseidon.



While looking for art representative of "tittilated western imaginations" I came across the art of Robert Walsh and I adore it. It's all in the public domain so maybe I'd use elements of it to illustrate the Turkish chapter:

[Originally posted September 14th]

I only just realized I never posted about August 20th, which was weird because I distinctly remembered writing it. I was afraid livejournal had somehow eaten it but then I realized, having grown distrustful of livejournal eating things I had written it in the notepad function no my phone and apparently never got around to actually posting it.

This is the second day in Colombia.



Sunday, August 20th - having had a late night we took it easy until around noon (got up for breakfast at 9:00 since it's only served till 10:00, i was barely able to eat, and then we went back to bed).

Took a DiDi to the cable car station for Montserrat mountain. This was about half an hour across town and as with the day before cost $2-$3 on DiDi. Not only did our driver speak good English but it turned out he was himself Venezuelan. He was very nice, we got his number for future use though we didn't end up using it.



Cristina's cousin (Yineska) and Anthony were already there and had bought tickets for us all. It was a bit hard to find them in the crowds. Apparently tickets are half price on Sundays so many locals fancied going up there. Line to board the cable car was very long (there was also a funicular that also had a long line). Just before 14:00 we finally got into the cable car, which ascended the mountain at a steep angle. The city of Bogota sprawled in the valley below us, the view was impressive and dramatic.



Took only about five minutes to get to the top. After some initial pictures we decided to get some food as we were all hungry. We headed up past the large church into a gauntlet lined with shops selling tourist souvenirs. As with before i found the shop attendants pleasantly non-insistent. Past the shops the same narrow walkway was lined with little restaurants. We selected one and had a classic Colombian chicken soup (ajaica de sopa?) and a huge platter of mixed grill the windows faced away from Bogota across a forested valley. The bill came out to around $25 which Cristina and the cousin's thought was a rip off (100[,000] pesos. Official exchange rate is 4,100 pesos to the dollar, though the ATMs and currency exchanges give more like 3,800. So prices for everything is in the thousands but in speaking about prices people usually just leave off the thousands, and the currency notes don't even prominently display the ,000 portion of the numbers. On the subject of the money though it didn't happen in this case several times I've been 1,000 short of correct change and so handed them another 10,000, but rather than make change they've said the 1,000 short amount was fine. Very chill about sales these Colombians).



When we finished with food fog was starting to drift in. We perused the shops and i actually bought some things - a cool bottle made from a cows foot (or rather probably in one), and a traditional woven hat, for 105,000 and 120,000 respectively, I'm thinking for my friend Mick and coworker Thomas, respectively.



Then we spent some time exploring the mountaintop. By now the fog was thick and Bogota couldn't be seen at all but things picturesquely faded in and out of the fog in the near distance. There was some beautiful colonial style architecture and gardens and flowering plants.



There was a long line for the funicular to go down, which snaked along a walkway lined with statues of Jesus on the stations of the cross. It began to rain, which developed further into a downpour. Anthony ran off to buy ponchos and umbrellas, but we were pretty well soaked by the time we got into the funicular building. The funicular of course being a sort of bus sized carriage on a cog-wheel track, at a fixed steep angle and so inside it one rides on a series of platforms situated like steps to one another.



Down we went. Took another DiDi back to our hotel and as far as i can remember we just took it easy that evening.

May 15th, Day 12 - checked out of the hotel in Labe, it was once again an hour drive from there out into the countryside to the village of Timbi-Touni for training. This time didn't have quite as many beekeeping federation staff, just Khalidou the head trainer and two youngish women who are apparently interns.

The immediate surrounds of Timbi-Touni seem weirdly like Europe or Australia, because there's tall treelines of eucalyptus trees between the fields and lining the road, and then a pine plantation just across from the main part of the little town. I'm wondering if maybe it wag an early center of some colonial activity.

Training focused on reviewing the process of splitting one hive to make two, which we'd had an opportunity to do in the field the day before. And then go over what one is inspecting hives for at different times of the year. Most of the people at this training are experienced or have even been in my training before but these were things i hadn't yet integrated into my program when i was last in this area (Doumba in 2015).



It always makes me feel a bit anxious when the participants have some experience like how will i fill the time without boring them but they seemed to thoroughly appreciate what we covered and the time was perfectly filled.

"Tomorrow" (today as I'm writing this actually, in the morning) i begin two days at Dalaba town, with i think the same people as last year so I'm similarly anxious how we'll occupy ourselves but it always seems to work out.



Then training finished around 14:00, the usual frenzy of photo taking, and, after waiting a bit for a guide headed off south to a waterfall! This took more than an hour (to cover 24km),headed once again out on 4×4 quality roads through grasslands and patches of thick low forest, isolated villages and a little town or two. Then down down down into a rugged gorge with thick vegetation, until we reached the end of the road. And there three bearded Spaniards were sitting by their expedition truck having tea. They were very friendly. A month and a half out from Spain, bound for Cape Town, time-frame: "years maybe!" I admire their spirit.



This location was just by the riverbed, which was mostly exposed smooth stone here, the river clearly being very low at present moment. There was a trail headed downriver we took, eventually leading to a very very rickety cobbled-together ladder leading up to one of the most dodgy bridges I've ever seen!





I was super excited! Crossing a river over a waterfall via super dodgy bridge is definitely on my to-do list!! And I've always liked climbing things.

Unfortunately while i paused to take pictures from the base others began climbing the thing, then balking at even attempting to cross the dodgy bridge, creating a traffic jam. With two people trying to back up in front of me and three very very slowly attempting to begin to cross, i let myself be led away by the guide saying we didn't actually need to cross it -- vowing to myself to come back when the way had cleared.



While the river was wide under the bridge, it fortunately was mostly dry just above the falls and one could walk across the top of the falls on dry rock, crossing the water itself in a safe place where it could be hopped over. While we looked over the side slowly slowly behind us three of our group crossed the bridge:







It's funny i realized, I'll enthusiastically cross a dodgy bridge, just like I'll similarly climb right swinging around 54 meters above the roiling sea, where I'm just standing on one rope and holding another ... but i will not go within basically tripping-range of a cliff. I'll admit i think i was more wary of the cliff edge that my friends pictured above!


(Just received this minute from Khalidou)

Then those who had crossed the bridge joined us (well actually they'd already joined by the above picture but hey). And then by and by it was time to head back.

"I'm going to cross the bridge!" I announced, but others tried to lead me away, and Bara told me flat out not to. I can understand and appreciate his feeling that it is/was not at all safe and i should be prevented from doing so. Nevertheless rebelliously i turned my back on everyone else and struck off for the far side of the bridge. I didn't look back lest i be motioned too emphatically to stop, and no one followed.



The ladder on this side was even more dodgy, missing several rungs, and those that were there were a bit slippery and rotten. But i carefully climbed up and began to cross!



I didn't find it too bad. I'm accustomed to balancing on a rope, i had a hand hold on either side, and anyway worst case scenario was it wasn't that far down to the water below and no danger of being swept all the way to the falls.



This area was particularly dodgy, but again for me no worse than going out on the topsail yard footrope at sea. And definitely easier than the time i went out on the gaff halyard (a horizontal line (rope) not meant to be clinched, near the top of the masts, with just one rope above it to hold on to).





Fun stuff. Crossing this bridge was absolutely a highlight!

From thence we headed back. When we reached the Spaniards i said
"Wow how 'bout that bridge hey??" and the one of them responded with
"Can you believe, we saw people cross it yesterday??"
"Maniacs!" I responded.

Headed back from there to Timbi-Touni we got lost a bit on the meandering tracks, but after asking a villager we passed we got back on track. Returned to Timbi-Touni, one of the FAPI women left us there, and then onward to the main road which was maybe another hour. There bid adieu to Khalidou and the remaining FAPI woman.



It being by now 18:42, we commenced our journey and it soon became dark. It also began to rain so heavily visibility was only maybe ten meters and nearly nonexistent when staring into oncoming headlights. But we made it without incident.

Though one macabre marker we passed which i vaguely recall from before -- a monument to two peace corps volunteers on the site where they died in a car crash years ago.

And finally sometime after 20:00 we arrived at the hotel in Dalaba, same one as last year.

The end. And now I'll eat the croissant and mango in front of me.

Sunday, May 14th, my 41st birthday - Bailo the driver went to get the beekeeping federation (FAPI) staff while Bara and i had breakfast. I asked for coffee w milk and got literally handed a cup of hot milk and a packet of nescafe.

Bailo returned with what looked like a packed car: four women and two men from FAPI. Yet somehow we also fit Bara and i in as well. Most (all?) The FAPI people I've met before but i was particularly excited to see again Khalidou, their main trainer and he was with me on most of my previous Guinea projects.

Then we drove an hour (?) to this village of Timbi-Touni out away from the main road way out in the countryside. There, including the FAPI staff we had about 7 women and 10 men, which is an unusually good proportion. Presented about proper topbar hive construction and common problems with them until 2. At which point everyone we broke for lunch. And because my parents woke up and messaged me at that time i video called them and introduced them to a few of the people around me.



Then everyone did their prayers. Then we headed out to the bees!

We proceeded just a short distance out of the village to where there were a lot of beehives. Got all suited up. Most of the hives were vacant but we found a few occupied ones and harvested some honey. And one of them was strong enough to split which is always a good lesson, especially when increasing the number of hives is a priority interest. And we don't always have a strong enough hive to demonstrate with, but here we were! So we did! Bees were pretty nice, was able to work without gloves.



Then we headed overland to the village of Doumba where i was in 2015. By overland i mean taking basically 4×4 tracks through scattered farms and open grasslands. Generally being a little lost but it was never long until we'd encounter someone else and ask for directions. By and by we came to Doumba.



The village of Sanpiring has a special place in my heart because it was the first village i was based in, but i think i might have to admit with their picturesque beautiful giant huts Doumba village might be prettier. Revisiting it now for the first time since i was there 8 years ago I'm struck by how lucky i was to have been able to spend two weeks in such a beautiful place.

Many of the local men were there to welcome me back. Including the local mayor, who as it happens had been my host when i was there.



Then we all sat down and there was a bit of speech making. They thanked me extensively for my training and as well for coming back to see them. When it came time for me to speak, I'm not much for speechifying at length so i was just conveyed in a few quick sentences how much i enjoyed my time there, and appreciate their hospitality, and their welcome back. Which felt awkwardly short after they'd just talked for many minutes. But then as my translator Bara began translation what I'd said, bless him, he appeared to be conveying some analogy about a plant growing fruits or something, entirely of his own invention ahahaha.

Then we were fed some fonio (a Guinean grain kind of vaguely like a cross between couscous and rice. And some delicious mangoes. Then many pictures were taken, and then we had to go so we wouldn't be driving too much in the dark.

Hour drive back. Dark by the time we got back. Oh I should note that despite the packed car and long hours of driving over bumpy terrain today, everyone was in stitches laughing the whole time. Unfortunately it was all in local language so i didn't have any idea what it was about but they seemed to be having a hilarious time.

Got back to the hotel. Bara and i went in, while Bailo drove the others home.

"Let's just go in the restaurant real quick" Bara suggested, and i like to be obliging so sure. I was slightly surprised when Bara didn't order anything, i was expecting maybe he was after a coffee or something. But i honestly didn't suspect anything, I'm perfectly happy to sit in the restaurant if that's what he wants to do (i was catching up on things on my phone).

Then i looked up and the FAPI staff were coming in again. This was at least half an hour after i thought they left.
"Oh they're back?" I said, still not suspecting a thing, until they gathered around me and placed a big box on the table, which opened to reveal a birthday cake, and began singing "happy birthday."

I'm pretty sure I've never had a birthday surprise before. And compared to my last birthday, my 40th, to celebrate which i ate pancakes alone in my house, this was a great improvement. Just to be here in Africa would have made it better than last year, but after being welcomed like a returning hero to a beautiful village, and then to have these people surprise me with cake.. pretty sure it qualifies as the best birthday ever (:

Monday, May 8th, Day 4 - breakfast at the hotel at 8:30 - long French bread baguettes are delicious. Nescafe less so. And omelets are dependable throughout the world, though they could use some cheese here.

Then we went to the regional governor (prefect)'s office to greet him. This three story building had a nice sort of creative architecture in the arrangement of the central stairs. The prefect wasn't in. Someone mentioned he's a soldier, and well of course he is. We greeted the regional education ministers instead.

Then we went on to the ENATEF Forestry school where the training will take place. Somehow despite being just out of town you feel like you're deep in the forest when on the ENATEF grounds. The buildings are surrounded by big trees and the grounds have a serene air about them. Fitting for a forestry school i suppose.


Looking out at the ENATEF main square, 2014


ENATEF 2014, I forget if these people were eating here or if it's a class

As usual we spent an hour or more with introductory speeches and stuff, broke for lunch, then maybe another hour going around having the students tell what experience, if any, they have, and any questions or expectations they want met at this training. Only one had previous beekeeping experience, this youngish fellow in the back who looked to be in his mid twenties said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years.



And then finally i began my lectures. My very first slide is one that has pictures of the three castes of bee (queen, worker, drone), and also happens to have on it the bee pest the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). Then the one guy who'd said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years raised his hand and said (through translator) the SHBs help the bees make honey.

I really have to flat out contradict someone who has just said they have experience at a thing and make them lose face but.. well this is awkward because um, no? Not at all? So i did my best to politely but firmly say they don't help.

He seemed to take that well enough and training proceeded well. They seem a good group. Attentive and interested. Then around 2 we finished so we could do some practical beekeeping.



The evolution of this plan was a bit funny, because initially it had been suggested to me that we only were going to look at hives, though i always want to actually open them up. And the photographer (the man from Alaska, recall) specifically wanted us to just play act around a vacant hive as that would be easier for him to get pictures, he said. It was apparent to me that he was a bit apprehensive about being around a live hive. So i encouraged everyone to get suited up and light the smoker, but/and also kept saying we should find a vacant hive, but this latter part seemed to get lost so we ended up getting all suited up and being led to an occupied hive just a short distance from the main buildings. The photographer didn't even want to suit up, being as he didn't intend to be near an occupied hive, but got talked into it.


Bailo suits up the photog

So finally we were standing next to the occupied hive and i tried one more time to ask if there was an unoccupied one but no one translated what i was saying. So i apologized to George (the photog) and said okay i guess this is what we're doing.

And then. More or less as soon as i touched the hive it crashed down from the evidently extremely precarious stand it had been on. Our many unsuited spectators ran shrieking away, as did at least half our people in suits (and the photog). There remained myself, two women, and a guy i think might have been an instructor at the school. While everyone else panicked these three kept calm and composed, which i was impressed and pleased with. Not only are stirred up bees psychologically disturbing but i know panic itself is contagious and it takes some mental fortitude to stand fast when everyone else is shrieking and running.

There was a fair bit of honey in the hive, which we harvested into a large bucket, and then we put it back on its stand as securely as we could.

Then we made our way back to the central square of the campus. Of course bees followed us, causing everyone up there to run when we arrived. Though in keeping with my principals of not bringing bees to a place where there's unprotected people while I'm suited up, i removed my suit before entering the square, and actually never got stung, despite that there were still bees about. The photog and some others were bailed up in the cars, and he had actually gotten four stings (in his hands, which had been exposed i guess, though I'd offered him my gloves). I was a bit worried this whole thing would be regarded as a fiasco but everyone i talked to seemed very pleased with the day. It helps maybe that we were able to harvest a significant amount of honey from that hive.


(The three troopers who stuck through it and the honey, unfortunately lots of bees in it because it was all a mess after the hive fell down)

Tomorrow I'll propose to maybe not open hives until the hour before sunset, a solution i commonly use so that stirred up bees aren't chasing people all day.

The photog and Ibro departed for another town to look at a different project there. I really thought they were gonna be here two days. Good thing we did some beekeeping to get the pictures today .. or maybe that's why they left ;-)

(view on google maps)

   Saturday (this past, the 18th), we awoke in Marlo for the penultimate day of our expedition to the far eastern end of Victoria. After probably eating a simple breakfast in our nice little hotel room, we checked out and went down to the shore of the Snowy River, where people had been so frolicksom the night before. It was perhaps cooler now than then but still a comfortable temperature, and dad wanted to go swimming. Mom and I suggested swimming across but he prudently pointed out every now and then a motorboat hoons down the river probably not looking out for swimmers, and the current in the middle is an unknown factor. So he swap upstream for awhile and then came back. While he did so I explored a nearby nature path along the bank, through literal littoral rainforest and vine thickets (I was sorely tempted to just substitute literal for littoral there but people probably would have assumed I just made a dumb mistake). As usual dad declared the swim to be great.

   Then we commenced on our way. The first bit of the journey was parallel to the Snowy River, which was separated from the sea by a big brush covered sandbar for awhile. Then the road turned north and meandered through stately tall trees.



   Once we rejoined the A1 Princes Highway (again I note this is the very highway that goes past my home, if we hadn't taken all these sidequests to see other things we could have done this whole journey on just this one road) and headed east on it, the road mainly took broad swoops through forested mountainous terrain. The trees were huge. This area had badly burned in the beginning of 2020 (remember when we thought the year was starting out badly with half of Victoria on fire and some other natural disasters and that was even before Covid showed up). We also noticed after awhile a suspicious... lack of roadkill. Obviously it's sad to see roadkill, but to see a complete absence in an environment that should have plenty (high speed two lane highway through thick forest) is ominous. It makes us think the animal population of the area has not yet come close to recovering.
   Finally we got off the Princes highway, which continues from the eastern end of Victoria north all the way to Sydney (and if one were to follow it west from my house it takes an equally circuitous route to Adelaide at its other end). About twenty minutes on the smaller road to Mallacoota and... we were there! (about two hours after leaving Marlo)



   "Some believe that the name came from 'malagoutha' a local Ganay Aboriginal term of uncertain meaning." (google result from "what does Mallacoota mean" ?) but there's an interesting either potential explanation or remarkable coincidence -- Mallacoota, generally regarded as a little paradise by many, means, my Iraqi coworker informs me, "paradise" in Arabic. Could be someone who named it knew some Arabic (and hey, isn't Walhalla, where we were earlier, also a sort of paradise in a non-Australian language). Honestly in balance I think it's probably a coincidence but it's still interesting to note.
   Anyway, we discovered Mallacoota to consist of a small core of a town of houses and cafes surrounded by an extensive caravan park surrounding it on three sides and totalling 60-75% of the land area of the "town," and surrounding this a picturesque bay with many little boats moored up, a maze of reedy islands beyond. We were feeling a bit hurried because we still had a four hour drive to where we'd be staying the night. I perhaps had had a bit of "target fixation" getting us here but hey we made it. It was now around 14:00 and we figured we needed to be on the road again by 16:00.
   We looked at the cafes but none of them that were open actually appealed to us greatly. We were keen on the bakery but it turned out to be closed. Mom was suggesting we just have cheese sandwiches again but I was at the end of my rope with gosh darn cheese sandwiches. So we went to get food at what appeared to be the most popular place, a chinese restaurant. While there we observed the clientel was positively geriatric. They hobbled about feebly, barely navigating the step at the front door. We got our bowls of stir fry and took them to a picnic beach by the bay (about from where the above picture was taken), and found the food to be thoroughly thoroughly bland. I reflected back on the clientel and mused that their customer base probably likes it that way.
   Then we went on one of the shorter walks I had identified in the area. We were feeling really pressed for time but I felt like if we didn't go on a walk it would feel to much like we just came here and turned around. The walk was nice though, we heard many bird calls we hadn't heard before and at one point two smallish kangaroos (but bigger than wallabies) bounded across the trail just in front of us. There wasn't actually that much evidence that this area had burned, if it had, but there were a few blackened stumps. The big trees here seem to have survived and the smaller shrubbery thoroughly grown back.



   Then we drove to the bay entrance, where the above picture was taken, and then it was time to get back on the road! This was a four hour drive back across land we'd just covered, but it was all beautiful and interesting so at least as a passenger I didn't mind it. I'd offered to do some of the driving but dad seems content to do all the driving himself, and other than commenting that it was a lot of driving he didn't really complain. We passed a few random signs for walking tracks I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't seen the signs there, and if we were in less of a hurry it might have been nice to check at least one of them out. So for future note they are the "MacKenzie River Rainforest Walk" and "Cabbage Tree Walk"

   As is traditional for family road trips, we had some idle musingful conversations, like the subject of words that are almost the same but not, and whats the difference between them? Like I maintain there's subtle differences between "squish" and "squash," "floofy" and "fluffy" and "puttering" vs "pottering" about. I won't get into all of these (maybe a subject for their own entry?), but as to the last one, I think they both imply kind of doing various little tasks around the house, but while one might be accomplishing things while pottering about, one isn't really accomplishing anything while puttering about. And a special mention and this might literally be just a me thing, but I feel "hover" (hah-ver) and "hover" (huv-er) have subtly different meanings. Helicopters "huver," bumblebees "hahver."

   Anyway the purple line in the map at hte top of this entry is the new area covered headed out West on return from Mallacoota. It was mostly forested hills and low intensity pasture land until bairnsdale (which dad mispronounced as Brains-dale and I'll never be able to say correctly again!), and more thoroughly agricultural land west of there. We arrive in the town of Sale to get groceries and were rather shocked by how empty the town was. Traralgon (pop 26,000) on a Thursday evening had been really happening, Sale (pop 16,000) on a Saturday evening around the same time was like a ghost town. Also like a god damn labyrinth, major roads seeming to dead end. We wanted to go to Coles because we're more familiar with it, but literally couldn't find a way to get to the front entrance of the store and settled instead for a Woolworths we stumbled upon.
   Then we went to get KFC for dinner since we just wanted something quick. Here we had perhaps an error of differing national standards -- I never eat at KFC so I don't know the sizes of things, but my parents felt one piece of chicken for each of them would be sufficient and two for me. We asked for two breasts and two thighs but the bemulleted adolescent who took our order apparently interpreted that as two drum sticks and two breasts for some reason. And when my parents saw the small size of the portions they had gotten themselves they were very sad (I offered one of my two pieces, even though that was also insufficient for my appetite, but they declined). But that comes later because we took the food to the airbnb to eat there.

   From the town of Sale we continued on to our airbnb down on Golden Beach, arriving there just after the sun had set. This bnb, when we had looked at hte listing, had said "sheets aren't included but can be provided for a small fee." We thought that was really odd, who travels with their own bedsheets?? But whats a small fee, $5? $10? So we booked it and sent the host an inquiry about sheets. He had responded with "no worries" and a phraseology which lead my dad to think the host understood we'd need sheets and was agreeing to provide them.. and the fact that the "small fee" was $60 a bed (!!!!!!) WTF! We could probably buy our own sheets for that much! We actually considered doing so. But despite a lot of grumbling we were committed.
   Anyway, arriving at the place we found... NO SHEETS! And also no running water. And the host somehow had 4.83 star average and "super host" status. WTF. We sent him messages politely expressing our alarm and soon he was on the phone -- he hadn't thought we'd actually requested the sheets. He seemed reluctant to admit there were sheets on hand but eventually said they were in the locked garage and if we had a screwdriver we might be able to remove the lock deadbolt ... but that turned out to be removable simply by hand.
   As to the water, the host said tehre'd probably been a power outage earlier in the day and the pump needed to be turned back on. Which required dad to open a hatch on the side of the house and crawl ten feet in the (utter darkness at this point, with flashlight), under the house to figure out the right buttons to push to turn on the pump.
   And it's AFTER all this shenanigans, that we FINALLY sat down to enjoy our dinner, at which point we found ourselves looking at these meagre meagre portions. Fortunately we still had some leftover bland bland chinese food (it was so bland even now we didn't finish it and tossed the rest) and some other leftovers.
   OTHER than all these problems the house was nice, and right on the beach (though the ocean wasn't visible due to the sand ridge running parallel to the beach). Dad did go look at hte ocean and report back to us, mom and I just appreciated the sound of waves crashing from the house. Also mom saw a possum on the fence, which, since it froze when she shined the light on it (playing possum, as it were), we were able to approach closely and have a good look at. This one had a naked tail, I think it was a ring tail possum -- the only other possum here I've had a good look at was "Sancho" in my garage, who had a floofy tail and is, I believe, a brushy tailed possum.


I still think these things are uglier than American opossums

   And then we put the sheets on the beds and went to bed. The end (until tomorrow).

   I still don't know if the host did indeed charge us the $60 or waived it in a desperate attempt not to get the less than stellar review he was clearly headed for. And for that matter I'll have to check with mom if dad did indeed give him less than five stars -- dad can be tooo nice sometimes, and I think while I could have actually forgiven the lack of water as an unforseen circumstance if the host seemed like he'd done everytihng reasonable to ensure a good stay, calling $60 a "small fee" loses my assumption of good faith.

Friday we got off the ferry around 6:00am. Because the ferry only recently began arriving at geelong instead of Melbourne i don't think the Cafe ecosystem has adjusted yet, whereas there's several cafes advertising their open status when you get off the early morning ferry in Tassie there was no such thing in G Town. Fortunately there's a 24 hour diner i know of so we went there (doesn't have the iconic American diner charm though. Is just like a barely passable Australian cafe. I think five years ago they served me nescafe (note to Aussies: this is essentially an insult to Americans) but now they at least have an espresso machine). Then we still had a fair bit of time before the rental car place opened (recall, because my parents rental car wasn't allowed to go to Tassie they returned it, borrowed a friend's car, and now we needed another rental car)

Drove home in two cars. Despite being by now 10am there was very thick fog on the way home and it was quite rather cold. Got home and had lunch and then sky cleared and it became warm and sunny. Welcome to Victoria!

Then i drove to work because el bossman can't go to the bees while I'm not there and i knew he'd be itching to do so. So while many have questioned why I'd return to work for just literally the last three hours of the work week it seemed to me worth doing and i think he appreciated it.



Saturday afternoon was the local beekeeping group meeting. Our format has morphed around a fair bit in the last year or two but our latest thing which i think has been very successful is we meet at a members house on a Saturday afternoon, look at some hives and then have a bbq. I had always intended to avoid the club being a "one expert beekeeper lecturing everyone else" kind of event but both this and the previous meeting, the two that have been this format, was pretty much i get handed a hive tool and everyone watches what i do and i narrate. But whatever they want hey. But next time will be a Sunday specifically so my boss can come and then he can be the one wielding the hive tool.

The bbq portion is at least as much fun. It brings together a group of people with common interests in hobby farming and serious gardening in general and new members and old alike always get along swimmingly. I think my parents enjoyed meeting everyone very much as well.

After that my parents and i went on a nearby rail trail hike and found an enormous sausage sized caterpillar:




I think we've identified it as a helena gum moth caterpillar.


And we saw a wallaby


Sunday (today) we poked around the local market here in my village. Which conveniently takes place about 100 meters from my front door. Mom commented on the number of people selling knit goods. There was a dog jumping competition at noon but it appeared to be starting late and we had to go before it started.



In the afternoon we drove to the town of Camperdown about an hour west of here. A quantify it as "a cute country town" ... a contrast and rebuke to the nearer town of Colac which i think is generally agreed to be a country town that isn't cute. In Camperdoozel my friend, fellow beekeeper (and editor of the Australian Bee Journal) and retired botany professor showed us around the local botanical garden (mom's really into plants) and then we went back to her place for "afternoon tea." Which when she had first proposed it i had had to admit my ignorance of the subtle nuances of Australian tea related phraseology -- "tea" is sometimes a whole meal, what is "afternoon tea?" She had a laugh, admitted it can be confusing, and clarified that it's "literal tea and bikkies." Anyway we ended up chatting for quite awhile. She has a great view from her dining room down into a volcanic crater and there were about 15 kangaroos slowly bouncing around down there.

And now we've come home and mom is making "curry goo" which smells delicious!

Tomorrow i go to work but we're plotting a Thursday to Sunday expedition to the far east end of the state.

Parents leave in nine days (Tuesday the following week, the 21st), my how time flies!

Thursday we checked out of our airbnb in Flowerpot, Tas. The owners live in a house on the property but we never did see them, guess they were busy these past three days.

We proceeded about an hour up to, through and past Hobart town, over the bridge over the Derwent (which we've learned had a horrifying incident in the 70s when a ship collided with its supports, a section fell down sinking the ship, and several cars flew off the gap.) to the town of Richmond which was another cute town of Victorian looking little storefronts. This one looked very well maintained and flourishing (as opposed to the cute Victorian houses of Bothwell which were all kind of in a state of decay). Our destination here was the "Poo-seum"



I wasn't actually sure i was looking forward to this. Poop.. doesn't appeal to me, shall we say. But mom is a science teacher (mostly but not entirely retired) and she was very intrigued. So the museum is basically dedicated to animal poop. There were examples of the poop of many different animals, carefully preserved in a manner that kept it looking just as you might find it on a trail. Along with lots and lots of information. It was actually rather interesting. Though i remain grossed out that gorillas eat their own poop (because it's only like 20% digested each time it goes through) 🤮






There was also apparently a maze in this town as well as a 1:16 scale model of early Hobart, but we had a ferry to catch in the evening so we didn't have time for all that. But we did have a delicious meal in one of the cafes in town




From there we drove up to the ferry terminal in north Tasmania, three hours across the country, and we once again boarded and took the overnight ferry back to the mainland.

There's lots of places still to visit in the world but I'm sure I'll be back in Tassie with Cristina if nothing else. In the South i wanted to visit the Hartz Mountains near where we were but didn't end up fitting it in. I'd actually really like to go on the big multi day hike through there southwest wilderness. I hope Cristina likes hiking. Also I want to get back to the MONA museum while not pressed for time. And then there's the whole East Coast of Tassie i haven't seen yet, which i think is often the first place people go so presumably there's stuff to see there.

Wednesday morning we drove about fifteen minutes to the Bruny Island Ferry, which departs every twenty minutes so we didn't have long to wait. Presently it arrived and disgorged an implausible number of vehicles. Around 11:30 we began our crossing of the channel, which only took about fifteen minutes.

First we drove to the northern tip of the island. The northern (and presumably southern) lobes are big enough that while in inland valleys you can't even tell you're on an island. Land use was mostly pasture or eucalypt woodland. There was a little township at the north end but we couldn't find the heritage trail indicated on the map. Proceeded south.

Next stop was a cheese and beer place. They had a very nice outdoor set up with a pleasant atmosphere and it seemed popular. We got a cheese platter and a milk stout (dark beer). The cheese platter had some cooked wallaby on it too.



From there we proceeded a short distance to Bruny Island Honey. Obviously it's not novel to me to see a honey/bee place but I was interested in their presentation and such. And it was really good! Much better presentation than we have at Edmonds Honey. If bossman ever shows interest in substantially redecorating these pictures will be good reference. Also they had some tasty honey-vanilla ice cream.

Next we were headed down the isthmus, which as you can see on the top map is very thin. It does however have a solid hillock right down its middle. About halfway down there was a boardwalk with steps to the top. There are penguin burrows all over the central sandy hillock but we didn't see any penguins, i think it's not the nesting season (and even when it is your primarily see them just after sunset)



At the southern end of the isthmus there was supposed to be a trailhead but we couldn't find it either.

Just at the top end of the southern lobe we went into a chocolateria, selling us chocolate should have been the easiest thing but their presentation was as bad as the honey place was good. Just a shed w self serve chocolates along one wall. I'd kind of expected fancy hot chocolates and all kinds of tempting goodies. We left there without getting anything.

Proceeding down the east side of the southern lobe we came to Adventure Bay. The bay is named after the HMS Adventure which was part of Captain Cook's famous expedition, and had become lost, wandering into the bay alone. Captain Bligh anchored here for reprovisioning in the HMS Bounty a few years later on his own famous journey.

And then we flew past a "Bligh Museum" it was little and came up suddenly. I really wanted to go in but there wasn't a convenient turn around :(



And then there was a tallship! We were able to pull over so i could get a good shot. I think this was the Lady Nelson which we'd seen at the wharf in Hobart.




Finally at the end of this road we found a trailhead. And saw our first live wallaby! By a wallaby cut out!

I would have liked to hike longer but by now we were feeling strained for time -- if we missed the ferry off the island we'd be stuck! So we just went half an hour out and came back. It was a nice well maintained trail ("grass point trail") through forest woodland just beside the coast. According to informational signs here too there were a bunch of whalers huts from whence they'd dart out and nab hapless passing whales.



From there we proceeded straight to the ferry. They don't check tickets getting back on the ferry since they only sell round trip and obviously you got one to get here. Ferry 17:45-18:00



Ate at a pub in the nearby town of Snug that looked like it couldn't decide if it was a nice tourist spot or a grungy local pub. The tables were nice and if you just faced the tables and windows from the bar maybe you'd think it was the former, but the bar itself looked like it belonged to a grungy backwater and though the food was good they didn't have any local Tassie beers or ciders on tap, just the same tastes-of-bootleather mass produced macro lagers you could probably find in the mines in the NT.



And then we returned to our cabin and lit a fire in the stove, the end (until next day update). In the meantime we just boarded the ferry back to the mainland (:

After leaving Hobart on Monday we headed southwest about 45 minutes to our next airbnb, a little cabin in a place on the coast named Flowerpot.



Tuesday we headed south about two hours to the end of the road. This entire drive, including the Monday portion to Flowerpot, is through absolutely beautiful countryside. The road mostly follows the coast, though occasionally cutting across peninsulas. The coast itself is extremely squiggly here and dramatically hilly, and across the water (with cute sailboats upon it) there's inevitably either more squiggles of the same coast or islands. The countryside is bucolic, cute small towns, orchards, artisinal this and that shops, interspersed with eucalypt woodland. Until we got to the very southern end of the road and then it was mostly impenetrably thick forest on either side.

Now this road doesn't go to the southernmost point of Tasmania, it would take days of hiking to get there. In fact if you look at a map of Tasmania about a quarter of the island in the southwest is entirely undeveloped, no roads or anything. I'd love to someday go on a multi day hike through there.



By and by we arrived at the end of the road at Cockle Creek. It seems like as far as you can go from anywhere now but apparently was once a whaling station with 2,000 people. There's a cute whale statue. Cute until you realize the disturbing fact that they used to slaughter whale calves like the one in the sculpture.



We went for a walk a few miles along the coast (an hour out, hour back), the beach sand was fine and white, the water clear and turquoise blue. The shore being lined with thick forest up to the edge it looked live a Caribbean paradise if you didn't know it was quite chilly and ignored that there were no palm trees. Across the water was dramatic silhouettes of mountains to the north and northwest, faint rows of islands to the northeast, and where we came around and could see out to sea to the southeast one could see huge distant breakers crashing on a reef -- i think it's thousands of miles across the Great Southern Ocean from here before there's any land.



Because he's a maniac dad had to go for a swim. If you look closely you can see him splashing along in the above picture. When he came out he declared it felt like 62f, just like back home in California!


You can see the difference between previous picture and this one, at clouds blew over it was constantly changing from sunny and brightly colored to cloud shadowed and cold. I was constantly taking my jacket on and off.

And then we drove back to our Flowerpot. It felt like we spent most of the day driving there and back but the views along the way recall cliche sayings about how it's all about those journey!

The more we travel the more we seem to come up with things to do "next time" -- there was a longer hike leaving from Cockle Creek I'd love to hit up "next time"