The future?

I feel much more relaxed in myself after this trip. Yes, the future is uncertain - I WILL need to find myself a survival-income job before the end of the summer - but I am not unduly worried about it. We spend far too much time on the money mill chasing more and more of the ruddy stuff! Yes, of course it's lovely to have, and I enjoy spending it as much as the next person, but it can take over...

Whether book-making will come back into my life much I don't know: there has been the odd enquiry. My main push at the moment is to get shirt-making: people have always admired my loose, floppy shirt design, so I'm busy making up samples and such. In an ideal world they'll be made to measure, but I will have to have some 'off the peg ones too. Natural fabrics of course - linen, cotton etc.

One of the 'fun' things about starting a new venture is deciding what to call it! 'Made by Me' seemed a good one, but a) all the web domains are already taken and b) what happens when things take off and I have to get in outside help?(!) I'm working with 'Mainly for Men' now. Very apt actually as the shirts ARE primarily aimed at men, but will also suit women as well. Hey! they'd even make good maternity blouses! And of course most men are dressed by their women... I am also in the process of making an extended one as a dress for a friend.

So, watch this space... well, perhaps not this actual space... more like www.mainlyformen.com - once it's up and running!


All the best everybody - and keep in touch.

ADAM
ecologicaladam@gmail.com

Winding-up thoughts...

I just can't believe I've been back three whole weeks - where HAS the time gone??!! And what IS going on with the british weather? I know we often have wet summers, but really!!

Talking to people about my trip has made me concentrate on what I feel I got out of the holiday: I certainly think I know a bit more about myself!

In no particular order...
I feel a strong need to do the things I want to do: I am already playing the harp (more of that in a moment). And since being back I have bought myself a smart, sporty little Nissan. Ok it's not the Bristol 410 I've always fantasised about, but I did test drive one a couple of weeks ago and, yes, it's a fabulous car, yes I still think it's one of the most graceful car designs ever, but... just not for me. I realised that what I am really looking for is STYLE (something a Citroen Picasso simply does not have!). A visit to a classic car auction also removed a whole drove of other older cars that I've always hankered after. And now I have this cheerful, bright red 20yo Nissan 300ZX. Not at all what you'd expect BUT I think most of my friends have realised by now that I am not a predictable person!!

What else? Well I have made an effort to do things I've not done before, even follow leads I might have been unsure about (mostly catalogued in the blog). The majority of these have been great, with only a few disasters (Great Barrier Reef forninstance).

I have learnt the need to be less judgemental, especially about people: Our society places huge importance on how we look, what we do and even what names we have. I now realise that this is all twaddle: It's not your clothes or your name that is important, it's WHO YOU ARE that matters. I have met many new friends in some somewhat unlikely places.

I am definitely going to try and get more colour into my life - especially on the clothing front: mens' clothes are SO incredibly dull. Yesterday I dyed a selection of shirts purple, today I'll do some bright yellow. And anay further shirts I make for myself will be good strong colours!

Final day pics...

After the temple I followed a peaceful woodland path through rain-foresty woodland and past derelict houses to find something called the Wisdom Walk. This turned out to be engraved Chinese calligraphy on 38 incredibly tall wooden stele; text from the Heart Sutra apparently. They were very magnificent and austere - in very much the same way as a good set of standing stones in a remote place would be. Sadly, as I was sitting quietly admiring them, a Chinese family rolled up, radios blaring and all talking at the tops of their voices. Chinese seems to be a shouted language...

It broke the spell somewhat (my private journal is a little more succint about it!!!) but I'd had some truly beautiful moments earlier, sitting quietly looking at the view and just 'being'.

I admit to feeling just a little sad that my adventure is coming to an end: it's not all been a bed of roses, but I've had some truly wonderful times - in many different ways. And somehow the mundanity of coming back 'home' is a little hard to get used to.

Well, tomorrow I shall be up at 04:15 to catch my 07:35 flight and will spend most of the day travelling one way and another... what a lovely thought. I do not expect to be compus mentus for a day or two!

Further final day pics

Final day

My final day... (sigh) Took the local bus up to Po Lim Monastery, with its famous 'Big Buddha'. The largest outdoors bronze Buddha... and no, I didn't walk up the steps to see it!! Instead I spent some very peaceful time just wandering about the temple buildings. The most wonderful scent of incense on the air everywhere. The temples themselves generally had a selection of very brightly gilded statues under glass cases. The nice touch was the pots of flowering orchids everywhere...

Still more HK

This is the IFC tower - certainly the most elegant skyscraper I've ever seen and one of the tallest.

The other picture is of a typical HK street. As with so many places in the world, you get whole areas of one type of shop: a whole alley of cobblers; a clutch of mobile phone shops; a street of antique shops; a whole quarter of shops selling traditional chinese foods and medicines. The latter have baskets full of nameless bits and pieces spilling out onto the pavement and jars and jars of things on shelves in the shop. Perhaps it's better that one doesn't know too much of what's what, altho one can't escape the obvious things like sharks fins...




It's hard to judge prices of a lot of things as I can't remember how much they are 'back home', but I bought myself a set of Mahjong pieces in a lovely lacquered wooden box for a little under £20. Cups of coffee, on the other hand, are very much at Western prices!


It was an absolutely knackering day, but a wonderful experience. In terms of seeing the sights I've probably not done terribly well, but in terms of sheer atmosphere it couldn't be bettered!

Today (Tuesday)? Well, Po Lim monastery is somewhere on Lantau Island - I just have to work out how to get there...!

Hong Kong Central

There's something very special about approaching somewhere like Hong Kong on the ferry: one sees the extraordinary conglomeration of sky-scrapers to best effect.

First stop was the International Financial Centre tower with its amazingly smart shopping mall and chilly, but welcome air conditioning. Then it was off and wandering up and down the side streets, looking at the shops. I only visited the area right above the ferry docks - all around Queens Road Central, but it gave me a pretty good feel of the hubub that is HK.

All cities have a mix of wealth and lack of it and this is just as apparent in HK as anywhere else, only it's more contrasted: On the one hand there's all these sleek, smart, expensive sky-scrapers with VERY expensive, chic shops below them and then, in the narrow alleys and streets that separate the building there's the higgledey piggledey mish mash of street stalls and more ordinary shops. And everywhere there are food outlets. "Live to eat rather eat to live" emblazon the advertising hoardings and certainly the Hong Kongers take it to heart. It doesn't seem to matter how smart the shop, but at lunchtime they are all sitting behind their counters slurping away at their noodles!

The tram ride up to The Peak was certainly an experience: going up at 45 degrees for some of it! Going back down - facing UP the hill, was even odder. The view from the top was of course spectacular (the photo above) even tho it was a bit cloudy.

Hong Kong

The first thing that hits you in Hong Kong is the humidity. The heat's Ok - mid to upper 30s perhaps - but the humidity aint! One starts quietly dripping as soon as you set off down the street! However, once the tee-shirt has developed a uniform dampness, one ceases to notice it so much...

Staying on Lantau Island - 40 mins ferry from HK Central - in a pleasantly ordinary hotel (the Silvermine Beach) of un-certain age, but it's clean comfortable and, relatively, cheap!

The village (Mui Wo) is pretty quiet and a stroll along the beach is very pleasant. Nearly tripped over a dozing buffalo this evening...!

Fresh Fruit

This is what being on holiday is all about: fresh fruit - nearly all of it locally grown. Going out into the garden to pick mandarines and lemons straight from the tree, Trying to crack the (incredibly hard) shell of home grown macadamia nuts, etc etc...

Winding up... well, sort of...

Another day of driving round the Queensland countryside, this time north of Brisbane. I do a lot of thinking when I'm out in the car I find and I've spent most of today musing on the last four months...

I know that people are going to ask me which I preferred: NZ or Oz and it's not going to be easy to answer. NZ has a lush magnificence and dramatic beauty that I can admire, but I didn't connect strongly with it at all. Australia is a much harsher environment with some potentially very unpleasant wildlife and yet I feel much more relaxed and in tune here. If the opportunity arose to come back and live in Australia I would jump at it - even though I have only seen a tiny part of the country. And of course I am totally smitten with the laid-back Ozzie drawl...

My next challenge is to get everything back into the trunk - harp included - before my final leg on Sunday to Hong Kong. A few days there then it's back to dear old Hereford... (don't you just love irony?!)

Mid-winter's Day

I've just noticed that Blogger dates my entries with yesterday's date - I suppose we ARE way ahead of everyone else down here!

Anyway, today is June 21st. The winter solstice is technically at 4am tomorrow, but I'm out and about TODAY. It does seem very odd to be at the shortest day when it's so incredibly bright and sunny everywhere here (northern NSW/southern QLD). Cool, but sunny - well, it's been shirtsleeve weather for a few hours at least! By the evening, esp up at Nimben, it was a matter of putting on every layer one could!

The drive back to Brisie was rather nice - stayed on the back roads as much as I could, stopping off here and there. Even the motorway into Brisbane was quite pleasant.

The top photo is the waterfall at Natural Bridge.
Not especially spectacular at the moment due to lack
of water, but a lovely setting.

The second photo is just a view across
a cane field...

Piratical Interlude...

Forgot to mention: my dissatisfaction with Byron moved me to go to the cinema. Toss-up between Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Shrek the Thrird... (Ok, ok, I can hear the groans from here!).

Pirates won - simply cos it was the next showing. Well, actually, it was a lot of fun. COMPLETELY over the top of course - Jonny Depp and Orlando Bloom seem ideally suited for that, as well as the girl, whose name totally escapes me!

It's all wonderful tosh of course, with some amazing special effects (but then what film doesn't these days?) and lots of tongues firmly in cheeks. At one point, after one of JD's more daring escapes, one of the characters even asks: 'Do you think he has it all planned out, or does he just make it up as he goes along?' One rather suspects the latter...

Nimben

At the insistence of George and Sol in Clarence River, I'm staying a couple of nights at a community just outside Nimben. Tucked away in the hills, down a long, rather perilous dirt track there's a rather ramshackle wooden house with some even more ramshackle sheds and the odd, elderly caravan dotted around the bush - not unlike 'Wildways' for those who know that estimable establishment, but rather run-down and overgrown!
Everyone's very friendly and we all eat communally. I spent yesterday just mooching about, initially in front of the wood-burning stove, then progressing to the balcony as the day warmed up. Even pottered out for a walk, harp in tow...!

Everyone loves the harp of course and at a birthday gathering last night, pretty much everyone had a go. The harp is, I think, unique in being an instrument that absolutely ANYone can make a nice noise on!

Woke this morning to nip outside for a pee, to be greeted by the local wallaby and her joey nibbling the plants outside the back door... of course I didn't have my camera there. Anyway, imagine me discretely hopping from one foot to the other in the chill morning air, desperately wanting to answer Nature's call, but also not wanting to disturb this particularly sweet scene!

Byron Bay

This epitomises the sort of town I DONT like: very commercial and touristy. At one end of the scale there's the shops selling cheap new agey stuff and at the other there's the shops selling the very expensive designer hippy stuff: the place seems to abound with rich women wearing studiedly de-structured clothes. Oh, and arts are crafts are relegated to and 'Arts and Industry Village' outside town - you guessed it: an industrial estate... Hmmm

Luckily I was staying at Lennox Head, just down the coast, which was much smaller and had more of a villagey feel to it. Also a wonderful Persian deli...

Clarence River

Staying with a couple of guys out in the middle of nowehere (but then a lot of Oz seems to be in the middle of nowhere!). I've been passed on via one of my hosts in NZ: "Oh, give George a call, he's got a lovely house and I'm sure would be delighted to see you..." (This is so typical of the antipodes!) And, yes, here I am, a complete stranger and being welcomed like a long-lost friend. It's a wonderful feeling!

They have just finished building a really wondefull house on 500 acres of land overlooking the Clarence River. Current accomodation is in the tractor shed as they haven't moved in yet, but I ended up kipping down on a mattress in front of a wood-burning stove in the new house itself. There's something terribly primaeval, but also somehow sibyritic, about sleeping in front of a fire... It also happened to be warmer than a bed in a shed...!!

The silence at night is slightly unnerving tho - and the darkness (it's the dark side of the moon at the moment), but waking up as soon as it gets light to see the mist on the river
and then the actual sunrise was truly wonderful.

Out on the road

Had a lovely drive down from Brisbane on Friday - thru the mountains to New South Wales. It really IS nice to be in a car again: being a tourist on public transport is just not my scene!!! It also means I can have my harp with me ;-)

The scenery in NSW is somewhat more attractive than in Queensland (well, the bits I have seen...): for a start, there's WATER on this side of the mountains!! And one's driving along a fairly small, basic road, with bugger all trafic, thingking things like 'a cappuccino'd be nice, but I'm not going to find one out HERE'... only to pass a sign saying coffee... screech of brakes, hasty turnround... and there's a very smart restaurant in the middle of absolutely nowehere where a delicious Capp and choccy tart appeared in moments!!! Bliss

Back to Brisbane

Back in Brisbane for a couple of nights, then hiring a car and pootling down the coast to Byron Bay and environs. It's a LOT colder here!

More Kakadu

After a night in an extremely basic lodge (there was a dingo roaming around outside when I got up for a pee in the night - and we were warned to beware of snakes!) we set off on another longish drive to the rocks at Ubirr. This by way of the Ranger Uranium mine - from a comparative distance. This is one produces some 7% of the worlds uranium supply... Evidently well run and more eco-aware than many other mining projects: their waste water is actually cleaner than the town supply!

The rock paintings I saw both days reminded me somewhat of those I have seen in France, but then I suppose there is a stylistic simlicity about a lot of primitive art that seems reminiscent... Also, the very rocky landscape was not unlike that of Corsica (also a very prehistoric place).


The figure here is a 'sickness' figure, with joints swollen, warning people of sickness in the area. It's interesting that these figures are found at sites where it is now known that uranium is in abundance in the rock...


There was another boat trip in the afternoon, but with less wildlife to look at (apart from crocs). But we did get a demo of aboriginal spear throwing. Their spears are very light and 'wobble' in flight. This has particularly nasty consequences for the prey at the wobble makes the spear blade slice into and through the body most effectively! Also, aborigines do not punish their youngsters (well, only very rarely); they punish the PARENTS if the child misbehaves as it is the parents' fault the child has not been brought up properly. What an estimable idea!!!

The temperature up in Darwin was blissfull: about 30/33C during the day and 23/24C at night. Now THAT's what I call a comfortable temperature!

Kakadu

The bulk of the afternoon was taken up with visiting the rock paintings at Nourlangie. The first few left me a little underimpressed, but they improved as the path wound on. The one below has been re-painted in the 1960s - which is normal aboriginal practice seemingly. At least it was clear to see...


The rocks themselves are quite dramatic, rising as they do out of a substantially FLAT surrounding, and must have been a haven of shelter from both the scorching sun and the torrential rain, depending on the time of year.

This last rainy season, water levels rose by an astonishing 5 meters! Only the very tops of the trees were visible...

In a month everything will be tinder dry and in danger of catching fire... such is the power of Nature...