This month I took a trip without leaving town: my husband and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the National Botanic Gardens.
I posted about the Gardens not long ago, here. But what I didn’t tell you is that it’s a great place to de-stress. Just take a look at the Eastern Water Dragon up in the header. Is he stressed? Nup. He strolled up onto the café deck from the forest floor to sun himself, not at all afraid of the visitors. The dragons are a thrill for café customers taking morning tea. But of course you can’t go there for coffee and cake and leave without exploring the unique gardens and forests and the comprehensive collection of native Australian plants.
Up in the dry gardens, there are tall eucalyptus trees that are a living support system for other life forms like staghorns and climbing hardenbergia and fungus. How beautiful are the burnt black and rust tones of the flaky bark on that tree I spotted near the bike racks! It’s simply nature imitating art. Down in the rainforest, accessible by timber steps and boardwalks, it’s darker and the atmosphere is noticeably cooler and more humid. I read the sign telling me to ‘breathe’, and instinctively did. The air was fresh and cool and clean. Here, tree ferns and Stream lilies, ‘Helmholtzia glaberrima’, one of the few flowers in these Botanic Gardens, grow in lush gardens beside the stream that flows below the wooden path you’re walking on. Writing about it makes me want to go there right now.
I wonder where March will take me!
Marianne at East of Málaga came up with this idea of taking a trip every month. Check out her February trip post to the Rock of Gibraltar.
On the lower slopes of Black Mountain in Canberra is a unique form of Botanic Gardens. The entrance seems to promise a dry native forest, but the gardens offer examples of all kinds of Australian native plants, and nothing but. We rode our bikes here this morning, and as I walked my bike up the incline of the entrance, I snapped Black Mountain Tower and admired the symmetry of trees either side. This is Canberra. The city of symmetry.
With many native plants hailing from the warmer tropical parts of the country, it’s tricky to keep them alive here in the cool capital where we have several months of frost and very low temperatures. Yet, in an old dry eucalypt gully, a rainforest has been developed with the addition of 2,000 misting sprinklers that keep the humidity high and allow specimens from the tropical north to survive. The rainforest canopy is dense and keeps out any light breeze; the only agitation today is the flitting and scurrying of birds and lizards on the forest floor.
Signs along the rainforest boardwalks say that Australia once looked like this all over, cool and damp, dark green and fungal. These timber boards are gradually returning to that wilderness state, but as they wear down into a more natural form they make a good canvas for shifting shapes.
Marianne at East of Málaga says we take trips at least once a month. Some of us go to countries at the other end of the world and towns on the other side of the continent. But we all leave our dwelling places now and then and, intentionally or not, end up in a park or an orchard or a beach we’ve never been to. Marianne wants to know where we go, where our trips, long and short, take us.
For Christmas I was given The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 9 and over the past days I’ve read six or seven of the stories. I’ve noticed that, like a good tale, each one builds in tension until there’s a turning point, a part where something bad happens and a solution has to be found.
My piece of travel writing won’t end up in The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 10; it was just a happy trip to the south coast of NSW, trouble-free from start to finish. Just one day, a short holiday. The only turning point was at our destination, at the end of the afternoon, turning the car homewards.
We like to take our time, to stop and smell the coffee. So after an hour in the car we typically stop in an old country town, Braidwood, for morning tea. This day, we found many of the cafés were closed, the owners away for their summer holidays. But behind the shops of the main street a small bakery-café was still open, operating in an old rusty-roofed cottage, with some empty tables and chairs outside under the grey dry sky. Under the roof, above the door, out of sight here, some dried bread dough letters form a curious introduction to the bakery: “Fee fi fo fum”.
Dojo Bakery, Braidwood, NSW
From Braidwood we drove up over the misty mountains and down to the sea. Our second stop for the day was at Circuit Beach. Last week you might have seen some photos of my family skipping stones here. It was a tricky little bay of a beach, with a multitude of flat stones, trunky gum trees and a small cave.
Circuit Beach NSW
If Circuit Beach is good for paddling and stone-throwing, it’s no good for bodysurfing. So we moved on to Malua Bay and found a beach divided: a flagged area for swimming, and a no-go zone for swimmers. My lot said the waves were piddly, and the surfers might have agreed.
No swimming. Unless you can dodge surfboards.
Real men need real waves, so we drove on till we found a place with a rugged name, Guerilla Bay, where cliffs were steep and corroded, and grey mounds of rock rose above the sea. But you can’t surf water that’s millpond flat. It was only good for stone-throwing, which I’ve discovered looks great in black and white.
Guerilla Bay NSW
We hadn’t given up, because there was always the old favourite to fall back on, a beach which deserves its name, Surf Beach. The sun came out for the first time that day, the others went swimming and I sat on the beach photographing them. They’re in the water, far out, where real men surf. And I’m safe on the sand.
Surf Beach, NSW
Pretty good day, huh? It’s worth the two hours in the car to get there, and another hour driving from beach to beach to beach, and the two hours back again. Back home inland, I laid a few shells on the windowsill to remind me to return to this place of rare pleasure.
But there was another reminder, at my local shop. They’ve started selling Dojo bread that comes up from Braidwood three times a week. It’s good bread, but I need my strong arm to get the knife through the tough crust. Fee fi fo fum.
A few days ago a few of us from my family went to the south coast for the day. We tried four beaches, but this one was the best for skipping stones: Circuit Beach. I took these action shots as my husband and two of our sons sent those stones back into the ocean.
Skipping stones, Circuit Beach, NSWSkipping stones, Circuit Beach, NSW
A window to this artist is not just a transparent barrier between him and the weather. It’s a place for colours and picture tiles and wooden shutters and an iron grill. The plaque says: “In this house the painter Willy Mucha lived and worked from 1940 to 1995. Friends of Willy Mucha.” See how he has inlaid some tiles in the wall around the window frame?
I found a small image of one of his paintings and pasted it below. It’s Collioure in its sunniest colours.
Willy Mucha’s window, Collioure, FranceCiel jaune sur Collioure (Yellow sky over Collioure), Willy Mucha
I’ve just stumbled across Cee’s challenge to find black and white photos of cars. I have just the thing, though I didn’t take the photos. My father did, way back when these cars were his. They were taken long before I was born, in a spot near the beach, probably Noosa Heads (long before they solved the sandfly problem and turned it into an internationally appealing resort town). The first photo is of the family car; I have other photos of it with my sister and brother as toddlers sitting on the running board (that’s how wide it is!).
My father’s car, c1943
The next photo is of Dad’s ute (short for utility truck). My mother told me he made the tray on the back to put his tins of paint and work gear in.
Two photo challenges this week have prompted me to think of one family’s Christmas effort. The WP challenge was ‘Grand’, and Ailsa’s challenge was ‘Symbol’, in honour of Nelson Mandela. Well, last night, here in Canberra, I found a ‘Grand Symbol’!
Lights are a symbol of hope, always appropriate at Christmas. And when someone wins the Guinness World Record for the year for the most Christmas lights decorating a property, it’s because they’ve made a grand effort.
Last night we drove to the winning house and I took some photos. My camera’s not great for night photography and my skills are barely even those of an amateur, but you’ll get an idea of what it must be like to live in the same street with such a winner. All the surrounding houses were remarkable for their darkness; perhaps they feel a pointlessness in competing. This grand display might even be a bit hard to endure night after night through the Christmas period: there are traffic controls at that end of the street, cars parked up and down all the nearby streets, and of course the multicoloured glow for several hours.
We walked through the garden of lights, entering on the left side of the front yard and exiting at the right. Strings of LEDs, many of them white, some of them red, blue and green, flashed on and off, not rapidly, but at regular intervals changing the show. For me, the glaring white was not pleasant and kept me from lingering long amid the display. It had the effect of mid-summer sunlight on white concrete. In the past, coloured lightbulbs were warmer and, indeed, more colourful. But I know, I know, they’re not ‘green’.
Tall pine tree trunk covered in Christmas lightsChristmas lights decorating pine tree and hedge
However, I appreciate the effort these people have put into their decorations, and it’s important to know that, as each visitor enters, they are asked to donate to the Sids and Kids charity.
Wall of Christmas lightsThe real and the unreal: Moon shining down on a Christmas star
In Wellington, New Zealand, there’s a wooden church that’s a church by name but not by nature. From the outside, it’s small, cream, nineteenth-century, Gothic Revival. Quaint.
Old St Paul’s, 1865, Wellington, NZ
When the ‘open’ sign is displayed, visitors are welcome. And when they step inside, many exclaim ‘Wow!’. They don’t expect to see an interior composed entirely of rich native timbers like kauri, rimu, totara and matai. The eye goes straight to the vault, which resembles the upturned hull of an ancient vessel. And visitors don’t expect an old church to smell so good. The timber has not lost its fragrant essence over the centuries. It reminded me of a small cedar box I own; I’ve had it for thirty years, yet with each opening of the lid it releases a heady fragrance forcing me to inhale deeply. And so it was when I entered this church. I wanted to return, to worship. But it now serves only for concerts and events like weddings.
Interior, Old St Paul’s, 1865, Wellington NZ
Ailsa has posted a challenge this week for photos evoking a particular fragrance. For anyone who has been inside Old St Paul’s in Wellington, this photo will have you breathing and remembering.
Our last stop was at a small bay north of the capital, Wellington. To say it was windy would be an understatement. It blew cold constant gusts that drew my hair up and out and often over my face at the moment I wanted to click a photo. Many of my shots were taken blind, like a lucky dip photographer. Take a look at these trees on the beach; there’s no way they can grow vertically!
Windblown trees, Titahi Bay, NZ
But before we got to this little place, Titahi Bay, we drove through an interesting town established by Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century: Norsewood.
BURGUNDY
In Norsewood, we went through this little museum which must have had the same architect as the Literary Institute in Gundaroo, NSW! The museum is painted a rich burgundy red, a contrast to the snow-white houses we saw everywhere in New Zealand. By the verandah grows a great bunch of deep pink Watsonias, another flower that appeared in all sorts of gardens in NZ, even neglected ones.
Museum, Norsewood, NZ
IRIDESCENT BLUE-GREEN
While the iconic blue-green-purple Pāua shells are found on most beaches and are available in all the souvenir shops, I found something else, less common but equally iridescent and resembling the Pāua shells in their colours – this turn-of-the-century wedding dress on display in Norsewood museum. Clearly, the Scandinavian migrants had to improvise and make do in this strange new land; both the bodice and skirt are decorated with beetle casings:
Beetle casings adorning a wedding dress, Norsewood museum, NZ
MULTICOLOUR
At each end of the curving beach of Titahi Bay, there are colourful boat sheds sitting on one of the flattest pieces of ground in this region: the beach. See the hill behind them? In this area near Wellington every house is built on a hill, all with someone else looking down on them (except those at the very top!).
Boat sheds, Titahi Bay, NZ
And that’s it for our colourful New Zealand holiday. There were many other places we visited along the way, but I’ve enjoyed leaving some hints of this country’s beauty here on this blog. You have to go there! And I have to go back!
After spending time in Auckland, New Zealand, and driving through the volcanic plateau, we moved on for a great week in Hawke’s Bay on the east coast of the North Island. Again, as last week, I found broad strokes of individual colours wherever we went. There was plenty of:
BLUE
A matching blue bay and sky: the view from our accommodation. Most days.
View from Bluff Hill, Napier, NZ
YELLOW
As in Auckland, there are lots of white houses in Hawke’s Bay, especially the older wooden houses, the type that survive earthquakes. But there are plenty of creative individuals living here, like the neighbours who built a house with a cylinder attached and painted it with a yellow that says ‘look at me!’.
Houses old and new, Napier, NZ
PINK
Red Valerian is a beautiful flower that’s not red but rather a couple of shades of pink, and springs up in any crack where a seed has fallen. In New Zealand I saw it growing in most gardens, jutting out of retaining walls, through rockfall-catching wire on cliff faces, and on the seashore. Some call it a weed, some call it a colourful filler. No doubt it needs to be controlled. I took this photo in drizzle under a grey sky. The blue days had passed…
Red Valerian on beachfront, and kite surfer in the rain, Hawke’s Bay, NZ
ORANGE
There are also flowers around Hawke’s Bay which there should be more of, like Bird of Paradise with its orange crests.
Bird of Paradise near the Aquarium, Napier, NZ
PURPLE
When we climbed the moist leaf-littered paths that wound uphill through Tiffen Park, we saw masses of blue and purple flowers growing wild. I don’t know what they’re called but I hope they’re not invaders. Here we were about a third of the way up the hill. When you go to New Zealand, you go up a lot of steps, steep streets and driveways, hills and cliffs. But going down feels really good!
Tiffen Park, Napier, NZ
COLOURLESS
On the walls and in parks in Napier, there are quotations written or sculpted which offer promise and hope. They are signs that this town has not only revived after a horrendous earthquake back in 1931 but is thriving partly because of it. The town was rebuilt in Art Deco, the style of the time, and today it is unique as an example of this architecture constructed in the two-year period 1931/32. The quotation below which I saw painted in an otherwise interest-free alley is a reminder that good things can come from bad. If you can read backwards, that is.
Thoreau quotation, alley wall, Napier, NZ
CREAM
And here’s an example of one of the buildings constructed in the Art Deco style after the earthquake and recently refurbished, attracting masses of tourists each week. It’s open to the public and just as handsome inside.
Art Deco architecture, Napier NZ
BLACK
We went on a two-hour trip with a Maori elder, Robert McDonald, up to a peak, Te Mata, where he recounted the history of Maori in New Zealand. In the photo below he stands next to his tribe’s pou whenua, or land post. Its face is carved like that of Robert’s ancestor, one of the Waimārama chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1841 with the European settlers. At the bottom of the second photo below, (actually the Waimārama Maori Tours information card), is his mark made on the Treaty and the words he spoke, ‘te tohu o te tangata’ which mean ‘the mark of the man’. His facial tattoo indicates his status as an important chief of his tribal group. The portrait was painted by Gottfried Lindauer, an Austrian artist who painted many Maori portraits in the late nineteenth century, some of which I saw in the Auckland Art Gallery and more of which you can see here. They’re stunning!
Robert MacDonald, Maori elder, with his tribe’s pou, Hastings, NZ.Harawira Mahikai Te Tatere, Waimārama chief, NZ, by Gottfried Lindauer (photo courtesy Waimārama Maori tours postcard)
