Pakistan2023

We have been here twice before. December 2021 for Brendan and Sofie’s wedding, see blog, and in 2020, see blog for then.

To see all our Pakistan video clips, 2019, 2020, 2023 click here

Lahore is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. Lahore is one of Pakistan’s major industrial and economic hubs, with an estimated GDP of $84 billion as of 2019. Wikipedia

Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country’s ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s, it replaced Rawalpindi as Pakistan’s national capital. Wikipedia

When we were here last, November 2019, a thousand rupees equalled $6.44 USD ($9.44 Aussie bucks). March 2023 a thousand rupees = $3.75 USD or $5.56 Australian. In other words it is very difficult for the people here. Everything has risen in cost y close to 50% this year alone. For example, water is a dollar more this week than last week which is a lot.

As usual, italic notes are Narda – the other type is moi…

Also, I did not put some sideshows below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…forgot the reason…perhaps I thought at the time someone would want to dwell on a particular photo in the series – have no idea why. Let me know in the comments at the end which you prefer. In fifteen years of blogs here only one person has ever left a comment, that was because I spelt an old girlfriend’s name wrong – damn! You could be the second to leave a comment.

February 15

leaving Kuala Lumpur

Woke up at 5.30, our host Steve met us at 7.30 and then off in our Grab taxi. All went very smoothly. The Batik Air flight left at 12.30 right on time. We had never tried these guys before, but I think it was great. Mainly because the departure and arrival times (4 pm) are so civilised. Most of the fancy airlines manage 3 am for arrival in Pakistan.

The leg room and recline was fine ..as good as any economy seat. The food was OK, we had to purchase it. We also purchased a pillow each…never seen that before…but it was only $1 …nice little souvenir. The toilets were pretty bad by the end of the 6-hour flight, but you can’t win em all.Sofie and her mum Niggi were waiting there with their driver, Brendan has an after-school commitment he could not get out of. Back in their nice home now. Sofie has done some gorgeous decorating. It looks very homey.

This my little amateur sketch of part of the living room.

This stunning work by the real artist in the family, Sofie.

We have not flown on Batik Air Indonesia before, certified as a 3-Star Airline by Skytrax. It was budget all the way though comfortable. The plane was new with more leg room than other budget airlines we have been on. Meals were quite basic and cost little, I got some vegetable thing with rice and Narda had her usual something that once was alive meal. We even had to pay for a pillow, water, coffee. We didn’t buy a blanket. The pillows were cheap at about three bucks USD. There was no entertainment screen or plugs or charging. The stewardesses were friendly. Overall to save a few bucks it is OK for a six-hour flight.

Arriving in Lahore has been difficult in the past, two times, because there have been other flights, creating huge lines at customs and long waits for luggage. This time it was just our flight which was half full. We were the first at the passport window and our luggage came rather quickly as there were not many of us. No one checks us, or our luggage. Probably should have brought Brendan a carton of wine. Oh well, next time.

Sofie and her mother with their driver met us. We usually arrive at three am when so many others do also. This time at three pm there was no one else in the car park, the road into town was very sparse and we got to Swedish Flats, the wonderful home of Sofie and Brendan before Brendan got home from school.

Our first impression was of the difference a woman in a house can make. Not that Brendan’s house wasn’t homey, after all, Narda had bought stuff for it the last time we were here, but now there was so much more. Very homey.

Narda is showing the inside of the house below. A walled compound with guards. Inside we could be in any upscale neighbourhood in the world, except the air is a bit smoggy for us. Like Lahore was rated the most smoggy city in the world today.

February 16

Terrell and I happily went for our favourite walk to get coffee from the local chai wallah! Then off to Jalal’s at Main Market for groceries and snacks.

I did not put the photos below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

On the first night Bren and Sof took us to our favourite restaurant…all western food, called Rina’s. I shared a great pepperoni (without pork?) pizza with Sof, Terrell had his remembered favourite dish, spinach lasagna and Bren had a chicken salad-pasta thing. Not sure exactly though I’m sure it was spicy.

Feb 17, 2023

Bren and Sof have half days on Friday. We took a longish nap at lunch then went to the international club. I spent the hour chatting with Dave, an English guy who has just returned to Lahore because his Pakistani wife wants to be close to family again. Bren and Terrell worked out in the gym.

Then at p.m. back there. We met up with Lulu again, she was pleased to see us. Nice long chats with her. She’s had an incredible life, travelling all through the middle east with her husband in the 60s, then settling with him (a Pakistani) in Lahore and raising 2 kids, both of whom returned to the USA. Her husband died 16 years ago and she now lives in Lahore, and would never go back to the west. Interesting person, with a long history of involvement at the International Club.

We went outside and were welcomed by the “boys”, Bren’s close Pakistani friends. Atif, who lent his nice car decorated with  to Bren and Sof for their wedding celebrations. Faizan who got us lost driving to the reception. He also recently married and showed me lots of photos. Then there is Cash, a Pakistani with a plummy  English accent, and with lots to say and strong opinions on everything. There was a long discussion led by Cash on the merits of psychedelics in finding truth. This man is a devout Muslim. Terrell had quite a bit of stuff to say on the topic 🤔 When asked what my experience was I told him “codeine is great, makes love everyone and everything”. One of the other guys (I had not met him before) insisted that reading and studying was the best way to finding truth. I tried to agree, but no one heard me. 

It was a fun night. Imran came to pick us up, we went home with him, Sof and Terrell and me leaving Bren to party on. He assured us Cash would drive him home. I must say I was a little concerned about that. He’s home, Imran took him home.

Feb 19, 2023

Now here we are up early…..just had an instant coffee, I’m back on my 16/8 fasting regime. Life is good in Lahore.

Last night we had an interesting meal at Dan and Dan, a hotpot place. The beef was really something, very tender and tasty. So also the eggplant strips coated in stay sauce, which Saquib and I both thought was chicken. Bit of a cliche ‘tastes like chicken’. I had a good conversation with Saquib, Sofie’s dad, and the reason why Chris made it to his brother’s wedding. He was telling me about his family property in Gujarat.…..?.? here there is a 300 year tradition of helping people and teaching. I want to learn more. I also enjoyed meeting Niggi again, this warm-hearted, generous woman.

I did not put the photos below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

We had spent some significant time in the hours before downing snacks with Bren and Sof and I thought I had left no room, but it was all good. Plenty of extra space there..

The walk to our local central is not without risk. Cars, trucks, motor bikes, rickshaws, donkeys pulling carts, pedestrians – so much more, going in whatever direction there is an opening. We wear N-95 masks while out as the pollution is heavy. Actually, Lahore was the most polluted city in the world for a couple of these days. “Lahore top list of most polluted cities, Karachi sixth in world. https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2023/02/26/lahore-atop-list-of-most-polluted-cities-karachi-sixth-in-world/  Here is an article as to why Lahore is so polluted, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/29/pakistan-lahore-pollution-fossil-fuels-climate/  We took an auto rickshaw (tuk tuk to us) home. It is only five-minutes to get home but we are tired of avoiding traffic and have a bag of groceries, so we grab a ride home. Last time the fee was one hundred rupees. This time we don’t ask how much and just give 200 rupees, and there is always such a big smile on the driver’s face and thankyou that the extra money makes it worthwhile. Narda put the app for their Uber equivalent, InDrive, on her phone and we have started using that for further distances. We always give an extra 100 rupees to them too. A hundred rupees is around 37-cents to us.

We love Rina’s Kitchenette. I always get the same, pasta with great cheesy sauce. Narda and Sofie shared a pizza and Brendan got something or the other that meat lovers get. A few dollars each. And my favourite drink here, pina colada, a cocktail made with rum, cream of coconut or coconut milk, and pineapple juice, though of course this is Pakistan, there is no rum in it which is great for me as I have not had any alcohol since 2005. Rina’s https://rinas.pk/

I see this dude above quite often wheeling around his furniture. We bought flowers for about seven bucks USD – in Australia the would be $60-$75.

February 17

Walked to local shops – pens notebooks – groceries – nap – gym with Brendan – evening dinner @ The International Club. There are always people from lots of places here. A few from where Brendan works, mostly businesspeople from South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Denmark, USA and so many more places. Good to speak with others. The food is good too. There is a gym, though a bit too hard core for me as I like the machines more than the free-weights which they seem to favour here. Brendan even has a trainer.

Narda has found a favourite stationary shop, she found it two times ago and again last time and low and behold it is still there, with all kinds of stationary stuff so she can draw and we found some odds and ends to give people along the way.

February 19

Out for breakfast with Brendan and Sofie at Bundu Khan Lahore – http://www.bundukhan.pk/  Desi Nashta –

February 20

slideshow of our days in Islamabad

11 am QConnect bus to Islamabad – to hotel – dinner with Phil’s parents at our Hotel Roomy in F6 –

Today Brendan left for Turkey with his grade 5 class for a school camp learning about space. Turkey has been in the news lot with Syria, having recently suffered catastrophic earthquakes in the southern border region, with 40,000 people so far losing their lives. A shocking thing. Bren and his students are a long way from there, so the camp wasn’t called off.

We left on the QConnect luxury bus (rated ‘business class’ italics deliberate:) headed to Islamabad. It’s a clean planned city purpose built as the capital of Pakistan. We stayed in a really nice hotel called Roomy Signature. The room was indeed roomy.

We met up with a couple of American music teachers, Tim and Gwen, with a long, interesting background in international schools. They were visiting their son Luke, living opposite Brendan and teaching at Lahore International School. We have lots of stories to share over dinner at our hotel.

The next morning, they picked us up with their school driver and showed us all the necessary sites. The museum of natural history, with a couple of competent science graduates telling the stories. Really nice.

Then to the central mosque, impressive.

And then the famous monument, and a craft museum which was dark, electricity down, but the little craft shops were open with nice stuff. Maybe I happened to buy some stuff but I’m not saying for sure 🙃 🤔

The cost of living has increased significantly for the locals. In November 2019, a thousand rupees cost us $6.44 USD ($9.44 AUD).  In March 2023 a thousand rupees = $3.75 USD or $5.56 Australian. The rupee is continuing to fall…10% in the last weeks. Terrible for Pakistan. They are unable to pay for imports leaving ships full of goods standing in the harbour causing terrible shortages and price rises.

See https://neuage.me/2019/11/29/lahore/ for 2019 blog

February 21

With Luke’s parents in AM to museums – nap – afternoon InDrive to The Centarus Mall F8 – Jinnah Avenue – dinner cheesy noodles

1. The Pakistan Monument is a national monument and heritage museum located on the western Shakarparian Hills in Islamabad, Pakistan. The monument was constructed to symbolize the unity of the Pakistani people. It is dedicated to the people of Pakistan who sacrificed their “today” for a better “tomorrow” The four large petals represent each of the four main cultures of Pakistan, the Punjabi, the Baloch, the Sindhi and the Pakhtun. The three smaller petals represent: the minorities, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Its elevation makes the monument visible from across the Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is a popular tourist destination
2. Natural History Museums – The Pakistan Museum of Natural History has four divisions namely Botanical Sciences, Earth Sciences, Zoological Sciences and Public Services. The first three divisions are engaged in the collection, preservation, identification and research activities pertaining to plants, fossils & minerals and animals resources of Pakistan respectively, while the latter is responsible for mass education and popularization of the natural history through various displays, exhibits and dioramas.
3. The Faisal Mosque is the national mosque of Pakistan, located in capital Islamabad. It is the fifth-largest mosque in the world and the largest within South Asia, located on the foothills of Margalla Hills in Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad. It is named after the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

Wikipedia

February 22

Our new friends headed back to their son and his family in Swedish Flats.

We headed off to the Metro, a new adventure. It’s a great idea, a concrete track, in the city for buses only costing very little. It was full of locals. We quickly learned the protocols from the locals pointing and smiling. Boys in the back, girls in the front. I got a seat, Terrell was sandwiched in the back with all the males, pretty much standing the whole time, about 8 stops.

We did not have a destination in mind, which puzzled the girls sitting next to me as I asked where we should get off.

“We want to see a market”.

“Commercial or local?” she replied in good English.

“I have no idea”, I thought. 

“Both” I replied. 

She smiled and assured me she would let me know. So, with this non information I texted Terrell urgently to be sure he would somehow catch sight of me as I got off. 

It all went well, we both got off at the same stop and headed off in search of chai. It was definitely a local area. (Understatement!). The chai wallah had an “upmarket” area we were to sit in, deep underground with NO light. He was very hospitable. I think we may have been the first to sit down there in quite some time.

A few scarf purchases later, we had lunch, neon noodles. Nice. Toilets navigated. It’s all good.

The return trip took us back to Centaurus Mall. I bought a groovy shalwar kameez with lovely material, but too big, it was tent like. Seriously, it needed tent pegs. I later had this altered at our local Main Market to my satisfaction, with sweet Sofie as translator. 

Dinner in the mall. Mine: chicken and noodles, Terrell: noodles, but the cheese made it yummy.

Of course, Narda got another dress,

shopping Narda

I did not put the photos below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

.The QConnect bus took us back to Lahore without incident, though I did spot a large bus with some significant roof damage, and men standing around looking at it. This was on the very steep decent coming back to Lahore. Not really sure what that was. Maybe they had just tipped it back upright. I did enjoy the fancy these decorated trucks heading west.

February 23

Bus back to Lahore – out with Sofie and Brendan’s for dinner to Rina’s

February 24

We decided to take Imran out with his family as a thank you. He’s a good guy. Unfortunately, he had to work and so we played host to his wife and 2 of his daughters. He was keen for us to meet Jennifer as she was home for a short time, working in Dubai. It was a nice experience, buffet in a speccie rooftop location. Food was good. 

For some reason I cannot reconnect with Uber after our 3 months in India using them all the time. Nor can Terrell. We have finally managed to connect with InDrive, a similar local service by using our Aussie phone to verify us. Not sure what’s going to happen with our roaming charges. So, it’s working, sometimes with local folks helping us communicate with drivers in Urdu.

Evening dinner with Imran’s family – wife, Jennifer – her sister – buffet – I had fish A La Cart – Nestled in the city of Gardens, situated at the rooftop of one of the highest building around liberty and offers Indoor and Outdoor Dining with an extensive view of Lahore.

“Monal Lahore is the definition of contemporary Restaurant, serving the finest Cuisines with a combination of traditional and exciting flavours from around the world.” So they say – on some website.

Night Market Tour

The school generously paid for tickets for us and others to join the school community and go on a tour of the Lahore Fort. It is a huge complex, right next to the mosque in the old city. Beautiful. We met at school and were transported there in the school’s 12-seater bus. While waiting for the tour guide, we browsed the many souvenir shops.

Then the start of the tour was announced with a trumpet blast, and we were admitted through a low door. The tour guide was full of beans and gave us lots of information on this world heritage site and the restoration projects currently being undertaken. Incredible, everything lit strategically. 

See our three clips:

1. https://youtu.be/Boweh1yIeMc
2. https://youtu.be/7MP01r4IYpo
3. https://youtu.be/Zj_JwPyKwo8

Then there was quite a bazaar dance that went on for about twenty-minutes

This dance was more mild – Sufi extreme…

We got breaks from walking, watching different performances and also being transported in big tuktuk like vehicles. I enjoyed getting to know Brendan’s boss Nadine, a person I could easily be friends with. We both complained that it was way past our bedtime, a terribly late 9pm. 😴

After all the touring we ate a good meal on “food street”, generously paid for by Nadine and Chris in Pakistani fashion.

Bren home again after a week with his fifth graders in Turkey on the school camp in an area far from the devastation of the earthquakes. In southern Turkey and in Syria the damage and loss of life has been shocking. I think the total deaths are now close to 70,000.

Morning brekkie at my favourite place. It has the best sweet lassi. Lassi meethi

2 cups whole-milk yogurt

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, or to taste

2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Pinch of salt

1 cup ice cubes

1. Step 1Combine all the ingredients in a blender with 1 cup cold water. Blend until smooth and serve.

My favourite drink is their Piña colada – of course without the rum…yumm – in picture below with Narda’s mint thingy

February 26

Sofie’s mum took us out to Breakfast at the English Tea House http://ethpakistan.pk/. A great way to start a Sunday. I had the eggs Florentine – in Australia it would have been $25 – $30, here about $5 Australian. I had a blueberry smoothie which was good.

I did not put the images below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

February 27

While Brendan was catching up on sleep, we attended a couple of sessions at a writer’s week. The second involved a book launch by an ex-student of Lahore International School. In his book he wrote of his kidnapping in Lahore and torture by extremists. He was held in captivity for 5 years. Lucky to be alive. It was a riveting speech, and I’m not going to read the book.

Too confronting for me

Does anyone remember Statler and Waldorf? They were the two old guys who provided a running commentary of Sesame Street. Well, we met their Pakistani brothers over lunch. Two educated gentlemen with opinions. Interesting conversation. They spoke of their support of Imran Khan, their views on the relationship with India, which they said was driven totally by politicians. Their view that the countries of the world who had confiscated weapons in their populations were the ones getting ahead. They compared Pakistan with Bangladesh in this regard. Pakistan remains heavily armed, Bangladesh does not. I want to research this some more.

Bren had an offer one can’t refuse of the box seat in the local cricket match, including full access to unlimited food. So, we joined Sof at her hairdresser for head and foot massage and hair wash. 😍 lovely.

I did not put the images below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

February 28

InDrive to Mall Road – breakfast/lunch at Grazer Mall 94, Soups: mushroom and chicken $1.95 USD each, sweet lassie $1.18 and mango smoothie $3.15 +$1.25 on top of it all for their 16% GST tax for a grand total of $9.50 USD for lunch – shopping at Imtiaz – Narda bought dress – InDrive back home gave 350($1.35) even though it was about 300 ($1.17).

Another strange experience with the InDrive person, who couldn’t find us at the flower market, The vendor helped by talking to the driver and we made a dare devil crossing of a busy road. Not quite comfortable with the tuk tuk, fast car, bus, and pedestrian mix on these roads. We need more practice and need to take a chill pill.

Nice dinner last night at Paola’s Mediterranean food restaurant. Just newly renovated, really lovely atmosphere. I ordered a pepperoni pizza again. Can’t seem to get past it. The pepperoni is made from chicken, and you would never know. This is because Muslims do not eat pork. Just because something is made from chicken does not mean it tastes like chicken. 😉

Here is their menu if you want some good food sent anywhere in the world – or at least in Lahore

Sidenote: just because it is made with tofu and tastes like chicken doesn’t mean some poor animal got snuffed just to taste like chicken. Hey, for those who don’t know – or care really, I was a tofu manufacturer in Adelaide for seven-years. Really. I even have a webpage – of course, https://tofu.neuage.us/

Mar 2

Today was going to be a down day because we just got new internet.  So, catching up on blogging and bills etc.  It was restful. Walked to the local street stall and on the way home bought more than a kilo of strawberries for the princely sum of less than $2 USD. Yum, so ripe. Just hope I washed them properly. Won’t know that till tomorrow morning. 

I did not put the images below on Auto-play – so click the little arrow on the sides to see the next photo…

My tuk tuk take.

Driving to Sofie’s parents was a challenge. I covered my head with a scarf to blend in and Brendan kept driving confidently past the check points. This is the process, each time they drive to their home. Foreigners are not allowed into the “containment”  area owned by the army. . Sometimes they check and send you back. Its a bit of hit and miss, but tonight it was busy and we slipped by unnoticed. 

Saquib was there too. Dinner was lovely and we had interesting conversations about the current politics, Saquib assuring us that Imran Khan would win by a landslide. Niggi told us that he was being guarded by many women from the city, armed with sticks, who beat off any police who tried to arrest him on trumped up charges. It’s a funny image. She said she might join them.

Good morning, Pakistan. I survived the consuming of a great deal of non-sanitized strawberries. Today the sun is shining, little pollution. We headed out early to enjoy the blue sky and the quiet roads. I bought the requisite white vinegar using this Urdu phrase “sofed seriga”. It worked. We went home (stopped first at the other chai wallah) and sterilized the remaining strawberries. 4 parts clean water and one part sofed seriga.

Part of our local walk.

Bren’s band

Then came the highlight of my trip. We went to the fancy home (Nadine and Chris) of the principal of the elementary school for a pleasant TGIF experience, lots of food and beer.   She had actually offered me a job as middle school music teacher for the remaining 3 months of the year. I did think long and hard about it. If this offer had come at the end of our trip I would have done it. It would have an interesting experience, but we still have lots of travel paid for and I didn’t fancy cancelling it all. 

But that was not the highlight. Brens new band was playing and the boys invited me to sing so I joined them for 2 songs singing harmony with the very capable lead singer who also played ukulele, Brendan playing a mean bass, and two other guys on guitar and single drum. This was something I had always wanted to do.

See the clip at https://youtu.be/rh_o7XGW6mY

You know, the cricket player Imran Khan, became prime minister, was ousted, and is trying to get back in as prime minister. He was injured in an assassination attempt recently in a long march episode from Lahore to Islamabad. Two days before leaving Lahore there was a big protest, rally, whatever, in front of the compound. Rumours were that the current government was going to arrest Imran.  His compound has lots of tents in front, probably equal five NYC blocks or more. Apparently, women are camped out and have sticks to beat back police if they try to arrest him. Well Wednesday Brendan and Sofie got released from school at noon due to ‘trouble’ brewing and Thursday Brendan and Sofie got the call that there would be no school as the roads were blocked. The compound is near their school. To us, having taught in New York, it was equal to getting a snow-day. Narda was quite happy. We saw various Twitter clips with the army and police using water cannons and breaking car windows. Narda and I wanted to go and see what was going on but we were kind of told no. in my defense, my first degree, BA, was in journalism. And I fancy myself as a reporter of stuff. Anyway, we stayed near home.

March 02

to Sofie’s mother for dinner father there too – left 9.30

March 03

On our walk to and home from our daily grocery shopping we sat in the local park and were looked at with great interest, even talked to a few fellows.

March 04

Being an American I have a slight fascination with guns – like why people have them. In Pakistan every business has a (male) guard with a machine gun outside. They are always friendly. Never seen anyone come close to using one which I suppose is good. Here are a few of my gun toting guards…

March 05 Hung around house morning – worked on train trips in UK and started looking at flights for NY – Valencia. Brendan and Sofie to a wedding, we took a nap. Packages Mall_ https://youtu.be/eFH2CGigBtw Narda bought shoes at Ndure for rainy weather in UK, dinner at The Pantry –

Bit of this and that. Head massage, dinner at the club, and driven home by someone’s driver, then Packages Mall for some waterproof shoes. Found a bargain at Ndure (1,500  rupees which is around $6 USD. Will be useful in the rainy UK. Another run at Imtiaz. We are carrying a dongle which gives us internet on the go. Sometimes. So, we can order a driver or use WhatsApp. No Sim cards for us. Next time we will contact the embassy.

March 06

Coffee and cake at Second Cup,– ten-minute nap –  InDrive to  Al – Fatah to get my hair oil and InDrive back  – later walked from Main Market to Imtiaz Narda bought dress and shoes at Imtiaz to go to Lulu’s.

My hair guru, Sofie, put me onto some hair oils to help me. My hair seems to be shorter than a few years ago and is thinning too quickly. Just because I am 75 is not a good reason to have hair loss – really, get with the program. I once had hair most to my waist in the 1960s, and it was black, now it is going grey at an alarming rate. Sofie, having had a bout with TB and losing hair discovered the oil of an onion rubbed into the scalp overnight regenerates hair. Narda already is complaining, and I haven’t even started. Something about I will have to sleep in the other bedroom when we get back home if I dare do such a treatment which of course I will. Her hair grew back long and thick and black – just because she was a hundred years younger than me doesn’t mean it won’t work with me. I did purchase two oils, one with onion extract but not with the smell. I am to use one treatment twice a week for two weeks then the onion extract one for a week and do that until my hair is thick and to my feet. So excited. Thanks hair-guru-Sofie. I am so lucky.

March 07

Dinner at home…

Yesterday we had another chai at our local street seller. We waved on arriving. This meant and was understood as “the usual please”. He made us one with sugar and one without.  Cool. We sat in the back and had a pleasant conversation with a local office worker taking a break. Lots about the bad economics of Pakistan, the falling rupee and of course Imran Khan and the (unsuccessful) attempts of the opposition to have him arrested.

Narda asked a child’s parent for permission to take this photo – I called it photo of the day.

One of Narda’s go-to conversations with locals is re. Imran. Seems everyone we speak to is in favour of Imran or they are just fearful of disagreeing with Narda. If you don’t believe me, say you are an anti-vaxxer. For example, at an anti vax  rally parade we happened to come across in The Hague, Narda confronted one of them and she got pushed – luckily she got out of their way and survived to ‘discuss’ vaxing with others since. Yes, we have had five, three of them boosters. We may have a future ‘conversation’ about pressed onion oil in hair, but aside of that we agree on most everything. I make fun of her and have lots to say about her meat eating and she pays me out for being a vegetable…lover, otherwise we are on the same page, well, except I still play Dylan and Janis Joplin when I can. Pretty good as we come from such a different background in some ways. Mainly, I did the hippie lots of LSD and everything else and she didn’t. I am still glad I did. I loved my years of doing lots of drugs, no regrets, remember them well, great experiences, but also happy I haven’t done any drugs since early 1980 when my mate Randy sent me a lots of LSD. I was a single parent at the time. When I told Sacha a few years ago he said his whole childhood made sense to him after hearing that. No drugs since early 1980, no alcohol since 2005, feel high all the time, happy. What more could a person want?

A new Tim Norton’s shop opened in Lahore and of course Sofie wanted to go and stand in line to get one of their donuts which she claims were quite good. I didn’t, Narda did and liked it too. Brendan rolled his eyes.

March 08

Another one of those lovely days…foot massage, head massage, hair wash. Far out, wish we could afford this in Australia. All up it set us back $23 including tip for the two of us, and Narda getting her toenails coloured – kind of a pink instead of her usual red. Go figure, women – but then again today is the international day of the woman or of women – something like that. Huge marches here in Lahore today – and a large rally for Imran Khan. That got Sophie and Brendan home early, as Imran’s compound is near their school and the military is out and there seems to be a lot of nonsense going on Narda and I wanted to go and see it but we were told probably not a good idea. Water cannons – police breaking car windows – lots of mayhem. I wanted to be one of those twitter journalists – had my cameras including zoom lens ready to go too. One of the girls who did the massages is from the Philippines, said she was a Christian. We used to say we were atheists, but Brendan said that is not good to say, so I suppose we are culturally Christians so yes that we are, sort of.

March 09

Our last days were a bit of a whirlwind seeing folks and winding up our stay in Lahore plus getting train tickets lined up for the rest of the trip – Newcastle to Liverpool, train to Wales. Tickets for our next trip; Adelaide to Albany NY, renting a car for a week or more, visiting my sister in Oneonta, friends in Albany, my father, mother’s and brother’s cemetery in Clifton Park, reminiscing about living in upstate 2002 – 2006, teaching in Albany, then driving from Oneonta to Battle Creek Michigan where I was born then I was carted off to NY and put out for adoption soon after those glorious few days of my youth in August 1947. Want to check out the place, see if it has changed much over the past 76-years. I suspect it has and I think I will be there on my birthday, August tenth, if you are thinking of wishing me well or sending flowers. From there we will train it to Chicago for our house exchange in downtown for a month. The Chicago folks have just left our home in Adelaide, they seemed to have enjoyed their month stay there. After Chicago we are taking Amtrak overnight – got a sleeper berth, to DC, staying with Chris and Jessica for a couple of weeks then to Valencia. We got one ticket on United with points and will get the second next month when we accrue enough points to grab that one. At the rate we are spending on this trip that should be easy. We have a house exchange in Valencia for a month, our ticket is direct on United from DC to Madrid where we will stay for a day or two then train it up to our house exchange in Valencia. Then back to Adelaide beginning of November. Of course, Narda has us planning for 2024. Coming back to Lahore for a couple then her hope is that we will do a land crossing over the Wagga Border into India instead of flying there, then hanging out in India for three months, or two months there and a month in Malaysia – still connecting the dots now. Of course, there will be world-stuff to deal with. Who knows what the issues will be then? Last couple of years we had to navigate our way around covid, now the ever-expanding wars with Russia.

In June of 2024 we are looking at how to celebrate Narda’s seventieth – something we did, a cruise, in 2017 for my 70^th – shit I’m old.

Wow, what a coincidence. I am writing this flying over some snow-capped mountains between Abu Dhabi and London listening to The Pretenders doing the Dylan song, ‘Forever Young’, which is more than five-minutes long and just discovered it is looping after hearing it for too many times, the point being in my ramble I was thinking I was getting a bit long in the tooth for all this travel whilst ‘Forever Young’ was playing.

Back to the real story of now. Now. Wednesday night we went to Lulu’s house. Well apartment. She used to have a house, sold it and got this groovy apartment in a new building with a swimming pool, spa, and so much more. She is a very interesting person. We met her at the International Club last year. She is past 80, from Denmark, married a Pakistani Brit, they lived in Lahore for a long time he died 17-years ago. Lulu stays in Lahore because that is now her home, she loves it. Her two-children live in the States and are married to Yanks. They are Trumpers. We had good talks about how difficult it must be to have a Trumper in the family. Narda and I don’t know anyone who is of that ilk. She is so full of stories of her life. My favourite is about when she and her husband lived and travelled throughout the middle east – living in Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. The 1960s were so different in these places. She told us what it was like on the hippie trails through Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan – all these places we no longer travel to. We have met others who have described places being so open and full of westerners. My friend, Michael McCarthy tells of when they used to drive luxury cars from Europe to Afghanistan, sell them and hitch hike back to Europe and do it all over again.

from Lulu’s roof top – Because of her upper status in Lahore society, she took us to the Punjab club https://thepunjabclublahore.com.pk/,  for dinner. It is very difficult to become a member here and one can only go here with a member. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos, as we were asked not to. We ate on the rooftop, quite the meal. Because Pakistan is such a meat-eating country there was no vegetarian options except for a few veggies cooked up, so I had sword fish. Never had that before. It was quite good. According to Brendan, Narda, Sofie, and Lulu their many meat dishes were superb. I snuck a piece of chicken to a feral looking cat beneath the table. Felt quite noble doing that.

Narda dressed up for our night out on the town – at the Punjab Club – members only – and their drag alongs

These birds, called Kites, (we have the large ones) are birds of prey feeding on rodents and trash. Black Winged Kites are common in Lahore, scavenging in this local area. They lay eggs in winter, January and February. Their diet consists of small birds, human waste, and meat. 

It’s all gone pretty quickly.  We discovered some new stuff.

1. UnDrive (like Uber). It works using my Aussie phone sim. When the puzzled driver calls with a question and speaks no English, I can pass the phone to a helpful local.
2. We walked in another direction our of Main Market we find ourselves on a road (Mall Rd) which is quite familiar, and which we thought was much further away. So we went walking, using the overpasses on this really busy road and finished up at the hotel where we had stayed for a couple of days while Bren (not personally) was finishing the flat repaint (for Madam…said Imran. I thought he meant me, but he meant Sofie :). This was on a previous visit. And there was the great big box store called Imtiaz where you can buy everything, except what you need. So I updated my collection of hair clips, and bought a groovy outfit, with sparkling shoes for our upcoming dinner with Lulu, the Danish monarch of Lahore, who knows everything and everyone, and with whom we will attend the exclusive Punjab Club, as her guests.
3. Punjab Club
4. We started with drinks (they do drink) at Lulu’s beautiful apartment. This was also offered to the teachers at LAS, but Bren and Sof declined, as they like the space and the gardens at their current home. The new flats are pretty speccie!
5. Then on to the Punjab Club where I enjoyed the most yummy lamb dinner, locally called mutton.
6. Counting down
7. The next day was a holiday (like a snow day without the snow) for Bren and Sof. It was all about the protestors trying to stop Imran Khan’s arrest. The school was completely hemmed in by it, no one could get through, it was also deemed a security risk.
8. Then met up with Niggi who treated us to a lovely lunch. 
9. The Royal Swiss Hotel, Brendan taking the long route thanks to google, but was interesting drive for us. We had a spa bath and a short but good sleep before being woken up for our 4am flight with Etihad. 
10. Goodbye Lahore, see you next time.

We were walking random streets in Lahore and came across a group of men who wanted to chat – we could not understand much of each other but we did selfies and were told one of the men was a principal of the local school. Really enjoy hanging out and meeting people and they like being with us – we all understand one another in the sense we are just regular people. Well I am anyway. I didn’t select auto play here so scroll through at your leisure.

Sofie and Brendan went to a mate’s wedding (a three day thingy) here they are dressed for one of the days…

Our last day, yesterday, Thursday, we went to lunch with Sofie’s mum. Another great feed. I had a creamy noodle spinach thingy and they had, according to them, tasty roadkill. Don’t recall the name of the place.

Also, I got Neuage soap.

Bit of a story. Since 1993 I have been making webpages. That is toward the beginning of it all as the internet was invented 1991, I know because I used to teach computing at the university of Albany in 2002-2003, with a history of such. I saw it originally as 1. Finding friends, I have lost along the way; that rarely happened in the past thirty-years, maybe two or three people from my past. It is either because people thought I was an idiot and never wanted to have anything to do with me again, or because I changed my name from Adsit to Neuage in 1981 – a long story, which I won’t tell now, or because my friends all died off. As a fact I know three from my past, Kathleen in Florida who said I was the first one she kissed back in 1962 or so, Marta Waterman, my brother’s girlfriend in the 1960s – she is in Woodstock,  New York and we keep constant contact, even did a book together about my brother, and my once-were-girl friend, Tamazon, from 1974 New Orleans, she even joined a cult order I was in back then, so I probably had an influence on her life,   – we have kept tabs on one another for the past decade or so through Facebook as I have with the other two. I did discontinue friendship with Beverly, my girlfriend in the late 1970s, Baltimore, because she got weird, I think she would be a Trumper. Wrote me that my dead-son, Leigh was trying to tell me, through her, to turn to God. That was too much for me. 2. The other reason I was so excited about the internet was that it would be an obvious place for me to sell my children’s stories – books, and my picture-poems. In the mid-1990s I thought I would become so famous and rich that my children and I would travel the world on our magic carpet. Needless to say, that never happened. I never sold anything. I presently have about twelve books on Amazon. I think Kathleen bought one once. Anyway, to make a long story short…for decades if you put in ‘neuage’ into Google I would be the first dozen pages to appear. I have thousands of pages about me. Really, look it up. Well, now, putting in ‘neuage’ the first several pages are about some stupid shit product called Neuage soap. What a foul disgrace to my good name. the Neuage soaps and products are as one would have it, centred in Lahore of all places. It is now available only on the internet. I have tried many stores. So of course, I ordered it so I can give Sacha a gift of love from Pakistan.

One final note from me…I was concerned at the start of this trip that I would have difficulty carrying medication that needed refrigeration. I have several liquid ice packs in a thermal bag with the medication, Trulicity, for diabetes. I contacted various airlines and read heaps on the internet with lots of different answers to whether I could carry these things. Adelaide airport said nothing – put the bag through the scanner – nothing, this was the result everywhere so far: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Lahore, London, Ferry to Holland. All my worries as usual have come to naught. Even hotels are willing to put my medication into refrigeration overnight, and the icepacks into a freezer. Even the ferry between Newcastle and Holland did this – that story is for the next blog.

Goodbye Lahore, see you next time. We love you.

Postscript 16 March

Things are heating up in Lahore with Imran Khan’s supporters not allowing the government agencies (police ans soldiers) to arrest him. Kahn’s supporters are out in droves, blocking access to the school where Bren and Sof teach, and also Kahn’s  home. They have had a number of days off as a result, I don’t hear complaining from them. 

Unfortunately there are tear gas and water cannons being used. The other day it all went quiet as police and soldiers  went to the cricket. 

This brings a smile to my face. Brens description of the Pushtuns from Peshawar standing in the back of their utes with their bushy beards and machine guns, high on hashish coming to rescue their beloved Imran. They take up both sides of the road and I’m sure speed limits do not apply. According to Sofies dad, if he gets to the election he will win in a landslide.

Kahn is opposing the arrest as he says they will kill him. This is not an unreasonable fear, as an attempt on his life has already happened when he was shot in the leg on the march to Islamabad with his followers a few months ago.

Paradise Valley

Christmas 2022 to January 23, 23

Terrell notes not italics Narda notes italic NOTE: sometimes we may almost repeat one another probably because we are always together – Narda’s though, is probably the writing that makes sense, and I sometimes use ten words to Narda’s one to say the same thing – so that is that, for example,

Getting prepared for a trip is always quite the project, for us. The older we get the more is involved. Not in actual stuff but rather being slightly paranoid of what we may forget to do to take to succeed. This time was an extra complex little world. Not only are we off in our caravan for a month but a week after we return, we are off to Malaysia, Pakistan, UK, Netherlands, Thailand for three months+. We are in our caravan for part of the time as we are a bit homeless. Our house exchange folks from Victoria and the UK/Wales are in our house in January. December 27^th to February 3^rd. We are OK in that we have a house exchange in Hepburn Springs, and they are at our house. Then we are camping with my wonderful son, Sacha and his partner, Georgia at Paradise Valley, Victoria for four days. From January 8^th until Narda’s son’s 40^th birthday on the 21^st we will be wandering about looking for great camping spots which will be shared as we progress on this journey. After that we have booked into a caravan park in Adelaide – still a bit homeless, then first of February back home to zip up our bags for our overseas trip.

On the road

Dec 25 

Finally, the caravan packed, and we are on our way to our kids for a merry Christmas. It was lovely, relaxed, exchanging gifts and having some good laughs. Maggie and Mabel liked their painting sets and got straight to creating art. We decided to share art experiences over the next months while we’re away. Stu set it all up so that we could use Messenger together and named it Art Chat.

Nice.

We drove to our first overnight stop in a great free site in Bordertown. Amazing place. Lots of shady spots, trees, a lake with birds and mozzies and a spot for me to practise reversing using the mirrors. A big new challenge. Terrell borrowed 4 witches-hats from the local council workers, and we were busy for an hour or so. Not sure if I made much progress but I do need a bigger mirror and that’s the excuse I’m sticking with. 🤔 

For the past few weeks, we have been getting home in our usual deep-clean state that we leave it for house exchanges and doing two packs. Our bags are packed for overseas – along with visas and all other travel documents and flights are in order. I even got my fifth covid shot (third booster) last week. Narda was unable to get it as Australia is too strict with shooting up folks. I only got it due to health. Speaking of health, what a project to get me up and out the door. One of my medications, Trulicity, had become unavailable, with a world-wide shortage. My other medications (heart, liver, diabetic, etc medications) take up their own box as I am carrying four months’ worth.  Trulicity needs to be kept below four degrees. I needed six months’ worth (two for caravan and extra weeks plus overseas). I had squirreled away enough to last until a week before leaving on our caravan trip by hustling many different chemists in the Adelaide area. With one week to go I had no more left, and the pharmacist said there would not be any until next March. My doctor gave me a script for six months and I started the rounds to hustle any that were available. I had read on the internet that limit amounts were still being brought into Australia and distributed to chemists. So lucky that the day I collected six-months of my other medications from my usual place they had just had a few boxes of Truicity dropped off and they gave me three months supply (three boxes with four injectable pens, one a week) but could not give anymore. We tried several other places but with no luck or whatever it is that makes things manifest in our life. Narda has been chasing up mosquito spray without Deet but with picaridin 20%, as there is dengue fever in several places we will be in February – May and we need the best stuff. Finally, she tracked down a doctor’s surgery in Blackwood – just a 35-minute drive away. After that visit we stopped at a chemist, and they just happened to have had three boxes of Trulicity dropped off with no more expected until sometime next year. The pharmacist gave me all three. Now I had my supply for six-months. Kind of amazing.

We have had a streak of a bit of good luck lately. Last month we decided to put a reversing camera on the back of our caravan. Of course, deciding to do some major caravan fix is not ideal the week before Christmas but timing never bothers us. We bought the camera ($800) and asked if they could install it – perhaps next February was their unhelpful response. However, they said maybe an auto electrician down the road may have an opening sooner. We stomped over to the auto electrician place with caravan and car in tow and they said, surprise, surprise, they had an opening the next day. Because this is Australia and charging whatever is no object here, they did it in six-hours at $100/hour. Narda does the caravan backing up – I have always thought I would learn never quite got to that moment but now I may be interested sometime in the future. Nevertheless, Narda did get a good practice at our first caravan stop on our trip which I will finally get to now that I have thrown away the privacy tab and told everything there is to say about me.

Christmas morning – hooked up the caravan, backup camera in motion, drove to have Christmas morning with Stu/Clare/Maggie/Mabel/Ned. Ned is always especially excited to see me, I throw the ball to him, he chases it, won’t bring it back, waits for me to come and get it to throw again for him to chase and not bring back. Such an exciting game. Gosh, no selfies? Guess we are moving away from that – oh wait! Narda and I have been taking them all along the trip so far (all two days).

We made it for more than an hour – maybe closer to two hours before pulling over on the Dukes Highway, the free campground at Culburra North, which is really a pull over for trucks and the likes of us, but a bit of a ways off the highway as not to be too annoying. We were exhausted, not from driving for two hours – we’re not that old, but 1. Getting up at 4.30 am unable to sleep and began final clean of house and packing caravan 2. Hot – like 38C which is 99F. We slept maybe an hour and awoke sweating. After three and a half minutes we decided it was too hot to stay in the caravan and drove off with the air condition in our car making us feel somewhat alive again.

We had wanted to see all the flooding that is in the news – heard that the Murray was going to crest on Christmas Day but though it looked as if it was higher than usual where we crossed at Murray Bridge was just looking a bit flooded. Not going to camp here.

Later on, in a few weeks, on our return to Adelaide we are doing a ‘silo-arts’ tour in northern Victoria. We passed this silo in the small town of Coonalypn (established 1909, currently 350 people).

We got to Bordertown, which is not really a border town, but not too far from the next state, Victoria, yet still not on the border, at five pm and went to Bordertown Recreation Lake. It is in between being free and not, as there is a donation box on the way out with others on wikicamps saying they left between $5 and $20. We left ten.

Dec 26

Onwards, after some brekkie in town. It was a sizzler today heading for 40 degrees. The car was nice and cool as we drove to Warracknabeal. We signed up for a powered site ($25, not too shabby) and turned the air con on full, together with our Woollies rotating fan. Not much effect. Still, we had an afternoon nap of sorts. 

The local talk was that there was an emergency alert of a pending severe storm with lightning. Me, being the always over cautious one, moved the van from a lovely riverside shady spot to a place in the sun, not a tree nearby. I felt very responsible and virtuous. A couple of hours later, the clouds passed. A small pathetic thunder roll and it was all over. Oh well. 

The weather had cooled a bit and we found (actually Terrell found) some lovely walks along the local river, which was pretty full, as these rivers are these days. Our mighty Murray has burst its banks in many places, starting with unprecedented rainfalls in the Eastern States, then with massive amounts of water, flooding many of the Murray-side towns all the way down to South Australia, which usually gets bugger all (water I mean)

Anyway, now I’m rambling. Edwin and Jeanine have their holiday home in serious threat to complete flooding. Right now, the water has flooded the first level already. 

Below slideshow is not on autoplay so that you can read the stuff in the slides – good luck

A beautiful place – see our bird life clip. https://youtu.be/YaE67Xh3mVc

the birds were very loud – evening and morning.

My favourite signage so far, $187.50 for an expiation fee. Damn, I have a PhD and had to look up what an expiation fee actually was: “An expiation notice alleges that you committed an offence and sets out an expiation fee, which you can pay to expiate the offence rather than being prosecuted.” Okay, got it. Best not to swim in this lake just to avoid getting one of those expiation notices alleging stuff. Don’t wish to spend a night in the Old Bordertown Gaol (jail to Yanks).

By eight am it was already in the mid-30s (closing in on a hundred Fahrenheit so we packed and left @ 8.30.

From Bordertown we went to Dimboola, stopped in Donald for coffee, a beautiful town – some images below…

December 27th

A long drive still. We stopped at Donald, beautiful old buildings. A young girl cleaning the toilet block explained to me the great rates she was earning because of a shortage of staff, as well as good penalty rates. She was very enthusiastic.

We pulled over a dusty rest stop, which included people’s toilet paper. We spread our tablecloth and had a nice lunch never-the-less. Our next stop was the lovely historic town of St Arnaud, with its beautiful old, preserved buildings along the main street.

Stopped along the highway for brekky…

I was the nominated navigator – a position I take rather seriously sometimes. However, at one particular fork in the road, I was occupied and preoccupied with fast changing narratives on Twitter, and I randomly said go left rather than go right, thrusting us on to a road that after a while became a dirt/gravel road. We bounced along it for about an hour with me not being the most popular person in the car. We have a bit of a clip of it here…https://youtu.be/aPB1hfLZFow 

After redeeming myself, forgot how, though I wish I could remember as obviously I will need to later, I am sure, we stopped in St Arnund – this time just for the taking of pictures – see our slideshow below/or not.

What a beautiful village/town; We got to Warracknabeal (we both had a shot at trying to pronounce it, I think Narda came closest but how would we know?) Decided to cough up $25 to stay at the Warracknabeal Caravan Park as it was too bloody hot (past a hundred in the Fahrenheit world) to sleep in the caravan. We plugged in the AC, tried to take a nap but gave up and had a lovely evening with a pasta meal, sitting outside as the temperature dropped and read our books. I am finishing up ‘For whom the bell tolls’ by Hemingway because we are going to Spain for a month next year and I wanted to know more about their civil war. I had already read George Orwell’s (Eric Arthur Blair) account of when he fought in their civil war, Homage to Catalonia, different from Hemingway as Orwell’s is non-fiction and Hemingway’s is fiction (he was a journalist who visited during the war but as far as I know did not fight in it). It is all quite real with what is happening in the Ukraine now.

The houses here as in many of the towns in Victoria are what we would purchase if we were to move to one of these nifty little places.

See our below slideshow of this beautiful town. The singer -+ other stuff, Nick Cave was born here. There is a sign proclaiming this on the way in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cave Narda did not know who he was, I knew he was a popular Australian dude though not quite sure why. The issue with being so old as we are. A few weeks later Sacha caught us up on him. Sorry, he does not feature in our slideshow below. Also, I don’t think we ever pronounced it correctly. But you can try – listen here.

We got to our wonderful/beautiful house exchange in Hepburn Springs late afternoon, just in time for a nap. We popped in after our rest to the Visitor’s Centre in Daylesford and had a long chat with a guide or whatever they are called, telling us about all the various springs to visit. We went to our new home and slept for an hour then bought train tickets London to Newcastle as they are on special if bought a few months in advance. Always planning for the next trip during a current trip.

Dec 27

Arriving at 2.30 pm in Hepburn Springs was a decent effort and of course then we needed a nap. The house we are in is beautiful with lots of lovely garden. We have met our hosts Winston and Joy. They came to our house a few days before Christmas and we had a BBQ (was meant to be a gourmet but the gourmet set that we’ve had for many years decided to call it a day) Nice couple, very enjoyable conversation.  After dinner we drove them to the Rydges. They left their car at our place and went on a train trip the next morning. 

I slept poorly, took a pill, and woke up with a sore back. Oh well. The next night the weather cooled right down, and I slept like a log in the caravan. Always works. 

After a nice nap I spent the afternoon practising my drawing.

Doesn’t really look like my grandsons, but it’s a work in progress.

We managed to score some advance purchase senior ticket holders train tickets from London to Newcastle for around $40 each.

Mineral springs are a big thing around here. We met a guy on our walk at Sailors Falls, who recommended this particular spring as the nicest. I like it. The walk was a bit hairy. There were some barriers to it which someone had pulled aside, and we (me reluctantly following Terrell) tromped up the hill. A 15-minute walk turned into an hour’s walk, with a near fall (by me) caused by grasping onto rotten wood making up a bridge at the end. Anyway. It’s over. And it was scenic. Just unpleasant.

We went over to Sailors Falls. Wanting to go for a bit of a hike we followed the trail that said it was a twenty-minute hike back to the start which sounded reasonable to us. We saw a ‘do not enter’ sign and some tape but it was all laying on the ground, no longer over the path, as I pointed out, so we (me) figured it was safe. An hour later, during which time I once again was not the most popular person in our group of two, because I kept wanting to venture further up the steep overgrown path – and she who will not be named, did not. Nevertheless, we did get to the base of the falls only to see the steps to the little bridge to leave the area were not there. Narda managed to get a hold of the bridge and pulled herself up on to it, commenting that the post she tried to use to pull herself up on was rotten and pointing out that there was a gate, which was closed, with a sign on it proclaiming something about danger and do not continue. But that was then and now is now and obviously we survived.

 I even have a YouTube footage of this here. https://youtu.be/doGZhcaEkK8

“Gold was discovered in Sailors Creek in 1851 and the area underwent rapid, drastic changes. This was a time of massive growth for Victoria's cities and towns. Agriculture and forestry boomed, and thousands of people crossed the world in search of wealth on Victoria's goldfields. The surrounding hills were denuded of timber to be used for housing, heating, mining, and food production. The park's hillsides are dotted with mining relics including mineshafts and rock-retaining walls; many hidden by forest regrowth. Most of the park's creek-side walking tracks follow historic water-race channels dug by miners to deliver purchased water to work their diggings.” Wikipedia somewhere.

Hepburn Springs Reserve

“The first mineral spring found in the area was by Captain John S. Hepburn. He named this spring, near the Hepburn Pavilion, which you can visit at Hepburn Springs Reserve.  It is a short walk from Hepburn Bathhouse and Spa, where you can still bathe in the precious source.  Following Hepburn‘s discovery, mining commenced in the Argyle Gully Spring Creek Area, and the Soda, Sulphur and Wyuna Springs were revealed, followed later by Liberty, Golden and Argyle Mineral Springs. But the miners didn’t care for the springs, the gold fever had taken hold, and they were willing to demolish everything within their path. We owe a debt of gratitude to Swiss Italian migrants Dr Severino and Dr Rosetti who recognised the significance of these springs and rallied the support of their fellow countrymen (in the 1850s one-tenth of the population spoke Italian). As it panned out, this unity established the above-mentioned Hepburn Springs Reserve in 1865, the first of its kind in Victoria. Since this time, it has become a meeting place to ‘take in the waters’ and experience the benefits of calcium, silica, magnesium and an abundance of other minerals.” A Wikipedia cut and pasted job.

The next day Sacha came to visit (about 2 hours from his place). On his way home he picked up Georgia from the airport. We had a nice day, chatting about lots of stuff and walking to another spring.

We tried the spring water which Sacha thought was reasonable – when he visited us in upstate New York, Saratoga Springs, he tried the water then quickly spit it out as it was too eggy for him. Narda’s three sons all did the same on various visits as well as her sister Helena.

 We grooved on the local California type trees.

To clarify Narda’s note – Christine was a woman Narda met whilst looking at pillows in a thrift shop, go figure…life stories swapped…Christine was searching for a bargain at the local Op Shop in Daylesford. I took the pillow which she had planned to buy, she turned around and told me this, and I told her I’d sell it for double the price. Thus started a pleasant conversation with a remarkable woman who travels everywhere, lives in a stay-caravan in Daylesford, got trapped in Kathmandu for 7 months after Covid lockdown and volunteers in Cambodia with children orphaned by Aids. Such an interesting person.

Dec 29 

Today we spent some time at the Mills Markets. Huge! I bought some presses for Sofie and the girls. 

Amazing Mill Markets Geelong and Daylesford
Welcome to The Amazing Mill Markets.

The Amazing Mill Markets are located in two locations – Geelong and Daylesford. Because the Amazing Mill Markets lease space to hundreds of different stallholders, each location has a diverse range of wares and new stallholders are always welcome. There is invariably something for everyone who visits with vintage clothes, vintage furniture, memorabilia, art, glass, jewellery, books, antiques and collectables to name a few.

Be sure to keep your eyes on our news and events along with the social media accounts to stay updated with  new and interesting items that arrive all the time. https://www.millmarkets.com.au/

New Year’s Eve 2022

Supporting the local event, we went to the main street which was closed to traffic. A nice atmosphere, lots of stalls, live music and people milling around. I ordered a meal of friend grated potatoes as a sort of fat pancake, with some relish and salad and a fried egg on top. Yum. We shared one serve and had nice fruity smoothies with it.

The German couple told us they had lived in the area for a long time. It was an interesting conversation. He had been in China and other interesting parts of the world, including a stint (for work) in Uruguay, which he loved.

At 8 pm the parade started. A group from the community garden dressed as veggies, a pipe band playing all the traditional bagpipe songs, then there was the huge semitrailer that just made it around the corner. All very entertaining and local. Afterward we bought a packet of drumsticks at Coles and ate them at home, together with several episodes of Irreverant (Netflix), our current favourite show.

31^st December – what a year it has been. We can all say that for each year can we not? In our little world we started off the year 2022 in Washington DC with covid. We had arrived on Christmas Evening – having missed our flight in Istanbul to have arrived Christmas Eve because of the fog in Lahore, Pakistan delaying our flight by several hours. But that was then, here we were at the beginning of 2022 with covid – probably gotten on the way there in Lahore or Istanbul or from Chris when we got to DC on Christmas night, and he probably got it on the way back from Lahore days earlier. Who knows? So that was the first two weeks of 2022 – I test positive for 15 days with no symptoms and every morning we would call United and put off our flight until the next day. Finally mid-January we were on the way to Holland for three months. Then we were home in Adelaide for a bit then September & October in New Zealand, see our previous blogs, November, and December mostly in Adelaide. Left as explained above on Christmas Day for this trip. Here we are in the regional Victoria town of Daylesford New Year’s Eve. What a groovy place to be. We watched their parade and watched some wood chopping contest and had some organic free range pancake thingy dinner. BTW, this is my kind of town. This is where the hippies that dropped out of society – then went back into society to make piles of money to be able to live in Daylesford – now dropping out again to be long haired organic yoga performing new age environmentally conscious folks protesting corporate invasions into their peaceful alternative society. Most of the parade floats had to do with something about being vegan, keeping power companies at bay, blocking companies from marketing their wonderful mineral water.

We did not stay for the fireworks as it was past our bedtime – nine pm – though we persevered and stayed in town until about nine thirty. Got up as usual early next morning, being New Year’s Day and all, and went off to the next town over to share New Years Day with the locals. They had the usual New Years Day activities: wood chopping, world champion mineral water drinking contest (how fast one can drink a glass mineral water, followed by how fast one could drink a litre of mineral water – gut wrenching riveting moments), some horsing around stuff – I think they were trying to jump over some poles, and the event I came to see but didn’t  because some of us, in our group of two,  were tired and wanted to go home from staying up so late New Years Eve (ten PM) was the women’s gum boot tossing contest. I managed to find a photo from last year’s event in the local newspaper – its in the video above

Jan 1, 2023 New Years Day

The fastest drinker of spring water was the feature of the country show we attended in a town starting with a C. I was a little reluctant, but it was lovely, a very shady location, wood-chopping to watch and a half decent full brass band. Their rendition of the song from The Mission was really great. Lots of folks having a nice day; we pulled out our deck chairs to join them

Jan 2, 2023

Castlemaine is quite the town. There was no one about really, but it’s full of beautiful homes along the main road. It also has a railway station which we decided to check out. We met some colourful locals there and after sharing our waffles with them they gave us the ‘low down’ on Myki cards and how you can use them to your ‘best advantage’. They also told us other stuff, but it was quite difficult to understand them:  local dialect or a speech impediment…not sure. Or it’s just me.

The German guy on New Year’s Eve told us that I should go to Creswick to check out the Dutch influence. So, we drove there. The folk at the information centre knew something about it but not really much, though they were very friendly and helpful. So, we drove on to Clunes, which was supposed to be a historic town featured in many movies. I have to say, it was a little disappointing, there was no-one there and certainly not much evidence of movie making. That may have to be further researched.

Monday, which was the day after New Year’s Day we went to another town. Narda was talking to some German folks at the parade event two evenings before (New Year’s Eve) who told her about a town settled by Dutch following WW2 so of course, we had to go. The town of Creswick was once a thriving gold town with 35,000 people that had depopulated when the gold ran out or low – forgot what happened to it but the town was down to a few hundred when following WW2 lots of Dutch were coming to Australia to escape war torn Europe. By 1954 there were heaps of them all over Australia. They were getting passage on ships for ten bucks or so to immigrate to Australia. Narda’s family in 1958, with her and her sister in tow were part of that group so of course Narda wanted to see this town. We read lots about it. It sounded like a cool place. The Germans said the local supermarket had lots of Dutch food. So, we went there. Quite disappointed, not because everything was closed the day after New Years but there did not seem to be any indication of the Dutch who had settled there earlier. The local supermarket had some salty drops – that was about it. They have more Dutch food in our local Aldi back in Adelaide. The next town over from Creswick, Clunes, was more interesting, from a camera angle, as it is the oldest still standing collection of 19^th century houses, in Victoria, or Australia or our local galaxy; forgot where, read it somewhere on the internet. The main street was as empty as could be, I suppose no one was ready to begin 2023 here, even though it was two days after the year began. They did something historic here, forgot what, found gold, ate tofu, something. Here are some snapshots we grabbed along the way:

Jan 3 & 4

On the road again. Easy pack up really, we were out the door by a bit past 9 am. First stop: Sailors Falls for a bit more spring water.

Then Terrell drove us onto the M1 (we prebooked our toll payment …$3.30 for a month!) right until we arrived at a huge service station on the other side of Melbourne, parked the van in between the monster trucks and had an afternoon nap.

Next stop Yarragon, a lovely town, for vanilla slice and lemon slice at the bakery. Hit the spot.

where we stopped, Yarragon, there was a group of old Holden enthusiasts from Tasmania parked in front. Of course, we have a photo of their cars.

We must have been this way before – like about twenty-years ago because I have photos of the Latrobe Chimneys. A coal burning non-environmentally friendly place. [Latrobe City Council will continue to standby the community after Energy Australia today announced it would close the Yallourn power station in 2028 – four years earlier than planned.] Probably good news for the environment but bad for the locals who will left out in the coal cold.

Our overnight was in Glengarry, quite a longish drive passing the huge coal burning chimneys in Latrobe Valley. We stayed behind the pub in the nice grassy spot disturbed only by more screeching cockatoos. Free camping.

It was only a short drive from there to Paradise Valley, but it was a difficult one, especially near the end with loose gravel on the road, a very steep incline, and a one-way lane. Very scary with the van. The place is beautiful, and we found a lovely spot the river just as another guy was leaving.

A typical Aussie pub – do not remember where I took this photo but here it is,

Sacha and Georgia turned up about 10 minutes later! It’s his 42^nd birthday so we planned to take them out for dinner at the Hayfield Pub. It turned out to be a bit of a mistake….we waited longer than an hour for our meals, though they were very nice, and Georgia did not get hers at all (after waiting 2 hours). So, in the end, she took hers home as a takeaway. Oh well. Nice conversations and catching up.

Sacha and Georgia pitched their tent next to us –

Paradise Valley Camping – bit expensive $290 for four nights, for an unpowered site – probably our most ever for a caravan spot. Beautiful place – they can charge whatever they wish. The place was full. Had great showers but not even a camp kitchen as most places do. We paid $35 for a powered site in Melbourne a week later.

Sheep have a run of the place,

For Sacha’s birthday – 42, I think – gosh how did we get so old? It seems just a moment ago he was born in Hawaii and I was walking him on the beach. We came to Australia in June of 1981 – six months after being born. I drift, for his birthday we went out to dinner at a pub – the only place to eat in the only town nearby.

That was the Railway Pub – give it a miss. I don’t eat meat, there was no vegetarian options left so I tried their fish dish, it was awful. Just give me a piece of kale and I will float off into my finely tuned floaty consciousness.

So great having Sacha and Georgia camping with us. It is the first time we did this. It surely will be the way of the future. Other times we get to catch up with them perhaps once in a year when we stay at an Airbnb in Melbourne – go out to dinner – have not too much interaction. Camping for four days… we sit around a fire at night,

Go for walks every day, have meals together. Talk about how crazy life was with me being a single parent with Sacha and Leigh, travelling once in a RV around Australia with my father, age 87, over from New York, in 1992, our trips to New York (1985 when Sacha was two and a half and Leigh six-months old – yes I travelled via Hawaii (to see friends) and LA (visiting friends) to New York to stay with my parents, with no other adult to assist – try that sometime and tell me how easy being a single parent is) AND AGAIN in 1992 when they were at least old enough to help a bit – Sacha being eleven and Leigh nine. That time we stopped in Hawaii, LA, New York, Baltimore Maryland, Louisiana, (all those people we visited, except for Daniel in LA, have died over the years – including my parents, brother, friends, son…) then onto France then Germany then back home. A massive trip just like I do now with Narda – except then it was with two young children. It was fun though. I digress… so we had lots of conversations about those trips about my eight years of being a tofu manufacturer – Leigh being signed by the LA Dodgers as a pitcher and playing in the States for years. We don’t talk about his death – his decision to leave life a month after he turned twenty. What is there to say? We have good memories of being together – that is what we share now.

Georgia was collecting rocks/stones, all quite beautiful. She is going to polish them. Sacha had no comment. Children rode their rubber things down the river in the raids – just the right size for children. Sacha and Georgia left after three-nights, going back to their working life and Narda and I moved to a further point in the camp where there were less (like none) children for peace and quiet.

We drove to the top of the hill and to a neighbouring lake to get anything happening on our phone. A camping neighbour wondered why we would want to get internet – I said I was a Yank, following the horrible debacle of the republicans attempting to get someone to lead them. It took 15-shots at getting one awful person to lead. So glad I live in Australia.

If only we had a jet ski we could have raced across the lake…Lake Glenmaggie

Jan 5 & 6,

Starting to get into a group camping groove. We shared a meal last night, bought salads from the supermarket, I had my chicken, and we ate cookies and chocolate for dessert! Nothing at all wrong with that. After tea we sat around the campfire gasbagging. There is a decent set of toilets/showers, we are sleeping well, and go on the occasional walk. There is no Telstra or internet, which is a challenge. Yesterday I drove to the top of the hill to see if Bren and Sof had made it back. Turned out that that they had a long stay in Abu Dhabi on the way back from Egypt, but then got upgraded to business for the home stretch. Bren’s 3^rd time!!!

Jan 7, 8, 9 

Bit of a pack up this morning. Sacha and Georgia left, and we moved to a quieter spot near the entrance of Paradise Valley. I felt a bit crook/exhausted in the afternoon, so we took it easy.

Next morning felt much better and we headed off again. This time I was less freaked out by the steep terrain; we filled up with diesel, and then on to Sale. I had a toasted bacon and egg roll, and Terrell had a quiche in the Sale shopping centre, which was open for business on a Sunday morning (unlike Adelaide which stays closed until 11 am). Sale has changed its name to Port of Sale, with a new canal developed providing a marina, attractive gardens, and an arts complex for the town. Really nice.

Then on the road for another 80 kms or so to a lovely free beach site, amazingly provided for by the previous owner, who sold it with the condition that it remains free for campers, including access to campfires for time immortal! It’s gorgeous. Rough roads, 7 km of corrugations, but worth it. And the weather, despite the mid-summertime of year, is cool and sunny, around 20 C. Yesterday we met a camper travelling alone, who told us some of his stories. Draft dodged the Vietnam war, (no names given!!!) worked in Alaska, northern Afghanistan (back in the good times…. the seventies, when Kabul was a normal city, where folks lived happily regardless of their religion or gender). I love these random interesting encounters with folk. This is one of the things that makes travel so much fun.

I saw two places on the map that looked interesting. Firstly, Welshpool and Port Welshpool just across from Snake Island and Little Snake Island. Sounded intriguing. The first thing of note at Port Welshpool is their jetty. By golly what a sight.

The slideshow below is not autoplay so you can read the signs along the way

We watched a sea rescue – though it could have been just a practice run as they seemed to take a long time or perhaps, they were rescuing more than one person. We were too far away to see, and the zoom lens only goes to 300 mm.

We did not make it to either of the snake islands – maybe next time though we did get to Agnes Falls (see our video) https://youtu.be/B4fW7raQNRM

At 59  metres, Agnes Falls are the highest single span falls in Victoria.

Jan 10,

A long drive today, heading for a camp in Poowong, which, after a longish drive though forest, we found no longer existed. A friendly person standing alongside the road waiting for his ex-wife, (we assumed as he had his daughter with him, he was going to deliver the daughter to her for the remainder of the holidays…but who knows.) gravely informed us that the camp was “no longer” The girls was excited about our dusty rig (I think) and asked if we were on our way around Australia. We assured her that we are indeed on our way there, but not quite.

So, upon their instruction we backtracked to a showgrounds site, who wanted $15. We parked on a flat high spot. The wind blew a treat, and during the night I saw that the awning had become quite the flopsy awning and was flapping against the van all night. We slept poorly. I changed the setting from open to close, and together we dropped the pop up, no more noise, and slept soundly (soundlessly:) until 8am.

That was that. We were in great need of a caravan park, and one more phone call (I had deceived many rejections) got us a spot at out old fav Sundowners Caravan Park, ….full of friendly residents and a few small sites. We had great showers, I washed and dried all the clothes for $8. While other parks were charging a gouging price of $60 plus, they charged us $35. We’ll be back.

Our drive into the city was a bit exciting. Despite our best efforts, we missed the turn off to down town and finished up joining the trucks over the bridge in a massive traffic jam. We were also very low on diesel. We finally got ourselves off the freeway and into a servo in Williamstown, where a very friendly local gave us instructions on how to cross back in to Melbourne CBD WITHOUT the bloody Westgate Bridge. A further bonus, Terrell spotted a car park, $14 unlimited at the Vic Markets.

Then there was our CBD adventure. I had obsessively decided I needed new walking sandals. Eccos were my dream. We found a store in central Melbourne, and I bought them. 20% off the very high list price. Nice ones. They tend to last for 5 years of continual walking…at least my last pair (Riekers from Denmark) did. And I found bathers that fit at the Myers store. Had a nice Indian meal at 4.30 pm. Combo of lunch and dinner, mango lassi to top it off.

Returning to the Vic Markets we discovered a huge festival in progress, live music, huge lines for food, that sort of thing. So, we joined the lively crowd, and on our way back to the car, bought some iced coffee at the Asian mini grocery. (no lines) Our server was from Jordan and was chatting to his mum (in Jordan) He handed the phone to me and I started chatting to her, until he told me she ‘no speaka English’. But we smiled at each other a lot.

All in all a good day. I met a woman in the laundry the next morning. She was from SA, and her and her husband had sold their house and decluttered their lives, living semi-permanently in this caravan park. She said they just loved it and were earning “heaven credits” (I do believe that was the term she used) for voluntary work as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Interesting conversation. She was lovely. I can imagine that decluttering your life, doing voluntary work and travelling will indeed be heaven.

The Queen Victoria Nigh Markets – opened on Wednesday evening throughout the summer. See our video https://youtu.be/AUfg28ZwJJM  – it was fun.

I am always impressed by Melbourne. The skyline, the people…such a creative city. I can see why Sacha has lived here for the past twenty-years. Adelaide, not so much.

Jan 12, 2023

Today we have again found a wonderful free camp. This time on the shores of Lake Meredith, the biggest freshwater lake in Victoria, by all accounts. I slept a solid 8 hours. Amazing. The lake and the sunset last night were speccie, as you will see from Terrell’s fabulous photos. Long after the sun set, the colours kept deepening. The toilets here are modern and clean and you can camp here for up to 28 days for free!

Lots of reading today, nice to catch up. Right now, I’m reading Amitov Ghosh’s book “Field of Poppies”.  Took a little while to get my head around the characters, of which there are many, but now I’m into this rollicking story about the opium trade and the British involvement in it in the mid-1800s. There was also much money made on slaves by the same company. Folks with difficult lives in Bengali, India were offered to be taken to a camp which would give them work, housing and food, and were thus tricked into being virtual slaves.

Lake Meredith images below

Up at 6 am and on the road at 7 am. We were going to go north but saw that it would be 39C or 102.2F so decided to go along the coast past Warrnambool. Got to Portland. We had stayed at the caravan park there about 15-years ago and liked the port town. This time we went to Sawpit Free Camping in the Mt. Clay National Forest. Amazing place. Lots of walking trails – we did the short loop to a whaler’s lookout that was used by Aboriginals for hundreds of years before we Europeans came – took over – slaughtered the locals then slaughtered the whales. We are so good.

Something I have never seen before in all our camping trips…a horse. I went over and had a good conversation with him but due to a language problem he understood me (“nice horse – good horse – do you come here often?”) but his hee heeing made no sense to me. I thought Narda, who was born in the year of the horse, could assist, but she only understands Dutch and English. The people had a foldout tent thingy attached to the horse trailer and they all seemed to live happily together. I didn’t take a photo of their set up as I am not one of those nosey people that takes photos of everything. I wish I could have a horse.

The walking trails were amazing – even did a video of them – of course, see it here https://youtu.be/2oGViFoHKus.

I had a play with Narda taking a photo – because it was getting hot, I thought I would put her into a snow scene – the sky is fake too – actually, most of the photo is. It is the new neural filter in Photoshop 2023 beta…just testing stuff. However, the other photos are true.

There had been a fire through here – one of the campers said about fifteen-years ago. Hopefully, not another while we are sleeping here deep in the forest.

For tea we enjoyed a delicious meal at the Royal Hotel in Portland. Terrell had a fettucine dish which he described as the “best ever” and I had…. surprise…a very decent chicken parmie. We discovered, on our subsequent walk around the town, a “facility centre”. A very decent block on a corner, with ample chairs, sink, hot showers, toilets, place to change a baby etc …all for free. This was offered to us as local free campers up on the hill at Sawpit Park, and to anyone in the town who needed it. I have never seen such a civilised gesture anywhere. Funded completely by the local council, cleaned regularly. A model for the rest of the world! Giving folks dignity.

The reason this place is called Sawpit is because long ago this was a log cutting place. They even had a wagon from those days and a set up to show how they cut the logs. Read the sign below to  know as much as I do. One of the things we learnt from the sign, probably the only thing, is that there are free showers in Portland which we took advantage of. I think Narda will write about that. Very impressive little town.

We did a final magical walk through the forest then left. No, we were not on acid – gosh! This is not the 1960s – though I do remember a time when forest walks looked this then – go figure – now just a memory – a bit like this.

The next day, which is today, we were up at five am because the awning was banging from some unwanted wind behaviour. In the dark we took it down, didn’t get back to sleep. I have been grouchy all day because of it. Sorry about that. Anyway, we were off to downtown Portland by eight am. Took a free shower. Did some other daily duties. Discovered that the only thing opened on a Sunday morning in Portland are churches, liquor stores, and K-Mart. K-Mart was the ticket to our happiness. Nothing beats getting out of a bad mood from getting up at five am and taking down an awning than shopping. Especially with discounts. I got some groovy hot mat holders for a buck each. Nothing woke about me. Narda, as usual, found some more storage containers, because, of course, everything must live in a container. Me? I am from the school of ‘wherever something happens to be, or land is of course, where it should be’. You know those 1960s philosophies of ‘we are exactly where we are supposed to be’ and I would add, ‘so is everything around us.’

Down at the fishing dock we spoke with some fishermen who had just come in from a week at sea. I asked questions…got answers…see our two-minute video clip https://youtu.be/MMDKoAFkCvA about the true answer of whether the sea is depleted from fishing. Quite a beautiful harbour.

Believing our weather app, that it would be around 39C tomorrow we rushed off to the coast. I know I said that yesterday too but this time we were really off to the coast – The Limestone Coast. Our first port of call was the resort town of Robe. Population a bit over 2000 – plus thousands of tourists – mostly campers. We thought we were/are smarter than the average family camper, we saw them, huddled up at the expensive caravan park, barely enough room between them to open their door. Then there are the screaming holiday-possessed crazed-children running amuck. No thanks! And their dogs – barking and shitting everywhere. Teenagers groping other teenagers behind trees, parents having stress attacks. Not for us. We drove to Wrights Bay believing it would be free camping. Damn! It wasn’t. $15/person. Come on. That is just stupid. We paid. Grumbled a bit. Walked to the beautiful seaside and watched the sunset.   

January 16-20, 2023

This was a long driving day, exacerbated by a wrong turn, and having to drive back into Beachport to get diesel, which required a couple of illegal u turns to get into the filling station. Oh well.

Wright Bay Caravan Park was listed as a free site. It no longer is. It’s on an isolated beach, lots of seaweed, decent toilets, no showers, no power. And it costed us $30.00. That was it. The only saving grace was the enthusiastic high school student, tearing around the park on her 3 wheeled motor bike, greeting newcomers and taking their money in a friendly way. Not an adult in sight!

So off we were the next morning. Ominous weather forecast predicted a sizzler, with temperatures reaching 40. So, we parked outside of the Robe library, ready for the aircon and the internet. It was a pleasant time. We also walked through the main street of Robe, very similar to Grey Town in New Zealand. And the weather was great. Don’t always believe the forecast.

The jetty park at Kingston SE was also listed as a free spot. And yet we were charged $20 at the parking metre which happily took our money. Again no power, just a public loo. The park was full of monster vans, and even some buses.  I think we need to update our sources. A new Camps 12 would go far. Wiki Camp has been a pain to use. I guess expecting a free site on the coast in peak season is a little unrealistic.

The librarian in Kingston’s community library was also the librarian for the school. It was a nice walk there, we had a big coffee (huge) on the way, and I enjoyed chatting with the two ladies “manning” the library.

The best was yet to come. Lake Albert caravan park was lovely, right on the lake, with the best facilities we saw for the whole trip.  We had heard the diabolical warnings of road closures in the area, but we drove straight to Tailem Bend, no delays, bought a sandwich and headed home. Home being Pete and Marion’s place; they kindly allowed us to park our van as our place is still occupied by exchangers.

We left this morning, January 17 – Tuesday, for the big drive to Robe, a good fifteen-minutes away. Watching closely our weather app. To be 39C by 11 am – like for us Yanks that is 100 degrees. Wow. We planned to spend the day at the library in Robe on the internet. The idea of being in an air-con for the day sounded ideal. Plus, we have had little internet for the past couple of weeks. Just some on our phone that we would hotspot to our computer, but not enough to post our wonderful video clips as seen above. Also. Narda was concerned about the predicted 60-kilometre winds that were to arrive with an afternoon storm. By noon we were bored at the library, borrowed a bunch of old movie-CDs that we can leave at our local Adelaide branch of the library, bought one with our last dollar – we rarely have cash, and we gave the rest of it away at the Wright Bay overpriced caravan park – $30 this morning. Going outside we quickly realized it would never be very hot – checked the temperature – it was 22C, and there was no wind. Where do they get their weather reports on these stupid apps anyway? We felt we had seen Robe. I.e.. We drove down the main street. Narda pointed out she went here for her honeymoon to some other guy hundreds of years ago and we went on to Kingston SE where we heard there was free camping next to the jetty. Kingston SE is half an hour away from Robe and we found a place to park, so some stupid thing about paying before driving in, didn’t pay, drove in, slept for an hour, walked to the stupid sign that said pay before entering and paid $20 which is the minimum for two nights. We only want one night. It rained the rest of the day and was about 20 degrees. Narda just finished her book and said, ‘now I have to read book two’. So, we are into the caravan for dinner. See ya tomorrow. Cheers!

We booked into the Meningie Caravan Park. I spoke with the local wildlife. Quite the good place, better than a lot. Here on Lake Albert. We needed electricity as our deep cell battery seems to be losing puff. We looked up info on deep cell battery on good ole google and discovered we were supposed to look after it, like put distilled water in it – what? Batteries need water? Then there is a list of stuff to do. Deep cell batteries are expensive like five – six hundred dollars. We have had ours for more than six years and did no maintenance on it. Apparently, they only last 6 – 7 years anyway. We have been relying on our solar panels but a cloudy day in Kingston SE put us behind, bottom line we had no power, not even enough to put on our radio or LED lights.

We were on the Princes Highway all the way from Melbourne. The word on the street was/is that the road from Meningie to Tailem Bend is/was/could be/should be, closed. Flooding from the Murray – I am sure you saw it all on the news. Been lots of water around the place past month, flooding from New South Wales, Victoria, all going into the Murray and heading into the sea. We stopped in Tailem Bend to look at the Murray and say wow wow wow. Probably difficult to ascertain from this photo but the river is at its banks, some places over – it was much lower when we went past a month ago on the way to this grand adventure, down the road to Victoria.

After a bit of a picnic, we were on our way.

We have almost three weeks more before we are off to Kuala Lumpur for a week, Lahore, Islamabad – Pakistan for three weeks, UK (Liverpool, Wales, Some other place) for a couple of months – with The Netherlands in between for ten-days, and a groovy overnight ferry from Newcastle UK to Rotterdam – then back ten-days later, with a stop in Thailand for a holiday for a week then home via Hong Kong at the end of May. I am sure we will have a blog or two about those adventures.

In the meantime, we are in Adelaide for two weeks living in our caravan because we did a house-exchange with folks in the UK who are in our house now. So, we are a bit homeless. Not totally homeless – here we are camped out in Narda’s first husband’s granny flat for a week- their son, Stu – turns 40 and there is a massive party here tonight.

For now, Victoria is just a memory in our rear-view mirror. Thanks for coming along on this trip. Without you, I would not have an audience and would be talking to myself – oh wait!!!

and today Narda got her fifth-covid injection, two + 3 boosters – I got mine last month, so we are all up to date for travel. See ya all soon.

A few of my social sites that I post to every hour… being a private person I have only listed a few of ones I am willing to share – what about you?  Youtube,   WordPress (blog), Facebook, Twitter , Instagram , Linkedin, Pinterest, Mastodon MastodonAustralia Tribel, Post spoutible TikTok WT Social, Amazon by Terrell, myportfolio, Behance substack, vimeo, deviant art, Flicker, Books 2 Read, Wimkin,

 

Daily Motion, ePub, Polywork Live Journal, Foursquare,

 

Screencast, Caffeine,

 

Goodreads, coderwall, github, Hacker News, Medium,

tumblr, gab Quora reddit

MeWe, fiverr, Kakao, Skyrocket,

MIX, Pathbrite, MustRead, MySpace,

ZoomInfo, FDNitter. Spreaker,

Tripod Parler 9GAG WikiTribuneSocial MyPBworks Patreon

Photog.social Plurk Minds

Covid World Tour 2021

Briefly, Braving the new world order, we left Australia on December 03. Our first stay was in Lahore, Pakistan for the marriage of Brendan. We spent three weeks there. On December 24th we flew Lahore to Istanbul – missed our next flight and spent Christmas Day in Istanbul flying on in the afternoon. We arrived in Washington DC in the evening with not much traffic. Got to Chris’ and family’s house Christmas night. Three days later all five of us tested positive for coronavirus. Four adults, all with three shots including booster, had mild symptoms, and tested negative within a week except for me who was positive for two-weeks, missing a planned trip to New York, missing re-booked flights to Holland three times. The child, age six, tested positive but never felt any symptoms. We are finally off to The Netherlands for two-months before hopefully returning to Adelaide. Narda writing in Italics Terrell whatever else there is. I will try and not tell the same story as Narda – but there could be some overlaps. Read the italics and you will be better informed. I tend to ramble as someone nearby has mentioned. Our last trip to Lahore – way back in 2019 is written up here, https://neuage.me/2019/11/29/lahore/ December 03, 2021 Departure A new threat to us getting to Brendan’s wedding in Pakistan! Omicron, the latest variant of the corona virus is knocking on Australia’s door. We had decided to isolate for a guaranteed negative test result the at the airport, but we went a step further and moved our flights back a week earlier, leaving Dec 3rd instead of the 9th. Just as well, as there are pockets of the new more infectious strain circulating now in Adelaide. Flights were without incident, despite the additional paperwork. In Melbourne the test was cheaper than we expected ($79 instead of $150 which it was just weeks before) and we had a result in 40 minutes. In Abu Dhabi, a decent enough airport, we had a nice Irish Brekkie (as you do) and only a few hours to wait for the next flight. I think I may have dosed off in the comfort seat. Watched a couple of movies. The next flight was half empty, so I slept for 2 hours like the dead along 5 empty middle seats. We had a very friendly and sympathetic Aussie hostie. Lahore arrival, Bren and Imran waiting for 2 hours while 3 large jets unloaded. But we got there. Great to be back and see Bren. It was a long wait for them, not because of the flight but because it took so bloody long to unload it. Blimey. We checked into the AveriXHotel for 3 nights as Bren’s place was still being painted. A great area, close to some nice eating places where we had tomato soup and salads; safe, easy and yum. The hotel also had an amazing breakfast buffet, a mixture of western and Pakistani fare. —————————————————————————————————— We left Adelaide in the morning getting a ride with Narda’s sister, Caroline to the airport. The big box is Brendan’s wedding present, a coffee machine.

Flying to Melbourne we tested there for covid doing the fifteen-minute rapid test. As throughout this trip we worried whether we would test positive and must cancel our trip. When we got the text that our results were negative, we quickly went to the waiting area only to find only one restaurant was open.

Due to covid very few were flying. Narda ordered something meaty, and I ate a sandwich I brought along. By 10.45 pm we were in the air on Etihad 461. Somehow, I have forgotten that flight so must not have been very eventful. Probably slept some. In Abu Dhabi we got a ride through the airport in one of those motorized carts they take the old and lame around the airport in. We asked to go to the food court and found a good Irish type of pub place, O’Leary’s, for a big breakfast then got a ride back to our gate. On the flight to Lahore one of the stewardesses let Narda know she too was an Australian. Narda of course pointed out that Australian’s look after each other and sure enough not before long we got moved to a forward section of the plane that had few passengers. Where we were was full. Narda stretched out over several seats and slept most of the three hours to Lahore. I looked out the window and got there exhausted.

https://youtu.be/Au_aNMZSgxQ

December 04 Lahore Airport is a journey of its own. A remarkable madness for westerns to navigate with eyes wide open. We arrived with another flight or two and probably a thousand people rushing to the customs counters. Trying to find which line to be in is a challenge but after a few pushing into lines that were not moving we were directed to one that probably was for the likes of us. Another hour later our bags arrived on the conveyor belt.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G2CUdIfcuLQ&feature=youtu.be

Brendan with his driver (and go to for everything), Imran were at the airport when we finally got outside sometime in the middle of the night.

December 05 Brendan was having his house at Swedish Flats painted before the wedding, so we booked the Avari Xpress Hotel. It is listed as a four-star hotel. Perhaps for Lahore but not in western countries – maybe two-stars. The smorgasbord breakfast was good though and our room was quite large. It is also next to a large supermarket and near restaurants and shopping malls. We were not able to work out the TV. We spent our first three nights in Lahore there Every day we would walk to Brendan’s house which is in a gated community – surrounded by high fences, large entrance door and boom gate with two or three guards, usually one with some mean looking weapon on his back. In fact, every shop has a guard with a weapon. Some of the guards look as if they are half asleep or too old to fire their weapon if needed. Shopping centres have more serious looking dudes (always males) with machine guns, and they inspect the boot (trunk), bonnet (hood) as well as beneath cars and have a poke around inside. In the containment area (Lahore Cantonment, a large area under military control) just to drive through on their freeway and better roads we need to show passports and women need to have head coverings. I will come back to this later about when I was asked to delete my video of them stopping us, of course being a good citizen of the world, I did – only to discover when I got home it was saved in another area of my phone – I will show you later but don’t tell the Pakistani authorities as they get quite thingy about such stuff.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uUO3XiVvCRI&feature=youtu.be

Next to our hotel was a large chaotic supermarket (“Imtiaz Super Market, is the pioneer in the retail industry of Pakistan, providing an ultimate shopping experience to its consumers” https://imtiaz.com.pk/) with everything from clothes kitchenware furniture mixed with groceries so finding anything was always an exploration to behold. And long long lines everywhere. Further along the street we found several good restaurants our favourite coffee place being Mocca Coffee.

We sat outside in the smog because it was a good day at only 257. We manage to survive in the six and seven hundreds later.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UtC32Pe3nGk&feature=youtu.be

December 06

First night out with Brendan’s future wife, Sofie @ Bamboo Union, https://bamboounion.pk/ We sat outdoors, ignored the pollution, and had a good meal. We moved into Brendan’s house after three-nights at Avari Xpress Hotel and began our almost daily shopping at Jalal Sons https://jalalsons.com.pk/ the local supermarket which is not too far removed from what we would be used to. Everything is in English (one of our languages). Mostly imported foods for what we like which makes them expensive. For example, a bag of chips would be six or seven dollars, peanut butter twice what we would pay in Australia. Moving in with Brendan December 7 Heading out for the day, Imran dropped us off at Al Fatah Shopping Mall https://www.alfatah.pk/ so that we could get some decent coffee. The Second Cup across the road insisted on vaccination for entry. Friendly folk and good coffee. So then to find our way to a market. We tried a tuk tuk. I told the driver where we wanted to go and he did not understand. When I tried again his eyes lit up and he said “Oh La Bertie”! So we thought, haven’t heard of that one so off we went. We paid our 100rp which is about double the going rate at a princely 57c USD. We had arrived at Liberty Market, where we had been before. La Bertie…..Liberty. Huh!!! Lunch at Liberty AKA La Bertie was a challenge. We were seated in a basement after having ordered a vegetarian hamburger and something similar with meat for me. 45 minutes later it came….not a sign of vegetarian. We were nice about it, and said we would still pay for it, but they took it upstairs and picked out all the meat…….what are ya gonna do. Nest day headed out with Bren to a western style restaurant with the best food I have EVVA had!!! Bren had pizza, Terrell ordered a cannelloni/spinach/cheese dish (which won first prize!!!!) and I had a dried tomato salad for the gods. We will return, especially as they offered us a free triple choc mousse which we shared (reluctantly) Lahore authorities have a way of dealing with cars that double park or park where they probably should not. A forklift comes along and picks up the car and lifts it high into the air until the owner comes and pays a fine. See our fifteen second clip here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oxlb2489qkY&feature=youtu.be

We took an Uber (taking a break from the scary tuk-tuks in almost impossible to maneuver traffic) to Packages Mall, a large western style mall. A slight difference is that there are armed men with machine guns at the gate and to get inside we had to show we were vaccinated – which is becoming the way of the world. Washington DC now has that requirement.

We made a two-minute video showing the ride to the mall, gun totting guards, the mall, [see Packages Mall below].

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XoXG6ZlVUZM&feature=youtu.be

I got some really groovy shoes to wear with my Pakistani outfit.

Narda tried on some cosmic looking dresses @ N Junaid Jamshed clothing store https://www.junaidjamshed.com/

Lunch was at Ganache Café at Mall 1, one of Lahore’s most crowded areas. Or as they proclaim “The café has a cosy and a simple ambiance with an indoor and an outdoor sitting area. It serves a range of decadent desserts and other savory items. Mall 94, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Block D1” Our favourite out-in-the-world breakfast place was at Bundu Khan where we would have puri (a deep-fried bread made from unleavened whole-wheat flour)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-7LKXg-D30A&feature=youtu.be

and lassies (those wonderful yogurt drinks). http://www.bundukhan.pk/. 11 December Saturday Off to the International Club initiation. They have done some nice renovation there; it’s very gezellig. We also met Bren’s mate from work, Dustin and his wife. Dustin is quite the personality. He promised to put us in contact with his parents who live in Thunder Bay, Canada for a must-do- because-it-has-lots-of-snow house swap. Nice pizza and beer at the club for me. We had lunch a couple of times at the International Club – I had mashed potatoes with garlic prawns, so yummy. One evening we had a bar-b-que there and met a lot of the expats from around the world; learning about how bad things were in Brazil and several other countries that people came from. All in all, everyone seemed happy to be in Lahore. I brought up the pollution issue, but it was not big in anyone’s mind, they just seemed to love living here. We met people from South Africa, Brazil, UK, Sweden, and places I don’t remember but at the time I thought ‘how cool’ to be from there. Luckily there was enough salads to keep me happy and a very large fish that was caught somewhere nearby. As I started eating fish a year ago due to my doctor’s ‘or else’ recommendations because of my strict veggie diet I reluctantly have fish twice a week – though not farm-raised. Oh! They serve alcohol which is one of the few places in Lahore where it is OK. Christians and non-Muslims can drink there. I haven’t had any alcohol (except in hand wipes which we all have dry skin from) since 2005 (had liver issues but all seems to be OK now) and don’t miss it. Then off we went to Packages Mall. I bought me a fancy schmancy wedding dress for the final night and Terrell found some groovy sandals. Next day we dashed over to a blanket place and bought one for Chris’s bed. Imran at the lead in negotiations. We also managed to get our own sim card, through Imran’s wife Agnes, buying it in her name. It was the only way we could do it. 14 December Sunday Our first family visit. We were invited to dinner with Sofie’s parents. Nighi, Sofie’s mum is a warm, friendly woman and Saquib, her father, an interesting man to talk to, with his views on the world. His resourcefulness and determination helped us get Chris into the country! Dinner was great. There was other family there from the USA, Islamabad, and Dubai. We enjoyed the conversations, the warm welcome and the food. It’s a beautiful house in an affluent area in the containment (army owned) district. The main events of our trip to Pakistan, was seeing Brendan going for the next step in his life. He has known Sofie for a few years, they work together at the same school. She is a kindy teacher, and he is a fifth-grade teacher this year. Sofie was born in the USA and grew up in Lahore. We met her parents and family at their house.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RErT81aykVI&feature=youtu.be

Her brother came over from Dallas and sister from Chicago – so we were quite the international arrivals. We got ourselves looking local for the occasion – here we are standing in Brendan’s lounge before being driven to the family’s home.

We stopped at the flower market along the way [see our one-minute clip Flower Market]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kaV_-nfr2nk&feature=youtu.be

This bouquet of flowers cost about $8 Australian, of course, that was tourist price – in Australia we would pay $50 – $70 for this arrangement. 13 December Monday A new development. Chris still has not got his visa despite the allotted time having been reached and passed. Poor Chris had been phoning and even visiting the Pakistani consulate to no avail. They told him they were waiting for word from Islamabad. I made a few useless phone calls to the embassy in Islamabad but did mange to find out that they are definitely not part of the approval of Pakistani visas in the USA. They only did the permits of extended stays. So! I passed the information on Saquib. He was on to it. His cousin (in charge of National Security) made a phone call to the US consulate, and to cut a long story short, many more moments of anxiety, especially for Chris, the bloody visa was approved. We think there is a bigger picture here, with these visa applications held up deliberately because Pakistan is upset with the USA….over dumping Afghanistan and causing a major refugee crisis. Who knows? I will add, there were several sleepless nights with lots of time on the phone (Skype, Whats App, Messenger) sorting out Chris’ arrival. It really started to look as if he would not get here or if he did, he would miss everything. As it turned out he missed the first of the three-day celebration, the Nikkah, but he did get here on the 20th in time for much-to-do still. Keep on reading… 18th December Nikkah – In Islam, marriage is a legal contract between two people. Both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. A formal, binding contract – verbal or on paper is considered integral to a religiously valid Islamic marriage and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. Once all the requirements are met anyone can officiate the Nikah ceremony (no they didn’t ask me if I wanted to officiate). The bride and groom repeat the word “qubool” or “I accept” three times. Then the couple and the two male witnesses sign the contract, making the marriage legal according to civil and religious law.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PU_cB4EoEBQ&feature=youtu.be

We had a lot of food –even vegetarian plates, seeing how ‘special’ I was/am. The main activity of the evening seemed to be taking photos: here is just a sample of probably a hundred photos:

Chris made it in time for the main wedding with only 1 hour to spare. Pretty tough on him!!! He was such a trooper and so was Saquib! I went to the hairdresser Toni and Guy. Lovely experience. Had a head massage, on a massage chair and then my hair curled down my back with flowers.

Finally, into the cars and off we go. It was a huge outdoor place filled with flowers and mirrored floors. The “stage” as amazing, Bren and Sofie mainly based there as folks came to congratulate them, though the dancing soon also revved up. This is the main event, a few hundred people, but outdoors. Everyone dressed extravagantly. Several hundred guests I think, many from Sofie’s family but also from Bren and Sofie’s school. I briefly got to meet Nadine again, Bren’s boss, who stayed back so that she could attend. The food was great. Buffet style. The kids were escorted into their going away cars. They will spend 2 nights at the Pearl Continental Hotel, a pretty flash place by all accounts!

Two days after the first event, Chris arrived an hour before the wedding celebration (above was the Nikkah, the actual ‘I am doing ‘of it all or ‘I did it’ – we dressed up for the actual celebration – see below). He got OK’d by one pm in DC got to the airport a few hours later and was on a flight that evening arriving four pm Lahore time with Brendan’s right-hand man, Imram, waiting for him at the airport, having him to Brendan’s home by six pm. The day of Chris’ arrival we went shopping at a very local market. For lots of blocks in all directions sellers had their gear in the middle of the streets and covering the sidewalks. The first few blocks of our wander were sellers of Oppo phones. Oppo seems to be the main phone of Lahore or at least the most advertised and with the most stalls selling them. It is the phone we have, based on Brendan’s recommendation a year ago. Now I see why, he lives in the Oppo town of Lahore. It has worked fine for us and takes good photos/videos, though I just read at least it is in the top 1000. I was told by Brendan that this market was recently bombed a week ago or so. I think 3 people killed and more injured. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

Narda was looking for some earrings or a necklace or some such thing and she found something she like. Brendan found an outfit for Chris to wear to the wedding and I took photos and some video see…[Gone Shopping] I was looking for a fancy handbag and found one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBcYJaxqvI&feature=youtu.be

Brendan bought Chris his outfit

and his friends came over to congratulate him before we all went off for the celebration and dancing.

Then there was the wedding celebration (day two of the three-day event). Narda had a fitting for dress

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRhGD1YKgZw&feature=youtu.be

and after a few days it arrived at our door in time for the wedding, expensive for us and for a once-off, though she may wear it with jeans back home someday. Not quite sure how often Chris and Brendan will wear their new-found gear. I think Pastor Chris should wear his outfit in his church when he preaches – I suggested that.

I will wear mine at some random time/place. Probably to the gym or when I visit you.

A side-note, amongst many side-notes. Narda and Chris shared a car with Brendan I went in a different car with two others. A large SUV, the driver worked for an oil company. I mentioned how shops have men with machine guns in front. They both showed me their handguns – hidden in the car doors and mentioned that there was a machine gun M-14 on the shelf in back of me – I looked, sure enough there was.

Brendan and Sofie held court, so to speak, and everyone at one time or another got in the picture behind them or with them.

My favourite photo of the evening was Narda and her children…

And she had important bits of wisdom for her first married son, Chris, who got married in Tennessee long ago (I think about 2005).

Brendan’s hat and shoes – invite him over for tea – he will surely wear these items to you home…

And there was much dancing. I capture some on this marriage dancing [https://youtu.be/YXoRDebU6Vc] clip.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YXoRDebU6Vc&feature=youtu.be

Narda, the social one, spent the evening meeting and dancing whilst I was busy looking for vegetarian food, which I found. At the end of the evening everyone had something to say to the new couple.

The kids were escorted into their going away cars.

They will spend 2 nights at the Pearl Continental Hotel, a pretty flash place by all accounts!

The morning after we went to Breakfast with Sofie and Brendan at Pearl Continental Hotel.

And as with any well-respected hotel they have their resident astrologer/card reader.

That is me filling in until someone that is for-real comes along, which I predict will be at any moment. Our minute long clip of the hotel is here [https://youtu.be/NV8sSFHoBzs]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NV8sSFHoBzs&feature=youtu.be

On Sunday morning we took Chris to our favourite brekkie place and had the traditional Pakistani breakfast with puri and a selection of dipping dishes all for the princely total of $3, this included some chai as well. Here is an eleven second clip of Chris eating breakfast https://youtu.be/Fb-I7f2_bG

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb-I7f2_bGQ&feature=youtu.be

We watched the parking management system where offenders’ cars are hoisted into the air!!! [car removal 12 seconds https://youtu.be/oxlb2489qkY ] December 19th Wedding part 3, the boy’s side Today we went to the Emporium Mall with Chris and had an American lunch at Big Mo’s. This 3rd event was the parents of the groom hosting and welcoming the bride into their family. Bren asked us to take the part of host, so we were there an hour before. This third and final one was on a rooftop restaurant, more black clothes formal, with about 40 guests. Narda and her probably once-ever-used very expensive dress – I could have flown to the moon and back for the same price. All hand made with each little bead/etc stitched one by one. Then again I am sure we will wear our outfits when bike riding back in Adelaide. PS, not that expensive!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e27KPscnQkM&feature=youtu.be

it was a full moon night.

It was a very pleasant evening with spectacular views of the famous old mosque, Badshahi Mosque at the Andaaz Restaurant 2189 A Fort Rd, Shahi Mohallah Walled City of Lahore, https://andaazrestaurant.com/. As the guests arrived, I greeted them, trying some short phrases in Urdu, with mixed success and quit a few laughs. Then they opened the upper mezzanine and soon we had the crowd spread out. Chris and me had some interesting conversation with Saquib about religion and politics; what the religions in the world have in common. Nice.

And of course, we have a clip of the night over at Wedding dinner [https://youtu.be/aYV0vhot20c ]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aYV0vhot20c&feature=youtu.be

BTW remember at the beginning of our trip we had that big box we dragged around from Adelaide to Melbourne to Lahore? sorry didn’t get a clip of them opening it – oh wait, oh no not another clip! That’s right just this blurred photo of them opening the box at a very rapid rate and the finished product.

Men’s clothing in Lahore is a bit different than what I am used to in Australia.

Driving to places around Lahore at almost every traffic light there are beggars. A lot of cross-dressing men who tell people in the car that if they don’t give them money, they will end up like them. Not sure whether that is good or bad because being many decades younger than me, maybe being like them, at least age wise would be better than being old, then again, I would not wish to do youngness over again. Here is a bit of a clip of such an incident – [Beggars https://youtu.be/90Prkp0tDN8]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=90Prkp0tDN8&feature=youtu.be

And a clip of driving @ night – [Lahore night https://youtu.be/c1YCpjZyfrk] Lahore driving is crazy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c1YCpjZyfrk%5D&feature=youtu.be

I am amazed when we arrive at any place that we survived. It is not wise to read an English speaking newspaper –

Our last day with Chris in Lahore we went to the Wagha Border – between India and Pakistan. We have done this visit before, both on the Indian side and the Pakistan side. Due to covid stuff there were a lot less people at it than before. To refresh those few folks who have not read our last blogs about the border, Lahore side (https://neuage.me/2019/11/29/lahore/), India side (https://neuage.me/2018/04/12/amritsar/) every night year round there is a flag lowering in the evening at the border. On the Indian side there can be as many 50,000 people at the stadium dancing and cheering with less on the Pakistan side. As usual I made a video but not of just the ceremony this video has many photos of the ride to the border with closeups of folks in tuk tuks and walking along – some of my favourite photos of the trip (aside of family photos) are in this collect (an award collection of photos – awarded by my higher self – good on ya Terrell’s higher self for your recognition of my talent when few others …never mind) Slideshow of Wagha border https://youtu.be/vZCJiRKdyZE

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vZCJiRKdyZE&feature=youtu.be

[Chris Preaching https://youtu.be/OWicREb9x2E ] yes there is a final Lahore clip.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWicREb9x2E&feature=youtu.be

Pastor Chris, Grace Capital City church in Washington DC https://www.gracecapitalcity.com/ was asked to give a sermon at a Christian Church in Lahore his last night there by Brendan’s servant/driver/do lots of stuff and church leader, Imran. There are 1.27% or a bit over two-million proclaimed Christians in Pakistan. Read about it on the internet. I believe it is against the law to try and covert a Muslim to Christianity – death or something like that to those who give it a shot. The Christians there are from birth – or expats. For example, Imran’s parents and their parents were Christians – so no converting going on. December 20, moved to the Main Market On Monday evening we went with Chris as he was to preach at Imran’s church. An interesting experience. I suspect that this could be where Chris got infected with Omicron! Had some nice quality time with the boys, went to a nice evening coffee shop, Karak Khel Gulberg, good ambience. It turned out to be just around the corner from Main Market. December 21st Tuesday Chris got tested for his flight back to DC (it came up negative). Sofie took us shopping so that Chris could buy some outfits for the folks at home, I also found a nice Pak dress, bright red. Later Sof and Bren joined us in a hunt for scarves for presents to take back home. Sofie bought us some traditional roasted chic peas (I think they were), roasted in a wok of hot sand. Very nice.

We left Brendan’s at 11 pm. Chris went to the airport, for his flight leaving at 3 am. The next day Sof and Bren went off to Tanzania and we made our way to the airport with Imran, after a visit to the Covid testing site. I have to say I am loving travelling again. Our time in Pakistan was a buzz. It is VERY polluted this time of the year with 450 particle readings compared to Adelaide around 15. We used N95 masks all the time, and after only 2 days they would turn brown/grey. But it’s a wild and exciting place. Lots of restaurants and interesting places to see. We had our local chai wallah, who made us delicious chai in tiny cups on the side of the road. Then there are fancy western restaurants where the 3 of us (Brendan and us could eat a full meal for $17 USD total. Or the brekkie place where we got a nice local but fancy feed for $3 each. December 23 Wednesday Our final test was negative and the next day we headed to the airport hotel, the Royal Swiss Hotel. Imran dropped us off there. We were looking forward to a nice quiet evening ready for the next morning’s departure. The dinner restaurant was amazing, we were almost the only people there with a beautiful buffet where we ate like kings, a bit of everything. The room was also great. Later that evening we discovered that our flight was going to be delayed. There was no notification from Turkish Airlines. I spend lots of time on the phone to see about the connecting flight, which I discovered was postponed to the following day, also without any notification from Turkish Airlines. So we quickly booked a transit hotel in Istanbul (Yotel). When we finally arrived (having travelled business class, which was fantasitc!!!!) we were told that Turkish Air would have taken us to the city were they had a hotel, and put us up gratis. Thanks for letting us know guys!! The transit hotel was fine, we spent the next day enjoying the business lounge, sampling everything. The airport is nice. No complaints, except that Turkish Air need to pay for the hotel. The flight was again business class, we arrived at around 8pm and took a taxi to Chris’. They had been celebrating Christmas Day with 2 other friends, expecting us to be a part of it, but that was not to be. Chris himself had had a shocking return trip from Lahore with delays, and an overnight in an airport in Doha with NO hotels available. Pretty tough. Luckily, he managed 6 hours in a sleeping pod in that time. All in all a pretty difficult trip for him, but we are all so glad he could come and celebrate such an important event with his brother. Bren and Sofie by now reaching Tanzania/ Zanzibar for their honeymoon. Having got a good deal for a business class flight from Lahore to Istanbul then to DC we made the best of a groovy situation. Our flight from Lahore was delayed by several hours due to smog, getting us to Istanbul too late to grab our flight to DC. We stayed overnight at the airport hotel – a basic windowless small room costing close to $200 USD. We booked it back in Lahore, after Chris’ delay for many hours on his flight to Lahore back mid-December (Narda says it was the trip from Lahore to DC, but, it was the flight to Lahore – he arrived totally exhausted the night of the wedding celebration, little sleep for two days and then he was dancing the night away. One must envy these young folks and their ability to keep on going. We did not want to keep on going and paid the big bucks. However, once in Istanbul airport we were told we would be taken to a city hotel at the airlines’ expense – but it was too late. Now we are stuck with hustling our insurance company with paying for the hotel. We were able to hang out in the Turkish Business Lounge for the day – until 4 pm for our flight to DC. The lounge was great – we ate our selves silly. There were islands of food being cooked – we could order what we wanted at the past area, dessert area, soup, omelette, etc.

I found lots of prepared salads, and of course at the coffee centre there was an endless supply of Turkish Coffee which I drank an endless amount of (I would be awake all the way to DC – more than 30-hours since Christmas Day began in Turkey and ended in DC, whilst Narda slept about seven hours on the way in her comfortable business class flatbed – I spent the whole time on the internet – who would guess?). We wandered around the airport – it was very quiet in our area.

It is a huge airport and I think at one end downstairs there were a few western restaurant chains that had some Christmas lights happening, but we didn’t go in that area. Narda found Turkish candy

and as there was no music – but there was a piano in the lounge – Narda gave me a bit of a Christmas concert – here is a sample https://youtu.be/c4noCPnr6-g

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c4noCPnr6-g&feature=youtu.be

I spent Christmas Day looking like a local –

Here is on our flight Lahore > Istanbul > DC https://youtu.be/vaIp2fGLhdk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vaIp2fGLhdk&feature=youtu.be

Of course, as with any fancy dinner we had “candlelight dinners”.

great views of the Bosporus as we left Istanbul –

I tried sleeping but after a day of Turkish Coffee I was too wired.

Washington DC Christmas Evening Our flight was the only one when we landed in DC, and that was far from full, seven pm, so we went through customs quickly. No mention of vaccinations, covid tests, I guess that was all taken care of before getting on to our flight in Istanbul. We grabbed a taxi to Chris and Jessica’s house. The driver was from Afghanistan – pro-former guy in Whitehouse – we could not figure out why. He had not heard from his family for weeks – since the US pulled out of Afghanistan. With few people on the road, we got there in about 35-minutes. We had planned to get to DC the night before but a day later was better than never at all. It was Narda’s first meeting of her new grandson, Josiah, who I called Messiah as it is pronounced much the same.

Narda hugged Chris as a mother would do. I kept my mask on. Two days later Chris and Jessica tested positive to covid – three days later Narda did and five days later I did. We all had few symptoms with Narda in bed one whole day not feeling very flash. I had a bit of a runny nose but nothing else. We did our best to quarantine staying in the basement which Chris and Jessica rent out as Airbnb for five-days. We stood for about two hours in a line to get tested with my results being negative and Narda’s positive. The rest of the time we tested at home.

Jan 5th 2022 Washington DC We are currently in Chris’ AirBnB apartment downstairs. We’ve been here since Christmas, and the very first thing we did was hug the kids and contract covid! All of us. The little ones too. Luckily it’s Omicron (we assume, just a crappy cold, headaches, snot, cough, and achy bits.) Chris and Jess have to work now (virtually). Usually they have a nanny, but since we’re all testing positive we have taken up the nanny duties. It does look like the whole world will get this one. Let’s hope we are all immune after that…would be nice. We had a great time reconnecting with Liam, who has grown into such a lovely boy, a gentle type who adores his little brother. It was a challenging week for all of us, pretty full-on, but a great opportunity to really connect with our grandies.

Josiah is a joy. A cuddly happy little guy, who does not miss anything, very alert and smiley. Christmas Night at the Moerman’s – https://youtu.be/tT0UrbzE7zw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tT0UrbzE7zw&feature=youtu.be

We had not been in the USA since 2019 (our blog for then https://neuage.me/2019/07/14/usa-2019/) and the atmosphere has changed so much. Not just covid – but politically too. We had been in DC July 2019 for Chris’ 40th birthday. His father, and brothers had come over from Lahore (Brendan) and Australia (Stu and their father). We had done a similar flight to what we did this time going from DC to Amsterdam in mid-January back in 2017 https://neuage.me/2017/01/24/washington-dc-to-amsterdam-and-life-in-between/ more on this later. We were excited to hear that it would snow tomorrow and when it did, we were up and out the door.

I went with Chris and Liam to a local hill to watch them play in the snow. Here is a minute and a half of their enjoyment https://youtu.be/cF4lpUVozGE

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cF4lpUVozGE&feature=youtu.be

January 6, 2021, being a tough day for Americans we decided to go a year later to the capitol – not many people around in the morning when we were there, mainly TV stations getting lined up for a day’s broadcast.

We did eavesdrop on an interview by a foreign team of a policeman video https://youtu.be/fvVw-0OMo_Q

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fvVw-0OMo_Q&feature=youtu.be

Chris and Narda sing to the children – https://youtu.be/Jut5fg3nXTk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jut5fg3nXTk&feature=youtu.be

We had bought tickets on Amtrak to NYC for New Years Eve and for a train to Albany, New York on New Year’s Day then rented a car to drive to Oneonta to visit with my sister for a couple of days then a train back to DC a week later then onto Holland. Never happened – well the Amtrak bit, Narda testing positive on December 28th put the end to that. Then of course, I tested on positive on New Year’s Day, so it was just as well that we did not go.

After five days of no symptoms, we thought we could go out safely, wearing masks of course. We did a few trips around DC but for the most part stayed around home and babysat. We did go to where Lincoln was shot, at Ford’s Theatre and did the free tour. Photo below is the chair Lincoln was in when he was shot.

I tested positive for fourteen days from January first (how I started 2022) until testing negative at six am on Saturday the 15th. We booked in our official test ($90 each of us) for five pm and that came back negative. One interesting side-note if there is an interesting side-note was that the very first time, I had a positive test on the first of January the line on the tester was so light I barely could see it. Each day after the line became darker then the last three days the line for positive showed lighter each day. I looked all over the internet – from top to bottom – and there was no one saying that the darkness of the line showed how much viral load there was, but we were convinced that the lightening of each day meant soon I would be negative. It was annoying, and mentally I was getting negative without being really negative – go figure. Every morning I would take a test – it would be positive, we would re-book our pcr test and change our flights to the next day (United Airlines were very helpful with this and we never had to wait in a queue and they changed it to the next day without fees each time). My insurance ran out on the eleventh as that was the day we were to be going to Holland. Australia has reciprocal Medicare with 11 EU countries and Britain. This helps us a lot with insurance, our insurance company is the one who told us we did not have to buy health insurance for these countries. As I have so many pre-existing things from heart disease (pacemaker, five stents, other surgery) to diabetes and beyond our insurance always is more than the flights (including going business class this last time from Lahore to Istanbul to DC). Insurance for the USA is very high. We spent from 6 am until 8 pm on the phone on January tenth waiting in queues – getting disconnected – starting over – waiting in a queue– to be able to extend our insurance for a week. We once again booked our flight for the next day which was Sunday the 16th. Besides all the other annoying things to worry about; insurance and covid tests being top – and being a week or more late for our house sit coming up in Holland, there was a major winter storm that was to “slam” our area starting Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning, we took a Lyft to Dulles airport @ 8.45. First the flight was delayed from 12.45 to 1.30 pm due to an approaching storm then it was delayed another hour then finally at five pm we were on the runway getting de-iced on plane. We got to Newark and had one hour to spare and spent it in the United business lobby as we get a free lobby thingy each year for having a United Credit Card. BTW it is a great card to have – we had enough points for both of us to fly to Amsterdam. We added a hundred bucks to upgrade to economy plus which was well worth it. So we ate as much as we could stuff into our face and got into line to get onto our flight. They wanted so much paperwork at the counter; pcr test result, vaccination result, some other stuff – can’t remember it all. Thankfully Narda is amazing at keeping track of all this shit. I just live in la la land and smile at all the foreign stewardesses. De-icing flight to Amsterdam https://youtu.be/49Sl-ApmKAk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=49Sl-ApmKAk&feature=youtu.be

Here we are in Nieuwerkerk aan den Ijssel, the Netherlands. Arrived on the 17th January about six hours later than scheduled and a week later than planned. We have a house-sit for two months looking after six chooks and two rabbits. We were at this exact house exactly two years ago but had to return to Australia March 2020 due to covid. Thanks to Fred and Chantal for asking us six months ago if wanted to look after their animals as they were off to Capo Verde off the west coast of Africa. We had done a house/car exchange two years ago so already had a connection to these really wonderful people. Narda hopes to catch up with relatives – but we will see how that works out with the current covid restrictions in Holland. Our blog from exactly two years ago https://neuage.me/2020/04/10/rotterdam2020/ We will probably just chill for two months, looks like we may go back to Australia mid-April 2022 instead of mid-March. This would be our longest ever house-exchange and almost five months away from home. I may be speaking Dutch after-all. I want to work on some video projects. But after Lahore and DC we need this time to do nothing except bike ride as much as possible. And we joined the local gym, finding a 9 euro special for a month online. And a few days ago, the 26th January, restaurants opened up in Holland after a year so we had our first meal in a restaurant since Lahore mid-December which seems like so long ago but was really only six or seven weeks ago. We even get to drive their car – what disturbs me in the photo below is that my hair has not grown in two years.

We didn’t take wearing masks very seriously either, I think. Actually, we were unable to purchase any anywhere at the start of covid. Because we do not follow the news (I don’t understand Dutch – and Narda speaking/reading Dutch didn’t pay much attention to the news – we did not know how fast covid was spreading until all the masks were sold out everywhere we went.

That’s all for today. Off to explore the Netherlands today and this week/month – check back mid-March/April for an update on our life. Cheers! Lahore 2021 covid world tour on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzv1YGfx_SMw-e35J_du1wBRjpdY5D08c

I will continue to put up notes on our daily-life-with-covid page @ https://neuage.org/covid.html

Banned book in Oklahoma

My almost daily writing except for today as I am washing my hair (abstract-wandering-miscellaneous thoughts) is at https://neuage.org/2021/ current books by Terrell Neuage Leaving Australia ‘Again’: Before the After Read the first 45 pages for free available on these devices (Amazon author page)

• BOOK 2 “Leaving Australia, Book 2 After” (PAPERBACK & E-BOOK)

PhD thesis > ‘Conversational Analysis of Chatroom Talk: Online Discourse Analysis’ Method Kindle Edition Homepage @ https://neuage.org/ YouTube http://www.youtube.com/tneuage,Twitter rants @ https://twitter.com/neuage Facebook http://www.facebook.com/neuage Substack https://neuage.substack.com #Thoughts in Quarantine Images: updated Twitter ~ Tumblr ~ Pinterest ~ linkedin ~ Flickr (2020) / Flickr (pre-2019) Behance Project – Thoughts in Semi-Isolation June 2020 A few of my social sites that I post to… being a private person I have only listed a few of ones I am willing to share – what about you? No! I don’t add to each one every day – I would be a nut case if I did that. There is too much to explore here in the Netherlands to spend time on the internet. However, all these are my accounts and each has something different to offer. Me on a sliver platter or not. Books 2 Read, Daily Motion, ePub, Tribel, substack, Flicker, Medium, Live Journal, Foursquare, Screencast, Twitter , Instagram , Linkedin, Pinterest, Wimkin, Caffeine, WT Social, Goodreads, github tumblr, myportfolio, Behance gab Quora reddit deviant art, MeWe, coderwall, Hacker News, fiverr, Kakao, VK, OK, Skyrocket, MIX, Pathbrite, MustRead, MySpace, Amazon by Terrell, ZoomInfo, FDNitter. Spreaker, AdobeEducation Cargo TikTokTelegram Ello Club Planet Bravenet Mastodon Photog.social Tripod

Our current life with Covid

Leaving Australia ‘Again’: Before the After (e-book updated)

Queensland_20021

These are a few rambling notes and photos from our little trip from Adelaide, South Australia to Cairns, Queensland. The final cost of fuel (diesel, not including the $93 petrol I put in instead of diesel and had to have the car drained when we were in a small town a month into our journey) was $2339 ($1721 USD) for 12,000 kilometres of travel and camping totalled $1138 ($841 USD). We had hoped to do more free camping. At the end of the day we did 28 nights of free camping, 24 nights at caravan parks and 8 nights at cheap ($10-$15/night places like showgrounds or donations at council run) places. We had planned about ten-days in Tweed Head as a house exchange, but it was cancelled amidst covid close-downs when we got closer. Food, etc we tried for a budget of $350/week. We came close to that with almost all our meals made in the caravan.

The last and only other time I was in Queensland was 1992. My father, 87 years old at the time, flew over from upstate New York. I was concerned such a long trip would be difficult and with changing planes in Chicago and LA and no assistance I thought somewhere he would come unstuck, but he arrived in Sydney. He saw Sacha first and almost burst into tears, he was afraid we would not be there after such a long trip. My two boys aged 8 and ten at the time, and I collected him at Sydney airport in a large RV. I had never driven an RV before and right off we had to navigate rush hour traffic and some bridge that was quite a fright in such a large vehicle.  

We got as far north as the Gold Coast and Brisbane then went to our home in Victor Harbor, South Australia through Broken Hill. It was a rather difficult trip for all of us, about four weeks all together. I of course did all the driving, cooking, sorting out everything. My father and the boys all got quite grumpy at times. A typical experience was one Sunday morning I got up and my father was not in the van. Eventually he showed up in suit and tie and wanted to know why we were not ready for church. Holy cow I had not been in a church in a long time, like decades. It all went well as my father announced to seemingly many that he was from Clifton Park, New York. Later in the day when stopped at a shopping centre one of my boys (not telling who) came out with a toy. I asked where he got the money and he said they were passing around a bowl of money at the church and he took out a twenty. Yes, that really happened. One thing to this day that I regret not knowing was that we were supposed to empty the toilet. All vans have some sort of toilet or portable potty setup. We used the toilet until….well, until it was so full it would no longer flush. We also ran out of water due to taking showers. I was never shown how to fill up the water tank, so we just stayed at caravan parks. Gosh I was dumber then than now.   

Italic notes are Narda’s notes – the other stuff from Terrell

1. Burra 30 May 2021

Planned departure was around lunch time. Actual departure was some hours later.

We drove off happily at the end of the day into the Burra showgrounds. Met by a slightly grumpy caretaker who relieved us of $15 for an unpowered spot, we never-the-less slept like never before. I clocked up 9 hours …pretty solid.

Plenty of space at the Burra Showgrounds.

30 May 2021 Sunday Left home at 2.30 pm. Our plan was to leave about 8 am….so much for plans. We stopped at Stu’s so Narda could say goodbye to the grandchildren. They were not there. Got as far as Burra,

155 kilometres – overnight Burra Showgrounds it was 5 Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) the next morning. The fee at the showgrounds was $15 for an unpowered site. Basic toilets there – could not find the shower. OK for an overnight stay. We got out of there early the next morning.

31 May Monday

@ Penrose Caravan Park, a very good caravan park with a lot of spaces. We booked a powered site for three nights @$35/night, which is a bit high and we will do (hopefully) a lot of free sites as 90 days at this price will mean we can only afford a block of tofu to live on per week.  Worried about eating tofu we ate the first night at the Silverton Hotel pub I had a very tasty veggie lasagne (rare for me due to the high carbs and I had high blood sugars for the next two days – but worth the change in diet). Narda was happy with the road-kill version of lasagne. A lot of films and commercials are filmed in the Silverton area such as Razorback, Wake in Fright, The Slim Dusty Movie, Mission Impossible II, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The first stop for any Mad Max tourist should of course be the Silverton Hotel. There is a wealth of history surrounding the hotel, and inside you will find pictures from Mad Max 2, and many of the other productions that have been done out there over the years. The road out past Silverton will also take you to the Mundi Mundi plain, where much of the opening of the film was shot. I tried out for the Mad Max films but there was no one to sign me up, to my temporary dismay.

We went to the Mundi Mundi Lookout to watch the sunset. Missed it by five minutes as we were on Broken Hill time and Silverton – a few kilometres away is on New South Wales time – half an hour difference.

We got a photo of the road there that most of the Mad Max filming was done on.

If it sounds like I am a Mad Max enthusiast. I am not really – I think I saw one of the films many years ago but since so much is made of it here I jumped on the bandwagon as any self-respecting American Leo would. Though it is now on our list of flicks to watch if we ever slow down long enough to watch a whole movie. Speaking of movies; we recently say ‘Nomadland’ the Oscar winning film about people living in caravans and moving about in the States. It is so us. There are wild donkeys around the place – at the pub they say often they will just wander in.

The whole town consists of a pub, church, couple of art galleries…

and a couple of museums – of course there is the Mad Max Museum which we did not pay the ten-dollars to enter proving our loyalty to the film series.

01 June Tuesday

To Daydream mines tour – we have a bit of a video of this –  https://youtu.be/_JF_lNJhU9E. The drive is quite rough – don’t take your caravan with you -we didn’t. Narda opened the gates along the way to get us across the barren landscape,

watch the video.

2. Silverton 31 May 2021 3 nights

Then there was construction, or as they say in Australia, road works. Starting at Burra, this was a serious slow down for us. Barrier Hwy was slated, apparently, for many millions of dollars to be spent. We drove much of the section driving between 40kmh and 60kmh. So what’s changed, says Leon and Michael. And to that I have no comment except to say that I have more points on my license than perhaps you do. And that’s all I have to say.

I was very relieved when it was over. I am talking about the mine tour at the Daydream Mine. The name comes from the first prospector, who found a piece of silver in the ore. He could not believe his luck and said ‘only in my dreams’. It turned out to be a very productive silver mine.

We took the tour, after a nice introduction which included……no….which was ……yummy jam and cream and scones.. Then we had to put on helmets and go down, very far down. The headroom was much more suited to much short er people than me, and I found it a bit difficult. It cemented my belief that I would never like to be a miner.

Terrell also had a struggle with his leg seizing up and causing him grief, as it seemed to collapse on him as he tried to come back up to ground level. Something we will need to check up on.

“I don’t really believe that folks should be forced to have the vaccine, that would be communist”, said the friendly fellow, camping alone in the Silverton Caravan Park, called Penrose Park. He had his own camp set up, his firewood neatly lined up, and his matching blue kitchen utensils arranged in a wire bookcase. I asked him if he was OCD. He said he worked at the Silverton Pub and had a day off a week, and loved to live here, in his tent and the lovely layout.

The Silverton Pub is a treasure. Lots of famous celebs have been there, making movies like A Town like Alice, Mad Max 2, As Time goes by, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Dirty deeds, Mission Impossible 2, and many others. The area is apparently also used for many commercials, every 2 months or so. Including but not limited to Land rover, Pepsi, West End Beer, Dove Soap, Hyundai, Pajero, Smiths Chips….and so on.

The flying-doctor doctor told us that they often landed on the road to pick up folks in an emergency. We met this charming doctor and her mother watching the sun set at Mundi Mundi. We arrived too late, forgetting, I think, to make the time adjustment form SA to NSW. But it was fun chatting with this interesting person.

Then there was the couple form Melbourne, who, like most of the folks around here, did a runner from Melbourne when it shut down again. They had really interesting travel stories for us, including the Trans Siberian Rail trip, and traveling from Kazakhstan to Tashkent in Uzbekistan by train. We exchanged cards and promised to stay in touch.

So here we are in the caravan park, now on the second evening, feeling relaxed. I feel very sad about Henk’s death and not being able to make the funeral. Hopefully tomorrow we can see the ‘livestream’.

We first went in and had coffee and scones with jam and cream at the one-stop-shop for the mine. Then we did the tour where we learned that

“A miner’s life consisted of twelve-hour days, six days a week. Miners worked by Candlelight which were held in holders known as spiders. Mining method was mostly by hammer and tapping holes, then firing them. Miners did not leave the workings for firings. Pickey boys (Lads of 14-15 years old) would hand pick the ore after a firing, and bag it. Most miners suffered failing eyesight and respiratory diseases.”

the internet

We got the senior rate for the tour ($30 each two bucks off the regular admission whoopee) but after scones and coffee, the bill was like thirty eight something – but they were good.

The tour before going into the mines was fine. In the time of covid we even wore masks.

02 June Wednesday

Rain all day –  we stayed another night at Penrose Caravan Park. We watched Netflix in the evening.

3. On the road to Cobar 3 June, 2021

Our first free camp. The road consists mainly of caravaners. Quite incredible, I think 2 out of 3. The road trains continue on their way oblivious, causing my extended side mirror to flatten against the car each time they whoosh by.

Terrell lit up a nice fire in the rest stop near the highway. There were 5 or 6 other vans and RVs nearby. A magical sky, all the constellations and far away galaxies in full view.

Left Silverton 11 am – shopping in Broken Hill. Found the local dump point (for those who have no idea what a dump point is and its importance to folks like us – think of an indoor loo with no outlet – just a collection tub and what to do with it after a few days) This is our second time to Broken Hill and both times just passing through. Last year we came this way on the way to Port Macquarie. (I am sure you read our blog on this) We will make a special trip here someday as there is so much to see. Mines and all and a train to Sydney.

Overnight free camping alongside highway 100 Ks west of Wilcannia – arrived 4.45 pm – made a campfire to stay warm – 3 degrees Celsius – 37 degrees in Yank speak.

04 June Friday

Left 8 am – Overnight free camping alongside highway – arrived 2 pm, feel exhausted for all the nothing we have been doing. Perhaps driving through desert landscapes for hours is tiring. First nap since started – stopping in Cobar for petrol – used smoothie maker in bathroom – campfire – 60 Ks from Bourke. To elaborate on those notes…When home I make my daily smoothie with our super blender thingy: almond milk (yes at home I make my own – soaking ¼ cup almonds 24-hours, taking skins off them as we watch Netflix – blending with 4-cups water – enough for 4-days of smoothie, (when travelling I buy it in cartons) kale, blueberries, homemade yogurt, home grown sprouts, coconut oil, flaxseed oil (oils supposed to be good for brain development – ha ha ha – still waiting for that effect after decades of these things) tahini, and powders (hemp protein powder, sugar-free coco, cinnamon, turmeric, Matcha, Green banana fibre, Acai, Pea protein, Spirulina, and a Super Greens) Really! It is a bit embarrassing, so I never tell anyone outside of Narda.  She calls it green slime and refuses it – I think it does me good. I made up two large containers of my powder mix – enough for a month+. When we travel, I have a small food blender mixer thingy – so I leave out the kale – everything else goes in. As we do a lot of free camping I usually mix it up and carry my blender into the toilet when we get petrol. There is always somewhere to plug it in – usually where the dryer is plugged in. The daily few hours drive is quiet good – though a lot of sameness,

I have a fascination with the road trains; many with four-carriages. Signs on the highway say they are up to 53.5 metres – that is 175.5 feet. Stand the truck on its end and about a fifteen-story building.

4. On the road to Bourke 4 June, 2021

Another freebie, this time with only a couple of others. Another fire, some wine and a nap.

5. Cunnamulla 3 June, 2 nights 2021

Met some interesting folks at this caravan park which is the nicest one we have seen. They talked us into going all the way to the gulf, which is quite a lot further than we had planned.

This afternoon (Sunday) we rode our bikes (not the electric ones!) into the small town. Everything was closed though there were many caravans in town. We seem to be spending a lot on diesel, at $1.50 per litre. Heater is on now, the nights are pretty cold, but days are sunny and 18C.

Spend a bit of time removing red dust from many things 😊

North of Augathella Free camping

7. Longreach  June 8

Birthday stay, dinner at the RSL, and a wonderful visit to the Qantas Museum where we honoured Henk. Irene told us they had been there twice and he loved it both times. I even made an announcement about him and his long career with Qantas to the tour group we were with, and that the world had lost him only a few weeks ago. Got a very sympathetic response. Then we all had cupcakes for the 25^th anniversary of the museum.

Walked through town in the evening, but everything (except the pubs) was closed.

Two degrees Celsius this morning – left Cunnamulla camp site at 9 am – stopped at Wyandra for coffee – drove through Charleville – lunch – walked through old pub Camping 45 Ks north of Augathella 70Ks south of Tambo. Tambo is a town with lots of buildings. We stopped at the library and had a long tour and talk of the town from the local Librarian.

We toured inside several planes including one that apparently cost $35-million to tart up and was to be sold to a Saudi Prince until he was told that the seats were covered in pigskins. Oops! Michael Jackson ended up with it for awhile then it sat in a muddy field  in England and the Qantas Museum folks put it together and flew to Longreach. 

We got tours through several other planes including a 747 jumbo. See ‘Celebrities and top-secret missions: Stories from the Qantas Founders Museum.

The town of Longreach is good – train station with a train going across to Brisbane that we promised ourselves we would take, ‘one-day’.

– left 2.15 pm to Winton

8. Winton June 9

Lured by the prospect of another free site, we braved the corrugated road for 2 Kms. It was beautiful, on the banks of “The Long Waterhole”, of course all the water side spots were already taken by fellow tight-arses, but we had a beautiful sunrise.

Next morning drove into Winton, we took off the bikes and rode around town.  I bought 2 tea shirts at the local Vinnies, and Terrell had an extended conversation with 2 ladies about America and other matters. Well actually, he did the talking and they gave him their rapt attention! One was from Scotland, and knew all about Findhorn, (a hippy place in the 60’s, we visited years ago, and they were still selling books on “how to communicate with your cat”), so that was a wonderful starting point.

Overnight outside Winton staying at The Long Waterhole – there about 4 pm – made campfire – cold. The landscape around The Long Waterhole is dry and dusty. We could have easily stayed for a few days but being at the beginning of our journey we thought one day would suffice. Winton is a good looking town – we missed the chicken racing though…next time.

9. Prairie June 10

It was just a pub with no town. But boy the caravans were there. The whole area behind the pub, where we had planned to stay for a gold coin donation was chockers. So folks like us parked on the footpaths, amply wide enough. A good stay and some nice yarns with people in the pub over a beer. We were advised by a local stockwoman to take the inland road over the Atherton tablelands, rather than the coastal road, which we did.

The Prairie Hotel is a free/donation appreciated campsite located on the Flinders Highway (Savage Street) in the small town of Prairie about 43km east of Hughenden in the Flinders Region of Northwest Queensland. The hotel is an authentic Aussie hotel providing a free overnight campsite on its grounds and is a must-see for its collection of stockmen’s hats and other memorabilia from the local area. It is a bit of a bogan (Bogan is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude, and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated) sort of place. We had planned to eat dinner there. The publican said dinner was steak and veg. I said what was there for vegetarians? He said ‘veg’. We ate in our caravan.

Overnight outside Winton staying at The Long Waterhole – there about 4 pm – made campfire – cold. The landscape around The Long Waterhole is dry and dusty. We could have easily stayed for a few days but being at the beginning of our journey we thought one day would suffice. Winton is a good looking town – we missed the chicken racing though…next time. This is commonly known as the locals’ waterhole. It is approximately 2kms from Winton on the Jundah Road. Long Waterhole is man-made and was once used during the Outback Festival as the site for the World Crayfish Derby! The road to it is pretty rough – even going slow it felt as if the caravan would fall apart.

10. Charters Towers June11 2 nights

Charters Towers was founded in the 1870s when gold was discovered by chance at Towers Hill on Christmas Eve 1871 by 12-year-old Aboriginal boy.

A much needed two night stay with power. Washing, clothes and bodies…all clean! Friendly folk in the van next door with good stories about driving on the dirt. An embarrassing exit, as we could not lower our awning. So we fumbled and forced, our neighbour tried to help, Terrell went into the caravan and applied the hammer….hey presto, all fixed.

Two degrees in morning – rode bikes around town, don’t think I would want to spend the rest of my life here, not much of a town in our world though they do their best to promote it with a great visitor’s centre. I bought a fridge magnet to end to our totally covered fridge back home, Narda bought a red backpack.

.

11. Greenvale  June 13

A little town that boasts one the few sausage trees in the world. We went into the caravan park full of galahs, ducks and turkeys. Quite a racket. Luckily they all went to bed at night. Another nice little bike ride checking out the real estate.

12. Ravenshoe June 14   2 nights

An old disused railway station with carriages on the tracks and lots of memorabilia made the next caravan stay interesting. We stayed here 2 days.

At 930 metres (3,050 ft) above sea level, Ravenshoe is the highest town in Queensland, with Queensland’s highest pub. The railway station is where the caravan park is, easily walkable to town. We did a day drive the area going to the Tully Falls and Gorge. Quite spectacular and groovy at the same time.

We have a bit of a video of the falls and gorge at https://youtu.be/5NvNSorPrwQ

“I can remember my past lives”, the local art shop owner/framer/photographer assured us. He said he used to be a potato farmer in Ireland in a previous life. He was bon in 1953, though he remembers dying in 1954. I can’t quite figure that one out, but he said this sometimes happens and you can live in 2 lives at once. He actually seemed quite intelligent despite these stories. Got the hat in the local craft store, birthday pressie from Terrell.

Who knows!

We had difficulty getting out of this dude’s shop…he just went on and on. Having been ‘an astrologer’ for 40-years (it is how I got to Australia, I was speaking at a conference in Sydney in 1980…blahblahblah) and had spent a decade trapped in a cult, I had heard his spiel too many times to want to hear it again. (BTW I don’t believe in any of this anymore. I grew out of it as most people do). But I did think he had a very chilled dog – see above photo with Narda and animal. I shared a bit about this at https://neuage.me/2013/01/13/those-were-the-days/

13.   Atherton June 16

The drive from Ravenshoe to Atherton was hairy. Very steep roads, with sharp bends. I was driving much slower than others it seemed, so I had quite a following. Nowhere to allow folks to pass. Sometimes the road had steep drops with no safety barrier. In a later conversation around a campfire, other drivers assured me that they were also freaked out by this particular road, while towing. So it wasn’t just me.

The next day I had pretty severe vertigo. Not sure if there’s a connection. We found a physio in Atherton who was great. She was an expert in this area and diagnosed me with 2 conditions; vestibular neuritis (viral infection of the inner ear) and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. I have to do brain retraining exercises (watch an X on the wall and rapidly moving my head to make my left ear canal and brain connection make up for the damaged neural connection. A couple of weeks should do it.

Today, 3 days later it’s much better already. Weird stuff.

Deb, a volunteer at the Rocky Creek Memorial Park welcomed us to our free (donation only) park; really nice place.

We stayed at this park for a couple of days. A great area outside of Tolga. During World War II they had the biggest military base in Australia – with the largest military hospital in the Southern Hemisphere — a 3000 bed hospital which treated over 60,000 patients from 1943 to 1945. Next to the caravan site is this great mine.

14.   Mareeba, Ringers Rest RV Park 3 nights

Now we are waiting for our damper in the last night at Ringers Rest RV Park. A great place, we are close to the nightly fire where a ring of oldies sit around drinking beer and pontificating. I have some nights got myself caught with true blue Trumpers. Blimey. But this is Queensland.

We bought a CD from Dave. A nice country mix “I remember” by his friend, Dennis Russell of his in a tribute for his dad, with also on song about Ringers Rest.

We decided to stay 3 nights, slow down a bit.

Below is the song about Dave and his damper…

We did lots of walks to the nearby stream. I wanted to see the local crocodile that lived there. Narda was not too sure. We were told that freshwater crocs don’t kill humans they just bit. Great. Nevertheless, we never saw it.

We did see a lot of termite hills, some quite large. We will show this later, next month, when we share our video of them along the highway.

One morning at 4 am we heard quite large noises, considering how quiet the countryside we were in was this got us up – we bundled up and went out in the two-degree (centigrade) weather and watched to hot air balloons in the nearby fields. They spent until sunrise – six am or there about – to get them in the air. Apparently, there were 25 people in each. Dave later told us that we could go for half price – $200. Below is a bit of a clip of this. 27 seconds… https://youtu.be/4IjhPwHyY4c

15.   Mossman, June 21, Caravan Park 2 nights

Parked at the caravan park, on the banks of a river. Nice to shower and wash stuff. Then headed off to Pt Douglas and stayed overnight with Carolin and Michael in a very pleasant Airbnb.

That evening we went to the local Irish pub were I drank a Kilkenny, accompanied with pulled pork sliders. All good. Gelatis for dessert.

We were walking to 4 Mile Beach with Carolin and Michael, (on a Tuesday…our holyday), we received the news from Chris that baby was pending, then an hour later baby Josiah was born!!!!!! They had a weird story to tell, with a 3 car pile up smashing into the back of their car, and possibly bringing on the contractions!!!!

Drove back to Mossman, only 15 minutes away and rode our bikes up to the Mossman Gorge Visitors centre. Also found a nice little shop where we bought some pressies for the new boy and his big brother.

Brendan is exploring Skardu in Pakistan, the Masters finally completed. The photo I saw on Facebook was at 13,500 ft. Impressive!!

16.   Cairns Lake Placid Caravan Park 5 days June 23

This place is sooo beautiful. Tall rugged mountains all around, covered in rainforest. If the summers were not so fierce I think we could easily live here.

The drive from Mossman to Cairns follows a coastal road and is spectacular.  We took it easy (much to the concern of those behind us!)

Our first full day was getting Terrell’s second shot at a well set up health centre. Today he got his official vaccination certificate from the Australian government!!! Yay.

Below is the exact place for this recent headline, “Queensland Environment Wildlife officers have spotted a crocodile in Lake Placid in Cairns just hours after a man survived a horror attack while swimming.” Apparently the dude went swimming here everyday…crocs watch for patterns, when someone or something does the same thing at the same time they think, ‘yumm’. Narda was opposed to us swimming here – not sure why.

Last night we had a wonderful reunion with Paul, a dear friend I had not seen for 20 years or so. We met his wife, Liz and 2 kids, Hannah (aged 16) and Matthew (aged 14) in their beautiful wooden Cairns house. Carolin and Michael also came. They made nice veggie curry, and we bought some naan bread on the way. Also brought our first attempt at homemade raita, which was enjoyed all round. Lots of reminiscing and great food and fellowship.

click on individual photo below to see full size

The train ride to Karunda was amazing. It reminded us a bit of the Shimla rail trip with steep drops and lots of tunnels; also built in the 1800’s. [in case you missed that blog – with video and photos shoot on over to https://neuage.me/2018/04/05/shimla/] There is a real tourist strip through the town but once we got past that …did not buy anything…[wait! what? yes you did, you bought a few pieces of clothing – I remember. I was there.] we found some lovely trails through rain forest, as you do in this part of the world.

We checked out downtown Cairns, parked in a huge shopping centre and walked down the main drag. We found a neat little market style place where we ate crepes, made by a real Frenchman.

We returned in the evening a few days later when here was a festival of some kind. Nice atmosphere. Terrell had his first parmesan, veggie of course, I had chicken and we got the up graded chips using sweet potatoes. Really good.

We are not those people who take photos of their meals then post them…oh wait!!!

17.   Babinda Rotary Park 3 days June 28

This was one for the history books. A perfectly pleasant free camp (donation) with showers and toilets and LOTS of caravans. A big brown river passing by about 3 metres lower. It rained for 3 days and 3 nights. Solid! This was a first time for me I think.

So trips to Babinda proper, on the other side of the Brice highway were made, umbrella in hand. Eventually most things were wet, though the van did not leak. I was nervous about getting bogged there. We were parked in a bit of a shallow dip. We turned the van around the second day o get out of the water. I asked the guy driving the garbage truck if I should be towing us out to drier parts. He said “nuh, you’re fine. Only twice a year it floods and then it comes above my head. You’ll be fine”. OK.

On the first morning we inspected the brown river and I kid you not, it had risen a solid metre and was flowing alarmingly fast.

But we were fine, as we had been told. On our last morning we ate a hot brekkie, the full works at a café in the charming town, for $8. A bloke sitting nearby told us that Babinda and Tully compete for the dubious honour of having the highest rainfall in Australia. The pub that winds gets the rubber boot trophy until next time.

We went to the Babinda Boulders and the Josephine Falls, a tiered cascade waterfall on the Josephine Creek located in Wooroonooran. We did both on a rainy day. After three days of rain the falls were amazing. Narda said they were ‘the best I have ever seen’ and we have been to Niagara Falls (on both the Canadian and USA side)… whatifs – they were spectacular no matter the comparison. They are dangerous. @ least 18 folks have died slipping on the rocks/falling into the creek. Our photos and video really don’t show the force of these falls – quite incredible. Look at our slideshow below or better yet watch the one-minute clips.

click on individual photo below to see full size

OK! I will tell what happened while here…I was hoping Narda would. Two things:

1. What an idiot…can not believe I did this….I filled Billy with regular gas…Billy takes only diesel. $92 worth. Narda was driving and after a few minutes, Billy spit the dummy…he just stopped. We looked up on the internet to discover that it usually ruins the motor – replace the bloody thing. To make a long painful story short and painful, while Narda was on the phone to get us towed to a nearby town an hour away I walked about a hundred metres where I spotted a car work shop type of place; Torque Auto Babinda – https://torqueauto.com.au/ it is primarily a fishing shop I think but they do fix cars. I said to the young fellow that I couldn’t believe what I had done. He replied that it happens a lot. That he could put a rope on his truck and tow us over. We have heard the many stories of (old) people from out of state getting ripped off in small country towns. We walked the short distance to Rotary Park and sat in our caravan expecting the worst. The other issue was that it was Friday three pm and they closed at five until the following Monday. Not to worry – he drained out the offending fuel and put in diesel – changed some filters, all in two hours all for $200. Wow.

this is exactly where Billy stopped – choking on the wrong type of fuel

1. Because it had rained for three-days straight we had locking caravan brakes. Oh shit! Being the wise people we are, having survived the wrong fuel in Billy, we thought we should go along a country road and the brakes would fix themselves…the thinking was that they would dry out. Dumb dumb. Anyway we drove quite a distance then up ahead we saw a bit of a river going over the road. Narda refused to drive through it thinking it would be too deep. I probably would have kept on going. A couple of large county work trucks (the ones with cherry pickers on them) came along and we showed them the water pouring over the road up ahead. They laughed saying they could easily get through. Ten-minutes they had turned around and were headed back; ‘too deep’. Someone else came along in a large 4-wheel drive thingy and the same happened. The driver said he always drove on that road even when there was water across it, nevertheless he headed back a few minutes later avoiding eye contact with me knowing I was right. What was amazing…Narda reversed the caravan a long ways (took us an hour) until we came to a driveway to back in and turn around in. The road itself was too narrow and there was deep water on both sides. Yeah Narda!

here is a 25 second clip of that hour

18.   Mission Beach 3 nights July 1

A very crowded caravan park in a stunning place. The beach is gorgeous ringed with palm tress. A picture! Blue seas, mountains on the horizon and in the sea (Dunk Island I think).

Yesterday an old friend of Terrell’s (from 35 years ago) drove down to see us, with her friend. We had a nice breakfast in one of the café’s in town, and shared great stories.

The old friend was actually quite young. When I was raising my boys in Victor Harbor back in the 1980s early 1990s their playmates were the Rosalskis family. They were a Baháʼí family that looked after my boys and me when we were going through a very difficult period. In the early 1990s I started a radio station (E-FM Encounter FM) with Rik Rosalski and Sandy Mathewson down south. The last time Sacha remembers seeing Hannah Rosalski was when she was about six and he was ten – early 1990s. We would later see Rik Rosalski in Alice Springs on our journey home.

19.   Rollingstone 2 nights July 5

Vincent Bushy Park

The park was named after Vincent ‘Bushy’ Parker to acknowledge his significance; to many Vincent ‘Bushy’ Parker is known as a war hero. There is a real cool story about the dude here – read about a cool dude.

Another beautiful free camp spot! Nights chatting with travellers from interstate, one from Malta, the wife from Wales. Pleasant conversation. Then we went off to the next beach spot, and picked up some firewood. Riding our bikes to the main street of this little town was nice. We bought 2 post cards and mailed them to the girls. Masks mandatory in the post office/general store! This is a flow over from the Covid restrictions in Townsville. We bought a delicious pineapple (which grows all round here, for brekkie….$3!

After leaving Rollingstone we noticed the brakes behaving badly, locking and causing the caravan to skid. It got significantly worse by the time we got to Townsville so we rang the Redarc  friendly tech guy who recommended an auto electrician, and we managed to get an appointment for 8am the next morning. (PS. these are those brakes that were not working days earlier when Narda had to back us up along a country road. They seemed to work a bit when dried out but suddenly did not work at all)

We drove through the trendy Airlie Beach, Whitsundays – kept going

20.   Townsville 1 night July 6, 2021

Friendly folk at the auto electrician, a young guy worked in it for an hour or so, trying to save the appliance, but it turned out that we needed a new one. They charged about $450 which was not bad, given the retail price for the part was around that amount.

We had not planned to go to Townsville as it had been in lock-down for a week up to the day before we got there. However, there was no other place nearby to fix our brakes.

21.   Home Hill 2 nights July 7

Next day we headed to Home Hill. The GPS gave us the run-around, taking us off the Bruce Hwy for 1/32 , then bringing us back onto it! Blimey. But we made a scenic little side-trip through cane fields and small towns.  

John Moerman rang and wondered if we were still in Cairns as he was there, on his way to Cooktown. Bummer we missed him.

It was funny because both Paul and John made cracks about Home Hill. John told us it was an incestuous town. Ha ha. Actually, we did notice that in the dogs barking in front yard they were all similar, very similar!!

The campground was nice, an older couple (probably volunteers) were manning it. We paid $20 np for power which was nice, caught up on stories and recharging

The most delicious barramundi for tea was purchased from the local fish and chip shop. Yum. Mine was crumbed. The best fish I’ve ever had.

Off to Ayr to check on some memories. We found and photographed Paul’s old house and drove through the pleasant town. One the way chatted with some ladies at the info centre, outdoors. Lots of opinions about how to pronounce Mackay….Mackay as in Kay the girl’s name…the locals mostly use that version, or Mackay, as we pronounce it….the “posh” southern state version. We decided to stick with that one.

Narda got her second covid-19 shot there (I had mine weeks earlier in Cairns). We also had to get a new windscreen for Billy – bloody road-train threw a rock at him and cracked his window. We spent a day at Port of Mackay which is a relatively a nice place with a long breakwater that is drive-able on. See our clip below.

22.   Bowen 1 night July 9

It was a caravan park next to the visitors centre. We paid $15 for an unpowered site which gave us a choice of places over a large field. The first human contact was a guy who was cycling all over Australia and making a movie of it. He had his little tent, and his gear under a tree and promised more stories. We never followed this, a pity, it would have been interesting.

Bowen is situated on a beautiful stretch of coast. We drove up to some lookout points and took many photos. Other than that it seems a bit of a rough town, at least parts of it.

23.   Ball Bay 6 nights July 10

On the way to Ball Bay we went through Ayr to find Paul’s house where I also stayed some 25 years ago. I took a photo and sent it to him. The place did not remind me of being there lot’s of changes I guess. I had a great gas bag with 3 ladies who were “information” at the entrance of Ayr, where we discussed Covid, as you do these days, and the pronunciation of Mackay.

Then we stopped by Airlie Beach, a beautiful place with lots of touristy things, including a market, shopping, a marina, lots of stunning views. We stopped at Bunnings and bought fairy lights for the caravan and a rubber mat. Then onwards to Ball Bay. I missed the turnoff. Terrell insisted on still going there, so we took the long way, and we certainly did not regret it.

This was a lovely experience. A free council site, about 20 kms off the Bruce highway, right on the beach. It had toilets, and little mini camp kitchen with a power point and hot water. Plenty of shade. When we fist arrived we just managed to find a spot, right next door to a couple we became quite friendly with, Kevin and Magda (?)

On the Sunday many folks left: end of school holidays. After that we had the van brigade with their young people and sliding doors. Locally called Whizz Bangers.  It’s the noise those sliding doors make…all night. We made some friends. A young guy named Nick and his girlfriend of 3 months, Ebony. Lovely people. We met Nick in a laundromat in Mackay and got talking about where we were staying. I told him that if he turned up I would give him a beer😉

What was interesting to me that Nick was a true traveller and had spent much of his life working as a chef, and saving enough to travel, then going 6 months to India and many other places until he ran out of money. So had some nice talks about that, all of us really missing international travel in this crazy pandemic. They left us a lovely letter, an Elvis calendar and a little piece of art made from a twig. We have them on Facebook.

In the time in Ball Bay I had my second Astra Zeneca jab. No side effects at all, so far. We found an appointment in a surgery in the shopping centre in Mackay. I was part of a group, 5 of us, who got vaccinated together. We shared jokes about…was she going to use the same needle, what do we say to non-vaxxers etc. Nice. I didn’t feel it at all.

We explored the area, took some walks on the beach where we got some fantastic sunrise photos. Then a longer walk to the end, mangroves, and a lovely walk back (in the shade….lots of beautiful groves of trees, many paperbarks and palm trees. Some great beach houses. I think this is quite affordable.

Then there was the door. We fiddled and farted around with it, trying to install the very expensive little plastic handle ($56!!!!) which we had purchased at Jayco, Townsville. In the end, Kevin our friendly neighbour with the generator, installed it for us. He insisted that he did not know what he was doing, but that he was persistent, and liked to work things out. All good!

We had a couple of nice happy hours with these folks, set up by another newly arrived Czech couple, who came in their very fancy RV, complete with pull-outs. We had lots of conversations about travel, especially cruises. It was fun, our little circle in the middle of the grounds.

This was one of if not my favorite spot. We were there for six days. One of the ‘standards’ was this generation whatever it is for people in their 30s who would spend most of the day walking around the park in his boxer shorts and nothing else talking on his phone. I think he was working from home (well in this case from the caravan park) and he was always talking business. He seemed like a friendly fellow – wish I had gotten a photo of him – with no self-consciousness. He had one of those vans that people call ‘ Whizz Bangers ‘ next to us.

See our little slideshow of this place below – if you think we are throwing up a lot of photos, it is about one-percent of them. The photo with the fence around it is a crocodile preventive thingy – due to the number of these delightful playful creatures to go for a swim do it inside the fenced area or you will be quickly eaten.

24.   Home Hill July 16

And here I sit, writing this, in the caravan parked on the street behind the visitors’ centre, together with a whole street of caravans of all shapes and sizes. This is a free spot, hot showers included. Terrell is fast asleep, now it’s 6.30am, I’m getting close to accidently waking him up 😊…no I won’t do that.

We did a big U turn when we heard that NSW was closed and we would have to quarantine if we returned home through NSW. So back to Home Hill and onwards to the NT border and then home along the Stuart Hwy.

Last night we did something we never do…go to the pub for a drink and see the band. They were a duet of ladies with their guitars and no electronic add ons other than the PA/mics. They were great. Lots of golden oldies with great voices and lovely harmonies. Very enjoyable, though we were only there for about ½ an hour.

25.   Campaspe River Rest stop

It was a lovely shady spot with a thick green tree shading us. There are we few more folks, but not crowded. The couple near us have been on the road for 14 years. They still love it. We took the bikes off and road along a service road next to the railway track. Half an hour of exercise.

26.   Julia Creek 2 nights

We have started to get into a groove, leaving fairly early in the morning, on our way by at least 8.30am. Now we pack sandwiches; I eat mine at about 11.00am., and we take the thermos for coffee. It’s all pretty efficient and we make good progress

Julia creek is beautiful if you get there early enough for a water’s edge spot, but we didn’t and parked in the large dusty field. Not too bad, but on the second night a caravan parked itself right next to us…despite there being plenty of room not to do that. I was pretty cranky about it; you could hear every word they said!.

Then…..a wind gust tore the caravan awing. We tried taping it, but the more we tried the more it ripped. In the end I phoned Jeff Hale (bless) who said to just rip it right off, take all the canvas off. It worked, we folded the frame back into place and the next morning we were happily on our way. I made a phone call to a guy in Mt Isa to see if he could repair it. It will be an insurance job, but he said he could do it, but the awning would have to come from Brisbane which would take two weeks. So we decided to leave it until we get home to Adelaide (which I’ve just hear is in a 7 day lock down…schools closed etc, because of some Covid cases with the Delta strain in Modbury Hospital.

We also mailed a book for Liam, about the Australian monster dinosaurs.

I found the local dunnart’s interesting – even took a short clip of one though I am unable to find my file – hopefully you can see it here where I posted it on facebook –

27.   Corella Dam 2 nights

Here I sit in the most beautiful place, above the blue waters of the dam. Incredible. There are hundreds of caravans here, but it’s a huge area. Many folks on the actual shores of the dam. We are up a bit, with a view of water from 3 sides.

Our trip here was interesting. After shopping in Cloncurry (called Curry by the locals) where I scored an awesome meat pie, almost as good as a Villis, we drove to the camping are, studiously following the directions in Camps 8. “At the first Y you take a left”. We literally did that, onto a 2 wheel track, not realising that there are proper dirt roads all the way. We got monumentally stuck. Too many trees, and a sharp out-crop of rocks which Billy got stuck on, but Terrell took care of this with his trusty hammer. Eventually we figured out that we had to saw down a small tree, (sorry Jess) and managed to squeeze though. No damage to the car or van due to Terrell’s good directing. Oh well, we got there, and it was definitely worth it!!!

We took a short afternoon nap, with the breeze wafting through the van and a walk around the grounds. Terrell slipped and fell hard onto his knees. A nasty fall, he now sports a couple of decent bandages on each knee and a ton of Betadine!

We drove to an amazing mine site called Mary Kathleen. It was owned by Rio Tinto who were mining uranium. They built a complete town nearby, with houses, cafes shopping centre and a school for the miners. It was closed in 1985 and all the houses were relocated to Cloncurry, where they are still in use today. Nothing remains of the town, part some foundations and road curbs.

The mine itself was a 6km serious 4WD ride away. A huge place, all in tiers, with a startling blue lake at the bottom. No one can swim there as it is still contaminated. Certainly worth a look, it was just 6 Kms from our camping site.

Our neighbours showed us their yabbie catch. The males have soft red claws, and they can be eaten though we were told they are not as tasty as lobster! They had planned to make a curry using 20 of these yabbies.

28.   Mt Isa

We reluctantly left Corella Dam, to get some connection. Nothing for several days. I had a very unpleasant experience on the drive, as a large truck overtook a road train on a curve and came over the double lines, at least a foot onto my side. I was doing 80Kms at the time, and managed to swerve off the road and into the shoulder. All good, but it sure left my heart pounding.

Mt Isa is dominated by the mine. Large chimneys loom over the town. It is quite large, Coles and Woollies (which we discovered was the better of the two) and we managed to get some help at the Telstra shop. Terrell could not get his hot spot working on the phone. It took two of them ½ hour to find it, but it turned out to be that the ‘data saver’ was on.  They now also sell Oppo phones so that perhaps gives us a bit of tech help when we need it.

The situation in Adelaide is pretty bad Covid wise. Hot spots include Wyn Vale Dam, TTP, Modbury Hospital. The girls, Clare and Stu are all in quarantine at home for 2 weeks. Stu has lost 10 shifts of work. Really tough.

The caravan park at Mt Isa is pretty average with the usual squashed up site, for $45! But we did get stuff done, washed hair, washed clothes, checked internet stuff.

29.   Camooweal Billabong 2 nights

A couple of hours drive and we are at this town 12 Km from the NT border. We followed the Camps 8 directions, past the bridge, turn north, 2 Kms of dirt road and here we are. An amazing site, with our own little billabong, birdlife, 2 fire places and absolutely no road noise. Magic. It’s so quiet and private….

The petrol station was chockers, caravans lined up down the highway. They were charging 1.79 per litre.

Camooweal Billabong is a huge free camp on Lake Francis – even though hundreds go park we were isolated from the herd and had our own little billabong. We rode our bikes to town – bought an ice cream a couple of fridge magnets and that was one of our days. See our groovy photos below:

30.   Barkly homestead 1 night

We got through the NT border, friendly cop, chatty, complaining that this border did not have QR codes like they apparently do In WA.  Listening to Imran Kahn’s CD. Very interesting perspective on the USA after 9/11 and how they waged a “war on terror” costing many thousands of lives in the Muslim community world wide.

This place is great. Barkly Homestead. It has a caravan park, a little pool, lots of space, and tonight we went to the restaurant for dinner. I had meat lovers pizza and Terrell had seared salmon. All good. We watched the Aussies win the swimming in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Bren just texted that he’s back in Lahore after a really interesting trip north into the Himalayas. Looking forward to hearing more.

Josiah is 1 month old. That went very quickly. Sad that we can’t go over there to see the little guy. SA is in lockdown. It’s all a mess. Our Prime Minister Scott Morrison seems to think that borders closings are going to save us from the Delta mutation, instead of putting all effort into getting everyone vaccinated.  Grrr.

31.   Devil’s Marbles 1 night Jul 26, 2021

We left Barkly Homestead early and got over the border and to Tennant Creek stopping at the Three Way Roadhouse. Three Ways is a roadhouse located at the junction of the Stuart and Barkly Highways, 25 kilometers north of Tennant Creek. Diesel fuel was $2.04 per litre – the highest on this trip. For comparison it is about $1.35 in Adelaide. We filled up not knowing if there would be more available between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs 508 KM away. One full tank gets us abut 450 Ks and having run out back Charters Towers toward the beginning of our trip we were a bit insecure. ‘Spoiler alert’… we didn’t run of fuel getting to Alice.

Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia located in the locality of Warumungu about 105 km south of Tennant Creek, and 393 km north of Alice Springs. the Devils Marble are important to the local Warumungu, Kaytetye, Alyawarra, and Warlpiri people who live in the traditional country that surrounds them

An amazing place, but we weren’t the only ones who thought so. The camp site already had 35 caravans, pretty much lined up as in a caravan park. It is a national park, with some nice waking trails where you can see the rock formations from all sides. It’s pretty amazing and has a place in the indigenous people’s dreamtime stories. In the evening we were invited to a campfire to listen to a ranger tell us about his role as a manger of several similar sites, and lots of interesting information about the wildlife, kangaroos, snakes, and Australian’s largest lizard, the Perentie 2 ½ metres long, which keeps the snakes at bay. Much of their work is to cull feral animals (cats mainly, but also donkeys) which threaten the native population.

Another bonus was a guy who, toward sunset went up the path a bit, with the back drop of the rocks, and played his trumpet. Wonderful. Jazz standards like Autumn Leaves, Don’t get around much anymore, Summer Time, all with beautiful improvisations. I asked him about his James Morrisonesque playing and he said he actually had one of his trumpets which he bought from him. He showed me the inscription. Very cool.

32.   Ti Tree. 1 night in a caravan park.

A very pleasant little stay with some interesting characters. There was an ex-truckie in his own little set-up with car and tent, who watched me reverse the caravan ( I was  little concerned) and told me later that I drove better than 90% of his trucker mates. Not true I’m sure, but I’ll take it!

Then we met a couple of women, both with their own fancy RV’s, who had met further up the road and decided, after asking each other relevant questions like “How fast do you drive?”, to travel together. So they follow each other at a decent speed of 100 KPH, and enjoy each other’s company’. They both gave me the guided tour of their vans and I told them to watch “Nomadland”.

Barrow Creek: “Barrow Creek is a very small town, with a current population of 11, in the southern Northern Territory of Australia. It is located on the Stuart Highway, about 280 km north of Alice Springs, about halfway from there to Tennant Creek. The main feature of the town is the roadhouse/hotel” We stopped here and ‘refreshed’.

33.   Alice Springs 3 nights. July 28, 2021

Much nicer than I was expecting. A few years ago it was the most dangerous city in the world per capita, mainly because of the stabbings!

We met up with a friend of Terrell’s from way way back….30 years or so, Rik Rosalski. It was interesting to listen to his stories about his youth work with the Indigenous young people. Lots of issues but he is a gentle type and works well with them in a non-judgemental way.

The second day Rik invited us back for lunch, where we met his son Nik and his wife and little son. They were a lovely couple and we enjoyed shooting the breeze with this family.

We decided to stay another night and get some stuff done. The internet (Telstra) is pretty sparce on this trip. I worked with Shambhu in his project to earn some commission on carpet sales from the Moghul Company to my friends. I put up a blurb on Facebook with a bunch of pictures describing this situation (which for both Shambhu and the Carpet seller is pretty dire now with Covid) Surprisingly, I got 5 expressions of interest almost straight away (Jenn, Jo, Liz, Deanna, Marnie). So we’ll see. I hope it all works out.

Alice Springs is set amongst rocky hills, which reflect the sun and it make quite a colourful sight. It has a central area, usual shops, and a huge police station and Federal Court buildings! We bought a nice music box at a jeweller for Mabel’s birthday in the shopping mall.

Rik also showed us a nice lookout point dedicated to soldiers in different wars Australia has fought in. It was a beautiful spot. We also had a bike ride near the caravan park. The town is pretty good for that, with lots of bike paths, which Rik enjoyed with his newly purchased E-Bike….a real chunky one!

We got to the South Australia border – worried for days that we would be refused entry. We saw the sign – got rid of our fruit and veggies – we filled in the online permit covid thingy and hoped for the best. No one was there to greet us – I had wanted a full brass band, dancing girls in mini-skirts (oh shit the me-2 freaks are going to come after me – shut me down on twitter…and the other 73.5 social-less sites I inhabit.

34.   Marryat Rest Area (near Marla) 1 night

A simple overnight rest area next to the Stuart highway. The highlight was sitting in our deck chairs in the dark looking at the magnificent sky. There was no moonlight, just a couple of sinister clouds sometimes coming across. Gorgeous.

We met a woman travelling with her sister in an impressive rig. Both husbands had died and they were off to Katherine, to turn left into WA and take a trip around and back to Adelaide, expecting to take up to 6 months.

One of them came from Mt Compass, had lived there forever and so Terrell and her shared stories of their memories in the 80’s. It’s a small world.

35.   Rest area north of Coober Pedy 1 night

Found a decent spot in the middle of the red desert! It’s very quiet, not too hot, and lots of room for everyone. So far only 4 other campers, a long way from each other.

Terrell made a very respectable fire in the evening, which was still glowing the next morning so we also had a morning coffee fire. Nice!

36.   Rest area south of Coober Pedy 1 night

Drove into Coober Pedy to get some supplies at their great IGA. They have so much good stuff, Terrell remembered this from last time. All sorts of gourmet things, and of course good health food stuff.

Then a fairly long drive to the next spot. It was blowing pretty hard, around 45 kph, which did not stop all night long. We had a bit of a restless night because of this I think. No fires tonight there was way too much wind.

37.   Lake Hart 1 night August 3, 2021

We stopped at a petrol station hoping to have brekkie there, but the sign on the door said, no entry if you have been interstate in the past 2 weeks.

So onward to Lake Hart, a huge salt lake we have camped at before, back in 2017. We are a bit low on supplies, so we’ll be using some tins, and bits and bobs. Nothing too flash, but it’s a beautiful spot. Definitely back in the winter zone, coats and beanies. And I have a little stash of Peter’s drumstick, double choc. My new favs.

“Once one of Australia’s most prized salt deposits, Lake Hart was at the centre of a thriving industry in the 1930s. Today, it draws visitors for its isolation and natural beauty and can be spotted from the comfort of Great Southern Rail’s Ghan as it snakes its way along 2,979km of rail between Darwin and Adelaide.”

38.   Pt Augusta Aug 4, 2021 2 nights

A nice site in Pt Augusta. We did not expect this. The caravan park was right on a water passage with long goods trains on the other side, really long! We set up camp, checked out the facilities (clean, new and pleasant , with a radio playing there all the time. Also a very well equipped huge camp kitchen, where we happily watched the news with the whole place to ourselves, the first time in quite a while.

That evening we met Gaynor for dinner at the local pub. I had a great beef lasagne, with salad and chips, more than enough, and Terrell had a nice fish meal. Nice to catch up, she is the safety officer of the large clean energy facilities, with windmills and acres of solar panels. She loves the job.

We took a bike ride to Maccas, underestimating the distance, but crossing the long bridge which was beautiful and made it worth the ride.

The next day we drove home. We were quite ready to be home again, despite the crappy weather. The kitchen when we walked in felt HUGE! 😊 And that first night I was looking for the portapotty. 😊

All in all a wonderful trip, which we will no doubt do again in a different direction.

Well we have run out of puff writing this – bottom line – long story short – we got home before my birthday. Turned 74 August 10th thanks for all the gifts, well wishes, love, poems, money…

We had bought our tickets to New Zealand for October – had two house exchanges. Of course, we take chances – though we really thought we had this one. Now NZ is closed to us all until end of the year. Maybe next April. Then maybe next July or so to the States. We were supposed to have gone this last year: had bought a ticket on the Queen Mary II, house exchange in Chicago for a month – had our round trip ticket on Amtrak DC to Chicago. Luckily we got all our money back, even the insurance except for a boat trip Great Britain to Hamburg to get the Queen Mary – got a credit for that one so hopefully next year. Looking forward to catching up with you soon. Put the kettle on – it won’t be long. 27/08/2021

SIGNS OF THE TIMES WE HAD

As we got back to celebrate my birthday – who won’t? we went to see the Van Gogh Alive show

And that’s a wrap – off to live a ‘normal’ everyday life – work in the garden – ride our bikes – play with the grandchildren and make videos with them and wait until next year to travel unless we do sooner. Of course, I write everyday on my page over at https://neuage.org/2021/ and at our #OurCurrentLifeWithCovid page

Darwin

She was a carefree flower girl of 18
Selling flowers on Bourbon Street
1968
I was a street artist…

Life with Covid as of an hour ago

To Darwin 05-February 2021

Notes/photos of three weeks in Darwin.  Individual articles were tossed up to https://neuage.substack.com/

Narda in italics Terrell whatever

It is more than an hour to the airport by bus from our house, which is free for us seniors, and we would rather pay the hotel than the taxi ride which is about $70. The hotel has specials and this time it was $122. We even walked over to Ikea for dinner which was less than half the cost of eating at the hotel.

Back to our messed routines. When there is a change in our routine, we get little sleep. We went to sleep about 9 pm – wide awake at 1 am – another hour or so sleep before the alarm at 4.30. Narda had just gotten back to sleep since being awake at one, I think I went to sleep about 2.30 which is the last time I saw the clock. By five am we were checking in. We had breakfast at the airport; a good Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise Sauce for me and an omelette for Narda. We were on the plane by a bit after six. Half an hour later they said we all had to get off the plane due to mechanical error and get onto another plane. As any zombie with little sleep would be, we staggered to the next plane. By 8.30 – a couple of hours later than we were supposed to leave we were on our way.

When we got to Darwin, taking a taxi ($35) to our hotel we were told our apartment was not ready, so we dragged ourselves to the nearest supermarket to get a few things.

We are on the 13th floor of the Ramada Suites – Zen Quarter. They have cute little Zen sayings all over the place and statues of Buddha. This one just happens to be on our floor viewed getting off the lift on the way to our flat.

By 3 pm we were taking our nap – I lasted half an hour. Writing this I feel pretty icky. I am going off to the gym soon and tomorrow we will go into the pool and try doing our Aqua Zumba without a leader. We do the Zumba three times a week in Adelaide at an hour each time. Not being disciplined I doubt we will last fifteen minutes. We tried this a couple of years ago in Florida and after ten minutes then a lap or three we would go home.

After our first or was it the second nap? We went to the roof which is only a couple of floors above us. Great views of the sea and port. Narda is concerned about the balcony and at night pushed the sofa in front of the door in fear that I may sleepwalk and fall off the balcony. Considering I have never sleepwalked in my life that I know of I feel even more safe now. There are few people in the hotel now as this is low season.