A Postcard from Dark Mofo - The Pacific Norovirus

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat:

They took some honey,

and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl and the Pussycat would indeed be well advised to take plenty of money if they were travelling on a pea-green P&O boat because the buggers sting you for whatever they can, things that are normally part of the deal on other cruise lines, things like drinking water!  Then there's a surcharge here and a surcharge there but never mind, let's just focus on the positives like seamless check in.  We were strolling the ship’s passageways in search of our room just an hour after boarding a city bound train at Hornsby Station.

I splashed out and booked a mini-suite with a balcony at the stern of the boat which really is the place to be when leaving Sydney Harbour.  It was also rather nice to lie in bed and watch the sun rise over the ocean before girding one’s loins to do battle for a breakfast table.  P&O attracts a certain bovine element which at times had me wondering if we weren't actually aboard one of those horrendous live cattle transport vessels.  I'm not just talking fat here, I'm talking leviathan! There were people who simply wouldn't fit through an aircraft door let alone in a seat on the same making an ocean voyage their only possible route to Tasmania.  I was left feeling slim and fit which has done wonders for my self-esteem!  

And dress codes, there were none!  Forget about packing jackets for dinner as we did and the only thing I saw that approached ladies’ evening wear for the first four nights was a bejewelled lanyard.  And speaking of the same, we were distinguished by our lack of lanyards, sparkly or otherwise.  Everybody else on the boat had their room keycard and general passport to P&O happiness strung around their necks like PE teachers’ whistles but we shunned the pressure to conform.

There was no Captains Dinner with a hundred metre long queue of tuxedos, Lurex, Glomesh, Botox and big hair waiting to pose for pictures with Captain Stubing; no Friday night services for the Jews onboard (although I truly doubt there were any); no Sunday morning mass for the Roman Catholics; in fact no Americans who might expect such things which would never had occurred to me had we not been on the Royal Caribbean Line’s Vision of the Sea out of Vancouver to Alaska in 2000.

I did, however, still find myself wandering the decks searching for a disco rabbi and wife like the pair on the Vision.  He looked like a younger but pudgier Billy Joel with rolled up suit coat sleeves and yarmulke while she, also pudgy, wore a wig and thick white stockings - hip young Hebs!  I'm certain there's a David Bowie song in that somewhere.

Cruising Tip #1 - Showering

The previous sum total of our cruising experience was the aforementioned Inside Passage to Alaska event, no open water as such and quite smooth sailing.  Not so the Tasman Sea approaching Bass Strait.  Our shower was above a spa bath in a faux Tiffany marble bathroom and let me just say that holding onto the safety rail whilst trying to wash one’s clacker is a skill set I'm still yet to master.  

All that pitching and heaving set the kitchen sink in our sitting room off on a spate of gurgling that made it sound like a very busy bucket bong.  And no, I've never used such a device but was once at a party which provided all I require in order to draw a well-qualified comparison.

All the rocking and rolling was the perfect accompaniment to Bohemian Rhapsody which we missed at the movies but caught in the theatre at the pointy end of the ship.  You all probably loved it but five minutes in I was thinking “We know how this ends, just get a wriggle on and die will you, Freddy?!”  Cruel I know but not entirely unfair.  Rocketman was a much better flick that also had plenty of sex, drugs and seriously bad diva behaviour.

After just 40 hours afloat it was back down the gangway in Hobart and walk, walk, WALK!!!  I haven't walked so far since a stroppy little guide with the flu and a short man's complex took us on an 11km forced march around the base of Uluru, the grumpy little sod!

We were on our own this time though.  The supposed 10 minute walk from the ship to Salamanca Place took 20 but never mind, we needed the exercise and so did the megafauna that we'd observed roaming the feedlot at the front of the boat but we didn't spot too many of them out and about.  We had a lovely morning at Salamanca Place ten years earlier and we're determined to repeat the experience, which we did.  There are some very smart glass shops along the strip, Gallery Salamanca being notable amongst them, so our return journey to the ship was a little slower weighed down by several nice pieces that somehow threw themselves onto my credit card.

With goods and chattels safely deposited back on board we hopped a cab to the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens which is a favourite place of ours.  We spent a few magic hours there in 2010 but that was during summer so it was interesting to view the gardens at the other extreme of its annual cycle but being Australia something is always in bloom.  In this case it was two absolutely stunning luculias that have grown into small trees.  They are a favourite of mine and I've never seen them so big.  My grandmother planted one in the front yard of my family home 80 years ago and, native to the Himalayas though luculias are, it survived until the new owners bulldozed the entire garden last year which was just heartbreaking.  The clusters of pink flowers are glorious and their perfume has defined my winters since childhood.  I am currently attempting to grow an emotional replacement so green thumbs crossed.

Cruising Attire Tip #1

I rarely see a reason to wear anything other than shorts, sandals and Hawaiian shirts; all clean, fresh and terribly tasteful of course.  I can't begin to tell you how much time this saves in both mornings and evenings, but I do digress.

I did, of course, take several pairs of long trousers, a pair of shoes and plain long sleeved shirts for evenings stupidly thinking this would be appropriate but I wore them anyway.  My point here is the reaction one gets from fat bogan women both onboard and ashore when they spot you dressed in aloha attire in Tasmania in winter.  It screws with their heads and it was always megafauna rugged up like Scott of the Antarctic, women over 60, never men.

“Aren't you cold?” it always went with face contorted.

“No, not at all.” I would reply with a friendly smile.  “Aren't you hot?  You've got an awful lot of padding there!”

I'd look back occasionally and sometimes the penny actually dropped but they were all too morbidly obese to catch up even though I was on a stick.

We hiked from the gardens back to Salamanca Place for the somewhat wet but cheerful and very fiery Winter Feast and got a good view of the Pacific Norovirus on the way.  Our cabin was at the stern of the ship, far corner on the flat bit.  The view from within was a stunner, all of the Tasman Bridge and there about just as it had been with the Harbour Bridge in Sydney.

Next morning we fronted up at the Tasmanian Parliament on the dot of 9.30am.  I know it's considered boring in these increasingly neo-fascist times but I'm passionate about democracy and especially our Westminster system so was able to organise a private tour of Parliament where we had a wonderful and highly informative time.

I also got to sit in the Speaker's and President's chairs in their respective Houses. The latter has been used by the Queen so I feel it significant that the most recent bum to be parked upon it was that of a Australian republican.

Some 90 minutes later we bad a reluctant farewell to our guide and host, Charles, and headed across to road to the MONA ferry terminal.  Charles looked like a younger version of Frank from the Vicar of Dibley and shared a similar degree of passion for the task at hand.  Now 62, Charles has worked at Parliament since he was a uni student so what he didn't know simply wasn't worth knowing.

And speaking of knowing, I know some of you love the place but I thought the Museum of Old and New Art was a giant fist-full of cock, which is to say a bloody great wank in a way which might actually be worthy of curation.  God knows there were far less interesting things there!

MONA is an amazing fortress-like, largely subterranean structure which contains masses of wasted space.  There is minimal text so you are expected to wander the darkened caverns with a device pressed up against your face like all the smart young things who go there to drink espresso martinis and whinge about how they can't afford to buy a house because evil Baby Boomers have tied up the entire economy.

Of course you have to be a smart young thing to have the stamina to stand in one of the numerous restaurant or bar queues to purchase said martini in the first place.  On reflection I think the bars, restaurants, function facilities and accommodation options associated with MONA are its actual raison d'être, the art is quite incidental and sometimes rather inconsequential.

Anyway, I thought the most engaging thing in the whole place was Cloaca Professional, a giant artificial digestive tract that is 'fed' daily at 11.00am and 4.00pm so that it poos on the dot of 2.00pm.  Some art really is shit!  I proudly identify as plebeian when I say that to me the best thing about MONA was the ferry ride there and back, especially back!  

 

Delighted to have returned to town we shuffled off to the Salamanca Place shops to pick up a couple of postcards only to discover the Wild Island shop we’d searched for the previous day.  We had a wonderful time there in 2010 buying enough cards to last till just last month so in we went to restock and what a fortuitous visit it was!  Travel writer, artist and all ‘round interesting person Rebecca Robinson was working there that afternoon and had, in fact,  painted the images on several of the cards we’d been drawn to.  Rebecca donates a percentage of the her sales to environmental causes and is now on my fantasy Tasmanian dinner party guest list along with former Senator and environmental warrior Bob Brown who we met last visit, legendary gay rights activist Rodney Croome, Ana from the Gallery Salamanca and Charles from Parliament House.  A short bracket of entertainment will be provided the madman we observed in the newsagent next door.  His passionate rant about God being an alien was as plausible an idea as any I've heard.  He’s a colourfully bedraggled local character who was extremely amusing but I think the key to that amusement would probably be brevity, perhaps a five minute set, no longer.  His act certainly wouldn't extend to three courses, port, a cheese platter and coffee.

Next morning it was anchors away at 8.00am and we were off back to Sydney.  We left the wharf at about the same time the annual Nude Winter Solstice Swim got underway a little up river so damn, I missed it; perhaps next time!  We also missed the Saturday Salamanca Market which is a brilliant arts, crafts and food event that's a weekly tradition in Hobart and an extremely good reason to return.

People finally turned out in some decent clothes that evening, well some people.  Others had decent clothes which were several sizes too small.  We had large mirrors in our cabin but that mustn't have been the case in all of them.  There were young women who looked and dressed like a fusion of Magda Szubanski's Pixie Anne Wheatley character and Miss Piggy.  Then there was the 60-something we hope was trying to be funny by channeling Mae West in a full length red velvet vintage evening gown that looked like it might have been made from a 1940s theatre curtain, you know the kind.  Either that or she was the recently retired head of English from an Anglican girls’ school, it really could have gone either way.  But the best of the lot was the chap who seemed to confuse Masquerade Ball with Fancy Dress Party and turned up looking just like Wal from the Footrot Flats cartoons although there's a fair chance that the Swanndri, footy shorts, thongs and can of VB that was perpetually clenched in his fist was just his particular signature look much like tropical attire is mine.  We decided to go with the latter because the mullet pretty much sealed it.

It was an amusing evening although the margaritas were far too sweet and a bit shy on actual alcohol, being as we were cruising with P&O.

The next day, our last at sea, had me gazing out on the wake of the ship reciting lines from Robert Lowell’s Sailing Home from Rapallo which is one of his darker poems and that in itself will appear quite tautological if you've read Lowell.  The final line is the most poignant and made me wonder just how many fat bogans had in fact eaten themselves to death during the cruise.  There was a growing unpleasantness the smelt somewhere between shit and morbidity around the forward elevators and stair well that connected the feedlot on Level 14 with the medical centre on Level 4.  That’s where they store those who pop off during the cruise.

The corpse was wrapped like panettone in Italian tinfoil.

Now everybody sit up and take note!

I solemnly affirm that I will never again make commentary on fat Americans.  A P&O cruise is like Jenny Craig Day at Disneyland; it's packed to the gunwales with the fattest people on Earth, all of them Australians and all of them in a constant state of expansion!

I am deadly serious when I say I have no idea how some of them got through cabin doorways or into bathrooms.  They must have slept in the cargo hold and been evacuated with bilge pumps because there's no way that around 10% of the passengers on that boat would possibly have fit through a standard ship's bathroom door.  It would have even been a squeeze for the next 20% and I truly wish I was exaggerating but I'm not!

I know I'm overweight in the real world but I had a brief six-day existence in an alternate universe where I could get into a George Clooney's pants, and I do mean George Clooney’s actual pants although I'm also up for the metaphorical kind!

P&O Dining Tip #1

Settle for nothing less than Royal Caribbean.  The food on P&O is absolute crap!  There is total disconnect between the text on the menus and the reality on the plate yet still they feed!

Fatnote: (sic)

We had just sat down to our final breakfast of fruit and muesli prior to disembarking when there was a great flurry of activity at the next table.  An entire cadre of waiters approached two young girls who were seated with their parents.  They came bearing chocolate milkshakes in Mason jars with a chocolate donut perched on top and a stripy pink straw through the middle of each deadly concoction.

Back in the day the Christian Brothers were known for employing far more subtle grooming techniques than that!

Tales of the Subaru - Four Nights in Victoria

We were delighted when our Claytons niece Sara (the niece you have when you don't really have a niece) announced that she was becoming an Australian citizen.  Since her naturalisation ceremony was to be held in Melbourne, and I had long promised to provide the essential fairy bread, we packed up DeDe the Subaru and headed south, albeit just for four nights.

The trip down was a generational first.  It must be 25 years or more since I've done the drive in one hit but we were on a tight schedule this time around.  Three toilet stops later, one with lunch and the wander around the beautiful old bridges of Gundagai, we were pulled into Uncle Russell's driveway at Strathmore in Melbourne's north.  The trip took little over ten hours.

 

 

It's been three years since we were last in Melbourne for DeDe’s inaugural road trip so it was good to catch up with our old mate Russell and Miss Dog, his lovely Cairn Terrier Tess.  Uncle had dinner waiting which was a treat.  I'm usually the one putting food on the table so it was rather nice to have a plate simply appear before me for a change.

After a leisurely morning and yet another meal not prepare by me, I whipped up the promised fairy bread and we pointed DeDe a little further south the rustic Williamstown for a pre-do do at Sara and Mags’ place.  It was the first time Peter and I have met Mags and he gets a big thumbs up.  Well done Sara!  Mags’ family were present for the event as well and they clearly love our girl so I couldn't be happier.

After nibbles and chats (and quite a run on the fairy bread) we all headed off to nearby Altona Civic Centre, the administrative hub of Hobsons Bay City.  And oh my god, it was like being on duty in the K-2 playground - there were screaming, whining children galore!  Had I been the mayor I would have torn up their parents’ citizenship documents on the spot but no, they handed them out regardless or at least facsimiles thereof.

 

 

Nobody expected the Butcher of Manus and Nauru, Peter Dutton, to retain his Queensland seat let alone his portfolio at the previous week’s federal election.  And then there's the bizarre anomaly of the whole stinking bloody Morrison Government remaining in situ.  There was no responsible Minister to sign the naturalisation certificates - and there clearly won’t be one for the next three years.  The actually certificates will eventually be sent by mail.

My highly predictable cynicism aside, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the woman who read out the names of all 70 new citizens as each came forward.  Some of them were so long and complicated that I'd have needed to take a toilet break half way through and I was an ESL teacher for 20 years.  She must have spent weeks practicing, poor love, and then transposed them into phonetic script to have even a hope of getting by.

So off we all went back to Williamstown and a Greek restaurant which could not have been a more appropriate venue for Sara to have her first meal as a citizen of Australia, especially a citizen resident in Melbourne.

I know I was at risk of memorable overload but the next day brought with it a reunion with my cousin Zelda who I haven't seen since 1968.  Zelda’s husband was my cousin Russell, the eldest son of my father’s older brother.  Russell, Uncle Noel and Dad have all now passed on but Zelda and I are still thankfully very much here so Peter and I trained and trammed our way to Caulfield North for a hastily convened reunion at the suggestion of Russell’s sister, my cousin Rae.

At this point we must be careful not to confuse Cousin Russell Cawthorne with Uncle Russell Cosgriff who is quite unrelated and not actually my uncle, he just looks like one.

Well great idea, Rae!  I had the best afternoon and Zelda seemed pretty chuffed about it all as well.  The cat fell immediately in love with Peter so all up it was just a perfect picture of happy families!  Seriously though, and I was actually being serious there, it was just the best get together and we hit it off famously as Enid Blyton might well have said.

I really didn't know Zelda back in the day and hardly knew Russell either.  He was 12 or 13 years older than me so I had much more to do with his four younger siblings then suddenly he had gone anyway, off perusing a career, getting married and then moving to Bangkok with his new wife.  That was the last time I saw them, a post-wedding/farewell do at Aunty Laurel’s house.  It was all quite jolly and Laurel put on a good spread as she always did - end of memory.

Work took Russell and Zelda from Bangkok to Hong Kong where their two children were born and raised so there really wasn't the opportunity to run into one another over the years.  But better late than never, my friends!  We really did have a most wonderful afternoon and it is so good to know there's another dyed-in-the-wool Labor supporter in the family.

Zelda & Glenn

Now if you hear me complain about passenger density on Sydney public transport feel free to say just one word to me and that word should be Melbourne.  We strolled back to the tram stop having a very pleasant chat en route with a woman who had a most interesting metal relief walking stick.  Walking stick users are drawn together in a particular kind of camaraderie much like dog owners but with more falls and generally less shedding.

Apart from a particularly lead footed tram driver who sent me flying, all was well until we turned onto St Kilda Road and headed towards the city centre.  More and more people boarded at every stop until there were arms and legs protruding from all of the windows - or at least there would have been were the windows able to be opened.  Getting upright and then to the nearest door appeared an impossibility but then about a third of the passengers alighted at the Flinders Street Station stop which was our own destination so we simply crowd surfed our way out of the tram which was quite exhilarating on reflection.

Next came the Craigieburn Line train which struck true terror into my heart as we descended reluctantly but inevitably to the platform on a relentlessly unforgiving escalator.  The true horror of the scene became apparent about a third of the way down but there was no turning back to spend a few numbing hours across the road at Young and Jackson’s.  It was like a Tokyo subway without the uniformed and gloved transit employees pushing people into the carriages.

I grabbed Peter and headed up the platform.  Never try to board a train at the foot of the stairs or escalator.  And this is where a walking stick truly comes into its own.  Wave it, wave it wildly and don't stop until you are seated on the train.  In fact, once aboard the train is when your most critical waving must be done because this is what will get you an actual seat if properly executed.

Melbourne Tucker Tip #1

That left me fully charged and ready for dinner at the Malaysian Mamak Kitchen which is a short walk from Uncle’s house in Strathmore.  It's been three years since we last ate there but not a week goes by that I don't crave their best ever Singapore noodles or just about anything else on the menu that doesn't contain duck, pork, beef or lamb and there's plenty to choose from.

Mamak Kitchen Singapore Noodles

We bad a fond farewell to Uncle Russell and Tess next morning and headed north to Rutherglen where we planned to break our homeward journey and pick up a case or two of wine at Chambers Winery which is my favourite such establishment in the region.  That's not to say the others aren't good, they've just moved upmarket and adjusted their prices accordingly.

Russell, Peter & Tess

Having effected a particularly leisurely departure the chance of arriving in Rutherglen for lunch was nil so we decided to stop at Benalla since neither of us had ever been there and what a find! 

We discovered an excellent variety store where we bought Kevin what we hope will be an overspray-proof litter tray.  They have heaps of homewares and great craft supplies as well as a little bit of nicely displayed kitsch.  Then we popped across to the local bakery where I got the best ever salad roll and Peter a pie (of course).

Armed with lunch we headed back to the park by the river and the amazing Benalla Ceramic Mural which is Hunderwasser meets Gaudi but more on the scale of the former rather than the latter.  It's an incredible structure and yet another reason to visit Benalla.

 

 

It was getting late and there was wine to be tasted so we pushed on to Rutherglen, checked into our motel and headed straight to Chambers which is as rustic and real as ever.  You always get a warm welcome and a glass then they leave you to it to try whatever you wish.  They are extremely helpful but not an any way pushy and best of all not wine wankers.

Winery Tip #1

Chambers do great fortified wines, fortifieds and gutsy reds like Durif being the hallmark of the Rutherglen region.  I've been through my Durif phase and they are a bit pricey these days so I'm good with muscats and tokays even though these have generally taken on other names for reasons of appellation.  I can't imagine why I left Chambers with a craving for cheese, preferably a strong cheddar. 

Rutherglen Tucker Tip #1

I make this recommendation not so much for the food but for the atmosphere and the delightful staff.

We checked out the Star Hotel which gets a good write up but its dining room is like a crowded refectory.  I was immediately reminded of taking kids to camp so we headed across the street to the beautiful old Victoria Hotel where there was only one extremely well behaved child in the much smaller and far quieter dining room so this was the place for us.

They serve very generous pub meals but here's a tip: don't order an entree if you plan to have a main as well.  We shared some excellent onion rings to start and the plate was in overload.  We both struggled with our mains and as tempting as the sticky date pudding seemed it just wasn't a realistic option for us.  Perhaps another time.

We were off again next morning on a six hour drive that took us just over ten but life should be about the journey, not the destination.  Somewhere along the way Sara messaged me to say it was right that we’d decided to drive and not to fly because I get enjoyment from seeing things and from talking to people and that's exactly what we did all the way home.

We felt one visit to Holbrook just wasn't enough besides, Darrell the fly hitched a ride with us on the way down and refused to leave the car so we felt a responsibility to return him home on our way back which we did outside Lady Gail's Books and Curios which was about 500m from where he initially joined us but we figured he'd make it the rest of the way home under his own steam.

Lady Gail is herself a treasure and runs the most organised, dust-free used book and bric-à-brac shop I've ever seen.  I was after green glass but of course so is everyone else.  That's also where we met Oscar's mum and dad, Oscar being a 7 week-old kitten they had been raising since 4 weeks of age and were in the process of socialising by taking him out inside his dad’s jacket.  What lovely people and what a cute little kitty!

From there it was on up the deserted main drag to the monthly market in the park and there went an hour.  We had Indonesian street food, bought apples as well as all manner of honey and just chatted with people.  It was time extremely well spent.

 

Holbrook has been of minor interest to me for years and it has absolutely nothing to do with their odd but very large landlocked submarine.  When I was studying geography in 5th and 6th form (now Years 11 and 12) the area around Holbrook, Henty and The Rock was our case study for a particular services threshold theory of urban geography which was formulated in Western Europe where it holds reasonably good.  Of course once you factor in topographic variables and a greatly diminished population it pretty much begins to fall apart here except for around Holbrook, Henty and The Rock in the early 1970s.  Not so now though.  The new motorway which bypasses everything and makes getting to larger towns and cities so much easier and quicker has buggered that and more than half the businesses in Holbrook, hence the deserted main drag to which I referred earlier.

On we went to Jugiong as recommended by my good friend and colleague Ruth who clearly did not visit on a weekend.  The whole small but very quaint town was absolutely infested by overdressed Canberrans with attitudes to complement their matching shoes and handbags and don't even think about starting me on the women!

We carried on to Goulburn to purchase a loaf of rustic artisan bread for the mushroom soup I was certain I had left in the freezer and indeed I had.  Of course we should have bought the rustic artisan bread at Jugiong which boasts a rustic artisan bakery but did we do that?  No!  We settled for a classic soft white cob loaf in Goulburn instead, the very same kind my grandparents used to buy along with jam rolls at the Hornsby Cake Shop in the 1960s.

But never mind, we were in Goulburn, home to the Goulburn Lilac City Festival which still persists when there is only one publicly owned lilac bush left in the entire City of Goulburn so with cob loaf in hand we went to pay it homage.  Winter is approaching so it was dormant and devoid of both leaves and flowers but should you wish to visit this botanical rarity you will find it right outside the public toilets in the park that's in the centre of town where everyone used to stop for a pee in the days before the bypass.  

The last public lilac in Goulburn

When we attended the Lilac Festival several years ago, expecting to see lilacs, this was it.  I sent a ‘Please Explain’ to the city council and received a prompt reply assuring me that there was in fact a second lilac bush betwixt footpath and road outside the Catholic School so the very next time we passed through town en route to Floriade in Canberra we went looking but there was no lilac, just some disturbed soil.

A woman who was tending her roses on the other side of the street called out “Are you looking for the lilac bush, luv?”  This was clearly a practiced enquiry so I marched briskly across and replied “Yes.”

Now at this point I might add that roses have supplanted lilacs as the national blossom of Goulburn and do in fact dominate the Lilac Festival which apparently nobody but me thinks is the least bit odd.

“Darl” she said, “It was a glorious thing that would sag under the weight of its own blooms but they had to dig it out.  Father Dominic used to hide behind it with his trousers down around his ankles and his cassock hitched up to his chest frightening the kiddies at playtime as some of them do, you know?  So that was that.  It was either the lilac or Father Dominic but he teaches RE so the lilac bush had to go.”

My least favourite leg of the trip now lay ahead of us, the Southern Highlands to home, especially to the junction of the M5 and M7 which witnesses the crescendo of the merging madness and its ensuing deconstruction as the traffic flow from the M31 unbraids itself onto the two other two routes.

Being as it was a Saturday night and we were headed away from the city we were home in an hour and once reconnected with Kev and The Girls.  That done I felt bound to settle back with a G&T that I garnished with a slice of kaffir lime from our garden to remind myself of the Mamak Kitchen in Strathmore.

Post script:  The new higher-sided plastic tub be bought for Kev in Benalla in hope that it would function as an overspray-proof litter tray has worked an absolute treat.