In Tasmania

What is it about Tasmania that it so appealing to me? Perhaps it is that much of it has similarities to my favourite places in the northern hemisphere and it is all found on this Island in the roaring forties which is about the size of New Brunswick. The landscape is stunning, temperate rainforest wilderness, mountains clothed in alpine cushion plants, white sand beaches nestled in otherwise rugged coastline, manicured agricultural landscapes producing wonderful food and wine, and a fascinating though somewhat grim history. Tassie is also in the drug business, the only place where opium poppies are grown legally and they also grow pyrethrum. The flora and fauna are rich and there are species unique to Tasmania. I saw hundreds of wallabies and pademelons, and a few Tasmanian devils and wombats and one tiger snake. I watched oystercatchers feeding their chicks on the shore and saw penguin chicks nestled in a burrow above the Tasman Sea

Tasmania is Australia’s smallest state and was its second penal colony after Sydney. It does not suffer from the extremes of heat and drought that afflict much of mainland Australia. But like many places on this beleaguered earth, it is torn over issues of land and resource use. Agriculture, forestry, mining and tourism compete and clash. Old growth forests are being felled to produce wood chips for export. Fast growing Blue gums and Monterey Pine are planted in clear felled areas. Potatoes are grown on slopes that would be illegal even in Prince Edward Island. But speciality farms including organic farms are diverse and flourishing, there is pride in growing and producing local products. McCains have a presence in Tasmania, processing vegetables and the state has its own version of the Irvings. The are the Gunns, traditionally and still in the forestry business, sawmills, pulp and chips but more recently they have branched into the wine production. Bumper stickers proclaim, “Save Trees, not Gunns”.

Hobart in the south, has a vibrant small town feel with all the amenities of a state capital. The State Museum and Art Gallery is superb and the Botanical Gardens impressive. I particularly enjoyed the controlled environment house depicting the flora of subantarctic islands complete with wind, fog and roaring seals and screaming birds. The Hobart Walking Club has 700 members and organizes at least three walks a week and several longer hikes in the summer months. In the north there are a number of small towns and ports servicing the resource industries. Flower gardens festoon the towns and villages and the convict built stone buildings and bridges lend an air of the English village In New South Wales many convict built buildings were torn down in an attempt to erase the memory of transportation. The peninsulas around the south are beautiful with coastal walking trails, state forests and small farms. The Tasman Peninsula is dominated by Port Arthur, the penal colony now a National Historic site which was well worth a days visit.
There are Canadian connections as well, Canadian “rebels” from riots in Lower Canada were sent to both Port Arthur and Sydney. And John Franklin was governor of Van Diemen’s Land from 1832 -1843 after his first three Arctic voyages and before the final fatal one. His peers noted that he did not show the same qualities in the south as he had shown in the north, he was not comfortable with the cruel punishments administered to convicts and was thought to be overly influenced by the progressive and reforming views of his wife. Jane Franklin attempted to bring in reforms for female prisoners but was more successful with intellectual and scientific pursuits She founded The Royal Society of Tasmania, the second RS in the world and still going strong

The western half of the Island is relatively unpopulated, much of it is mountainous and forested, and the west coast is pounded by the roaring forties, a wild place indeed.
I saw this part of Tasmania with Tarkine Trails on a six day expertly guided exploration mostly on foot. We camped in the rainforest, stayed at at former mining village now a eco-village, marvelled at the pristine forest, the button grass plains and the succession much influenced by natural or “cool” fires as they are known. We also saw the disastrous effects of a hot fire 18 months ago, caused by a driver who had gone off the road in a remote spot and lit a fire to attract attention in the height of a summer drought ! Thousands of hectares of mature rainforest were burned. Regrowth consists of liverworts and mosses in a shrubby thicket of Lemon Boronia amongst the blackened sticks of Eucalypts, some of which were sprouting leaves and demonstrating their tremendous resistance to fire. The climax species of the rainforest are not fire resistant so were completely destroyed. This eerie landscape had replaced the diversity of Myrtle Beech, Blackwood, Celery Top Pine and Eucalypts. But it did afford magnificent views of the Tarkine which we surveyed from a ridge called LongBack where Tasmanian Christmas Bells were flowering in profusion. I was reminded of my mother’s complaint when I took her walking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire about 30 years “When are we going to get out of the trees?” She loved a view and was accustomed to walking was in the relatively tree free vistas of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.

The rainforests afford a different view, through an ecological succession that spans several hundred years and at closer range, a diversity of ferns, mosses, fungi, liverworts, understory shrubs and birds...oh how the kookaburras laughed at Tiger Ridge. And glimpsing the rare pink robin on the last day was a special treat.

Farewell Tasmania, you are etched in my Gaian consciousness more than any other part of Australia.

Mango Season in Melbourne

The challenge at the moment is to keep mango juice off my laptop. Melbourne, its food art, buskers, trams alleyways and fabulous bicycle paths has been the urban highlight of my time in Australia and the Queen Victoria Market a top spot in Melbourne the best city market I have ever seen. I ate my way through it, pesto, Tasmanian Brie, polish sausage,burek, morsels of spiced kangaroo, fresh pasta, nectarines, and sangiovese from the Bortoli estate And then there was the Immigration Museum, shades of Pier 21 in Halifax, the Art Gallery, the art and music on the streets and the Melbourne Thessaloniki sister cities festival happening all around me. A little outside the downtown or CBD as its known in Australia there is the Ceres project an urban farm and alternative energy and design centre and the Abbortsford Convent (no longer) now a community market, with performance spaces, artists studios and a raft of alternative practitioners, I met a friend there and we had lunch at Lentil Anyway, a pay as you feel restaurant run by Bangladeshis Then we strolled to the Childrens Farm nearby and walked through the grounds of the Steiner school. I cycled back downtown along the Yarra River and saw the the final stags of a huge boat race coxed 8s in all classes including masters from Aus, NZ and China. The Melbourne Botanical Garden is the finest I have seen in Australia and I was priveliged courtesy of my friend Hugh to be shown some plates from one of the original editions of Banks’ Florigeum, housed in the rare books section of the State Library.

This is a city to visit, and if you are on the upward side of the age curve then live here for a bit and enjoy more deeply what I only touched.

Katherine in Melbourne 27/11/09

A Tale of Two Islands

After thirty years living on Prince Edward Island and three days visiting Kangaroo Island I may be presumptuous in drawing comparisons between PEI and KI. Both advertise themselves as one of the world’s great Islands.

First of all they are about the same size and about the same distance from the mainland The mainland in both cases is a vast country sparsely populated except on the fringes. For PEI that is the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and for KI it is the state of South Australia, just two hours by road and ferry from Adelaide. A big difference is that PEI, like Australia’s island state Tasmania, is its own jurisdiction but KI is part of the state of South Australia. All Australian states except Tasmania are large like the non maritime provinces of Canada. Apart from a few very early declarations from settlers KI has been part of SA and there doesn’t seem to have be any trend towards separation. Another ingredient is that unlike the other early European settlements in Australia, KI was not a penal colony. The other big difference is population, 4500 in KI, 33000 in PEI

In this era, both Islands count tourism and agriculture as important to their economy. Fishing has never been significant in KI but in recent years some speciality fish farms have started up and whiting are caught along the north shore. Agriculture was traditionally sheep on year round pasture as well as a few cattle farms. In recent years KI has jumped on the Australian wine bandwagon and now has many small wineries (lovely shiraz and sauvignon blanc I must say) and other specialty farms, producing sheep cheese, olives and vegetables. Many of the farms are certified organic. They also produce honey from Ligurian bees and sell queens to honey producers all over the world. PEI ‘s traditional agriculture has moved very quickly through a period of world wide fame for seed potatoes to a french fry economy. Farmers who are not part of this economy are constantly swimming against the PEI agriculture tide.

Kangaroo Island doesn’t have an Anne equivalent but it could be a tourist mecca for foodies, slow food travellers and nature buffs. It promotes itself as a place to see wildlife much more readily than in many parts of Australia. But they seem to discourage anyone except the most discerning traveller (like myself) from coming here. Ferry rates are astronomical, the local office is staffed by SeaLink dragons who add surcharges every time you suggest another option. SeaLink is the bus and ferry service between Adelaide and KI. Getting around KI is not easy, the options are a car or a guided tour or “tourist experience” These include ATV tours, adventure caving, a raptor sanctuary and platypus viewing. The latter involves lengthy sitting on a platform in platypus habitat and hoping to catch a glimpse, I did not. Unlike PEI, KI is not very cycle friendly as there isn’t much paved road. There isn’t a preferred tourist season in KI but it is probably most attractive in summer as a haven from the heat. I visited in spring, it was cool and windy with a few short downpours followed by spectacular rainbows. The Southern Ocean was wild and I think I caught a whiff of Antartica

Kangaroo Islands small population is mainly in two small towns. There are a few luxury tourism places here as well as more modest accomodation, a youth hostel and a few campsites. People have second homes here, to escape the heat of the Adelaide summer, but they are not as numerous as in PEI. Most of the original forest and heathland remains, covering about 65% of the area. Australian wildlife is much more visible here than on the mainland This is the overwhelming impression I have from KI, most of it not cleared and devoted to human ends, and wildlife everywhere. I saw Tammar wallabies, kangaroos, huge flocks of black cockatoos, koala bears, little penguins, Australian sealions, New Zealand black seals, wedge-tailed eagles and a flora that still has species endemic to KI. The forests are predominantly mallee with occasional stands of sugar gum.

I wonder how PEI would have looked today if it had not been an oasis of deep soil in a rocky land, and so much closer than Australia for people escaping from destitution in the British Isles and self styled “landowners” who saw its forests as a source of tremendous albeit fleeting wealth. Would it still have large areas of National Park with Acadian forest and its associated fauna instead of a few relics of rural landscape separated by industrial farms and creeping suburbanism. In spite of all this the PEI landscape is still more picturesque than KI. Mallee forest isn't particularly beautiful. Hmm, food for thought, and perhaps much deeper analysis.

In the Wildflower West

I flew from Sydney to Perth on Qantas, the level of service reminded me of Air Canada 15 years ago, and all this with competitive fares. Perth on the Swan River is an unremarkable city, clean, bright and predictable except for the magnificent Kings Park and botanical gardens where I spent a day, picnicking and strolling with new friends. I also explored the adjacent port city of Fremantle, much more interesting though the sight of a large ship with multi-storey animal cages was rather chilling once I found out that it was for shipping live sheep to the Middle East. Fremantle, as everyone told me, used to be a dump until the Americas Cup chose it as a destination port several years ago, then the restoration began, beautiful old buildings, markets, waterfront restaurants, street performers everywhere, cycling and walking trails and now like Charlottetown a cruise ship destination.

But the highlights of my time in Western Australia were the explorations of forests and coastline in the middle of wildflower season, WA is famous for its spring wildflowers. They fill the fields and roadsides and also floor of the more open bush areas. I traveled south to the Porongorups, did a short but rugged walk to the summit of the Porongorup Range, the ankled ached for a day afterwards. Then I visited Banksia Farm with its collection of ALL the world’s Banksias and many other Proteaceae. What a gem of a place this is, run by a couple who 20 years ago bought the spot and started to collect Banksias. Now it it is the world’s only complete collection. They are passionate people with a great sense of style and humour, not to mention botanical and horticultural knowledge and they do very good lunches. They pointed me to an orchid walk and another native plant walk where there were even a few labels on the plants. Most remarkable were the insectivorous sundews, we have one species in bogs in eastern Canada and I love to see it whenever I can but here there are several species with different growth forms, one was a small trailing vine, how cute is that?

After Banksia it was off to the rugged coastline of the Southern Ocean, nothing between here and Antarctica. There were great rock formations and surf laden beaches. Then I went a tad inland to the Tingle Tree forests. Eucalyptus jacksonii is one of the worlds largest trees and there are still a few remaining in this part of Australia. I went on a fantastic canopy walk through these great trees then another along the forest floor.
Oh yes and there was a bit of wine and olive tasting before returning to Fremantle then boarding the train for Adelaide.

A Walk in the Blue Mountains

My time in the Blue Mountains has been another great chapter in my exploration of Australia. I have been staying in Linden with Stuart and Judy. Linden is about 100km west of Sydney and just about on the boundary of the lower and upper mountains. My stay included the Sydney dust storm from which there were some memorable images and the Wollemi Pine which will be an unfolding story. But the highlight was a walk along one of the mountain cliff faces through waterfalls and magnificent rock formations, spring flowers and the ever present gum trees. The trail known as the National Pass was originally developed for walkers in the early 1900s, it was recently restored and rebuilt to make it more accessible though it is still quite challenging especially for those compromised by a recently broken ankle (me) or wonky knees (Stuart). We started out with a rock step descent through waterfalls and hanging swamps then a long traverse across the cliff face on a well engineered path. Views of the mountains and the forest changing constantly. Close up we feasted our eyes on the rock formations and spring flowers. Towards the end of the walk we picnicked beside a huge waterfall, Wentworth Falls then climbed steeply, up steps to the plateau for a leisurely walk back to the starting point.
One day I awoke to what seemed like a very pink dawn, it was the day of the Sydney dust storm which was reported worldwide. I didn’t realise it until I was hailed to “come and look at this” By the time I got up the sun was up in eastern sky, looking like a full moon in a bronze haze. There was a fine dust coating everything, even parts of the inside of the house. The wind blew hard all day bringing down tree branches and preventing me from another cliff edge walk in the mountains.

Then there was the affair of the Wollemi Pine. I had naively hoped to hike into the canyon where this relic of the Jurassic was found in 1994. It is related to Monkey Puzzles and Norfolk Island Pine but had escaped human notice for hundreds of thousands of years. Since then its location has been shared with very few people and it has been studied incessantly. It turns out to be easy to propagate and I was able to buy my very own Wollemi Pine which will live in Linden and be nurtured by Stuart and Judy. I will receive regular photo and news updates such as, first mature leaves, first bubbly bark and dare I hope first cone !!!

Reef and Rainforest

When I first started planning this journey, Queensland was not on the agenda, almost every other part of Australia was. But then when my friend Maurene from Jerusalem said she would like to meet up with me for a few days and go to the Great Barrier Reef, things changed. Instead of heading into more arid outback after Darwin, I flew to Cairns on the north east coast and a few hours later picked Maurene up at the same airport after her business day in Sydney. We spent the first 48 hours exploring the Atherton tablelands inland from Cairns and then relaxing in a cabin in the rainforest. Maurene observes Shabat so we were very low key for 24 hours. On Saturday night we dined at the resort restaurant, a great open dining room with part of the swimming pool in it and lots of heavy tropical wooden furniture and of course, palms and other vegetation. I have never been in the wet tropics before so this is all very new and inviting, especially since it is not too hot and humid at this time of the year.

Sunday, the reef trip, was a peak experience. I had heard that the reef is disappointing because it is in decline and especially since a huge bleaching episode 4 years ago. But this little slice of the reef was exquisite, there was hardly any dead coral but a gazillion shapes and types of living coral mostly ranging through the beiges from yellow to grey with a few more colourful types. The fish were brilliant in colour and form, shoals of little ones, and various individuals Then there were the purple starfish and the black sea cucumbers cleaning up the scene on the sandy bottom.
Saw a mantra ray as well but the very best was the sea turtle which the guide saw and beckoned us to follow gently, so graceful with just the front flippers moving we followed (him or her) for many metres. After we got back on the boat she surfaced and hung around as if to say....I did this just for you, go well dear humans.

On Monday, I drove up to Cooktown on the Endeavour River where Captain Cook, a childhood hero of mine, brought the Endeavour after almost foundering on a reef at Cape Tribulation, also named by Cook. They spent 6 weeks there, fixing the boat while Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander collected plants and made various other natural history observations.
I am a bit of a Cook groupie since I grew up not far from Marton where he was born and as a child often walked up to the obelisk known as Captain Cook’s memorial on the north west edge of the North York Moors. I took all the requisite photos, of Cook, the landing site the memorial obelisk and went to the James Cook museum which is small and deals only with Cook’s landing here through quotations from the journals of Cook and Banks and also from the perspective of the local aboriginal people whose oral stories of that time have been captured in text. They referred to the Endeavour as a strange large canoe in which it appeared something was not right.

Then it was south to explore the Daintree Rainforest, a feast for anyone, you don’t need to be a botanist. It is a demonstration of how alive our planet is and how well it does without us, so many species, so many interactions and adaptations, the statistics are staggering, the experience even more so. Huge trees, with buttressed roots, many of them several hundred years old, cycads, idiot fruit, woody vines corkscrewing in the canopy, ferns, mosses, lichen and various flowering plants mostly growing as epiphytes on the trees, then the ubiquitous strangler fig. I saw the phenomenon of cauliflory, flowering and fruiting from the trunk, rather than the tips of branches.
Most of North Queensland’s coast was originally rainforest, giving way to mangrove swamps at the shoreline but the forest was cleared and the flatland of red lateritic soil planted with sugar cane. The Daintree was slated for a similar fate in the 1980s, logging, sugar cane and subdivision. It was saved by a grass roots protest coupled with expanding scientific knowledge that these were the most diverse and ancient tropical rainforests on the planet. Now it is a World Heritage area, and has a reforestation research centre, and a relatively low impact tourism infrastructure. Canopy walks and boardwalks allow human access without damaging the forest. The access road is peppered with signs warning of cassowaries crossing. Alas I did not see one of these curious solitary birds but on a night walk saw bats, roosting birds, spiders and stick insects and awoke next day in my tent cabin to a dawn chorus of birds and insects.

Australian Icons

The last 4 days of the outback trip were spent visiting icons of what is called the Red Centre of Australia, Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. All spectacular but accompanied especially in the case of Uluru by legions of other tourists, many in airconditioned buses. We felt quite superior as we pulled our dusty rig into the sunset viewing parking lot and cracked open the wine and beer for hors d’ouevres at sunset. A double rainbow appeared after a very brief shower which sent most visitors scurrying back to their buses. We also walked around part of the base of the rock, climbing is discouraged because of the sacredness of the site. At the Aboriginal Culture Centre which has a rather dramatic design we were treated to a very sanitized version of Uluru. The rock is sacred and as such, its stories cannot be shared with people who might abuse them. The whole site is managed jointly by aboriginals from the area and national parks staff. There were allsorts of platitudes describing how they are learning from each other about each other’s ways, illustrated with examples of respecting traditions such as, aboriginals working at the site go barefoot and non-aboriginals wear boots ! My thoughts often wandered to that scene in Priscilla Queen of the Desert “a cock in a frock on a rock”

After sunset at Uluru, we saw sunrise on the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) then went for a walk amongst these red and bulbous rocky hills, up into the Valley of the Winds and then it was on to a bush camp not far from King’s Canyon. The walk around the rim of Kings Canyon was spectacular and a great achievement for she of the broken ankle. It wasn’t the most challenging thing I’ve walked since that fateful day in late December, but close. I walked with the rearguard, Frances, Paul and the delightful Katerina from Prague who helped us over the rough bits. We were only a few minutes behind the younguns and there were others who didn’t even attempt it. And then it was off for our last night in the outback at a site which I will call “between two signs” The first was an aboriginal community sign warning of no this and that, the second, about 500 metres away, was a National Parks sign which we all know brings many conditions. We camped in this no-persons land with some of those iridescent pink eyed spiders and in the morning walked onto a rise through the prickly Spinifex to watch the sunrise on Gosses Bluff. Then there was a leisurely drive though the western MacDonnells to Alice Springs and a final gathering on Anzac Hill before dinner and farewells.

Gums, Wattles and Red Roads

This is the first of two posts about 10 days in the outback
What an experience this has been travelling in a 4WD Toyota Landcruiser with trailer for luggage, food, water swags and emergency supplies. We travelled 3500kms through arid bush and desert from Adelaide to Alice Springs, much of it on red dirt roads or stony tracks By paved road it is about 1200km. “We” were a group of 10, mixed demographic as our guide put it. Ages ranged from 20s to 70s, some European, mostly Australian and others like my friends Frances and Paul, global citizens carrying several passports and residency cards.
Our guide and driver Rick was a free spirit and photographer who started out at 14 racing motorcycles and playing in rock bands, then headed off to China for various entrepreneurial pursuits before returning to Adelaide and discovering a new passion for outback guiding.
Our first two days were in the Flinders Ranges, seeing Wilpena Pound, rock paintings at Arkaroo, our first campsite a bush camp near a camel farm, we rode the last two kms to the camp on camels. There were magical short walks and our first taste of the outback. If I came back to Australia, I’d want to spend more time in the Flinders, it is very beautiful and relatively accessible and not as daunting as the rest.
After a short stop to see the very rare yellow footed rock wallabies we headed north into stony deserts called gibber plains and after crossing a dune called Priscilla we camped on the salty shores of Lake Eyre south. Every night, we slept in our swags, heavy canvas bivvy bags, all with a name, mine was called Monica Lewinsky. It was cold, had to put on all my layers but the sky was a treat, satellites, shooting stars, the Southern Cross and Orion looking decidedly wonky, such is the southern hemisphere.
In the morning we headed along the old Ghan railway, ruins telling of broken settler dreams along the way and a visit to our first mound springs, bubbling up from the artesian basin and creating an illusion of lush possibilities in this arid land. Then it was on to the Opal town of Coober Pedy. We visited an opal mine, usual chit chat, enjoyed a shower and pizza in a restaurant and a night in an underground house which stays at about 22 degrees all the time. It rained a bit overnight, something to be celebrated in this dessicated continent.

A morning walk in the Painted Desert was one of the trip highlights then after a long rattling drive in dust and heat and a short stop for lunch at the Oodnadatta Pink Roadhouse, we came to the Dalhousie ruin on a palm adorned mound spring at sunset. Another broken dream, an Irish family called Bagot lived here from the 1880s to the early 20th century, hoping to make their fortune in cattle The interpretive sign told us that in spite of isolation and many hardships they had an enviable social life.
It was a hot day but bearable until Dalhousie Springs in Witjira National Park where the pool was 37, not cooling enough for me. Then the mozzies set in, not a good night, wore a net and used Deet. This experience spawned a bunch of limericks. There were dingos around the campsite, they stole a flip flop from a neighbouring camper. Rick warned us not to leave shoes outside our swags.


On the dusty rough road to Witjira The night spent at Dalhousie Springs
Our mission could not have been clearer Was tortured by creatures with wings
To jump in a pool It was such a pain
Far too hot, so uncool Don’t go there again
Not worth the diesel said Vera Cos everyone’s covered with stings

Escaping the mozzies we drove through part of the Simpson desert, very beautiful, saw the “mouth” of the Finke River, one of the world’s oldest rivers which of course is dry most of the time but supports magnificent Red River Gums spotted the scarlet Sturt’s Desert Pea, and camped in a magical spot at Kulgera, on sand but surrounded with red rocks and boulders. I am now more familiar with the trees, can tell a gum from a wattle. Most of the latter are in flower, yellow or creamy blossoms. The gums have magnificent bark, ghost gums, pure white are my favourites
We were coming to the end of our real outback experiences, approaching the more visited sites, Uluru (Ayers Rock) Kaja Tjuta (The Olgas) and Kings Canyon. More on that in my next post.

Giant Bats and No Worries

First Impressions of Australia
August 16 - 19 2009

Sun in the north, darkness at 6pm and no leaves on certain trees were the clues that this was not a fine summer Sunday in Sydney. The locals were soaking up the unseasonably warm winter weather, filling the patios of pubs and cafes. Sydney harbour was busy with ferries and sails. My eyes were briefly drawn to the familiar, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. But more compelling is the flora, I am amongst strangers with names like Ficus, Grevillea, Banksia and Jacaranda. Homo sapiens is very recognizable but unlike its northern hemisphere cousins, seems to be eternally cheerful, chanting the mantra of “no worries” on every contact and obviously dedicated to life outdoors.
Downtown Sydney has some beautifully preserved Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Unlike most New World cities, it was not built on a grid pattern which has resulted in interesting streetscapes showing off a blend of old and new. The waterfront is superb and seemingly endless along the convoluted north and south shores of the Paramatta River estuary. Domestic architecture is a blend of mediterranean villas and early to mid 20th century English suburbs, bungalows and houses with gardens, walls, gates and even small lawns. There are very few high rises beyond the downtown core.
The highlights of these first few days were glimpses of wild Australia. On a visit to the Taronga Zoo, I met the quintessential and less well known Australian fauna, all except the echidna who was hiding under a rock. I strolled in the rainforest aviary, listening to the many sounds of the tropics and was crapped on by a Superb Fruit Dove. In the Botanical Gardens I saw the giant flying foxes, roosting in broad daylight and playing havoc with some fine specimen trees. I took many rides on Sydney buses and ferries, one to Manly where I walked through Banksia scrub to North Head at the mouth of Sydney harbour gazed towards the Antarctic, saw a whale and a pod of dolphins. As a modern adventurer seeing Australia for the first time I cast my thoughts to Captain James Cook, Joseph Banks and Charles Darwin. I was reminded of the original inhabitants by the sounds of a didgeridoo at Circular Quay where the first white settlers landed. Not bad for a penal colony.

Australia Bound

I am posting this at Pearson Airport, Toronto where I am waiting to board my flight to Sydney
What a wonderful summer this has been, singing in the Indian River Festival Chorus, visiting my favourite places in Prince Edward Island Greenwich, Blooming Point, Bothwell and preparing for seven months downunder I lived in Van of Exploits from mid May until a couple of weeks ago staying in Canoe Cove, the Bannockburn Road, Cabot Park and Kingsboro, I scooted and cycled on little used roads in forests, along shores and even one long excursion to Halifax on Prugna along the back roads of Cumberland and Halifax counties, out to the Atlantic shore and into Dartmouth where the Tall Ships were were readying to leave. It was a most spectacular site, this is how the Halifax Harbour must have looked on any given day in the 1800s

Another foray to the mainland took me to Joggins and the new Fossil Research Centre,
I had visited several times but this was a superior visit. We took a guided tour in the footsteps of Lyell and Dawson through the Carboniferous forests. Our guide was a geology student who was very passionate about palaeontology, past, present and future. We visited the new interpretive centre which is a work of art and science. The centre itself is LEED certified, it has a green roof and various other features of buildings of the future.

The past two weeks have been countdown to Sydney, packing, tying up all those things that need attention when one is away from home for 8 months, saying goodbye to friends and now en route.

From Quebec City to Prince Edward Island

Dear Friends this is the last entry for a while...and a very short one. I am on my way ‘home’ whatever that word means. I came to Quebec City and environs to re-visit my time here in the 80s.....changes everywhere of course But it is a most magical place to visit even if not to live. We went to the market on the Old Port, full of local products, charcuterie, patisserie poissonerie etcetera. And we went to a vernissage at the Musee des Beaux Arts.....such chic women of all ages and the men, well they looked liked regular canucks. And I spent good times with friends I made when I lived here in the 80s. We cycled to Cap Rouge and visited the Maison Leon Provancher, he was the father of the Flore Canadienne and did many other natural history investigations. Then I boarded the train for Moncton, New Brunswick on a Sunday evening and woke up to the glory of the Matapedia Valley and eventually Prince Edward Island. It is May 10th and I’m back with good friends and very familiar places

I’ll post again when I depart for Australia in August.

Toronto to Quebec City via Saguenay April 28th to May 5th

To Montreal, from Toronto, along the shore of Lake Ontario and then into the St Lawrence Lowlands of eastern Ontario. We have left the huge rivers of the west and I am now in the St Lawrence Basin The five great lakes are fed by rivers in Ontario, Quebec, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa from these US states what doesn’t flow in the Great Lakes Basin goes to the Mississippi. For me the land encompassed by watersheds is so much more evocative than that bounded by political and administrative lines. I am also musing on the term river, “riviere” in French but not the St Lawrence which in French is a “fleuve” a much mightier being for which there is no word in English

I have one night in Montreal and decide to treat myself to a room at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. As the rain clears and the evening sun comes out I am rewarded with a view from the 12th floor pad of the basilica, Mary Queen of the World which is a copy of St Peters in Rome a tad smaller but quite impressive against its back drop of skyscrapers and a distant view of the St Lawrence. I open the window and hear the bells chanting “Yesterday” after all it is the 50th anniversary of John and Yoko’s bed in at this hotel. Their suite is available ....at a price.

The next day I descend by elevator to the station and shop for breakfast and lunch in Les Halles de Gare, a veritable tour of world cuisines. Then onto the train for Jonquiere and another treat of changing landscapes.

We loop around the Island of Montreal and eventually leave the city at Pointe Aux Trembles. At first we are in typical St Lawrence lowlands and things look further ahead than they did yesterday around Toronto. Some fields are already planted and the day and the landscape seem very inviting in the sun. After Joliette, where quite a few people get on, we leave the lowlands and head towards the Mauricie. Farmland and lots of hardwood woodlots, many are sugar bushes and the bright blue sap lines are very visible. The maples and birches are in flower giving the grey woods of winter a reddish and yellow hue, it is a subtle change in the landscape before the big shift to green. We pass waterfalls and hiking trails and I want to be out walking in the spring woods. Into Shawinigan for a short stop, the town where the first hydro electricity plant was established and the first to have electric street lighting in Canada.

After Shawinigan, we begin to leave the farmland and sugar bush for wilderness, after Riviere a Pierre it is swollen white water rivers, waterfalls cliffs, and the occasional cluster of cabins, accessible only by train or all terrain vehicle. We descend to Chambord on the shores of Lac St Jean, an inland sea. We travel east then along the Saguenay to Jonquiere where the Moisans meet me with bells on. We do a quick tour of the area of Chicoutimi that was washed out by the flash flood of 1996 and see the little white house that became the image of this flood on TV and in newspapers across the country It is now a museum but alas closed until later in May. (http://www.museedufjord.com/inondations/saguenay_eng/impacts_chicoutimi_eng.htm)

The next day we visit the ruins of the pulp mill in Chicoutimi, a magnificent site with a museum also not open.
Chicoutimi is the urban centre of this region known as Saguenay/Lac St Jean. It is beautifully situated at the junction of the Chicoutimi and Saguenay rivers The town obviously values its past, there is a University and I have a sense that it is rich culturally as well, lots of artists, musicians and theatre but friends tell me that the current mayor doesn’t value history and culture and is doing much to undo the quality of life in the Saguenay.
This voyage has sent me on many trips trips down memory lane, this one happened when I saw the smokestacks of the aluminium smelter at Arvida and the terminal where the bauxite is unloaded after its voyage from Jamaica. up the Atlantic Coast, into the Gulf of St Lawrence and finally up the Saguenay
I am back in Mr Collinsons geography class at Northllerton Grammar School in 1963......learning about hydro-electricity in Canada and how it made aluminium smelters possible. I am marking the Saguenay River and Arvida on a handrawn map in my orange exercise book .

We visit the worlds first aluminium bridge and and an elegant aluminium footbridge before I board the train for Riviere a Pierre where I am met by Colleen for a leisurely drive to Quebec City.

Mon Pays, C’est l’Hiver or Life is a River.

Much of this trip has taken me alongside and over some of Canada’s magnificent rivers, we are the envy of the world when it comes to freshwater but we squander. I've experienced the Skeena and the Fraser in the west, the Athabaska, the North Saskatchewan, the Q’Appelle, the Assiniboine and the Red in the central plains. This stopover in Winnipeg is all about water. Manitobans were prepared for this year’s floods and the Red River has crested and is beginning to drop but I see some houses alongside the river still sandbagged for protection and roads alongside the river closed. I hear about the hard work and camaraderie of the human chains who transfer the sandbags to the river’s edge. Winnipeg itself is protected from the worst of the floods by the Red River floodway, a large overflow ditch built in the 60’s and skirting the city on the east side, it too is full of water.

The other watery experience is a visit to Oak Hammock Marsh a vast wetland between Winnipeg and Lake Winnipeg and a stopping off spot for migratory birds and home to many others. It is named for a small patch of Burr Oak, apparently just enough to string a hammock. Today redwing blackbirds, killdeer, Canada geese, many species of ducks and coots are busying themselves on the open water but much of the marsh still has ice. I note that the Tundra Swan is an occasional visitor to this marsh. This bird evokes something for me, not quite sure what. I’d like to see one someday and feel a little closer now that I know our paths have crossed.

The marsh has a superb interpretive centre, built of limestone, that beautiful fossil filled Tyndall stone, it is roughly hewn not polished as it is on Parliament Hill. The building is nestled in berms covered with native vegetation. It also has a green roof and already a Canada Goose and a Killdeer are nesting on the roof. It will be a bit of a challenge for the goslings to make it to water but apparently with help of staff of the centre they will make it safely down from the roof and into the marsh. In the centre there are excellent displays and information on wetland ecology, a great contribution to eco-literacy for Manitobans and visitors of all ages.

We pass Stony Mountain Penitentiary en route for the marsh, I knew it was in Manitoba but wondered why a prison in the prairies would have such a name, well it rises like a grim grey stony fortress from these plains and reminds me how much the social fabric of this country is fractured.

Later that day I board the train and catch up with Mark from Melbourne who has become a Canucks fan. He is watching the game in the station and delighted that it ends before the train departs. The journey to Toronto is 36 hours and most of it, in the daylight hours, is through the most monotonous landscape of this trip. The train takes a northern track which is far from the shores of Lake Superior. It is the Canadian Shield, black spruce, jack pine, bogs and lakes. Today it is very wintry, in one nameless distant place there is fresh snow on the trees. We stop in Hornepayne and I suggest to my German travelling companions that a breath of fresh air might be a good idea, they reject the idea...too cold they say. I tell them of Gilles Vigneault’s anthem, "Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver. "

In the morning we are in the landscape often painted by The Group of Seven, white pine, lakes and granite boulders. There is no snow, but few signs of spring until we are close to Toronto. The train travels along the Don Valley one of Toronto’s famous green ravines , mostly parkland, and a river with an occasional glimpse or a more urban landscape on the edge of the valley re, it really is a very picturesque way to enter Toronto. Friends tell me that the Don now has salmon again and that some years they (the friends) participate in a spring river run in canoes. So many rivers and streams have been paved and destroyed in other cities. We come out of the green ravine and turn west towards the station, Toronto’s lakefront skyline a striking contrast to the Don Valley and much changed since I lived here over 30 years ago.
I spend my time in Toronto strolling in old haunts, working on ankle rehab at the downtown Y and visiting old friends. The highlight is on Sunday afternoon at Grace on the Hill, Bach’s Mass in B flat Minor, sung by Pax Christi, a Mennonite choir. Turns out I know 3 people in the choir and am staying with a friend who almost joined. Before the concert we are entertained by Howard Dyck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dyck) on Bach, numerology and the Mass.

Ah music, I dedicate this blog entry to two great Canadians, who write and sing with such passion of experiencing the Canadian landscapein the broadest sense of the term, Gilles Vigneault and Murray McLaughlin

From Jasper to Winnipeg

After two days in the mountain air of Jasper, testing the walking limits of my ankle I boarded the train for Edmonton, an evening run in coach class leaving the mountains and entering wooded foothills before dark and a late evening arrival in Alberta’s provincial capital.
I spent two days in the city with a friend mostly catching up on each others lives as we had not seen each other for about 15 years. Had a great walk by the North Saskatchewan River and an excursion to the Strathcona Farmer’s Market, quite impressive and I am sure even more so when the local fresh produce is in season.
Saturday evening and I am on the train eastbound in a lower berth. I wake up soon after dawn when we are travelling through undulating prairie north east of Saskatoon I watch the hoar frost melt in the morning sun which leaves the stubble fields with a pale yellow hue, and sloughs with remnants of ice and ducks and geese. Then we enter a mist and arrive in Saskatoon where it is cloudy and on to flatter prairie as we go towards SE Saskatchewan and approach the Manitoba border. The prairies are impressive not only in their size but in the diversity of landforms , only a few of which can seen seen from this rail track. This journey reminds me of times past when I have been on the ground in native grassland....with antelope and burrowing owl

Now in mid afternoon we switch to Central Time as we enter Manitoba and we are in a broad moist valley with coulees, the Qu’Appelle I think. Pussy Willows are in full bloom. Towards Winnipeg, through flat rich dark earth waiting to be seeded with wheat, canola and flax. The station in Winnipeg is impressive, an original in Beaux Arts style like Toronto and Montreal. It is quite a contrast to the modern boxes (Prince Rupert and Edmonton) or the boarded up old stations we have seen en route. My companions on this train are great company, with tales of train travels about the world. In Winnipeg, which is battling spring floods from the Red River we go our separate ways some on to Toronto, others on the polar bear express to Hudson’s Bay. I will spend a couple of days in Winnipeg.

A Train Trip to Remember on the Skeena from Prince Rupert to Jasper
April 12th, To the station early then lengthy process to get my railpass and make bookings. The clerk was attentive but somewhat bumbling, however he found me accommodation in PG and reserved some sleeping accommodation for trains to Winnipeg and Toronto. The train is called the Skeena and runs from Prince Rupert to Jasper, taking two days with an overnight stop in Prince Rupert, no berths on this train. There are just two coaches, one with dome, it is an old train, apparently replaced with something fancier in high season.
We set off along the coast, past the container terminal and grain terminal, both still operating but not as busy as they were in the 80s and 90s. Then we turn inland along the north bank of the Skeena River which is huge and tidal for many miles and flanked by spectacular scenery, clouds hanging on the side of sunlit snow capped mountains Many mountainsides have evidence of avalanches The first four hours of the journey are along the Skeena . Higher up the river is narrower the valley wider, we have come through the coastal range, still in mountainous country but it much more open. There are numerous short tunnels and our first stop is Terrace then Smithers. At one point we stop at a small place called Dorreen and drop off a couple who have built a retreat in the forest, it powered by the sun and heated with wood. Nearby someone is building a log house and living in a tipi.
After Smithers we leave mountains and the terrain is more like northern New Brunswick, hilly, forested but plenty of open land, some cattle farms. And many huge lumber yards and sawmills. We pass freight trains, the first with containers, the containers that bring all those consumer goods into Canada from China but what do they contain on the return journey, then a grain train and another grain train.
The conductor says freight trains are few and far between today as it is Easter Sunday...they do slow our progress. Many people got off the train in Smithers so it isn’t very busy, just me and a native couple in the dome car They are returning home after visiting their grandchildren in P. Rupert then there are a few passengers including two families with kids in the coach.

It is late afternoon and we are now in the Fraser watershed, the pussy willows are in full bloom but there is plenty of snow on the ground. It is cloudy and rainy as on the coast but for much of the day it has been sunny.
The conductor, known these days as a customer service manager, Gilbert is a franco-Manitoban. He has just pointed out the smallest provincial park in Canada, an island in Burns Lake dedicated to workers who lost their lives blasting out the railroad over a hundred years ago.

On that topic we also passed the home of the world’s largest fly fishing rod and largest rainbow trout sculpture. This is fitting, since the day started on this theme with the clerk in P.Rupert telling me about his cross Canada trip which took in the world’s largest axe, in Nakawic, New Brunswick and the world’s largest pysanka (Ukrainian egg) in Vegreville Alberta.

April 13th
Had a very warm welcome at the Fox Hollow B&B from Kathy and Bob Weston, camomile tea and apple pie before bed, a great sleep and then breakfast and lively conversation about choirs, wildlife, travelling B&Bs etc. They dropped me at the train after I picked up supplies for the day; the train snack selection is pitiful.

We soon begin to see mountains again as we travel along the mighty Fraser River. I cast a thought for Masayo who gave me two wonderful massages on SaltSpring, she is from a fishing family and spent her childhood at the mouth of the Fraser in a little community now swallowed up by Richmond. Our first stop is at Penny to drop off a passenger outside her house and our second is 100 metres along the track also in Penny to drop off the mail at the post office. Penny is only accessible by road in the summer. We pass Mount Bagg and Mt Rider the latter named after Rider Haggard who took this train in 1919.

After our third and last stop at McBride we see the Cariboo range on one side and the Rockies on the other, the mountains get larger, the valley where the train travels narrower but as we approach Mt Robson, cloud obscures most of Canada’s highest mountain. We leave the Fraser watershed as we go through the YellowHead Pass for a smooth descent to Jasper.

Add the Skeena rail trip to your list of must dos

What a contrast, from the urbane and other worldy reaches of southern BC to Prince Rupert a utilitarian port, where forestry and fishing dominate the economy, beyond is Alaska. It really has a northern feel and look, boxy buildings sprawling along the waterfront, no landscaping, big cars and trucks all against a backdrop of forested mountains. I have left local food and the 100 mile diet far behind. The fish in fish and chips here, is halibut. The Museum of Northern British Columbia, next door to my hotel tells the settlement and exploitation history of this area but is known for its fine collection of first nations art and a workshop where many artists carve and paint. Today being Easter Saturday no-one was at work. The pre-european history is told from a first nations perspective.
The cold rain which greeted my arrival has given way to pale sun, a very fat rainbow straddles the mountainside to the north. I think I will venture into town on my steadily improving ankle to find a copy of the Globe and Mail. Tomorrow I take the train for a two day journey through the mountains to Jasper in Alberta.

Well here I am on SaltSpring Island in British Columbia, sometimes referred to locally as an Island in a Sea of Jealously. It is idyllic and favoured by artists and a few low key celebs as home but definitely not Beverley Hills. The resource rapers seem to be held at bay but there are still far too many cars and even clear cutting of the magnificent cedars and firs of the west coast rain forest. My friend Linda who once had a herb farm on PEI now works for the nature conservancy here and is something of an expert on year round west coast gardening, writing books and giving talks all over the place.
I arrived in Vancouver a week ago after having to be (snow) ploughed out in order to get to the airport in Charlottetown. The next day in Vancouver, it snowed. Then I spent two days on Vancouver Island with a friend I met at a singing celebration in a field in Saskatchewan a few years ago and then came south by road and ferry to SaltSpring.

The west coast has such a different feel from the east coast, richer (in $) warmer (climatically) but I'm not sure whether the quality of life is any better It is sometimes a bit too precious and there is a sense that the rest of Canada really doesn't count or matter. For my friends in PEI, almost everyone in SaltSpring is "from away"

My First Post

I write this just before setting off on more of my nomadic life. I'm off to Vancouver on March 31st: then after visiting friends in various parts of the Pacific Rim I will fly up to Prince Rupert and start a train odyssey back to Atlantic Canada, stopping off along the way to experience this great country and visit good old friends along the way