No Logo – Naomi Klein. Finally finished reading this (thanks to Louise for the loan). Great book with lots of fascinating insight into both multi-nationals and their brand images and the grassroots movements helping keep them in check. Real eye opener on what goes on behind the scenes of big business, even at the simple, manufacturing levels.
Category: Musings
Even cowgirls get the blues – Tom Robbins. Wow. Another great book. I’ve only read Still Life with Woodpecker before this and wasn’t hugely impressed (although it was a good read). Blues on the other hand is an wonderful romp through Robbins’ imagination and philosophical outlook on life. Large thumbs, philosophy, sex and hitch hiking all blend together easily within Robbins’ poetic style to make a book that transcends a simple description. It also is in no way properley represented by the film of the same name… Read it. NOW! Unless you don’t want to of course.
I’m on top of the world!
Well, actually I’m now in an Internet cafe in Taupo – an extremely touristy town at the north end of Lake Taupo, New Zealand’s biggest lake. Lake Taupo is an old volcanic crater, like much of the central plain in the north island. The camp site we’re currently staying at has it’s own thermal spring based hot tubs which are absolutely lovely and a lot less stinky than the ones down in Rotorua (although a lot less impressive as well). All in all, an amazingly beautiful area and we’ve been extremely lucky to get some amazing sunshine which was with us as we visited the surfing town of Raglan on the west coast and had some of the best sushi in months…
This luck also extended to a beautifully clear day walking along the Tongariro Crossing. This day started slightly earlier than usual – having to get up at 6.30am for a bus to the start of the walk. An easy start gets you warmed up before hitting the devil’s staircase, a 300 foot ascent as steep as most house stairs. All of this was made more interesting by an iron man competition running past us as we puffed and panted our way up (it’s been a few years since I did any serious hiking and it was showing). At the top you reach the first of a few volcanic craters, this one a big, open expense of red dirt and a nice flat break before another steep walk.
The top of that section was pretty much the top of the route we were taking, and the views were absolutely amazing. You could see pretty much from coast to coast if you could tear your eyes away from the nearby scenery. The perfect cone of still active Ngauruhoe to the south, volcanic ‘trees’ to the east, a steaming grey fissure torn from the surrounding brown hill to the north and our ascent to the east. We sat for a few minutes to have lunch, and were immediately swarmed by the only animal life up there – hundreds of huge blue bottles. Very surreal!
After the lunch, a rapid descent down to the sulphurous emerald lakes down loose scree. As soon as we stopped trying to keep our balance and just ran down things went a lot more smoothly. Past the lakes, where hundreds of saturday hikers such as us were stopped for dinner, another flat crater, this time with an amazing frozen lake of volcanic rock, frozen like a big pool where it had flowed from the volcano. Then another steep slope, followed by views down onto the blue lake – another huge clear lake in an old crater. Then it was all downhill – although still another three hours to go – before we reached the car park for the trip home, passing hot springs and down alongside fast flowing streams in mystical woods.
All in all an amazing trip and one I heartily recommend to anyone else heading to New Zealand. It’s not an easy climb and we were extremely lucky with the weather. Apparently a few people die each year on the walk and, having seen the age (and girth) of some of the people hiking with minimal supplies, I’m not at all surprised. The parks councils in New Zealand are desperately trying to change the view of the crossing as the ‘best one day hike in New Zealand’, as that doesn’t express some of the dangers associated with it! I certainly felt pretty woozy from my vertigo standing at the very top, and at the edge of the amazing volcanic outcrops.
With that under our belts for the day we had a celebratory drink at Cafe Habitat – a backpacking hostel/bar in town, actually pretty much the only bar in town! There we met Charly, an Aussie bartender with whom I invented a new cocktail – the ‘Even cocksucking cowgirls get the blues’, an evolution from the original cocksucking cowboy (via the cocksucking cowgirl and influenced by the wonderful Tom Robbins book). For those keen follows of bartendology, this consists of kahlua, butterscotch snapps, blue curacao and baileys – I’ll leave the relative mix as an exercise for the reader.
New day, New Zealand
Yep, the puns keep getting betterer… I’m now in rainy Auckland, just landed from Melbourne an enjoying the ‘delights’ of the Budget Inn on Beach road. These delights are made even more pleasent by there being a karaoke club on the floor above me! Not quite sure of the logic on that, but it explains why there are umpteen hundred young oriental lads and ladettes wondering through the lobby (at first I thought the place was just popular with Japanese backpackers).
Next stop is sorting out a new phone, as my Oz mobile won’t work over here… In theory should just be a case of getting a new sim card and slotting it in, but you never know.
(Mel)Born to be wild
Hmm… I seem to have been a bit remiss in my blogging again! Tried to do an update a few days ago but Blogger seemed to be down – guess the transition to Google owned property isn’t 100% smooth… Given that I’m forgiven I shall carry on regardless.
I’ve been in Melbourne for almost a week now. It’s a great little place. Much more spread out than Melbourne and a lot more laid back in general. All the fun action in town is focussed around the CBD (Central Business District) and Fitzroy, all handily linked by Melbourne’s wonderful trams. It is these trams that are the cause of a local traffic feature not to be seen elsewhere – having to pull into the left of a road to turn right (if you waited in the middle you’d be tram fodder). Apparently in the old days you were asked which five junctions this rule applied to as it was such a strange one – thanks to Nigel my god father for that nugget.
The weather has been mildly erratic to say the least. When I first arrived it was a chilly 20 c, a slight shock post Byron Bay’s almost tropical weather. A week later when we arrived back in from Lorne it was 40 c, but very dry – not at all as brutal as New York’s humid 35 highs. Now it’s 17 c with major winds and rainstorms, not to mention hail – so as you can see it’s important to check the weather before you step outside.
Weather aside I’ve been having some very entertaining nights out, mostly along Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. The food along here is also superb. There is also a very strong arts scene and lots of great little galleries located all over the place. On the downside margeritas seem overprices in the First Floor bar…
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel – haruki murakami. An organisation that encrypts information by using people’s own brains? A professor and his plump, pink wearing daughter in a sound removed underground lab? The main hero is mid-30s, divorced and a bit of a loner with a habit of random sexual encounters with librarians? It could only be a Murakami book. This story reads a lot like Iain M Banks, although it transpires that Murakami wrote this long before the Internet was popular and before Banks got his act together to write quality sci-fi prose. With that background it makes the book even more impressive, with a very contemporary air. As usual, the ending is less than conclusive though, leaving you wanting much much more!
delusions of grandma – carrie fisher. Having read a few of Fisher’s books this one came as no real surprise. The story basically follows Fisher’s own pregnancy with some fictional elements woven around it. Her characters drip wit, especially the main character – ie, herself, and many lines are extremely funny. Ended up feeling a bit like the plot was grafted onto the funny one-liners though. Good holiday read.
Coastin’
Now down in the sunny town of Lorne, on the south coast of Victoria. One of the great things about Victoria is that its residents are Victorians, but none of them seem to be wearing bustles or starched collars – pretty much the opposite down here (which is much more entertaining in general). I’ve been driving around with Stephen and we’ve just gotten back from Ballarat, as mentioned in Oscar and Lucinda and home to much gold mining related tourism – the town’s a bit dull, but the tourist-tastic goldmine town recreation was pretty amusing.
Duct tape and cover
Just been getting lots of mails from people in New York and London about what’s happening up north. New York is currently snowed in under a major blizzard, as well as taping up their windows in case of terrorist gas attack. London is just cold and grey and reeling under Ken’s lovely congestion charge. Sigh. And as for the other major, English speaking white dominated country about to start world war three (ie, Australia) – it’s hot and sunny and noone seems to have a care in the world, especially as a large number of the local peace protests seem to involve heaploads of nudity – bless. Should try some of that myself to get rid of these unsightly tanlines…
I’m about to head off from Sydney, having enjoyed a splendid $5 steak meal at the Forrester hotel last night, with Melbourne being my next destination. Plan to do the coast road for a bit then hang out in Melbourne before I head over to New Zealand. The trip is going way too fast and, to be honest, I really don’t feel like heading back to the aforementioned cold armageddon stylings of the northern hemisphere. Meanwhile I checked out some of Tracey Emin’s latest ‘work’ at the Art Gallery of NSW – complete shite. Now I’m sorry if I offended a whole pile of art experts here who understand where she comes from with what she does, but it really is un-inspiring unless you aspire to produce bollox. On the other hand a retrospective of David Moore, an Aussie photographer, was wonderful – as was a collection of aboriginal art.
Snags and Green Wall
Just got back to the Arts Factory hostel in Byron Bay after a second Surfari trip. This time I left from Byron Bay rather than Sydney, which meant that I got an extra day down at Plombers Point. I’d been a bit disorganised before this trip and had actually driven down to Coffs Harbour (3 hours south of Byron Bay) to visit an old friend who lived there. This meant I had to get up at 3.30am and drive back up to Byron, drop off the hire car, then catch the Surfari bus at 8pm back down past Coffs Harbour (about 8 hours after I’d left it). Ah well. Did mean I got to see some beautiful early morning scenary – mist covered fields and surfers out for sunrise breaks.
This Surfari trip was completely different from the first one. This was due to a combination of knowing more about how things worked and the weather being absolutely amazing – good, solid waves for learning and for some amazing demonstrations of surfing prowess from the instructors. My surfing has now progessed from occasional standing on white water to some spectacular wipeouts on waves that seemed to tower above me as I tried to get on them. I’m hoping Sheep (aka Steve Shearer) managed to get some good video footage that I’ll see tonight at the finish party. Sheep is an extremely cool guy – very in to his yoga and surfing, as are all the instructors (Jack, Kurt, Rosco and Raine) – thanks to all of you for another great trip! Who knows, maybe I’ll do another yet before I leave Oz. On which note I now need to go and work out what’s next on the agenda…