Category Archives: Uncategorized

I Would Walk, well drive, 500 Miles – part one

Posted on by

Unlike the Proclaimers, we are not prepared to walk 500 miles, or 500 more for that matter. We will drive the North Coast 500 (NC500), a road trip north from Inverness, up the east coast, across the top and down the west coast. We hear/read rumours of campervans clogging up the roads, and of locals, pissed off with tourists clogging up the roads, waving pitchforks and shouting curses.  Far from it. The locals we encounter could not be more friendly or helpful, traffic is sparse, particularly on the West Coast and almost everyone understands how to drive on narrow winding roads. Even Germans in campervans. 

Our friend Fiona, you’ll remember her as she who shall remain nameless, frequently describes the weather as ‘mean and moody’ – in a Scottish accent it sounds more exotic and mysterious. It really means threatening dark clouds, and we get to use the expression a lot. But there’s never enough rain to thwart our plans. 

The great thing about Scotland, and the Highlands in particular, is that it does what it says on the tin. Castles and kilts? Check. Ancient ruins? Check. Amazing history and battle sites? Check. Wild heather-clad landscape? Check. Whiskey distilleries? Multiple checks. Shortbread, haggis, tattie scones, black pudding? Check, mate.

We find two or three types of castles: those in ruins; those partly lived in by fading gentry with accents like a half chewed brussel sprout, where some areas open to the public in a desperate effort to defray the enormous running costs; and those where the families have fled the mounting mountains of debt and given over the ownership/running to a trust or the National Trust. Ruins are easy. You’ve seen one pile of ancient ruins you’ve seen them all, the Dowager Lady Grantham not withstanding.

Glamis Castle, ancestral seat of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne since 1372.

The others are more interesting. I’m not exactly obsessed with Macbeth, but it’s my favourite Shakespeare play so I’m very keen to visit Glamis Castle, said to be the inspiration for the play. They’re not afraid to milk the story either. In the grounds there’s a series of sculptures of scenes from the play, carved from oak or Douglas fir from the forest in the massive grounds. This allows me to run out my favourite lines; “Is this a dagger I see before me?” I don’t know why, but I always hear this in a John Wayne voice; and “Out damned spot” which makes me think of my mother shouting at the farm dogs, even though we never had one called Spot.

When shall we three meet again
Banquo “ O treachery”
Macduff “I have no words: my voice is my sword “

There’s more contemporary history associated with the castle as, in news to me, it was the childhood home of the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. In more new news, unless you are an unashamed monarchist (you know who you are), the late Princess Margaret was born in this very castle, and there’s a memorial to her in the gardens. I think it must be coincidence that it looks like a giant glass of gin.

After Glamis, we don’t think we need to see inside another castle, but Dunrobin is highly recommended, especially the gardens. And it’s well worth the stop, as it’s one of Britain’s oldest continuously inhabited houses dating back to the early 1300s, home to the Earls and Dukes of Sutherland, not that that means anything to us. It’s massive, with 189 rooms. Imagine the upkeep. Do I have to say we don’t access all areas? They like to keep the paying public at sword’s length. But, as advertised, the gardens are fabulous, especially when we view them from above, from the castle terrace. There’s a falcon flying demonstration in play.

We reach Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of both mainland Scotland and the island of Great Britain. Yes, I know everyone says it’s John O’Groats, and we tick that off the list as well, but John O’Groats is the northernmost VILLAGE, not land. Apparently these differences are important, but it’s all fairly windswept and bleak.

Anyhoo, we stay in Thurso (the northernmost TOWN), and the most intriguing thing about it is the weird contraption in the corner of our rather shabby hotel room. What the heck is it? Answers in the comments please. A day trip from Thurso to Orkney is fantastic, but I’ll save that for another blog.

Once we leave Thurso and head west life gets more interesting. No more two way roads, it’s all narrow one way traffic with a passing place every 100 yards or so, so theoretically it all runs smoothly. There’s the odd muppet who thinks they own the road and barrel on regardless, but not many. We take random side roads and find the unexpected. In one case an excellent chocolate shop quite literally in the middle of nowhere. And it’s busy. Clearly the siren song of chocolate is as addictive as crack cocaine. The landscape is magnificent: wide open, heather clad low hills which, in some places, if you took out the heather and put in tussock, could be the Desert Road in central North Island New Zealand. Then in a few miles (we somehow revert to imperial distance measures) you’ll be driving through boulder strewn paddocks, then shortly after, granite banks crowd the road. It’s all stunning.

The Summer Isles live up to their name on the second day there. Lucky we stayed on. Brilliant clear skiers and a very light breeze. Scott, with the instincts of a homing pigeon, has gotten himself a spot on a boat for a fishing competition nearby.  I set off on our planned walk around Achlochan Coastal Path. Did I mention it’s a stunning day? Not hot, this is Scotland, just pleasant. The walk winds down to the remains of a broch – a circular dry-stone tower large enough to serve as a fortified home on the coast. There are also remains of crofters’ cottages, built from stone taken from the broch, and kelp kilns.  

I grew up on a farm, but on this walk I encounter a bull with the biggest set of testicles I’ve ever seen. He also has a big set of horns. And I have my bright red fleece tied around my waist. I quickly revise everything I know about bullfighting. My matador skills have never been tested. I’m not confident. Luckily he’s more interested in grazing than goring and I sidle past, red fleece clutched in a small bundle. It’s such a lovely day I don’t need it anyway.

We continue south, our NC500 behind us. Highly recommend the drive, or walk if you prefer, no matter the weather, and weather you will have. By now we are considerably more well padded, having our daily “Full Scottish” breakfast. This is a “Full English” – bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, eggs – with the addition of black pudding, haggis, and a potato scone – the type of breakfast that suggests a heart attack before lunch.

The Tattoo, Trainspotting, and Thoroghbreds

Posted on by

We arrive in Edinburgh in the middle of the second week of the Fringe Festival. As it’s the world’s largest performance arts festival, the town is heaving. Over 25 days, there are more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,317 different shows across 262 venues from 58 different countries. And the only show to sell out it’s full run before the Festival even starts, is NZ’s own Rose Matafeo, who is something of a festival darling after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2018, an a subsequent hit TV show in the UK.

Before we leave NZ I look at the program online, but with over 3,000 shows to choose from, my eyes glaze over, my decision making capabilities fall off the cliff, and my brain says FFS just wing it. So we wing it. And it’s easy. Turn up at one of the multi venue performance areas, and get tickets for whatever’s on next. You might be offended, or bored, or challenged, or laugh out loud, or think deeply, or be annoyed. In this careful world there are audience warnings posted outside shows, but you don’t come to the Fringe if you’re of a sensitive disposition. The only one that scares most people is audience participation.

Over five days we see 10 shows: drag, comedy, drama, music, theatre and love nearly all of it. Then there’s the showpiece, the famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which doesn’t come with warnings, except for possible rain, and there’s zero chance of audience participation. We’re looking forward to this. Several years ago the New Zealand International Festival brought the Edinburgh Tattoo to NZ. We went, and it was a fantastic display of synchronised marching, band music, and drumming precision. The Royal Navy is the boss this year, so after a rousing opening with about 72,000 drummers and pipers, they form up into the shape of an anchor.

We enjoy most of what follows, but somewhere along the way the Tattoo has morphed. There’s no commentary so it’s a guessing game as to who’s who. We recognise the Swiss drummers from seeing them in Wellington a few years ago. Their coordinated exchanges of drumsticks is mesmerising and very memorable. There are some American marines – for some extraordinary reason they sing the theme to Top Gun. I half expect Tom Cruise to rappel down the castle. We have Highland dancing. O-kaaayyy. However we’re a bit confused when Bollywood comes to town. We have the Taj Mahal projected onto the Castle, two glittery singers, a troupe of Bhangra dancers and Rajasthani bagpipers. We’re more confused when women in floaty frocks drift into the arena and sing songs we don’t recognise but hope have so ething to do with the sea. We have more singing and dancing than displays of military skills. I’m all for cultural diversity but failing to see the military connection. The clue is in the title: Military Tattoo. This show feels like a version of Britain’s Got Talent. The creative director of the show needs some time in the naughty corner to think about their decisions.

A day trip to Dundee is full of surprises. Towards the end of the Victorian era, the city was famous for Jute, Jam and Journalism. By the end of the 19th century, about 40,000 families relied on jute production for their living, as a majority of the city’s workers were employed in jute mills and related industries. Jute, which is a kind of grass, came from the Indian subcontinent and was processsed using whale oil, another big industry. The jam is marmalade as we know it, traditionally made from deliciously bitter Seville oranges. Journalism refers to the publishing firm DC Thomson, founded in 1905, still operating today, and publishing newspapers, magazines and children’s comics including Beano and Dandy. Remember Dennis the Menace, and Desperate Dan? So important the comic industry to the fortunes of the town, there’s a massive sculpture of Desperate Dan in the square.

Our friend Fiona, a former policewoman who shall remain anonymous, says junkies can be added to the list. And she’s right. The release that week of the national statistics on drug deaths show Glasgow and Dundee are top of the list in Scotland, with rates twice those of other cities. This really is Trainspotting country. The movie not the anoraks.

On the other hand, there’s the first V&A museum in the world outside London and the first ever dedicated design museum in Scotland. It stands at the centre of a 1 billion pound transformation of Dundee’s waterfront, and the building itself is gobsmacking. The Japanese architect Kengo Kuma (I’ve never heard of him either) used the cliffs along the east coast of Scotland as inspiration, and seeing said cliffs I can make the connection. The shape also echoes the Antarctic research ship Discovery which was built in Dundee in 1900 and took Captain Scott on his first Antarctic expedition. The ship returned home to Dundee in 1986 and is open for visitor tours.

While the weather doesn’t scream “it’s a great day to go to the Blair Atholl International Horse Trials, that take place against the stunning backdrop of Blair Castle and the Highlands” we are going anyway. It’s on our way to Inverness to start the North Coast 500, but more importantly our friend Lynne has qualified to compete and we want to show support. This thing is huge. And muddy. And there’s a lot of whisky tasting.

It runs over five days with all the usual suspects: show jumping, dressage, cross country, showing and so on. It’s an education to see the water jumps for the cross country up close. They are terrifying. We’re only there for a half day, bundled up against the weather, ducking showers, tiptoeing around the mud, and wave goodbye and good luck. Even without our presence to cheer her on later in the weekend, Lynne and Delboy snag ribbons, and qualify for the Grand Final to be held at an unknown future date. Congratulations! That calls for a whisky.

Adventures in Wonderland

Posted on by

We arrive in Hull at the beginning of August, a couple of days after the riots that followed the tragic stabbings of three young girls in Southport, the other side of the country.  The rioting is, as usual, an excuse for racism, violence and looting, with far right extremists exploiting the tragedy to promote their own agendas. Hull and Leeds riots result in numbers of arrests. As we’re on our way to Leeds to visit friends and pick up a rental car for the next six weeks in England and Scotland, we have some trepidation. 

It turns out the greatest risk to our safety is being hit with a giant foam bone by Fred Flintstone.  A big group of people in cartoon character fancy dress board our train on their way to engage in a long running Leeds tradition: the Otley Run. Not for the faint hearted, this is a two-and-a-half-mile pub crawl, where the requirement is a pint at all 19 pubs.  Some days I do not miss being young. 

On a more sedate outing, our friends and their gorgeous new baby girl take us for a wonderful afternoon at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, about 30 minutes south of Leeds. It’s set in the 500-acre, 18th-century Bretton Hall estate, and is the largest sculpture park of its kind in Europe.  It rolls across gentle slopes, through wooded paths, around a lake. With so much spread over such a large area we give up on the map and just wander. We find Barbara Hepworth’s The Family of Man in its entirety, but miss Henry Moore’s bronzes; find wonderfully anarchic Damien Hirsts, such as the giant pregnant virgin below, and miss Andy Goldsworthy.  

As you can tell, I’m just name dropping the famous names I know – there’s a myriad of other just as famous (but not to me) artists dotted all over the grounds, and plenty of people to appreciate them. 

We’re driving to Edinburgh to catch some of the Fringe Festival, and have a few days before our booking. I randomly select a small coastal town about halfway from Leeds.  I choose it purely on its name: Amble.  And it is a pretty old fishing village that’s reinvented itself as a tourist destination, having decimated the fishing over successive generations. Same old story.

A good decision – mostly. Very excited to find we can do a boat trip out to Coquet Island where there’s a puffin colony. I’m keen to see these excessively cute birds up close. The small boat, with the name Puffin Cruises, takes us around the southern end of the island to the west, where there’s a seal colony. We watch them duck and dive, but  for us it’s ho hum, yes seals, heaps of those at home, bring on the puffins. We skirt around the northern end and meet a zillion kind of terns – arctic terns, sandwich terns, roseate terns – and hear about the lighthouse and former monastery.  Okay, I think, saving the best til last. Bring on the puffins. Then, a word about the puffins. Turns out they’ve shagged themselves silly and buggered off north and won’t return til next season. 

However Hadrian’s Wall is still around, and has been since AD122 so we’re confident that, unlike the puffins, it will be there when we visit. The wall, in various states of repair or ruin, depending on how you look at it, is 117 kms (73 miles) and straddles the country, built to secure the Roman Empire and prevent incursions by the barbarians from the North. It’s a shame Hadrian isn’t running Waka Kotahi (NZ’s transport agency), as the so called ‘roads of national significance’ would be built in a jiffy. It’s drizzling when we arrive at the access point, but we trudge up the hill and take a walk along the wall. What can I say? It’s a wall, a very old wall, that stretches into the distance. The marvel of it is that it was ever built, by hand, with no modern machinery. 

I was last in the UK sometime in the 2010s, but it’s long enough that the leftover pounds I had have been replaced by polymer notes.  I have to go to a bank to change them, and for the length of time I stand in the queue I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d changed currencies again. There’s a list of things I’d forgotten about:

  • White transit vans, the preferred mode of transport for serial killers, are everywhere.
  • Imperial measures, with distances in miles and speed in mph, which, weirdly, makes everything feel further. It also causes European drivers to drive very, very slowly, as when they see a speed sign of 50, they think it’s kph and crawl along.
  • Random parking either direction. You need to be prepared for a car to veer across the street into oncoming traffic to snaffle a park on the other side of the street..Very unnerving. 
  • Smoking, meaning piles of butts all over the street. We see this in Europe too, especially Estonia and Latvia, and in Germany. Very little vaping, just hard core tobacco. 
  • There’s a law that requires every British person to have a dog and take it everywhere. Jumping ahead, on our ferry to the Orkney Islands, there’s a dog lounge. I check it out, and sure enough there’s a couple of pooches sitting back with brandy and cigars. 
  • The lure of the fish and chip shop cannot be underestimated, especially by the sea. However, it’s tempered by the smell of rancid frying. I’m guessing nine out of 10 people order fish and chips and twelve out of ten of them are disappointed.

A Tale of Two Cities

Posted on by

The surprises of the trip to date are Hamburg and Rotterdam. Two inland cities, both situated on long rivers and both huge port hubs for shipping.  In my mind they also have long held reputations for crime, prostitution and red light areas where tourists go to ogle prostitutes sitting in windows, but that may be a reputation long gone. Full disclosure, I’ve not been to either city before, but am basing my memory from my 20s in Amsterdam when I did go and look at prostitutes sitting in windows. 

We arrive in Hamburg and are immediately swept up by drag queens, S&M costumed party people, and the entire sequinned and skimpily clad LGBTI+ community and all their supporters from Hamburg and surrounds- they are here to par-tay. We land quite literally over the rainbow. It’s the opening weekend of Pride month and there’s a parade and party that just won’t stop. Even if you wish it would, just for a few minutes. It does slow down with the Sunday handovers arriving.  

The most remarkable thing about Hamburg, aside from its many canals and fabulous waterfront, is the stunning Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall which dominates the harbour. It looks ready to set sail. To visit the public area at Plaza level, 37 metres above the water, we take the world’s longest curved escalator (80 metres).  From here we have a 360° panorama of the city. 

Sit down, cos here come some breathtaking statistics. Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe with four container terminals and 8,000 ships passing through each year, with 9.3 million TEUs, 125 million tonnes.  Big? You betcha. But hang on a minute. Rotterdam is way bigger – the largest port in Europe with over 30 container terminals handling more than 13,000 container vessels annually. It processes around 16 million containers aka twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), over 516.8 million tonnes of goods. That’s really hard to get your head around, so in both cities we take harbour cruises and have our minds blown. 

It’s hard to find words to convey the magnitude of Rotterdam’s shipping activity. In an hour we see only a fraction of its capacity: there are what seems like hundreds of canal basins fringed with so many cranes you could never hope to count them. Then there’s storage warehouses, cool stores, barge docks, truck and trailer parks – it goes on and on. 

For a complete contrast, we take a ferry further inland to Kinderdijk, a village in famous for its 19 original 18th-century windmills that still do the job. They’re part of a water-management network that also includes three pumping stations – these are rather more modern – plus dykes and reservoirs that control flooding in the low lying land.  In the original pumping station museum sits the old steam engine, which, in the olden days, would pump out 425,000 litres per minute at full power, before the conversion to electricity in 1924. Walking and cycling paths run through the area and the countryside here is beautiful of course, with the old mills contributing the charm. We do not see the little boy plugging a dyke with his finger to save his country as per the old story. 

What we do see is the equally fabulous Depot gallery. This mirror glassed round tower is the working heart of the (currently closed for refurbishment) Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. The Depot is the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility, with hundreds of collection pieces on display almost everyday, alongside the working spaces of conservators and artists. I love that, as the gallery spaces are constantly changing, the current favourites are hung against glass so you see the back of the paintings. 

It’s funny to think we only choose to come to Rotterdam because we want to take the ferry to England rather than fly. I can only take so much airport security. We end up loving our time here and find it both fascinating and aesthetically interesting.

The architecture is engaging: apartments are never blocks, but off-set, or with interesting balcony arrangements. Buildings have a twist, or in one singular example, possibly never repeated, the cube houses (built 40 years ago)are rotated 45 degrees.  If you are fascinated, read more here. Kijk-kubusHome | Uncategorised | Englishkubuswoning Unfortunately we don’t get a chance to visit. 

The ferry to Hull is massive. We leave at 9:00pm while it is still light, so get to enjoy our last views of the lowlands, out into the North Sea. Let’s hope those windmills keep turning and the pumps keep pumping. If it all fails, fingers in the dykes will not stop the flood.

I still don’t see the point of clogs.

We’ve had a day

Posted on by

It all starts well enough. We are on time for our train leaving from Hamburg to Rotterdam. It’s a long day, about 7 hours, of travel, with a couple of easy train changes. Hamburg to Osnabruek is a smooth couple of hours. Our 1st class Eurail pass has us sitting comfortably, drinking coffee and reading. We change, as scheduled at Osnabruek and settle in for the long haul to Amsterdam and our final change for Rotterdam. 

But a short way out of Osnabruek I become aware of restlessness in the forest. There’s monkey chatter and the odd screech from group of loud Americans – We were at the concert. I’m from Kansas City and I could’ve reached out and touched him! It was amazing. Yes, that’s all well and good but why are you gathering your bags to get off when we’re all going to Amsterdam. Further investigation reveals the train we should all catch is not happening and we need to transfer to a regional train then change again a bit further down the track. Why? No one knows, but we follow the herd. We gather bags and get off along with 50,000 others and move to the new platform, and wait. 

Then Scott realises he’s left his phone on the train. He takes off at a run back up to the platform, but the proverbial train has left the proverbial station. Faarrrkk.. The best the information office can offer is to give details to lost property. That fills us with confidence. 

Feeling pretty good about now as you can imagine. 

Nothing to be done but board the next train and consider options. Now the train we are boarding is about half the size of the train we just left, and everyone is hell bent on getting on. It’s like trying to squeeze the filling back into a sausage casing.  Then there’s half a dozen people with bikes and they’re determined to get on first so they can block the entry for everyone else.  Cheers. 

Half an hour on the sausage express and we change trains again. The only upside so far is no one is checking tickets. Because Scott’s train pass is on his phone. Which is on a train. And not the same train we are on. 

A WhatsApp arrives. From Scott’s mate Tony, who’s in Rome. Text as follows: Hi Bev, I just got a call from a person in Germany, he has Scott’s phone that he left on the train. We are embarking on our cruise today from Rome and basically are doing one night stops all the way to Barcelona where we then fly home to NZ, no overnight stop in Barcelona. One option might be to get the phone couriered to the Barcelona airport???  Let me know if I can help in anyway.

Like me, you’ll be curious as why Tony got a message. So is he. He received this:

Scott Wilson lost his iPhone in Our Train in Germany. The Phone is in Cologne Mainstation. You are his emergency contact. I would inform You About this. Maybe You can inform his wife About the Situation.

Scott says I’m his emergency contact, but clearly not. Perhaps he and Tony are now married? Or perhaps it’s a hangover from a motorbike trip. Maybe we have a “situation”.

Anyway, I engage in a long round of texts with the train conductor who has the phone. He doesn’t tell me his name, but I christen him Thomas (the tank engine). In a game of pass the parcel, the phone enjoys a tour of Germany and Thomas and his mates engage in an all new Olympic relay event. The phone leaves Cologne and continues to Munich, the final destination of our initial train. 

Good – we have friends near there and will visit them later in September. Maybe they can help. More texting and WhatsApping. They can help and give Thomas a call. It’s now in their hands. 

We arrive in Rotterdam after another train change. Scott looks pale and  is getting shaky, suffering device withdrawal. We have to make a beeline for the nearest apple reseller. €299 for a stopgap iPhone SE sees the colour return to his cheeks. He perks up even more when we check in to the accommodation and see the view. 

A Brief Trip to the Baltics

Posted on by

We are walking up through the parks and leafy suburbs of Riga to check out the streets famous for stunning Art Nouveau architecture. There are stunning facades everywhere you look.

It is also the area where several embassies are located.  We find ourselves opposite the Russian Embassy, standing amid a bouquet of Ukrainian flags, one huge one demanding “Stop Putin Stop War”.  The Latvian Government has renamed the street address the Russian Embassy stands on as Ukraine Independence Street, so all mail must have this address or it isn’t delivered. Directly across the street, the building facing the Embassy hangs a massive, ugly skeletal image of Putin, which the Russian staff must look at every day. No room for doubt.

Riga is a really pretty town with expansive parks and gardens.  The Daugava river bisects the city, and there’s an off shoot canal which means the old town with its churches, Cathedral, and buildings dating back several centuries, is sandwiched between the waterways.  The most historic building is part of a complex known as the Three Brothers. The oldest, on the right of the picture,  dates from the 15th Century; the middle in the style of Dutch Mannerist, from the 16th; and on the left, the narrow Baroque house, probably from the 17th. 

The  Freedom  Monument is visible from all parts of the city and honours the soldiers killed in the Latvian War of Independence and symbolises, well, freedom, sovereignty and independence.  

Monuments and sculptures are everywhere, honouring the past and looking to the future.  We walk for kilometres through beautifully planted gardens along the canal, then board a boat trip out onto the river, passing under a total of 19 bridges over the river and canal. Across from the old town, the National Library is a striking modern building, inspired by the Castle of Light and Glass Mountain from Latvian mythology.  

We’re in Riga after a four and a half hour bus trip from Tallinn, where we flew from Prague. We abandon our initial plan to take train from Tallinn to Berlin via Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The trains are very slow, requiring several changes and, while cheap, just feel like a waste of time. The bus is almost half the time of the train, is very luxe with wifi, movies, coffee machine, and, of course, a toilet. 

Tallinn, another UNESCO world heritage site, does attract a lot of tourists, but it is nowhere near as crowded as Vienna or Prague. Being on the coast does mean, however, cruise ships.  The buses ferry them from the port, and long suffering guides wield numbered paddles aloft to lead the aged and infirm up hill into, yes, you guessed it, the old town. Red faced, they pant their way along we think it might be wise for some groups to have another guide at the back wielding a defibrillator. 

We walk the city walls, and up a very narrow steep spiral staircase to the top of the Hellemann Tower, which gets very squeezy when there’s oncoming traffic. Imagine running up and down the stairs with your sword or bow and arrows when defending the town.

As luck, not mine, would have it, there’s a Maritime Museum in a large round tower built in the 1520s, with the charming name of Fat Margaret. We start at the bottom where the star exhibit is a wreck found on 2015. It’s a 20 metre long koge, a specific style of vessel, and it was buried in the mud for 700 years. if you squint at the roughly boat shaped pile of crusty broken lumber you can see it. Or just look at the drawings on the wall. As we wind our way up Fat Marg the exhibits take you through the age of sail, to steam, and into the modern age. Far too many models for my liking, but some good stories in the audio and video sections. At the top of the tower there are more great views. All the way to Finland.

Reflecting on our limited experience in the two Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, they appear less economically successful and very wary of their neighbour to the east. It’s cheaper than our experience in Austrian cities and in Prague – to visit, to stay and to eat and drink – but not significantly. In fact the costs are closer to those in New Zealand. Bear in mind we are in the tourist part of town, doing tourist stuff. That is why we’re there after all.

Clocks ticking

Posted on by

It’s time to board our flight. Why are we the only ones at the gate aside from four over excited teenage boys rocking full body gold lamé – we don’t ask.  I check my boarding pass. This is what happens when you get up at 4:30am: you confuse your seat number, 8C, for the gate number 6D, which is at the other end of the concourse and on a different floor. We arrive as boarding starts. You could say it was perfect timing, but I prefer it without the heart attack. 

 We’re leaving Prague after a busy five days. The airline is Eurowings, Lufthansa’s low cost (it’s all relative) arm. Being German run, it is well organised, unlike the bun fight I remember from flying Ryanair one time. The first and last time. The PTSD lingers. 

The old town is positively heaving with tourists, mostly European, though it is still a destination for sad Brit-boy stag parties wandering aimlessly and shouting. We see a dozen extras from Dazed and Confused wearing t-shirts with a bare chested big bellied picture of James, who looks like a real catch.  I want to tell the bride, whoever she is, to run very fast. We witness one “hen” party tottering over the cobblestones and they all look like they’d rather be at home watching Love Island.  Those cobblestones are rugged and tough on your feet. Scott is keen for us to hire bikes, but when I see people juddering along, possibly losing teeth, I lose enthusiasm. I fear the flapping of my bingo wings would give me so much lift I’d take off. 

A walking tour is a better bet and local Mikel takes us around the old town to, among other places, the Jewish Quarter. While the Nazis plundered Jewish artefacts from other occupied cities, Hitler preserved the Jewish Quarter in Prague as a “Museum of an Extinct Race”. I guess the laugh is on him, as there are six synagogues still operating. That said, the Old Jewish Cemetery is thought to hold 100,000 bodies although the 12,000 tombstones indicate they are buried between six and twelve bodies deep. 

The most popular site in the old town is also, according to google, one tourists rank among the most overrated attractions in Europe. The Astronomical Clock on the tower of the old town hall dates back to 1410, reason enough, I would think, to be interesting.  It’s complex. It shows four different times known as Old Czech time, planetary hours, sidereal time – useful only to astronomers – and German hours, useful not just to Germans but all of us as it shows the current time, marked with 24 golden Roman numerals along the circle of the astrolabe.  The clock not only tells us what time and day it is, but also tracks the movement of celestial bodies like the Sun and Moon. Wow. So much information. Why then do people think it’s overrated? I’m not sure what they expect, but thousands turn up on the hour to watch the four figures that flank the clock, vanity and greed on the left, death and lust on the right, come “alive”when the skeleton (death) rings the bell. The two blue doors at the top open, and for 30 seconds the twelve apostles pass by, presumably trying to drive out vanity, greed and lust. Maybe that’s why people don’t rate it. They’re happy being vain, greedy and lustful. 

Kafka, the novelist was born in the Jewish area and there’s a statue commemorating him there. He was a depressive and morose bugger, as you will know if you’ve ever read Metamorphosis. Consequently there’s another sculpture of Kafka that takes you by surprise. If you come at it from a certain angle, looks like he’s hanging, but then you realise he’s holding on by one hand. This is the work of Czech artist, David Černý.

In recent years Prague has become a bit of an exhibition ground for Černý’s unusual and frequently provocative and controversial sculptures.  Of course I love them. If you follow my instagram you’ll have seen one already: two men pissing into a pool the shape of the Czech Republic. We stumble across Černý’s work all over the city, but still see only a fraction of it. There’s a prominent statue of St. Wenceslas on horseback at Wenceslas Square, but Černý turns tradition on its head, literally, with a sculpture that has horse upside down. 


Butterfly Effect is an installation of two Spitfire aircraft fuselages fitted with butterfly wings, attached to the sides of a mega store. Every few minutes the wings move, reminding us of the butterfly effect. In the words of the artist, referring to the Czech pilots who flew in the Second World War: “A small fighter plane with a skillful pilot can ignite the fire of a battle that will eventually sweep away even a large aggressor. The butterfly effect is the theory that the flapping of an insect’s wings can trigger a chain of events that will cause a hurricane on the opposite side of the planet.”

Never mind the Charles Bridge, or Prague Castle, or even the Astronomical Clock, all groaning under the weight of tourist expectations, Černý’s work alone is worth the trip to Prague. 

When you’ve sold your caravan, what next?

Posted on by

It’s time to brave the wider world, starting tomorrow

A family to visit in Dubai, with a 2 year old grandson to meet; a wedding celebration in Salzburg; trips to countries not yet explored – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland; friends to visit all over the place; new babies to meet; adventures yet to reveal themselves. And blogs don’t write themselves.

Stand by for reports from the front line – or hopefully not, unless Russia invades more neighbours, then we may be away longer than we expect.

Instagramers can see progress by photos on @bevzac56 and @scottzac45

Taiwan Part 2: Earthquake(s)!

Posted on by

I know many of you think I write these in real time but I don’t. Thank you all those who have messaged hoping I’m not still there, or betting I’m glad not to be!

I’ve been home for two weeks now so I am not clutching my pearls worrying about aftershocks. But I am shocked by yesterday’s events. Even though I am well gone, for some reason if feels like a close call. Hualien, the town with the tilting buildings you see on repeat on the news, is the town that services Taroko Gorge, the beautiful National Park I enjoy the most in my Taiwan travels. It is naive to hope the gorge isn’t damaged, but I suspect with the epicentre so close there is significant rockfall. Those of you who follow my Instagram will know I feel a dickhead wearing a safety helmet on the Swallow Grotto Trail walk, but I just now read this on CNN “All the deaths were in Hualien County, among them three hikers killed by falling rocks in the tourist hotspot Taroko Gorge, the NFA said. Falling rocks also killed a truck driver in front of a tunnel on the east coast’s Suhua Highway“. I don’t feel quite so much of a dickhead now, though I suspect a helmet would be no match for a car sized boulder on the head.

Without a helmet on a Taroko Gorge trail
I hope the Temple of the Eternal Spring is still eternal

I head down the east coast to Taroko Gorge/Hualien after my first few days in Taipei. I can’t emphasise enough how steep and rocky this part of Taiwan is. Travelling along the coast we go through countless tunnels, many of them several kilometres long. The coast road is precipitous, plunging straight down into the Philippine Sea. Richard, my guide, tells me that several years ago a landslide hit a bus full on Chinese tourists and swept it into the ocean and they never recovered anyone or anything, not even a door handle. It gets deep very quickly.

The coast road south from Taipei to Hualien

It’s a surprise to learn there are almost 300 hundred peaks over 3,000 metres, mostly covered in dense forest. As we leave the lower parts of Taroko and head inland and up, the drive is unnerving: mountain mist shrouds the valleys and it is difficult to see further than a few metres ahead. When we do emerge above the clouds, it’s spectacular – not to mention a relief – as Taiwanese drivers mistake a Sunday drive for a kamikaze mission.

What I fail to understand, however, is why, when we are back in another cloud at the top of the pass, where it’s 0 degrees and there’s frost coating the bushes, people are out taking photos of each other and the mist.

If, when you watch yesterday’s earthquake footage, you wonder why the Taipei 101 tower doesn’t sway, I can explain. At 508m tall it offers stunning views over Taipei and the surrounding area, but even more interesting (especially yesterday) is the Damper Ball. This is a giant golden ball suspended between the 87th and 92nd floors: it weighs 660 tonnes – more than 100 African elephants, but I guess a big ball is easier to manage than 100 elephants – imagine cleaning up after them. The damper acts as a giant pendulum and stabilises the tower in very high winds, or earthquakes. How cool would it be to have been up there to see it in action?

As I say, I am safely home now. However when I checked in to my Taipei hotel for the final couple of days following my trip south, it amuses me to see a multi language leaflet with the title “What to do in an Earthquake”. The very next day I feel the telltale sway and a quick google tells me it was magnitude 4.5, enough to freak out tourists who don’t live in an earthquake zone, but barely a ripple for me. I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t yesterday – even I might have had to Drop, Cover, and Hold.

Screenshot

Taiwan Part One: no caravanning involved

Posted on by

I realise I’m out of practice with this long haul travelling lark as I try to enter Taipei through the Residents Only line. It’s even more obvious as I pile into an airport taxi and have an immediate heart attack as I can’t find my phone, which has my credit card, bank card, and drivers licence. I’m in Taiwan with just my passport and about $200 in local cash.  

Stop! I shout at the driver. Poor man lurches to the curb and I gesticulate for him to open the boot so I can check my bags. This is ridiculous. Only seconds earlier I send a text announcing my safe arrival. My rational mind knows the phone is in the car, but my lizard brain has left the building. As panic threatens to overwhelm me, I see the phone in the footwell of the car. For God’s sake woman, get your shit together. 

It takes little time to get a feel for the city and find my way around. The MRT (metro) is cheap, most trips around central Taipei cost no more than $20 Taiwan, so just over $NZ1.00; clean: no graffiti, litter, or beggars; orderly: everyone lines up at the barrier to board, giving disembarking passengers room to exit; quiet: there are messages reminding passengers to use headphones and speak quietly; and fast. It is quite a change from New York or London or other big city metros where you are in a noisy, grubby human pinball machine being eyed by people who look like they forgot to take their meds.

I kick off my visit with a three hour walking tour of the historic part of Taipei and around the political/Governmental district, which includes the imposing Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. It’s a stunning site with curved blue tiles on the roof and slanted cream walls. Looking from the top of the 89 steps leading to the hall (he lived to 89) you see extensive gardens and a huge square. The National Theatre flanks one side, the National Concert Hall the other. Inside the cavernous hall is the “Great Man”, sitting with his arms on the chair arms and smiling benevolently, emulating the statue of Lincoln in Washington DC.

But there the similarity ends. A few hundred metres away is 2-28 Peace Memorial Park, named after the vicious crackdown by the KMT on locals protesting corruption and economic hardship. The number 2-28 refers to 28 February 1947. The next four decades of White Terror were marked by brutal martial law and it’s fair to say Chiang Kai Shek is not universally revered. There are some efforts, subtle as they are, to reduce the reverence paid to CKS, such as renaming the Memorial Square Liberty Square.

The big ticket item is the Changing of the Guard which takes places every hour on the hour. Now you may think you have seen it all in Athens, where the pom pom lads prance prettily in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I agree, this is elegant and enchanting. However the ceremony at the Memorial Hall is next level, though the choreography is more Joseph Goebbels (think goose steps and Hitler) than Parris Goebel (think Superbowl and J. Lo). There’s lots of heel clicking and rifle tossing and serious expressions. You can find videos on YouTube.

Housing 2.6 million people, the city itself is very spread out but easy to get around: everything is clean and tidy despite the lack of rubbish bins. I make enquiries. When there were public rubbish bins, people would bring all their household rubbish out and fill the bins rather than disposing of it at collection centres. Why wouldn’t you? So the Government took all the bins away but also promoted an initiative to reduce waste and promote recycling. They now have one of the highest recycling rates in the world. Go Taiwan.

Still on the cleanliness schtick, let me mention public toilets which, unlike rubbish bins, are plentiful. In every Metro station, public park, transport station, museum, temple and rest area you will find a spotlessly clean facility. I thank years of yoga when there is no western style throne and squatting is the only option – falling in is not an option.

In Europe I find you tire of cathedral after cathedral: in Asia it’s the same thing with temple after temple. Once you learn the difference between Buddhist (there’s a big fat buddha sitting there) and Taoist (a riot of colour with numerous beardy gods and no big fat buddha) and Confucian centres (no colour, no fat buddha) there’s not much different to admire, though the rooflines are always fascinatingly decorative.

I pretty much eat my body weight in dumplings, particularly xiao long bao, the pork dumplings with soup inside. On a previous trip to Shanghai I take a class to learn how to make these, but any attempts at home are more dumpster than dumpling. Street food is plentiful and delicious, even if sometimes you don’t know what you are eating, and often it’s better you don’t.

The two young women in the photo are making something that looks interesting, and there’s a queue of people so I reason it must be good. A thickish batter goes into what look like mini muffin tins, which sit over a heat source. Something unidentified gets plopped in, then more batter and cooking and turning commences. It takes several minutes and for my T$70, about $NZ3.50, I get a small basket of six with fried onion and some sauce. They are quite delicious and I eat them still not knowing what they are. When I go to the night market I see a big sign for Tayoyaki, a Japanese snack. A-ha, octopus balls! and just like you, I never knew octopus had them.

PS: I’m too lazy to set up another blog now we have finished caravanning, so sorry about the false advertising.