Category: Personal

Tasmania Day 2

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Freycinet and Bicheno

On the second day, we headed out to the Freycinet National Park. Our first stop was at the Friendly Beaches, which I haven’t checked out before. It’s a gorgeous spot, with white sandy beach and those awesome red lichen-covered rocks typical for the coastline on this side of Tasmania.

Then we went on to Coles Bay, which turned out to have its own micro-climate; it was hot enough to swim and made me wish I had packed my bikini or at least a pair of light pants instead of jeans. Sunbathing ruled out, I did a walk along the beach, enjoying the view of the Hazards and stopping to take a photo every 30 seconds or so, because seriously how can you not?

We had lunch at a local cafe which I would not come back to – we got served a lumpy seafood chowder, tiniest pieces of white bread, and a Greek salad which was predominantly spinach with a couple of drops of balsamic vinegar. Food everywhere else was great, but this cafe obviously survives only because of the high tourist turnover.

I chickened out of doing a hike up to the Wineglass Bay lookout, so instead we drove to Bicheno, a coastal town further up north. The sea was much rougher there compared to the sedate Coles Bay and the wind way nastier, but that didn’t stop us from hopping all over the rocks.

Tasmania Day 1

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Salamanca Market and Mount Wellington

Sometimes in a rush for more exotic destinations we ignore the wonderful places right under our nose, and we pretty much ignored Tasmania for the first 11 years after we’d moved to Melbourne. Once we finally visited though, we never stopped coming back, as this small island is blessed with natural beauty and packed with things to see and do. And delicious food, too.

This time around we haven’t ventured too far from Hobart, which was our base for two nights, but we still managed to pack in quite a bit. The only real annoyance on the first day was waiting for almost an hour for our checked-in bag to show up. Note to self, best not to travel to places with tiny airports so close to a public holiday, because chaos may ensue. Because of this delay, we haven’t spent as much time at the Salamanca Market as we would have liked, but oh well. It’s a great place to hang around, with the beautiful sandstone buildings as the backdrop and plenty of interesting and tasty wares on display.

Afterwards, we went for a drive to the top of Mount Wellington, which looms over the city. It was freezing cold with a killer wind, however the views were spectacular. The terrain on the very top is quite rugged and harsh, but it has its own desolate beauty to it that always appeals to me.

My brother’s PAX costume

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Proving that spending hours on a detailed, time-consuming project is a family trait, here’s the amazing costume my brother made for the PAX gaming convention in Melbourne. And when I say “made”, I really mean it: he started out with a giant piece of leather (which he thinned down and dyed), a chain sheet and a pile of accessories, so other than boots, pants and gloves, he made everything himself, from the main breastplate down to the belts. The tunic was courtesy of Mum’s sewing skills.

This character from The Witcher video games was the inspiration for the costume

Melbourne

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This December will be 20 years since we moved to Melbourne, and I think it’s a fine place to live in, despite the random weather, railway crossings, high cost of living, Punt Road and way too much black in fashions.

Beach cabins at the Middle Brighton Beach
St Kilda; the first Melbourne suburb we lived in when we arrived in Australia. By a weird coincidence, I also got my first ever job as a housekeeper in the same serviced apartments we had first stayed in.
Flinders Street Station, one of my favourite buildings in the city.
Melbourne Moomba Festival, on a rare occasion when I actually attended it. I get less fond of crowds with age, but in a right mood it can be quite invigorating.
Queen Victoria Gardens; we didn’t have TV or computer for some weeks after we moved, so I remember my family hanging around there a lot… getting fresh air and exercise before I could play Civilization for the thousandth time again.
Crown Casino
This statue is actually called Angel, but I always thought of it as the pushmi-pullyu beast from a children’s book. When we first came to Melbourne it used to stand by the National Gallery, but now it’s near Yarra River.
Hosier Lane; it only took me 17 years to discover this place!

Phillip Island

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Had a nice getaway at Phillip Island. Yesterday, it rained the entire two hours it took me to get there (managing to drown out Guns N’ Roses at one point), so I didn’t rate my chances for nice walks the next day, and consoled myself with the thought that at least I upgraded to a suite with an enormous spa bath (it was awesome). But miraculously, Melbourne weather for once didn’t behave like a bitch! Still cold and windy, but plenty of sunshine.

The Nobbies is one of my favourite walkways in Victoria. The coast in this area is ragged and dramatic and covered with weird succulent-type vegetation which creates an interesting texture of greens and reds.

I’ve never seen them on the island before, but it must be the time of year for geese. My Mum has horror stories about being terrorised by the village geese as a child, so they make me nervous too despite being like 1/10 my size
So much foam it looks like white paint spillage…

Smith Beach looks nothing like it does in the summer, except for a couple of crazy surfers who’d probably go for a swim at the North Pole too. The nice thing about visiting it in winter is that, when you’re not distracted by the beachy things, you can actually look around the place and notice things you don’t when you’re busy getting a tan.

I like to call the big red rock a Hippo Head
Not to sound pretentious or anything, but I really think that rocks are nature’s abstract art
This was a totally random surprise – I was driving back to Melbourne and made an impulsive turn for something else and found this cute little dock instead

Favourite Rocks

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I’ve been lucky enough to see some amazing rock formations on my trips in Australia and overseas:

Delicate Arch in the Arches National Park, Utah, USA
Goosenecks State Park, Utah, USA
Monument Valley, Utah-Arizona border, USA
Wave Rock, Western Australia. Totally worth the 8-hour return trip from Perth.
Cappadocia, Turkey
If you do one hot air balloon ride in your life, this is the place to do it. It just looks like it’s been sculpted by Gaudi.
Purnululu National Park, Kimberley, Western Australia
Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand
Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA
I can’t believe this place wasn’t even on our official tour itinerary! It turned out to be one of the highlights.
Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA
Or possibly an alien planet.
Remarkable Rocks, Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Remarkable Rocks, Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Twelve Apostles, Victoria, Australia
Well technically not twelve anymore…
The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. It was one of those perfect moments when you arrive at the famous lookout and it looks 100% like it should.
Raft Point, Kimberley, Western Australia

Quote of the Day

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I read out this extract from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet during my speech at my sister’s wedding – I was looking for a wedding-appropriate poem that a) didn’t make me vomit and b) expressed something I personally believed in. I think it puts a very practical advice on the need of space in relationships in a very beautiful way:

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Mushrooms

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Every autumn or so, we go picking wild mushrooms in various spots around Melbourne with my Dad and recently my sister. This seems to be a European thing to do, and gets a pretty bemused reaction from most of the Australians I know:

A. Mushrooms? Are they magic mushrooms, hahaha?

B. But how do you know which ones are good to pick?

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Living Alone: Pros and Cons

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I’ve been living in my one-bedroom apartment for a few months now, and a few hiccups aside (leaking shower, wardrobe that still stinks months after painting) it’s been mostly wonderful. It goes without saying though that, like anything, independence comes at a price.

The Good:

1. Personal space and freedom
This is where you’re supposed to say stuff like, yeah you can watch movies until 3am, walk around naked and eat ice-cream and pizza for dinner every day!! I can’t say I have much inclination to do any of these things to be honest; but it’s true, having a place all to yourself is awesome. Cook whatever you want, eat whenever you want, clean the house however often you want, listen to whatever music you want.

2. You can have your place looking just as you wish
I’m basically treating my apartment as a giant creative project, picking every single detail with the utmost consideration. I’m well aware that, if I end up living with a partner some time down the track, I’ll have to work on compromising and letting go of wanting every single thing to be just so. For now though, it’s great to have the freedom to create a living space without having to contend with anyone else’s tastes or possessions, and know that everything in my apartment is there because I want it to be there.

3. Feeding one person is easier
Sure I sometimes end up making classic single-person mistakes like buying too many greens that end up in a rubbish bin. But on the plus side, one person requires much less groceries and the meals made in bulk last longer. I’m quite content to eat the same leftovers for dinner for a few days, and if you spend an evening once in a while cooking up freezer-friendly food, your lunches are sorted for weeks to come.

The Bad:

1. It’s all on you
Mortgage, electricity, water, gas, council rates, body corporate fees, groceries, renovations, repairs. I’m lucky to have a great family who can loan me money and help with things if need be, but still there’s no one there to share these costs with me on a regular basis. Needless to say, my spending habits changed a lot and holidays to Europe will not resume for quite a while. No one to help out with the housework either. Washing the dishes is particularly annoying; you wouldn’t think that one person could generate much, and yet, in a short amout of time, there goes my entire supply of spoons and tea cups.

2. OCD
My particular obsessive behaviour has always been checking the cooktop, and it got much worse when I started living alone. Just before I moved in, I accidentally turned on the gas one day and only realised this when the smell got bad, so this made me even more paranoid. I have to tell myself that the gas is switched off and everything is fine so calm down and chill out for the love of god! at least a couple of times a day.

3. Company (lack of)
Being fairly introverted, this is not usually a problem. After a day in the busy studio at work I’m totally fine with being by myself for the rest of the night, and I get to see family and friends over the weekend. Still, I’m a kind of person who can disappear into their own head a bit too easily, and sometimes, after spending a few days at home, I can feel like I’ve retreated into myself too much. You need other people to remind you that it doesn’t all revolve around you and put your problems into perspective.