Here, there and everywhere.

As you can tell from the post title, I still love the Beatles.
I arrived home on 31 July and since then, I have been on a meditation retreat, had yet another birthday and been to the Edinburgh festival to see and hear the amazing Camille O'Sullivan. Her Wiki credits say that she has a first class honours in Architechture as well as being a vampish, burlesque singing star. Oh, yes I've started doing more shiatsu and hope to build up my practice again!

I started and ended the New Zealand part of my trip at Mount Eden, Auckland. There is a very nice cafe, called Frasers on the high street and this is a sketch painting I did during my last coffee there.

'Tour de France' - No worries!

Just like half the population of Australia, I was up till the wee hours last night watching the 'Tour de France.'  Cadelll Evans is the new hero over here and what a time trial he did. When you consided that the previous two days in mountains he had battled to stay with mountain specalist Frank Shleck and to overcome a bike failure and get back to the leading group you realise what a good effort he made last night. Cadell is the first Ozy to win the Tour. It has put the event on the map over here in a big way... no worries. The Tour rolls into Paris today for the last stage of a great event. I have enjoyed the way race has not been decided until the near the end. Much better than the usual outxome which is often decided long before the final stages.
Earlier in the day I did a cycle along Beach road on the East coast of Phillip Bay to Black Rock. It is a very popular ride with hundreds of cyclists of all levels heading out and back. My guide Micheal took me through the streets to get threre and back again - a nice way to finish a cycling holiday.

Not long until I board the plane for Edinburgh! I will be going to one more art class before I leave. Here is a still life I did a few weeks ago.

Table with cans and veggies.

Some last minute things to do

I set off from Edinburgh Airport on 19 March and I'm heading back home a week today! If anyone asks me if it's good to travel for a few months I will say 'Yes... if you like travelling, meeting new people and seeing new places.' It may not be for everyone but it is for me. I've now got a whole pile of experiences which are worth their weight in gold, particularly seeing my grandson, Soli grow and develop over the last two and a half months. There as still a couple of things I want to do before I leave. The first one is to take a cycle down the coast, along Beach Road on the east side of Port Phillip Bay. I am told that there are thousands of cyclists who do this one on Saturday mornings, so tomorrow I will be another one of them. The other thing is to attend at least one more art class at Footsctay Community Art Centre. The new term has commenced and I went along to a 'Life Class' last Wednesday. The tutor really gets you to go for it during the two hour class. We start off by doing about five - one minute sketches to get our eyes in and work on proportions and angles. Then there are a couple of three minute sketches and a five minute. After that there are a couple of ten minute drawings and one or two fifteen minutes, depending on how it is going. Not only do we have a pile of drawings at the end but also some invaluable experience with tips and advice from the tutor.
This is one I did last Wednesday.

Megan

A new Life drawing

Adelaide turned out to be a really good trip. My favourite area is around the North Terrace. This is the earliest part of the square mile which was planned and built by the early colonisers of South Australia. The roads in the square are wide and based on European Boulevards and there are several squares and fountains. At Adelaide is different from the rest of Oz because it was settled by free men who paid for the land and not convicts who had been sent over from Britain. Along North Terrace are the State Art Gallery, Museum and State Library. Each one is full of high quality culture and were a pleasure to visit. The east end of North Terrace are the Botanical gardens, which are very pleasant on a sunny, winters afternoon.
I got in a good day-long bike ride along the Torrence river to the West Coast and followed it to the northern tip at Port Adelaide and then down to Glenelg, where I met friends  of the family. They own a Thai cafe and  I was treated to a nice Pad Thai and a cup of chai... very nice!

Before I leave for home I am going to attend a couple more charcoal drawing classes. Here is one I did before the end of last term.

Ren

Adelaide - South Australia

Took an 11 hour bus trip from Melbourne to Adelaide yesterday. This wasn't as straight forward as I thought it would be because the problem of getting my bike accepted onto the bus cropped up again! This time it was a bit unexpected because I had bought a ticket for myself and the bike... the bus driver thought otherwise. Not only the bus driver but his pal as well told me that they don't take bikes on the bus. I pointed out that I had a ticket and me and the bike were getting on. So he went over to have a word with the 'office' and then let me and the bike on. I don't blame him for being bolshy, because by the time we got out of Victoria the bus was full with 58 passengers and their luggage. But all's well that ends well. Travelling on a long distance bus in Oz is interesting, there were quite a few characters willing to tell you their life story and the state of the world and what is wrong with it. The journey flew by.
Today I have been checking out Adelaide and I like what I have seen. It is well laid out with broad avenues and Squares with fountains in them. I spent some time in the Art Gallery which is impressive with seven or eight galleries opening out from each other. There's a  wide range of contemporary and historical art plus some very good indigenous art. They even have a few paintings by Turner and a few by a guy called Charles Hill who comes from Coventry my home town.
I went along to the market for lunch with Angie who is putting me up. There is a big area with about 15 Asian food shops with lots of delicious veggy food... spoilt for choice. Also took a look in the very interesting Museum which is next door to the Art Gallery and the State Library which is next door to the museum!! I'm pretty impressed with the resources around here.
I was looking at maps in the library (which has a statue of Rabbie Burns outside*) - getting ready for a trip down the river to the coast tomorrow when a guy decided to help me plan the route... he told me that Adelaide is the most civilised country in the world!  So now I am sitting in Adelaide Uni with one of Angi's friends who has logged me on.
I go back to Melbourne on the overnight bus on Thursday night so we shall see what we shall see.

*Saw a statue of Rabbie Burns in Dunidon - South New Zealand as well!

Pastel drawing of Ren

Calla Lilies

Charcoal with a bit of chalk

Charcoal drawing

While I've been in Melbourne, I've joined the Footscray Community Arts centre and drawn some still life and some Life. The teachers are great and the centre is a lovely resource.

Kevin

Rotorua

24 March 2011

Much happier with the bike after some further running repairs and minor adjustments. Also got some Tiger Juice lube for the chain... just the stuff. One really good thing about having the bike Is the scope it gives for exploring. I went along the lake edge, the Maori village and Kuira Park nearby and had a good look at the steam coming out of the ground and the mud pools bubbling away.

The steam is used by the locals as a heating source. The meeting hall in the Maori village was my first taste of their culture. I got some more of it that night when I went on a trip to Mitai village. John, our guide kept us entertained and claimed the Maoris had found New Zealand through astral travel. We had a tasty traditional ‘Hangi’ meal, cooked on hot stones in a hole in the ground. There were a lot of people sitting for the Hangi in a large marquee including an old running pal from Penicuik over in the far corner… fancy meeting you here!. After the Hangi we went for a walk in the bush and the Maoris re-enacted a canoe scene. Canoes are an important recurring theme in their culture and are called ‘Waka.’ The Maoris navigated from Polynesia to New Zealand in their “Wakas’ by the stars and the moon. I thought the ‘Haka’ was an intimidating display on the rugby field but the welcome ceremony is much higher on the scale. Luckily for us the Chief told us that they don’t eat whiteys any more, they go to McDonalds instead. He explained about the importance of the ancestors to the Maori people and told what all the tattoos on their faces stand for.

When I was cycling along the lake front, I spotted a float plane and was immediately taken back to my childhood and comic stories of Biggles landing on the Amazon and carrying out heroic deeds.

What else could I do but book a flight the next day and am I glad that I did. The 1954 De Haviland ‘Otter’ was straight out of the past. The technology was authentic 1950’s which meant pumping up petrol up the pipe manually before take off. We listened to the pilot through our head phones as we flew over amazing volcanoes and multi-coloured thermal pools with steam rising from them.

Our destination was Orakei Korako, an active area of geothermal activity. We landed on the river and got the ferry across to the silica terraces, geysers and a geothermal cave.

I needed some fresh air after all that sulphur, so I went along to the Redwoods, a few kilometres outside Rotorua. The Kiwis know how to organise outdoor activities and this was a good example. Set in beautiful forest, there are separate areas for walking and running, horse riding and mountain biking. I had a fabulous cycle down the ‘Turkish Delight’ with lots of roots and rocks and steep descents. The bike and I held up well and I didn’t fall off. I was planning to leave the next day but the rain started and I’m glad I stayed because I made friends with Vera and Loz from the back packers and we had a good time at the night market where I met All Black Frano Botica. I also went along to the very traditionally British looking Rotorua museum and got another dose of Maori culture and local history and experienced what it is like to be in an earth quake. The next part of my trip was to Lake Taupo and I was getting itchy to get in my first long cycle.

South it is then!

22 March 2011
Rain and flooding in Northland caused me to do a quick change of plan. Instead of heading north to the Bay of Islands and Cape Renga I decided to go south to the smelly capital of NZ – Rotorua. Although the idea of staying in the sulphur laced air of Rotorua sounds off-putting it is well worth a visit. To get there I cycled into central Auckland again and went to the Inter-city bus station, next door to Sky City! I was feeling a bit nervous wondering if the bus driver would let me on and I got talking to the kiwi women waiting in the queue. People always want to know where you are from and when you say Scotland they tell you that they have a grandfather from there, usually somewhere in the Borders. This woman was a bit different.

“Where are you from?” she said

Near Edinburgh is my stock reply and if they have been there I usually follow up with, ‘I live east of Edinburgh in a place called Haddington.’

“I was born there,” she said

“Left when I was two and I’ve lived here ever since.”

If I had known as much about kiwi slang then as I do now I would have said ‘sweet as…’ but instead I acted as if these sorts of co-incidences happen all the time on the other side of the earth.

‘My mother is from East Linton, but I don’t think she’ll go back to visit, there’s no one left there now” she said.

The bus arrived and I palled up with the driver (this sometimes works and at other times it doesn’t.) On this occasion it worked and he let me on the bus without having to take any wheels off. When I thought about it I realised it was fair enough to have a rule about bikes because they go under the bus with the luggage and nobody wants a dirty bike on their backpack. But rules should be applied with some common sense and this bus driver had some, there was very little luggage so he didn’t apply the rule… he was a rarity! I found out later that he was also a bit strange. He applied the rule that ‘thou shalt not get on the bus if you have a ticket with the wrong time on it,’ to a young Indian lady and it was only after much pleading that he let her on. For the next half hour he talked to himself about passengers who tell you stories that aren’t true. Every now and again he looked over to me as if I would confirm what he was saying... whoops I should watch out who I should become friends with. When the trip was at least half over, he asked me where I was from and on learning I was a tourist he decided to give a running commentary on the sights as we passed them… not just to me but over the PA. He was keen on the horses and as luck would have it we were in a stud area, so we heard all about the owners of the studs and the horses that had been successful. Every now and again he mentioned a mountain or some other site which, he thought we might find interesting.

Rotorua - the lake and the hills around it are what remains of a volcanic cone

Entrance to Rotorua museum

We arrived at Rotorua and yes it was true the place smelt like slightly of rotting eggs but I liked the look of the town centre and I headed for the Funky Green Voyager backpackers on a bike which didn’t want to change gears again.









Funcky Green Voyager