Stamps Fade to Black
I inherited an eclectic array of postage stamps from Dad. ‘I didn’t even know he collected them’ was…
229,623 total views, 1,245 views today
China – God’s Coup?
In 1990 in a conversation with my colleagues in the ‘China team’ I took a deep breath and…
235,900 total views, 1,153 views today
Creating the Story – Visualisation and Framing
Writing is a pleasure. No question. But a particularly enjoyable element to writing fiction is the visualisation and…
320,307 total views, 1,162 views today
Nairobi Revisited
Monday 22 Nov 21 Diary: Roosters crow in the distance. Finches chit in the bushes near the feeder.…
278,374 total views, 775 views today
Taxi Story – Kenya (2)
A Sunday afternoon connection which meant the traffic at the airport was light. We comment on that as…
268,336 total views, 782 views today
Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ was a helpful little tome that unleashed my thinking about creative writing. With a background as a government analyst, I was inclined to gather the facts before I sketched out the story. Stephen urged the reverse – sketch out the story first and then plug in the facts. That little insight unleashed creative writing.
Featured Posts
Stamps Fade to Black
I inherited an eclectic array of postage stamps from Dad. ‘I didn’t…
229,624 total views, 1,246 views today
The Plan(tation)
Recollections (6) So, while it’s a small town with only Puketapu (Pookie)…
56,598 total views, 191 views today
A Yellow Bug
Recollection 3: A Yellow German Bug I was not in Dunedin very…
52,552 total views, 172 views today
Palmerston Sky
Recollections 4 If we are contemplating missiles and such, perhaps…
50,901 total views, 165 views today
Stamps Fade to Black
I inherited an eclectic array of postage stamps from Dad. ‘I didn’t even know he collected them’ was my first response. But then vague memories from my teen years of a friendship with the local post office manager in the gritty suburb of Reservoir, Melbourne. A chap who would hand over folded, crisp sleeves of…
229,625 total views, 1,247 views today
China – God’s Coup?
In 1990 in a conversation with my colleagues in the ‘China team’ I took a deep breath and proposed the dramatic rise in the Chinese underground church would have to have an impact on the leadership of the country, in particular addressing the moral vacuum which derived from Mao’s ideology. I had no data, only…
235,901 total views, 1,154 views today
Creating the Story – Visualisation and Framing
Writing is a pleasure. No question. But a particularly enjoyable element to writing fiction is the visualisation and ‘ground truthing’ into which you graft the story. Lights of Rue Catinat is a working title of a narrative I have been tweaking for quite some time now. Two French servicemen have spent time in the trenches…
320,308 total views, 1,163 views today
Nairobi Revisited
Monday 22 Nov 21 Diary: Roosters crow in the distance. Finches chit in the bushes near the feeder. Residual water from the second rain this season (the wet is late and may not actually arrive) plops from foliage stirred into action by a light breeze. Back in Africa to sights and sounds which get into…
278,375 total views, 776 views today
Taxi Story – Kenya (2)
A Sunday afternoon connection which meant the traffic at the airport was light. We comment on that as we clear the car park. The usual light chatter with which to warm up. You came in from Sydney? I did How long? That first leg is 15 hours. Then a few hours in Dubai then just…
268,337 total views, 783 views today
Fragile
A very interesting take on the China Taiwan situation. Not the sort of input I would have ever seen in my former analyst days. How influential is this? With 30million views in a month it is clearly making a mark. And of course Beijing is not too keen on its messaging – it’s blocked. Not…
116,292 total views, 204 views today
Saigon 1951
Saigon 1951 Prologue to Lights on Rue Catinat, a work of fiction which explores the ethics and morality of human intelligence operations The weed that slushed past in the swirl of muddy water was no longer visible as the falling, soft evening light fused with the deep green shadow that lifted from the jungle…
76,707 total views, 105 views today
Bravery Trek
Guy Fawkes night which no one here ever remembers. But is the 5th of November and that was once the highlight of a small boy’s year as detonated and lanced as many fireworks as we possibly could, often at the expense of a brothers military models and dioramas. But tonight there are no fireworks. Right…
44,941 total views, 100 views today
You Must Be Mental!
What sound do flames make? It’s a flubbery whipple happening beside me after the crackling and snapping of the kindling sealed down to the serious business of providing light and heat. No blue flame – we are the only ones here and I do hope at this time of the night that remains the case.…
33,068 total views, 99 views today
Tamang Heritage Trail – Monastery Launch
Briddim, Monastery, Mountain Tea, Nepal, Tamang, Tamang Heritage Trail, TrekkingBy Bruce Lyman1 Comment
Monday 2 March 2020 The carpenters below us started hammering away at 0600, clearly making the most of the day. They were still at it last night, right up to last light. This morning Kavitha watched the sun edge down from Nagthali and over Thuman. Those villages on the other side of the valley were…
39,148 total views, 131 views today
Afghanistan
I woke this morning to news that Kabul had been captured by the Taliban. I nearly wrote ‘fallen’ but so far there has been a reasonably peaceful transition though video sent to me privately from the middle of the night show scenes of desperate despair at the airport. I spot one man wandering among the…
28,697 total views, 96 views today
Briddim
March 1 Sunday. Psalm 121:1 We have had a deep and still sleep. No barking dogs. Just the calm dark of the mountains. The wind had dropped by 1800. We played cards until 2030, drawn to the radiating heat of the stove but once it had died down the chill crept back and we repaired…
36,385 total views, 118 views today
Nagthali
Saturday 29th February We have a slow start, extending our morning by half an hour. That gives the sun time to reach us. It’s another clear day but it has of course frozen overnight and there is no heating in the room until the sun reaches us. The good news is that once the sun is…
33,160 total views, 111 views today
Tamang Heritage Trail – Up to Tatopani
Friday 27th We sleep the sleep of the dead. I am in bed by 8.30pm and don’t wake until 4am. But from that point on our slumber is disrupted by barking dogs and rousing roosters, but after 6am especially by the bus driver announcing every ten minutes or so his imminent 7am departure on his…
59,841 total views, 229 views today
Up the Hill To Gatlang
Tamang Heritage Trail Thursday 27th The town starts to wake about 0630 with a rising murmur of conversation. Workers on construction sites. People moving up into the mountains, others coming down out of them. A dog has barked right through the night but is now quiet – no doubt tuckered out from his nocturnal carousing.…
56,083 total views, 217 views today
Arrival at Syrabrubesi
Nepal, Syrabrubese, Syrabrubesi, Tamang, Tamang Heritage Trail, Travel, UncategorizedBy Bruce Lyman2 Comments
Tamang Heritage Trail. Wednesday 26th Grapes…green and purple. Apples. Bananas. Pomegranates. Strange – it’s a bit late for pomegranates I would have thought. All loaded onto bicycles and being sold on every corner. It’s a cool morning with a stiff breeze, and overcast. We leave Sacred Valley Home at 0810 in a Nissan Patrol driven…
29,440 total views, 101 views today
Tamang Heritage Trail Diary – Kathmandu
Tuesday 25 February 2020 The refurbished Sacred Valley Home is comfortable and warm and we sleep like teenagers until the myriads (murders) of crows break through with their raucous calls as they hunt down breakfast. Then the builders start up and down the street with various tools and we are shaken loose from our room…
28,083 total views, 89 views today
Tamang Heritage Trail – Kochi to Kathmandu
Monday 24th February 2020. Much to our surprise we push back at 0720 under a smokey orange disc turning shimmering silver over our wing. We are due out at 0730 and in this land that redefines procrastination the fact that Air India Flight 466 is ahead of time is worthy of note. We are on…
26,660 total views, 87 views today
Tamang Heritage Trail Diary – Via Kochi
Friday 21 February 2020 Getting launched this morning was a factor of lasts nights preparation which might sound like I am organised but that would be misleading to imply The previous evening had been complicated by the need to drop Mak at the vet, then shop for last minute kit – mainly hand sanitiser. The…
26,670 total views, 85 views today
The Fort
Recollections 7 The fort is probably something that looms larger and more perfect in memory than it was in fact. But even if it was half the establishment we think it was it remains something quite creative and even formidable. At least in the eyes of a kid. 56,879 total views, 195 views today
56,879 total views, 195 views today
The Plan(tation)
Recollections (6) So, while it’s a small town with only Puketapu (Pookie) to geographically mark it for the passing traveller, there were any number of points that anchored my boyhood view of the place. The curved platform of the railway station for a start. That always entranced me, as did the rails, the rolling stock,…
56,599 total views, 192 views today
Puketapu
Recollections 5 Palmerston has a glow about it which comes from lots of memory burnishing, especially polishing that has as its base compound a happy childhood. In truth it’s a tiny country town for which, to those who are not residents, there is little or nothing to commend it. And of course that is the…
54,702 total views, 189 views today
A Yellow Bug
Recollection 3: A Yellow German Bug I was not in Dunedin very long. After five years, a yellow German VW beetle clattered me from there and transported me north. Twenty years after we beat them in a global stoush I was being given a lift in one of their cars. We were buying Japanese cars…
52,553 total views, 173 views today
Palmerston Sky
Recollections 4 If we are contemplating missiles and such, perhaps we can start this recollection with Skylab. Standing in cool air in the dark on the top of ‘the bank’ staring into a sparkling black sky waiting for movement. Then we hold our breath in wonder as a bright diamond rapidly slides across…
50,902 total views, 166 views today
Bay of Pigs in New Zealand
Biography, Dunedin, Family, Family History, New Zealand, Recollections, UncategorizedBy Bruce Lyman3 Comments
Recollections (2) In April 1961 an attempted military-by-proxy (a favourite US formula) invasion of Cuba took place by those who were no admirers of Fidel Castro and his Communist buddies. Backed and trained by the CIA the invasion at the Bay of Pigs was reduced to naught in three days and is often used to…
34,770 total views, 86 views today
Guts for Garters
Recollections (1) In the movie “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” Hec, the grumpy character played by Sam Neill, in the final denouement moments of the story, threatens his protégé with the warning that, should the boy Ricky Baker outperform Hec, he would use the boy’s ‘guts for garters’. It was such an unexpected line I laughed…
25,361 total views, 83 views today
Barrington Tops
Australia Day Weekend 2019 We clear town while the dawn sky is being scrubbed with a small dose of bleach, taking the colour out of the horizon leaving the white sky to hint at the hot day to come. The air is cool for the moment and we are deceived into thinking the humidity is…
25,331 total views, 87 views today
Sunday Sunday
Sunday 15thJuly 2018 We sleep in, after a fashion. 7am is a sleep-in around here. Despite best efforts we are awake relatively early and that is perhaps a factor of light. Most of the crew are asleep when we walk up to the local community church where our number of ten ‘blows them up” –…
28,970 total views, 97 views today
Snow at Bonanza
Saturday 14thJuly The perpetual daylight keeps things well illuminated but not so much that we can’t sleep. We have been advised to bring those devices the airlines hand out to shade your eyes but I have not had to use them. This morning it’s not the light that wakes me but the pitter patter of…
25,520 total views, 83 views today
Fire on the Mountain
Friday 13thJuly 2018 There is ‘fire on the mountain” this morning. Cloud shifts swiftly in long ribbon strips along the hills, white against the green, following the contours as it were, and a light rain intermittently scatters itself, sometimes so light the first awareness is the sound of the drops in the Alder, a fine…
28,807 total views, 93 views today
Fireweed Mountain
Alaska, Blue Steel Dash Expedition, Bush Walking, Travel, Trekking, UncategorizedBy Bruce Lyman1 Comment
Thursday 12 July 2018 Around here the locals tell us they use the Fireweed flower as a weather barometer of sorts. The plant pushes up a single flower stalk which is preloaded with hot pink buds. These open from the bottom and over a period of time the initial blooms drop off and are…
26,954 total views, 86 views today
Kennecott Mine
Wednesday 11 July 2018 Once again we set ourselves the target of departing by 0900 and leave at 0940. Today we have a deadline and in fact I had a deadline of 1000 so I’m happy that we are moving by 0940. However, more to the point I am really pleased with the way…
28,852 total views, 92 views today
From Kennicott to Kennecott
Monday 9thJuly 2018 Brad Grossweiler, our host, observes with his slow drawl that he was surprised no one was up when he came over at 8am. But this morning everyone slept in and caught up on all the frentic travel that has happened to date. We eventually dislodge (nice pun) ourselves and walk up to…
25,301 total views, 83 views today
The Road to Pothole, ahem McCarthy
Alaska Diary (3) Sunday 8 July 2018 We hear a patter of rain through the night but not really enough to stir us. ‘Night’ is a misnomer for it is not dark at any point. The sun sets at 2315 or thereabouts and the remainder of the evening until sunrise is a strange grey half…
28,624 total views, 94 views today
Willow Mountain
Alaska Diary (2) Saturday 7thJuly The alarm goes off at 0730 which feels way too early, especially given we chatted with Brad and Ramona until about 0200, including walking out to the bluff and watching people fishing below. Brad explains there are two times in Alaskan summer – the time people are active and the…
25,487 total views, 85 views today
Sydney to Copper Centre, Alaska
Alaska 2018 Diary Friday 6th July 2018 The idea started with Frank. Brother Frank that is. Sibling not priest, though he’s pretty good with sacrifices on the altar of Ruger 30-06. He dreamed aloud about going to Alaska and thought some fishing and shooting might be in order. It was a good plan. Still is.…
25,349 total views, 85 views today
Vomit Rock
Sunday 18th February I woke in the middle of the night (1223 actually) to the sound of violent vomiting. Three guys had rocketed up here yesterday, bypassing Camp Canada and no doubt feeling very pleased with themselves. If they were in fact pleased with themselves I’m pretty sure that disposition has dramatically changed. They are…
25,581 total views, 87 views today
Nest of the Condor (Nido de Condores)
Saturday 17thFebruary The evening was still and mild when I went out at 0200. Well, as mild as an evening at 5000m can be. In the far, far distance on the horizon, a pale orange light. A high town perhaps in the general direction of Chile. The sky is clear but the recently set moon…
25,377 total views, 85 views today
Oberon Fossicking
Fossicking, Gems, Oberon, Porters Retreat, Rubies, Sapphire Bend, Sapphires, TravelBy Bruce LymanLeave a comment
The galahs chitter away in their high pitched voices and in the distance the cockatoos draw their screeches out as long as they can. The distinctive crimson rosella chit chat has died away as the sun has shifted into its peach sheets. A pup yips and the other two or three dogs in Black Springs…
25,523 total views, 85 views today
Multans Sultans – Taxi Story (Pakistan 3)
(I use my time in the taxi to practise my interview techniques. In so doing I suddenly realised I was uncovering some remarkable stories. Some are captured on my blog under the Taxi Story collection – click on link in right hand bar to see some of them). I’ve been in Australia for just five…
27,298 total views, 95 views today
Canada
Friday 16th February I’m sitting in our tent at Camp Canada. The wind flaps and chops at the tent. Kavitha is eating lunch even though it is close to dinner time. The sun warms the tent but the breeze is very cool and I can feel the chill of the ground seeping through the floor…
25,423 total views, 83 views today
Kavithitis
Thursday 15th February I went to sleep at 2200 last night and woke at 0700 which is an excellent sign the acclimatisation is working. Not even a pee break in the middle of the night. It’s calm at 7am which is a good thing but the wind soon picks up and whacks the tent around.…
25,389 total views, 83 views today
St Valentines in Canada
Wednesday 14th February . Its 1741 and we are all sitting around the table somewhat stupefied. Maybe it’s just a matter of regathering our strength. Or a matter of reflection, or both. We have climbed to Camp Canada, departing at 1100 on the dot, and ascending to 5150m, a total lift in elevation of 850m.…
25,329 total views, 83 views today
Tang
Tuesday 13th February Rest day. I wake at 0500 with a serious case of nausea and an elevated headache. Despite that I was able to drop off to sleep again (after the necessary pit stop under a starry sky) and was woken by Kavitha at 0845 in time for breakfast at 0900. We’ve all had…
25,415 total views, 85 views today
Plaza de Mulas
Monday 12th February. A horrendous night with the bladder chasing me out of the tent every couple of hours. Bonus – the night sky. Double bonus – knowing I’m hydrated. It’s 7am and I’m listening to the camp murmur awake. Interestingly the temperature has plummeted since I was up before dawn. That’s a phenomena we…
25,373 total views, 83 views today
Wile E. Coyote
Sunday 11th February. The night was still and mild – tested at 0300 when I stepped outside for a pee stop. It is always a remarkable thing in the mountains to realise the light, which is quite bright and sufficient to illuminate the inside of your tent, is cast by stars. Mountains in my experience…
25,373 total views, 83 views today
Danilo
Saturday the 10th Dinner last night was also a good way to get to know some of our fellow travellers a bit better and the conversation with our new compatriots was a highlight. Kavitha was sitting next to Danilo, one of our three guides and found him to be very forthright and clear about the…
25,403 total views, 85 views today
Eduardo
Friday 9th February The guide is Tonetti Guia de Montana, (otherwise known as Eduardo, or Edu (Eh-dooh) for short) which immediately brought to mind the line from The Princess Bride “Hello my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father. Prepare to die.” We wait for him now in the hotel foyer in a state of…
25,399 total views, 83 views today
Spiderman
Thursday 8th February Spiderman is a tall bald chap from Brazil. He sports a spider tattoo’ed on the back of his skull. I’ll double check his name tomorrow (It sounded like Guido) but until then he is Spiderman. His team supporters are Jorge and Danilo. Jorge is an interesting chap introduced as a ‘wild man’…
25,435 total views, 85 views today
Maximo
Wednesday 7th February There is a hard knocking on the door. Its 11 in the morning and we have just finished breakfast we purchased at the local Carrefour supermarket conveniently located around the corner. A tall lanky lad. Relaxed and fit. Lightly bearded with sunglass tan lines. Energetically introduces himself as Maximo, the expedition leader…
25,373 total views, 83 views today
Patricio and Cicero
Tuesday 6th February We are due to launch at 1250 but don’t rotate with the usual roar until 1323. I should care less about such things given we have a five hour layover in Santiago before heading to Argentina. But it’s a warm Sydney day and the plane is a stuffy tube until we get…
25,335 total views, 85 views today
Lessons from a Baby
William Wordsworth marvelled that he might learn from his toddler son. ’Could I but teach the hundredth part, Of what from thee I learn’ he wondered in “Anecdote for Fathers”. (It’s not his best work. In fact it’s rather droll, but then I find a lot of his stuff just so). We can learn all…
36,440 total views, 122 views today
The Road to Broken Hill – Again
22 December 2017 We got away at 1505 which was pretty much when we planned to launch. The anticipated holiday traffic did not materialise, at last at that time of the day and we have a clear run tino the Blue Mountains, our only challenge to speak of being rain approaching Lithgow which slowed…
25,352 total views, 85 views today
Headspace Visualisation – Aconcagua on our Mind and In our Eye
Aconcagua Diary: 30 December 2017 Even as I write this Dan (pictured) and Michelle are in Argentina and starting up the hill. We are very fortunate to have met them on our training track out of Berowra Waters. How unusual to have met someone planning the same expedition/adventure as we, and on the same track!…
25,325 total views, 83 views today
Aconcagua – HeadSpace
Aconcagua Diary: 12 December 2017 In less than eight weeks we will be on the mountain. The training continues its regular beat and we were back out on the Berowra escarpments on the weekend, this time with fellow trekkers who are our regular walking companions (and fellow Kilimanjaro veterans). The mental game associated with the…
25,347 total views, 83 views today
Aconcagua Diary – It Starts Here
Aconcagua Diary: 2 December 2017 The climb out of Berowra Waters is so familiar I could it traverse it in the dark but today it feels a little tougher than usual. The humid air drapes its wet blanket over us and slows us down. We are barely begun and the sweat slicks off my…
25,335 total views, 83 views today
On to Pallisa
At each checkpoint we have asked the Police how to get to Pallisa, even though the maps show the route very precisely, and taking into account the scale of the map, very clearly. It is obvious that none of the police can read a map (one enthusiastic sergeant tried to decipher it upside down and…
25,349 total views, 83 views today
The Ugandan Express Pardon
Yesterday we departed Nairobi at 1209 and rolled out to Eldoret. We had spent the morning touring Kibera, the slum famous for being the largest in Africa and for being, well a slum. For many it is a place of convenience as they come into town to work, Kibera offering a place of cheap accommodation.…
28,170 total views, 94 views today
Back to Kenya
Saturday 4th February 2017 We are sitting on the tarmac at Abu Dhabi waiting to roll, listening to the guttural tones of Arabic interspersed with a posh English accent alternately run through the safety briefing. We have four hours and fifty minutes in a tiny A320 to look forward to. The jump from Sydney was…
26,041 total views, 87 views today
Three Butterfish
Blue Steel Dash Expedition, Bush Walking, New Zealand, Stewart Island, TravelBy Bruce LymanLeave a comment
The day started around 2 or 3. I usually check the time when I wake but didn’t do so on this occasion. The hut is warm. Too warm and I am lying on my sleeping bag in a sweat. The boys and girls around me are sharing snoring duties. As one stops another starts, the…
27,598 total views, 88 views today
Half a Rat
I barely wake through the evening and don’t hear the male and female kiwis that everyone else is talking about. Both sexes make raucous calls, but the female is especially disruptive, as we heard when we camped under our Rimu. Their combined cacophony had most of the group awake at 0600. As planned we were…
25,361 total views, 83 views today
Zero Traction
This day is a mixed up one indeed. After our struggle through the night our timings are now messed up. The state of the track is so bad we have no confidence in our ability to get over to Masons Bay in the time we have allowed. We have walked in to the hut at…
25,838 total views, 88 views today
One Loud (Female) Kiwi
There’s so much to this day it’s a bit hard to know where to start. Maybe it best to start at the end. And the end was a damp arrival at Freshwater Hut the day after this section of the track was supposed to be concluded. We had departed North Arm Hut at 0807 in…
25,309 total views, 83 views today
One Robin
It’s a tiny black and white bird that drops onto the track and peers up at us in some sort of weird avian challenge to our right to be on the track. He seems not at all perturbed by our size and proximity but soon flits off, joins another of his type and starts a…
25,411 total views, 83 views today
Two Kakas
On last light , which at this latitude is about 9.30pm, two parrots arrive on the roof with a clunk. A few minutes later the older of the two shifts to an outstretched arm of one of our neighbours and chows down on a piece of apple. It’s a silver domed, bright eyed, ruby red…
25,347 total views, 83 views today
Four Starlings
They sat sparkling on a powerline. Huddled together in the sun after a shower of rain had passed through. A fifth sat a little further off, like a barely tolerated younger sibling that could be oh-so annoying. Sitting above butter yellow gorse, against a green backdrop of fields that is so vivid we spent…
25,327 total views, 83 views today
Multiple Memories
Stewart Island Journal November 11 . It’s a day in which to remember. To remember the fallen alright. Our glorious dead, though glorious only because of what they gave us. I wonder, if they ever are conscious of it, what their spirits make of that. A waste? A gift? Too much focus on glory and…
25,331 total views, 85 views today
Six Foot Track
1 October 2016 The cleft in the sandstone lets us down off the bluff through sheer slab sides that drop away into the bush below. The knees protest at each step but we are distracted by the howling wind that bends and buffets the trees on the edge high above us even as…
25,451 total views, 83 views today
China Changed My Life (Heart Disease)
Ten years ago today I landed in China with Ashley, Eric, Gail, Liz, Alex, Jeff, Narelle and a few others on a trip that changed my life. It’s hard to put into words exactly how that change came about. In fact I was unaware of the change until the last day when we are sitting…
32,137 total views, 111 views today
Immersed in Hot Waters (Agua Calientes)
Machu Picchu Diary 10 July 2016 Our day has ended with dinner together. Trout again. The group split up today. Many climbed Huayan Picchu (that tall spike which is the familiar backdrop to the Machu Picchu site), but five of us begged off for various reasons. Kavitha and I woke early and got out into…
25,331 total views, 85 views today
First Stuff Your Llama
Machu Picchu Diary 9 July 16 The stuffed llama standing on the terrace above me is a disappointment. “How does a UNESCO World heritage site stoop so low?” I wonder. Its stiff silhouette stares down at me for what seems ages as I make my way to the highest point we can find. Then the…
25,335 total views, 85 views today
Zip Line
Machu Picchu Diary 8 July 201 The rain pattered on our tent through the night in that lullaby that nylon and water so often put together. I thought it might herald another wet day but I was awake at 0600 to a clear morning, a droplet decorated tent, the sound of roosters crowing and an…
25,373 total views, 87 views today
Pig Under a Mango
Machu Picchu Diary 7 July 16 I am conscious next of the sounds of wings flapping and a rooster crowing. It seems like a pretty energetic bird until I realise that it’s Henry prowling our tents clapping his hands and crowing. It is a very good imitation and I can picture a rooster standing on…
25,501 total views, 89 views today
Savage Mountain Pass
Machu Picchu Diary 6 July 2016 It’s 1830 and we are sitting around in our puffy jackets drinking sweet cocoa, eating popcorn and sweet pastry and reflecting on a remarkable day. We have just covered 27km, climbed 550m to cross the pass at 4602m (15,000’), dropped 1900m through ice and icey rain being driven sideways…
25,335 total views, 83 views today
Soraypampa
Machu Picchu Diary 5 July 2016 The alarm goes off at 0400 but we have been awake prior to all the iphone alerts pinging off. No one really wants to get up but we stir ourselves into action and clear the room. I’m mildly surprised to see most of the group sitting around the common…
25,339 total views, 85 views today
Sexy Woman
Machu Picchu Diary 4 July 2016 Sacsayhuaman (something like “sarc-say-wha-mahn”) is an Inca site above Cusco which we visited today. The team is mostly in good shape altitude wise and managed the 200m lift in altitude to this modest hill above the city without any drama. However some are still feeling a tinge green. Hopefully…
25,371 total views, 83 views today
Cloud Mountains
Diary, 2 July 2016 Ana-Sofia has advised us that Cusco and the area we are trekking is not considered the ‘Andes’ (or Las Sierras) but rather the ‘Cloud Mountains’, an area or region that borders the Amazon jungle, but which features its own type of forest. That sounds good to me and besides, is suitably…
25,353 total views, 87 views today
Ricky Baker
Machu Picchu Diary Friday 1 July 2016 1337 hours and the aircraft frame vibrates and shudders as the undercarriage, not designed to be aerodynamic in any way thrashes through the air below us. As the undercart is cleaned up over Botany Bay everything settles down and the slightly alarmed look on Kavitha’s face vanishes. We…
25,357 total views, 83 views today
Prelude to Machu Picchu
For reasons that elude me now I failed to post my Kilimanjaro diary when we ascended that mound in 2014. As my thoughts now turn to the Salkantay Track and our walk up that path to Machu Picchu I dug out my diary/log from our previous expedition. My final entry is an interesting prelude to our…
27,230 total views, 91 views today
NZ Alpine Course – Diary (March 2016) (1)
11 March It has been a long while since I have put pen to paper but travel, if anything is what will shake the muse loose. I usually observe something like this after a long break from writing and settling into an aircraft seat. This time I am pre-empting that moment. Sydney is oppressively humid…
25,289 total views, 83 views today
When is a Minute’s Silence Not a Minute of Silence?
Nothing is ever silent. Ever. Except perhaps in space but I have no point of reference for that experience and so have no capacity to comment. There can be a stillness, but never silence. There is that moment that sluices into seconds and the feeling of a lifetime of ages when a zealot of some…
29,321 total views, 99 views today
In the Land of Poutine…
A sly “would you like a taxi?” from a furtive looking Pakistani just outside the exit to Pearson International (Toronto). I like his style – he has parked himself underneath a sign warning visitors to ignore taxi touts. When I respond in the affirmative (we need a cab) he spins on his heel and beckons…
25,311 total views, 87 views today
Hello Texas
Before the food cart drags itself up behind its vanguard aroma and I allow myself to be distracted by Jermaine Clement in ‘People Places Things’ I’ll jot a few notes in some sort of acknowledgment to penmanship I have neglected and which urgently needs resuscitating. And yes, that is ‘aroma’ which you read. It’s an…
25,385 total views, 85 views today
Assimilation (or “Why I Support the Wallabies”)
I was a migrant. Past tense if you please. At some point you stop being a migrant and become a citizen. Not because of a piece of paper received from the government, but because you decide you are no longer a guest but rather a host. That you are not just part of the place,…
34,074 total views, 109 views today
OXFAM 2015
The tide silently pushes still water into the upper reaches of the seeping grey green gloom of this gully. Snatches of froth and the occasional bubble betrays the silent upstream flow of water beside me. The ground is damp so footfall is muffled. That of my colleagues metres ahead is non existent save for the…
25,349 total views, 83 views today
An Empty Japan
We have left the door to the balcony open and the humid morning air heats the room and tugs impatiently at the lace curtain that flicks around the settee. We are not feeling as pressed as the breeze feels we should be, and take an indolent start to the day. The sea is bright green…
25,925 total views, 92 views today
Tropical Scruffy – not Your Average Japan
Planeloads of Korean and Chinese tourists pour into the customs and immigration area with us and we shuffle along looking decidedly out of place. We lack the designer tourist clothes, hats and sunglasses and don’t have any cute toddlers in pig-tails in tow. The large crowds at immigration mean there is no waiting for our…
25,900 total views, 88 views today
Off to Okinawa
We are off to Okinawa. CX138, seats 47J and 47K. Well, these seats will get us to Hong Kong at least. The notes are scratched with a crayon I found in the pocket usually housing flight entertainment guides and other weighty tomes I rarely read anymore. It’s been a long time since I logged anything.…
25,596 total views, 86 views today
ANZAC Ultra Marathon – 450km of Joy and Light
The air frizzed and hissed and for a moment I was forced to a stop as the air vanished in a flash bulb pulse of white light. Stopped in lashing rain straight out of God’s freezer as the accompanying crack and boom erupted around me and my eyes readjusted to the light. Not that there…
33,373 total views, 107 views today
Are you Making a Difference?
Some old stone warehouses scattered across Kandahar are in surprisingly good state of repair given they were constructed by the British in the nineteenth century. The square masonry and precise lines catch my eye as does the stonework. But the slowly gathering crowd is watching us approach and I take my eyes off the building…
26,166 total views, 86 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Life on the Mountain
‘I was walking down to Pengboche. But it got dark too quickly and I got lost.’ ‘Lost?’ ‘Yes. At the bottom of that escarpment the track vanishes into that scrubland. I walked up and down the bank trying to find the bridge.’ ‘And?’ ‘I couldn’t find the bridge so I stayed out.’ ‘All night? Are…
25,391 total views, 83 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Death on the Mountain
A beautiful day and we get going around midday. In fact at 12:05 as I check my watch and do the slow snow shuffle over the flat towards the start of the track. We have been split into two teams. Group A is climbing to Advanced Base Camp at 17,600’ and will spend the night…
25,375 total views, 83 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – It’s All About the Nana Nap
I feel like an indulgent sloth, having been told today is a rest day as part of our acclimatization. Okay I get that, but no climbing, no serious exertion. No rush to get out of bed in the morning. I only woke once during the night so that tells me how settled and warm I…
25,443 total views, 85 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Welcome to Base Camp
‘Where do I find those rocks?’ The Sherpa was groaning under the load of a heavy rock he was carrying towards one of the tents he was setting up. Under my feet is a kind of stumpy heather, alpine cushion plant of an indeterminate type (I need to bring a foliage reference next time –…
25,369 total views, 83 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Guest House Log Jams
The dark frosty night has eased off into grey and I slumber through the sounds of yaks on the track only a couple of metres from my window, resisting the clock and willing it to slow down. I am warm in this sack thank you very much. Our guest house is as rudely constructed as…
25,365 total views, 85 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Namche Bazar Respite
Bruce! Hey Bruce, over here. Bruce! Hey, up here. I have slowly walked up the main cobbled street into Namche and a steady cold rain is falling. At each minor intersection I pause and look around before fully committing to it. Old habits die hard but in this jumble of lanes and stone buildings it’s…
25,379 total views, 85 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Garden of Dreams Redux
Two days of gear checking, buying missing kit, buying better kit and so on until we arrived at last at the Garden of Dreams – that oasis discovered two years ago. I have introduced myself to my fellow climbers and am pleased to have finally met them. And I have introduced them to this place…
25,387 total views, 83 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Ghosts of Thamel
‘Been here before?’ she asked, in passable English as she thumbed through my passport. ‘Two years ago. I can’t stay away.’ She is unimpressed with my flattery and even more unimpressed with my out of date visa. I am about to be shuttled back to the end of a very long line. ‘It’s near the…
25,361 total views, 85 views today
Ama Dablam Diary – Clearing Town
6 October 2014. I am looking at a pack that is not as tightly or comprehensively loaded as it could be , and at two smaller bags which I hope will withstand the rigours of yak travel for a month. Those two bags look deflated as well. I run the checklist again and, despite my…
25,387 total views, 85 views today
Doing HR in Afghanistan
“Hi Sir, staff arrived safely at the RV”. So read the text that arrived late into the night, long after the neighbours kids have been put to bed (that has become my clock). And with that text a sense of relief. There is an HR dimension to Afghanistan I never really appreciated until I came…
33,197 total views, 106 views today
Mind Your Head (And Your Prostate)
A journalist by the name of Foley was beheaded, the news of which swamped the fact that a foreigner was similarly treated on the main road to the airport in Kabul today. An event that has suddenly put everyone on their toes. But I had an appointment to have an ultrasound done. So off down…
26,250 total views, 88 views today
Kabul Summer Evening Rooftop
The sun has finally dropped across the distant ridge in the west and suffused that part of the country in a peach wash that the camera fails to capture adequately so I have stopped trying. It’s a witching hour. Kites wobble high in the sky, some so startlingly elevated that I wait to see if…
25,706 total views, 85 views today
The Devil’s Voice with an Angel’s Heart
The dusk is electric this Holy day evening of Ramadan. To the south the horizon dances with light as a dry storm flashes its skirts with light but makes no noise. Two hours after the fast is broken and the air is full of voices. The voices of mullahs chanting the broadcasts. A legion of…
31,348 total views, 98 views today
My Neighbours
My neighbours? My neighbours are no different to your neighbours. Sure they live in a rabbit warren of mud roofed, grass sprouting houses all interconnected by covered walkways. Probably a bit different to the McMansion or Californian Bungalow or nondescript Australian Housing Estate Modern style over your back fence. But their kids play and shout…
26,700 total views, 88 views today
Let’s Visit Taliban Central. Oh okay.
The Taliban conveniently announce the 12 May will mark their summer offensive kick off. Other reports and rumours underscore that date with hints of a big and signatory attack on Kabul, possibly the airport. Great. Goodonya. Thanks. I am flying out of Kabul on the 12th. I dropped off to sleep last night testing what…
25,311 total views, 85 views today
Seven Steps to Security Serenity in Kabul
You can find humour anyhere. If you look for it. In fact in this place, to which we should ascribe ingrained sadness, there is a vein of light heartedness that everyone is so ready to tap. As friend Ray noted last week, these people are so quick to laugh and smile, unless and until you…
25,311 total views, 83 views today
What Were You Thinking?!
Afghanistan now stretches out below me like an old brown blanket, little patches of squares hinting at villages made of those clay walled square compounds. We have quickly left the snow capped ramparts that surround Kabul. Two months ago the city was captive to blue white, but the rising temperature has quickly melted that away.…
25,315 total views, 83 views today
Hair Trigger
As we roll into election week there is a fragility of life that stabs us every day, despite the so necessary ‘get on with living’ attitude that pervades this place. An attack yesterday – or was it the day before, it’s easy to lose track – on a guest house is applauded for its failure,…
25,339 total views, 83 views today
Very Alive Today
I feel very relaxed getting about this town. But to be sure I am always looking. Even when I don’t know I am looking. We were creeping through traffic today and in my peripheral vision a vehicle going the other way suddenly stopped beside us, with a slight screech of rubber. 25,291 total views, 83 views today
25,291 total views, 83 views today
Between a Brick and Hard Step
I come up the stairs at the end of the day, negotiating a brick that is placed on the marble step least I step on a pattern that is remarkably akin the Arabic script for God, past the kitchen from which leaks the strange sounds of a woman singing over a crackly radio, and I…
25,347 total views, 83 views today
Don’t Step on the Crack (Chance of Injury or Death. Or a Laugh)
Apparently the prospect, memory or concept of sex crosses the male mind every eight minutes on average. (Who measures these things? And how?) If ever there is a cure for the wandering mind it’s a four hour walk down a glacier in summertime, when crevasses are open, icy maws with white flecked palates and blue…
25,312 total views, 87 views today
Hochstetter Traverse
I woke at first light, snuck out in the icey slap your face cold to the latrine, then snuggled back into the sleeping bag only to be told ten minutes later it was time to get up. Arrgghh. 25,317 total views, 85 views today
25,317 total views, 85 views today
Storm Warning – Ignored
The ink does not want to flow, while my hands are barely able to grip the pen. It’s zero degrees in the hut at the moment and snow drift has been blasted in and sits on the sill. Water in pots inside is frozen. Vapour blows from mouth and nostrils as I eat a breakfast…
25,299 total views, 85 views today
Inside an Elysium Fridge
A storm smashes the hut an hour before our colleagues arrive back from the top of the Tasman Glacier where they have been doing crevasse and ice work. We are surprised that they were able to find their way in such a white out and had half expected them to make for the Tasman Saddle…
25,333 total views, 83 views today
Mt Alymer
We climbed to the top of Mt Alymer (2699m) today and sat up there and had lunch lodged in a rocky eyrie. (That’s the peak curving away to the right of the picture). Having scribbled that note I realize it makes the ascent more prosaic than I felt at the time of doing it. It…
25,389 total views, 83 views today
Rusty Ice
Alpine Climbing, Climbing (And Falling), Kelman Hut, New Zealand, Tasman Glacier, TravelBy Bruce LymanLeave a comment
The alarm went off far too early at 0600 but it was enough time to get me out the door and up to Tekapo by 0800. The drive from Timaru to Tekapo, where the climbing company I will spend the week with is based, is a reminder of how different we all are. Even though…
25,379 total views, 85 views today
Anticipating a Fall
The last time I lined up to do alpine training I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. So, as best I recall I was quite sanguine about the whole thing. Now, with some appreciation of how difficult it might be, I am starting to feel the knot of anticipation wind up…
25,299 total views, 83 views today
Orcs Be Here
The early morning call interrupted lurid dreams so bright they were my reality and despite the paucity of sleep I was glad to be awake. Four hours sleep was not enough and I could have easily rolled back into the borrowed bed. But we have seven hours of walking ahead of us on a loop…
25,361 total views, 83 views today
Under a Natal Moon
I clear the airport at 0115 local time. It was 39 in Sydney when I left, it’s 11 degrees here. But as I walked towards the car hire lot I am aware of the stillness that seeps into me, a calm that washes through me for no explicable or discernible reason. It’s not the chill…
25,321 total views, 85 views today
A Tale of Numerous Cities
The year has snuck up on me and like a magician has pulled something out of a small box my eyes tell me should not fit. It feels like weeks have passed and in the same synapse I wonder that it has felt like a decade. I am tempted to plagarise the cliché and offend…
25,357 total views, 83 views today
What’s It Like Living in Kabul?
What’s it like living in Kabul I am asked? I have no idea really. The people in the old city live with no electricity or running water, walk miles to get to the markets and freeze in the depths of winter in their mud brick houses. Oh, you mean what’s it like for me to…
25,325 total views, 83 views today
The Genie of Fez Goes Shopping
Othello sits on the edge of a fountain, his white thobe draped across his knees on which he has placed his outstretched hands, elbows locked. He gazes about as if in surprise, his dark eyes catching and reflecting his wonder. Above his white keffiyeh prancing horses rear out of a fountain, clearly confused about their…
25,339 total views, 85 views today
A Night in Kabul
In the same way that Baghdad left me with the enduring image of ordinary folk trying to get on with their lives Kabul is impressing me with the same. Grandma wobbles through the mud on her pushbike. A mother hurries along the sidewalk. A boy wanders along adjusting his kameez, followed by a bear of…
29,806 total views, 91 views today
Welcome to Afghanistan
My last night before heading to Kabul tomorrow On an airline that I don’t know owned by a government (or at least flagged by them – turns out it’s privately owned) which any number of ratbag elements would love to target. Of that I have no doubt. I have always wanted to visit this ‘great…
25,309 total views, 85 views today
Mind How You Step
She has a round dark face that is more chipmunk cheeks than anything else, cheeks that prop up eyes that glitter with mischief. The narrow, high set benches means we squeeze in to sit down and she laughs at two tall guys struggling to fit in without knocking any else’s tea on the floor. She…
26,927 total views, 89 views today
Nightclub Butterfaces
I’m not what you call a clubbing type. No, not seals on ice but nightclubs. I have no particular aversion to them, but neither have I ever had any particular attraction to them. I do regret not being in one in Elizabeth in 1980. Or was it Gawler? Fozzie leapt for the wagon wheel chandelier…
28,426 total views, 94 views today
Longonot – With or Without a Necklacing
While we eat our cornflakes as the sun comes up, and wonder where our colleagues are, at the end of the street two thieves stand among a crowd of excited neighbours and a collection of security guards. They are two of four the guards have caught. They are not running anywhere. To start with the…
25,337 total views, 83 views today
Hell’s Gate
The day is clear and warm. On the lee of the escarpment and under the canopy of tall trees the humidity is a light flush on the forehead but no more. A perfect day no less. By the time we reach Naivasha, an hour out of town we have left the cosy climate of Nairobi…
27,039 total views, 87 views today
They Walk Among Us
There is a creeping awareness this week that we Australians, for all our fretting about porous borders ( a lot of nonsense) have it just way too good. I have always known that of course. On one occasion my return to Australian soil after a precarious adventure was so emotional I wanted to do ‘a…
25,339 total views, 83 views today
Nairobi Brunch
It’s a quiet Sunday and after a slow start I decide to walk to the nearest shopping centre. A walk can only be a good thing after last nights festivities. The rest of the house is not stirring. The day is clear and burning hot, something I had not really noticed under the shade of…
25,353 total views, 83 views today
Early Morning Jog in Nairobi
Imagine a series of low rolling, heavily vegetated ridges radiating out from the city centre. They parallel each other as best they can but like spokes they are forced gradually apart. Roads run along the crown of each, houses sit off the road and then gardens and forest fill the gullied gaps. In many sections…
25,307 total views, 83 views today
A Chip off the Old Block
The moon washes a glittering city in its milk yellow light as we wind up and wind up and wind up and roll and roll until the wingtips lift and the wing straightens up and the fuselage of this 400 tonne behemoth settles into its load carrying wings. And as it does my breath catches…
25,303 total views, 85 views today
What Good is Your Network?
More directly, what is your network? A bunch of people you have fleeting or other connections with, hooked up by coffees, or more ephemerally, via an image and a bio stored in someone else’s server? And if so what merit does it have? Is it there so you can admire the fruits of your labour?…
25,317 total views, 83 views today
Ferry at the top of the Garden (Day 8)
We wake to silent, floating, heavy snow, and pick our way through a couple of inches of laid down flakes from our accommodation to the visitors centre across the road. A bacon and egg roll and a hot coffee made by someone else seems like a perverse luxury but it stops no one at all.…
25,375 total views, 85 views today
Softly Battered (Day 7)
We aimed for a 7.30 start and were on the track by 0740. Heads down into a smashing wind right from the beginning. The first leg was only five kilometres but it was across open moor along an exposed ridgeline and that nor’wester hammered us as hard as it could. I watched pack covers ahead…
25,393 total views, 83 views today
Waterfalls at Every Height (Day 6)
I woke a couple of times through the night and listened for the rain on the roof. Nothing. Only fog at 0300 as I stand in the silence in bare feet on the path just up from the hut. Snow is forecast for the next two days, so says one of the trekkers who landed…
25,395 total views, 87 views today
A Short Pelion (Day 5)
We have had two long days. Seventeen kilometres followed by eighteen kilometres. The weather was kind to us on day one with only light rain. But yesterday ‘occasional showers’ clearly meant ‘it will rain steadily for 24 hours apart from a ten minute break which will not be the same ten minutes in which you…
25,403 total views, 83 views today
Hello Kia Ora (Day 4)
I surface every now and then and listen to the driving rain on the tin roof. Inside the hut our breath blew billows of fog the evening before – this sleeping area, even with the stove on would be only three or four degrees. But I am snug in my sleeping bag and hope everyone…
25,395 total views, 83 views today
Reflective Narcissus (Day 3)
Everyone is up and ready to go and we are under way, crunching into the bush by 0740 . We were aiming to be gone by 0700 but it takes a while to shake down routines and I am relaxed about the timetable. After all, as I remind the group, we are not on a…
25,429 total views, 85 views today
Fair St Clair (Day 2)
The lights snap on forty five minutes prior to our arrival and the tannoy announces we will disembark by 0630. Now, what deck was I parked on again? I head downstairs to the car deck just in case I need to be there – better early than late I figure. And just as well, as…
25,475 total views, 83 views today
Heading to the Overland Track (Day 1)
My seat jostles like an old man anxious to get his bet on the race before it’s too late – tapping and jigging and hopping about in time to the engines deep in the heart of this steel beast. The swell starts to gently pull us across the dance floor and we sway from side…
25,459 total views, 83 views today
The Genie of Fez goes shopping for Nutmeg
There are those who follow the prophet Isa. They are fortunate to do so for he is a powerful prophet indeed, whose power lies even in his name. You think that is too simple a magic? Perhaps it is, perhaps it is. I like a good joke at least once every day, twice if I…
28,521 total views, 96 views today
The Desolation of Singapore
I love Singapore. And loath it at the same time. The love is grounded in all that has been achieved here, the entrepreneurial spirit and all those reasons which every observer admires and on which more commentary has been made than can ever be read. The loathing is more personal I think. 25,317 total views, 83 views…
25,317 total views, 83 views today
I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light. ― Helen Keller
Balu ushered me to the vehicle in bit of a rush. Balu? Was that really his name? I truly hoped it was though he did not have any easy going, saxophone loving idleness about him which his namesake showed. This short fellow, in a drab brown shalwar kemeez that failed to hide the fact that…
25,648 total views, 85 views today
Taliaban Bullets….Welcome to Pakistan
I arrive in the Airbus and my South Asia expectations (born of deep experience) about a crush and rush to the front are quashed. I feel slightly undersold. What’s with these people being so polite and deferential to each other? This is very Javanese of them I think. Since when were these guys so docile?…
25,494 total views, 83 views today
Exporting a Bogan or Two
(Language warning!) They’re sitting in the seats behind me. 76J and 76K in the 380. One is wearing shorts and a ‘wifebeater’. It went something like this, in loud voices used to projecting over the sound of the dogs on the back of the grinding ute. My laptop was on my knee so I made…
25,322 total views, 83 views today
A Scraped Knee a Spiritual Experience?
You betcha. In the inelegant scramble to haul over the edge of a two meter overhang, sections of pelt were left on the sandstone, and down an indented shin the claret seeps. You don’t notice the latter until the hot water of the shower hits the skin that evening and startles you awake. 25,347 total views,…
25,347 total views, 83 views today
That Which Does not Kill You – Makes You a Cox’s Orange
I wrap up at SIMaid tomorrow and wonder that the last week of April should mark the anniversary of so much that has happened over the last year. Most of it (not SIM I hasten to add) has been stuff I would not have scripted into the fabric of the life of my worst enemy…
26,517 total views, 92 views today
Dhaka Carnival
I was thinking of Herbert Money this evening as I picked my way through the smokey warm dark evening of a boisterous Dhaka street. He wrote home in 1927 from Peru recounting his delight at being witness to a revolution in the streets as a President was told he was no longer needed. Actually I…
25,941 total views, 87 views today
Listening to the Rice Grow
Apparently the French had a saying that went something like “the Vietnamese sow rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, the Laotians listen to it grow.” I think they were onto something there. This place is nothing like any other Asian city I have been to. It’s actually not a city in that sense and long…
25,515 total views, 84 views today
Casablanca
The words fingered into the dust of the battered little Renault van in front of my taxi in from the airport suggested this was going to be a very different place from Algiers. Not that I go around looking for differences. In fact the reverse is true. But “Lord of the Rings” above an exhaust…
26,622 total views, 88 views today
The Genie of Fez
The Genie from Fez strode the streets, enjoying the morning and pretty much minding his own business, which he had to do given he was from out of town, when he noticed a man and his donkey nestled into a driveway in Rue Rouget de I’Isle. The donkey was hitched to a small cart into…
25,466 total views, 85 views today
Birds of A Feather
Rooster and Cockerel lived in a bachelor pad on the heights above Algiers. Though very much the same they were in fact two very different beasts living in the same town. At six o’clock every morning Rooster would drag his tattered tail out onto the balcony. He had no idea where Mecca might be located…
25,333 total views, 83 views today
Walking the Casbah
There was a canary called Farouk. He sat in the window behind a dirty curtain installed when the French were in control and trilled his song across a filthy narrow lane three stories above the cobbles. Three tenements down his trill was answered by another, though Farouk did not know his name. Farouk was a…
25,305 total views, 83 views today
Welcome to Algeria
Ha, now I know I’m alive – this place is more edgy than sleepy old Verdun. Taxi at the airport? No such thing. Just Boris the Bullet Dodger and all his dodgy mates in their little, dusty Chevrolets. Yes, Chevrolets. More Cevy compacts than tiny French cars. How much to the city? Francais? Nah mate.…
25,347 total views, 83 views today
Farewell Verdun
The thermometer at the front of the bus says its five degrees but I could care less really. I have just realized we are driving down the Voie Sacree or Sacred Way on the way to Bar le Duc, places I have referenced in the novel. The Sacred Way became such when Marshall Petain established…
25,413 total views, 83 views today
Souville
The old man picked his way up the long road from Verdun. He skirted mules carrying bread, horse drawn wagons full of supplies, the endless procession of coughing munitions trucks and the equally endless procession of ambulances creeping back the other way. No one tried to stop him. He had been here before and they…
27,308 total views, 92 views today
Verdun – and A Girl with a Map
Never trust the directions of a woman armed with a map. Especially do not trust her if she is behind the counter of the city’s tourist bureau counter. Just walk up here, through there, cross there and you will be at the Verdun Memorial. Oh, by the way everything is closed in January. Of course…
25,864 total views, 85 views today
Haudainville
‘Haudainville?!’ exclaimed Fred of Verdun. ‘There’s nothing there.’ ‘Well, I have a farmer set out from there in a story I have written.’ ‘Really?’ He laughs. ‘I happen to know some farmers in Haudainville. But there is still nothing there.’ Well, yes and no. There is the beginning of a story there and I want…
25,923 total views, 91 views today
Fred of Verdun
It only takes ten minutes or so and we are in open country. I am mildly surprised. Though how open is hard to say since it is still dark . But we are running fast through cuttings and against the first hint of light I see the outlines of winter trees. As we roll towards…
25,899 total views, 87 views today
Back to France
I am in Gare L’Est, a significant point in the novel I started writing ten years ago, Ironically it’s where I am to catch my train up to Verdun and was not a place I was planning on visiting. But here I am in a coffee shop lost in its cavernous halls, drinking crap coffee…
25,996 total views, 87 views today
What Goes Up Must Come Down – Until Next Time
The previous evening the snow started in just before six thirty, and just as three others hove into view in the saddle below the hut. They struggle through the knee deep snow and we symapthise and put the kettle on then start into our own dinner. Wolfgang cooks up a mean stir fry but as…
25,311 total views, 85 views today
Taking a Step when You Shouldn’t
Fear is in the pit of my gut fed by tidbits of “What ifs” that are impossible to repel. What if I lose my footing? My balance? What if the snow slope gives way (the avalanches on Middle Peak crack and rumble across the valley from us and we watch the snow and rock cascade…
25,307 total views, 85 views today
You Peak Bagger You
I have been freaked out!! All day. Along knife edges. Up ice and rock. More knife edges. One preceded by “if you have to choose, fall right not left. If you fall right you are less likely to die.” He was serious. Heck, so was I. I actually started the day marveling at the teal…
25,293 total views, 83 views today
Mind Over Matter Over Ice
I slept well though under the shadow of a migraine. Altitude and hard work and my dreams are vivid and ridiculous and I turn through the night to get away from them. We cracked a window to ensure we didn’t suffocate and I enjoyed the cold air blowing over my face although we rose to…
25,325 total views, 83 views today
Up from Ball Hut
Well if you have to continue in Hillary’s steps (I use the word ‘continue’ with considerable license – I was in Nepal earlier in the year, Ed’s second home) then this is the place to come. He practiced on a regular basis from the Ball Hut and that’s where we got going from today. We…
25,309 total views, 83 views today
A Conversation with Joanna
Well here I am again. No, don’t get up, two visits in less than two years is not that unusual. Okay, I did commit to coming back earlier though, so forgive me my tardiness. I ran down here this morning from Tekapo and have arrived to a gorgeous clear day, though there is a forecast…
25,295 total views, 83 views today
In the Footsteps of Edmund Hillary
There has to be a better title than that but that pretty much sums it up. Sir Ed allegedly got the climbing bug when he climbed up to the Mueller Hut located in the Mount Cook National Park – or whatever it was then. So Steve and I thought we would have a crack at…
25,319 total views, 83 views today
Daily Telegraph Interview – Flowers of Baghdad
Daily Telegraph ‘Flowers of Baghdad’ interview appeared 20 September 2012. Follow the White Rabbit below (!) to get the whole article. 25,299 total views, 83 views today
25,299 total views, 83 views today
Adelaide Advertiser Review of Flowers of Baghdad
It’s short, but in praise… Malik is an Iraqi shirt salesman determined to believe in his country despite the violence tearing it apart. Aadil is a former army offi cer driven by poverty and anger to build electronic detonators for a group of insurgents he hopes is using his devices to fight the Americans, rather…
25,325 total views, 83 views today
No So Tough Mudder
There is a whole lot of nonsense out there about Tough Mudder. Is it tough? Really tough? No. Not really. 20km, or 19km or whatever the actual distance is, is 19km or 20km. If you are ready for it you are ready for it. Is there anything here not done before? In this case no.…
25,297 total views, 83 views today
Very hungry, very poor, very hungry baby (Yeah right!)
Every day in another culture offers the frisson of adventure, even if it is merely based on the fact that I am out of my own. Every day there are such a host of peculiar and unusual things going on the heart and mind are continually refreshed with that sense of wonder we too easily…
26,794 total views, 86 views today
16 Hours on an Indian Track
Dahl baht and rice looks pretty much the same at either end of the digestive tract. It’s delivered on a silver tray in some sort of order. Delivery at the other end is another matter altogether. At Saugauli Junction train station it seems to me that the vast majority of everyone’s Dahl baht is sprayed…
26,739 total views, 86 views today
A Book, That Book, Any old Book
It’s finally more than a cover concept and more than a pile of draft manuscripts that stand more than 30cm high. What do I think of that? I suspect I might be like a father who is indifferent to the birth of his child – there is something unnatural about that and not to be…
28,848 total views, 92 views today
Some Things I Probably Should not have Done – But am Glad I Did
(not an exhaustive list by any measure) Spoken to those two Russian women on that bridge in Paris. Who were they really and who did they actually work for? But, my goodness, they were gorgeous. 26,648 total views, 93 views today
26,648 total views, 93 views today
(22) Amen and Amen
And so it ends. I have clamped the emotion down and I distract myself with work emails and book launch details and diary commitments that I need to be thinking about over the next month or more. But then, just before we are due to leave for the airport (to Kathmandu) Lila appears out of…
25,396 total views, 87 views today
(21) Pokhara Unwind
I wake at ten minutes to five and get up to check the weather. It’s not raining but the clouds are hanging around the hills. There is a 50/50 chance that we will see the snow covered peaks surrounding Pokhara, many of which we have just spent more than two weeks circumnavigating. Everyone tells us…
25,415 total views, 85 views today
(20) Last Leg
I am sitting down by the river – our Gandaki dragon friend which is is not as violent as we saw it yesterday but it still snorts and roars and I stay clear of its bank. Everyone else is still in bed. The valley is dark and cool but the sun is dipping the tips…
25,479 total views, 85 views today
(19) How Has This Day Pleased Thee?
Let me count the ways. A knock on the door at 5.25am and I think its one of the team playing a practical joke, even though in the same instant I think that I can’t imagine any of them up at this hour. But it’s Lila who is announcing ‘mountain view’ (though in my sleepy…
25,363 total views, 83 views today
(18)Led Down a Garden Path
We wake to sunlight streaming in, and Marpa gains a more positive hue, the sun also helped in part by our beaming host who startles me with her excellent English and an expression of appreciation for our staying in her tea house. ‘If you trekkers did not come to my town I would be very…
25,375 total views, 85 views today
(17) Down and Out in Marpa
The light, but driven rain taps a distracting tattoo on the glass and smears the view of the river flats which fan out below me. This is the mighty Kali Gandaki Nadi, a tame and gentle beast over these stones and gravel, allowing careful petting as I ford it later in the day, but a…
25,385 total views, 83 views today
(16) Get Down and Get Medieval
It’s 6am in Muktinath and the town is already moving. School kids across the road are already dressed and are joshing about as school kids do. There is plenty of horseplay underway as I walk out on to the street. I ignore them and climb up above the town and am reminded by my lungs…
25,341 total views, 83 views today
(15)You all Pass (With Full Marks)
I wake at 0250 and am pleased there is no rain on the roof. The same was the case at midnight when I was able to look across this vast valley and see the ridge of rock that dominates this town. I am pretty much packed and ready to go but need to allow a…
25,349 total views, 83 views today
(14) Yakkity Yak, Don’t Come Back
(With apologies to the Coasters – check iTunes if you don’t know). We start out of Yak Kharka up a gentle rise, the track treating us easy. And yes, I hope we don’t come back. But we are at a height where I have to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of returning here with…
25,345 total views, 85 views today
(13) Eight Days Walking
Writing here from Yak Khaka with fingers tingling – probably something I need to watch given it is apparently a first symptom of problems with altitude. Or so I thought – it’s actually a side effect of the dioxin I was taking. We’re now at 13,218 feet in yak country and higher than Mr Cook,…
25,369 total views, 85 views today
(12) And God Rested on the Seventh Day
And so did we. After a fashion. The plan is to spend two nights here at Manang (at 11’614 feet) to aid in the acclimitisation process. But there is a 1500’ climb we will do here as part of our ‘climb high sleep low” strategy. But we have woken to steady rain and getting everyone…
25,351 total views, 83 views today
(11) The Road to Perdition (Manang Actually)
Well, if we thought we had it tough yesterday we were put through the grinder today. Those who have wide trekking experience found it as arduous as anything tackled anywhere else. Those new to the game wondered what the heck they were doing here. Actually there were moments when we all wondered what the heck…
25,343 total views, 83 views today
(10) The Climb to Pisang is not a Piece of Pisang
We follow the river out of Chame, starting at a respectable hour though not at the start time the guide urges on us. Some of the team would struggle with a regimental sergeant major cracking the whip with the clock. I remind some of them that we need to respect the guide’s daily timetable but…
25,343 total views, 83 views today
(9) Into the Misty Mountains
‘Come visit my home’ roared Gimli (Chris S). ‘Here we will feast on venison and drink mead until we are sated’. ‘In your dreams. There’s no way I’m climbing in to mountains to party with your bearded women’ piped up Sam (Peter G). ‘Give me that magical lembas anytime. By the way, what are those…
25,381 total views, 83 views today
(8)The Fragrance of Mule Droppings
Really? Okay, fragrance might be overdoing it a bit. But this is a major trading route and we are on Highway Number 1 through the Tal Valley. Actually it’s the only highway. We are passed by teams of mules loaded with all manner of tightly strapped down goods. At one point we get caught behind…
25,383 total views, 85 views today
(7) A Kind King
‘Centuries ago there was a kind king’ says Lila, our guide, as he sips his mint tea and gazes down on the village below us. Smoke rises from one or two stove pipes. It’s early, about 5.30am. I was up at 5 and having a quiet poke around when Lila appeared around the corner. He…
25,395 total views, 83 views today
(6) The Road to Besisihar is Paved with Good Intentions
At least its paved. Though you might be forgiven for thinking such was not the case if you close your eyes and attempt a nap. It’s not uncommon to be thrown out of your seat and to be airborne. I watch the face of the driver in his rearview mirror when that happens – the…
25,421 total views, 83 views today
(5) What Happens in Kathmandu Stays in Kathmandu
It sure does. Which is why its so important to get up here. There is nothing back home that equates to the sort of experiences you can immerse yourself in here. Walk up the empty streets at 6am and meet folk getting their day underway. 25,303 total views, 83 views today
25,303 total views, 83 views today
(4)When in Kathmandu..Stick with the Popcorn
The popcorn seller was a mildly spoken man and seemed overwhelmed by the crowd of people standing around trying to work out what his collection of spices and condiments were all about. But he and his fellows are popular in the street and it only takes a few minutes to work out what he charges…
25,313 total views, 85 views today
(3) Annapurna – Departure Day
The day starts early. My usual routine is an alarm call at 0530 each day. So, despite hoping for a sleep-in until 7am, I wake just before the alarm has a chance to prod me and lie awake for 5 minutes before I realise I’m not going to go back to sleep. 25,309 total views, 83 views…
25,309 total views, 83 views today
(2) Annapurna D-2
Well, here we go. The diary starts. I always have to start these things with a reminder that I need to capture as much introspection as possible. Otherwise they can turn into something tedious and fail to reveal anything new to anyone, including myself. So lets start there shall we? 26,716 total views, 88 views today
26,716 total views, 88 views today
Taxi Driver – Vanuatu
The taxi driver was a short round chap, half asleep and lying reposed in the window of his beaten up little Suzuki van. And it was surely a wreck with little to commend it other than at midnight it was going to save us a walk in the rain back to the hotel. We stepped…
26,824 total views, 94 views today
So What Makes an Author?
I attended a cocktail party recently and enjoyed a range of conversation with various folk involved in the publishing game. I liked the fact that the 41 year veteran from the mail room (I suspect there is more to the story than just that) was there and mingling. 26,208 total views, 84 views today
26,208 total views, 84 views today
(1) When the Going Gets Tough…
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When I first read that in a school magazine (relating, I believe, to the then athletics captain, a diminutive chap, whipping Xavier in some long distance race) I was taken at how pithy it was. I then discovered over a period of time that it is…
26,618 total views, 88 views today
Poor Options
Its hard to believe more than a decade has passed since I was here last. It only seems like yesterday that I was bashing through the traffic of Dhaka behind a certain Mr Chowdary (their equivalent of “Smith” it seems) who was anxious to jam as many fleeting business meetings as possible into the time…
26,328 total views, 86 views today
Notes in the Dark
0225hrs. A character in Baghdad reflected that his true place of worship was in his own mind, in the quiet on the top of his own house, not in the mosque. Here he was content and most close to God; where he felt God was less judge and more sympathetic creator. And in tune with…
26,579 total views, 88 views today
Stay Out of the Sun!
Just follow the boundary fence. You’ll come to a dam at the far end. The track we were on yesterday should come off that. Righteo. Actually, that briefing proved to be flawed. Expecting the track to loop around the property I found myself at the end of a long ridge, and the end of a…
25,717 total views, 86 views today
It’s the Hunt that Counts
“Just follow the boundary fence. You’ll come to a dam at the far end. The track we were on yesterday should come off that.” “Righteo”. I fired up the motor bike and headed off, up a track that was less track and more scrub in most places. I puttered along for a few clicks. It’s…
25,590 total views, 86 views today
A Motley Collection
Who are my fellow travellers? An interesting bunch. A family of six aboriginal children who jump and jive, whose twinkle in their eye hint at a suppressed joie de vivre, at least for the purpose of the trip. A part time goth that looks like she could use a good feed. Part time because her…
25,582 total views, 87 views today
Heading Up Country
I can’t recall the last time I was on a coach. Possibly the Greyhound from Philly to New York a few years ago. Now that was a zoo of a trip… This is far less tense and crowded. The traffic is light and we make it out to the flat northern suburbs quickly, rolling along…
25,584 total views, 86 views today
Dead Centre of Adelaide
The sun just coming off the morning horizon is slanting directly down the length of Adelaide’s main streets in one of those movie angles that is supposed to warn us that something prehistoric or alien will be stalking out of the brightness any second now. But no one is around. 25,436 total views, 86 views today
25,436 total views, 86 views today
Tintin and Girls
When I finished primary school I spent the Christmas holidays in breathless anticipation of two things which High School held out for me – an expanded audience of girls and a library. Girls? Go figure why the mind of a twelve year old would seethe so. 25,921 total views, 85 views today
25,921 total views, 85 views today
My Bed is a Gift
Last week I was a little startled to hear a pastor (not ours by the way) tell some of his parishioners they had to lie in the beds they had made for themselves. Actually I was very startled. I wonder from where in the Bible he was drawing this? If God worked on the principle…
25,343 total views, 85 views today
A Silk Purse Out of a Sows Ear
A condensed amalgam of a number of conversations on Saturday afternoon… “Let’s pitch here.” “Ah, let’s not, if it rains we will get flooded out. Actually, when it rains…” 26,422 total views, 88 views today
26,422 total views, 88 views today
Too Tough For Words
I have no idea how to write this up so I guess I’ll do what you always do when confronted by that challenge – just write. I had avoided calling Ryan’s family figuring they would contact me when they were ready. Turns out they had lost their phone and were worried they had lost touch.…
25,847 total views, 86 views today