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 to our down bags. The last couple of nights we have really appreciated these high end bags. In truth you can walk these tea houses and get by without a bag and manage quite well with what these places supply. We saw a chap do the Annapurna Circuit that way but he had done it multiple times and knew exactly what to expect at each destination. My only concern in these mountains would be the possibility of being caught out at night without accommodation. A down bag is good insurance.   Last night we could have raided other rooms for additional doonas. But only because they are trusting people and don’t have anything locked. All the other tea house had locked rooms. Fair enough. So do the hotels back home. The alarms have not been set but the lightening sky woke us at 0600 and we dozed until 0700 when the sun got a leg up over the Lantang ridge. We depart at 0850 after breakfast and arrive at Thurman at 1100. We have dawdled through forests and stopped for a long chat with a priest going the other way. Nagthali it turns out, is holy ground. 

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Nagthali

Saturday 29^th 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 on us we are instantly warm. We follow the retreating shadow of the mountain at 0800 only to find two boys scrubbing their faces with ice water out on the deck. Their mother, our hostess is kind enough to give us some hot water from her kettle for our ablutions. The boys don’t seem to mind that we have steam and they do not and they furiously scrub at themselves though they remain mostly clothed. Even for Nepalese in the mountains there are clearly limits. 

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Tamang Heritage Trail – Up to Tatopani

Friday 27^th 

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 musical horn. It gets less musical each time he uses it. But we can’t complain. We are warm under a couple of very heavy doonas. There are folk out there from 4am on who are heading out to collect firewood we were told last evening. They take a break at 10. I watch the vapour from my breath condense in our room and I’m glad I’m not on the firewood roster. We doze despite the noise. 

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Up the Hill To Gatlang

Tamang Heritage Trail

Thursday 27^th

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. Remaining under the doona I peek through the curtain to uncover a clear sky but I have to crane my neck since the mountain ridge above us blocks out so much sky. We stay in our bed under the weight of a couple of doonas and don’t rush anywhere. Actually rushing would be problematic given the double bed mostly fills the whole room and entering and leaving it requires some negotiation and careful manoeuvring into the narrow space between it and the wall. It’s pushed up hard on the other wall so there is one way in which is the same way out. The buses announce their 0700 departure with their musical horns and so we are eventually prodded out of bed. As we do so the sun starts its march down into the shadow of the valley where Syrabrubesi sits, turning dun into gold. The tops of some mountains are dusted with fresh snow, no doubt delivered under yesterdays cloud cap. 

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Arrival at Syrabrubesi

Tamang Heritage Trail.

Wednesday 26^th

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 by Rajan, who is proudly wearing his Man City jacket. Through Golkar. The road (F21 route) is clear now as we move through the fringes of the city, winding past marble resellers, plumbing suppliers, any number of food outlets, stone masons, timber yards and hardware stores and out into the fields. Kids in smart school uniforms flock to school. Terraced farming. Mustard in yellow flower. First blossoms hinting at pear and apple and plum. Broadbeans. Barley. Peas in flower. Potatoes sprouting through their mounds. Pink plum blossom. Lots of it. 

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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 by 8am when we climb to the roof and have breakfast. The refurbished kitchen comes with a chap who knows how to use it and we enjoy bacon and eggs and very good (very, very good) Nepalese coffee. 

Our trek requires us to have a pass for the Lantang National Park because a very small part of it encroaches onto it. And if you are trekking in Nepal you need a trekking permit. The TIMS card. The Lantang Pass is gained at the office of Tourism and costs us NRP3000 each. It is a quick process. You hand over your passport and a clerk fills in a ‘cheque book’ of passes. No photo required. Its cheap at half the price but is especially of value given the fee primarily goes to support conservation efforts in the park. 

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Tamang Heritage Trail – Kochi to Kathmandu

Monday 24^th 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 the keys at 0929. A train with 20 passenger cars hurtles past on the other side of the fence. The fellow passengers are silent, mostly asleep, including all the toddlers thankfully. Early to the airport (there is no traffic at 0300 thankfully) we were checked in and through to Kathmandu and off to security by 0420, a routine that was particularly thorough but reasonably good humoured. Rotate at 0734.

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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 COVID19 story is starting to ramp. We have a couple of half used little bottles we regularly use but the coronavirus panic has resulted in a dearth of this stuff in our Chinese centric community.  But there is plenty in the Miranda pharmacies . We actually were resigned to buying sanitiser in bulk then loading up a couple of smaller dispensing containers purchased at Paddy Palin. The idea is that we have this stuff hanging from our packs rather than hidden inside. That might prompt our use of it. Home from shopping to an online exam followed by packing at 10pm. Fortunately most of my kit is ready to go and bags are reclosed shortly thereafter. A slow start this morning on a temperate, humid and overcast day. Our first Uber ride (ever) to the airport is painless and far cheaper than the usual cab connection. Price is never really the metric of concern in this city (within reason) but whether or not Sydney’s traffic will conspire against your travel plans. This morning everyone is on our side and we arrive with plenty of time to spare and with few fellow travellers. The airport is relatively empty and we are through the barriers and into our bacon and eggs before we know it. SQ232 is delayed, not helped by a very non Singapore airlines crush at the boarding gate but it’s not a full flight and this 380 had plenty of vacant seats. We lift over Botany Bay at Magicians time – which is of course Gandalf’s ‘ precisely when he means to’.

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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. 

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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, the fragrance of coal and oil mixed with earth, and the prospect of far away places. The Plank, a ford or river crossing of the Shag River where we fished for eels, cut down trees, jumped from an old willow tree into the deepest part, sailed toy boats, lured elusive trout, threw rocks and made dams. Summer day memories of exploring downstream from the Plank through long green grass, the smell of wild mint, cutting through every now and then as we checked each dark pool for the shadow of fish. The Shag River empties into the ocean at Shag Point, both named after the cormorant that lives along the coast, otherwise known locally as a Shag. Black Shags mainly. Little Shags too. Trotters Gorge was a special, favourite location. “The Valley” already mentioned which traces up along the Horseback and Kakanui Ranges and through which Highway 85 runs. Macraes Flat (long before the mine) and Nenthorn, country familiar to many thanks to the Lord of the Rings. Places that were familiar to us but which were often never signposted, or had any specific centre of settlement. Morrisons is part of our DNA. The old coach inns, some repaired and some now vanished along side the highway from Cobb and Co days (there tended to be a settlement every ten miles, the distance horses hauling a wagon of goods could make it in a day). The weir at Glenpark, full of dark water under silent willows. Other places of special note included the library (Mrs Green) and the Post Office (Mrs Jopson). The Newsagent owned by the Applebys. Dad Appleby and his twin sons, nicknamed Drip and Drop by some, but never us. They were too generous and kind for that. Applebys was an Aladdin’s Cave of variety but especially the source of fishing lures and other tackle and in later years sneak peeks into Playboys while some of the gang distracted the twins. The home of Doctor Harper. The Presbyterian Church building next door and its accompanying Clark Hall. “Horrible Halls”, a derelict run down place in which we hid a hut in the attic. Any number of huts perched up trees dotted around the district or small underground bunkers dug into forest floors.  And of course the numerous homes of friends which were open homes to us. 

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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 vast majority since only 800 or so reside in that grand metroplis. Which to my ten year old mind it truly was. It outstripped Waikouaiti, home to a mere 500 souls or so, or Dunback at 30 if everyone was in for Sunday lunch. Or any number of small hamlets up and down the line or valley against which I was happy to pit our town. Though if we were ever under threat of being upstaged it was perfectly acceptable to lift 800 to 900, which happened more often than I was ever keen to admit. 

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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 too but in an altogether different configuration. One of my earliest memories was of toy cars made from recycled tin. Thin plastic wheels. Painted passengers. But when you flipped the car over the undercarriage was revealed to be absent except for the thin wire axles. However the original advertising or branding on the reverse of the tin was visible. I recall blue images of fish, no doubt a recycled tin of tuna. And characters ascribed to the Japanese though how we knew that at such a young age I have no idea. But years before Toyota and their TQM and precision engineering we had a derogatory view of their quality. If it was of dodgy manufacture it was “Made in Japan” in the same way a more recent generation has grown up ascribing rubbish to the Chinese. 

In those early years however  the family didn’t have a car so we walked everywhere, were given lifts, or caught the bus. We lived on Carrington Road in a house Dad renovated. If I have my facts correct (always doubtful)  his father had loaned my parents enough money to buy the house. Renovated and sold, Dad repaid the loan and used some of the profit to purchase their first car. A Holden. HD or HR? But I get ahead of myself again. 

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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 the deep dark of the night sky. And it was dark. No light pollution to ruin the view. Somehow that bright light connected me with the rest of the world in same way aircraft heading to Dunedin did. Passenger aircraft. Freighters including a regular Argosy run. Those orange tailed C-130s the US flew down to the Antarctic in summer. Flying from Christchurch mostly, arcing past a town of 800 people that was home to a twelve year old who escaped into a whole other world out there, imagining points of departure and places of arrival. Not that I was really looking to leave. I was happy there, content for the moment to be rooted in rural Otago, resident in a town no astronaut or pilot ever imagined existed.

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Bay of Pigs in New Zealand

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 define the word ‘fiasco’.  At least on the part of the Americans, for it cemented Castro as a national hero and helped stitch up the relationship between Havana and Moscow. Emboldened by the idea that they had a friendly ally so close to the US and from which you could throw stones onto houses in Florida, Moscow figured they would plant missiles there. So between April 1961 through into 1962 the world was drawn into an increasing period of tension which culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis as Russia deployed SS-4 Sandal medium range missiles onto Cuban soil. Eventually Moscow and Washington defused everything and the crisis was considered over in November 1962 but not before everyone thought they would be cooked in an instant of ‘one flash and you’re ash’ ‘mutually assured destruction.’

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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 out loud  and even in rewatching the movie I wait for the line as the movie closes. It’s such a wonderful line with deep undertones of awful violence. To use one’s intestines, presumably cleaned out, twisted and dried, as instruments by which to keep your socks up implies foul murder and wanton butchering. What’s to be done, after all,  with the rest of the body if only garters are produced? I’m surprised the line survived the editorial cut but I’m pleased it did, for it’s a line my father used and it ‘takes me back’. Back to lines which threatened unreasonable death such as “I’ll knock your block off” or lesser drubbings such as  “Do you want spiflicating?” or “I’ll belt you into the middle of next week”. That was a delicious favourite, as I imagined flying through time to find out what would happen before anyone else arrived. None of it was ever taken seriously of course but the tone was about suggesting you had better straighten up. Indeed, that word spiflicate was beyond our understanding. It was the sort of thing the old man might have made up and right through into our teens we imagined that was the case.  So it was with a cry of delight that brother Rob rushed through the school library one afternoon and declared the word actually existed in the English language. So, said the Greater Oxford Dictionary. Sadly the meaning was far more droll than the magnificent and exotic lashing we imagined it might represent. 

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