The Sounds of Then - Fiji, Malolo Island, Musket Cove

Our third day commenced a little earlier than expected due to an unseasonal thunderstorm. At dinner last night we were aware of the lightning in the background but couldn’t hear any thunder so we assumed it was a long way off. At 11:15pm thunder had become the new sound track replacing the rattle and hum of the air con and whirring and clicking of the fans. Whichever way you look at it, it's better than Redfern's concrete saws and sirens. By midnight the thunder was the rain on the tin roof. It sounded far worse than it was and when I looked outside, the grass in front of the buré was populated by frogs. Perhaps the next plague is on its way; we've already endured fire, flood and the Morrison government. The storm was done by 1am and replaced by a gentle breeze. Louvres open, air con, back to sleep.

I’m sure, my dear reader, you are curious about today’s title. How does a classic Gangjagang song about Australia fit with our holiday in Fiji? Sing it with me, “out on the patio we sit, and the humidity we breathe, we watch the lightning”, OK, let’s stop there. That is pretty much our world at present. Except our view is the Pacific Ocean and surrounding islands and we can wander off to the pool or down to the water’s edge at any time to cool off.

The lagoon in the morning

We discussed the storm at breakfast with one of the locals who said it was unseasonal and probably linked to climate change. Despite the pathetic posturing by current Australian LNP politicians, climate change is very real here and threatens, not just their way of life, but their world. The tide is in as I type this and we are barely 1 metre above the water level. While the reef protects the islands from the kind of storm surge we experience in coastal Australia it can only be a matter of time before rising sea levels have a devastating impact on the communities of the South Pacific. It’s hardly surprising that the Solomon Islands are seeking a closer friendship with China, given the disdain with which the Australian Government has treated Pacifica’s climate concerns.

Looking at to the Island Bar

Sunrise was around 6am. No photos. I was merely up to adjust the air con. We did roll out of bed just after 7 and headed for the pool to make use of the 25 metre lap swim area. A heated (it could be natural), salt water pool was not as easy to swim in as I first thought. The salt was extremely dehydrating. We managed 20 laps before breakfast.

Breakfast, like dinner last evening, was a buffet. There was quite the choice: bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, omelettes made to order, fresh fruit, cereal, yoghurt, an assortment of pastries, bircher muesli and more. It was quite pleasant to linger over a coffee and watch the resident cats attempting to get fed, or the bulbuls flying ever closer to the diners, hopeful of some crumbs.

Did I mention the heat and humidity, dear reader? It is almost too hot to drink alcohol. We are going through bottled water at a great rate. Probably at a 5:1 ratio to rosé, the current wine of choice. Quite unusual for us in holiday mode.

The day drifted by, assisted by a pleasant breeze. We picked up our flippers in anticipation of our Cloud 9 experience and headed out beyond the island bar to have a practise snorkel. It’s been a while. Actually, it’s been an eternity and our goggles and snorkels (we bought our own you know, covid and stuff) were covered in a thick layer of Redfern dust. Ah, how we miss the sounds of sirens and construction and traffic. Nah, not so much.

There is not a lot of coral here, although they are clearly attempting to grow their own. Now that was a tempting title for today. No? Neil Young, Homegrown. Anyway. They have a series of steps down into the water where we sat and washed our goggles and put on the flippers. The visibility today, official rating, was shit. It was very cloudy, the water, not the sky. There were plenty of small colourful fish, numerous blue starfish and the coral re-growth was fascinating to see. Some of it was growing on rope attached to other outcrops. As a place to snorkel, I’ve experienced better, but it was just to test the equipment. Also, I believe it would be a better experience in the morning. We shall see.

Post snorkelling the decision was – no lunch. How much can one person eat? We lounged and re-applied sunscreen for the adventure to Cloud 9. The name promises so much. Jayne was concerned about the transfers, by boat, a question we would pose prior to departure. And then, there was an epiphany moment. We are standing there, ready to embark, snorkel, flippers, beach bag, discussing the ease of access and egress and the guy we’re talking with makes everything clear. Cloud 9 is NOT a snorkelling platform. It is a multi-level pizza bar. People, read millennials, pay $75 each for the pleasure of being transported to a floating dance club. I have no doubt the pizza would not live up to expectations, the drinks would be overpriced and the music … let’s not go there. And the Murdoch press thinks smashed avo is stopping millennials from owning a home. His journos should get out more.

A Pacific Kingfisher

It was a tough decision but we opted to have a RAT instead. It is a travel requirement to have a RAT between 48 and 72 hours after arrival in Fiji.  Was it a tough decision? Let’s think about this. A couple of hours listening to ear drum splitting girls squealing and giggling, music that I detest, bad pizza, ridiculously expensive alcohol and buff boys posturing for the girls, OR have someone shove a stick up your nose. No contest. We both passed the test and were allowed to continue our holiday unhindered.

There was only one choice now, the Island Bar. It has shade. It is slightly elevated. It gets the breeze. And, it’s a bar. Bonus. The barge arrived earlier today so I’m excited for the expanded wine choice, tomorrow. Today, eschewing the rosé, we opted for a NZ sav blanc. Yep. Whatever. No need for fruit salad for dessert tonight. Curious why all the chardy and pinot gris has sold out. Or is it?

A flower. What? I'm  not Costa from Gardening Australia.

We whiled away the afternoon as the workers set up for tonight’s BBQ - for a special group. We are not among them so we don’t care. And then catastrophe. Jayne’s bikini top clasp decided to disintegrate… she let out a little squawk, a gasp and demonstrated her discomfort by the look of horror on her face. Thankfully the wardrobe malfunction was quickly salvaged via the sarong and, since my wife is a very resourceful person who plans for the unexpected – upon our return to the buré, the sewing kit was located and the bikini top has been successfully resurrected.

Crisis averted, it was time to wash off the sun screen pre-dinner and enjoy the breeze we wanted so badly yesterday.

As it turned out we were invited to the special dinner at the Island Bar. We walked down to main the restaurant to see the staff setting up for breakfast. "Dinner?" We politely enquired. “Oh, it’s at the Island Bar tonight, like every Thursday. Did you not see the sign out the front”? Clearly we didn’t. Out the front is actually the back for us. Our buré faces the water and we walk along the water to the restaurant. The front, as they refer to it, is on the other side. We have no need to walk down there, ever. It’s a pity they don’t publish a list of what’s on, what’s for dinner and the like if there is a set structure to meals and where they are going to be served. We don’t need three meals a day and generally skip lunch, but we could easily opt for lunch and skip dinner if we knew what the choices were.

That said, the Island Bar is a lovely spot with a more expansive view of the island, made the prettier by night lights across the lagoon. However, it was a little more crowded than the restaurant and we shared our table with a couple who had arrived that day.

It was a beautiful starlit walk back to the buré. While I have no regrets moving to the city, there are things I miss. The quiet nights and an inky black sky, pierced by a million sparkling stars are two.

Until next time.

All The Good Girls Go To Hell (Mollymook not Budapest)

Hello dear reader. Yes, it's been a couple of days since my fingers danced lightly across the keys. I don't mean to neglect you, it's just, well, there's only so much to report about beach walking and waves and sipping champagne on the balcony at sunset.

Saturday morning I opened the blinds to see two Southern Right Whales, mother and calf, moving languidly through the water, heading north, just off the shore of Mollymook Beach. They drew quite a crowd and were in no hurry, the mother rolling over in the water and the calf swimming quietly around her. The pictures are not what I had hoped, but for the millennials out there, proof is in the picture, not in the pudding.

Quite the spectacular sight really. Graceful. Beautiful. They reached the northern end of the beach and then headed out toward the open water to continue their journey north.

While it is pretty obvious we still haven't worked out climate change and its causes, I would have thought that we understood plastic and the problems it poses in the ocean. Yeah. Nah. Our daily walks along the beach have been quite pleasant, if strenuous at times due to the limited stretch of sand we had to walk on (climate change). A storm before we arrived unbedded a lot of kelp which has washed up in the shore break and drifts up and down the beach in diminishing proportions as it gets washed up above the high tide mark. The other morning our walk did not coincide with a low tide and we walked, at times, through berms of kelp. This continual denial of climate change and the impact we have on the environment is an absolute disgrace. 

Returning to my childhood days, I scoured the shore line and drying seaweed for anything interesting. The result? I spent a lot of time rescuing sea urchins, large and small, and returning them to the water away from the washes of kelp that threw them back onto the shore only to become food for seagulls. There was the usual array of detritus, shells, drift wood, left thongs (it's always the left thong - why?) and so on. Above and beyond everything else, coming second only to the kelp in weight, was plastic. Cups, lids, containers, bottles, toys, bags, seals ... if it was made of plastic it was there. But if the plastics industry provides jobs, then that's ok yeah? Ultimately there won't be a need for jobs when we don't have a planet because we have destroyed the ecosystems that have sustained us for so long. 

And that little rant brings us to today's song, All The Good Girls Go To Hell by Billie Eilish (2019). Have a listen.

Similarity #7: Music. Budapest has contributed significantly to the Classical Music scene where Franz Liszt established an Academy of Music. Music in Mollymook is representative of a wider, less classical genre, colloquially known a 'bogan shit'. It can be heard blaring form the cars that do continual laps of our street as they drive down to 'check out the waves'. I can save them the bother - small waves, shore break.

After the excitement of whale watching, I decided I needed to feed my coffee withdrawal. I've had one cup since we've been away. Straight to Dr Google to find the best establishments of nearby Ulladulla and to purchase some supplies. The number 1 café recommendation had tables on the verandah in the sun over looking the boat harbour. That would have been awesome, except for the 30kmph westerly that was trying to move the patrons and the furniture closer to the boats. 

We opted for Woolies instead and were asked about our face masks by a local. I explained that they could be purchased on the South Sydney website, "Oh, we can't do that!" came the reply and she walked off to join her husband in bunnies supporter's jacket and scarf. I couldn't survive without the internet.

On leaving Woolies we came across the second best rated café in town. I was a bit suspect because it was a 'chain' establishment. Nonetheless, nothing ventured as they say. We ordered 2 long blacks and some sweet treats. Both were disappointing. This chain seems to have succumbed to the American coffee concept (God knows why; Americans can't make decent coffee) and upsized our cup size automatically watering down the coffee. Sigh. The sweet treats were, well, sweet, even the lemon tart. The only bitter thing here was me. Anyway, back to the gale force wind and home to the shelter of our living room to watch the waves roll in and think about when we will open the champagne. The beach walk has been postponed.

Similarity #8: Food. Budapest has Trattoria Toscana that offers pizza with river views. Mollymook has Tony's Pizza (since 1970) that offers take-away or delivery so that we can eat our pizza with ocean views. The review of the food will be in the next post.

As the afternoon wore down the wind showed no sign of abating so I decided I needed to do a lap of the beach to balance tonight's pizza and wine. I left Jayne rugged up battling with the final pages of A Little Life.  If you ever feel life isn't going well for you this tome will provide loads of perspective. It was low tide when I hit the beach which made the walk easier as the sand was firmer but the wind detracted from the experience.

Back again inside an hour it was time to go and pick up our pizza. Now cars doing laps of our street is obviously a thing here. In fact random people turning up and sitting in their cars for 5, 10, 15 minutes is a thing. Some even love to share their music (see Similarity #7). But tonight ... there was a car parked across the road, as in perpendicular to the gutter, blocking half the roadway. Why? Well, the, ah, gentleman who had been driving was taking photos of said car. A special you car you ask? No. I think the owner may have been special. It was a Honda Accord circa 2004.

And with that it's time to say goodbye. Sunday is a transit day, we are heading to Shoalhaven Heads.

Until next time ...

Peace and Love (Wellington, New Zealand)

Wellington. Yeah. I like it.  Compared to a capital city like Canberra it is a definite winner. It has a great feeling, something like Hobart, although it feels bigger. I assume being contained by the water has an impact there.  There are plenty of venues to eat and drink. I could come back and spend much more time here exploring this lovely, relaxed place. It has been cool, around 16°, but not cold.

There is some funky sculpture around the place and, when you least expect it, a classic piece of architecture from yesteryear. Like the little place above, it's a restaurant and I would have loved to have had the time to eat there. The building was just sitting there hiding among some, well, not high rise, but you get the idea. In Sydney we would have bulldozed it on the basis that it was no longer significant to the concrete, glass and plastic world we have created.

Just around the corner and open to the public

Establishments to eat and drink appear to dominate. The culture is laid back and no-one appears to be in a hurry, despite the proliferation of joggers. It's all good, as someone remarked at the café this morning. Which is probably a good place to commence the day.

So, my dear reader, after a fairly average night's sleep, it was time to tackle Wellington. Breakfast first. We wended our way to the Flight Coffee Hangar in Dixon Street. Or, if you're a local, the Hangar. Regardless, you need to stop by; for more information, click here. 

The coffee was awesome. The world was calmed. Life stopped, just for a moment. Then it resumed. The room was all polished concrete and blocks. The crowd never diminished. Anyone who left was replaced as the door swung back and forwards. The local police take their coffee here. Breakfast ... oh, yeah ... bacon, tomatoes and sourdough. And, um, yeah, Jayne probably had eggs, whatever. And then ... the OJ ... seriously, it doesn't get any better than this.

The body rebuilt, it was time to tackle the the museum. Te Papa, to be exact. It is, or, et us, the museum of New Zealand. Entry is free, although there are a number of places where you are offered the opportunity to make a contribution to support the museum. Just do it. What is on offer at the museum is quite remarkable and it can't/won't continue without public support - unless of course the NZ government takes an alternate view to that of my home country. What is that dear reader? Oh, yes, I see ... well, donate anyway, it will help the museum.

I don't have a lot of photos from the museum. The simple reason is that the things I wanted to photograph were considered culturally sensitive, so no photography. Fair enough. But this one is a cracker, particularly if you are Australian. An eye-catching poster. They could have had any number of pictures from the Australian fires underneath to illustrate the point. That would have been the simplest and most poignant of exhibitions ... unless you are a journalist for a Murdoch media outlet and believe the fires have nothing to do with climate change.

Well, NZ can acknowledge its existence, come on Australia.

In we went and up the stairs to the first exhibition: Gallipoli. There's a fun way to begin a day. A review of the wanton loss of human life, in particular, young male life, from small communities that couldn't afford it. From an Australian view point, it was interesting to see the Kiwi perspective, particularly since it has never really been acknowledged in our school history texts. ANZAC. What? The NZ means New Zealand? Who knew? 

There were some confronting graphics which elicited audible gasps from the observers. Overall, I wonder what these exhibitions are meant to achieve. This one had an indigenous focus and looked at the Māori involvement and how that came about. It is difficult to look at some of these events in retrospect and accept them, even understanding the intent. 

Feeling incredibly uplifted after the Gallipoli exhibition, (yes, sarcasm, just being explicit for ... you know who you are) we continued our exploration of the museum. Next was a series of exhibits that explored the concept of the shaky isles, history of and adaptation to tremors and volcanic activity. My feet were getting sore and we hadn't even left the second level.

Level 3 was entitled "Blood Earth Fire" and looked at the human invasion of New Zealand. Not a hugely difficult task when you are looking at 7,000 years of history. Imagine if Australia ever acknowledged its indigenous history? Conservatively we are looking at 70,000 years. Given current scientific dating techniques, we could actually be talking about 120,000 years, or more. Yeah, but we never had a treaty like the Waitangi Treaty, so ... imagine the difference it would have made ... an indigenous voice in parliament from the beginning, recognition ... 

There was more Māori stuff on the next level. Exploration of how the Māori came to be in New Zealand, where they came from and the impact they had on the land. The arrival of the Pākehā (white people) and the massive change as a result of their arrival, not just in social terms, but in the use of the land. Apparently, European settlement in those days meant clear the trees for sheep and cattle. Just like Australia. It was rape and pillage of the land. The land would never recover. A good reference here if you are seeking further understanding from an Australian perspective is Deep Time Dreaming or Dark Emu.

It was after 2pm when we strolled back into into daylight. We were surprised. Where had the last 2 hours gone? A few minutes earlier we had been discussing lunch. Admittedly we did explore the art exhibits, but really? We paused to adjust to the glare of daylight (without smoke haze) and then set out for the cable car. Yes dear reader, Wellington has a cable car. We needed the map to find it, despite having walked past it twice. It is carefully hidden in Cable Car Alley.

So, what did it look like? Unsurprisingly, a red cable car, the likes of which you've seen around the world. The concept is the same, it's a tram/car, attached to cables that haul it up a mountain side. As far as that goes, it met the criteria. We reached the top of Wellington: the Botanic Gardens, the Observatory, a café that served craft beer and suburbia with a view of the bay. Photos of view achieved, it was beer time in the afternoon sun. There was a cable car museum also, but, hey, life is too short for that.

Back at sea level we had a brief diversion to Countdown (Woolworths if you are Australian) and then back to the hotel before heading out for lunch/dinner at the Thistle Inn.

Read on, it'll make sense. And, no, it's not what you're thinking.

Walking around Wellington, and previous research, revealed some interesting things. Firstly, Wellington is a city that prides itself on the number of residents who choose to walk to work or catch public transport. Really? There is a Wilson Car park on every corner - parking from $4. And there were no cars on the roads. It was eerily quiet at times. As for walking ... electric scooters. Lazy bastards. Walk like the advertising material says.

Secondly, the pedestrian lights. They certainly keep you guessing. There are the standard sets: red man, green man. Variation one: the second countdown before the lights change and you know you are toast to oncoming traffic. Variation two: a red man, green lady. Gender equity, yeah? Nuh. The lady looks like Mary Poppins without her carpet bag. What century is this? Variation three: the haka. I'm not sure how to describe it but both the red and green man are involved and it is definitely the haka.

The more I look at this, the more I believe it is a woman doing the haka.

After that brief diversion, the Thistle Inn, click here. A corner pub. A gastro pub in NZ terms. Lots of polished timber, not just on the floor. Tables, bar stools, a glass floor section looking back to a bygone era. Friendly staff, great atmosphere ... am I sounding like an ad? It was a great way to spend the afternoon. The crowd appeared to be 'academic'. Well, we were near a university. That didn't detract from the atmosphere or the wine or the food.

In other posts, I have explored the concept of the "best fish and chips" in Sydney. Well, today I have expanded the search to include Wellington. Yes, my dear reader, not even UberEats will get your fish'n'chips to you in Sydney from Wellington without them being soggy. But this place is seriously worth a visit. And they have a dining room. With starched table cloths and silverware. Ok, the silverware isn't real, but they have gone the distance. I could easily spend a day here.

The title today? I'm not trying to make a habit of a late reveal, it was more, well, disinterest. Peace and Love by the House of Shem (2017) was a nifty little reggae number playing in the museum today. My only concern was that it is religious song, written and performed by a local church group. So, I'll just leave that there. And not make any further comment. On this page. Just in my head.

And so, who knows what tomorrow brings? Well, I do, sort of, the drive to Napier.

Until then.