Tuesday 22 May 2012

World Cross Stitch


This is the story of our journey in cross stitch. 

I was inspired by the V&A’s Exhibition of British Quilting where individual pieces were often embroidered with family or historical events, the Bayeux Tapestry and the ‘story sticks’ children make on trips and projects.

When we set out I thought I would be mainly inspired by folk art and architectural motifs, but as we went along I soon found that equally inspiring were the people we met and the Helpx jobs we did.

Bulgaria was an amazing first destination.  Country life and traditions were alive and well and it was fascinating to see the difference in development communism brings.  Flashing through the countryside on a corridor train, where outside doors are left open and the ground rushes past under your feet in the toilet, left a lasting first impression.

We met the delightful Jenni and Jordi, romantic Barcelona supporters and very much in love. 





Crete in May was covered with daisies and we Helpxed for Susanne and Michalis, working on their Nature Park and feeling a real sense that without people like us they really wouldn’t make it.  A heady feeling of making the difference between giving up and making it, things are pretty hard in Greece.  The other volunteers we met were a joy, the lovely Natalie and Mara; it makes me smile to think of them.

June on the Greek Islands, what a contrast to our existence on Crete, we had an amazing luxury holiday on Santorini and Mykanos with Chris’s Brother, his wife and her father, mainly sitting around in bars or swimming in the pool and one very memorable sunset boat trip with Captain George.

In July to Athens and our first Couch Surfing experience.  It’s an amazing way to meet people and experience things you wouldn’t as a tourist.  Lovely Lena LB put us up while we sorted out our India visas.



In the Peleponese we met Phil and Shema and helped them with house renovations and lugging stuff about.  They were really fun to be with and Shema and I giggled like school girls.  I’d forgotten what that was like.

After collecting our India visas in Athens we were on the train again, through Thessiloniki almost to Turkey and to the only Helpx that didn’t work out.  But ‘hey ho’ we didn’t have to stay.  


Back in Palamartsa in Bulgaria we were welcomed with open arms and helped with Jenni and Jordi’s wedding, much better than Will and Kate’s, in my opinion.









We arrived in Turkey on my birthday.  What an amazing country and what fabulous people, so friendly and helpful.  After the longest bus and train journey from deepest Bulgaria to Izmir we did a wonderful Helpx in a small boutique hotel, in Kirazli under the minaret.  Call to prayer always coincided with dinner so we didn’t need to say grace!  Nick and Maggie were our wonderful hosts and I even wrote a new verse for an old song for Nick’s Birthday. 

In September in Uzumlu in the pine clad hills behind Fethiye, in anther small hotel we met Ayse and Gengis who gave us a wonderful insight into Turkish culture and hospitality in return for our help.  It was here that I had a meeting with a scorpion that only one of us survived.  We met fellow volunteer Brigitte, bright and dazzlingly clever; she really raised my scrabble game! 

Then began a period of rather intense travel; first to Cappadocia with its rock formations, not featured on my embroidery because of their potential of being mistaken for a part of the male anatomy.  Rather one of the hot air balloons that hissed their way into the sky at dawn every morning in a very romantic fashion. 

Then Istanbul, Safran Bolu, Ankara and back to Istanbul, all in less than a fortnight on the fantastic Turkish buses with their trolley dollies and 'in bus' entertainment systems.  An incredible snapshot of a fraction of Turkey.  We CouchSurfed in Istanbul with an Armenian called Alex, who truly relished his CouchSurfers, in his Istanbul apartment we met four other CouchSurfers and learned to make a cake in a sauce pan. 

October and Beirut!  Still full of bullet holes and bomb sites, soldiers, police and road blocks.  Our CouchSurfing experience here put us in parts of Beirut where Tourists aren’t often seen.  Lebanon was the first place I felt nervous to be.  Our time in the sky resort of BacharrĂ©, was our little countryside retreat and from there we dashed to Baalbeck and Tripoli, really fascinating and sometimes hair-raising experiences. 

In Jordan it was just one sight seeing whirl, the Dead Sea and Petra and amazing ruins with mosaics, that Tony Robinson would die for, many just protected by a bit of clear plastic and the sand blowing across.  The mosaic I copied for my embroidery was at Umm ar-Rasas, is Philadelphia now the capital of Jordan, Amman.

November, India and culture shock, going from New Delhi to Diu, visiting Jaipur, Udaipur and Amedebad in between.  The sites, sounds and smells were both indescribable and unforgettable.  The amazing colours and cacophony of noises will stay with us for ever.  Our Couch Surfing Experience here was really illustrative of Indian Society, from Govinder's small apartment, clean but basic to the Mehta family’s lovely home and to Barbara and Heinrik’s beautiful apartment, all lovely, lovely people.  Ahmedabad’s Calico Museum, give a full morning’s tour through their unforgettable collection of textiles, the work was incredible.   

On Diu we spend two weeks eating fish curry and swimming with turtles and meeting all ten of the other western tourists who had made it to that tiny dot on the coast of Gujarat. 





Slipping through Kuala Lumpur and Singapore (where one night cost as much as ten on Diu) we arrived in Australia and a different approach to my embroidery.  From a wealth of cultural and architectural reference to virtually none, I found new references in the landscape.



The world sailing championships were on in Freemantle and then at our Helpx near Bridgetown we looked after chickens watched the parrots cavorting in the sky, delighted in the tiny jewel like blue wren surrounded by paddocks and Alpacas.  The Bibby family with their four children were a delight and farm sitting for them was a real experience of remoteness.

Then a real road trip; returning a yellow Toyota Carola, twenty-one years old, with one white wing, to Taree from Freemantle.  Across the Nullabor with its ‘ninety mile straight’ to Adelaide, then down the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne.  We camped, we CouchSurfed, we stayed with the daughter of an old friend and  a couple we had met in Diu.  The vast landscapes of our journey filled us with a real sense of space and emptiness only hinted at in few places in the UK.











It took us ten days to get to Newcastle, just north of Sydney, to catch up with Natalie (Crete) and then on to Taree where it rained and rained and rained.  There was a rescue Kangaroo called Barney and when it briefly stopped raining the countryside was delightful.

We spent two weeks in Repton, where the weather relented a little.  We Helpxed, house sitting for a couple with a giant cat and doing odd jobs.  We used their Van to see a bit of the ‘awesome’ sub-tropical rainforest and its giant trees.

Then Sydney and the charming Stephen Bailey our CouchSurf host who showed us around and shared recipes with us. 






New Zealand’s South Island has places that look just like England and places where you wouldn’t be surprised to see a pterodactyl will fly by.  Near Geraldine we spent some time with my Cousin and his family.  Chris helped him put a concrete floor in his ‘shid’ (shed), while I did what I could to help around the house.  We went on an amazing freshwater fishing trip and came home with enough salmon and trout to feed us for a week with out stinting.  

Then our last Helpx with the inveterate adventurer Lawrence McIntyre.  At his latest adventure, Golden Bay Hideaway we camped in a container, cooked on an open fire and raked up cockles, at low tide, that tasted as good as oysters.  We took Lawrence’s car and explored the area, soaking up the wildness, bitten by sand flies and mosquitoes but drunk on the wildness and space.  All in return for cleaning his holiday lets and painting roofs and the house truck.

We took a small plane to Wellington and a bus to Auckland for a kind of ‘been there’ visit to the North Island before flying back to Perth for one last visit where the eucalyptus outside Mark’s house was flowering. 

Finally, on the plane home I embroidered the quote Thomas texted when we set off. 

The finished embroidery is just over two and a half meters long and we travelled 58,000 killometers!

 

Friday 30 March 2012

Up, Up and Away



Our Chariot
















Flying used to be considered by Megan, by far the worst thing ever invented by man.  When we went to Paris for our 10th wedding anniversary, entering the plane door was akin to going into the dragons den for her.  Well here we are, a few years later and when asked if she wanted to sit next to the pilot on a small, a very small, a very, very small (6 seats including the pilot himself – who incidentally looked 12 years old) plane, she was jumping up and down like a 12 year old herself saying oh yes please may I, what a turn around!
Co Pilot Megan

Our 'Home' from the Air


Golden Bay Airline flew us across the straits between the South and North Islands of New Zealand. The flight was brilliant; we only flew at about seven thousand feet, and the day was very clear so we had a great view of the ground below – when we were over ground anyway.  We flew over Golden Bay Hideaway, our last Helpx place and could see all the holiday lets; Rata Camp where we had lived for the previous 3 weeks, also the shed, nerve centre of the operation could be clearly seen from the air.




Take off was interesting, all the bumps were felt that you would normally miss in a bigger plane, and the turns tight and steep as only a small plane could do.  I thought Meg would be feeling a little worried but when I looked around behind me she was all smiles and eagerly looking out of the window.  At the end of the flight (we didn’t land at Wellington Airport as the weather there had closed in and in fact not one flight landed there all day) the pilot did a lovely turn around the airstrip at Paraparaumu to give us all a good view of the target and then let her down as soft as a feather pillow.
Farewell Spit

John was there to meet us with his girlfriend, Glenys, all of you who have been reading this blog (if there is anyone out there) will remember John, he is Raewyn’s (my brother Mark’s wife) dad and he spent 2 weeks on the Greek islands with us last June, that seems so long ago now.  He whisked us off to spend 3 nights with them in Waikanai near Wellington, which we visited.  We then moved onto Auckland and couch surfed with a young family for 3 nights.  Both cities certainly need more time than we spent there, so a return trip to New Zealand seems to be needed as we only scratched the surface of the country.
Cable Car in Wellington

Feeding 'Friends' at the Cafe

Delayed Christmas Dinner with John and Glenys
Auckland

Auckland

Beer O'Clock



Where are we now then?  Well we have returned to Western Australia to spend some more time with Mark and Raewyn, top up our sunshine time, before making the last hop back to the UK.

Land of the Long White Cloud

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Golden Bay Hideaway


Camp, our bedroom to the right

Camping out is something Megan and I really like, it’s a good job as that is how we have lived for the last week and for just over two weeks more, except we are not living in a tent, we are sleeping in a shipping container!  It is a superior type of container though, an ex-refrigeration container, stainless steel lined and insulated.  Our accommodation is made from two of these side by side with 7 metres between them which makes up the living room, kitchen and dining area.  This area is concreted and has a round fire place at the front on one side and opposite that is the kitchen.  Over all this is a roof which slopes backwards to meet a back wall, at the front, the roof also forms a veranda area at the front the front area is open all the time to the elements – so we are camping.
Living Room with Fire

Kitchen


This is the living arrangements for our latest Helpx, we are helping Lawrence, to run his holiday home business, he has three ‘cottages’ on the plot, one is a higgledy piggledy house built on the hill with seven different levels called The Hippy House, the second is a converted truck, called guess what, you got it right, The Truck House and the third is called Little Greenie, as it has gained 9 out of 10 stars for energy saving making it the best house of its kind in New Zealand. 

The Beach

Relaxing

More Relaxing


We are located on the top north west corner of the South Island and the property overlooks Wainui Bay, literally, each cottage sits on a levelled area of the hillside with a view of the bay.  Lawrence has created it all himself, except for the Hippy House that was already here when he bought the place ten years ago, including all the tracks up the hill to all the sites, the water and power systems.

Lawrence divides up the jobs into, pink and blue, which means Megan’s main job is to clean the places after people have stayed which can be anything from one night to a week, at the moment the average seems to be 2 or 3 nights.  I have been mostly painting, a trailer, the front of the Truck House and the roof of the Hippy House; I have also learnt to drive a tractor.
The New Tractor Driver


We have been cockling on the beach, the first time we walked over through some sticky mud and got a bucket of cockles and a bucket of muscles, which were cooked on the open fire – very, very nice.  The second time, yesterday, the two of us gathered half a bucket in about 15 minutes!
Cockling

The Catch

The Feast





















We do not have an internet connection here so I am not sure when this will be posted and when the next one will appear.  What I do know is we are booked on a six seat plane, from here to Wellington on the 21st March, what fun; Meg wants to sit next to the pilot, not bad for someone who doesn’t like flying.
Cockling Tools

Wainui Bay

Wednesday 22 February 2012

The Land of the Long White Cloud


















Before getting to New Zealand we had two good days in Sydney, with our Couch Surf hosts Stephen and his daughter Cassie, before we left.  They looked after us really well, including taking us around a few places including Circular Quay where the iconic Sydney Opera house is and also on the ferry to Manly for a visit to the beach, where guess what, yes, Megan wanted had a swim, there’s a surprise!

The second day there we found found ourselves on a ferry again and visiting Cockatoo Island.  This is an old penal colony and later a shipyard; it built ships for the Australian Navy right into the eighties.  Now it is a developing visitor attraction, with tours with differing subjects and lengths also various activities, recently a centre for street art, it also has a campsite with tents already set up and a swimming place, all this within sight of Sydney Harbour Bridge. 
Street Art Festival





















So onto New Zealand, we are staying with Megan’s cousin Graham and his wife Sarah, they have two young children, Amy (6) and Henry (nearly 5).  The house is set in 20 acres of prime farmland, and apart from the odd strange tree and bird, it looks just like the border of England and Wales somewhere round Hereford, which happens to be where they come from!  They have a few sheep and cows, some of whom now reside in the freezer, some chickens and Grahams first love – a tractor, John Deere of course, and some machinery to help him with hay making.  He works full time for the local John Deere dealer as a fitter and service engineer, travelling around the area visiting local farmers and repairing their machines.  Sarah works at the doctors, very handy when you need to get a prescription written.
Megan on the fishing trip
















The first thing we noticed was how much colder it is here, south of Christchurch, on the South Island, we had to visit a second hand clothing store to buy some warmer clothes!  Hopefully as we move north from here it will get warmer again, one advantage the biting insects have been left behind leaving Meg in peace.

Look What I Caught

I caught one as well


Last Sunday we went on a Mega Fishing Trip, up into the High country with Graham and his friend Neville who is a New Zealand version of Johnny Kingdom (see the BBC) every time we stopped we caught some fish, most of them large and all edible, some small but thrown back – a few of those would have found their way into the ‘bag’ in the UK.  Neville’s local knowledge was incredible, first we went to a ‘canal’, a man made waterway running out of Lake Tekapo and an amazing blue colour. This water passes through 7 or 8 hydro-electric generation stations on its way to the sea, making the most of its kinetic energy.  In one part of the canal there is a salmon farm and we went there to catch ‘escapees’ and we did, 2 each, our allowed catch, they were about 4-6 lbs and very tasty indeed.  Then an hours drive, some of it through 4 wheel drive country, to a river.  Neville got out of the car, grabbed his ‘trout rod’ thrust a worm on the hook, strode up to the bank cast his fishing buddy (the worm) into the fast moving water, waited for about a minute, shook his head, reeled it in, moved 2 metres to his right cast again and in less than 15 seconds hooked fish, handed me the rod a said ‘land that’, which I did, a magnificent 3lb brown trout, how about that then for local knowledge?  We caught and kept nearly our allowance of 2 each, we got 7, so 15 fish in total Neville only wanted one so the rest were taken home to consume in various ways, I will say the brown trout were particularly good, in my opinion. 
Graham with one of his

Tackling Up

Brown Trout


Apart from the fishing on that day, the scenery we were in was spectacular; I know I’ve used that descriptive term before a few times writing this blog, but each time it has warranted it’s use and they all still do.  New Zealand really is Aotearoa – The Land of the Long White Cloud.
The Road Home