Lincolnshire, food and ancestors

River Cruise:

The day after arriving in Nettleham we took a cruise on the Boston Belle down the River Haven. The weather was fairly kind but the sky was not brilliant blue, neither did the sun beat down as in the river cruises I just experienced in the Top End of Australia. We saw cormorants, herons, black-backed gulls, egrets and seals. No crocodiles. I saw the Boston Stump (the cathedral) up close for the first time and thought about the pilgrims leaving from here to make a new life in America.



Boston Stump from the river



Food:

En route to the pier in Boston we stopped at a great butcher/deli at Navenby (Odlings) to pick up meats and pies. I couldn’t resist getting stuck into a pork pie then and there. What makes these Lincolnshire pork pies great? Apart from Lincolnshire producing good pork products, it is the crust that does it for me, crunchy and fresh. Yumm! Speaking of pork products; dad bred pigs for a while and a local farmer (who had such a broad accent I could never understand what he said) helped us make sausages, hams, haslet and brawn etc. I never knew what was in the brawn but we ate it for weeks there was so much of it. 

[I just called dad to find out what was in brawn: 'pigs' snout and ears' was the reply They were tough and had to be cooked for a long time. Prolonged cooking produced a jelly in which the pink bits sat. I had no idea]

Wikipedia tells me that Haslet, pronounced 'Hacelet',^[2][3] or azelet, though sometimes 'hazlet' in areas outside Lincolnshire) is a herbed pork meatloaf, originally from Lincolnshire. It is typically made of stale white bread, pork (traditionally the entrails), sage, salt and pepper, and sometimes onion. (We ate lots of this too!)^[4]

The next must on the food agenda is fish and chips. We had to queue up for about 25 minutes at the fish shop on the way home from the cruise. It’s worth the wait. Proper size chips, not those weedy, skinny McDonald types, and fresh North sea fish, not to mention the mushy peas and salt and vinegar sprayed on top.

A stay with my sister is not complete without one of her gargantuan roast dinners. The meat was chicken but the piece de resistance were the veggies, eight of them: roast potatoes; baked squash, parsnips, yams, egg plant; stuffed marrow; cauliflower; carrots.

Of course I’d already sampled the steak pie at the Plough in Nettleham. We’d met dad there on our arrival from Sheffield. It has real meat, well cooked in tasty gravy and topped by a delicious crust, not too thick and not too much of it. That is definitely going to get a second visit before I leave.

Another must is Malt loaf, a rather sticky dark brown loaf with raisins, eaten with butter. Not good if you have false teeth. Blue Riband chocolate wafer, and of course Cadbury’s chocolate. It definitely tastes better here. My sister had Bassets Jelly Babies waiting for me when I arrived bless her!

Of course, apart from the veggies, none of these foods aren't what you could call healthy but what the heck, as Maxine says, ‘I’m on ‘oliday, I can do what I like!’

Ancestors:

The day after the cruise we drove to Southwell in Nottinghamshire, specifically the Minster where some of my ancestors are buried in the church graveyard. They are the Brailsford family and Mary was the originator of the Bramley apple. Wikipedia tells us:

The first 'Bramley's Seedling' tree grew from pips planted by Mary Ann Brailsford when she was a young girl in her garden in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, UK in 1809.[2] The tree in the garden was later included in the purchase of the cottage by a local butcher, Matthew Bramley in 1846. In 1856, a local nurseryman, Henry Merryweather asked if he could take cuttings from the tree and start to sell the apples. Bramley agreed but insisted that the apples should bear his name.

On 31st October 1862 the first recorded sale of a Bramley was noted in Merryweather's accounts. He sold "three Bramley apples for 2/- to Mr Geo Cooper of Upton Hall".

Look, there's Mary!

(Cooper was my maiden name, I wonder if an ancestor from the other side of the family bought them!) You do not want to eat one from the tree, they are sour. They are very good for cooking and comprise 95% of cooking apples used in England. My niece has a Bramley apple tree in her garden.

Last year Southwell Minster had a ceremony to consecrate a stained glass window dedicated to the Bramley apple.

On October 23 this year, the Southwell Bramley Festival takes place comprising a festival of cookery and food, apple themed events (the mind boggles!), even the Bramley Apple Celebration handicap Stakes at Southwell Racecourse.

All this for a cooking apple.

As to the living ancestors, namely dad, now 97, we listen to the Premier league football matches together in his hot living room. He feels the cold now and is a little deaf so the radio shouts at us. He’s still enthusiastic about the game as he is about MotoGP and Formula 1 racing.

Lincoln City:

Stokes Cafe no longer wafts coffee over the High street. It is still there but they’ve taken the coffee grinder out of the window. In the days before I knew what good coffee was I used to love that smell, breathing it in as I lingered for a while on the bridge, watching the swans. They are still there.

I suppose you can say Lincoln has 'arrived' - the University of Lincoln has expanded, there's a proliferation of student accommodation and there is now a Holiday Inn and a Nando's! But really not much has changed since I was here 2 years ago. The cathedral still dominates, geographically at least.

I discovered that while the High Street is a pedestrian precinct, if you go there between 9-10 it is not. I found myself dodging delivery vans and feeling cross about it. There is a new phenomenon known as 'Lincolnhire Day.'


There is a Nero’s in the upper High street. They make the only good coffee I’ve found in the UK. They advertise that they use a double shot of espresso in their coffees. I think the others use half! Fortunately Neros are all over the place so I know where to go for a decent coffee when I’m out and about.

Edinburgh Woollen Mills (EWM) are still there and I found a couple of bargains on the ‘Buy one get one free’ rack. I did not bump into my cousin, the ‘pseudo nun,’ she was busy chasing after the pope who’s been visiting the UK.

I notice the Liberal Club is up for sale. My mother used to sing there when she was a young woman. Her father, my grandfather was secretary there, and I think it's where my parents met.

The Liberal Club

The Ggreen Dragon Pub is still around, not a bad pick up joint, especially for RAF guys, the scene of many a fun night!



The Green Dragon



England by sea

We went to Bridlington, a trip down memory lane for me and Val.

From wikipedia:  Bridlington is a seaside resort, minor Sea fishing port and civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

Val's aunt Barbara used to live there, now she is buried there. She ran the family newsagency, and we stayed with her for a few days from time to time when we were student nurses. The problem was getting there. Having no money, we hitchhiked.

Once we got only as far as Hull before it got dark. (Hull is now referred to as Kingston upon Hull in the east ridng of yorkshire and famous for housing the poet Philip Larkin, now deceased.) This was of no concern to us then. All we needed was a bed for the night free of charge. We called on the police. It so happened that Hull had a system of providing rooms (paid for by the city) for waifs and strays like us. In no time the cops delivered us to a suburban home where we were greeted with smiles.

It was early evening. Not wanting to waste the opportunity for a good night out, we found a pub. Before we knew it beer was flowing and the conpany looked good. Hours later two guys brought us back on  their motorbikes to the temporary digs. No smiles from the landlady this time, she thrust our bags upon us and sent us into the night. We'd broken curfew. There was nothing for it but to walk the streets until it got light.

About one in the morning we knocked on the door of a policeman's kiosk. These were small wooden structures in the street to which police on the beat could repair for a break. The hut was warm and the cop was kind, made us a cup of tea and gave us a Kit Kat. But we couldn't stay there all night so he suggested that we return to the police station and throw ourselves on their mercy.

Back we went in the cold March air. We found the police station, explained our predicament and asked for a cell. At 2 am we ended up lying on the waiting room floor, travel bags under our heads for pillows.

The cleaners woke us in the morning, thought we were on the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme (for genral derring do and endeavour) gave us tea and custard tarts. Our lift out of Hull was on the back of an open top lorry carrying straw bales. The wind sucked all the moisture out of our bodies and the air from our lungs. We fetched up in Bridlington with wild hair and stinging cheeks.

Today's journey was more sedate and much warmer in a diesel engine VW Golf.  The tide was out, the sea a sandy brown seguing into grey. Broome this was definitely not. A number of people were taking the air in wheelchairs. The Brits are a hardy lot. It was bracing walking against the wind to the harbour, the scene of another past adventure.

There is nothing more forlorn than an English seaside resort out of season. It was three months before the amusement parks opened and the day trippers showed up. We talked some crab boatmen into taking us out with them. At 4.30am, clutching sandwiches made by Aunty Barb we boarded. The fsherman were brothers, big strapping lads with ruddy cheeks. Did I mention it was March and we were heading out into the North Sea? It was freezing. The toilet was a bucket. I was not game to use it and held on until we docked at noon. The men raised up crab pots, released the crabs into vats on the deck, re-baited the pots and put them down again. Sometimes one of them would cry 'Lobster mine', claiming the lobster which had crawled into the crab pot. The lobsters were dark blue which surprised  me. I'd only seen boiled ones before. Mercifully the seas were not rough and the sandwiches stayed down.

After fish and chips at the Dolphin restaurant we, the older versions of those young adventturers, walked onto Bridlington Spa. In the 1960s on another trip to Bridlington Val and I went to a jazz concert there. It was very dairng in those days because it started at midnight and went on until 6am. At one point I stepped out of the large double doors facing the ocean to watch the sun rise. With Johnny Dankworth playing in the background and Cleo Laine singing it was one of those magical moments one sometimes experiences.

The large ballroom area remains although it has seating arranged on it now. They still have regular performances there of a vareity of artists. Now there is a cafe on the upper floor with a sweeping view of the ocean and Flamborough Heads. it looks good, worthy of a future visit.

We paid a visit to the kind maiden Aunt Barbara's grave before heading home.

a week in Sheffield

I trained as a nurse in Sheffield from 1957-1961. The place has changed a bit since then. For one thing, the smell of coal gas has gone; it used to hit me as I walked down the ramp from Victoria Station to the bus stop. There are no coal mines any more and the station has disappeared too. The one remaining (Midland station) has been tarted up with a steel sculptured curving wall and a wide open space in front of it, impressive.

 Of course the engine of the city, the steel industry, disappeared a long time ago, sucking the life out
of the place for a while. In its place are monuments to its memory and museums.

'Sheffy Stan' pouring molten metal out of his crucible

Speaking of crucibles, The Crucible is a very famous place among billiard players in the world. In fact the World Snooker Championship is taking place there as I write this. It is making local cafe owners  nervous, as I found when trying to pay for lunch for me and my friends at the Crucible Cafe last week. They didn't want to take my 50.00 pound note, and pointed to the notice behind the counter stating they did not accept such notes. 'Why not?' I asked. Apparently the 50.00 pound note is the easiest to replicate and around World Snooker championship time the cheats and touts gather for rich pickings from the innocent punters passing counterfeit notes. I managed to convince them I had the genuine article before repairing to the Lyceum Theatre nearby to watch the play 'Carrie's War.'

The Lyceum has been there a long time. Nursing students used to get free tickets to pop stars' concerts, usually on a quiet night and usually near the front. We saw the likes of Tommy Steel, Adam Faith etc, the early stars of British rock'n'roll. I fancy I saw my first ballet at the Lyceum too. I couldn't get over the sound of the dancers' feet shuffling over the stage, something you didn't hear on TV or in the movies.

The theatre was full of schoolchildren, I suppose because the play was about the experiences of  two children when evacuated during WW11. They screamed and guffawed at the stage kiss, but generally were well behaved. We weren't sure however that they understood the premise of the play.

The stores have changed. C & A where I bought my first short skirt (a straight feltish green job) has disappeared. I didn't know it at the time but I had the reputation of being the first person at the hospital to wear a short skirt, albeit a rather modest precursor to the minis that followed.

The buildings are cleaner; there are more pedestrian precincts in the city centre with gardens, fountains and sculptures; smelly breweries have been replaced by high-ceilinged, well lit flats like my friends'.
BUT the sooner they get rid of that bloody great Big Wheel the better! What is it about English towns and big wheels? Even Windsor has one. It is becoming fetishistic!

I fancy I see the same faces and physiques of long ago, however, tarty bleach blond women and be-ringed skinny men hanging about the city centre.
One thing that hasn't changed in Sheffield are the beautiful surroundings. People used to describe Sheffield as 'an ugly picture in a beautiful frame.' In a matter of minutes you are out of the grime and into the Derbyshire Dales, with its soft green rolling hills, low stone walls and picturesque villages.

We visited Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duchess of Devonshire (aka Jessica the youngest of the famous Mitford sisters). It was too late to inspect its interior so contented ourselves with walking the beautifully landscaped exterior, sampling the wares of the cafe (of course) and the gift shop.

A wedding was taking place outside, atop a stone structured platform (a bit like a small pyramid without the pointy bit at the top). It is a beautiful venue for it, and we saw a young couple with mum and dad in tow being wooed for a possible future wedding.  In such ways the titled owners manage to keep their palaces and stately homes afloat.

 A few of my nursing friends and I lunched together at one of the many pubs in Derbyshire.  Ours was
The Hearty Oaks. The food was as the name suggests, hearty, especially the huge beef and Guinnesss pie I tucked into. We were served by a very solicitous young waiter, James who could not do enough for us,  except cook another batch of lasagne which had run out. He was so charming we didn't mind. Of course Lasagne was unheard of in the pubs of 50 years ago, not to mention fried camembert, chili prawns etc. so things are looking up.

We haven't changed a bit of course!

24 hours in New York

Krista met me at JFK and off we went to her studio apartment in Brooklyn. Lovely space, nice and light, very comfy, thank you Kris.

Had a great hamburger (no beetroot in sight) at The Farm nearby and a pretty dark beer the name of which I can't pronounce and most of which I couldn't drink. Must remember to avoid that one in future.

The next morning I was on my own as Kris went to work, taking my largest suitcase with her. What a great gal! After a few hours taking stock, editing Day 7 of the Darwin-Broome blog and repacking I made for the underground.

Securing the ticket should have been easy but the woman behind the grill referred me to the screen at the turnstile. I let the next person go as I tried to figure out how to get my ticket. Ah a slot for money! In went the note. It wouldn't go.  A line of impatient New Yorkers began to form. I tried again. No luck. someone in the back shouted press 'Start'. There it was in big letters on the screen. Relief and shame competed for attention. At last I got the precious ticket. I turned round apologising profusely to the irritated faces behind me. I don't think New Yorkers know how to handle apologies.

I hopped on the first train that came along. Kris had told me her office was nine stops away. I wrote 111111111 in my notebook carefully crossing out each stop we passed. The ninth was Broadway and Lafayette, not quite the Broadway stop I was expecting as per Krista's instructions but I got off anyway.

Didn't seem to be any streets near the 14th street I needed. I asked the way. Just 3 or 4 blocks. Off I went with my two bags, handbag and raincoat which mercifully I didn't need. It was also good that the temperature had gone down from the 33 degrees of the day before because it took me half an hour to find Krista's office. It appeared I had caught the B train instead of the Q. How was I to know that trains had letters on their fronts!

After meeting the men and women of Project Achieve (within sight of the Empire State building) and a Thai lunch with Kris I took a stroll down Fifth Avenue, not the fashionable part but interesting nonetheless. There is ALWAYS something going on in NY. Stopped for a while to listen to and film some Nashville boys stomping and hollerin', wondering if we'd run across them again in Nashville in 6 weeks time. A doubles tennis match was being screened from the US Open in Madison Park. A model shoot was going on further down the avenue. The male model's face was chiseled and totally expressionless, beautiful but blank, how I could imagine a zombie looking.  See what I mean!
A halal food cart looking like one of those mad Pakistani buses also came in for some camera work.

Then it was back to the airport, Newark, NJ this time. Kris and I took the train. Easy enough but confusion reigned when I tried to check in at the Continental Airlines desk. I was glad I pre-booked my seat online because the flight was chockers. Another touch screen affair which confused me yet again. although I managed to get a boarding pass for the leg to Brussels but not for the leg to Manchester. Instead I had a piece of paper stating 'THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS' which gave me visions of being stuck 'In Bruges' like those guys in the film.

Not much sleep on the flight to Brussels, not enough time what with dinner and breakfast being served, then more confusion at Brussels Airport. First of all we all marched about a hundred yards down the concourse then came to a full stop. A big crowd developed as we went nowhere. I was too far back to see what the hold up was. Eventually I found a man, said 'Manchester' and he directed me up stairs away from the throng. Another crowd of people up there but in an orderly queue waiting to go through security. I'm still worried about not having a boarding pass and didn't want to get through to the Other Side only to have to be turned back. Someone assured me there was a Brussels Airlines desk there, so shoes off, netbook out of suitcase etc etc and I was through security. After another enquiry I was directed to the Bus gate. Bus gate???? There I would receive my boarding pass.  At Bus gate 91 I received the precious pass. Eventually a bus showed up and drove at least a mile (maybe it was only half but it seemed a  long way) and we climbed up the stairs to board the Avro flight.

I've since learned Avro is the UK's award winning cheap ticket operator for low cost flights. I was definitely in the cheap seats, some in the front were eligible for free drinks and snacks, we in the back had to pay for them. I didn't bother, knowing I'd be getting a good cup of tea with my friends when I arrived at the other end. Besides it was the principle of the thing.

Now, I'm not a Luddite but I can't help thinking how much easier life was, not to mention more efficient, when some smiling face behind a desk supplied you with your tickets, passes etc and sent you on your way. Okay I'll do without the smile, just give me a person who knows what she or he is doing!!!!

Okay, it's time for a gripe. QANTAS, an airline I have supported and defended for years no longer has my loyalty. It all hapepned on my recent flight to New York.

It is probably their fault that boarding in Sydney was delayed 45 minutes. It is probably their fault that a smoke alarm wasn't working thereby causing consternation among the pasengers waiting to take off when five men and a ladder came marching down the aisle to the back of the plane. It took twenty minutes for the men to punch up one of the panels, reconnect the thing and secure the panel when they were done.


Okay, it is not their fault that a passenger got sick (maybe the men and the ladder alarmed her) and had to be deplaned along with 2 travelling companions and all their luggage.

But it is their fault that the seats in economy are jammed so closely together that it threatens health and safety especially on a long haul flight. Have OH&S ever looked into this?

And why did the toilets stink? One of the reasons for the initial delay was to clean the plane but they obviously missed this section or did they run out of deodorizer? For a minute I thought I was back on Garuda airlines twenty years ago.

Talk about running out, of course my choice of food on the menu was not available by the time they got to the back row. Okay, it happens. But surely there are some little pats of butter around for the dried out raisin scone (I'm still not sure what it was) at breakfast. I put the call button on to ask. After 10 minutes with no response, I squeezed out of the seat, tray in hand and went down to the galley. 'THey didn't supply us,' was the reply.

QANTAS you may have the reputation of being the safest airline in the world but your seating plan, your food, and your service leaves much to be desired, and given that you slashed the value of frequent flyer points by half this year, I shall be looking elsewhere for my next long flight.

I hear Etihad is very good value for money.

Travel tips for a long haul flight to the northern hemishpere in September

Having only 3 days between returning from Broome and leaving for USA-UK presented challenges of timing and packing. Luckily most of the clothes needed for the tropics could be left in the laundry basket. Even so I did 3 loads. Clothes for an English Autumn had already been listed and set aside in the wardrobe.

During one of the many waiting periods whle flying I wrote down my flying tips, things I have pretty much abided by for years.

First of all, it pays to have good, well designed luggage. I have been using a medium size Travlepro suitcase with accompanying small bag for years, for holidays of 6-7 weeks duration and will continue to do so until it falls apart.

PACKING:

- pack what you think you need then halve it.
- have 2 main colour themes which you can mix and match. You need fewer pieces and fewer pieces of jewelry this way.
-  plan on layers for most destinations
-  unless you are going on a camping safari, take one pair confortable walking shoes, one pair black 'dress' shoes and a pair of sandals. Wear the bulkiest of these for the journey. Stuff the rest with small things like socks, pills, lotions which can't be packed in cabin luggage etc;
 - tie a brightly coloured luggage strap around your suitcase. That way you can easily distinguish it from the mostly black suitcases trundling round the carousel at the airport. Also it's an extra bit of security around a bulging bag.
- If you fly within the USA most American airlines charge for more than one 'checked-in' bag. If you have a strong back use a large suticase that keeps you within the 20kg limit  for economy passengers. If you cannot haul around one bag be prepared to pay about $50.00 US dollars for the second one.

.Cabin luggage:
- some airlines stipulate a 7kg weight limit but most of the time on long haul flights don't check it;
- a wheelie bag makes life easier for walking to gates that are far away, plus you can drape extra coats and your handbag on it;
- have a cardigan handy for the cold cabins (although temperatures vary);
- if you have back problems like me carry an extra small pillow or cushion;
- If the airline doesn't supply it (and they're getting more miserly these days) carry a small handlotion to remoisturise your dried out skin, and small toothpaste and toothbrush. You feel so much better stepping off the plane with a fresh mouth.

Flying economy: there is no way round it, it is a hideous experience. Here are some tips that might help.
- The food is so so at best, if you sit in the back of the plane they will certainly run out of your choice of meal no matter how fancy the menu is;  
- drowning your sorrows in alcohol doesn't help because it dries you out, swig gallons of water instead;
- Pick the salad, fruit, cheese and crackers and leave the mushy garbage in the hot vicious foil tray. That way you avoid scalding yourself and sitting for hours with indigestion. One tip; the preselected vegetarian  dish is often easier to digest, you get your meal before the others and your choice is guaranteed.

Seating:
- The miniscule leg room increases your chances of deep vein thrombosis tenfold, so  buy the special stockings;
- these days you can pay a little extra for a bulkhead seat or emergency row exit seat which gives you more leg room BUT conditions apply. You have to be able and fit enough to open the doors in an emergency. I can't so don't bother applying;
- unless you are planning to take a sleeping pill and fly undisturbed for 12+ hours, book an aisle seat. That way you can get up and walk up and down the cabin to remind your circulation that you're not dead, and can visit the toilet as often as needed without disturbing anyone;
-it might pay to book an aisle seat at the back of the plane because these seats are filled last, although I must say it did not pay off for me this time since every flight was chockers. Still you can give yourself the chance.
- If you have an hour or two stop over en route, don't head for the bar, walk, walk, walk. Airport concourses offer plenty of space for this so take advantage of it. You will decrease the risk of DVTs, ease the stiffness of seating for hours and aid digestion.

After all this you may end up at your destination feeling half human. Hopefully someone is at the other end to meet you, hold your hand (and your luggage!) to listen to your gripes about the nightmare you've just experienced. Three days later you may be over the jetlag or you might be like me, up at 3 in the morning five days later writing blogs about travel tips.

Final days

Sept 3 Day 9


After our first night at Oakes Resort, Broome (they’ve been bitten by the Art Deco bug) we took a bumpy ride over the puny Pindas corrugations to the winner of many tourist awards, Willy Creek Pearl Farm. En route, we spotted a pair of Brolgas, birds in the crane family that perform a beautiful dance at mating time. See http://www.dreamtime.auz.net/default.asp?Page ID=54 for an aboriginal dreamtime explanation.

Whatever information was left out yesterday about pearls and pearling was filled in today. For instance the pearl meat I sampled is considered an aphrodisiac by the Japanese. (Can’t say I noticed those qualities myself, maybe I didn’t have enough!) It sells for $600.00 a kilo in Japan, $150.00 a kilo in Australia.

Here is the gist of what our guide told us about the creation of the Australian South Sea Pearls:

A South Sea pearl is produced by the Pinctada maxima mollusk. (I thought they said pink tartar)


Saltwater Nucleation In Pearl Farming

Two basic methods of nucleation are used. Saltwater oysters are generally nucleated using a "bead", prepared from mother-of-pearl. First, the bead is surrounded by a small piece of mantle tissue taken from a donor oyster. The bead and tissue are then implanted into the oyster's gonad. (ouch!)The bead serves as a nucleus, around which the pearl develops. The resulting pearl will contain the bead at its centre and will tend to develop in the same general shape as the original bead. The bead can be detected in the final pearl by x-rays.

Freshwater Mussel Grafting In Pearl Farming

Freshwater mussels (Willie Creek uses Mississippi mussels) are generally grafted using a piece of mantle tissue only, without a bead. This small piece of mantle tissue is placed into an incision in the host mussel's mantle instead of the gonad. Both sides of the valve can accept grafts, and an average freshwater mussel will produce 24 to 32 pearls per culturing cycle.

The oysters that don’t reject the bead (85%) are suspended in the salt water creek for 2 years, getting cleaned of marine growth every 3 weeks. (They use a lot of backpacker labour for these types of jobs.) These become the spherical south seas pearl.

Keshi pearls are formed when the oyster rejects and spits out the implanted nucleus before the culturing process is complete, or the implanted mantle tissue fractures and forms separate pearl sacs without nuclei. These pearl sacs eventually produce pearls without a nucleus.

Mabe (pronounced marbay) pearl is a hemispherical shaped pearl which is grown against the inside of the oyster's shell, rather than within its tissue. They are good for rings (I bought one of these in a ring at a shop near the resort) but obviously no good in a necklace.

Mother of Pearl in the oyster shell is used for guitar inlays, pearl handled pistols, in make up, car paint, the halogen on credit cards.

There are five important characteristics to look for in a pearl: size; shape; lustre; colour; complexion. Finding all five will cost you a bundle, but buying a pearl which gives you some of the five characteristics is more do-able. Which characteristics you are prepared to sacrifice depends on personal tastes and pocket books.

During free time in the afternoon, a few of us drifted into the famous Paspaley’s store. They farm 3 million oysters a year compared with Willy Creek’s 280,000. They also sell large pearls, nothing less than 3mm of nacre. That means big prices. We came, we saw, we didn’t conquer.

The day ended with yet another sunset watch, this time on Cable Beach, accompanied by champagne. We had our final dinner together at a nearby restaurant.

The next morning, (Day 10, Sept 4) after his day off, Bushie picked us up and took us to market. It reminded me of Byron Bay markets, a place where the local hippie types hang out selling their arts, crafts, clothes, home made candles, soaps, beads and silver. Not a large market but most of us were ready to board the bus for the airport well before the time of departure, tired out with the heat.

Broome airport is small and right in town. A new one is being constructed further out. The flight was an hour late, and we had to walk out on the tarmac up the steps to board. Another slightly famous Australian personality, the actor Gary Sweet went with us.

What did I love about this holiday? The rugged grandeur of the scenery; the vastness of the country; the warmth (although a few degrees less would be more comfortable); the wildlife (although I wouldn’t like to come face to face with many of them); the company, even the strangeness of Bushie.

Here are some ‘Bushieisms’ that didn’t make it in previous blogs: ‘fac silly me’ for facsimile and one I loved, ‘rudimental’ combining fundamental and rudimentary. Nutrients became ‘nutrigens’ and occupation ‘occupization.’

Am I being cruel? Maybe the guy has a problem with dyslexia, in which case he’s brave putting himself out there as a tourist guide/driver. But those constant references to ‘chicky babes’ queered his fate.

Thank you Bushie for a safe drive and thank you for providing me with some laughs at your expense.

Marie and Ray, the organisers of Thereabout travel did a great job with grace and fun to make our journey a memorable one.

Freshies and French letters

Sept 1 Day 7



First day of Spring. Not the spring of leafy green lush trees but red earth, scrubby growth and blazing sky. We’re in Hall’s Creek, site of WA’s first gold rush. Also once, not too long ago, the most violent town in Australia, mainly feuding clans. According to Bushie they were ‘contestual.’

Things are better now since the supply of grog is controlled, only light beers sold and in limited amounts at limited times of the day. Everyone knows everyone else, therefore being drunk brings shame not only on you but also on your people. For example, if you are found drunk waiting for the community bus, it will not pick you up. Anyone acting up in the pub is banned, your name, the nature of your offence and the length of ban are displayed behind the bar for all to see. ‘Name and shame.’

It seems to be working and money has been poured into the town. On one road the street lamps have their own individual solar panels. There is a new swimming pool but its use is conditional on attending school; ‘no school, no pool.’ When it was first built, attendance skyrocketed such that there weren’t enough teachers. Another beneficial side effect has been that the extra filtration system in the pool has helped clear up the chronic snotty noses and ear infections in the children, thereby giving the medical staff some relief.

In an effort to cut down on the rates of STDs, even the ‘hanky panky’ is taken care of in Halls Creek. French letter boxes filled with free condoms are strung from trees every few metres so that when anyone gets the urge they can protect themselves. Bushie didn’t say if it was working.

We had a tourist information bureau stop here; heard all about the heroism of Russian Jack aka

Ivan Fredericks (1864 - 1904), known as Russian Jack, was a goldminer of the Western Australian gold rush in the 1880s. In 1885, while working in the Halls Creek goldmines, he pushed his sick friend in a wheelbarrow 300 km through the Great Sandy Desert to Wyndham, the nearest town with a medical centre. A statue was erected to him in Halls Creek. He is buried in Fremantle Cemetery. [photo on my facebook page]

(Got this from Wikipedia since I was dozing off when Bushie related the tale.)

On the road again, Bushie told us to look at the scenery as this was the most scenic part of the trip Even though it is hilly, it is part of the Great Sandy Desert. Wedge tail eagles soar about looking for prey.

We had a toilet stop at Mary Pools, not much water but we still had to keep an eye put for salties. The more desperate among us used the outback dunny (I’ve been in worse) and some had a few words with a seasoned camper complete with satellite dish.

After lunch at Fitzroy River Lodge, we went on another cruise on the Fitzroy river in an open boat. I wet my pillow case cover to drape around my neck to cool it down. (A good tip for anyone planning these sorts of adventures. I got the idea from the ice collars sportsmen wear in the heat.)

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the river rises in the Durack Range in east Kimberley and traces a 325-mile (525-kilometre) course that flows southwest through the rugged King Leopold Ranges and the Geikie Gorge (where many freshwater crocodiles are found) and turns northwest through rugged country and plains, emptying into the Indian Ocean at King Sound. A tidal rise of 25 feet (8 m) is common at its mouth, which is 6 miles (10 km) wide.

We learned about the endangered sawfish (saw a TV program about it the other day so I actually saw what they look like.) More freshies were about, getting ready to lay their eggs. Apparently the locals can gauge how high the flood waters are going to be in the wet by how high up the bank the crocodiles make their nests. These are quite high. I shall watch with interest how big the wet is this year.

Back at the Lodge we went in the pool but I had a shock. Unlike all the pools thus far this one was cold. We didn’t linger.

Bright shining diamonds

Blog Aug 31 Day 6


It was nice having 2 days in one spot, getting laundry done etc. but now we’re on the road to visit the Argyle Diamond mine, Australia’s only major diamond producer and now owned by Rio Tinto.

We dropped twelve of the party off at the airport to do a flight over the Bungle Bungles. Here’s a site that tells you all about it: http://www.kimberlyaustralia.com/bungle-bungles.html

The rest of us continued by road to the mine.

This is Bushie’s version of how the Argyle diamond mine started. I prefer it to the sanitised version on line.

In the early 1970s Uranium miners from South Africa thought the terrain in the NE Kimberly looked good for Uranium. Maureen Muggeridge (got a high profile in the mining industry today) a geologist with the company went off on her own little expedition and found a couple of what looked like diamonds. She took them to the senior geologist. On further exploration they found a place littered with diamonds. They sent some off to be tested.

They kept quiet about their find. When the results were positive they kept super quiet. However, as these things go rumours developed but no one could find them. Seeking to quash the rumours, the wily Maureen and the senior geologist set up a dummy exploration site to put suspicious prospectors off the scent. It worked. As soon as the uranium mining lease was up in 1979 CRA (The company they worked for) submitted a bid for diamond prospecting at the site they’d kept secret.

Prospective prospectors were furious at being duped, tried to sue CRA but there was no case to answer. Negotiations with the local indigenous groups commenced, an agreement of compensation was reached and the mine was commissioned in 1985.

Hold onto your hats for information about the mine, courtesy of Ted our knowledgeable guide and an elder of one of the 3 indigenous groups in the area:



You want a job at the mine? Here are the conditions:

2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, day or night. Most people live at the compound (we tourists had to be quiet for those sleeping during the day.)

You will spend your time driving, OR operating machinery that crushes and/or sluices, OR operating shovels and bull dozers etc. dumping slag (the waste from the mine). All this in high heat, 46 degrees C in the monsoon season. No wonder the main complaint the two nurses on site treat is dehydration.

Female employment stands at 35%, they are aiming for 50% so ladies get your hard hats and come on down!

I never found out the what the money is but I assume it’s pretty good, and you will not be able to waste it all on booze, on the compound at least. Alcohol intake is regulated at the source, eg. light beers and only a few hours in which to drink. They breathalyse you before every shift and do random drug testing.

There are health and safety messages everywhere, a particularly fetching one in the toilets about monitoring the colour of your urine for signs of dehydration. If you become seriously ill the Royal Flying Doctor Service will fly you to a hospital.

I was surprised to learn that diamonds are found in the ‘pipes’ of extinct volcanos. This mine is projected to produce until 2010. So far they have been working on and near the surface but are gradually boring in 12 metres underground at an angle, eventually reaching a distance of 23 kms. So far, the main haul has been industrial diamonds (75%); gem quality (15%); and the highly sort after pink diamonds (10%). Every year they issue invitations to the rich and famous to purchase that year’s haul of pink diamonds. So far I have not received an invitation. Big money. A recent recalculation indicates that the south face of the mine is producing 80% of gem quality diamonds. Very rare blue diamonds have been also been found in small numbers.

Essentially processing the diamonds consist of crushing the rock several times, and sluicing off the dross. The diamonds are so hard they wear out the rollers in the cutters within 4 weeks. It is very expensive to replace them. The water used for sluicing is pumped from a nearby dam; the waste water is recycled to use again.

Once the diamonds are revealed the sorters move in, each one accompanied by a security guard. The sorters are searched at every break, and they’re x-rayed on the way out of the mine. Who’d be a guard!

All but the pink diamonds are cut and polished in India then sent to Amsterdam for sale and distribution. The pinks are cut, polished and stored in Perth.

School groups do tours in the hopes that some of them will work at the mines when they graduate. Although the workforce was cut drastically during the GFC numbers are again picking up.

A few people purchased diamonds including my travelling companion, in the form of a very pretty ring that sparkles in the sunshine. I bought a postcard.

red dust and rock pools

Blog August 30 2010


We’ve got to the stage where we’re asking each other what day it is.

Today’s itinerary is entitled El Questro. According to Bushie the name has no meaning, it is just a name. albeit the name of a large homestead which was once a million acre cattle station. Since then it has been broken up and the homestead caters for all class of tourists including an exclusive enclave for the rich and famous. According to Bushie, Nicole Kidman makes occasional visits to escape the ‘Patserati!’ As it happened we saw only the roof of the homestead from a distance.

Before we arrived there however, Bushie took us on a side trip around the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. In retrospect I think it was an excuse for a good rant. Here’s a potted history: the powers that be thought the black soil should be good for something. Originally rice and cotton were grown, turned out to be too thirsty. They tried melons, maize and chick peas; not enough bang for the buck. Now they are embarked on a 15 year project growing hundreds of thousand of sandalwood trees, apparently there is big money in it.

Bushie spits, ‘it’s a parasite!’

The sandalwood has to live off another tree so for every sandalwood producer another tree is planted then wasted. The other crop they’re trying is African Mahogany. Bushie has no time for that either. It has shallow roots and the branches fall off. The wood is used for making furniture. There is however a plus side to tree planting. They increase the water table which reduces the risk of salinity thereby regenerating the soil.

Speaking of trees, the boabs around Cununurra grow in families, the only place this happens apparently, there’s dad the big fella in the centre, then mum, sometimes more than one, then the kids, smaller trees round the outside.

We arrived at Chamberlain Gorge for a cruise, some of us wondering how we could possibly top Katherine Gorge. Well, where Katherine Gorge was spiritual, this cruise was a laugh a minute. Who would have thought that learning about lifejackets could be so hilarious. QANTAS could learn a thing or two from this joker. They had our full attention. Then…along came Buddy, Buddy Tyson, a tall aboriginal dressed like the cattleman he once was, and droll as droll could be. He would not disgrace the stage at the Melbourne comedy festival.

Here’s one of his stories. Some woman (no doubt imbued with romantic visions of a statuesque indigenous man armed with spear and loin cloth) asked him where he got his food. ‘Coles supermarket,’ said Buddy.

She expressed surprise.

‘Why would I want to go bush for weeks in the heat and the flies when I can buy it down the road?’ We laughed.

Buddy and the ranger took us to a spot in the water where the fish with seven spots hang out. They have a special trick. Their prey is flying insects. They lie in wait, mouths filled with water and then they shoot out a jetstream to capture their meal. (I think I’ve seen it on David Attenborough’s show) Buddy put tiny pellets of fish food along the side of the boat. The fish were already congregated. We were primed with instructions to hold the food pellet out and just let it go when the stream of water hit. It is so fast and of course the women squealed. Amazing.

We cruised back between walls of rock 1.8 billion years old, no fossils of course.

Before lunch we stopped at Zebedee Springs, a 700 metre walk from the bus in extreme heat, a bit hard on some of the more infirm of us especially since it was rocky underfoot in places. I expected a swimming area like the one a few days ago but no. This was a series of small pools, with access over the rocks. Once you find a stone to rest your bum in the soft warm water, it is worth it but not so pleasant for those on the sidelines with very little shade to sit in.

A barbecue of tough steak'followed before we headed back to a dip in the pool at Lakeside resort and yet another sunset, looking forward to tomorrow’s visit to a diamond mine.

Moving into Western Australia

Aug 29 blog Katherine to Kununurra




As we leave Katherine we pass Katherine Railway station. Bushie calls it ‘a bit of bitumen in the middle of nowhere’, and that’s what it looks like. Mind you a lot of things look like that here, it is so vast.

Kit and I are travelling with 2 bananas she purchased at Coles in Darwin. Wise move. They are few and far between up here. A waiter at the Knotts Crossing Motel where we stayed last night overheard us talking about the dearth of said fruit and brought us two on a plate. What a sorry sight they were, small and hard, more green than yellow. After a decent interval we thanked him but said no thanks. He was very sweet, a pom from Colchester who has no desire to return to England except on holiday. I know the feeling. The other cute and obliging waiter was French. Ooh la la.With threats of $5000.00 fines and expulsion from the bus if we had any fruit on board, we approached the border of Western Australia. The Kimberly area is disease-free apparently and wishes to remain so. At the last comfort stop before the border, we dutifully chewed the apples we had filched from the Knotts Crossing motel’s breakfast buffet, thereby escaping bag searches and disinfectant.

Western Australia covers one third of Australia. Here are some more facts about its size downloaded from a website entitled ‘Work and Play in Western Australia’

By European standards Western Australia is simply huge. It is larger than Western Europe and nearly four times the size of Texas. If you overlay a map of Western Australia on a map of Europe, Perth is level with Barcelona and Broome is roughly north of Newcastle. Now if you add in the extra 1100 kilometres from Broome to the Northern Territory border and the 500 kilometre hop between Perth and Albany - you are somewhere between Iceland and North Africa!

With over 2.5 million square kilometres, but only 1.8 million people living in the whole of Western Australia (1.3 million of which live in Perth), per capita of population - it’s about as spacious as you can get on planet earth!

The longer we drive though it the more I come to appreciate how spacious the state is, and in the north west part with its unrelenting heat (35 degrees Celsius rising to an average 45 degrees in Summer) the better I understand how dangerous it is should one become stranded. The trees are spindly so offer little shade, distances between townships enormous and traffic sparse.

Speaking of trees, we’ve been seeing a lot of Boabs, very like the Baobab trees I knew in South Africa. But these are the same type found in Madagascar. It is not known how they arrived in this part of the world, whether seeds floated in with birds or on boats, but the local indigenous people have their own creation story about them or as Bushie calls it, ‘coration’ story. Here it is:

The Creational Beings associated with the Rainbow Serpent made the boabs so wonderful with beautiful blossoms and luscious leaves that the trees couldn’t stop bragging about themselves. They talked on and on about how beautiful they were until all the other trees became sick of it. They asked the Creational Beings to do something about it. The Creational Beings reached down, ripped the boabs out of the ground, turned them upside down and put them back in the holes. Hence their description as upside down trees. They look like wine bottles to me. They grow to a certain height then stop, thereafter getting wider with age. A bit like us really.

Another intriguing tree in these parts is the Kapok. It is spindly with yellow blossoms on the end of its branches. The seed pod contains the material known as kapok which was used to stuff mattresses and pillows in days gone by, the kind I came across in hospitals when I was a student nurse.

En route to the Ord river where we were due to take a cruise later in the day, Bushie took a call on his Satellite phone. Like he said ‘Sat’ phone calls are not good news. There had been a drowning in the place where the cruise vessel was moored. It became a police matter thereby preventing our boat from picking us up. No matter, a few phone calls secured us an afternoon with the charming Scotty of Triple J tours with his old bus and brand new boat.

Scotty seemed to be well educated and was definitely easy on the eye. As one of our party said when the ladies were clicking away at Scotty posing with some crocodile eggs that had been plundered by dingos, sea eagles or other crocs, ‘it’s an excuse to photograph Scotty!’

Lake Argyle was our cruising site rather than the Ord River. It is Australia’s largest body of fresh water covering over 900 square kms at normal full supply level. Scotty said it was several times larger than Sydney Harbour and I believe him. We cruised the serene crystal waters for 2 hours and only covered a small part of it. The crocs in Lake Argyle are ‘freshies’ not friendly exactly but not as dangerous as the salties. We saw about three of them, rather small.

Bird life was present, with many examples of darts, black birds sitting on branches drying out their wings. I’ve never seen these before. Plovers, herons and pelicans were other varieties.

The area near the dam is so large and unpopulated, the Australians, Indonesians, French and Americans play war games there annually. Army engineers have built bridges that go nowhere and if planes fall out of the sky or a stray bomb goes off, no one will get hurt, apart from the pilots if they don’t eject.

Our hotel for the next two nights is the Lakeside Resort at Kununurra. Graced with a lakeside position, sunset views and a lovely swimming pool we a

re in for a comfortable stay.