A Cornish Day Gone Wrong... Then Right

On this trip I was hosted by Visit Britain.

Everyone has a day on their travels that doesn't go to plan. Many days, possibly. Even travel writers have days that don't go to plan - we have a self-mocking expression for it on Twitter: "I'm a travel expert, ask me anything!"

One day that didn't go to plan for me was in late May, in Cornwall, UK. I'd arrived in Penzance the previous day by train from London, and the day before that I'd taken trains all the way from Zürich to London, via Paris.

Unfortunately I'd brought something with me from Switzerland - a nasty cold. So I set out by foot from my hotel in Marazion, outside Penzance, hoping I could shrug it off as I walked to the big local attraction, St Michael's Mount - which I could see from my hotel, the Mount Haven:

It was a pleasant stroll through the village, down to the shore, then across the stone causeway which is accessible at low tide:

Once I was on the island, I pottered around looking at displays about its history, from its medieval monastery era through to the present day. I then sat down on the grass in the sunshine, bracing myself to ascend the uneven stone steps which led to the castle at the top of the island.

Except... I couldn't. Sitting on the grass in the sun, listening to storytellers telling kids about the legend of the mythical giant of the island, I realised I felt far too ill to clamber up the steps, especially on this busy long weekend when there was a long wait time to proceed through the castle's decorative interiors.

So I wandered around to the gardens on the far side of the island instead, enjoyed the sloping greenery as best I could, then walked to the harbour to catch a boat back to the mainland with a bunch of Brits and a dog.

I felt a bit defeated by my inability to fully explore the island, but I also felt sorry for myself for being ill. Then, on the way back to the Mount Haven, I passed a pub which was far enough from the Mount to be outside the tourist crush - the Fire Engine Inn:

I couldn't have asked for a better place to heal. I took a comfortable seat facing the bar, was served fish & chips and beer by the friendly staff, and sat quietly; still feeling ill, but less harrowed by crowds.

It was good. Sometimes a British pub is the best place in the world to be.

Kipli Paywuta Lumi: Into the Tasmanian Bush with MONA FOMA

On this trip I’m being hosted by Tourism Tasmania and MONA FOMA.

I’m in Launceston, Tasmania, for a few days, taking part in the MONA FOMA festival and enjoying various arts and food highlights of the city and the region.

Last night I had one of the more interesting cultural experiences I’d ever experienced, taking part in the Kipli Paywuta Lumi event.

A celebration of the culture of Tasmania’s Aboriginal people - known as Palawa - it saw us first being transported in a bus up to the heights of the forest outside Launceston. Dropped off in a car park on the edge of the bush, we were asked to walk quietly through the trees, following the path marked by ochre-painted trunks.

It took about fifteen minutes up and down slopes to reach our destination. I suppose the point of walking in silence was to let the bush calm us down, to help us make the transition from city buzz to nature’s slower rhythms.

On arrival at the campsite we saw this - a ‘bush hut’ constructed in the tradition once used by the local Indigenous people, though this version was larger than those and employed modern materials.

Sitting within on wallaby and possum skins, we were given a Welcome to Country in the Palawa language, which has been undergoing a revival in recent years. With the lowering sun shining onto the outside of the hut, it was an atmospheric setting for the welcome.  

We moved to a nearby campfire where an interesting array of traditional foodstuffs was cooking - possum, muttonbird and wallaby among them. We were served oysters here as we heard more about the project, and from shells drank beverages flavoured with native herbs such as pepperberry.

Back in the tent, our food was served on bark onto beds of ferns, and we ate in the traditional way - using our fingers! First up was fish (pinungana in the local language), flathead in this case. Very tasty, with a hint of lemon from the spices used.

I’ll spare you the photos of what the fish and other food looked like when we had finished with it! It was a great experience sharing food this way; among our groups of five or six, it promoted discussion and the hut was soon filled with sociable talk. The event had promised “a moment of mid-festival calm”, and it delivered. 

As the event was delivered by Palawa people in partnership with others, and drew deeply on Tasmanian Aboriginal traditions, it helped keep that culture alive and reinterpreted for the present day. I was very pleased to be a part of it - at school as a kid I was told that Tasmania’s Indigenous people had died out, and I couldn’t be more delighted to experience the living contradiction of that lie.

Dropped back at the Festival Hub in Launceston, I stepped inside and partook of another drink involving Tasmanian native ingredients - proof that MONA FOMA can embrace all traditions.

The Kipli Paywuta Lumi event is sold out, but you can visit the campsite during the day; and find out more about this and other events at the MONA FOMA website  MONA FOMA continues to Monday 20 January 2020.

Dining in Dunkeld

On this trip I was hosted by the Royal Mail Hotel, though I paid for my own transport.

On the Friday before Christmas, Narrelle and I journeyed out to Dunkeld, a small town west of Melbourne at the southern tip of Grampians National Park.

I was there to review the Royal Mail Hotel, which has recently renovated its rooms... and in our own, a welcome gin & tonic awaited, the mint garnish to be plucked by us from a plant on the balcony:

(That accommodation review will appear in due course in Traveller.)

The town is pleasant enough; though home to only 600 or so people, it has a number of interesting heritage buildings, explained via recently installed signage:

And in the Memorial Park on the main street I found this plaque. Why have I never heard before about the Australian submarine at Gallipoli?

The supreme highlight of our trip, however, was food. The Royal Mail is famous for its restaurants, particularly the fine-dining Wickens. On the Saturday afternoon we joined the regular tour of the hotel's kitchen garden, a sprawling delight on the edge of town, guided by head chef Robin Wickens himself:

Then, at 6.30pm, we sat down at Wickens for a spectacular four-hour meal - eight courses (really 13 with the added amuse-bouches and palate cleansers), all using the produce we'd inspected and sampled earlier in the day.

We'd asked for our meal to be pescatarian, ie fish and vegetables, so this is the menu the Wickens team devised and served to us:

Could it be as impressive in reality as it seemed on paper? It could. what followed was a fascinating cascade of small dishes, expertly crafted and matched with wines. The flavours and textures were amazing; consumed to a view of native trees and Mount Sturgeon, it was by far our most memorable dining experience of 2019.

Here are some of the dishes we were served (see if you can match them to the menu, they're presented in order of serving):

And the view from here...

... was of this:

A perfect evening, much recommended.

Wickens is at the Royal Mail Hotel, 98 Parker St, Dunkeld, Victoria, Australia. Visit its website for more details.

Cairns of Inverness

On this trip I was hosted by Visit Britain and Visit Scotland.

As part of my recent visit to Scotland, I visited the battlefield at Culloden, where the rebellious Jacobites were finally routed by British troops in 1746. (And for the Doctor Who fans out there, where the Doctor first met Jamie McCrimmon, who travelled with him for a while.)

That's a story for another day. What I wasn't expecting was the nearby site I was taken to by my guide afterward, somewhere he thought I'd find interesting.

He was right. Where we stopped was the Balnuaran of Clava, which contains a series of three Bronze Age cairns dating back to 2000 BCE. I'd never heard of these before, but they were intriguing.

The cairns are low grey circle of stones, two of which have passages into their centres. The entrances to these seems to be aligned toward the setting sun in midwinter, and separate standing stones are dotted around each cairn.

It's fascinating stuff. No one's sure what the meaning of the cairns' layout is, or who was buried there, but the layout of circles in the green space is an impressive piece of artistry in itself. As an arrangement, it seems both creative and deeply embedded in the environment.

It was an interesting place to wander through, the most accessible of more than fifty such cairns scattered around Inverness. Without remaining records, we'll never know who precisely were the people who built them there, or why. But we can admire what they left behind.

Learn more about the Clava Cairns at the Historic Environment Scotland website.

The Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki, New Zealand

On this trip I was hosted by Tourism New Zealand.

The day after I arrived at Greymouth on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, I was taken to the Pancake Rocks. This geological feature in tiny coastal Punakaiki is a standard feature on the local sightseeing list. As it was a wet and windy day, I hoped it would be worth the trip and not deserve Dr Samuel Johnson’s infamous line about the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland: “Worth seeing, but not worth going to see.”

Luckily, it was worth visiting. At first glimpse I assumed it was simply a set of eroded rock formations, a sort of scaled-down version of Victoria’s Twelve Apostles:

But once we left the vehicle and started walking along the circular track which grants views of the rocks, I started to see what the fuss was about. Not only do the rocks present interesting craggy shapes, but they’re constructed of multiple horizontal layers (hence ‘pancakes’):

It’s an intriguing feature. Even better, according to signage along the path, scientists have no clear idea how the rocks happened to form in this very specific way. It’s nice to think there are still wonders in the world.

The path winds in such a way that new views are regularly revealed as it twists and turns above the ocean. At one point, looking back, it appeared as if the ruins of a great ancient city were standing above the water: 

In addition to the formations, there’s the attraction of the turbulent ocean which sloshes around them, forced up through blowholes, and crashing powerfully through surge pools such as the one below:

The Kiwi sense of humour is never far away, even in the midst of such natural grandeur. This set of formations was given extra meaning by the sign in the foreground, ascribing animals to each rocky outline:

Once you’ve seen that rodent on the right, you can never go back.