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.

The Practicalities of Penzance

On this trip I was hosted by Visit Britain.

For all the glamour of travel, there comes a time when you have to stop admiring the scenery and get down to some practical travel admin.

One of these necessary tasks is doing laundry, especially if you travel as light as I do. I only take a backpack with me, so it's essential to do a regular wash.

On Wednesday 29 May I caught a train from London to Penzance, having the previous day caught two trains over the very long route of Zürich to London via Paris.

When I arrived in the Cornish city about 3pm, I was very tired from all that travel. But crucially, I didn't have anything else on my itinerary that day. So when I stepped out of Penzance Station and saw on opposite corners a) a laundrette; and b) a pub, I took it as a sign.

Washing had to be done, right then, and as much as possible while I had time to take advantage of the opportunity. So I stepped into the Suds & Surf laundrette and found out what I'd need in the way of coins, and how long it'd take.

Then I walked back to the train station loos, and re-dressed in order to get as much laundry done as possible. I walked out wearing an outfit which consisted of (in its entirety) my black jacket over a fleece jacket, my good black trousers, and my boots without socks. Everything else was going in the wash.

This is where the pub came in. Having put on a laundry load that would take 45 minutes in the industrial-scale machines, I stepped across the corner to The Longboat Inn. Under the guidance of the barman I ordered a local brew, a Tribute Cornish Pale Ale from the St Austell Brewery (see photo top right).

It was excellent, and I sat sipping it on a sofa while engaging in conversation with an English and American couple who were travellers in Cornwall themselves.

After 45 minutes, I asked the barman to mind my backpack, then stepped across the road to put my clothes in the dryer. Then back to the pub for another beer. I can't see how this system could be beaten.

I spent the next two days sightseeing and researching, visiting the island icon of St Michael's Mount and the wonderful hillside sculpture garden at Tremenheere. But I also visited the Penzance post office for another useful chore - posting a load of stuff home.

This is another travel chore I regularly undertake, in order to keep the backpack's weight bearable. When it's ballooned from 8 kilograms to 10 kg, you really feel it. And having come to Cornwall via Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Paris and London, I had a lot of added items such as brochures and souvenirs.

They were worth keeping, but not needed till I got home. So I posted them to Australia, and was glad to offload their 1.5 kg weight. To be frank, by the time the backpack reaches 10 kg I feel like I don't care if I never see those items again, as long as they're gone.

So that was my practical Penzance travel admin. Hardly rock 'n' roll travel, but all quite necessary and a pleasure to have completed. And the ale eased it along.

What are your essential-but-strangely-pleasurable tasks when you're travelling? Leave a comment below (treat it as a useful chore).

Review: The Beaumont, London, UK

I stayed in London as a guest of The Beaumont.

Good ol’ Jimmy Beaumont. When Prohibition hit the USA, he moved to London and gave Mayfair the swellest, swankiest hotel that it had ever seen.

Or... did he?

When I arrived at The Beaumont last week for a two-night stay, I was impressed from the start. Everything in my room harmonised in a stylish, Art Deco way, which spoke of decades of devotion to a consistent interwar style:

The 20th century elegance extended throughout the hotel, including the marvellous Magritte Bar and Colony Grill Room, the latter lined by large paintings depicting 1920s New York City and other parts of the USA:

It was delightful. Except, of course, that Jimmy Beaumont was a myth. The Beaumont was not pushing a hundred years old either - it opened just five years ago, in 2014, within (get this) a former parking garage serving customers of the nearby Selfridges department store. 

The garage which opened in 1926 had, fortuitously, a beautiful facade which could be put to other uses - including the addition of Room, a sculpture which looks like a sleeping robot but is in fact the exterior of an unusual hotel room:

This bit of cheeky fun - inventing a colourful founder and then designing the hotel around his imagined tastes and personality - is an approach I thoroughly approve of. As a writer, the storytelling has great appeal; it makes The Beaumont a stimulating place to stay in, as you glance over its interiors with an eye to its fictitious founder.

And if Jimmy never existed, I doubt any of the people depicted in portraits on its corridor walls existed either. Sorry, random naval officer:

Just the Facts:

The Beaumont

Brown Hart Gardens, Mayfair, London, UK

Phone: +44 20 7499 1001

Web: www.thebeaumont.com
Rates: Rooms from A$780 per night.

Stirred, Not Shaken: The London of James Bond

In 2008 I visited London and attended a James Bond memorabilia exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, entitled For Your Eyes Only. 

To flesh it out into a travel feature, I then arranged to join tour guide Simon Rodway's on-demand James Bond tour of Mayfair and St James.

I met Simon [pictured right] a few times over the years after that, taking his 2011 tour about the history of the area around the new Olympic stadium, and corresponding about other matters. 

We got on well, so it was a shock when I discovered last year that he'd passed away from cancer in 2015; you can read his obituary in The Guardian.

As a tribute to Simon's memory, here's the account of his James Bond tour I wrote up in 2008...

Simon Rodway of Silver Cane Tours is a one-man walking tours company, an agent with a licence to stroll. Among his repertoire of walks around the British capital is The London of James Bond, though it focuses more on the life of author Ian Fleming than his fictional creation.

“I don’t know if many people read the books now,” says Rodway as we meet outside Marble Arch tube station, pointing out the author’s work has been overshadowed by the cinematic James Bond’s adventures.

As a result, the walk through well-to-do Mayfair and St James gives Rodway an opportunity to highlight the connections between Fleming’s lesser-known life and the literary 007.

Starting on Park Lane, we head into Mayfair, passing the house where Fleming was born. After that, we pass by Grosvenor Square, home of the American Embassy, a surprisingly hideous concrete fortress.

It’s not hard to imagine spymasters and their agents meeting in this neck of the woods during the Cold War days. In fact, forget the Cold War – Rodway points down the street to the hotel where Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with a radioactive substance in 2006.

A stop outside the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve club prompts Rodway to speak of Fleming’s wartime role and the way it planted the seeds of James Bond in his mind.

Particularly influential was Fleming’s role as planner for an elite unit of commandos who specialised in intelligence gathering.

According to Rodway, the author was also inspired by Sydney Cotton, a Queenslander in the RAF who was well known for his technical brilliance and innovative gadgetry.

Cotton may well have been the author’s model for Bond’s gadget man ‘Q’.

We stroll through Berkeley Square, beneath its attractive plane trees, to the Fleming Collection.

This family-owned art gallery usually showcases the work of Scottish artists, but today is hosting an exhibition of Bond novel covers from around the world, as part of the the centenary of Fleming's birth. It’s a striking visual reminder of how far and wide 007 has been received over the decades.

As we pass from Mayfair into St James, Rodway mentions an old saw: “St James for the gentlemen, Mayfair for the ladies”.

It’s true that St James Street has a certain masculine identity, with solid, dignified buildings housing gentlemen’s clubs like Boodles, of which Fleming was a member.

It also contains a series of shops outfitting said gentlemen with handmade shoes, fine wine, and hats.

There's even an outlet of Italian firm Beretta, a name familiar to Bond fans as the first gun favoured by the secret agent. There's no sign of weaponry through the ground floor windows - only clothing – but Rodway tells me there’s a gun shop upstairs.

Finally, we reach Dukes Hotel, a tasteful establishment discreetly tucked into a side street.

There's an elegant restraint about the hotel’s decor, its cocktail bar featuring low blue velvet chairs at small circular tables.

It’s a cosy refuge, much favoured by Fleming as he sipped cocktails here, chatted to the waiters and devised the famous line “shaken, not stirred”.

Intriguingly, our waiter, a tall white-jacketed Italian from Elba, tells us firmly that their signature Bond-related cocktail should be stirred, not shaken.

Apparently the agitation would spoil the flavour of the vermouth in the Vesper, a martini devised by Fleming for the first Bond novel.

He then proceeds with a flourish to make the concoction at our table, pouring from vast frosted bottles of Beefeater gin and Potocki vodka from Poland.

It’s a potent brew, a strong, bitter cocktail for sipping rather than gulping, served with style (and some tasty green olives).

“This bar was where Sean Connery came in 1961 when he’d landed the movie role, for one of these babies,” says Rodway, holding his cocktail aloft. “Then Pierce Brosnan followed in 1995.”

As I sip my Vesper, I decide I'd rather be a hero than a  Bond villain. Heroes don't get to take over the world, but they do enjoy the better drinks.

Great Exhibition of the North, UK

On my Newcastle visit I was assisted by the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative.

From now to the end of September 2018, the UK's sister cities of Newcastle and Gateshead are hosting the Great Exhibition of the North.

It's a big multi-venue event showcasing art, design and innovation.

Drawing on the region’s industrial heritage, three walking trails with those themes link events and venues, including free shows.

When I visited the city last year, I walked along the Tyne’s riverside and visited key locations which are being used for the Great Exhibition.

Here's a look at a couple of them.

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is a prominent local landmark.

This imposing former flour mill [pictured left] stands over the other side of the river from Newcastle, across the Millennium Bridge [above] in Gateshead.

I had a wander through its cavernous interiors, perfectly suited to exhibiting large, bold pieces of art.

During the Great Exhibition, the Baltic will house several exhibitions connecting with its themes.

One of the most interesting is Idea of North, a multimedia exploration of local identity.

A key component will be a photo exhibition of women of northeastern England, captured across the decades (including a glimpse of the obscure 'cave rave' scene of the 1990s).

Another interesting nearby space is Sage Gateshead. Within its ultramodern facade, it presents music performances. It certainly stands out in its eye-catching building above the river:

After you've explored these venues, I suggest you step back over the Tyne to Newcastle's Broad Chare pub and support a local brewery by ordering a Wylam beer.

As a writer, I couldn't go past the Writers' Block pale ale. I recommend it. Unlikely to solve that literary affliction, but it tastes good.

For more details of the Great Exhibition of the North, see the event's website.

Nostalgia at the Derwent Pencil Museum, UK

Guest blogger this week is author Narrelle M Harris, whose new book is A Dream to Build a Kiss On: a contemporary Sherlock Holmes/Watson romance told in chapters of 221 words. 

I love a one-note museum – a space dedicated to one just one idea or one thing.

I’ve tasted the peculiar delights of the Morbid Anatomy Museum in New York, the fossils of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a sulphur museum in Poland, and on one memorable occasion, a Hungarian salami museum.

Basically, I can’t resist an oddball museum. When I found I would be near the Derwent Pencil Museum in the Lake District, you bet your best set of coloured pencils I went to see it.

Pencils, whether grey graphite or brightly coloured, have a more intriguing history than you might give them credit for, and this museum in Keswick is all over it.

A special HB Derwent Pencil Museum pencil is yours on paying the entry fee of £4.95.

It's rather a lot for a pencil, admittedly, but my heart still beats a little faster in the presence of a pristine new writing implement, never before pressed to paper.

Visitors can also get a quiz to fill out during their exploration of the museum, which charts the history and social impact of the pencil.

Among the things I learned was that the term ‘black market’ originated with the trade in stolen graphite in the 1700s, when the stuff was worth more than gold and used in munitions as well as writing.

Notorious graphite thieves with names like ‘Black Sal’ and ‘The Dandy Wad Stealer’ are surely deserving of some great swashbuckling novel by a latter-day Robert Louis Stevenson.

I also found that the real-life 'Q', Charles Fraser-Smith, liaised in World War Two with the Cumberland Pencil Company to devise a pencil containing a hidden compass and map which was otherwise indistinguishable from a regular pencil.

The program was so secret that, decades later, Derwent pencil makers had to reverse-engineer how it was done, in a technique that was not as simple as you’d think.

There’s a giant pencil in the museum which holds a Guinness Book of Records award.

There’s also one of only two special pencils made for the Queen’s Jubilee (Queen Elizabeth II has the other one) and case upon case of pencil sets in all their deliciously bright, charming glory.

The Derwent Pencil Museum may appeal to kids, but I can’t help feeling the greatest allure is for adults.

We grown-ups are the ones soaking in the nostalgia of our childhood days of carefree colouring and untrammelled creation, before anyone pronounced judgement about whether we were any good.

The back room of the museum is adorned with beautiful drawings done in Derwent – of animals, landscapes and flora.

Tubs of both ordinary and watercolour pencils sit on tables, along with squares of art paper, inviting all to travel back to the creative days of our youth.

Using a photograph I’d taken of a forbidding looking swan at Windermere the day before, I succumbed to the urge.

I took up my colours and didn’t care that I’m no artist. I drew my little swan and I was happy.

The Derwent Pencil Museum is located at Southey Works, Keswick, UK. Find opening hours and other details at its website.

You can also support Narrelle’s fiction (and get rewards!) at her Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NarrelleMHarris.

Hadrian's Wall by Bus

On this trip I was hosted by Visit Britain.

Last year Narrelle Harris and I visited Hadrian's Wall, constructed in AD 122 by the Roman Empire in order to mark and guard its northernmost border.

You can hike the entire length of the wall, but that's a long way to walk - the trail runs 135 kilometres from eastern Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. And the best section is in the middle, where the hilly country with its lower population has left much of the structure intact.

The solution for us was to catch the seasonal AD122 bus. The bus runs between the railway stations of Haltwhistle (in the west) and Hexham (in the east), with easy connections to Carlisle and Newcastle.

As it stops at key sites along the wall, including museums and former forts, it makes the historic structure accessible to everyone, though there's still some walking to do from the bus stops to the wall itself.

Not everyone's up for a long walk, especially in such hilly country, so it's a good option for travellers who are less mobile.

In the end we did walk a section of the wall, taking a leisurely two hours to stroll up and down the sloping trail west from the fort site now known as Housesteads.

Once we'd had enough of that, we used a farm access road to get back to the main road, where we were happy to flag down the next bus. A day ticket allows multiple rides, and the bus will pick up anywhere that's safe along its route.

The walk was great, but we were happy to get back on the bus and use it to reach the ruins of the former Roman military town south of the wall, Vindolanda [pictured above].

We used it the next day as well, to see some of the wall-related sites closer to Haltwhistle. It was a great way to explore Hadrian's Wall, and allow some walking without exhausting ourselves.

For more details about the AD122 bus, click here.

2017: My Year in Travel

I was hosted on the trips mentioned below by the relevant local tourism authorities.

Everyone else in the media publishes 'year in review' round-ups at this time of the year, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Here are personal highlights from my travels over the past twelve months...

1. Admiring the Asian-European 'fusion architecture' of Macau.

I didn't know much about this former Portuguese territory before visiting it in February, but I quickly learned its European connection had lasted much longer than that of Hong Kong. The Portuguese were in Macau for over four centuries, from 1557 to 1999; by comparison, Hong Kong was under British rule for just over 150 years.

As a result, there's quite a mix of Asian and European influences in Macau's architecture, with striking contrasts. The best example I saw was a former covered marketplace in Taipa Village (pictured above), which has Greek pillars and a Chinese roof.

For more, read my blog post about about my favourite place in Macau.

2. Riding the narrow trams of Hong Kong.

I enjoyed lots about Hong Kong on my first visit there - the food, its cultural attractions, the busy urban streets. One thing that stood out was the city's tram system, which runs along the north side of Hong Kong Island.

I love trams, and these ones are particularly atmospheric. In addition to being double-decker, they're rather narrow, lending them a charmingly improbable fairytale look. It can be hard to get a seat on them sometimes, but they're hands-down more fun than catching the MTR underground railway.

3. Visiting Ballarat on a White Night.

Having missed Melbourne's annual White Night arts event while I was in Hong Kong, I took the chance to attend the first regional staging of it in Ballarat. It was loads of fun, being out until 4am on busy streets full of happy locals ogling illuminations which drew on the city's rich gold rush and Aboriginal history.

I wrote about the experience here.

4. Discovering First Nations culture in Vancouver.

I was impressed by Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology when I visited the Canadian city in July. It houses a wonderful collection of Indigenous art from the past two centuries, with an impressive new gallery in which modern-day First Nations artists comment on the cultural underpinnings of the art of their forebears.

Read my post about the museum here.

5. Cruising the Alaska Marine Highway.

Not all Alaskan cruises are on huge luxury cruise ships. Embarking at Prince Rupert, Canada, I took the MV Matanuska to the Alaskan state capital Juneau, then on to former gold rush town Skagway.

These car ferries (with cabins) are used by locals as much as visitors, providing a great way to see the beautiful scenery on the Inside Passage while not being tied to a cruise itinerary.

I wrote about cruising the Alaska Marine Highway in this article for Lonely Planet.

6. Taking the train to Yukon.

There had to be a train in this list, right? You know how much I like rail travel. And a ride along the White Pass & Yukon Route railway is spectacular, with the narrow-gauge train chugging up from the Alaskan coast at Skagway through the mountains across the Canadian border to Carcross, Yukon. It's a brilliant journey, with magnificent scenery.

7. Meeting a crocodile on the Sunshine Coast.

While attending the annual Australian Society of Travel Writers conference in Queensland in August, I was able to explore the late Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo.

It's a lovely place to visit, with plenty of interesting animals, but the highlight for me was the arena show in which a couple of staff members (and a foolhardy white bird) hung around very close to a big saltwater crocodile - see my video clip above.

You can read more about my Australia Zoo visit here.

8. Walking Hadrian's Wall in the UK.

I like a bit of walking, but I'm not one for multi-day treks. So when I learned about the hop-on, hop-off bus which serves key points along what was once the Roman Empire's border wall, I realised it'd be possible to do a shorter hike between bus stops.

So Narrelle and I spend over two hours strolling west of the former Roman fort at Housesteads - then transferred to the bus and headed off for lunch.

Walking the undulating trail next to Hadrian's Wall was harder than I'd expected, but I'm glad we did it. Not only was it good to get out of my urban comfort zone, I felt I'd become closer to the inhabitants of the Roman era, otherwise so distant in time.

I wrote about our Hadrian's Wall visit for the Globe & Mail newspaper in Canada; read it here.

So... how was your year in travel?