Mary Zabell’s Christmas/New Year Update 2023/24
I’m outside, on a cricket field at Kinross Wolaroi College in Orange, central NSW, watching our eldest grandson’s first cricket match for this tournament.
Lachlan and his mother Christie are staying in a nearby hotel, while we’re settled into a cutie-pie, 100 year old Airbnb cottage. Orange is full of these charming, olde worlde cottages and as yesterday’s match was postponed due to a day’s rain, we managed a drive and walk around our area, admiring the beautifully kept homes from the 19th and early 20th centuries, hedges manicured with nail scissors, with period tiled paths and front verandahs.
I apologise for the very belated catch-up but India intervened as we travelled for seven weeks through that vast and amazing, frustrating and fascinating country. I certainly had every intention of writing a summary of 2023 as we journeyed around, but time, fatigue and other writings got in the way.
This year began with a road trip north to Lismore and cricket. Poor old Lismore. Even though it’s been battered and assaulted by flood after flood they gamely plugged on, and had redone the main field. I gazed up in awe at the 5 metre light poles around the perimeter which had been under water! Amazing that the town keeps coming back from these disasters, but how many more?
Lismore floods
Thanks must go to our friends Dot and Steve for their fabulous hospitality— you’re definitely on the ‘return to’ list!
We ended the first few months with short trips: Bali for five days, Vanuatu for a week and the Cook Islands for a week. All these excursions gave us an insight into our neighbours, the beauties of Bali and the Pacific Islands, and most importantly the wonderful people who live in these places.
Some of the beautiful people of Vanuatu
Vanuatu had been hammered by cyclones in early March and we ended up going out to the remote and minuscule Pele Island where the struggling primary school impressed us with the need to do something to help. Rod has been very proactive in getting classroom furniture organised (they virtually had no desks or chairs), teaching materials and other resources.
Vanuatuan primary school children
I include here the very amusing massage hour encountered in Port Vila…a memory etched in our musculature forever! But if you’d like to read the full story of our Vanuatuan adventure, you can click here.
Of course that particular day wasn’t complete without a massage. We opted for a local Thai business which cunningly included a Thai restaurant next door. We didn’t think to ask if one gave the other a discount. Damn! Booking ourselves in (no immediate alarm bells rang that there was no one else booked just then) we were ushered into a back room and asked to remove our shoes. All good. Then we were guided by rather grimly smiling Thai ladies (on reflection, that grimness was probably more resignation at massaging fat white people again) into what seemed to be an extremely poorly lit set of curtained cubicles, but which I was certain harboured raddled, mumbling opium addicts. It was so dark, the brown curtains adding a sepulchral note to the ambience, that when my masseur indicated the clothes on the bed and the receptacle for glasses and watch, etc I felt around like a blind mole in its burrow and demanded ‘Why is it so dark?’ in quite worried tones. By now I was convinced we’d stumbled onto either an opium den hidden in plain sight in Port Vila, or we were embarking upon some strange, ancient ritual which demanded dark, silence and complete submission to tiny Thai ladies with ridiculously strong hands.
She indicated the clothes again and in the dark I struggled to don a shirt clearly made for people of the more svelte persuasion. By this time, my patience was waning, and I called out that the shirt didn’t fit and so I was given a towel and, through sign language, told to keep my pants on. This last instruction was a tremendous relief, as you may imagine.
She began the torture with a big leg workout, stretching and pulling, bending and contorting, pushing and slapping. One of my feet was lodged in her abdomen and then she kneaded muscles long dormant. Boy did they wake up! By now I was starting to giggle inanely for no reason other than that we’d willingly submitted ourselves to this procedure and the realisation there was no getting out of it. Pushing my arthritic left ankle into positions it hadn’t seen since the womb, I uttered a faint protest as bones began to crumble. ‘Ah, sorry, sorry’ she murmured as I feebly smiled. ‘It’s alright’ I assured her, inwardly cringing at what future x-rays might reveal.
I knew this massage wasn’t going to end well
Eventually the leg massage section came to its merciful end, and I was inelegantly turned over to have the back section attended to. By this time, I had assimilated new pain levels, and this last half hour was a relative doddle. Even when she climbed aboard and straddled my newly displaced hips, I felt renewed strength in my limbs, a new ability to combat pain, but most of all, a deep respect for the strength contained in those tiny hands. We staggered outdoors after an hour, congratulating ourselves on being upright and mobile.
The Cook Islands are a stunningly beautiful array of land and coral outcroppings and generally, mercifully free of cyclones, unlike Vanuatu. I won’t bore anyone reading this with the convoluted booking procedure we went through with the last of our COVID credits with (un)-Inspiring Vacations. Suffice to say, we’ll never use that company again, under any circumstances. However, we so enjoyed our few days in Rarotonga that we’re determined to return.
Our highlights included a progressive dinner in local homes where Mama Nunu served the delicious ‘ika mata’, which is raw tuna chopped and marinated in lime juice, with finely diced cucumber and tomato, Mama playing the spoons for us after the first course, and later, our bus driver telling us his grandmothers had 22 and 24 children each. Yoicks… imagine doing THAT family tree, Rob!!
Ika Mata - Tuna chopped and marinated in lime juice, with finely diced cucumber and tomato
The cherry on the icing on the cake, however, was snorkelling with turtles in the azure waters surrounding the island, a privilege which will always be in our travel memories.
That’s me on the right 😃
In June, we organised (with grateful thanks to Rob Landsberry and Leslie) a family reunion at Centennial Vineyards in nearby Bowral to commemorate the twenty years since Mum’s and brother Kevin’s sudden death in 2003. Of course, we remembered Dad who’d died in 1985 and brother John who died in 2008. It was a wonderful weekend of family catch-ups, exchanges of news and priceless photo ops.
Rob has made an O’Brien family website with marvellous archival material and it’s an ongoing work so if you’re an O’Brien who hasn’t visited the site, please do so – just click here. You can access photos, video, and stories from the 2023 gathering by clicking here.
And then it was on to the magic of India.
India was indeed ‘incredible’, just as the advertising blurb describes it. It’s such a large, diverse and challenging country that my poor skills and limited space here will barely do justice to the people and their fascinating, yet somewhat frustrating homeland. We probably will never return, as we did two separate tours which did cover a large part of the country— Amritsar, Delhi, Shimla, Darjeeling, Kolkata, Varanasi, Lucknow, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Mumbai, Goa, Chennai, Pondicherry, Madurai, Thekkady, Kumarakom and finally Cochin (Kochi).
The history of the Mughal empire, evidenced through those vast and imposing palaces and forts dotted throughout the northern parts, is inspiring and worth so much more time than we were able to give to it. Such ingenuity, such precision of architecture and stone masonry with beautiful inlays of coral, jade, lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones! I ran my fingers along joins in the marble and couldn’t feel any difference in the smoothness where the inlaid stones were.
How about the fact that in one palace, the marble was polished with seashells so that it gleams, five hundred years after its construction! Of course, the Taj Mahal was a highlight, but for my money, I loved the ‘Baby Taj’, a smaller version built a little while beforehand and apparently the model for Shah Jehan’s monument to his wife. The Itmad-ud-Daula or ‘Baby Taj’ is nicknamed the ‘jewel box’ and indeed its use of coloured inlays is dazzling.
The colours of India are a happy memory for most visitors; saris worn by most women in a multi-hued exhibit of their love for ornament, the decorative arts and dressing up are everywhere and as we were staying in some very nice hotels which had wedding venues, we would sometimes see the lift doors open to disgorge a bevy of silk and satin clad ladies, with reds, yellows and blues, greens and oranges, the palest of lemons, and the brightest of pinks as they paraded their finery before entering the reception area.
The colours of India
Flower markets provide a dazzling spectacle of colour as well. Flowers are a huge industry in India as so many people take them as temple offerings. Garlands are woven, bunches joined with coloured string, stunning floral displays take centre stage in hotel foyers and markets are hectic, dirty, noisy and fascinating as vendors and buyers haggle over mounds of marigolds, weighed on small scales on the ground or they purchase bags of rose buds, jasmine petals or even bunches of herbs to offer to Shiva or Vishnu. The golden marigold is everywhere, and its sunny colours enliven the gloom in some of the very historic temples we visited. Statues will be draped with marigold garlands and temple elephants might be wearing a jaunty headdress of marigolds and trinkets.
Other highlights of the northern tour included a dawn visit to witness the sunrise illuminating Kanchenjunga, the third highest of the ‘Hee-mar-lee-ars’ as we learned to pronounce the Himalayas. At 2440m (8000’) we felt our chests constrict with the thinning air but what a moment of majesty as the rising sun beamed across the roof of the world and turned the last of the darkness into a silvery, pristine white theatre backdrop— suitably dramatic and a fitting closure to our time in the north.
Southern India provided a complete contrast to the north. We’d been warned about fiery, fish curries and a complicated history of Christian intervention and various East India Companies which flourished over the centuries of western colonialism. Of course the Raj era is known to many people and this story holds much interest for students of the subcontinent. The British East India Company (EIC) began as a private company in 1600, and was run from a tiny office in London, growing to be a global behemoth. At one point it had the largest army in the world and that’s probably when the British government realised that things were getting out of hand, and they needed to take over.
Our guide gently laughed and suggested that over two hundred years of British rule and the Indians still couldn’t be controlled or organised! Anyhoo, we visited several buildings from those times when the British Empire duelled with the French East India Company, the Dutch and Portuguese East India Companies, and eventually triumphed. We stayed in the old French quarter in Pondicherry, a disappointing remnant of those days but still preserving some faint hints of French influences. We pondered the great linguistic and demographic diversity of India as we’d met people in Darjeeling where 75% are of Nepalese origin and look just like every sherpa picture you’ve ever seen. We smiled at tall thin Sikhs in Amritsar with their intricately wound turbans. In Tamil Nadu we listed to a completely different language and then went on to Kerala where Malayalam is spoken and my two words of Hindi were useless.
The many diverse faces of India
In all, we basically went like the clappers to see as much as possible. Of course, the usual questions around poverty, disease and filth were raised as we observed the poorest of the poor living in some terrible slums or lying on footpaths and in doorways. Kolkata was perhaps the most impactful city in that regard, and we were forced to wonder whether the trickle down effect of growing wealth is indeed trickling down. According to one agency I read, the gap is widening.
Kolkata slum 😢
The cliches about India are certainly there for all to see: cows everywhere, disdainful and haughty, sleepy or friendly, we watched them nosing through bags of rubbish on streets, standing in the middle of an intersection with a hundred vehicles weaving and flowing around them, or being slowly walked into a farm compound for milking.
Pye dogs abound, wandering aimlessly through streets, markets and public spaces. Presumably someone feeds them, but they seem inured to their lot— a very Hindu-like acceptance of life. People are friendly, interested and keen to chat— cricket is a great conversation opener and as Rod is a cricket tragic, he was always able to have a quick chinwag with someone, especially as Australia was playing in Kolkata while we were there.
The food is plentiful and tasty and I believe we tried quite a few dishes largely unavailable in Australia. Three of the four of us got a little sick and at times I eschewed the local cuisine in favour of something bland and easily digested. Rod’s innards are apparently cast iron and he ploughed his way through many a butter chicken or other delight.
Haggling is always a bit of fun, but I do understand some people’s reluctance to indulge. I wandered out in Mumbai one day and haggled with a taxi driver to take me to a pharmacy. I shook my head, he shook his head, I walked off, he internally debated and then called out and we reached an agreement. He obligingly waited for me to make my purchases and so I ended up giving him the original sum demanded. Perhaps my haggling skills require some tweaking! In Kochi I bought a lovely, block printed beach shirt made from local cotton and dyed with vegetable dyes. Here there was no haggling and I handed over the money willingly. Sometimes you just know, you know?
Arriving home we prepared for Xmas and enjoyed a quiet celebration with Christie, Tim and the boys (Lachlan is 12, William is 10 and Thomas is 5), our son Tim (38) and a video call to David (34) who has just moved to Vancouver. A week of visitors ensued between Xmas and the New Year where we caught up with various nieces and nephews and their growing broods.
Here’s a pic of Christie and the boys at the Jamberoo Water Park in late December.
Christie, Lachlan, William and Thomas at Jamberoo
We hope this finds you all well, healthy and happy despite our poor old world’s continuing strife. We wish you all the best in life for 2024 and hope that this late missive explains why we didn’t get Xmas cards and letters out to people.
Cheers from the ‘gong…
Written by Mary Zabell, edited by Rob Landsberry who also added some photos, last updated 6 April 2024
Mary and Rod’s Adventures in Vanuatu
We've enjoyed our days thus far which have been consisting of a leisurely rise and breakfast overlooking the bay (difficult), decisions regarding visiting the pools, a visit to Port Vila for some comestibles and lunch or going on excursions around the Island of Efate. This hectic and energy sapping schedule has seen us, so far, do a town tour and history lesson about this tiny South Pacific republic and this morning's junket along the eastern coast and inland to the staggeringly beautiful rivers and lagoons dotting Efate. The people are charming, smiling and welcoming and as they've only just recovered from Cyclones 'Judy and Kevin' which hit In the first week of March (yep…two in 48 hours) we understand staff shortages, food shortages, poor Wi-Fi, etc, but are also getting used to island time and a very laissez-faire approach to questions. I doubt the hospital here is full of stroke or heart attack victims!
Some of the friendly folk of Vanuatu
Our tiny island home was once the British High Commission or whatever it was called, and the residence commanded the highest point with 360° views of the harbour. The New Hebrides islands, (its old British name but now Vanuatu), was named by James Cook, as the islands reminded him of the Hebrides near Scotland! Not sure whether he'd been drinking seawater that day, but I doubt these islands are anything like a freezing, sheep-ridden set of rocky outcrops in the North Sea.
Captain Cook arrives in Vanuatu with gifts of sticks
Anyhoo, in 1887 the islands became administered by a joint French‑British naval commission and there are still remnants of that time in French street names, a French gaol and a British gaol, a boulangerie etc, but no pubs!! Apparently, there was no love lost between the Frogs and the Poms (hard to believe), but in 1980 the country achieved independence and the archipelago of eighty-three islands became Vanuatu. its original cartography was done in part, at least, by a Portuguese explorer in 1605 and some island names reflect that heritage, such as Espiritu Santo and Pentecost Islands.
We take the constantly running punt across the bay whenever we feel the need. lririki Island Resort provides a 24/7 service which takes about three minutes to cross the bay where someone holds out a helping hand for the aged (me...white hair is such a giveaway), and then you toddle down a broken and cracked concrete lane to whatever you're doing for the day. You can do this a hundred times a day if needed.
The Irikiri ferry
The cyclones wreaked havoc, but they've done a mighty job in rebuilding the seafront walls, destroyed restaurants and other buildings. Water surges were up to people's waists in their homes and as houses are very basic there wasn't anywhere much for them to go! Terrifying stuff.
Today we took a local tour, and it was just us, so we had a full four hours of driving to seemingly remote and inaccessible rivers and waterholes. Our trusty guide took the pot-holed and rutted roads very sedately and we visited Eton Creek and its glassy, tumbling waters as they rushed to the sea. The sand apparently filters the water and its translucent aquamarine hue, fringed by coconut palms, is a beautiful and serene sight. From here we visited the famed Blue Lagoon and it is just that; the river widens and becomes a perfect swimming hole, with tall trees big enough to hold a sturdy rope and so we watched the kids being tutored on the finer points of swinging out over the water before jumping, bombing and belly busting into the neon blue below. Adults of varying ages and intrepidity (not us...technically I'm not swimming much due to stitches in my back from a BCC removal) took their turn, exhibiting some interesting and contorted moves.
Repairs from the cyclones to surrounding infrastructure were underway and I could imagine it a very busy scene in peak time. Apparently, the Fijian and NZ army were there the day before because they've been here on manoeuvres. No sign of Princess Mary of Denmark, which was extremely disappointing. Apparently, she's princessing her way around the South Pacific and it might've been a real hoot watching our Mares take her turn on the rope swing, avec la waterproof tiara of course.
Dammit - just missed Princess Mary by 5 days!!
From here we headed to Eden River cascades, a secret spot, a very secret spot, judging by the road conditions. As we bumped and lurched our way along a dirt road between lushly overgrown paddocks, inventively fenced with various sticks holding the wires, we spied beef cattle and were told there's even a sheep farm! Eventually we made our way down a set of steps to the cascades - rushing and tumbling over polished boulders and clear enough to see the bottom in parts. We gingerly stepped down the rocky path and positioned our backsides on a rock for our graceful entry into the river. Just as well David Attenborough wasn't around or else we may have appeared in some weird wildlife doco!
Eden Cascades
However, we lolled like baby hippos in the Zambezi until we thought to investigate the criss-crossing suspension bridges we spied looping across and over the river. Indiana Jones would've whipped us into doing it, but our Indy moment was short lived as we looked across those extremely narrow and swinging planes of timber. Our grandsons would've skipped jauntily across; we would've been on our hands and knees within seconds. Thankfully no one was around to see our gutless response to adventure, and we just ventured along a few planks and took a pic instead.
Our last jaunt for the day was a quick trip to a turtle hatchery run by the government, which of course aims to replenish the sadly diminishing Hawksbill turtle population. These delightful critters are brought from their nests nearby and so they're all brothers and sisters. Tiny six month turtles flapped vigorously around their pool looking for all the world like a wind-up toy as they crashed into my feet or each other. They're released at five years when their shells measure a dinner plate size.
The Hawksbill Turtle hatchery at the Turtle Sanctuary
Of course the day wasn't complete without a massage. We opted for a local Thai business which cunningly included a Thai restaurant next door. We didn't think to ask if one gave the other a discount. Damn! Booking ourselves in (no immediate alarm bells rang that there was no one else booked just then) we were ushered into a back room and asked to remove shoes. All good. Then we were guided by rather grimly smiling Thai ladies (on reflection, that grimness was probably more resignation at massaging fat white people again) into what seemed to be an extremely poorly lit set of curtained cubicles, but which I was certain harboured raddled, mumbling opium addicts. It was so dark, the brown curtains adding a sepulchral note to the ambience, that when my masseur indicated the clothes on the bed and the receptacle for glasses and watch etc, I felt around like a blind mole in its burrow and demanded 'Why is it so dark?' in quite worried tones. By now I was convinced we'd stumbled onto either an opium den hidden in plain sight in Port Vila or we were embarking upon some strange, ancient ritual which demanded dark, silence and complete submission to tiny Thai ladies with ridiculously strong hands.
She indicated the clothes again and in the dark I struggled to don a shirt made for very svelte people. By this time, my patience was waning and I called out that the shirt didn't fit and so I was given a towel and, through sign language, told to keep my pants on. This last instruction was a tremendous relief, as you may imagine. She began the torture with a big leg workout; stretching and pulling, bending and contorting, pushing and slapping. One of my feet was lodged in her abdomen and then she kneaded muscles long dormant. Boy did they wake up! By now I was starting to giggle inanely for no reason other than that we'd willingly submitted ourselves to this procedure and the realisation there was no getting out of it. Pushing my arthritic left ankle into positions it hadn't seen since the womb, I uttered a faint protest as bones began to crumble. 'Ah, sorry, sorry' she murmured as I feebly smiled. 'It's alright' I assured her, inwardly cringing at what future x-rays might reveal.
I knew that massage wasn’t going well
Eventually the leg massage section came to its merciful end, and I was inelegantly turned over to have the back section attended to. By this time, I had assimilated new pain levels and this last half hour was a relative doddle. Even when she climbed aboard and straddled my newly displaced hips, I felt renewed strength in my limbs; new ability to combat pain but most of all, a deep respect for the strength contained in those tiny hands. We staggered outdoors after an hour, congratulating ourselves on being upright and mobile. Returning to our room, we further punished ourselves with Scrabble and a beer before returning to town that evening for a lovely Italian meal. We felt we'd earned it.
Today, as I finish writing this, I am seated underneath spreading and drooping bleeding heart trees, on a remote beach on Pele Island, part of this archipelago, and a tiny South Pacific idyll. It's part of our package and we're the only ones here ... who are not locals.
We'd been driven right around the other side of Efate Island (where Port Vila is) to a distant point by Timothy who informed us in broken English about sights along the way. For example, he drove across to the other side of the road suddenly, leaned out the window and pointed to a square, concrete structure with stagnant water which had been constructed for the American troops as a swimming pool during WW2 when Efate and Espiritu Santo had been US bases.
Makeshift pool used by the US armed forces during WWII
We arrived at our jetty after an hour of infrequent bursts of speed halted by considerable potholes or missing road bits, traffic snarls and stops for petrol and water. Expecting some type of larger boat to transport us to Pele, we were introduced to Manu who helped us aboard the SS Tadpole, a small runabout with an outboard motor and plywood floorboards. Expectations sank. However, Manu guided his tiny boat with a sure hand, and we skimmed across the emerald waters and arrived at the beach where we nimbly hopped out. Yes, nimbly.
As I write, Rod sits in front of me on a daybed reading. The sand is white and a little gritty from decomposing coral but the breeze blows cooly and lapping waves provide the soundtrack. We have wandered to the local school, about 400m up a rough track and talked with two of the staff of this little outpost of education. There are no fans, no air conditioning, and only recently, electricity supplied through solar panels. It was oppressively stifling in the classroom where I chatted and read a kid's workbook. Sweat gathered in runnels down my face and stained my shirt. One classroom is out of commission due to the roof being ripped off by the cyclone, and the cyclones wrecked their internet connections. Of course we must try and help them and so we'll hopefully be contacting the Principal when she's back to find out whether goods or cash would be the best path forward.
Vanuatan primary school children
I sign off from here in this seemingly idyllic setting which, like most picture perfect scenes, has its darker side.
Mary and Rod’s Adventures in Vanuatu (holiday travel)
Written by Mary Zabell and collated by Rob Landsberry, last modified 23 June 2023
Mary Zabell’s Annual Update - 2022
November 16, 2022
It's that time of year again. Time to reflect, be thankful for safe and happy families, travel and friends. And, oh, yes! Time to get out the swim wear and contemplate summer days, picnics, barbecues, sausage odours wafting in the evening air, and long afternoons with said family and friends— assuming of course that the rain bids farewell and your house, business and town has survived the most persistent La Nina in anyone's memory including La Nina herself, the contrary besom that she is.
For those who don’t know the word “besom”
As I write, central western NSW towns and sundry places along rivers in several states are watching waters rise and inundate their communities, often for the third time this year. What an 'annus horribilis', to quote our recently departed monarch. However, we have been incredibly lucky here in the 'gong and have escaped the worst of the deluge. Of course, we've had the flippers and goggles on standby at various times but have generally stayed dry and heaved sighs of relief that the worst so far, seems to have been a few leaking roofs and persistent mould…thankfully not in Chez Zabell.
All are well in the Zed family and extended O'Brien clan. Christie (38) and Tim, Lachlan (11), William (9) and Tom (4) are well, although we did think, at one point, that Tom was forever to have a hacking cough and runny nose as bugs from pre-school seemed to become ever more virulent.
He kindly passed on the bugs to me just prior to us leaving for the Kimberleys in September. I know people thought I had some new and disturbing version of COVID, but eventually it cleared up after I bought out the cough and cold section in Broome's main pharmacy.
Christie has spent the year doing 4 days per week at the Good Samaritan Catholic Primary School in nearby Fairy Meadow.
She works with an autistic class and has now secured permanency and a role on the exec, mentoring teachers in the Special Education area. She's very chuffed and loves the school and its staff and students.
Tim and his partner seem to go from strength to strength although there are always issues running your own business. He is a busy man and involved with many sporting groups in the Illawarra as there's always a need for physios there, of course, and that's what grows the business.
Lachlan and Will have discovered cricket. Their Pa is extremely happy, of course! What cricket tragic wouldn’t be over the moon, to have two grandsons to coach and watch, to be able to discuss arcane and obscure facets of this hallowed sport with and to spend buckets on bats, helmets, pads, trips away...ha ha! It's all good and they're both good little sportspersons who really enjoy it.
Lachlan Gray
In winter, we watched soccer, rugby and league and they're also into bike riding (I often run into them when out walking), parkour (Will) and watching peculiar YouTube clips of stuff with odd commentary which all looks very boring to me but is clearly fascinating to them.
Tim (37) is happy and settled in his home in Werribee, west of Melbourne. To say that this area, to the northwest and southwest of Melbourne is a growth area, would be a masterly understatement! We are constantly reminded that this is where the city's population is going and so we think it's a good buy for Tim as he's only a train ride from the CBD and has good shopping facilities nearby and isn't too far from friends either.
He's discovering the joys of home ownership as things need fixing or renovating, but it's a solid little place and very comfortable. He’s working with 'Uniting', an NDIS company aligned with the Uniting Church and generally likes his work. He is currently involved with school leavers and getting them upskilled towards gaining employment.
He and his brother David went to the Kimberley region, Darwin and Katherine around June on a camping trip and really enjoyed themselves, finding new mums on the bus to bond with and being overawed by the beauty of the area. While he is grappling with the sometimes-unexpected highs and lows of home ownership, further overseas travel may remain a future dream, but Tim and a cousin are doing a camping trip along the Great Ocean Road (GOR) from late December, and we're catching up with them in Mt Gambier (SA) in the early New Year. As the Coonawarra is renowned for some red liquid or other, we may find the car considerably heavier on the return trip.
As I write, David (33) is currently in Lisbon (yes, Portugal) on the final leg of a four-month tootle on a round-the-world ticket. He had so many points on his Amex card he was able to get the ticket for $500 and fly mostly business class, and at 196cm that's not to be ignored. I know, right! Who wouldn't? He spent six weeks in the US doing four biggish treks through Wyoming, (Yellowstone NP), Utah and Arizona and then through Denver (a cousin lives there), Chicago, New York City, Washington, Miami and thence to Brazil. His photos on Insta look wonderful and he's seemingly not encountered any real hurdles, COVID scares or lost luggage. The next port-of-call is Istanbul, then London and home on December 22. He is still working for the State planning authority who kindly honoured his travel commitments. He's also still living in Balmain, and we availed ourselves of his wonderfully located unit a few times before the temporary tenant moved in - damn them.
This year saw us hit the road in many directions. Our first foray was down to Melbourne for 'Moulin Rouge' which was wonderful. All the Zeds gathered which was wonderful-er and we had a hoot.
From here we stayed on the Mornington Peninsula and explored this much-loved area doing a bike ride from Portsea pub to Port Nepean, passing Cheviot Beach and investigating that ageless mystery of Harold Holt's disappearance. Lunch in the beer garden of said pub, overlooking the water and cute beach sheds was a fitting end to the uphill ride we'd just done.
Cheviot Beach
From here we headed to gold country and investigated those once hectic towns of Castlemaine and Maryborough, cutie-pie Maldon and Chewton.
Eventually we wended our way, via Tim at Werribee and along the Great Ocean Road to South Australia, and a week's tour ending in a Murray RV cruise. We were informed that it's one of, if not the slowest flowing rivers in the world and so our three days aboard proved, as we were forced to sit back and smell, if not roses, then the fresh air and meandering waterways of our mighty Murray.
Many a Scrabble game was had, and many an amiable chat with many, many octogenarians...you get my drift, and we certainly did drift, seemingly aimlessly until tying up at some remote dock and investigating tiddly riverside towns whose history was inextricably tied to the once flourishing. paddle boat trade.
From here we hit the road again, heading to the famed Coonawarra area and staying in Naracoorte, This World Heritage listed area has fascinating anthropological history due to the discovery of megafauna bones and fossils in the extensive cave system nearby.
Whopping wombats and killer kangaroos aside, this area is worthy of further investigation and not just because we knew the renowned terra rossa soils produce some pretty remarkable wines. We did also investigate Penola, the scene of Mr. Mary MacKillop’s founding of the Josephite order of nuns, and a tiny town with a long history.
Crossing the border back into Victoria we stayed near Gariwerd (the Grampians National Park) and did some further exploration of the district before heading north through our final points of interest along a Silo Arts' Trail. The tiniest of towns (Minyip, Warracknabeal, Brim and Woomelang to name a few), the remotest of rail sidings and the most distant of vistas...it's a magical, silent and remote part of Australia and yet, punctuating the skyline are these clusters of wheat silos, painted with mesmerising and moving images of the region: indigenous scenes, pastoralists, children playing sport, horses, kelpie dogs, and fabulous sunsets and endless plains.
Uluru draped in fog
Our next big trip was in Queensland from Longreach to the Gulf and eventually Cairns. We had used this company last year and were very impressed with them. Memorable moments included dinner on a sand island in the Gulf, watching a monster sun sink in a glorious show of umber, burnt orange and a shimmering gold, riding 1950’s trains through savannah country to learn of the hardships endured by hardy pioneers (thank goodness for modem train seats, that's all I'm saying...), and silently boating through Cobbold Gorge, possibly one of the most beautiful 840m I've ever travelled, with its breathless silence and mirror reflections of those curling, twisted and painted sandstone formations.
Our last credit trip in September was through the Kimberley region to Kakadu. We'd just been to Darwin, Kakadu and Katherine in May, so our real interest lay in exploring the Broome area, Kununurra and the Buccaneer Archipelago. The emerald and azure waters were as stunning as a postcard and we thought Broome was a pleasant tourist town, albeit struggling with indigenous issues.
Buccaneer Archipelago
We've learned much about the pearling industry and Rod kindly agreed to add a pearl to my jewellery collection. Swimming in those glassy turquoise waters of the Aboriginal Community at Ardyaloon, deliciously cooling and refreshing, watching the locals fishing, and learning about successful indigenous businesses, gave us heart that, although torturously slow, things are changing for the better. Walking across mangrove mud flats and eating beachfire roasted whelks, reading of the devastating Japanese bombing of Broome and flying to the Horizontal Falls along that truly spectacular coastline of a thousand islands are highlights of the trip.
From Kununurra we did a flight to, and then a four-kilometre trek through the Bungle Bungles. This mysterious mountain range, its beehive domes and striped rock faces being geologically unique, was only truly discovered by white men in 1983. While four kilometres sounds like a stroll, it was done in 400 heat, and this was between 7:30 and 10am! Our destination, Cathedral Gorge, was majestic, silent and blessedly cool! We all sank onto handy rocks, scoffed water and juice and marvelled at the walls around us, the ochre and black colours of the rocks and never for a moment wondered why those ancient people thought this land sacred.
That finished out our year of travel and we’re so grateful that all trips were pain free and completed. Next year is another big year but mostly domestic or close-by overseas.
We are keeping well and happy, minding grandees and taking them to sport, music or dinner when required. We will be in Lismore January 9-12 for a cricket camp for Lachlan and that's after our jaunt south-west to Mt Gambier, so the Hyundai will be adding a few thousand km and we'll be getting through a few audiobooks!!
I am a member of two book clubs which necessitates about a book a week although I've added a few personal choices. I have greatly enjoyed and been enriched by reading books I would never have chosen and listening to informed and thoughtful commentary. Rod is sticking largely to his crime fiction but is so busy with the tennis courts’ maintenance and his chosen project of a local winding path (‘The Serpent') as a rehabilitation and gardening effort, that sinking into a tried and true genre is probably good therapy!
We wish everyone a very safe, happy and fun Christmas. Good wishes for health and happiness to you all as we head towards 2023 and may this strife-torn world see a little peace.
Rod and Mary (and the Zeds)
Written by Mary Zabell, augmented by Rob Landsberry – last updated 25 July 2023