Thursday 31 March 2011

31.3.11 – From grey nomad to backpacker (Adelaide, South Australia)

Streets of Adelaide
Fountain
31.3.11 – From grey nomad to backpacker  (Adelaide, South Australia)

It’s an elegant city – broad streets, tree-lined and cool; cream stone buildings; tramrails shining in the sun.  It’s not too large, nor are the newer, glassy buildings too high.  The fountain in one of the the city centre’s small parks has a sculpture of three rivers, which are significant to indigenous peoples, water cascading from the beaks of the birds held high by three figures, arms outstretched.  Named for Queen Adelaide, about whom I confess to knowing very little, this was the only one of the major early Australian cities to be built without the assistance of convicts. 
 Canoes for little Aboriginalchildren

The South Australia Museum is airy, full of enthusiastic schoolchildren in neat uniforms, and of Aboriginal artefacts in dim quiet rooms.  Every so often, a small frame containing video of interviews with people from Aboriginal cultures, who tell moving stories of their struggle to hold onto their identity in modern Australia.  I’m becoming increasingly fascinated with this subject, so I buy a book to develop my knowledge of this ancient people – the oldest living cultures in the world at between 50,000 and 60,000 years.
Glenelg Backpackers Hostel
This morning we left out little van – our tiny home – with the hire company, and walked away feeling distinctly strange and a bit homeless.  And so we moved from mixing with the grey nomads of the campsites, exploring Australia in caravans, neat curled white hair, immaculate ironed shirts and shorts, some with zimmers and wheelchairs - to Glenelg Backpackers Hostel, where our comrades are young, bright eyed, wearing torn denim shorts, baseball hats, hair flopping over suntanned faces, legs curled casually on the settees or propping plates of pasta on their knees. A blond young German girl chats to us – she’s working her way around Australia until August.  The hostel is, in Australian terms, an old, white-painted building, stone, with the signature elegant wrought iron balconies, a large brick paved garden, solid wooden benches and tables.

Glenelg is half suburb of Adelaide, half seaside beach.  The main street is a jumble of noodle bars, ice cream parlours, bargain books, antique shops, tourist boutiques. Plump palm trees surrounded by round stainless steel tables, people sipping iced coffee; a long silver beach of sand as fine as icing sugar, a slim concrete pier stretching out to sea.  Fishing rods propped up, the fishermen casually check each of them from time to time, looking for the tell-tale twitch of the line.  Three swimmers make a steady progress across the bay, their arms curving lazily in and out of the water, heads turning to grab a breath in the hollow of the wave.  I settle down to read the book I bought in the museum, while Bill paddles carefree in the tepid surf.  Nice to have a couple
Meg reading on Glenelg Beach

of days to relax in the sun.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

30.3.11 – Goodbye, campavan! (Kapunga and Adelaide, South Australia)

30.3.11 – Goodbye, campavan!  (Kapunga and Adelaide, South Australia)

Copper mines at Kapunga

I’m sitting in Levi Campsite in Adelaide, under the gum trees, listening to the parrots fluttering and squawking above me, much as we did at our first camp in Yass, three and a half weeks ago.  

We came down via Kapunga, where a hundred and fifty years ago, thousands of Cornish miners came to bring the bright green copper ore  to the surface.  The best hard rock miners in the world, they saved South Australia from bankruptcy, but all that is left now are mounds of yellow and green gravel, a pool of brilliant turquoise water, and a tall, red brick chimney, lonely in the baking sun.  And of course a host of Cornish place names and traditions.  As we left, a huge statue – Map Kernow (meaning son of Cornwall) – stood 24 feet high, his pick in one hand, his hammer in the other, on his head his bowler hat (for that is what they wore) with its candle glued on at the front with a lump of clay, his only light in the pitch black depths of the mine.  
Map Kernow

We stopped at Two Wells, where the Aboriginals knew where water was to be had in this arid land, and the drovers learned from them where to stop and water their beasts on their long treks south, then at St. Kilda, that shared the sea but not much else with its storm-swept island namesake off Scotland’s Atlantic coast.
And so we came to Adelaide, to pack up our little home and tomorrow return it to its owners.  Camping has turned out to be a terrific choice.  Complete freedom to go where and when we wished – to stop at places that caught our imagination, to hurry past others less fascinating than the brochures suggested; to wake up beside sparkling rivers, or gleaming seas; to hear the cackle of parrots or the silence of the outback; to sleep to the slow rhythm of the ocean or the insistent chirrup of the crickets; to drive the long empty roads of the outback or the broad, tree-lined avenues of the cities; to see the sun gleam through the curtains, or hear the rain’s percussion on the roof; to chat to other campers, learning about their lives and adventures, or to sit quiet reading as the sky turned from peach to lilac and finally exploded in a myriad of brilliant stars, scattered over the velvet blackness.  But most of all, it gave us the chance to retrace Bill’s boyhood footsteps, through Whyalla, Wilpena Pound and now at last here to Levi Park.  Added as it has been to the earlier delight of visiting family and friends, this last three weeks has been a magical time for these two ‘Grey Nomads’.
A happy grey nomad




 

Tuesday 29 March 2011

29.3.11 – Insects dead and alive (Orroroo and Clare, South Australia)

29.3.11 – Insects dead and alive (Orroroo and Clare, South Australia)


Meg at big tree

Today we left the drama of the Flinders Ranges for Adelaide, the beginning of the long trek home. Hot and sunny, the same dome of blue sky, soft white drifting cushions of clouds. At Orroroo, another sleepy outback township, was largest tree in South Australia, a 500 year old red gum, with the ominous name of ‘Widow Maker’ - these trees have a habit of suddenly dropping boughs on people’s heads. At our picnic table, a notice informed us to ‘Beware – branches may fall without notice’. So why put the table there?? Another advertised a short hike to some Aboriginal paintings and a poem carved in the rock. A large red slab, sloping at an angle, needed some careful study before the ring shaped markings became visible. These, it is thought, at over 7,000 years old, are sign posts, indicating the way to various key places - today’s Aboriginals can still translate them. Further up the creek, and a scramble down some slippy rocks, we found the two poems, scratched into the rock under a crag, in 1896 and 1901, by one John McDonald, just as he was about to leave for the USA in order to promote his invention of a crank-driven bicycle – must google him.


Bill hiking
We were accompanied by much wild life, again mostly of the winged variety – dragonflies, looking just like little radio-controlled bi-planes; ants, tiny ones, always marching in precise columns along the red mud, or large black ones, about the length of my thumb nail, usually patrolling alone; little brilliant yellow or white butterflies, flitting amongst the wildflowers; snails, tiny and white, looking like flower petals as they clung in profusion to the leaves. Insect life has become a feature of our camping here. We have developed techniques for keeping them out of the van at night – turn off all the lights and wait a moment, so that the moths lose interest and fly away - and we trip over the step. Spray the lights with insecticide, resulting in fits of coughing. Last night we were besieged by gnats – their tiny black bodies were everywhere in the morning. At night in the forest, the lamps in the campsite were partially darkened by the immense number of insects fluttering and dancing around them. And crickets, about 3 inches long, looking for all the world like little metal toys – the kind that spring up when you least expect it. One joined us briefly yesterday evening, jumping up about three feet in the air and making us jump about the same height too.

I’m told that there are far more in the summer – Bill recalls the screen doors, invisible under a mass of heaving black bodies; the campsite lady says that you have to drive the 30 feet to the toilets rather than walk through insect soup. We’ve been told there has been a positive plague of grasshoppers this year. We certainly got evidence of this as we drove down towards our planned campsite at Clare. The landscape was flat, reaching to low rolling hills on each side. Unlike the bush, this was clearly farm land, white stubble, or red fields, some with tractors kicking up vast clouds of red dust behind them. And on the road were grasshoppers  - Yellow Winged Locusts to be precise - millions of them. As we drove along, they jumped up, and flew straight into the front of the van, dozens at a time. There was no way to avoid them. All along the road, they smacked into the windscreen and grill, sounding like someone knocking their knuckle on the metal. They exploded onto the glass, leaving a gluey yellow mess which would not wash off with the wipers. In the rear view mirror, they looked like snowflakes constantly twirling and falling in the turbulence left by our passage. And when we stopped, the front of the van was an indescribable scene of death and destruction, the white paintwork hardly visible under the encrusted yellow explosions that had been crickets, the grill packed full of little bodies, lace-like wings flapping in the breeze. We found a car wash, and I made a sharp exit into town, leaving Bill in charge of the powerwasher wand. I returned to find the van clean and the forecourt covered in wings and other less identifiable bits of cricket. There seem to be less insects round the van tonight – presumably because we have killed most of them. 
Insect covered van


Monday 28 March 2011

28.3.11 – Sheep, grey nomads and the call of home (Wilpena Pound, South Australia)


Hiking Meg

28.3.11 – Sheep, grey nomads and the call of home (Wilpena Pound, South Australia)
Burnt tree
Over rocks and gullies, under spreading gum trees that scattered the sunlight around our feet, below immense red ramparts of cliff faces, across little water-filled creeks, past huge silvery fallen trees, perforated with insect burrows, or hollowed out by fire, creating caves of charcoal in the heart of the trunk.

Hill's Homestead
At last we reached the look out, and spread out below us was the great bowl of Wilpena Pound, rimmed with red rock faces softened by trees, and filled with abundant growth. But it wasn’t always like this. We had passed a little stone house – a ‘but ’n ben’ as we would say in Scotland. This was once the Hills Homestead where in the 1850’s, the Hill family established a sheep farm. Lush greenery, water, some shade from the sun – it was all there to make for success. They leased the land and built the house. The Government told them how many head of sheep they should keep, and taxed them accordingly, so they had no choice but to put 120,000 sheep into the Pound. Within 15 years, the lush growth was totally gone, and cracked, hard, drought stricken earth and blinding dust nearly drove them off the land. But then it rained, and they tried again, this time with only 20,000 sheep. Again the drought came. So they moved over to growing wheat. In order to get the wheat out through the narrow gulley, which is the only entrance among the towering cliffs, they spent years building a roadway. Again the drought came. Just as they were despairing, on Christmas day, torrential rain poured down, the rain they had dreamed of. But its violence and power, as it fell on the parched, brick-like ground, washed away the roadway they had built with so much pain and effort. That was the end for the Hill family’s endeavours – the longed-for rain had done what the drought could not do.

Landrover Letter Box
Wilpena Pound is now a National Park, and is full of hiking trails and wild life. Unfortunately, one of the hikes proved to be miles through the pitch black forest, full of ominous rustlings, to the toilet block. Furthermore, altogether too much wild life of the winged variety was keen to share our caravan overnight. So we cancelled our second night and retired back to the site at Hawker, narrowly avoiding the emu which dashed across the road in front of the van, and discovering the best letter box yet, cunningly disguised as a pink Landrover. 
 
Back at the site, the silence of the bush was mellowed by the gentle chatter of a group of mature citizens, including us, who sat in the sun with the owners, sharing anecdotes about life on the road. I asked what ‘Grey nomads’ were. ‘You are’, was the reply. It seems that a lot of aged Australians set off in caravans to have a good look at their country, ’before it’s too late’. They stay away for months or even years. We’ve met numerous people doing this. Most campsites are full of them. The owner here said that this is the bulk of their custom, and indeed they are about to become grey nomads themselves when they sell their business (if anyone wants to buy a lovely campsite with house in the Australian bush, now is your chance!) 
 
We also met another couple, dusty from their recent hike as we were. Reading my T-shirt (emblazoned ‘SCOTLAND’) we got talking. They are from Broomhill, near our flat in Glasgow, and he is also a fisherman around the islands of Muck and Eigg. They were in the last week of their stay here, and admitted that they were now missing home. I agreed that the call of Scotland was getting stronger for us too – ‘Westering Home’ is beginning to sound very attractive.

Sunday 27 March 2011

27.3.11 – Art in the outback (Hawker, South Australia)


27.3.11 – Art in the outback  (Hawker, South Australia)
A sunny Sunday morning, and we joined a tiny Christian fellowship in Hawker – a serene and meditative little service, led by Jeff Morgan, a quiet spoken, unassuming man. He’d been out fixing up houses with his son in preparation for the tourists – it’s too hot here for tourism in the summer, so autumn and spring are the seasons. They spoke about the rain – it has damaged many of the roads, undermining the tarmac and cutting off outlining towns and homesteads. It’s the first serious rain they have had for twenty years, so is very welcome none the less.

Garden in Hawker
Cactus in Hawker garden
Hawker is a quiet little township of about 300 people. Its population has been falling since its railway days, but we found several lively shops, three garages and several tourist businesses, supplying the route to Wilpena Pound, our ultimate destination. We walked the town trail, past neat houses with the customary pretty wrought iron verandahs, gardens full of brilliant flowers - a mark of defiance to the scorching weather, whereas others boasted huge cacti – presumably, as far as the weather’s concerned, if you you’ve got it, flaunt it. We also found Vatican House here – His Holiness’ holiday home we surmised, but it turned out to be the abode of a family named Pope. Pigs may fly, and in one garden, one was doing exactly that (see photo).

Flying Pig
Meg looking at Panorama
We also found three art galleries. One of these announced the presence of the ‘Wilpena Pound Panorama’. Curious, we went in. We were led into a circular room, about 20 feet high, with a platform in the middle. Ascending the stairs to this, we found ourselves surrounded by a complete 360 degree painting of the view from St. Mary’s Peak, the highest point of the rim around the Pound. It was as if you were there, breathing the fresh mountain air and hearing the wind and the birdsong. And the artist was none other than Jeff Morgan, the unassuming man who had led the service. He and his family had built the building and then, for 4,000 hours over 13 months, he had devoted himself to this amazing painting. Every leaf on the gum trees was there, the softness of the clouds, the shadows on the red rocks, the blue mistiness of the distant plains. As a result, he has been recognised world-wide as a one of a very few people anywhere who have done this. Most of the others have depicted different scenes, fading into one another. Part of his objective was to help his town by stimulating the economy (and he has succeeded – lots of bus trips now come to visit) but most of all, he wanted to display God’s creation, just as it was. The effect was to raise in the viewer a sense of awe and breathless wonder, and the few apt Bible texts on little silver plaques enhanced this.

Emu browsing at Wilpena Pound
Wilpena Pound, a national park, is a geological wonder. The Flinders Ranges consist of some of the most ancient rock on the planet, having been pushed up, absorbed, and then pushed up again from deep within the earth’s heart. Wilpena Pound is a massive natural amphitheatre of this rock, six miles wide by twelve miles long, rising out of the level plains all around. As we approached it, through the shade of little forests, two red kangaroos watched us dappled by the woodland sun. And then, as we swung out into open country, there! A group of about ten wild emus, brown fluffy feathers teased by a brisk little wind, pecking the soil (and each other), quite unaffected by our presence.

On arrival we donned our boots and set off on a short hike along a marked trail. Kangaroos watched us calmly from the bushes and rocks, an achidna (ant eater) trundled across the path, and brilliant green parrots swooped from tree to tree. Animals were everywhere, but signposts were not – they appeared to be an endangered species – so we retraced our steps to our caravan, planning to try again tomorrow.

Saturday 26 March 2011

26.3.11 – Railways and camels (Port Augusta, South Australia)


26.3.11 – Railways and camels  (Port Augusta, South Australia)
We camped at Port Augusta, at the foreshore where Spencer’s Gulf becomes a narrow blue inlet trimmed with golden sand. On the other bank, we could see long lines of railway trucks, painted pink by the evening light. Slowly, a train moved off – two growling yellow and blue diesels pulling up to eighty wagons, some full of coal, some loaded with brightly painted containers, some carrying glinting cars perched on long low loaders. All night, like a long peal of bells of every different note and tone, the shunting of wagons went on.
Galahs

Meg paddling
Port Augusta is an old town, in Australian terms, having been founded in 1853. It’s a pretty place, full of rust and cream coloured 19th. century buildings, and little bright green parks, trees crowded with pink chested galahs, who cackled and fluttered from branch to branch. One park bordered the beaches on the Gulf, allowing a quick paddle. 

Port Augusta’s position between Sydney on the east, Perth on the west and with connections to Darwin in the north and Adelaide in the south, accounts for all the shunting and moving of wagons we witnessed last night. Its hey day came with the railway. But the railways of Australia were hard won. The burning heat and emptiness of the desert interior meant that tools, equipment and manpower had to be taken out by bullock cart to inch the railhead forward. When it was at last complete, the ‘Tea and Sugar’ trains took everything in and out of the outback, to the homesteads, often isolated by hundreds of dry dusty miles from each other. In the days before refrigerated wagons, they even carried a butcher and live sheep to supply fresh meat, butchered to order. Journeys took long days and even weeks, and repair crews had to travel with the train to repair any damage they discovered on the track. On one interminable journey, a pregnant woman kept asking the guard repeatedly ‘Are we nearly at Alice Springs yet?’ Exasperated, he finally remonstrated ‘You shouldn’t have got on this train in that condition’. She replied ‘When I got on this train, I wasn’t in this condition!’ Apocryphal, I think.

Deserted homestead
In the bright sunlight, we headed on towards the blue masses of the Flinders Ranges on the horizon. The road wound up through a mountain pass then straightened out, piercing broad flat plains, unexpectedly green as a result of the recent rain (the outback can turn from red to green in hours if it receives the moisture it craves). Occasional abandoned homesteads told the poignant tale of settlers, determined to turn the bush into huge savannahs of waving wheat, like the central plains of America. But year upon year of drought destroyed their hopes and dreams, and forced them off the land for ever.

Ghan railway
A little railwayline, brown rusty rails twisting and winding, kept us company along the way. This is the Pichi Ritchie Railway, now a voluntary run line, but once part of the famous Ghan Railway, which bored its long route into the depths of the outback. Our stop for the night was Hawker, once the railhead, till the railway closed in 1970 after 90 years. Before the Ghan, donkeys, mules and bullocks were the main methods of supplying the interior. But they were slow and not capable of coping with the terrain and scorching heats of over 50 degrees. So camels and those who could manage them were brought from Afghanistan, and they tackled that route with confidence borne of long experience, swaying under huge loads of wool and provisions. Hence the name Ghan Railway, which followed the route their large feet took across the red sands.

Our own transport gave us a fright today, suddenly spewing pink liquid down the front, accompanied by ominous gurglings and gluggings. And there we were, miles from anywhere and nobody but a wedge tailed eagle for company. But – relief – Bill had forgotten to tighten some lid or other, and, this done, all was well. No camel necessary this time.

Friday 25 March 2011

24.3.11 - The iron and the bush (Iron Knob, South Australia)

25.3.11 – The iron and the bush (Iron Knob, South Australia)

Afternoon tea in Iron Knob
Whyalla exists because of the iron ore deposits in the nearby mountains, discovered in the 1840’s - Iron Monarch, Iron Baron, Iron Duke, and, the first to be worked, in 1899, Iron Knob. Here, men came to chip the blue-black stone out of the rusty mountains, in temperatures of 50 degrees or more, living in tents, in some cases with their wives and families. Work was long, heavy and dangerous, conditions were harsh, such water as they had was ballast water from the boats arriving at Whyalla, dragged to them 35 miles across the bush. But they maintained their dignity, keeping their children neat and clean and their collars white.

Signs for Iron Knob Hotel
Over the years, the town of Iron Knob grew up, flourishing at 3,500 inhabitants, with its own school, two churches, shops, cricket pitch and all the amenities a little town needs. But in 1999, the mine closed. One of its present 250 inhabitants showed us round what is left – a ghost town now. The stationer’s shop stands empty, faded adverts over the door. There’s a signpost for the Hotel, but all it points to is rubble. The garage’s forecourt is dusty, the petrol pumps abandoned. There’s no Policeman in the little cement Police Station, no pastor in the little corrugated iron church. The cricket pitch has been reclaimed by the bush. Many houses are empty, dusty windows, yards dried up. Here and there, a garden full of flowers stands out proudly. Only the tiny Post Office is still functional – ‘If we lose that, we lose our postcode and we cease to exist’. I asked what he thought the town’s future was. ‘Uncertain’ he says. They are going to reopen the mine next year, but apparently the workers will be bussed in from Whyalla. ‘I don’t think the government wants us here’ he says.

Iron Knob mine
The townsfolk run their own visitor centre, including this tour, using any profits to try and support their tiny community. Our minibus heads out on the rough orange sandy track, steep up to the rim of the old mine. An immense, deep, oval hole appeared at our feet, the mountain torn and naked; terraces, formed by different levels of workings, scratching its steep sides. He’s proud of its awe-inspiring size, the wide vistas of flat bush we can see from its rim. He tells us of one man in 1915, whose shovel filled fourteen five-ton wagons in one day. He hands us a smallish rock, blue/black on one side, red on the other. It’s unexpectedly heavy. ‘That’s what he was shovelling’. He recalls that the ‘Knobbies’ as they call themselves, through their rugged strength and determination, created much of Australia’s wealth and helped her through two world wars. We drive off through the bush, a thread of sadness following us.

The bush from the edge of the mine
I’ve often heard about ‘The Outback’ and ‘The Bush’ but never actually seen it, until today. Our road lay ruler straight to the horizon in front and behind, with scarcely another vehicle to be seen, except the occasional immense shiny Road Trains. On either side also it’s flat to each horizon, covered in grey-green bush about ankle to calf height, peppering the orange soil. Lonely trees stand out here and there, like short fat sentinels keeping watch. It’s very quiet. In the distance, heavy rain clouds trail their skirts across the ground. A wedgetailed eagle flies overhead, pursued by several smaller birds – he swoops and spins, but can’t throw them off. If you were out of sight of the road, it would be very easy to get seriously lost, as all too many people have done, with dire consequences – no water, no shade, no food. But the Aboriginal community can cope with it – this has been their land for tens of thousands of years, and they know how to survive in sympathy with this unforgiving but beautiful landscape.

Thursday 24 March 2011

24.3.11 – Names (Whyalla and Point Lowly, South Australia)

24.3.11 – Names (Whyalla and Point Lowly, South Australia)
Matthew Flinders, who mapped this part of Australia in the early 1800’s, was no doubt an intrepid, expert seaman – and only 23 years old - but he appears to have been one with very little imagination.  It was he who named the Lofty Mountains (‘Gosh, chaps, aren’t those mountains lofty?’), and went on in the same vein to name various other landmarks – the Middleback Mountains (‘What shall we call those mountains there, Cap’n? The ones sort of in the middle, at the back?’); Hummock Hill (‘I say, that’s a kind of hummocky hill thing there, isn’t it, Mr. Mate?); and, best of all, Mount Remarkable (‘I say, that’s a remarkable kind of mountain there, eh, what?’) 
Point Lowly

Bill paddling at Point Lowly
We visited Point Lowly today (‘It’s kind of flattish and low isn’t it?  Err – can’t think what to call it.  Any ideas, men?’).  There’s a white, graceful lighthouse at the tip of a point of yellowish rock, low green/blue shrubs, and pure white sand lapped by green seas, today carrying white breakers as stylish embellishment, like a glittering sequins on an acquamarine evening dress.  This was a scene of happy barbecues for Bill and Margaret, their parents roasting pork chops on an open fire on the sand and engaging in a running battle with the flies, while the kids splashed in the warm waves in a sheltered cove near the lighthouse.  Unfortunately, although still beautiful, a new arrival now dominates this peaceful spot – an immense liquid petroleum gas plant, tall chimneys wrapped in spiral gantries, huge domed storage facilities, low warehouse type buildings.  You have to stand with your back to this monstrosity to glimpse the fresh and envigorating place this should be. 

Caravan at Whyalla
Another aspect of naming here is street names – not the actual names, but how to find them.  In the town, street after broad tree-lined street of bungalows had no visible name marked at all.  A few deigned to have their street name painted in tiny letters on the kerb, most had nothing, so that if Bill had not already known the town, we would have got lost much more often than we did.  But out at Point Lowly, where there are only a handful of houses, there are fine clear signs on poles, denoting ‘Cuttlefish Street’, ‘Flinders View Drive’ or ‘Gulf View Road’ at the side of rough tracks through the bush, which lead, at best, to a lonely, slightly rickety shack.
And then there is the name Whyalla itself.  No-one actually knows where it came from, but one theory is that it is named for a local hill, whose name may be taken from the Aboriginal words for ‘I don’t know!’  I suspect our friend Flinders again – ‘What’s the name of this place, my good man?  Whyalla, you say!  Excellent!’
Tomorrow we leave Whyalla, and already Bill feels this as a wrench.  It’s been a happy, memory filled time for him.  But what are my views, newcomer and tourist as I am?  Before we arrived, any Australian we spoke to looked very awkward when we mentioned Whyalla, and some said it was ‘Not very nice’ and others implied worse, so I was a bit wary.  But I found it to be an unpretentious, comfortable town, with no airs and graces, where people were friendly and warm, where life moved at an easy pace.  There were only two less agreeable aspects – one was the red dust from the steel plant that tends to paint the south eastern end of the town a dull pink.  They have apparently reduced this emission hugely, but we could still occasionally see the dense red plumes emerging from the chimneys.  The other was the new shopping centre in the west of the town, surely one of the least imaginative or attractive examples I’ve seen, which was sucking the economic life out of the charming old town centre at the east end.  But against these disadvantages one has to mention the lovely foreshore area, on which we have camped, amongst the trees at the edges of the sand, within the sound of the waves; the long wide shady roads, the lovely Memorial Oval, the fascinating wetlands.  It’s a town you could easily develop a deep affection for, perhaps more easily than for its rather more glitzy sister cities.  From now on, I will share Bill’s loyalty to the town ‘where the outback meets the sea'.
Bill looking at Whyalla from Hummock Hill

23.3.11 – Tea in Croatia (Whyalla, South Australia)

23.3.11 – Tea in Croatia (Whyalla, South Australia)
A painting of a Croatian castle, round white towers, red cone-shaped tops; polished wooden kitchen doors; a wooden table set with a crisp checked cloth, yellow and green; white china cups, lace at the windows. ‘You treat it like your home. I from Croatia – that is how we do it’.


Lane
 We had been idly strolling along the dusty lane behind Bill’s old house, retracing his path home from school and looking over the corrugated iron fences into the Nicolson Avenue back gardens. Bill’s old garden at 24 was much changed – gone were the fruit trees, vines and chicken run.

But just two doors along at No. 20, it was a very different story. It was the chickens that caught our eye – brown and plump, scratching at the red soil. And there was a cockerel, metallic blue-green tail erect, chest puffed out.

Chickens!!
We exclaimed over them, and from the vegetable patch a figure stood up. ‘You like my chickens, yes?’ A grey headscarf tied at the back of her head, white curls framing a weatherbeaten face, in which two bright eyes shone adding to her wide smile of welcome. She came over to us, wiping muddy hands on her black gardening trousers. I explained that Bill had used to live at 24. ‘No!’ – in disbelief – ‘I live in that house long time ago. My husband, he buy it when we come – maybe 1960’s?’ It turned out that it was quite likely that it was to her husband that grandpa had sold the house, over fifty years ago. (They had later moved two doors along to a slightly bigger house). She was delighted. ‘You come in for tea! I ask you because you live in 24!’

We walked through the garden, and it transported me away from Australia and back to Romania, where we had spent long periods in the 1990’s. A shaded path, covered with vines, dripping grapes now a bit over-ripe; a lime tree, heavy with fruit; vegetables, chickens – I was back with the Costiuc family, our friends in the town of Cristian, and Mama Costuic, her red headscarf tied behind her head, wiping her hands on her apron and insisting we come in for tea.

Anz, for that was her name, had come to Whyalla as a refugee – ‘I come with nothing, nothing. They give me everything – nice house, everything’. She’s never been back, but she has a sister in Dubrovnik who wants her to visit. But she’s not sure. ‘It not in my heart to go. Maybe one day, maybe’. Bill asks if she knew the Bradburys, who had lived in 22, the house between. Her eyes light up. ‘She was a mother to me. Very, very good people. I cry when she died.’

We stayed, drinking tea and eating huge slices of cake, while her tall, shy grandson came in from school. She showed us photos - the family in Croatian costume, little girls in white and red embroidered dresses, the men in black waistcoats, edged in red; her granddaughter at some presentation, tall and slim, with long black hair, holding a shining silver cup. We parted at her garden gate. ‘Next time you come, I show you whole house!’ A magical moment.

Bill barbecuing
There is some graffiti and vandalism here – not a lot, but it’s there. However, one set of items that are too sacrosanct to be destroyed are the stainless steel electric barbecues. You see them everywhere, and they’re free. Tonight, we decided to try one. Lorne sausage, bought from the Scottish butcher mentioned earlier, sizzled on the big square hotplate in no time. You simply press a button on the side, it heats up, and you cook! Easy! Next time I must barbecue something more adventurous!

Tuesday 22 March 2011

22.3.11 – Scone cutters and ghosts (Whyalla, South Australia)

Origins of the scone cutter
22.3.11 – Scone cutters and ghosts (Whyalla, South Australia)
She was a cheerful lady, of generous proportions, dressed in a bright blue T-shirt, her blond hair tied back, a bucket and mop in her hand.  We suddenly felt like naughty kids, caught trespassing in the empty playground.  But she smiled, and said ‘G’day’, as Aussies do.  We hastily explained that this was Bill’s old school, and that these tan coloured prefabricated buildings, at the back of the main school, shaded by the ever-present gum trees, were the actual classrooms where he studied – or at least attended – metalwork and woodwork over fifty years ago.  She exchanged memories of school in Whyalla, and then said ‘I shouldn’t really do this, but would you like to see inside?’  And there it was, even down to the very workbench - scratched varnish, worn red drawer fronts - where he made the little metal scone-cutter which is now in the jumble of my kitchen drawer, thousands for miles away.

24 Nicolson Avenue

Earlier, standing in his old home at 24 Nicholson Avenue, feeling, as you do, that everything was smaller than he remembered, we looked out at the towering Radiata Pine on the pavement, which had been a little tree then, and had to be watered carefully every evening.  Despite inevitable alterations and extensions, the house from the front, was exactly as it had been – red brick, a little wooden porch, corrugated iron roof, neat little lawn, edged with flowers.  The memories still clung to those red brick walls – making cardboard models on the floor of his bedroom; jumping onto his parents’ bed while they tried to have a long lie; lying on the floor of the living room, listening to the gramophone to while away the hours till the deadening summer heat faded into cooler night air (no air conditioning then, to cope with temperatures of 40 degrees); the lemon and orange trees that had been in the garden, the grapefruit tree that had never produced grapefruit; the vines that produced abundant white grapes; the chickens, brown and white, that had pecked about their fenced enclosure.  All these pleasant ghosts were there, as Emily, the current owner, showed us round and exchanged names of people they both knew.

Mount Laura Homestead

The Mount Laura Homestead, now a museum, had been the home of the Nicolson family, who were the major and some of earliest landowners in the area.  Bill remembered Mr. Nicolson, who had been an acquaintance of his dad.  It’s quiet green gardens, shady verandahs, and rooms brimming with memorabilia, filled the morning with nostalgia. Red covered books of funeral records revealed the name of one of his companion, who had died of cancer aged only 11.  His whole class attended the funeral, and Bill stood there, in the sun, feeling his deep sadness at the loss of a close friend.  A cornucopia of memories.

21.3.11 – Furnaces and geese (Whyalla, South Australia)

Pouring red hot slag
21.3.11 – Furnaces and geese (Whyalla, South Australia)
A maze of muddy brown roadways, winding between immense black structures.  Pipes and gantrys, chimneys and enormous buildings into which several jumbo jets would comfortably fit.  Men in high-viz jackets and white hard hats.  Steeply sloping mountains of black coal, brown iron ore, grey dolomite.  Huge wheeled vehicles of unimaginable shapes or purposes.  Long lines of coke furnaces, high as a ten storey block of flats, one vomiting red hot oozing matter into an oversized railway truck.  Mountainous clouds of steam, piles of black and brown twisted metal, glimpses of sinister orange glows within the interior of dark cavernous sheds.  A concrete wrecking ball the size of a house, dropping from a crane’s swinging neck.  A vast bowl, full of white hot slag, pouring in an orange waterfall onto the ground.  Stack upon stack of blue-grey rectangular blocks, still shimmering with heat.  Like a set for Mordor, this is what Whyalla’s economy is based on – steel and iron ore.  Seeing it close to was breathtaking, and somewhat scary, even from the interior of a mini-bus. 

HMAS Whyalla on the land
Meg and Bill under HMAS Whyalla
Thereafter, we again encountered Australia’s apparent love for putting huge things where you would least expect to find them.  In this case, it was a battleship (corvette), a mile from the sea and six feet off the ground.  The HMAS Whyalla was the first ship built in the yards where Bill’s father later worked.  It was brought back over 40 years later, and hauled up the same ramp down which it was launched.  Well, why not. 

Wet Meg in the Wetlands
Clearly, Whyalla took my remarks literally about it being home just like Glasgow, as it maintained a steady, dreich drizzle all day.  It seems that yesterday accounted for about one tenth of the normal annual rainfall for this area, and it has plainly made up its mind to produce the other nine tenths this week.  We decided not to be put off, and kitted up to walk in the wetlands conservation area.  A soft rain whispered down onto silver ponds, set amongst bright red soil, low blue/green bushes covering gentle mounds.  Birds aplenty.  In the distance, Whyalla was largely lost in the mist.  Two ladies feeding the ducks and geese called to us, in the friendly, open way Australians do.  ‘What a lovely day!’ and there was no hint of irony.  They explained with delight about the birds they feed twice a day.  They pointed out two plump geese they’d recently rescued from acute neglect - no access to water for three long years - now happily paddling the quiet pools with their large webbed feet.  A handsome white gander, hand-raised since he was a fluffy yellow chick, consented to allow one of the ladies to cuddle him and to fondly kiss his bright red head. 

From blast furnace to fluffy chick.  Who cares if it’s raining?

Monday 21 March 2011

20.3.11 – A damp nostalgic idyll (Whyalla, South Australia)

20.3.11 – A damp nostalgic idyll  (Whyalla, South Australia)
Bill has always described to me the dryness and heat of Whyalla – temperatures rising to 40 degrees in the summer with exhausting regularity, less than 5” of rain per year, dry red soil. So when we woke in the middle of the night to rain ricocheting off the roof, it was a little bit of a surprise. In the morning, water still thundering from a leaden sky was now filling immense paddling pool sized puddles all over the campsite. Scottish campers would simply have sighed and reached for the wellie boots. South Australians stood mesmerised outside tents, watching this unexpected torrent make the expanding lakes edge ever nearer to their tent doors. During the day, this novelty of the rain showed itself in various ways. In church, God was roundly thanked for ‘this lovely day’. At the park, toddlers not only jumped in puddles, they lay down full length and even bathed their faces. It all depends what you are used to, I presume.

The Church of Christ Whyalla


Church was the start of a moving day for Bill – he remembered sitting in the then crowded building, now used as the hall beside the newer church. A very friendly and welcoming little fellowship invited us to tea and cake after the service and even to a birthday party later in the week. One lady had actually taught in his primary school.

Meg on the foreshore
As it was still pouring, we spent the afternoon driving around and looking at familiar streets and buildings. A far away look became a permanent fixture on his face such that I had to avoid disaster by reminding him of the 2011 reality of traffic and parked cars. We saw so much that meant a lot to him – his first primary school, little wooden huts nestling among the gum trees; his second primary school, now much extended; his imposing cream stone secondary school, including the huts where he could remember sitting quietly at his sunny desk, bathed in the sweet warm smell of the eucalyptus trees; the Scottish Butcher’s shop, amazingly still there, where his mother used to buy Lorne sausage; the lovely beach, from which he swam in the turquoise water – ‘Don’t go out past the sandbar!’ - and on which he and his father went to collect the white gritty sand for the chickens they kept in their garden. Lastly for today was the Memorial Oval, a wide green expanse of grass, sloping up gently at the edges, and surrounded by tall gum trees. This was the special place, where as a little boy he came in December along with the whole town, all clutching glimmering candles in white cardboard holders, to sing Christmas carols in the warm night atmosphere; this was where he ran around the track, gasping the burning air as he went, but spurred on and on by a determined sports teacher; this was where he stood as an excited nine year old, orange headscarf tied in place, as part of a welcome message for the Queen as she flew overhead.
Bill musing on The Memorial Oval

In the months leading up to this visit, I had wondered if it was wise for us to bring to life his childhood memories – maybe there would be too many changes, maybe it would distress or unsettle him. But no, he is satisfied, feels good, is happy. It’s home here, along with Dumbarton, Glasgow, and pretty little Millport, and always will be.

Sunday 20 March 2011

19.3.11 – Surreal (Stirling and Whyalla, South Australia)

19.3.11 – Surreal (Stirling and Whyalla, South Australia)
Bill and Colleen
Colleen McBain is a cheerful, friendly lady who now lives in Lismore, near the New South Wales/Queensland Border.  Once she and her sisters played with Bill and Margaret in the long sunny days of childhood.  Her house, just along the road from theirs, was built of large, solid stonework, with green gables.  I saw it first in the pictures she brought when she met us for coffee in the cafe garden, wooden pillars laced with vines through which sunbeams were scattered on the table.  I listened as they reminisced about the teachers they remembered from school; about the beach picnics that all the town children attended, free ice cream and races along the sand; about the cow Colleen’s family kept in their garden and which would insist on escaping and eating the neighbour’s gardens.  Updates filling in the years between, exchanges of detail about Australia and Scotland, and then it was time to part.  Hopefully she will visit us in Scotland, as part of her search for her forebears. 

Meg at Shopping Centre, Stirling


So we left Stirling, travelled through the city, and, passing close to Ardrossan and Bute, headed for Lochiel.  For a Scot, this is increasingly surreal.  All these names conjure up vivid images of green Clyde islands, the pungent scent of seaweed, single track roads twisting through misty mountains and cool silver lochs till they find little highland townships.  Yet here I am in baking sunshine, land completely flat from horizon to horizon, covered only in greyish green low-growing bushes amid bright red earth, or brown stubble grazed by matching brown sheep, and long, long, straight, straight roads.  Lochiel even had a poster of a Loch Ness type monster, and a little way along the road, where a long, wide salt lake shone white in the sun, a monster made of old tyres swam calmly along. 

Along one of the long straight roads, we were accompanied for miles by a long, straight cream coloured pipe.  This is Whyalla’s water supply, coming by overland pipeline 235 miles from the Murray River – the same one beside whose twinkling wavelets we had camped three nights ago.

Whyalla - where the outback meets the sea
Bill's first meal in Whyalla for 50 years!
Then at last Whyalla.  It’s an industrial town, which does not quite fit the smart image that Australia is trying to convey to the world.  This is evidenced by the absence of any mention of the town from tourist brochures and maps.  Even the road signs for it only appeared when we were about 50 miles away, although it is the third largest town in South Australia.  The road passes an immense steel works, covered in red dust. The town appears, carved out of the surrounding bush, compact bungalows lining broad roads.  At once, Bill is transported back to childhood, as his home, his school, his church, the beach he had played on, the roads he had cycled, surround him once again.  And so I served him the first meal he has eaten in Whyalla for over 50 years, and he said he felt he had come home.  Surreal again.