This is England

The UK is probably the fastest border crossing in the world. Australians are able to use the smart gates, much like we would at home and Customs screening is only done if you have something to declare. With no lines that meant we were across the border and on our way to the train station in under five minutes. We elected to use the rail service from the airport to Paddington (only later realising that we could have used the new Elizabeth Line and a pass for the tube). The hotel was just metres from the train station. With only two days in London we decided shower and head back out.

The breakfast on the plane wasn’t very appetising and I had just the thing in mind. We caught the tube to Aldgate and slowly wandered up Brick Lane until we reached the world’s best bagels (IMHO) at Beigel Bake. This shop is open 24/7 pumping out the best bagels. We arrived around 11am and there was already a queue out the door. There are a range of fillings available but the two best are definitely the traditional salmon and cream cheese and the salted beef bagel (with mustard and gherkins of course). We got one of each. Dan also got a salami and cheese bagel which wasn’t quite what he was expecting with a polish style salami rather than a more traditional Spanish or Italian sausage. Last time I was here I had the salmon and cream cheese bagel which was amazing – fresh smoked salmon, a good helping of cream cheese and a bagel that was still warm. The same bagel was just as good this time around but the salted beef bagel was another level. With hot English mustard, a large helping of tender corned beef and lashings of hot English mustard. Tough call but I’m going with even better than a reuben. While I still sometimes crave the simple corned beef, vege and white sauce of my childhood (with a generous dollop of three threes) there is so much you can do with it – corned beef hash, reubens and now this. There are some bars along the wall where you can stand and eat but at this time of day, that space is taken up with the snaking line so we went to the end of the street and ate. There is a second (less popular) bagel place two doors down so Dan decided to give their custard tarts a go – theyvwere Portuguese style rather than the high school tuckshop style ones dusted with nutmeg and pretty good.

Brick Lane is a very stark contrast to Singapore – all gritty, dirty and covered with graffiti. Including, sadly, murals for major brands. Still the home of a handful of Indian restaurants (although the touts are largely non-existent at least at this time of day. It also still has vintage stores. although some boutiques have started creeping in. Mercifully not the home (yet) to the chain stores whose murals are trying to build themselves street cred. We wandered back down brick lane with a detour through Spitalfields market where I found (eventually) a passable coffee (after having to ditch my first attempt it was so bad). The brits do coffee better than many places I have been, but a good coffee is much harder to find here than at home and I am yet to experience anything exceptional. The further north I go, the more likely it is I will switch to tea. One thing London does better than anywhere is artisan markets – from hipster food to handmade jewellery and everything in between, you can find it here and there are exceptional and internationally renowned markets everywhere – Spitalfields, Portobello Road, Camden… We wandered around Spitalfields and Dan came across his dream dessert stand – a make your own crumble place where you get to choose the ratio of crumble to fruit. After a heavy crumble ration, he conceded that maybe 50-50 was best.

From Spitalfields we made a beeline to the north for my other fave gritty destination – Camden Town in North London. We decided to split the ride and catch a London bus for the second part of the trip as Dan had never been on one before. On arrival I had a singular mission – to find, just outside the tube station, a stone on the not well populated or looked after London music walk of fame. Started a few years ago, there are only a handful of artists on the walk – Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, Soul 2 Soul, The Who and the stone I came to find. The one belonging to North London’s finest – Madness. There it was just outside the tube station – looking a bit weathered but more exciting for me than finding anyone on the Hollywood walk of fame (apart from the ‘it’s so bad it’s good’ value of finding William Shatner’s star).

Camden High Street is always teeming with people and today, a Tuesday, was no exception. While the High Street and the long gone open air markets had there hey day in the 90s, and the vintage stores have largely migrated to other parts of London, there is still something about this North London street that brings the throngs. The last traditional markets have been replaced by a container village of artisan crafters and hipster food outlets, the big Doc Marten is gone, replaced by even more commercial three dimensional advertising and the Camden Lock is now a sophisticated maze of specialty shops – you can find jewellery, goth stores, 50s dresses and even steam punk gear here. It also still remains one of the best places in the world to find a quirky pop culture inspired t-shirt. Given this was our first stop on a two month round the world journey, I sensibly restrained myself from making any purchases. I have in the past bought a heavy coat and carried it in my backpack for weeks. I am fairly certain that is how I fractured my foot – fashion is pain right? Dan though bought a very cool yoda t-shirt.

By this stage we had been (mostly) awake for 36 hours and as we pushed through in a bid to kill the jetlag, we decided an early dinner was in order. The other thing there is in abundance of at Camden Lock is food. Food from all corners of the globe. Our first stop was a van selling Venezuelan Arapas – a tortilla filled with pulled beef and salad, served with fried plantains. We grabbed a spot in one of the dining domes – kind of like a pod with a round table surround by a bench seat – which I held while Dan went off in search of a polish hotdog (read kransky roll) and fried perogis. Once we had consumed our bounty it was back on the tube. We caught the new sleek Elizabeth line, which opened in May last year. Its construction and the access to other lines at Paddington meant last time I was here I had to trek down to Lancaster Gate to get almost anywhere. The new line and reopening of the others made Paddington an even more convenient place to stay. [Bhindee Bhaji – Joe Strummer and the Mescalaros – the perfect track when discussing North London. I have no earthly idea why The Clash haven’t yet been installed on the Music Walk of Fame. To my mind they are one of the greatest and most influential bands of the London punk scene. And Strummer’s later act with a mellower vibe also doesn’t disappoint. While I never had the opportunity to see The Clash, I am fortunate to have seen Strummer and his Mescaleros play a bunch of Clash songs about a year or two before he died. As for Mick Jones, according to my other faves – The Dropkick Murphys, he steals puddings.]

Day two of our London stay started with a bit of history. A quick tube ride to Westminster, a wander past the gleaming gold of the refurbished Big Ben and some sort of Pacific forum meeting and we arrived at The Churchill War Rooms. We had pre-booked tickets so entry was a breeze. The war rooms are essentially a bunker that was built in the basement of Downing street to house second world war planning, including accommodating the Prime Minister and his wife. Winston Churchill is probably the most famous (and most quoted) British PM of all time (although Margaret Thatcher is probably only just behind). One of the most curious things was that Churchill’s bedroom was decked out with maps of the war on all walls. The museum itself sets up the Cabinet War Room just as it would have been in the 1940s – furniture, phones, radio equipment, maps – the lot, and as you wander through the warren, other rooms are similarly set up – kitchen, dining rooms (Churchill had a private dining room) and sleeping quarters right down to bed pans under the bed. The museum has expanded since my last visit 14 years ago and now includes a large and very detailed exhibit about Churchill including his collection of hats. My two favourite items were the quote from one of the military generals that the war rooms were a really good setup “except for their proximity to Winston”. And a map of Germany with hand drawn borders and notes dividing it between the fighting nations. While the blitz and destruction in London had an indelible effect on the British psyche, that time just really served to cement the British attitude ingrained over centuries – the stiff upper lip – get on with it but don’t be afraid to complain about your lot in life either. While the effect of the war and the Holocaust which were of course one of the biggest tragedies of the last century are well documented and discussed, we tend to see the division of Germany through the prism of the late 20^th Century collapse of the Soviet Union rather than the effect that dividing the country had in the first place. As with all museums these days (whom I am sure have learned the lesson from Disney) you exit through the gift shop. But this one is worth a look – filled with posters, postcards and replica books of Government initiatives to keep the population fed and the war on track. My faves – that may have found their way into my bag as postcards and fridge magnets were – “Potatoes feed without fattening and give you energy”, “While there is tea there is hope”, one for me to pay attention to when I put it on the fridge – “Eat less bread” and one we could all pay attention to in helping save the planet – “Go through your wardrobe – make do and mend”. There was also a rubber duck decked out as Winston Churchill complete with cigar. If I didn’t have 20+ destinations left, this may have made its way into my bag.

From the war rooms we headed to Covent Garden to catch up for lunch with my former boss who is now London-based. He took us to the Old Bank of England, which had been turned into a quite spectacular pub. We fittingly had our first beer in England with a pub meal of pies – steak and ale and chips for Dan, Chicken, ham hock and leek with mash for me and our dining companion opted for the healthier option – a cauliflower, spinach and lentil pie without the beer. It was a really pleasant spot for lunch and while the pies weren’t the most amazing thing I had ever eaten, I thoroughly recommend this as a place to sit back and enjoy a pint. Cosy yet ornate as you would expect the Bank of England to be.

From here we wandered around Covent Garden for a while – Dan grabbed a UK SIM card and we stumbled across an anime store and the London branch of Forbidden Planet which kept us busy for a while. Then it was on to seven dials market to visit Pick and Cheese , which is essentially a sushi train but with cheese. Best. Thing. Ever. And as you’d expect good cheese is expensive but to ease the pain, they have an all you can eat in an hour option on a Wednesday for about 25 pounds each and we had booked a slot at 3:15. It was amazing – about 20 different cheeses all with accompaniments and a few charcuterie plates for good measure including a delectable spreadable salami paired with cornichons. Just like a sushi train you sit at a bench while a conveyer belt delivers the cheese and you pick what you want. They give you some extra biscuits and off you go. There is also a pretty solid wine list but having already had a pint with lunch, we disappointed the sommelier. Some of the pairings were obvious like a lush mascarpone paired with sour cherry and any number of combinations of blues with fruity accompaniments. I missed out on the Smoked Lincolnshire poacher with smoked apple butter that Dan said was great. The Sparkenhoe blue came with a brownie and my favourite was a really smooth St Ela goat’s cheese paired with Turkish delight – unusual because I usually hate goat’s cheese. Perhaps the most unusual was Coolea – a Gouda style cheese from Cork, paired with cumin-roasted pineapple. Waiters came around regularly and collected the little glass domes and plates but our pile stacked up pretty fast as we endeavoured to experience as many of the plates as possible as they snaked their way past. But even we, lovers of cheese, were all cheesed out well before the end of our allotted hour 15. [Someday I Suppose – Mighty Mighty Bosstones – the biggest musical regret of my life (other than not convincing my Dad to let me see Madness when I was 14 and totally missing a Frank Turner show I had tix to) was not reorganising our trip in 2018 to see the Bosstones play their almost annual Boxing Day shows in Boston, thinking we’d do it on our next trip. Of course since then we’ve had two years of the pandemic and the Bosstones have split up. I feel fortunate that at least I got to see them twice all those years ago when they toured Australia.]

After all that cheese, we decided to walk back to Paddington across Hyde Park. The sun was starting to set by the time we got halfway through the park on what was a wintry day. The boat lake was mothballed for the winter with all the boats covered and tied up but the swans still looked regal swimming on the lake and the geese, well, looked like geese – slightly less awkward than they look on land. There has been a bird flu outbreak in the UK and despite wall to wall notices with advice not to feed the birds, including swans, there were at least a dozen people doing just that. We also saw a guy handfeeding the squirrels. I have to say though, there are some very fat pigeons wandering around. After our walk back, and consumption of what felt like my body weight in cheese, it was time for a snooze, and because I hadn’t quite made it through the jetlag – I did what I have only ever done before after a sleepless party the night before – and had a late afternoon/early evening nap.

Eventually we woke and headed to the pub for dinner. Nice eateries are a bit thin on the ground around the tourist trap that is Paddington. But the Victoria is a standout. I had a fabulous Sunday roast there on my last trip to the UK and was keen to experience more of the menu. And we weren’t disappointed. Dan had the chicken burger and chips and, trying to eat something a bit healthier I chose the roasted salmon which came on a bed of delicious fennel and pea risotto and with a Romanesco sauce. The salmon was great too. Despite spending a large portion of the day eating, we were keen to sample dessert as everything else had been awesome. We settled on the passionfruit brulee and while good, wasn’t as exceptional as our mains.

With the jetlag still looming (and the going to bed at 8pm) we were both awake at 5am on our last morning in London. And we were both thinking about the salted beef bagel at the Brick Lane Beigel Bake. So we mapped a tube route – The Elizabeth line and a final one stop journey on the overground – to satisfy our craving. We picked up a flat white and hot chocolate at Costa on the way and devoured a warm bagel for breakfast. We also picked up some strudel and sesame bagels for the train journey to Edinburgh.

Fridge Magnets – 4 Postcards – 3 T-shirts – 1

Food, glorious food

I may have prepared for our trip to Singapore through the not very intellectual pursuit of watching Crazy Rich Asians. And I may have eaten at a hawker market (although for the record the Michelin starred stand is open odd hours about three days a week and apparently the wait for their soy chicken is about two hours. I may have swum in a rooftop pool (at the Holiday Inn not the Marina Bay Sands). But I didn’t have a cocktail dress in the boot of my car, party on a container ship, learn to make dumplings, be part of a makeover montage or fly business class. And despite all illusions to the contrary, it is impossible to spend three days in Singapore without feeling the effects of the intense humidity.

The advantage of flying Qantas (apart from being able to spend time before flights in the Qantas Club) is the ability to check in at Canberra and send your bags through to your destination, making Sydney International a much easier process. After the short hop, the border crossing itself was a breeze but the security screening took ages. Eventually we got through – looked around for a squeezy tube of vegemite – two months is a long time without vegemite toast. Unfortunately Kraft no longer make the tubes just jars which have danger written all over them when it comes to travel. Crisis averted – I picked up a couple of extra sachets in the Qantas Club for that inevitable homesick craving about six weeks in. This was the easy leg of the journey – about eight hours through to Singapore during the day. While I had been organised enough to download a bunch of Netflix shows, there was a pretty good selection on the inflight system and I settled in for a binge of Star Trek – Strange New Worlds.

While we had to queue at Immigration on arrival it was a relatively painless border crossing save for the fact that my paralysed eyelid is not conducive to facial biometric collection. I am sure there is a data base of photos around the world of me looking very surprised as it is the only way I can properly open my left eye. Show your passport and the PDF of your entry declaration on your phone, thumbprints, facial scan and off your go. Not quite automated but close. Perhaps we looked like dodgy characters or maybe it was the backpacks but the bored security guards d to targeted us for bag screening. Then it was on the inter-terminal train to the metro station. Unfortunately you can only purchase a visitor metro card at one end of the platform. The other end of course. It is those incidental things you spy on your trip that make travel so interesting and the wondering why things are and how they came to be. And why we don’t have them at home. And so it was with the orange juice machine near the ticket counter in the airport metro station – Stacked with actual oranges, purporting to be Australian and the promise that four of them would be juiced right in front of you. I didn’t try it, although in hindsight it might have been just what I needed to pep me up, but am still wondering about it – makes more sense than the infamous hot chip vending machine. Eventually after some issues with the travel money card, we had a ticket in our hand and were on the nicely airconditioned metro to our hotel near Clarke Quay.

Already sweaty from the walk from the metro station to the hotel, we decided to dump the bags and head out for some dinner. And as you do in Singapore, we headed to a Hawker Centre. In this case the Maxwell Centre in Chinatown. A previous reader of this blog noted that I write a lot about food and that is what my entries always start with. Perhaps it’s because the day usually starts with breakfast, perhaps it is because food is one of my major passions (alongside travel, music, design, pop culture and all things quirky and kitsch), or perhaps the sharing of food is one of the most accessible ways to experience other cultures and to interact with people. And so it is with Singapore – the food at the Hawker markets is an incredible cacophony of flavours, available at bargain prices and a varying degree of quality. Largely (and not true of everything) the ingredients are fresh but lesser cuts – you’re not likely to find Wagyu in a hawker market but you will find things made of mutton instead of lamb and you can still get more expensive dishes like chilli crab but it will cost you. Dan loves a Hawker market so after a short walk from the metro station we were in the thick of it and he went out in search of our dinner returning with mutton and chicken say sticks, sweet and sour pork, some excellent spicy noodles and choy sum and for Dan possibly the biggest beer I have ever seen. Curiously we serve beers in smaller glasses in warmer parts of the country, often served in a stubbie holder to limit heating of the beer from your hands. In Singapore the approach seems to just down the beer quickly enough that it doesn’t have time to get warm. [Longview – Green Day – Back when this album came out, I had a small boombox and owned about six CDs – I had re-discovered new music in my life but preferred to spend what spare cash I had going to see bands play live rather than buying albums. Consequently, my copy of Green Day’s Dookie was a taped version that I could play in my car or the shed where I worked on my design projects. Later replaced with a second hand CD from Revo *nepotism]

And because the day starts with breakfast, and you can’t go to Singapore without experiencing the local delicacy of runny eggs and Kaya Toast with milky tea, we headed for the original (and best) branch of Yat Kun Kaya Toast in Chinatown to start our second day. Like many nations tackling the impacts of climate change, Singapore is encouraging cycling for commuters. In the decade since we were last here, this has seen an explosion in cycle shops and cyclists – so much so that Yat Kun Kaya Toast was overrun, much like any Canberra Café in the earlier hours, by MAMLs. And as they do at home, they took over the outside tables. No problem- inside was where the aged but effective air conditioning was. We lined up and ordered, collecting our runny eggs, milky tea and iced milo (some Australian delicacies can be found farther afield than the Qantas lounge). The kaya toast – very thin toast slices of wholewheat bread with butter and kaya jam sandwiched between arrive at your table a few minutes later. You add white pepper and soy to the runny eggs and dip the toast. I have been perfecting this at home and when I get the egg consistency right (which is hard to do) it is an awesome alternative to a fry up.

From here we headed to Gardens by the Bay, You see all the photos and think OK – tourist trap but we thought we’d check it out. Even just because the domed gardens are climate controlled. The Gardens aren’t cheap but we decided that if we were there, we were going to try all the experiences on offer – we bought tickets to both domes and both high walks. It was looking like rain later in the day so we elected to do the two treetop walks in the (fake) iconic Gardens by the Bay trees. The first wound its way between the structures about 10-15 metres below the top giving you an excellent view of the structures and the surrounding area including Marina Bay Sands and the city skyline. The second treetop experience was at the top of the tallest of the trees. It started with a projection from the ceiling of the lift of blooming flowers that followed the lift trajectory. At the top, there was a café and a viewing platform. A few steps up and you could go on the roof of the tree with unobstructed views. The trees themselves, which have been there for quite a few years now, have greenery growing up the trunks and spreading onto the treetops themselves. There are wires strung, presumably for the greenery to grow out onto. It is admirable that this aspect has been left to grow organically. I am sure it would have been tempting to ensure the trees were complete at the time of construction. From the treetop walk, it was over to the Flower Garden – now I am not a gardener but the collection of plants in here were spectacular, including an Australian section and an extremely impressive succulent garden, complete with my favourite fascinating plant – the boab tree. There was also an impressive Chinese New Year display in the centre with rabbits galore. There were also a range of sculptures throughout the garden. While the iconic trees were really cool, this dome was the most impressive part of the gardens. The Cloud Forest sounds impressive and it does have a very tall indoor waterfall but the main attraction of it appears to be the Avatar theme throughout. I couldn’t work out whether Avatar was an addition to the garden or whether the whole garden was built around the Avatar partnership. I am pretty sure it is the latter. The gardens themselves probably didn’t need the Avatar statues throughout or the animatronic dragon. Leave the animatronics to Disneyland. That being said, the light show part was pretty impressive. It tracked your movement and reacted which was a bit of fun.

Conveniently, one of the long list of Hawker markets that Dan wanted to visit – The Satay Maerket – was at the gardens so we just had to stop by. Unlike the Maxwell Centre where many of the traders were all about cash sales, this centre was concentrated on the tourist market with card sales the norm. It also had a more modern system of buzzers which you were given when you ordered to alert you when to collect your food. And when at the Satay centre, satay is of course the first order of business. Here though the mutton is replaced with beef and while the meat was better, the satay sauce and banana leaf wrapped sticky rice cakes that accompanied it were better the previous night. I had a fruit salad but it was heavily padded out with dragon fruit, which like star fruit, looks really impressive but isn’t as delectable. Fortunately there were some pieces of papaya and mango to balance it. We also got some roasted chicken wings , which while well cooked, had less flavour than a woollies BBQ chicken. They were quite large though, leading me to consider they breed their eating chickens differently in Singapore. I also wanted to try a local dish so unable to find Hainanese chicken, we settled for some popiah – wrapped in a thin pastry – a bit like a pancake and filled with stir-fried turnip, jicama, grated carrots, chopped peanuts and shredded omelette.

From here it was off to the electronic stores – Dan was on a mission to find a spare battery for his camera as it had shut down while we were wandering around the gardens. We found a battery and had a look in a few other tech shops. On our way back to the hotel, we made (for me) the most important booking of our Singapore stay – at Jumbo seafood, for their infamous chilli crab. The remainder of the afternoon was spent swimming in the rooftop pool and snoozing in our airconditioned room. In order to be more eco-friendly our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay, had been designed for the corridors to be open air so the energy expenditure could be used to cool individual rooms – the downstairs lobby was cooled too – to a reasonable temperature but much of the dining was al fresco but surrounded by greenery. One of the things Singapore has done exceptionally well is introduce greenery to the city. Outside of the older areas of Chinatown, most streets have gardens along the verge and most new buildings incorporate greenery in their design from green walls to rooftop gardens and trees, shrubs and vines on almost every balcony. Partly I am sure it is to ensure the place looks inviting and clean but it also serves a dual cooling purpose in what is a hot, humid climate.

We had made a late night booking for dinner and so while still humid, the sun had gone down making the heat slightly more bearable. Jumbo had an impressive set menu and if you are dining with a companion who likes seafood I would highly recommend it. I wasn’t. So we ordered from the menu. Crab is charged per 100 grams in the shell (here it was about $10 per 100g) but you have to buy the whole crab. Chilli crab works best with the sweet meat of mud crabs and the smallest sucker they had was 1.2 kilos. They give you a bib (much like the ones you see in US seafood restaurants in the movies) and plastic gloves and a refresher towel, all of which are essential. The crab arrives just as you expect presented on a platter in pieces gleaming red in an even more vibrant red chilli sauce. I had expected it to turn up with fried mantou buns to soak up the chilli but apparently they are part of the set menu only (at least I couldn’t see them on the broader menu and was too busy with the crab to ask). Eating crab is a messy endeavour – there are tools to get the best meat out of the legs and claws and typically the two front claws have been broken for you when the crab arrives on your table. One of mine was and I broke the tool try to crack open the second but never managed to. By then I had eaten plenty of crab anyway. And I have to say it was well worth the effort – the crabs were outstanding and the chilli sauce they are cooked in, like an Italian tomato sauce with a kick, really is the perfect accompaniment to the sweet crab meat. Dan, who isn’t a seafood fan, ordered the mocha pork ribs. Sounds like an odd flavour but the coffee/chocolatey sauce was a fantastic pairing for the pork. The rich sweetness gives an extra depth of barbecue flavour than the traditional fruitier accompaniments for pork. We also ordered some fried rice – we got the standard fried rice with egg and although buttery and enjoyable, we regretted not getting one of the more loaded fried rices. We also ordered broccoli stir fired with garlic – which we thought would be Chinese broccoli but actually turned out to be ordinary broc which doesn’t work as well on its own. Dan had a local beer and I ordered a margarita – which was probably the least impressive thing I consumed here. looking forward to drinking some really good tequila in New Mexico. [Lonesome – Unwritten Law – I really love this band – there have a bit of a harder rock edge with more guitar than some of my other faves but this track in particular is a thumping tune. Once upon a time I interviewed Wade, the band’s drummer. A bit of a loose cannon, it took the record company half an hour to find him. Then he called back at least three times and asked me to meet him at the show. I am pretty sure the picture of who he thought he was talking to didn’t match the reality. Phones, CB radios – apparently my voice can charm people in a way I don’t manage in person.]

Our final day in Singapore started with traditional Yum Cha for breakfast. Our hotel, while reasonably well situated was at least a ten minute walk from everything. Everything except Singapore’s best traditional yum cha restaurant, Red Star which was just across the road on the seventh floor of a non-descript building that houses a child care centre and other facilities for the nearby public housing towers. We arrived a few minutes after the stated opening time and while they looked closed, the girl cleaning at the front let us in and ushered us to a table. A gentleman who had done the same and actually spoke Chinese (I think) was kind enough to let us know that the restaurant wasn’t opening for another hour (we had both been – in his words – misled by the internet) so we walked back to the hotel, and grabbed a coffee before heading back. Red Star is exactly like the traditional yum cha restaurants in China – a cavernous room with round tables covered in white table cloths and chairs covered in fading gold tapestry chair covers. The main difference is that here tea is sold by the pot (in China you buy the bag of tea and can just keep adding hot water and drinking weaker tea after the first pot.) We ordered tea and a Coke zero for Dan and promptly set about choosing things from the yum cha trolleys as they circulated – prawn dumplings, prawn and pork dumplings, marinated steamed pork, springs rolls, fried prawn wontons, fried pork buns and custard tarts. Dan avoided the very bony pork but with a little effort, I thought it was worth it. The spring rolls were great but everything fried was a bit oilier than I would usually like. For me the pork and prawn dumplings were the standout.

After breakfast we headed back to pack and checkout. Another part of the hotel’s way of minimising aircon is to store bags in a cage outside. We both have medication that needs refrigeration, which won’t be too much of a problem in the largely cooler climates we are heading to, but was a big problem in the 30 degree heat of Singapore. The staff were very accommodating though and stored our meds in the hotel’s bar fridge until we returned to head to the airport for our midnight flight. We had originally considered catching a cab to the airport on checkout and just hanging out in the new terminal, loaded with activities but decided that would be a waste so set out to explore some more of the city, including finding a model shop… For those who don’t know much about model shops (and I wish I was still one of you) they are often found in back streets, particularly in places like Singapore and there is not often much else to do there. And model collectors can spend hours searching through the tightly packed racks and racks of kits to find that rare elusive kit they have been looking for. And while online selling has changed this equation a bit, these shops still exist and unless I am travelling alone, I usually have to visit a few of them on a holiday (Dan does also have to put up with me going into shoe and vintage stores full of things similarly impractical to buy while travelling). Mercifully for me this store was quite small and very expensive so our visit was short. We wandered a bit further and caught the metro to Orchard Road for a look. Basically Orchid Road is a strip of malls selling the same luxury brands you see across the globe and I am pretty sure the prices here were higher than what you would see at home (at least at current exchange rates). This was where you find the western food chains as well. We were surprised to find an Eggslut here in Singapore. The Venice Beach breakfast fave had appeared in London on my last visit but I hadn’t contemplated the extent of its franchising.

Having seen the malls, we decided to move on and trekked for about another half an hour to Newton Hawker centre. Dan had been itching to go to the Tekka centre in Little India which specialises (unsurprisingly) in Indian cuisine but it was closed on Mondays. He was very happy to find an Indian stall open at Newton centre. He promptly ordered butter chicken, chicken tikka and garlic naan. I wanted to try something a bit different and ordered the fried carrot cake and a watermelon juice. The Indian was really good although I am pretty sure the Naan was toasted rather than cooked in a tandoor oven. There wasn’t that much chicken in the butter chicken but the sauce was fantastic. The carrot cake is not what it sounds like – stir fried radish cake with pickled turnips, egg, garlic and dark soy sauce. It has a sweet nutty flavour and for me was quite morish. The Newton Centre was a more traditional centre. It was very open and also operated off a delivery to your table service. There are table numbers attached to the end of your table which you provide. I forgot to get the number before ordering but it was easy enough to point to the red-headed guy with the beard. There weren’t too many of them. Like all Hawker markets your food comes on a tray which you return at the end of your meal. Food mostly comes on disposable plates these days, with wooden or plastic cutlery for you to dispose of. We still hadn’t found that traditional Singaporean hawker comfort food – Hainanese chicken and rice – so we headed back to Maxwell centre in the hope one of the stalls there might be open and it was. The chicken itself is just what you expect – chicken boiled in stock but the stock is used to cook the rice along with ginger, garlic an pandan leaves. Much like traditional European comfort food – chicken soup – it is the rice that provides the flavour and the chicken is really just the added protein. Dan wanted to have one last go around the hawker markets having spied some kind of dessert bar and came back with souffle pancakes. They were incredible – essentially what the name suggests – very thick airy pancakes served with butter, corn syrup and ice cream. And they were delicious.

This last hawker centre visit marked the end of our Singapore stay and we collected our bags and headed to the metro station and onward to the airport. From Singapore to London, you can check in online and do a bag drop at the airport – I left my Qantas bag tags at home because they usually don’t work on International flights but must remember to ask before my next international jaunt. While you need to do smart gate screening to clear the border, the security screening at Singapore is done at the departure gate so with bagdrop and me remembering to do my surprised face through the smart gate, it took about 15 minutes all up until we were airside. By now we were hot and sweaty from a day wandering about Singapore and not really minded to do airport shopping. We headed straight to the Qantas lounge and made a beeline for the showers. Being able to stand under a shower, which had some decent toiletries and towels and lots of space to dress, and wash off the sweat before a 13 hour flight made the price of a yearly Qantas Club membership well and truly worth it. We chilled in the lounge before heading to the gate. The combination of security screening at the gate and the cluster that is loading many hundreds of people on an A380 is not conducive to a relaxed boarding. There is also rarely opportunity on an A380 for a couple to have a row to themselves. This was the case here but the girl in the aisle seat was pretty accommodating when we needed to get up. The food on the flight was rubbish compared to our culinary tour of Singapore. I got a couple of hours kip at the start of the flight but from there I nestled in with the remainder of Star Trek Strange New Worlds and started David Simon’s latest effort – We Own This City. [Witchita Lineman – Clouds – from the Best Covers of All Time album. Before Triple J came up with Like a Version, covers were generally of obscure tracks (or performed by punk and ska bands). This one is an excellent cover done by an underrated band who found themselves lumped in amongst their 90s Aussie compatriots in an era when pretty much everyone started a band – they were a solid choice, even if they never quite hit the earworm hook of those that became famous.]

Credit – Dan

Welcome to the House of Fun

And so the adventure begins, Since learning of this annual show – a weekend of bands curated by Madness with two performances by the band themselves, I have wanted to come. Of course life (and things like planning a wedding) got in the way. When the posts about the 2019 show started flooding in, and then the announcement that 2020 would be the last show, I secured Dan’s agreement to postpone our planned 2020 trip to Japan to replace it with a UK and Ireland trip with the House of Fun Weekender as its centrepiece. I bought the tix as soon as they went on sale in November 2019. In late2020, the show was postponed until November 2021 and by the second half of 2021, with Australia’s borders still firmly shut, I was convinced my cursed relationship with seeing this band live would once again be realised – the show would go ahead in spite of COVID but without me. A wave of emotions came over me in mid-October when the Australian Government announced the border would reopen and international travel to and from the UK would resume just two weeks before my scheduled departure date.

So there I was standing at the entrance to Butlin’s ready for the weekend I had been looking forward to for two years. And only my third experience of seeing Madness live despite many more failed attempts. Butlin’s is a holiday camp in Minehead on the South-west coast of England. When you look closely, the buildings look like they were probably once army barracks. That is because they were. Butlin’s were used as army barracks in the second world war. The resort at Minehead was designed in the 1960s but still looks the part – the chalets – largely two or three story fibro dwellings with outdoor stairs and basically equipped. Some of the flasher chalets have balconies added and are quite plush inside. Mine wasn’t one of these.

Once I found my way in to the check in table, I queued up and was asked the name of the lead guest. That was me, And I am pretty sure the person assisting me was a bit shocked that it was just me. Butlins is very clearly a family resort and/or a place to party. There were some couples about the place but largely the guests were larger groups of friends. I saw a lot of cases of beer being loaded onto luggage trolleys on their way to chalets. It had been a long time since I had been to a music festival by myself and I don’t think I have ever been to a weekend festival alone. I have to admit it was a bit intimidating but I was determined. My stubbornness usually wins out in the end so I just thought stuff it. Who cares if anyone looks at me strangely. I am here – just like them. To have a good time and enjoy the band we all love. I needn’t have worried. While it would have been easier to be here with Dan and so much more fun to be here with a posse of ska loving mates – Vanessa, Christina, Lisa – you would have had a ball, I was here and I was going to enjoy it.

Given the three flights of outdoor stairs to climb, labelled slippery when wet, I decided to pack a smaller bag from the car to get me through the weekend. Settled in and heat turned on and up, I ventured out to try out the premium dining plan. Premium my arse. The massive dining room and series of bain-maries reminded me more of school camp fare from when we were kids than a premium buffet. This was no Burns club all you can eat deal. It was all you can eat but with less options and less quality. I had decided that wrapping in a meal plan that covered breakfast and dinner for about $50 a day was worthwhile. It was from a volume perspective. Much like a licensed club at home, the carvery was probably the safest bet. For some reason the UK, at least in large volume cookeries, hasn’t cottoned on the fact that veges (other than peas) are much better when they aren’t mushy. It has taken a couple of generations to get that right at home but it seems something the UK is yet to learn. That aside, the roast dinner was Ok – the pasta, Indian and Chinese options less appealing. The salads were OK and if you are intro that kind of thing there were plenty of dessert options.

After dinner it was ready for the main event. Time for madness. I walked into the arena to be greeted by the biggest array of ska styled fashion I had seen since skalapolooza more than 20 years ago. And as with my last Madness show, the majority of the crowd were those who had seen Madness in pubs around the UK in their heyday. I love going to a show where I feel like half the crowd is older than me – There were a number of my obvious contemporaries, as well as a smattering of youngsters – some the sons and daughters of lifelong fans and in some cases, the next generation of ska fans and rude boys. There were pork pie hats as far as the eye could see – some accompanied by suits, others polo shirts, jeans and bomber jackets. There were also more than a few 80s skinhead girl inspired cuts. And everyone (except me) was wearing docs. I may not look it as much as them, but these were my peeps. I also love that they didn’t care whether people thought they were dressed “too young” – hard to tell if the outfits (and haircuts) were for the weekend or their day to day but full points for commitment and attitude. And I have to say – a crew cut, polo, bomber jacket, and pork pie hat work nicely as fashion for the middle aged man. [The Prince – Madness – Their first hit, off the first record (released about three years before I discovered them) is a fantastic track that had all the hallmarks of the two tone vibe of 1979. An homage to Jamaican ska legend Prince Buster, it was their only release on the two tone label]

I caught the end of a DJ set from and stood amongst the crowd people watching. Then Madness hit the stage. And then all the questioning of whether I should have come, all the anxiety of being there on my own subsided. And I lost myself in the music. I was too busy dancing to take a selfie but I swear I was grinning from ear to ear. There is a line out of a Rancid song that describes my feeling of elation in the middle of a crowd of strangers listening to live music – “When the music hits, I’ve got a place to go”. Live music is my happy place and while I love experiencing new artists and new perspectives, there are a core of songs and artists that just make me feel like I’m home. Madness is one of those bands. The set felt a bit like a group of fans jamming in some ways. The band were, as ever, totally professional but there was a familiarity with crowd borne of shared experiences – partly at previous House of Fun Weekenders and a casual approach of just rolling out some hits and some lesser known tunes (not to this crowd though) and just generally having a bit of a dance, a singalong and a rollicking good time. The hit were there from The Prince to and everything in between – House of Fun, Our House and It Must be Love were all there but also other gems off their first record like Madness, Bed and Breakfast Man and One Step Beyond as well as a range of tracks from across their catalogue. Perhaps as a herald to the general age of the attendees and as acknowledgement that ska is all about dancing, there was no circle pit. But there was a lot of dancing – including a group of young guys in front of me dressed in suits and pork pie hats. Despite my brewing cold, I danced my heart out.

I resisted the temptation to get drunk and party the night away with a bunch of people I didn’t know so I was ready for a second run on night two. It was freezing, I was tired and I couldn’t work out how to turn the heat on in the bedroom. The heat was working in the loungeroom but for reasons passing understanding, there was a springloaded door between the loungeroom and bedrooms and try as I might, I couldn’t get it to stay open so I rugged up and tried to keep warm during the night.

Hallelujah

The English concept of up hill and down dale really comes to life when you follow the GPS directions in the south west of England. My trip from Bath to Butlin’s at Minehead for the House of Fun weekender saw me drive on more backroads than motorways, sometimes being relegated to laneways that only just fit the trusty Hyundai, and where on occasion I had to pull over to the side to let other cars pass in the other direction. Even in villages, where there are two lanes each way, you still need to be ready to wait on the side as people just park pretty much anywhere. There are lots of minis and other small cars in this part of the country. While the country lifestyle might lend itself to Landrovers, you wouldn’t be able to make it up many of the roads here.

I decided to take the pitstop on my trip in Glastonbury – home to the infamous yearly music festival, the village is a total hippy enclave – a bit like Byron before the celebrities took over or Nimbin before people started selling you drugs on the street. I am sure there is money in the region but one of the things about British wealth, particularly in rural settings is it is largely tied up in the renovation of existing ancient buildings rather than the sprawling beach side mansions that have sprawled throughout Byron and its hinterland. And it is a rural village, far from the sea, picked for the initial hippy music festival because of it mystical roots sitting within the region that is home not only to Stonehenge but also the bigger stone circle of Avesbury and the myths and legends related to its own Glastonbury Tor. Also home to the ruins of one of Britain’s earliest Christian churches – the Glastonbury Abbey. I opted not to take the tour of the ruins but I did take a stroll halfway up to the Tor. It was getting late and my last day in Bath I had started getting a cough. I wanted to be able to enjoy the Madness show so I decided to be a bit conservative with my bushwalking, it was pretty muddy and slippery on the way up to the Tor. Yep – I had managed not to get COVID before the concert but I had managed to catch a cold. So annoying. And people look at you like a pariah if you cough these days.

After my little jaunt I wandered back down the main shopping strip in search of a coffee and some lunch. The street was much as you would expect, filled with shops selling hippy wares, festival outfits and cafes. There were of course vegan cafes aplenty and buskers. In a sure sign that the left and right fringes of our society have become drawn together in one single cause during COVID, there was an anti-vax protest set up at the bottom of town which had a very hippy vibe to it. [Enter Sandman – Metallica – I was introduced to Metallica back in the Master of Puppets days. And while that album is still my fave and satisfies my punk sensibilities, this track, with its great storytelling, riffs and pretty close to orchestral sounds always makes me smile when I hear it. Coincidentally – any changes to COVID restrictions pending, I will be seeing the George Ellis Symphony Orchestra play Metallica at the Canberra Theatre.]

Eventually I found a café that looked busy enough to be good. I ordered a toastie (which came with salad) and a flat white. And here’s the telling question about my coffee – “is that with cow’s milk?” Yes – or as I refer to it, coming from an (extended) dairy farming family – real milk. I am not in any way anti-vegan or vegetarian and am acutely aware that a lot of people have allergies to milk products. But let’s be honest, calling the reduced liquid starch from soaking then grinding soya beans or oats, milk is just a better way to market it than soy juice, soy starch or soy water. It’s not really milk. The sandwich was tasty enough and the coffee was just what I needed.

I thought I would end up at Butlin’s earlier than my allotted 4pm check in slot but as I got closer to Minehead that turned out to be quite a misjudgement. The traffic got much heavier and they all seemed to be going to the same place I was – I think I underestimated quite how many people would attend this event and the level of dedication of some – I was staring to see Madness bumper stickers and other paraphernalia suggesting an unbridled dedication to ska and Madness in particular. The combination of the heavier traffic and roadworks just outside of Minehead (plus the wrong turn I took in one of the towns on the way) meant I arrived about half an hour after my check in rather than an hour before. The drive through check in process described on the website seemed to have been abandoned so it was just drive in and find a parking spot (with no idea where my accommodation was located). I did just that, ready to start my House of Fun Weekender journey.

Safe from harm

Done with the history of Bath, I decided to catch the train to Bristol for the day It is a 15 minute trip from Bath and given I had free parking in bath, the three or four pounbds for the off-peak return ticket seemed like a bargain. The train station in Bath is just at the foot of the hill leading inti town – it is a feeder line for the main route at Bristol and although you can go direct from Bath to Paddington without changing, it is only two platforms with a line each way – much like a suburban station in Australia. And it had that kind of feel too – a commuter station rather than a country station. Bristol station on the other hand was more akin to Sydney’s central station with a maze of platforms. Exiting the station you soon realise iut isn’t really in the middle of town. You are greeted by buses advertising a 10 minute trip into the city centre and for a second I wished I had caught the bus from bath. I looked up Google Maps and it didn’t seem far into town, even if it did at first look like the route was across wasteland. I followed the masses and was soon heading in the direction of the waterfront. Our last fleeting visit to Bristol was mostly spent wandering the old town looking for Banksy works i eating dinner at a pub. While I was determined to see a bit more of Bristol, I was also on the hunt for some of Banksy’s works we hadn’t found on our previous visit.

My stroll from the train station took me along a path past a revitalised industrial area now filled with offices, containers turned into studios and upmarket eateries. At the end of the block once I crossed the river, the timescale on the buildings changed dramatically – in front of me was a weatherboard building that was a seafood restaurant and a few steps further on surrounding a square were a row of brick terraces, with a cobblestone road in front – some one had sensible installed a modern stone footpath and cycleway between the terraces and the cobblestone road. After about five minutes I came to the revitalised (if not also sterilised) waterfront complete with an array of international eateries including a Cuban Rum bar with the infamous silhouette of Che Guevara giant sized on its window. Castro doesn’t cut such an interesting silhouette and the act of revolution rather than the running of a country always has a bit more romanticism about it I guess. The waterfront is the home of the attraction almost every city in the world seems to have now – the Bristol Eye, I am thankful my home town still relies on people to climb or drive up the surrounding hills for a view of the city.

Across the road from the waterfront is the Bristol Cathedral. Impressive enough as so many cathedrals in this part of the world are but it was the inclusion of a choir school on the grounds and the college, another semi-circular building with a green out front that were more interesting. And what I found most interesting is that the brass statues on top of the college roof (turrets?) were in fact unicorns. This is a city awash with creativity – apparently dating back hundreds of years., But I was also here on the Banksy trail. These days its less of a clandestine mission – you can get a spotters’ map from the tourist information centre (or in my case, perhaps with only marginally more credibility, the lonely planet guide. I traversed the back lanes behind the cathedral (being careful not to wander into the choir school grounds or someone’s back garden to find the Castles stencil at the back of the local library where the skips are. The stencil itself is just a semicircular written phrase “You don’t need planning permission to build castles in the sky”. From here it was back to the water front in search of another of the stencil artist’s best known works – Girl with a Peirced Eardrum. The work is located on the other side of the riven to where I was. Fortunately there is a cross river ferry – from where I was standing directly across to where the SS Great Britain is located. The trip across takes all of five minutes and costs a pound. You can walk for about 10-15 minutes and cross the river by a bridge but I gave the ferry a go. In these COVID times contactless passage is delivered by a mechanical drop of the back on the small craft – could seat about four to six people all outside – and you tap your card against a hand held eftpos machine sitting behind the glass. I left the ship for a different visit and wandered the back lanes of what is essentially an arts precinct in search of the girl – I circled round a few times and eventually found it. And just in case you didn’t think the Banksy trail was commercialised enough, a hipster coffee van has set up directly across from the stencil. The coffee was good though and it seemed to be there just as much to service the local artistic community working in the converted sheds. It will be interesting to see how the stencil, which is on the side of a what looks to be fairly dilapidated group of flats, survives the encroaching gentrification. Walking back towards the boat, I dodged a cement truck heading onto a building site of some new swanky riverside apartments. I have to say, some of the housing architecture on the waterfront is great – some not so great of course – but it will be interesting to see just how the local council manage the stencil. Two of them are already in museum spaces in Bristol but there is something appealing about seeing stencil art (or any kind of graffiti actually, in the environment it was created. Often times these works are as much about place as they are about the stencil itself and this is definitely true of many of Banksy’s pieces.

Having said that, my next stop was M shed, a local cultural museum that is also home to Banksy’s Grim Reaper – which was painted on the side of Brsitols nightclub boat – the Thekla (yes that really is a thing). Apparently Bansy had two attempts at the stencil – the first one being removed from the hull. The second time the piece of hull was removed and eventually put on display in the Mshed museum. This is a classic case of place and context mattering – the stencil which depicts death in a rowboat sat just on the waterline when the hulklk was attached to the boat. Now you need to read the museum exhibit notes to understand that context. And the Thekla? It is still operating, presumably with a new hull. The museum wasn’t just about Banksy though – it was an interesting culkrtural history of Brsitol from its neighbourhoods to its famous and not so famous residents. Maybe it is a sign I am getting old but I’m still not quite used to seeing curated museum displays of some of the cultural icons of my own generation. Along with Banksy, Bristol can lay claim to Aardman animations, the creators of Wallace and Gromit, Massive Attack and Tricky. There is also an interesting contemporary display about the history of slave trading in Bristol – a statue of a slave trader lauded for his philanthropy was torn down during the Black Lives Matter protests last year. The exhibition explores the history of the statue, the protests and asks the question what now. The actual paint covered statue lies down in the museum exhibit. [Aloha Steve and Danno – Radio Birdman – I was privileged to be able to see Radio Birdman play live at the Uni Bar with just a few other people in the late 90s just before their Big Day Out. This track which also satisfies my retro TV itch is the first of theirs I remember. Also covered by 90s ska band The Porkers.]

Just outside the museum, Bristol’s edgy roots show themselves in the form of a street food container village. By now it was around 3pm and the little sunlight was starting to fade – I didn’t get the impression that the place was well frequented on a late autumn afternoon. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite feeling up to the trek to Stakes Croft, site of the 2011 riots here, which spawned a wealth of stencil art and graffiti, including Banksy’s Wild Wild West which depicts a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail. Maybe next time. I did have the energy for a trip back to see well hung lover, which we had managed to find late at night on our last trip here.in January 2014.

From there, I headed back to the waterfront to find something to eat. Lo and behold, what did I find but a Christmas market. In mid0November. Dan would be appalled but I didn’t go for the traditional German fare. I looked towards something much more quintessentially British (and incredibly weird) – a Yorkshire pudding wrap. Essentially a great big Yorkshire pudding, flattened in a sandwich press filled with a baked dinner – roast meat of your choice, gravy and any other accompaniments you desire including stuffing, roast potatoes, beans and carrots and sauces (cranberry, apple, mint or horseradish depending on your choice of roast – obviously I went for beef. It also comes with a fork in case you want to deconstruct it – I did this partially with the potato. Potatoes of any kind don’t belong on sandwiches or burgers except if you are making a chip butty or sandwich where they are the only filling. I did mix my cultures though and washed it down with mulled wine (it was called mulled wine rather than gluhwein but same same. Perhaps mulled wine counts as British?

After my late lunch/early dinner – it was around 4:30pm – 5pm by now, I headed back to the station for the short jaunt to Barth and back to the guest house to chill before my drive to Minehead the next morning. Madness here I come.

Digital Bath

I awoke at 4:30am but the great thing about British guest houses and B&Bs, is that they are frequented mainly by old people doing the equivalent of the grey nomad thing in Australia or young couples on a romantic getaway. With antiquities and creaky old stairs, they are not generally a welcoming place for those travelling with children and their setup doesn’t sit so well with groups of partygoers. Generally what that means is that they are a relaxing place for a single traveller like me to get over jetlag without the expense of a spa retreat. And they come with breakfast. Not the packet of weeties, some milk and maybe a bread roll that you find in a hostel breakfast but a proper English breakfast. At Oldfields House you can also have weeties and the toast comes in an old school toast rack. One of the curious differences between an English breakfast and the Australian version – the Big Breakfast is the toast. For some reason the English don’t put anything actually on the toast – it comes on the side. Options for eggs are generally scrambled and fried – you only get them poached in a Benedict. I went for the scrambled with my full English which also came with a Cumberland sausage, bacon, mushrooms, baked tomatoes and, of course, baked beans. I also had some fruit – there was the usual tropical fruit salad but you also had the option of more traditional British and/or old person fare – grapefruit and stewed prunes. And tea or coffee – I really needed coffee so interrupted my thoroughly British approach for a pot of what I am pretty sure was percolated coffee.

With a hearty breakfast to give me energy, I headed off into Bath to take a look around. It is a pretty place – particularly at this time of year with autumn colour on the trees against the dull dusty yellow and grey of the buildings. The Roman baths that give the town its name notwithstanding, Bath is a Georgian town full of rows and rows of terraces with traditional smoke stack style chimneys poking out from the top. It is a very walkable city, although it us built up from the valley into the surrounding hills. My journey down from the guest house lands me in the university quarter but from here it is about a 10 minute stroll to the main attractions of Bath Abbey, Putney Bridge and the Roman Baths. Rather than start with a tour, I wandered the shores of the river that passes through Bath – with the odd houseboat moored along the sides on what looks like a canal.

As you head towards Puteney Bridge, there is a park down below on the banks of the river, all manicured lawns and bright foliage with a rotunda in the middle. I thought it might be a good place for a walk. Only trouble is it cost two pounds to get in. I decided my money was better spent on other things and just surveyed the park from above. This was no central park – it was about the size of a school oval. I continued along the road above the river bank until I reached Puteney bridge. A little like the car version of the Rialto Bridge. You’d never know you were on it while crossing it. From the outside the bridge has the classic sandstone arches familiar to these parts but it has an enclosed weatherboard build on top of it so when you cross the two lane road all you can see is a row of shops – mostly tea rooms and souvenir shops joined to those on either side with no view of the river whatsoever. I walked across it and down the other side where you got a good view of the river canal underneath. The canal is at a point on the river system where there is a lock to allow the boats to stop and be lowered down to continue their journey. You find these throughout Britain’s waterways – a mini version of the more sophisticated systems in the Panama and Suez canals. I have always been fascinated by this concept (and the idea of people living permanently on river boats as so many here do. Where I am from riverboats are tourist attractions or a novel holiday idea but not very prevalent. There are many craft moored in our harbours but not really a place that people live.)

From the Bridge I wandered down to the Bath Abbey. I made the decision on coming to the UK to avoid long public transport routes where possible and limit my time in situations where I will be crammed together with a lot of people I don’t know in order to minimise the risk of contracting COVID. It seemed like a tour to the top of the Abbey tower fitted that bill. The church was quite striking but really had nothing on some of the more grand churches of Europe, The Roman Baths on the other hand, were just next door and beckoning me for a visit. The one plus of the current UK situation is that attractions like the Baths where you usually need to book tix in advance to get a tour slot, were virtually empty. Well not quite empty but I could go in without having to queue and once inside, with a bit of patience, it was easy to socially distance from others. I was also pleased to see the strict adherence to mask wearing on the tour. (Not something I have seen outside the airport in England,) I collected an audio guide – not really sure why because I generally prefer to just walk around and read the placards next to the exhibits or just soak the place in by osmosis. The tour takes you out to a view of the Baths from above which is an excellent way to see the baths below but also to see the Bath skyline capturing the nearby Abbey, the surrounding autumnal hills and the modern commercial businesses that surround the Baths. The top level walk also shows an image you don’t normally see in bools – there are Roman era statues of Caesars and the likes overlooking the baths. From here you head through a cacophony of exhibits. From artefacts found in the excavation to the story of the hot spring. Some interesting facts I discovered – a separate floor was put over the existing Roman Baths when this became the Queen’s Bathhouse centuries later. It was removed in an excavation so the original Roman pool could be seen. There was a whole Roman square built next to the baths – you get to walk through the subterranean ruins as part of the tour and like most catacombs, it smells a bit lime a sewer. The hot mineral springs are still running – they service a modern spa just up the road – you also get a couple of windows into them (and the steam coming from them – at a couple of points on the tour. As usual you exit through the gift shop. I resisted the temptation to grab a fake lego version of the Baths which I would need to carry around for the next three weeks. Pre- Covid you were offered the opportunity to sample a drink of the mineral spring water. Sensibly I think that is off the cards at the moment. [Rollercoaster – Machine Gun Fellatio – in honour of Australia Music t-shirt day and off my t-shirt adventure playlist from Ausmusic t-shirt day 2020. My sparkly machine gunnilingus t-shirt remains one of my prized ts. Sadly my t collection for this trip doesn’t contain any Aussie bands – I would never take the MGF t on a trip for fear of losing it. Today’s t for the record is Mighty Mighty Bosstones from their new album When God was Great.)

From the Roman Baths, I wandered up the main shopping walk to grab a coffee. Soho Coffee Co did the best flat white I have had since touching down in England and I was primed for the rest of the day. From here it was off on a sojourn to The Crescent, an imposing row of four storey mansion row houses with a wide sweeping street and green out front. It was quite magnificent but I wanted to see what it looked like out the back. There were garage entry way on a square block. All crowded together but at the back of what I can only assume were gardens. The garages were a couple of stories high so it was impossible to see. From the square block at the back one can only assume that the houses in the middle of the crescent had bigger gardens (A number of these were joined together to form a hotel now that not everyone can afford to live in the crescent mansions.) As you wander back towards town, there is another group of slightly less grand (yet no doubt expensive) terraces around what these days amounts to a very large roundabout with a park in the middle. There is absolutely nothing modern looking about Bath. In fact when they decided to build a mall in town, not only did they build it in the same sandstone style of the surrounding buildings, rather than making it a monolithic out-of-place structure, the made it open air. It has lights strung above (at least for Christmas anyway – and street furniture within what would ordinarily be the central atrium of the mall. It reminded me of some of the open air malls in Queensland but with a lot more style and only underground parking to preserve the historical, walkable feel of Bath. After walking around for about six hours continuously, I headed back to the guest house to chill for a while before dinner.

While looking through trip advisor for meal ideas I had come across a popular Vietnamese place called Noya’s Kitchen. While I enjoy good food immensely, while travelling alone, high end dining makes you feel a bit conspicuous so this – a popular Vietnamese that did Curry and Pho nights during the week – sounded like a good choice. So popular in fact that I had to book the day before. About an hour before I realised I hadn’t received email or text confirmation of my booking. I called the restaurant to check but there was no answer. I decided to head down anyway. If I couldn’t get in I would find somewhere else to go. Noya’s Kitchen is in the uni precinct. The clientele were mostly mid 20s and 30s – not so much students who probably couldn’t afford to eat here (the preces weren’t ridiculous but I wouldn’t call it cheap and cheerful either) but locals. At the front door there was a QR code for the NHS check in app. I hadn’t see this anywhere else I had been but decided to download it and use it wherever I could. When I went inside, it didn’t appear that there was a booking at first but was advised it had gone through only about half an hour before (probably after the message I left).

The menu was limited but I had come for the Pho anyway. I also ordered some fried pork dumplings. These were pot sticker type dumplings but instead of being pan fried, they were deep fried and crispy. They came with what appeared to be homemade sweet chilli sauce and they were delicious. Then the main event. There was no rare beef Pho option so I went for the slow cooked beef. It was melt in your mouth – not grisly like this option so often is. The broth was different to what I was used to – thicker, richer, more aromatic and slightly sweeter. But it was fantastic. I don’t often finish the broth but I slurped every last skerrick The noodles appeared to be handmade too – not quite as good as my fave Ramen Daddy homemade noodles but very close. A fabulous meal and top of my list if I ever find myself in Bath again.

Driving in my car

I was hoping to sleep through to about 9am and kick the jetlag completely but unfortunately I awoke at 4:30am. Try as I might to get back to sleep it just didn’t happen. I went down for breakfast in the hotel about 7am. There is only so much you can do to screw up a buffet breakfast. And this hotel should just stick to brekkie – creamy scrambled eggs cooked just right, a Cumberland sausage, crisoy hash brown and really tasted baked tomatoes. The toast contraption, as usual was set so you had to cook the toast 3 times for it to be actually toast and the flat white came out of a pod machine – marginally better than the barista made one from yesterday. And what is with British bacon – so thick it has the texture of a kaesler chop rather than thin and crispy like we are used to. Had a hankering for vegemite but couldn’t find marmite (a poor substitute I know).

After breakfast, I packed up and headed across to the terminal to find the hire car counter, only to be greeted with a notice directing me to the shuttle bus. The rental process was smooth. I opted for zeroing out the excess. They do that automatically with bookings in the US. It means you don’t have to worry about someone backing into you or scratching the car. In the UK, the default option is a manual, which is fine by me – I would get more confused driving an auto. (Have been known to bring the car to an abrupt halt while trying to put in the non-existenrt clutch)The main hitch was my inability to open the hatch on the little grey Hyundai they gave me. I worked it out with a bit of assistance then spent some time organising the seat, getting familiar with the controls, working out the navigation system and setting up Android Auto (because you’ve got to have tunes).

Then it was off to Bath. I was nervous about driving out of London and on the Motorway but it was much easier than I expected. The Hyundai is about the same size as the mini and its inbuilt satnav is really good. It gets up to pretty high speeds on the motorway but completely lacks any guts from a standing stop. (The mini would beat it hands down.) The motorway was less scary than I thought. There are four lanes and no shoulder. There are electronic signs across the motorway letting you know which lanes are open. If you break down or have an accident, you are supposed to get in the left lane. And then the signs above signify that it is closed. The signs are similar to the ones used on Sydney Harbour Bridge when they switch the direction of the lanes in peak hour. My observation is that the left lane is going slowe\r than the speed limit and this is where the trucks sit generally. The second lane is doing the speed limit usually either 60 or 70 miles per hour (96 or 112km). The third lane is going much faster than that (except for when there was a police car on the motoway) and th fourth lane is basically for those cars to overtake if someone is doing the speed limit in their lane. There wasn’t much to see on the M4 travelling south except some quite beautiful autumn leaves. (Of course unlike the beautiful autumn foliage in my suburb at home, the autumnal trees here are indigenous to the country. [Sheena is a punk rocker – one of my fave Ramones tunes this is also on my work from home t-shirt adventure playlist on spotify. With 250 songs, it seemed like a good option for the roadtrip.]

Today was a short drive – about two and a half hours to Bath. I had a porsche following me on the last windy, slower part of the journey as I came into Bath, where I eventually arrived at Oldfields Guest House. We stayed here about nine years ago the night before our fateful trip to (not) see Madness. We also didn’t get to see any of Bath. I am here for three days and determined to change that. After maneuvring the car into the very tight parking spot (as you might expect) and unpacking what I needed from the boot into my small backpack, I wandered into town. It was around 4pm by this stage and had already started getting dark – I wandered up the main shopping mall. Much like Milan and many other shopping strips in Europe, the 200 year old buildings were filled with commercial reality – sure some of them were luxury labels but there was also a Krispy Kreme and a Maccas sitting uncomfortably in the architectural landscape. I walked past a few eateries but as I was a little bit grungy from the drive and pretty tired I opted for the cheap and cheerful rather than the Michelin starred. I settled on a Chinese noodle shop that seemed to be frequented by students. I order my crispy skin duck with wheat noodles and Chinese tea – total price 11 pounds – and then I went to an ATM in order to satisfy the cash only requirement of this establishment. Probably the first time I have used cash in about a year (apart from the work tuckshop and the coins for shopping trolleys. The trip to the ATM was worth it though. Those noodles were scrumptious. After dinner, I trekked back up the hill to the guest house trying to keep myself awake late enough to readjust my body clock to night owl status before the weekend.

God only knows

My first day in London was a little surreal. As I had decided to hire a car, I made the sensible decision to stay the night in an airport hotel before picking it up. I also wanted to follow the jetlag beating plan that had served me so well. Unfortunately, the flight landed at about 7am so my task was, after already having spent 36 hours awake, including spending the best part of the first five hours driving, to stay awake for another 12-14 hours. I also had to front up for my arrival COVID test mid-afternoon. What I didn’t have the wits for though was to spend an hour on a train into London and work out the timetables well enough to get back to the terminal and not miss my appointment. So instead, I emulated in the movie terminal and spent the day at the airport. Firstly through, after a badly needed shower, I took the chance to relax. I had it in mind to check out the UK version of Netfix. Akas the only application installed was Youtube. What it did provide though was the recent Madness doco – Before we was we. I have tried everything to watch it in Australia but the geoblocking even blocks the pirated versions. For the record, it is a good doco – much easier to watch than the so bad it’s, well, still bad, 1981 film they starred in as themselves – Take it or Leave it. Although Before we was we, which features individual interviews with band members, features footage from the autobiopic.

Eventually I got up and out of the hotel room. And crossed the carpark back into the terminal to grab a coffee. Nero, a coffee house that seems to mostly be emulating Pret-a-Manger (in the Maccas/ Hungry Jacks mould) appears to have the contract with Heathrow. They are everywhere. They purport to be truly authentic Italian coffee. Maybe, but they need to do something about properly training their baristas. A drive through Maccas flat white is 100 times better. From there I went on a trek back to Terminal 3 to find the COVID testing clinic. A couple of trips around the inside of the terminal and I eventually saw a small sign near the lifts advising the testing clinics were out on the terminal forecourt. Despite being a bit early, they were happy to shepherd me into the queue. While it was heartening to see that everybody was expected to wear a mask, there was no social distancing at all. But despite the line, it was pretty seamless. Essentially, they were administering a rapid antigen test so they could give me an official result. Despite me feeling like I was in the movie The Terminal, there isn’t much to do in an airport when you’re not airside. It makes sense of course – who spends time in an airport when they don’t have to. So I made a quick stop by the Marks and Spencer to grab some snacks and headed back to the hotel. I watched the next episode of Before we was we and some other daytime telly repeats. [Grey Day – Madness – I have been on a bit of a Madness kick of late – they sound awesome on my new mini’s stereo. Once I actually believed I might be able to go, I’ve been making my way through my collection.]

By the time I got back to the hotel room I had my negative COVID test result so one step closer to seeing Madness. I’m not counting my chickens yet because I have an appalling history with getting to see this band. In 1982, just after I started getting into them, they played a show in Canberra. My dad wouldn’t let me go because I was too young. I found out late and didn’t have time to hatch an alternate plan to sneak out. They came to Australia again in 1986 and played just one show at Selina’s. In those days before the internet and before I had discovered you could get Sydney street press mags outside Sydney, so I missed it. And then they broke up. In the leadup to their legendary Madstock reunion in 1992, where the skanking registered an earthquake, when I could barely pay my rent I tried everything I could think of to raise the funds but it was never going to happen. From that moment on I decided never to miss a band when they came to town, especially if I hadn’t seen them before. It has been a good rule to live by. In 2009, when I was finally able to afford to travel, a day after I landed in Helsinki, Madness announced a show in Australia. I arrived home about two weeks before and finally got to see them for the first time. We re-routed our Christmas trip to see them play in Dublin on NYE 2012. Unfortunately, after driving all the way across Wales to Holyhead, the fast ferry was cancelled due to bad weather. We caught the later slow ferry and arrived at the show just to hear the applause and the lights up end of show track – always look on the bright side of life. I got to see them again in Sydney in 2017. I bought the tix for the 2020 House of Fun Weekender, the last ever, in 2019. It was postponed to 2021. Until a month ago I was convinced it would go ahead without me. Then a miracle happened and the Australian border, jammed shut from March 2020, reopened. And fingers crossed, at the end of the week I will get to see them for the third time. In six attempts.

Starting to drift off again by about 6pm, I decided it was late enough to have dinner. I wandered down to the hotel restaurant and ate possibly the worst fish and chips I have ever had. I tried to rescue it with a fruit salad which consisted of honeydew melon, grapes and pineapple. As I was eating mainly to stay awake, it achieved its purpose. A bit more telly to get me to 9pm and then I let myself sleep.

Big jet plane

Travelling again internationally seems surreal. For the last few weeks I have been so busy getting to this point that apart from the extra organisation required – international vaccination certificate, UK COVID Locator form – and doing a couple of at home rapid antigen tests to make sure as far as possible, I don’t land in the UK with COVID – I haven’t really let myself think it would actually happen. But here I am at the international terminal at Sydney airport looking out at a very desolate runway. The constant hub, with planes lined up in what amounts to bumper to bumper traffic in aviation terms, is the antithesis of what it looks like now. There is evidence of the Qantas planes coming back into action in the holding yard, a couple of smaller jets at the gates and one or two dash taking off and landing. In a sign of the times, the only large aircraft are fedex cargo planes.

Th departure board in the lounge has just six flights for today – mine through Darwin tro London and flights to Shanghai, Beijing, Dubai, LA and Hong Kong. And the bonus of being amongst this small group of Australians willing to take the Rona gamble now the borders are open, is that I am currently sitting in the Qantas first class lounge in Sydney airport as the business lounge is currently closed. I was met at the desk by wait staff who offered me coffee and drinks brought to my seat. I asked for the traditional glass of pre-holiday sparkling and was asked if I would prefer champagne. (Yes please). The menu is designed and curated by Neil Perry. I can report the salt and pepper squid is fantastic.

And I am spending quite a bit of time in the lounge. Qantas advised that I should be at the airport at least four hours before my flight. My usual travelling partner having declined to take the rona gamble, was open to driving me to Sydney to catch the flight. I threw in a trip to the newly opened Chicago burger joint Five Guys in Penrith and taking the spin in the mini to sweeten the deal (really it was partly for me to be able to get a bit more driving timer in the mini. We made good time, easily meeting the at least four hours window,. Problem was the Qantas check in counter wasn’t open until the four hour mark. It meant I was first in the queue.

At the moment you can’t complete your check in at home – Qantas checks your international vaccination certificate and whatever documents your destination requires manually – providing a signed check that you then present at your normal check in. As you would expect, it is taking a while to get all staff across what is needed for different flights and the attendant processing my docs was being trained on what was required– As I am flying direct to the UK through Darwin, I don’t have to provide a negative PCR test. For most destinations you do. I was thankful I had printed copies of these documents – it made things much easier. In the end it was pretty painless – this part took about five minutes. I suspect those behind me had a quicker process.

Then it was on to the check in desk. About two minutes here – I had checked in online so just a passport check, tagging my bags. (I forgot to put the electronic tag back on my backpack) and I was off into the Customs Hall. As I tend to book flights through from Canberra, this is usually where I start with the Sydney Airport departure process. The departure passenger cards have disappeared as have the cards from the smart gates. Now all you do is scan your passport and walk through the gate to have your face scanned (you have to take your mask off for this). The whole process took about two minutes and most of that time was walking up to the smart gate.

From here it was on through security – again no lines. In fact it was so quick I didn’t have a chance to get myself organised between the passport check and the security check. laptops still have to be removed from your bag for international travel. This is easier with my new backpack with laptop sleeve and I have a process worked out now so this is all I have to remove. This check would have been quick too if it wasn’t for the lady in front of me that had no process. From here it was on through the duty free – I thought about looking for a new camera – mine has a habit of turning itself on in my handbag and draining the charge – but I hadn’t done any research and I just get bamboozled by the choice. And I don’t really need to carry duty free booze with me to London so I headed to the pleasant surprise of the First Class lounge. [Queen of Suffolk County – Dropkick Murphys – I haven’t been able to get this tune out of my head since the new dropkicks album dropped earlier this year. Usually that’s a bad thing. But much like Fat Boy Slim’s Rockefella Skank, I can’t imagine ever getting sick of this tune.]

After a (relatively) short hop to Darwin, which was long enough to feature a hot ,meal – Qantas are just starting to readjust so the choices weren’t stellar. I opted for the Indian vego option which ended up having more rice than a cheap Indian takeaway lunch box – we embarked for a stop in the temporary Qantas transit lounge. With the build up already started in Darwin, I had made better choies than my fellow passengers rugged up for a UK landing. I used the opportunity to change in the transit lounge. The plane was empty enough that there was a s[are seat between myself and the aisele passenger – an affable guy from Geelong who had travelled enough to know that as an aisle seat inhabitant, you would inevitably be awoken by the need for the window seat passenger to pee.. As we were in transit, this stop was also seamless – although we did need to take all our gear off the plane. The flight into London was uneventful – despite trying for the umpteenth time to sleep on an international flight, I couldn’t. Fortunately there were enough choices on the entertainment system to keep me amused. I started with East of Eden – which I had never managed to see from end to end, despite my James Dean obsession. Then I discovered an unfamiliar TV drama – City on a Hill – it stars Kevin Costner and is set in Chicago in the early 90s, it is a crime drama made in 2019. Reminded me of Brotherhood -definitely worth a look. I got through about three episodes and then turned my attention to Gangs of London – which is ultraviolent in the best way. It looks like it was made by Guy Ritchie. After that I wanted something a bit lighter. About 10 minutes of the David Schwimmer MI5 comedy Intelligence was too much. Cardboard cut out stereotypes in all the worst ways and without the irony required to make this work. From there I revisited Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – in the best Tarantino tradition there are lots of nuances you pick up on the second run through the alternate universe fairytale of the Manson Family’s murder spree in Hollywood. By that stage I was too tired to keep my eyes open. I am not normally a fan of Podcasts or audio books (although I have thought about turning this blog into one) but the late stage of a 24 hour flight is where they (or my music collection) are a good fallback. I listened to a couple I had queued but then ultimately returned to my spotify playlist. Two hot meals on this 16 + hour leg that took us over Hong Kong, China including Guangzhou and Wuhan, Mongolia and the wilds of Russia coming back down into London via q flight Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, presumably in an effort to avoid. the conflict on the Polish Border.

Arrival into London was pretty smooth – the UK has been letting people in for a while now so there was no requirement to show your vaccination status or UK locator for as boit are linked to your passport. What that meant was that you could use the e-gates. Only problem was with a plane load of Australian citizens and the EU and Britain using this system, we had to queue probably for around 15 minutes. The one thing you do have to remember to do in these COVID times is remove your mask for the smart gate/e-gate. After collecting my bag (last off as it was first on of course), and the long trek through the tunnel from terminal 3 to terminal 2, I arrived at the hotel, where they let me check in 8 hours early and upgraded me to a superior room. Sweet.

Zoo music girl

After our big Indian dinner, we used up the bread we bought in Broken Hill, making some toast for brekky before heading across to the zoo. Given the transmission issues with the car, we elected not to drive through the zoo. You can hire a bike or a golf buggy but at this point in our holiday, we weren’t feeling like spending too much on getting around, so we chose to walk. The zoo is perfectly walkable even in the half day visit we had planned. It’s just over five kilometres on the main path and even with the detours probably about 8k.

Western Plains is heavily geared towards African animals who thrive in the climate and enjoy the much bigger ranging enclosures. First up was the African dog, the always photogenic meerkats and the black rhinoceros. Our whole time in South Africa we only saw one black rhino, so it was quite a treat to see a group of them interacting with each other here. While the private game reserves and national parks in Africa are a preferable environment, the breeding programs in zoos are providing an opportunity to further protect these species. The white rhino enclosure was closed on the day of our visit, but we managed to get a distanced view of one through the back of his personal area.

A quick stop by the giraffe and zebra enclosures and then it was time for my favourite animal, the hippopotamus. Although I know hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa, in my mind they are still completely connected to the dancing ballerina hippos of fantasia. I think this is probably my earliest audio-visual memory, supported by a book my grandma brought me back from Disneyland. I think what appealed to me was that the least graceful of animals was performing the task that required the most grace. Kindred spirits perhaps? Our journey took us past the pond side of the hippo enclosure where we saw the familiar sight of eyes and two tiny ears poking out of the water as the hippos swam through the pond (although most of the time they are actually standing on the bottom rather than swimming. The Western Plains Zoo recently welcomed a baby hippo and it was out and about during our visit. A bit later in our journey we circled back to the other side of the hippo enclosure to watch it for a good 15 minutes or so. So awkward yet so incredibly cute.

Our next stop was the cheetah, relaxing in the grass as cheetahs are wont to do. It was much more exciting to see one in the (semi) wild after it had just killed its breakfast, but they are quite magnificent animals so well worth a visit to the enclosure. The one animal we missed seeing in Africa was a leopard. They didn’t have one here either so I might have to take a trip to the Canberra zoo sometime to see the next best thing – a snow leopard.

Then onwards to the elephants. They have smaller Asian elephants here, just like the other campus of this zoo in Sydney. It would be hard to give African elephants enough area to roam. Nonetheless, the elephants here were out for playtime so it was well worth lingering a bit. They were wallowing in the muddy pond, spraying muddy water over each other in a bid to get cool and keep the bugs at bay. Not one of the more known African animals, but Elands are pretty spectacular – their curly horns, reddish coat and distinctive markings make them a sight to behold. The eland here was stationery, cooling off in the grass so not as spectacular and graceful s when they are on the move but worth a visit at any rate.

And while we were looking at impressive Asian animals, it was time for a visit to the Sumatran tiger enclosure. I’ve often had more success finding lions in zoos but today the tiger was outa and parading around. They are a truly magnificent animal. There tends to be an extra flamboyance, more distinctive colours and patterns of animals from Asia – no doubt to some degree it is to protect them in the jungle environment.

About halfway through the journey, you’ll find the Waterhole – a café serving mostly fried takeaway food, drinks and ice cream. We stopped for a rest and Dan grabbed a drink. One of the things America does much better at than we do is the food options at theme parks and zoos. In Australia, there is still a culture of just needing to provide food – usually poor quality at a high cost for a captured market. Granted, Western Plains also encourages visitors to bring their own picnic lunch but some quality food at the Waterhole would have been appreciated. The leopard tortoise enclosure was within the café area and there are some resident meerkats to keep punters amused as well. Just behind the café were the barbery sheep. If you were expecting to find big fluffy woolly sheep, you would be mistaken. Barbery sheep look (and mostly behave) like mountain goats. There was a pack of them here running around the enclosure. (I will follow – U2 – at the time of its release, this track was a bit of an also ran on the EP of politically charged rock songs that was under a Blood Red Sky. But it has well and truly stood the test of rime. I loved this EP when it was first released but never really followed along with U2 as closely as some of my friends but this was the perfect album for the last leg of our drive.)

Conscious that we still had a lengthy drive ahead of us with a dodgy transmission, we decided to breeze past a few of the exhibits and skip the camel – we had been pretty close to a whole lot of camels in Abu Dhabi – Dan almost got bitten by one. We did rush past the fallow deer enclosure – a whole herd of them, replete with the white markings you see when these are mistakenly portrayed as reindeer (because they look more delicate and cartoon like than actual reindeer which look a lot more like short stocky horses. Feeling a little bit like we were revisiting the same animals as we had seen in South Africa, the deer and the Takhli (or Mongolian horse) were at least something new. We also managed a quick stop at the otter pond. Otters are always amusing to watch, and this experience was no different. I don’t find monkeys and apes as entertaining as other people – maybe because some of their characteristics too closely resemble human behaviour so we largely skipped these enclosures.

We did want to stop at the lion enclosure but to get there, we had to cross through the Australian animal enclosures. We stopped for a while to watch the dingo in its enclosure and decided to give the emu and kangaroo enclosures a miss given we had recently seen them in the wild. Just as we were working out how to get to the lion enclosure, the rain bucketed down. It seems more of the storms from the west had followed us. We took shelter under the awning of a nearby facilities block until it eased off a bit. We were probably there for 15 minutes or so before we made a break for it. The rain was lighter when we got to the lion’s enclosure but the lions were nowhere to be seen. I wouldn’t have stood out in the rain for people to gawk at me either.

The Galapagos tortoise though was happy to sit in the light rain, albeit initially with head in shell. Well over a hundred years old, the tortoise came alive while we were in its enclosure. You know they are huge, but nothing quite prepares you for seeing them in the flesh. They are gigantic and with that heavy shell and such tiny legs, no wonder they are slow and awkward. The tortoise was tucking into the grass it could reach by extending its long neck. In the ten minutes we were standing there, it moved about 10 centimetres or one step.

We decided to grab some lunch at the central kiosk and sit by the window where we could see the lemurs playing. The main kiosk offered some healthier options than the Waterhole and we were able to find something to curb our hunger. After lunch we headed down the well-trodden highway back to Canberra, picking some detours along the way that would avoid steep climbs to protect the transmission.