Posts

Introduction

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  A little backstory. In July 1963, just turned two years old and the youngest of four children in my family, I first set foot on Sydney soil after disembarking the SITMAR ship Castel Felice at the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf. These were the days of the White Australia Policy and, just like over a million other immigrants from the British Isles alone, we had travelled as part of the Australian Government's Assisted Passage Migration Scheme. I think maybe we were just a little proud (even though I believe the phrase had been coined with a derogatory intention)  to be known locally as 'Ten Pound Poms'. Over half a century later, aside from a couple of wonderful, yet brief, excursions to Japan and Hawaii, I had barely again left Australian shores and certainly never before 'returned home'. Australia was, and is, my home. Then, after too many years of half-formed intentions, missed opportunities and delayed plans, in late August 2019, accompanied by my partner and adu...
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Map

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  Image: Our paths in Britain via train, bus, ferry, car and camper-van. (Lonely Planet Great Britain Planning Map) IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR EASY NAVIGATION WITHIN THIS JOURNAL The individual posts, one for each day of our trip, are listed chronologically - earliest at the top. The posts are listed ten to a page across seven pages and the title of each includes the date of travel in 2019. To read an individual post, click READ MORE on the listed extract. To access the next page of ten listed posts, click MORE POSTS at the foot of the page. When you finish reading a post - if you click the title 'Sixty-four Days in Albion' or the small arrow at its left, you will always be returned to the FIRST page of ten listed posts, including the Introduction and this page - Map. So if you simply want to read the next day's post, please use your browser's BACK button or arrow. This will return you to the correct page for you to then simply select the following day's post. Happy ...
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21 Aug. - Airbus

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  Image: My journal of wayfaring, wandering and wonder ... TED talk by Susan David 'Write what you're feeling; Tell the truth; Write like nobody's reading.' 'A secret, silent correspondence with myself.' Killing time at home until 3:30 departure on foot to Mona. Bus, train, train, walk ... Check-in, boarding passes, gate lounge, plane, stairs! + seats on top deck. Long flight to Doha snatching sleep in second halves of Einaudi, Gabriel, Zeppelin, Brahms. Eat, drink, stretch, piss, sit, listen, sleep, repeat. Doha hot + misty ... More gates, bag checks, walking, lounges. Then ... Another long flight to Edinburgh! Notes: I delighted in the coincidence of finding Susan David's topic being so apt. Mona is Mona Vale, NSW and the music during which I kept drifting to sleep is by Ludovico Einaudi, Peter Gabriel, Led Zeppelin and Johannes Brahms.
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21 Aug. - Dalry

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  Image: Detail of public map at Haymarket railway station, Edinburgh Sitting in Cathcart Place top floor unit. Cobble streets + stone buildings. Run down part of town. Glimpses of Euro trees on bus from airport. Squat houses with pebble dash + a cloudy sky with some spots of rain. Four days groceries at Lidl, Scots Aldi. Square sausage slices with black spot pudding centres. Creme fraiche but no cream. All our train tickets collected and a warning not to lose them. Wine, milk, chocolate and juice from J, and a small bear happy to be allowed out of B's bag at last. Tortellini + arrabiata with Italian chianti after a nice cleansing shower. Notes: I have reduced some personal names to initials only, throughout this journal, for confidentiality. The small bear is a teddy who travelled with us! There seems to be no agreement on the spelling of arrabiata.
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22 Aug. - Edinburgh

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  Image: View down Anchor Close to Cockburn Street, Edinburgh Walking, to, through, about, around, above Edinburgh - a city of stone built on rock. Grand and tatty and old and full of voices, languages, accents and g'day! Wynds, closes, courts and a beautiful hidden garden of 'rooms' just behind the main st. - all topiary, specimen trees, hedges and lawn. Acanthus and globe artichoke, wrought iron fence, stone seat. Dove call ... Ascent to Arthur's Seat through grass + gorse, heather + moss. Red + grey rocks underfoot + a gusting wind at the summit. Vistas to all four points, roofs, sward + cloud-shadowed Firth of Forth spread below. Fringe Festival crowds + touts. Noise, posters, buskers, tourists + tartan. Given directions by a dark-skinned Sikh with Scots brogue. Notes: I am fascinated by language. This was my first encounter with wynd as a street descriptor.
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23 Aug. - Jupiter

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  Image: Stone Coppice (detail), by Andy Goldsworthy Trip to Jupiter (Artland) Brilliant green crisp velvet mounds. Coppiced woodland (with rocks). Andy's drystone hut with live-rock rugged floor and perfect pine ceiling. A bed of chalcedony + obsidian, glossy black, red and sharp. Afternoon sun in fenced park. Primary school meadow planting. Wrestling schoolboys, smooth chested. Fresh mown grass. Evening tram to Broughton. Beer, bread, oatcakes, cheese, charcuterie @ Pickles. Always draft beers where I can. Weary-legged + sated. Eyes full of beauty. Head full of desire. Longing. Could I live here ...? Notes: The meadow planting was in Murieston Park, Dalry. Pickles bar in Broughton St. highly recommended!
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24 Aug. - Queensferry

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  Image: Forth Bridge, North Queensferry Two friendly Scots fishing for mackerel under the soaring, rust-red glory of the north end of Forth Bridge ... Finding our common ground with Nick Cave + ACDC. Nitro cold-brew coffee and walking the 1964 road bridge. Father and son with racing-red RC power boat - propeller fouled with weed, off South Queensferry shingle beach. Pouting teen failing to skim stones with younger brother. Indignant Edinburghite dismissing festival events 'It's all rubbish' within grand 'circus' of stone, and holly-hedged central circular private gardens. Too much Innis + Gunn! Notes: The circus and private gardens were Moray Place, New Town, Edinburgh.
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25 Aug. - Inverness

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  Image: Greig St. Bridge at dawn, Inverness Thick fog as we cross the Forth. Train seats not 'booked'. Train crowded with bodies + baggage. Fog lifted + crowd thinned in time for comfy + relaxing run through edge of Cairngorms. All the young boys with long fingers + longer legs, clad in skin-tight jeans or trackpants. Inverness small + tidy + dressed. Ness broad, shallow + rippling with rapids. Tannin stained, cool water, bright in the late afternoon sun - lighting the pink castle + silhouetting the Palace Hotel. Twilight tourists snapping selfies under the hanging baskets of annuals. Notes: Our train seats were booked, but we were reluctant to argue with the belligerent locals occupying them. This was the main line north via Perth, Pitlochry and Aviemore. Living in Sydney I am very familiar with sandstone, but the pink and red sandstones of northern UK are a novelty.
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26 Aug. - Spey

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  Image: Stream crossing near Cairn Gorm Cairngorm wind + sky. Heather, scree + icy stream. Tracks through green + brown. Distant black lakes + soaring crags. The wind. The sun. A small bird guiding my path along the track. Big, bright, crisp - both warm + cold. The wind. Glenfarclas whisky. Bright still + hard stone stores. Green, mown lawns + locked red doors. Telford's Craigellachie Bridge. Culloden Field. Marker stones for the battle dead. 'Clan Cameron' + 'The English'. 'They were buried here'. Notes: A circular Spey valley day-trip from Inverness in a rental car and some good walking, via Aviemore, Tomintoul, Craigellachie, Elgin and Nairn. My partner is of Clan Cameron descent and I, as mentioned in the Introduction, am English born. The marker stones at Culloden brought home the saddening toll and futility of war.
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27 Aug. - Orkney

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 Image: Duncansby Head Lighthouse from the ferry to Orkney A meandering, roller-coaster, ribbon of road - coasting north. Wide, flat North Sea bright + hazy, turbine studded, stretching upon our right. Over crest (or summit) each vale reveals stone-walled fields of green or gold - studded now with white sheep or glossy black bales of hay. And then the heights - great, round, soft, pregnant bellies of stone + heathland - dressed in shades of green, dun + grey, but with glorious warm expanses of heather - mauve + sweet. From the solitary light at O'Groats to the industrial maritime thrum of the ferry - past shingle + reef, beach + cliff, old guns + fresh green grass to wide ... flat ... lonely ... friendly ... beautiful ... timeless ... Orkney. Notes: In the rental car again, heading north from Inverness along the coast to John O'Groats and the Pentland Ferry from Gill's Bay to St Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay; finally to our accommodation in Kirkwall.
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