Testing, testing, testing. . .

 Just about to set off from Oz, again. Just wondering if you would like to follow me again. Here is the link, I hope. Every time I do it, I have to learn again, so we'll see if I have remembered. I will leave for Mexico on ANZAC Day, and I won't see you again until June.  

Back on the Road, and Famished

Having just recovered my sleeping patterns from before the trip to the UK, I decided it was time to leave again, this time to take the opportunity to see WA's wildflowers in the spring. 

I had originally thought I'd take the Indian Pacific, but then I saw a doco about that journey, which changed my mind completely. One of the passengers talked about the advanced age of most of the passengers, and I decided that maybe I could find some livelier company.

Couldn't sleep last night--too wound up--so when the alarm went off at 4:30 this morning, I was already up and packing a couple of last-minute items. The taxi arrived at 5:00.

Caught a budget flight to Perth--Virgin was the cheapest. Well, the cheapest airline I was willing to risk. (I will never travel Jetstar again.) I saw on Virgin's advertising that they had a meal service, so I didn't bother with breakfast. But, the meal service is not what I was expecting. It's not free and what they offer is overpriced: beef noodles ($7.50), ham and cheese toasted sandwich ($10), Pringles ($5). I smelt hot food and I was ravenous, having not eaten since dinner the night before, so I was hopeful the food would reach us eventually, but, no. . .  it was for business class. They gave us coffee/tea/water. 

For free!

Arrived in Perth and made my way to the bus stop where No Birds would pick me up to take me to collect the car. (A tip: the car is cheaper if you don't pick it up from the airport. But, it's more inconvenient, of course.)

Wasn't able to buy something to eat at the airport because all the food stands were on the wrong side of the  luggage claim. I figured I'd get to a little cafe in a country town and get a snack, but I drove 150 km before I encountered a cafe. Every time I saw the name of a town and the distance in kilometres, I thought, surely if the town's name is on a road sign, there'll be a wee place where you can get something to eat. 

Not so. Rural WA is very different from rural NSW. It was 2:30 before I had my brunch. 

However, I did see my first spring wildflowers, and they are lovely. The rain that had been falling on and off while I was driving, let up for just enough time to allow me to do a short walk in Lancelin, which is about an hour's drive away from Cervantes, where I am staying tonight and tomorrow. I thought I would photograph the sunset and the Milky Way at The Pinnacles, just out of town tonight, but you can't see the Milky Way if there are clouds, and the rain washed out the sunset. 

So, they're on tomorrow's program. 

An Unplanned Stop--in Newcastle

After a train trip that turned into Bedlam,  I’m compensating myself with a big, cold glass of wine and a dish of mixed seafood in a little Thai restaurant in Quayside, Newcastle. 

You’re right! At the time you're reading this, I should be home in Sydney. But not to be, just yet, I’m afraid.

I’m not sure when I can get home now. Flights are tight. 

The train I was travelling in from Aberdeen to London was held up for two hours because of a problem with overhead electrical wires between Newcastle and London. It held up all the trains on the network. Then, after we sat waiting in the train for two hours, they told us the train had been cancelled. This was at 2:00 pm, and my flight left at 9:05, about half an hour ago. 

The Station Master called a taxi for me to take me to the Newcastle airport to see if I could get a plane from Newcastle to London.

No seats available. 

I waited on the phone for an hour to I talk to the Philippina at the Qantas call centre, who quoted me $10,000 to fly home tomorrow in Business Class. I think it will be cheaper to hang out in a hotel for a week until I can get an economy flight, but I’ll know more about that later, I hope, when I get a chance to speak to Scott at Helloworld, Baulkham Hills.

That may be harder than I thought because I've just run out of data, which I wouldn't have needed if I hadn't missed my flight, and I might not have run out of if I hadn't had to wait for an hour to speak to QANTAS. I may have to wait until the shops open tomorrow to do anything because I can't do it without data, and I don't understand the app.

I've been looking for Vera everywhere. She'd know how to solve this one. But she wasn't out and about this evening when I was roaming the Quayside. 

The Road to the Hide

 Today it's a bit overcast and wet, the first day like this since I arrived on Mainland Orkney. Yesterday I had quite enough adventures for two days, so I think I'll take today a bit quietly until the sun comes out, and catch you up with what I've been doing. 

So, since I got the Peugeot, I've been wrestling with the idiot satnav. Sometimes she takes me to the place at the address I've keyed in. Sometimes (often) she drops me short or doesn't understand the address at all and I have to ask Siri, which is dangerous because she won't let Siri's voice come out of her sound system, so I have to look at the phone while I'm trying to drive down single lane roads.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to go to a bird hide I was recommended on the first day. It appears on the tourist map I was given as Cottascarth. The satnav took me down lanes of broken stones and dirt lanes in which the wildflowers grew so high in the middle and at the sides that the Peugeot was sounding its alarm.

Then the satnav told me I had arrived, but there was no sign and I had no clue. I passed the baton to Siri and she took me into a farm onto a track that ran along a paddock in which there was a gang of half-crazed steers, mooing loudly and trying to push down the fence to get at the big orange car. It was terrifying. I had to reverse out of there as fast as I could, checking that I wasn't reversing into the fences to the left and right. 

I felt that I must be somewhere close to the bird hide, and then I saw the first person I’d seen since I got into the farm. I asked him and he pointed out the sign to Cottascarth, hidden as it was on a fence post behind a digger. That road was sealed. I parked in the empty parking lot and followed the road and the signs through a flock of sheep towards a house. 

I reached the hide, and this was my view from inside, and a closer view of what I saw out of the window.

A lot of hill, but no birds (specifically, hen harriers) in the sky. I waited for an hour and saw one hen harrier (maybe) in the sky, but too far off to take a photo of. Apart from that there were a few pied wagtails, but I already have a good photo of one.

My bum's a bit sore from sitting on the sofa typing this, now, so I'll sign off and publish this. Maybe I'll key in another post tonight with my adventures around the Ring of Brodgar. 

Ferries and Viking Ruins

Today it's raining steadily. (Reminds me of Sydney, just before I left.) So, I'm inside watching the rain on the window of the guest house. If it lets up a bit, I might drive the 17 miles to Lerwick to go to the museum, but that's as far as I'm going today. 

Yesterday I took two ferries to the Island of Unst. I'd intended to see the Viking ruins, standing stones and puffins in the wildlife sanctuary. By the time I'd taken two ferries to get there, failed to make the cut on one and had to wait an hour for the next, and drove around Unst hitting the sights, it was nearly 6 pm, and I wanted to get back to Mainland before they stopped the ferries. I didn't have time to walk to the wildlife sanctuary. I hope the weather improves tomorrow. I can try again then, or any time, I guess, until Wednesday night, when I will take the ferry to the Orkneys. 

I haven't told you about my situation here in the Valleyfield Guesthouse. It's very friendly, open, and the proprietor, Marina, is a wonderful woman. There's a lot of contact with the other guests, but everyone here now, except for me, is a FIFO worker for one of the companies here. A lot of them seem to work on the windmills or for the government. Anyway, they seem to be well-behaved. Marina keeps them on the straight and narrow. She's been doing this for 40 years, I think, renting most of her rooms to the company lads, and she knows exactly how it works. (Her guest house is more like a home for them; a lot more soulful than some of the accommodation provided by the companies, male only and, as I hear, liable to descend to toxic masculinity.) I'll ask some of my housemates and Marina if I can take photos, and you may see them below. 

Below are some of the photos I took on Unst. 

I went back to Unst today (using two ferries to get there as you must, and two to get back here to Mainland), hoping to see more puffins. I'd been told they are everywhere in the Hermaness Wildlife reserve, but I did not even see one. And the wind was so srong, I thought it would blow me over the cliff into the cold Atlantic Ocean. My face was so cold, I wore a mask to stop my nose freezing off. 

Well, tomorrow is my last day in The Shetlands. I leave on the 5 pm ferry for the Orkneys, where I will stay for 5 days. 

The Muness standing stone

A reconstruction of a Viking longboat.

My trip is winding down fast now. 

Brae, a fatal flaw, and the things you lose along the way 8ˆ{

I arrived in Lerwick bright and early this morning, having spent the night in a "pod", where I predicted a sleepless night for your informant. 

However, sometimes we are pleasantly surprised. It was a lot more pleasant in Pod Lounge 3 than it was in the public areas of the ship because the temperature was cooler and more conducive to sleep. I just put on the NorthLink Ferries mask, covered myself from head to toe with the provided blanket, and nodded off, thankful that the old guy in front, who'd shown signs of being an open-mouth sleeper and incipient signs of snoring, went away somewhere. 

There were only 5 or 6 people in the whole lounge and there were maybe 30 pods. No-one was in a pod very close to me, and really, it was a surprisingly good way to spend 7 or so hours. (That is, if I didn’t catch COVID from one of the other people breathing my air.)

Today, having navigated a very tricky exit from the hold of the ferry in my big orange car,

 

 

I drove out of the ferry terminal, deciding that I would look for Jimmy Perez’ house immediately because I had no idea where the guest house was, in which I would stay for the next 7 nights. I found the DI’s house straightaway, and the police station. 

 

 I was frightened of trying to wrestle with the Citroen’s Satnav again. (She is almost as useless at directions and is your informant. She doesn’t even understand the British postcodes. Siri does.) Sometimes the Citroen’s Satnav (hereafter “CS”) gets sniffy and won’t let Siri’s voice use the sound system to guide me, so it’s hard to hear Siri’s directions and I can’t see them on the screen. Sometimes CS and Siri compete to give me the same directions. 

 

Well, today, CS didn’t have a fucking clue where I wanted to go, and Siri sent me miles and miles out of my way down single lane roads with bumps in them, to allow traffic to pass in the opposite direction. It was scary. But back to my morning adventure. 

 

So, drove out of the ferry terminal, terrified that I was going to scrape the sides of the hold and collect one of the wee men giving the instructions; drove around a bit, found parking and then found the Jimmy Perez’s house and spent a lovely couple of hours taking photos of the beautiful old granite buildings in Lerwick. Then decided it was time to confront the Satnavs and find the Valleyfield Guest House. 

And here, again, is the fatal flaw. Couldn’t remember where I parked the car! and did not, as Elizabeth has advised me to do, take a photo of the location. I was wandering around, lost, and a kind lady, Eileen, asked me if there was anything wrong. I told her my predicament and she said she could drive me around for a wee while to look for it. Well, that didn’t pan out because I had a completely different memory of where I had parked the car to where I (with the godsent help of Brian) finally found it. 

 

I told Eileen that I didn’t want to take up more of her time and cause her more trouble and asked her if she’d drop me at the police station. With the details of the parking spot that I remembered (although these were minutiae and not helpful in finding the location unless someone present has more local knowledge) I thought the police might be able to solve the case.

 

I remembered that I parked at a 90-degree angle to the kerb. (There are a limited number of parking places like this in Lerwick because the streets are so narrow.) I remembered the street was very wide. (This was a false memory. It wasn’t.) I remembered that the parking space next to where I parked the car was for EV charging. (There are few of these chargers in Lerwick.) I remembered that the walk to Jimmy Perez’s house was very quick.) 

 

Back to Eileen. She dropped me at the police station. I went in. It looked deserted. There was a sign to ring the bell ONCE! If the office is unattended. I rang. And I sat and waited for about ten minutes and then I thought, well, I’ll just try once more. I hope they don’t arrest me for troublemaking. I waited another five or ten minutes and no-one came, so I thought I’d ring a taxi company to drive me around to look for the car. Then I realised I couldn’t see the numbers on the screen. Why? Because the second spare pair of glasses that I’d been holding in Eileen’s car, I let slip from my grasp. 

 

Just then a policewoman came to the counter. I explained the situation to her. She asked a few questions about streets, etc., that I was useless at answering. (In my defence, there are very few street names marked in Lerwick.) Then she just disappeared again without saying where she was going. She was out for another 10 minutes or so it seemed. And I sat down again, with my now useless phone. Finally, she came back and said that her colleague was going to go out in the van and he could drive me around to see if I remembered anything. (That was a futile hope, if “anything” meant something related to spacial coordinates.)

 

Got into the van with the officer—Brian, from Glasgow originally--and told him the minutiae I’d carefully noted when I failed to note the location of the parking spot. He drove me around. I showed him a photo of the car. He asked me if I remembered going here? There? Finally, Brian got a brainwave. He rounded a corner and there was the big orange Citroen, waiting where I’d left i 

Then, I popped into a bookshop in town, bought some reading glasses (strength 2.5) and finally arrived here at Valleyfield Guest House & Chalets, in a journey that took more than twice the time it should have, partly, I think, because the address on AirBnB is Brae, but it's not, in fact, right in Brae. Brae is about five minutes down the road. 

 

The door to the guest house was open but there was no-one around. I went inside and tried to ring Marina, the proprietor, but I had no reception. I went outside and was able to call. Left a message at one number and got a message that I had dialled the wrong number at the second number. Marina returned the call while I was outside, so that was a lucky break. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got the call. She told me I was in room 3, that everything was open, to make myself at home, and that she’d see me tonight.

 

I did get a pleasant surprise, though. I had thought that I would have to share a bathroom, but my room, room 3, has its own ensuite. When I found the accommodation, it was the only bed available on-line, on the whole island, so I booked a room with shared bathroom. I guess because I'm staying a week, Marina juggled other bookings and gave me an ensuite room. 

Aberdeen: Golf Mad

This is Alnwick Castle in Northumberland which I visited a few days ago.

Sitting in Molly’s Malone’s , Aberdeen last evening. Came up from Edinburgh on the train the day before yesterday. Couldn’t book a seat. Not sure if it was because A Big Golf Tournament was being played in St Andrews. 

I had a hard time picking up my train ticket on Saturday. Scotrail has not been immune from the troubles afflicting Sydney airport and Heathrow. Too many people laid off over the last couple of years and not enough people working now. I bought a ticket online, but unlike the other tickets I’ve bought online, I was not given the option of an electronic ticket. I was told I would have to get the paper ticket from a machine in the ticket office.

I arrived early at Edinburgh Waverley Station, which was lucky for me because some of the people standing in line because the machines had not delivered their tickets were in danger of missing their trains by the time they got to front of the line to tell a human about their problem. 

In my case the problem was I had paid by PayPal. They had informed me that I was to bring in the credit card I had used to buy ticket, but I had bought it on PayPal and PayPal is not a credit card company!

Eventually  I got to the front of the queue and found the correct platform number, though the guy who gave me my ticket told me a different number.

However, finally having alighted on the correct platform, I made sure I was within coee of the front of the queue to enter the train, short of tripping the ninety-year-old with the walking stick, who was also after finding himself a good perch. 

The English blokes opposite offered me a glass of their wine, but I had my own, so I accepted a plastic cup. I, too, had brought a half bottle of liquid refreshment in my luggage, and decided I may as well celebrate having bagged a seat for the next two and a half hours.

On the bus in Edinburgh. A few drops only so far. And today and tomorrow supposed to produce catastrophic heat, though not here in Aberdeen.

On the train to Aberdeen, Julie sat next to me. She comes from Aberdeen, but has been living and working in Texas for the last 20 years. She is back for a holiday to see friends and family. 

Julie said she was getting over drinking too much the night before, so I had my half bottle to myself  Then I heard the reason the train was so full: The British Open is playing in St. Andrews, apparently the “birthplace of golf”.   

And here is what I found out about that Big Golf Tournament: it’s called the PGA Tour, and it’s news here, although in Maggie’s Malone’s Aberdeen,  they were showing a football match between two Australian women’s teams on two of their 8 big screens. I realise now that the PGA Tour must also have been big news in Oz because the winner is an Aussie. 

Can you imagine the cacophony that was all around me from EIGHT big screens with their commentary, a soundtrack of pop music, and the chanting and singing from LOTS of people getting slowly (or fastly) into the spirit. 

Well, it's the morning after now, and I'm getting ready to go pick up my rental car. I'm off to the Shetlands tomorrow and today, I think I'll visit a castle in the vicinity: Dunnotar Castle. It was recommended to me by Julie. There's also a bird watching nature reserve that I might visit, too. 

And this is the most absurd photo that I've taken so far. It's hard for me to believe, even though I saw it on the walk to Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland.