Author: patevans

The ‘Feast of Festivals’ begins Jan – Feb 2019

Posted on by patevans

Adding some new experiences into our travel life, we are making 2019 a ‘Year of Festivals’.  In keeping with the new mantra of ‘flexibility’ we have been already taking lots of spontaneous opportunities to visit festivals we hear about, and as part of trying to do some planning we have produced a 3 page spreadsheet listing all the ones we may want to attend sometime this year.

In January we went to a number of Sydney Festival events with friends to start off the year.  Then we heard about the Illawarra Folk Festival, sort of nearby in Bulli NSW, so had a day there with Esther and Ruth.  It was a full day, leaving around 9am and getting back 12 hours later, after catching some part of 23 different acts during the day.  That event helped to establish our plan of attack for getting the most out of the festivals (ie study the program and map a route for the day to get around all the different venues).  

Bulli, a 90 minute drive from home and a full day out.

Illawarra Folk Festival with Esther & Ruth

On 23rd of January we headed up to Tamworth for our first ever Tamworth Country Music Festival.  That was quite an experience with 2800 acts to choose from over 10 days (we were only there for 4 days), 700 entertainers and an influx of 50,000 visitors to the town.  Our friend Chris was there with us for two days; we had one day on our own, and Kevin and Jenny were also there for two days, so it was a great social time.  

Our experiences included another Kasey Chambers concert, the iconic John Williamson, and my new favorite band, The Pigs.

In the pub with our friends for two shows 

 

The Pigs on stage in Tamworth (we also saw them in Bulli and now have their CD)

I feel like a grey nomad groupie but couldn’t resist a pic with T-Bone from The Pigs

In fact the Tamworth experience inspired us to write a song ‘Living Next Door to Abi’ [to the tune of Living Next Door to Alice], as we stayed in Abi’s driveway for two nights.  Then I wrote ‘The Ballad of Dick Stresau’ to the tune of ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett’, from ‘The Beverley Hillbillies’.  A few days after we got home I woke up one day and announced that I wanted to learn to play the ukulele. So all this music is having an impact on me, maybe making up for lost time.

One of our fellow Explorer Motorhome owner friends said they were going to a ukulele festival in Katoomba, a town in the Blue Mountains near Sydney.  So we decided on a Tuesday that we’d go there as well on the Friday for the weekend.   Very handy having our Lestervan for accommodation.  Needless to say we have never seen so many ukuleles in our life.  We borrowed a ukulele from our friend, Peter, so I was able to go to the beginners ukulele workshop.  We were both astounded by the high calibre of many of the ukulele acts.  If you closed your eyes it would be hard to imagine that you were listening to ukuleles.  It was quite inspiring and looked like a lot of fun!

 

Fun in Katoomba

Masses of people with their ukuleles playing along

As we were in the beautiful Blue Mountains we managed to do a pleasant walk down into the valley beside Katoomba Falls, and being lazy we took the scenic railway back up.  It was a nice way to finish off our ukulele weekend.

Walking beside Katoomba Falls

So far this year we have celebrated Helen’s 29th birthday with a family dinner at the Opera House, and we enjoyed a family weekend down the south coast.  Thats on top of celebrating Dick’s big birthday in late December.  All in all its been a great start to the year, and nice to have summer in Sydney, so I’ll finish this off with a few family photos.  Have also included my two songs, just so I have a record of them.

 

Dick’s birthday

 

Dinner at the Opera House for Helen’s 29th birthday

Chef Helen, on the south coast weekend

 

Hard to believe I could stay up on a SUP ( Stand Up Paddleboard)

 

All hot and tired at the end of a very active beach weekend away 

 

PS – My two songs

The Ballad Of Dick Stresau

By Pat (Tamworth 2019)

Sung to the tune of ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett’ (aka Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song)

 

Come and listen to a story about a man named Dick 

He hailed from the States, and he was a scientist

Sailed round the world in his precious wooden boat

Ended up in Australia just to get himself a float

 

Cash that is – needed good hard cash

 

Got a job at ETP and he made himself a name

Building detectors got him lots of worldwide fame

Settled in Sydney and made himself at home

Too busy working, so no more did he roam

 

Sydney, that is – amazing harbour, lots of boats

 

Many years went by and then he married Pat  

Got himself two daughters; and left his city flat

They got themselves a Lestervan, which is their second home

So Dick’s now back out on the road; evermore to roam.

 

Dirt, that is – bull dust and corrugations

 

Well now it’s time to say good by to Dick and all his kin.

And they would like to thank you folks fer kindly listenin’ in.

You’re all invited back again to visit at the blog

And catch all the news in their latest travelogue

Trips, that is – all kinds of adventures

 

Y’all come back now, y’hear?

 

 Living Next Door To Abi

By Pat and Dick (Tamworth 2019) 

Sung to the tune of ‘Living Next Door to Alice’

 

Jenny called, when she got the word

She said “I suppose you’ve heard about Abi”

Well, I rushed to the window, and I looked outside

And I could hardly believe my eyes

This big motorhome pulled slowly into Abi’s drive

 

Oh, I don’t know why we’re leaving, or where we’re gonna go

I guess we’ve got our reasons but I just don’t want to know

‘Cause for forty-eight hours we’ve been living next door to Abi

Forty-eight hours, just waitin’ for a site

To tell her how we’re feeling, maybe get a second night

Now we’ve gotta get used to not living next door to Abi

 

We’d never met her before, but she seemed a good sort

And she gave us some power so we didn’t run short, Us and Abi

She was good at picking music and showing us the club

Didn’t get to hear her sing karaoke at the pub

As the big motorhome pulled slowly out of Abi’s drive

 

Oh, I don’t know why we’re leaving, or where we’re gonna go

I guess we’ve got our reasons but I just don’t want to know

‘Cause for forty-eight hours we’ve been living next door to Abi

Forty-eight hours, just waitin’ for a site

To tell her how we’re feeling, maybe get a second night

Now we’ve gotta get used to not living next door to Abi

 

Jenny called back, and asked how we felt

She said “I know how to help, you get over Abi”

She said “Now Abi is gone, but Slippery Boards is here

You know I’ve been waiting for you to bring some beer”

And the big motorhome disappeared

 

Oh, I don’t know why we’re leaving, or where we’re gonna go

I guess we’ve got our reasons but I just don’t want to know

‘Cause for forty-eight hours we’ve been living next door to Abi

Forty-eight hours, just waitin’ for a site

To tell her how we’re feeling, maybe get a second night

Now we’ve gotta get used to not living next door to Abi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chile – Torres del Paine, Fjords, Glaciers & safely home!

Posted on by patevans

 

Sending this from Sydney as we are now home, after a 6 weeks that will take a while to fully appreciate all we saw and did.  A 3 hour drive from Ei Calafate, Argentina took us to Chile and after we crossed the border we were handed over to another driver (felt like a prisoner exchange), who took us to our hotel, Los Torres. On the way we saw lots of guanacos (related to llamas) and a couple of condors flying low down, near us.  Our hotel was well situated in the National Park Torres Del Paine.  We had an all inclusive package which was a total waste as Dick was still sick so hardly ate anything, neither of us drank anything and Dick wasn’t well enough to do any of the guided walks through that beautiful national park.

 

Guanacos, there are 3000-4000 in the Torres del Paine National Park and 70 – 80 pumas.  We didn’t see any pumas but our guides regularly see them.  They eat rabbits and guanacos.

 

Condors flying just above us on our drive to the hotel.

 

We did make it to the lamb bbq for dinner and shared that meal with two Australian couples, so that was a pleasant, social meal.

 

Outside the hotel which was located at the start of many walks in the park
Dick slept a lot but we did get out for a 3 hour walk on a picture perfect day.

 

Lunch stop on the walk
Beautiful blue lakes
Our walk was a very small part of the ‘W’ trail, which goes through the mountains.

 

We saw the pack horses coming back from a supply delivery to the overnight camps along the W trail.

 

The next day we signed up for a full day tour which included some scenic stops.
And a small waterfall
Plus a boat trip to another glacier

 

As Dick was still not well, he stayed inside the boat but still got some glacier/iceberg pics.
Another impressive glacier

 

On our last stop we had a beautiful vista
And we saw two armadillos up close, but I only got one in the photo.  They seemed to like hanging around the campground where we had an end of day drinks and nibble session.

Since Dick was not getting better and still not eating, we decided to check out from the park a day early and go to Puerto Natales, the closest town with a hospital and the start of our next cruise.  Another two hour drive in a bus got us to our hotel.  Fortunately the owner was a lovely woman who lent us money for a cab so we could go straight to the hospital.  This doctor reinforced the need for a strict diet and antibiotics, after examining Dick, and she recommended we go on the cruise as they have a doctor on board. In the end our unplanned stay in Puerto Natales was quite pleasant, helped by having a wonderful host and an excellant restaurant at the hotel, which is in the top 100 restaurants in Chile.  A sleep-in and rest day before boarding, Skorpios lll at 3:30pm also helped.

This was the boat, Skorpios lll and our cabin was on the port side front on the 4th deck, so we had good windows and fabulous views. There were 79 passengers from 12 countries, and probably 50% spoke Spanish. In this pic the boat is intentionally beached.

The plan for the 3 night trip was that we would see 11 of the 48 glaciers in the southern icefields.  We lost track as we saw so many glaciers, and we had already seen quite a few before we got there.  We are posing in front of Amalia Glacier.

 

We got quite close to El Brujo Glacier but the rocks were slippery to walk on and then it rained.
Later that day we went out in an ‘icebreaker’ boat. Was quite a different experience as we crunched through the ice.

 

This is the ice we were travelling through.

 

One of their traditions on the ice breaker boat was to have a 12 year old whiskey with 30,000 year old ice (or was that a way of warming us up?) and they gave us the nice glasses as a souvenir.  

 

We walked on the terminal moraine to Bernal Glacier. This picture shows where the glacier used to be and how much it is receding.  

 

They went all out with a fancy buffet complete with iceberg feature for the Captain’s Dinner.  We had a couple of laborious speeches from the Captain in Spanish (and translated), as they followed some formal cruise traditions although sometimes we were reminded more of ‘Faulty Towers’.

 

We were on an english speaking table, with Scots and English. There were no other Aussies on board.

 

Our waiter was particularly kind to us (although he spoke no English). He organized these special gluten free desserts for us so we didn’t miss out as the others had about 20 desserts in the formal dinner. Rest assured we did not eat them all but we gave it a good go.

 

Our last stop was Santiago, which meant another 3 hour bus ride to the airport at Puerto Arenas and a 3 hour wait for the flight getting us into Santiago around 7pm.  There we were taken to our hotel and told not to go out as there were protests in the street next to our hotel.  A day trip to Valparaiso was already organized for us, and we liked the guide who met us at the airport, so we kept with the schedule and enjoyed seeing another very colorful part of Chile.

 

We visited Valparaiso, the port city, that previously played a key role in shipping before the Panama Canal was built. You can still see it is an operating port. Dick feeling much better.

 

Valparaiso features colorful buildings, originally all painted in distinctive bright colors so that owners could pick out their houses from the harbour.

 

Amazing murals everywhere

 

Quirky houses

 

And a series of funiculars throughout the city.
So many colorful murals throughout the town.

 

The murals were a lot of fun and give the city a real vibrant feel.  It was quite a relaxing way to end our trip.

Final reflections on the trip.

Six weeks was probably too long and we included too much travel without giving ourselves enough rest time; very few rest days.

17 flights, 25 hours on buses/car transport (not counting all the day trips or airport transfers), 11 guided day tours, 2 train trips, 19 different beds, 3 cruises and numerous other boat trips; all meant we were constantly on the go, (often starting before the crack of dawn) and regularly missed meals.  I think that all contributed to our ill health for a significant part of the trip, in addition to the altitude issues.

South America or what we saw of just Peru, Equador, Argentina and Chile was really interesting with amazing natural wonders and incredible history woven into every aspect. Neither of us knew that much about the history, but each day we learned more that layered on and gave us a cohesive overall picture from pre-Inca times to after liberation from the Spanish. Dick asked so many questions about dates etc that one guide asked him to stop asking questions.

Glad we had the opportunity to see so much and would encourage others to do it at a more relaxed pace.  Thanks to all for coming along on the trip!