Tag: travel tips

Melbourne Style

Melbourne is downright friendly. I’m staying with friends in the inner north where you can find a cute caravan on the street, veggie garden in the front yard and crazy chickens out the back. People say hi to total strangers around here.

Melbourne is known as the city with four seasons in one day so I took my raincoat, sunhat and water bottle and headed along the bike path to CERES, the environmental education centre and urban farm alongside the Merri Creek. I love their slogan:

Our vision is for people to fall in love with the Earth again.

You can fix your bike or learn how to do it. It’s all about community sharing.

And education.

You can also volunteer. There’s plenty of projects from constructing a Playspace to Creating a Meditation Space. I don’t have any affiliation with CERES but I’m a sucker for community projects.

I’m going to borrow a few more words from the CERES website:

‘Along with Merri Creek Management Committee and Friends of Merri Creek, CERES and volunteers planted hundreds of trees and shrubs and lobbied governments to clean up the creek. In 1994, after 12 years of remediation work, Sacred Kingfishers returned to nest along the banks of the creek, having been absent for many years.

Now, CERES is an award-winning community place that is visited by people from around the world who want to understand how this place has come to be, and how they can take some of the ingredients back to their own places.’

‘We think the key ingredient is love for each other and the Earth.’

I have to agree.

Happy Travelling!

The Fish

I return from walking the dogs (I’m house/dog sitting again) feeling like a fish in an over-heated pond.

It’s 11 am and there’s a bag hanging from the door handle. While the dogs run for the water bowl, I discover a gift of sweet plums.

At 12, the waft of cologne announces an elderly gentleman from the village. I invite the mystery bearer of gifts inside and talk in broken down Spanish. When a wheel falls off I open the translator but he’s no mechanic. He’s a musician, a poet, and takes paper in hand. Ciruelo: para comerlos 1. lavar las y la piel setira con el hueso.

It’s 2 pm and he’s wearing a freshly-washed shirt. He places almonds on the table. ‘Son de mi arbol’ he announces showing a good set of teeth. He mimes that they are for eating, that I need to crack the hard shells. I show him my hammer before he leaves.

By 3pm I’m thinking about lunch, just like most of the Spanish population, but I’m wilting. Perhaps I’ll eat the plums. ‘Henne?’ comes the version of my name in castellano from beyond the plastic fringes at the doorway. ‘Entrer,’ I reply in mistaken French.

He places the hot silver-foil package and cold can of beer on the table, then disappears into the afternoon.

P.S. I’m vegetarian.

Yikes! I ate the fish!

… Global temperatures are higher than ever recorded. I’m worried. But I figure that the only way we’re going to get through this cataclysmic era is to connect with people and smile as we step lightly.

Walking the Mountain

I’m in the middle of nowhere, seriously.

I just checked the population statistics for January 2018 and there were 52 people in this village. Evidently that was on a good day… so far I’ve seen five in the street, but not all at once.

I’m here to keep the plants alive and walk the dogs while the owners are away. I’ve learned to walk. Big time. It’s twenty minutes up a mountain to the next village (where I hear there are 25 inhabitants) and the capital of the region is an hour away on foot across a ravine.

Day 1: up the mountain to water someone else’s garden.

Day 2: up the mountain and across the ravine to meet a friend.

Day 3: up the mountain, across the ravine, stick out thumb, hitchhike to town, return by late afternoon with full backpack… collapse on couch.

You get the picture?

I’m loving it!

How to travel light

I could go into details about the brand of my tent (the fact that it weighs a tad more than a kilo is a great selling point) or tell you that I have the lightest sleeping bag I could find and it works most of the time, except for Russian Winters and damp river campsites. I also carry very little clothing because it’s easy to find more. But what is most important to me is travelling without personal baggage.

In fact, I find that the longer I travel the more things I discard.

Judgement has been a big one. Not the type that you need when you make decisions about where to pitch the tent or should I swim in crocodile infested waters, but judging other people. It’s a human thing, something we all do, but it feels so much lighter to accept the idiosyncrasies of other people who are mostly trying their best in a crazy world. I’m certainly not perfect at it but I’m practising hard.

People are just people everywhere. Some of us have enough food and shelter, some of us don’t. Some live in safe places while for others it’s a war zone. But we are all trying to get through the day, hoping to make a difference in something small or big. Everyone needs to relax when things are stressful. And we all want to be loved and acknowledged, to be accepted and appreciated.

That’s the start of what may grow into a very long list.

I’d love to hear what you have discarded!

Where to sleep at a pinch

There’s those moments when the hostels are full and sleeping rough ticks the boxes, both for the sense of adventure and keeping the cash out of someone else’s pockets. It’s a way to travel further, longer, perhaps indefinitely. I have no idea. I’m making it up as I go.

I learnt that it’s possible to sleep anywhere from my Greek friends. My first encounter with concrete was at a tiny music festival in the medieval village of Aghios Lavrentios. I don’t have any photos but believe me, people camped on the church steps, on the hard stone of the plaza, and I (through lack of any other option) was among them.

I spent some days travelling Greece with two Marias, a German and a Romanian. Here was a lesson in how to sleep on a metal bench in an Amusement Park. Yes, we did get busted at 5am by a very nice man who allowed us to pack up slowly before he opened the rides. In the other photo you can see me attempting to sleep on a rocky beach front with a very small cat. This also rates as one of my best hitchhiking missions. (My next post is likely to be How to Hitchhike with Kittens.)

    5,000,000 Star Hotel

    Of course it’s subjective, but I’m a great fan of the 5 million star hotel. I love wild and exotic places full of the murmurs of trees and the rush of pure mountain streams.

    I’ve slept on deserted beaches in the height of Summer and moved on when the bite of Autumn approaches.

      I started young, risk-taking in the best sense. Living in wild country in Australia from the age of 20. Very much later, I travelled to France where I lived for 4 years, learnt the language and travelled everywhere on foot or bike. This began a decade of on and off solo travel. Two years ago I left every perceived security behind and now I have a backpack and me. I’ve been to most countries in Europe and have had the best time meeting people while camping in the wilds of Greece, walking Morocco, wandering Russia, hitch-hiking in France and Spain. Of course, I could be the exception or something just hasn’t happened YET but I know that it doesn’t matter what you wear … it does matter what your attitude is. BE CONFIDENT because people can see if you’re not and some may take advantage of it. Love what you are doing. Smile at as many people as you can. That guy who follows you was a one off, right? Shit does happen. But adjust, find a safe route. Walk tall. There are cultural differences, there are crazy people everywhere. I prefer to make up my plans as they open up and keep adventuring. I also want to put in a word for Couchsurfing and Blablacar. Both excellent ways to meet strangers and practice a new language. The sites are curated and there’s testimonies for the people who offer car rides or a place to stay. Of course be observant but above all, don’t live in fear.

      Note: Some countries encourage wild camping. You are free to pitch a tent where you choose in Sweden, Krygztan in Central Asia, Norway, Scotland, Iceland, Estonia, Finland, Mongolia and Turkey. Some other countries have a culture of camping even though it is forbidden in law so talk to other travellers and they may share their secrets.

      Madrid in the rear-view mirror

      We’re all hung over and the journey is for dreams. I’m just totally sleep deprived after a night in a cheap and clean but extremely restless hostel. If I had two hours I’d be surprised. The other passengers smell of sweat and pull out their best comfort for the kilometres that hum by. Madrid is in the rear-view mirror and Toulouse ahead. I curl onto the seat and lie on my bag.

      At some point I break my zeds and discover that the bones of the mountains are lying naked under an azure sky. The Spanish side is bare and beautiful. Then a long tunnel divides the dry southern landscape from the green-cloaked body of France.

      It’s a ten hour trip by bus and thankfully there was a decent sandwich shop on the French side because I left while the shops were still shuttered in Madrid. The driver navigated the tortuous curves with prowess and we arrived at the gare routière in Boulevard Pierre Semard ten minutes ahead of schedule. Sigh of relief because I still had a train to catch.

      PS please excuse the quality of the photos. My phone was the lazy and convenient option.

      At Home in Madrid

      Madrid is awesome. There’s no doubt that the architecture is amazing and the people are cool. Of course I shouldn’t sleep, there’s bars waiting with great tapas and craft beer, an overload of fabulous images and people to absorb. But I’m on a mission. I need to be in France.

        I started off in a tiny village this morning, some two hours from Granada at the bottom end of Spain. I’ve been house-sitting. That’s where the dog came into the picture. (https://wildartwanderer.travel.blog/2019/07/24/the-dog/)

        Ten hours later I’m in the big city and in a few more I’ll be in Toulouse. It’s a reckless way to travel but I’ve been to Madrid before and I have a deadline for another house-sit job near Toulouse.

        I’ll be on another bus heading for another home. It’s been that way ever since I began travelling two years ago. Nothing stable. Everything to discover. In the meantime, I want to remember that there are so many people who are genuinely homeless without a safety net. I’m one of the lucky ones.

        How to get from A to B

        This is not a definitive list. Some people are way more adventurous than I am. And as lists go, how to I order it?

        At the moment my preferred method for getting around is on foot. Very old school and not going to be for the couch potatoes but fabulous for really seeing things in all their detail – a total winner for artists and poets. No cost except for wear and tear on footwear.

        Hitchhiking is another favourite. Every lift is an adventure. Every person has a story to tell. No cost other than be a good listener.

        The train is great for stretching out and sleeping when the fatigue of travel or socialising has caught up. It can be cheap. Check Evasio futé in the Occitanie region of France.

        There are some great bus companies like ALSA, Flixbus and OUI. Often super cheap and sometimes the WIFI works but not always in the centre of town. A ticket from Madrid to Toulouse cost me less than 10 Euros.

        There’s also Blablacar, my favourite for learning the local language and sometimes cheaper than the bus. It’s organised hitchhiking with a well organised and secure site. You can see where the driver is going, the time for the trip, their references and how much it costs in advance.

        Finally, the bike is a sheer joy. Australia and New Zealand are currently the only countries where helmets are mandatory so I’m taking advantage of the wind in my hair and the freedom of coasting down a long and deserted hill.

        Getting around France

        I love hitch-hiking. People ask me about the risks involved and I tell them my best stories about grandmothers and women, with children stacked in the back seat, who decide to save me from danger and then happily take me to my destination. Then there are the locals. One of my favourite lifts was from a retired fireman who dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and continued up a track to his mother’s 95th birthday party. Lovely. However it was a stretch of road with no sign of traffic or habitation and a storm was about to hit. Fortunately he left me with his umbrella.