Aussie Roadtrip: Metung

Twofold Bay on my birthday!
Back in Spain, I listened to a remarkable podcast of Conversations with Richard Fidler where he interviewed Danielle Clode.  It was a story about a pod of killer whales who worked with men to hunt Humpback Whales.  Apparently orcas all specialise in a type of hunting, based on where they live and what they eat, and they teach their young and pass the techniques on.  This particular pod, that hung out near the entrance of Twofold Bay in southern NSW developed a hankering for humpback whales tongues and lips.  A hankering that might have been encouraged by the local Aboriginal population, who were some of the best hunters on the white men's whaling ships and had a relationship with the killer whales long before white fellas showed up. 

I almost wet myself when I realised that our roadtrip could actually take us through Twofold Bay.  What was even more exciting was that it would be on the day of my 32nd birthday.  I think the excitement is basically written on my face in the photo below. 

Birthday boy at Twofold Bay

Eden is not far from Merimbula, so we had a slow start, a long coffee at Sprout cafe (5 stars!) and a beach trip to play with my birthday beachball before we went to see and learn more of the story at the Eden Killer Whale Museum which doesn't open until 11.15 on a Sunday.  The museum shares a lot about whaling and the good ol' times when Old Tom and his pod worked together with human whalers, but also does a bit to remind us how much damage humans have done to worldwide whale populations.  The museum continues downstairs with much more of Eden's history, besides fishing at whaling,  Certainly worth a visit on anyone's itinerary.

Beach balls and wind are not friends

Bushranger rating = getting there

Old Tom - A killer whale who died of old age in 1930

A great poem on display at the Eden Killer Whale Museum

Eden Killer Whale Museum

The last stop of this amazing trip before heading home was relaxed Metung. Just a smidge closer to home than Lake's Entrance, we took it easy here.  We had to take it easy as one of us is getting on in years.  We had a lovely (birthday) dinner at the local bistro with a view over the lake and were treated to a remarkable sunset visible on our way home.  

Birthday sunset from Metung - photo does not capture its vibrancy

While we were tempted to get out on the water either in a kayak or on a local cruise, in the end we opted to cycle about, enjoying the sun with our feet on dry land.  With all the driving, it was great to have a day to relax and enjoy the atmosphere and location of our remarkable AirBNB accommodation.

Ingrid's AirBNB view

A beautiful last day of Spring

Just one of the boats around Metung

Pelicans everywhere

Grumblepot

Lifeguards

We were treated to a second sunset to start Summer

Sunset by the jetty

Sunset by the jetty 2

On our route home, we made an early stop at Bairnsdale which plays home to a little museum called Krowathunkooloong - The Keeping Place.  Their exhibition allows visitors to learn about the ancient Gunai people of the Gippsland Lakes through stories, articles, weapons, arts and crafts.  I recommend visiting if you are in the area, although it is often not recognised nearly as much as it should be, Australia's history is a lot older than just what happened after white settlement.

We punctuated the drive with a chilly visit to Golden Beach, just one spot along the amazing 90 Mile Beach stretch.  But the wind was cold and the water uninviting so we quickfooted along to Moe for a break to sit and reflect on what an incredible year this has been.  What we have done, what has happened, what we have learned and who we have met.  An opportunity that cannot be beaten.

World travellers come home

Which way from Golden Beach?

Australia

Reflections - we're home!

Aussie Roadtrip: Newcastle

Before a brief overnighter in Newcastle we stopped in a few places on the road. Still in Port Macquarie we admired Lighthouse Beach then later climbed up to a lookout at Cape Hawke in Booti Booti National Park. Both provided some special views but my time at Cape Hawke was tainted by mozzie attacks. Mind you, the mozzies have, as usual, been eating me alive in most places! A real highlight was visiting Green Cathedral, also in Booti Booti. Starkly different from the European churches we have been poking our heads into, this waterfront spiritual place was open aired and amongst palm trees. I even spotted a lizard next to the pews.

As per the sign!

From Cape Hawke Lookout

Green Cathedral situated on the banks of Wallis Lake

Peace post near Green Cathedral

Knew I was watching 

One of the less remarkable stops: petrol purchase at “The Rock”, a horrible looking attempt to cash in on Uluru’s appearance.

Eye sore: one of the worst "big things" (smaller than Uluru!)

Our final stop before making it to Newcastle was a beachy one. After having previously seen it from Gan Gan lookout on the way up the coast, we couldn’t resist stopping at One Mile beach. Port Stephens really is a fantastic area.

One Mile beach

Well aware we didn’t have very long to check out Newcastle, we aimed to visit the famous Bogey Hole and Bar Beach. Built in around 1820 using convict labour for a Major’s personal bathing purposes, the hole cut into the rocks is now a popular swimming hole. Only snag was we got there at high tide which would have made it a tremendously dangerous swim. Added to that, recent rock-fall meant the area was deemed unsafe and closed for three days. I have since read it isn't likely to be open until next year. It was still marvellous to see the waves crashing into the bath and imagine the Major hanging out there back in the day.

Waves crashing into Bogey Hole

Access to a raging Bogey Hole

View of the Bogey Hole from afar 

Before heading to Bar Beach we walked across the WWI Memorial Walk, opened in April 2015. As well as honouring those involved in the war in various ways, the walk provides great views to the ocean, the town parks and the harbours. Newcastle is much prettier than the outdated images Rob and I held in our heads! We enjoyed the rest of the day at Bar Beach. A nice looking beach but the combination of crazy waves and hidden rocks didn't tempt us in too far.

WWI Memorial Walk

Waves and sunshine at Bar Beach

Garsten and Steyr

We were lucky enough to stay off the more typical international tourist track in Upper Austria and even luckier to spend time with Rob's friends, Ulli and Flo and their three gorgeous kids. Our timing was a bit poor as it coincided with illness in the family as well as my own continuing health problems. However, it was great we were able to spend time together over a weekend and it was lovely to be in such a nice family environment. We weren’t long in the house before we were treated to a dress-up parade that included Spiderman, a medieval outfit and a firefighter!

Garsten is a lovely village in Upper Austria, located on the edge of a town called Steyr. It is around 2 hours west of Vienna by train and, like much of the country, has the advantage of a lovely mountain setting. On the Saturday we had a relaxed morning before taking a walk up a mountain to Schosserhütte. We were a bit unlucky with a fog obscuring what is usually a wonderful view (for great views of what we couldn't see, visit here) but it was a nice walk and we were rewarded at Schosserhütte with a tasty, warm lunch. Schosserhütte was nice and cosy, as I imagine a lot of places in Austria need to be come winter! After lunch the kids played in the teepee that stood next to the hut and Jinti, the families beautiful “Nepalese mountain dog”, also had a fun time digging about the place. On the way down the fog lifted ever so slightly, giving us a view of some colourful Autumnal trees. 

Jinti

Jinti walking Rob

Finn, Flo and Jonah sprint/skipping down the road from Schosserhütte

We also took a quick walk up to the ruins at Burgruine Losenstein, which had lovely views and is regularly used as a site for plays.  Finn took the opportunity to work on his climbing.

Ulli booked us tickets for a Night Watchman's tour in Steyr that evening and Flo dropped us off in town. The tour took us through the medieval part of town and to the top of the parish church spire. The tour was in German but the guide was kind enough to tell us the key bits of information in English along the way. Steyr is a very pretty town located at the confluence of the Enns and Steyr rivers. (A useful spot to be when you need to construct a moat around your town!) Steyr has a long history as a manufacturing centre and once produced cars and arms. Our guide told us that at one time it was against the law to manufacture a complete gun in Steyr. This was (apparently) to ensure the working class Protestants would not use the guns to rebel against ruling Catholics!

The beautiful main street of Steyr

View from the church tower

Shopping alley in Steyr

Across the Steyr river

Family/city crests adourning the city streets

You can't make it out from the photo, but each sculpture on the facade
of this building represents one of the five senses

On Sunday we had a restful day for the most part. Rob, Flo, Finn, Jonah and Anna went for a short walk and saw some deer. Rob had a conversation with Jonah about…well, Rob isn’t sure. It was a bit one-sided with Jonah happily telling Rob all sorts of things he had no hope of understanding but he thinks that it was mainly about deer!

Though the kids were probably a bit afraid of us with our odd accents and lack of German, we managed a few games with them across the weekend. Anna, the youngest, was not at all shy and was keen for us to read to her. Rob pulled off the German a lot better than me but I was pretty good at pointing at things she was interested in! By the end of the weekend Finn and Jonah were saying “Good night” to us in English.

It was great to meet Uli and Flo who I have heard so much about, as well as see the lovely life they have created since they lived in Nepal with Rob. We felt spoilt to stay in such a beautiful area for what turned out to be our last stop-off in Europe.

A musical time in Vienna

Music shaped our time in Vienna, unsurprisingly given it is commonly referred to as the City of Music.  We enjoyed a self-guided walking tour of music, Wiener Wiesl - Vienna's take on Oktoberfest - a visit to the Haus der Musik, a concert at Karlskirch (St Charles' church) and relaxing at the famous Cafe Central as a pianist set the atmosphere. We didn't let attempts to find a doctor (one of whom was incredibly rude) disrupt our visit to the city. We admired the architecture (Kat would like to use the adjectives 'creamy' and 'grand' to describe the city) while on our walking tour and we also had a long visit to the Kunsthistorisch (the Art History museum).

Our self-guided walking tour was odd in that we got lost (there's only a small circle of people to blame when you are self-guided) but that this made it a bit of an adventure. There's certainly worse places to be lost than Vienna, with its windy streets, beautiful (creamy) large buildings with the exteriors decorated with such complete and marvelous sculptures and characters.  Places that were home to Salieri, Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss.  The place had a feeling of completeness to it.  

Passed this on the way to Old Town

Grand old Vienna

At Stephansplatz

The approach to the Hofburg palace

Hofburg

Controversial Holocaust monument

On our walking lunchbreak we found a tiny little place serving what the internet tells me is Fleischkäsesemmel.  Sort of like a meatloaf on a simple semmel roll, we thought it was delicious, but the meal was made more enjoyable for the recognisable characters drawn on the wall enjoying their own Fleischkäsesemmel.

Entertaining artwork depicting many recognisable characters munching on Fleischkäse  

More celebration of Fleischkäse

Love and bunnies outside the Opera (note the pedestrian traffic light!)

We found ourselves in Austria in early October, and Kat spotted a sign advertising the local version of Oktoberfest, Wiener Wiesl. It was great we could experience this particular Austrian cultural experience. This meant that I could enjoy a beer and together we could experience the now global sensation that is Oktoberfest. Wiener Wiesl is a celebration of autumn that brings people together in with traditional food, music, clothes and drink.  Although the young'uns probably come out at night, this is not just a weekend bender activity that it might be elsewhere in the world but a celebration for all ages and it is on all through the week with free entry during the day.

We sang and swayed along to songs we had no hope of understanding while enjoying the performance of the band and the happy people who came to dance and eat together.  By mid-afternoon it was a swinging party and we were quite out of place in jeans and t-shirts but I've never had much of a need for lederhosen before!

Is Oktoberfesting a verb?

Starting to get a little rowdy at 2pm

Beer and sunshine

The Haus der Musik was good fun with interactive games and systems (some of which were a little 'tired' on our visit) to teach you about how we hear and process sound.  There were also rooms dedicated to the great composers, sharing elements of their lives, habits, debts and works.  

Trying the Sound of Music out on the keyboard stairs

This visit paved the way for our night-time outing to Karlskirch, a church we had only really admired from afar in our first few days.  We bought our ticket on the day from the venue itself (we had a bit of a run-in with a pushy street vendor who was too eager to encourage us to buy tickets from him).  A grand building with a beautiful dome framed by two towers, brilliantly lit up by night, the church was undergoing some maintenance inside and out but not so much that we could not enjoy both the concert and the art all around us.  We enjoyed a lovely performance in a beautiful church of some of Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss' best known works and were able to wander around before and after the performance to see the church in more detail.  Highly recommended experience, but one of many that you could get to in Vienna, it is the City of Music, afterall.

The ceiling with scaffolding centrepieces

Magnificent altar at Karlskirch just before the quintet commenced

Karlskirch (under a little renovation)

Visiting the Kunsthistorisches was a really powerful experience.  Our favourite part was the Kunstkammer exhibit.  The noble families over the centuries accumulated great arts to celebrate and often demonstrate both their wealth and authority.  These were stored in what was called a Kunstkammer, like a special art room.  Sometimes they were collections of brass sculptures, portraits, and tapestries but only the imagination can prevent you from thinking about what they had in there; mounted nobles with interchangable heads, over-the-top table centrepieces, drinking horns, clockwork frigates and clocks that surprise you with a mooning bum instead of a cuckoo-bird.  Perhaps one of the grandest features was a backgammon set that laid out the dynastic and territorial claims of the Habsburgs, Maximilian I's descendants (Charles V & Ferdinand I), demonstrating their right to rule but also their wealth.  In odd timing, a joke that would have flown past me before made me laugh out loud, through our slight addiction to the show Downton Abbey, a reference came up when the Dowager Countess said "I used to think that Mary's beau was a mésalliance, but compared to this, he's practically a Hapsburg." (The "p" is the Anglicised version). The collection at Kunsthistorisches was big, and it was a kind of fun to see what they collected, what they gave as gifts; it gives you a bit of an idea of the wealth these people once had to throw around.

The cafe of the Kunsthistorisches was lovely, not modern and tucked away out of sight but within the grand building itself, with a great dome rising above and beautiful marble archways on all four sides, hubbub with activity.

We finished off our stay in Vienna with coffee at the famous Cafe Central, a place those more famous than us used as a meeting point long ago; it's been around for more than 130 years.  There we were treated to a pianist who came and went a few times while we indulged on Viennese cake and coffee.

Selection of cakes at Cafe Central 

The pianist at Cafe Central

St Peter's Church at dusk