Weather or not in Ireland

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Kanturk, Killarney, Muckross House

Weather-wise, on a good day Ireland can be magical but on a bad one, it can be just as dreary as anywhere else! Fortunately for this visit, the weather Gods were merciful, and the rain held off for most of the week.

Phyllis walking down memory lane at Dromagh

Our purpose this visit was to spend time amongst our memories in the North Cork towns of Mallow and Kanturk. They did not disappoint.

Kanturk – off the beaten tourist track, but a nice base for our family explorations

When the sun did shine, we did the tourist thing and visited Killarney and in particular, Muckross House: still one of my favourite places on earth.

Muckross House at Killarney.

For me, it ranks with Stourhead, near Bath. (see blog of Bradford on Avon) for sheer grandeur.

The View from Muckross House

Tomorrow, we will have finished stitching together our patchwork of memories and will head back to Australia and our normal daily lives in the present tense.

Ireland from the air

London Bitter Sweet

Kensington Gardens

Part of the idea I had when I came to London this visit was just to sit in Kensington Gardens and watch the grass grow while sunning myself in the gentle English light.

Oxford Street in the rain

However the sunny weather Phyllis and I had experienced last week in the west of England sadly did not accompany us eastward to London. Yet in many ways reaching the capital felt like coming home: the overfamiliar landmarks, the crowded trains of the underground, the public Laundromat,…and the bleak cold weather that heralded in the first days of the English ‘summer’.

Tube station on London’s Underground

Being back in London again after I first arrived here 48 years ago was a bitter- sweet experience: it was wonderful for us to tread the footpaths of the West End once again, but sad to realise that our bodies just couldn’t manage them as they once did so easily.

We visited our old Boots shop in Victoria Street where we had both worked but found it to be overrun by a mass of building work. As if to give a nod to the old days, some of the buildings’ facades were being preserved, but little else.

Facade in Victoria development

However Phyllis’ former flat at 33 Moreton Place, Pimlico and mine at 10 Nevern Square, Earls Court remain unchanged, still slumbering quietly as they have done in our dreams.

Bradford on Avon

Phyllis and I have spent the last week visiting our wonderful friends, Paul and June Bailey, at Bradford on Avon (not to be confused with the Bradford of North England or the Avon of Stratford on Avon). Here are some images from this wonderful area of England:

Bradford on Avon – Silver Street

Bradford on Avon – footbridge

Bradford on Avon – Saxon Church

Bradford on Avon – Saxon Church – Phyllis pontificating

Bath – Great Poultney Street

Bath – Poultney Weir

Avebury Stone Circle

Avebury – Manor House

Avebury Manor – exercise chair

Stourhead

Mere – trout farm

Next week: London!

Travelling People

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Probus, The Johnstons

Travelling People album image

Recent speakers at my Probus club have reminded me of the travelling days of my more youthful times. They spoke of expeditions ranging from Lightning Ridge and Carnarvon in outback Australia to traversing the Sahara Desert in a Kombi van.

My own youthful travelling days were not nearly as exciting: I flew to London in 1968 on a working holiday. But I did meet my future wife, Phyllis! When I first met her, I was very impressed with a vinyl record album of hers by the Irish singing group, the Johnstons. Phyllis’ favourite track was called ‘I Never Shall Marry’ (I didn’t take the hint), but I loved the title track ‘Travelling People’ and, although I was not an Irish tinker on which the song was based, I certainly identified with the lyrics: ‘I’m a freeborn man of the travelling people, Got no fixed abode, with nomads I am numbered…’ It was 1968 after all!

As I write this week’s blog contribution, I am reminded of this song as I contemplate another sojourn away. Phyllis and I are once again returning to the UK and Ireland, probably for the last time; and although we won’t be using the traditional tinker’s mode of transport (and I don’t think they are now ether) I like to think that we are still travelling people, and at our time of life, it shouldn’t be any other way. For as the song ends… ‘Your travelling days will soon be over.’

The Majestic Hydro Majestic Today

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Blue Mountains, Hydro Majestic Hotel, Mark Foy

The Hydro Majestic – escarpment view (photo courtesy Escarpment Group)

Further to my blog of 5^th September, I was fortunate to be contacted by Ellen Hill, Communications Consultant from the Escarpment Group who has just sent me a large amount of information and photos of the Hydro Majestic since its recent renovation, four images of which I have included here. I must say that they exceed all my expectations, and are in keeping with the original specifications of the outrageously over-the-top design of its creator, Mark Foy.

The Hydro Majestic’s Cat’s Alley at Dusk (photo courtesy Escarpment Group)

However, for historians such as me, it’s the hotel’s guests who breathe life into its buildings. Its famous visitors have been well documented: opera singers Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Clara Butt; munitions heiress Bertha Krupp, who donated a Bechstein grand piano to the hotel; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, for whom the Blue Mountains were the inspiration for ‘The Lost World’; and more recently, Russell Crowe who was asked to remove his baseball cap while dining in the Great Dining Hall in 1994; boxer Tommy Burns who set up a training camp at the Hydro Majestic ahead of his world title fight against Jack Johnson in Sydney in 1908, running for miles on mountain tracks in preparation; and, perhaps best known, Australia’s former first Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton – he had retired from politics and was then a justice of the High Court – who died of a heart attack at the hotel while holidaying there in 1920.

The Hydro Majestic’s Wintergarden (photo courtesy Escarpment Group)

But there must have been countless other interesting guests over the last century: honeymooners, health enthusiasts, wealthy Sydney businessmen enjoying a lost weekend, and just ordinary people. It’s their stories that I would like to collect, so if you know of any, please let me know!

Delmonte Accomodation Wing at Hydro Majestic Hotel, Blue Mountains. Room 404. (photo courtesy Escarpment Group)

What’s in a Name?

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Hydro Majestic Hotel, Megalong Valley, Mellow Bath

Hydro Majestic Hotel in 2007 (photo courtesy Adam.J.W.C.)

While travelling in the Blue Mountains from Katoomba to the Jenolan Caves, one has to pass through the village of Medlow Bath, whose main claim to fame is its Hydro Majestic Hotel, built in 1903 by Sydney department store mogul, Mark Foy. The hotel sits on an escarpment overlooking the Megalong Valley. The mere mention of such names still brings a thrill of excitement and a yearning to return there again for another look-see.

Hydro Majestic Hotel- view of Megalong Valley

Hydro Majestic Hotel – view from the dining room

In 2003 our family stopped in for morning tea, and we discussed then how the somewhat neglected building would look after refurbishment.

Hydro Majestic Hotel – Trevor and Edwina in 2003

We called again in 2010, but were dismayed to find the place deserted, and the gates firmly padlocked, without any word of explanation. Was this the end of our dream?

Then just last week, an article appeared in the Australian Design Review announcing the reopening of the restored hotel to its former glory. The details can be found in the following link:

http://www.australiandesignreview.com/interiors/59993-the-hydro-majestic

I’m not sure about the red walls. The family says it reminds them of the Overlook hotel from ‘The Shining’ movie. Now that’s a bit scary, but it would add more atmosphere to the place. Must go back there again soon, but hope Jack Nicholson doesn’t appear (especially if he were rugged up like Phyllis’ photo.)

Hydro Majestic Hotel – Phyllis in winter woolies

Oh, and just what is in a name? Well, Medlow Bath was originally known as Brown’s Siding (how colonial Australian!), while the name Megalong Valley is derived from an Aboriginal word thought to mean ‘Valley Under The Rock’. The Hydro Majestic Hotel stems from the hydropathic therapy (health spas) that the hotel originally boasted, and no doubt from the majestic views that it commands from the escarpment overlooking the Megalong Valley.

A Tale of Two Homesteads

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Glengallan Homestead, Werribee Mansions

 

Werribee Mansions, Victoria

My recent visit to Melbourne’s Werribee Mansions was enhanced by a calm, sunny day: just perfect for exploring its beautiful gardens and interesting sculptures scattered throughout them. The mansions’ neighbours are an open range zoo and an air-training field. (Not a good situation if one is forced to bail out into a tiger enclosure).

Werribee Park Mansion was built by Scottish pastoralists Thomas and Andrew Chirnside between 1874 and 1877 in the Italianate style. Its residential and working buildings supported a large farm workforce. The rooms open to the public include the billiard room, the main bedrooms, the reception rooms and part of the kitchen. The Mansions have been used as film sets on several occasions, perhaps most notably for all the interiors used in “The Pirate Movie”. I remember this movie well because my then teenage daughter, Karen, had an obsession with it (or perhaps if was with its star, Christopher Atkins).

The Pirate Movie

 

The sheer size and scope of Werribee Mansions serves as a reminder of the immense influence and wealth the pioneer pastoralists had in the early days of European settlement and expansion in Australia. In viewing Werribee Mansions, I was struck by the similarity it shares with another relic of Australia’s pioneering days – Glengallan Homestead, just outside Warwick near Brisbane.

Glengallan Homestead, Warwick, Queensland

When Alan Cunningham discovered the Darling Downs and the way to the Moreton Bay settlement through what is now known as Cunningham’s Gap in 1827, he opened the way for pastoralists to squat west of the Divide. The first of these were the Leslie Brothers with their 8,000 sheep in 1840. With them was a young stockman, Scots born John Deuchar. Over the next twenty years, Deuchar rose to prominence as manager of a number of sheep stations in the Warwick area. In 1857 he married the 16 year old Eliza Lee and they enjoyed an extended honeymoon in Europe. Deuchar had entered into a partnership with Henry Marshall at Glengallan, a property just outside Warwick, and on his return he set about improving the wooden houses that made up the Glengallan homestead. In 1867 he commenced his stone house to grand designs, but failed to understand the fickle nature of the Australian climate. After several bad seasons, he was broke and died insolvent in 1870.

Perhaps, if Nature had been more kind to John Deuchar, Glengallan Hmestead would have been as grand as Werribee Mansions, but sadly his dreams were cut short, as can be evidenced by the unfinished crenulated walls of Glengallan today.

Glengallan Homestead – side view showing its crenulated wall

Fire and Snow

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Healesville, Lake Mountain, Marysville

Lake Mountain Alpine Resort

When travelling, the weather plays a large part in forming a first impression of a place. Usually, when it is cold and rainy, this is unfavourable. However on our recent day trip to Lake Mountain in Victoria, such conditions served to enhance our experience!

Lake Mountain is situated in the Victorian mountains just some 118 kilometers from Melbourne, so it is easily reached for a day-out from the city. Incidentally, there is no lake at Lake Mountain, the area was named after George Lake, who was the Surveyor-General of the area including the mountain.

But it is not just Lake Mountain that is of interest, I felt I was entering a different world at the historic town of Healesville , which was surveyed as a town in 1864. It was named after Richard Heales, the Premier of Victoria from 1860–1861. The town became a setting off point for the Woods Point Goldfield with the construction of the Yarra Track in the 1870s.

Today, Healesville has a very arty feel about it, which is demonstrated by the quaint shops on the main street. Healesville Hotel is a true country pub and had three open fires roaring in retaliation against the cold and wet conditions outside. It was like stepping back in time.

Healesville Hotel

In contrast, the next town of Marysville was completely new. Like Healesville, it was also established as a stopping point on the Yarra Track, the route to the Woods Point and Upper Goulburn goldfields, with a butcher’s shop and store in existence by the time the town was surveyed in 1864.

However, on 7 February 2009, a bushfire destroyed most of the town, including the primary school, police station, The Cumberland Hotel, and almost all of its houses. The entire town was declared a crime scene and was effectively closed off while Victorian and Federal police recovered bodies and conducted investigations. It was reopened to the public on 23 March. Reconstructing the town began immediately, and today it is thriving again as a dormitory for visitors to Lake Mountain.

Frederick McCubbin’s famous painting of ‘ The Pioneer’

It’s a steep drive up the mountains from Marysville to Lake Mountain, but in the muted light of the rainy and overcast weather, the drive through the thickly wooded forests invoked exactly the atmosphere of that Frederick McCubbin masterpiece ‘The Pioneer’, which he painted in the nearby Mount Macedon area.

It was snowing when we reached Lake Mountain Alpine Resort, and we were surprised at the large number of cars crowding the car parks. There must be a lot of people watching the weather reports in Victoria. Being from Queensland, it was a novel experience seeing the Australian bush covered with a mantle of snow, and even more eerie were the skeletal trees – the remains of the 2009 bushfires – still prodding at the heavy fog engulfing the area.

Whose Zoo

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Melbourne Zoo, Surfers Paradise Hotel

‘Do you have a guilt free bum?’

Well that’s getting a bit personal, I thought, until I read further: ‘You can help protect local wildlife. Make the switch to toilet paper made from recycled paper today!’

I’m at Melbourne Zoo, and I must say that zoos have really changed since my first zoo experience in the 1950s, when I used to visit the private zoo in the garden of the old Surfers Paradise Hotel. Highlights then were to visit the monkey cage and make them pull threatening faces (they also had a propensity to snatch glasses from unwitting viewers). Then there was a huge crocodile that I never saw move in any of my visits (there was not much room to move anyway). My other memory was the butterfly house that contained a beautiful display of hundreds of carefully catalogued butterflies. Unfortunately they were all dead.

Melbourne Zoo is something completely different. It’s more like a botanical garden with the animals situated discretely in themed enclosures.

Gorilla carrying baby on her back

bamboo

 

 

Most popular are the gorillas with spectators eager to catch a glimpse of the baby gorilla, born in March this year. However, I found it hard to forget that the silverback, Otana, had more recently bashed another female gorilla to death in this same enclosure. Nature gives and takes away even in the ‘controlled’ zoo environment.

 

 

 

The lemurs are a more unusual exhibit and their enclosure reminded me of something from the computer game, Riven (Myst 2).

Lemur

Riven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the lion enclosure, three males were relaxing in the afternoon warmth on top of their hill, when a passenger jet flew low over their enclosure. Instantly they were roused and began to answer the roar of its jet engines with their own roars until the plane had passed into the distance, and they resumed their slumbers. Maybe they thought they’d found a soul mate!

lion

Then came the butterfly house, but this time, I entered a huge cage with the butterflies flitting from tree to tree in all their living glory! However, for me, probably the most memorable exhibits were the toilet bowls placed not so discreetly around the zoo to remind me of my guilty bum. I slunk home, resolving to buy a roll of recycled toilet paper next time.

flowers

Hanging Rock

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books, films, Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay, Peter Weir

 

During my recent visit to Victoria, I finally made my long awaited trip to the famed Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges, an hour’s drive north of Melbourne. Often, unrequited expectation can lead to disappointment, but 40 years after seeing Peter Weir’s famous film “Picnic at Hanging Rock” the place still excited me. Our visit coincided with the monthly country markets, which made the car park very crowded, even utilizing the racetrack whose first race meeting was held on New Year’s Day in 1877 and which is still being used for three meetings a year.

In 1968 Joan Lindsay first published her book “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, which led to Peter Weir’s atmospheric film in 1975. The book relates the unexplained disappearance of three schoolgirls and a teacher at Hanging Rock during a picnic on St. Valentine’s Day in 1900. Peter Weir said: “What intrigued me about the mystery was that there was no solution. Joan Lindsay would never say whether it was true or not and newspaper files of the day tell of no such tragedy.“ True or not, Hanging Rock inspires the imagination. A dream within a dream. It rises as a monolith from the surrounding cultivated farmlands, and challenges us to climb to its summit. In the quiet of the afternoon, and in between my puffing as I paused to get my breath, I could still easily conjure up the sound of haunting pan pipes, and the dreadful scream for the lost Miranda. However, unlike the fated school group, all of our company returned safely back from our climb. I even claimed to have discovered the lost Miranda, when I pointed out wife, Phyllis, to passing climbers (even though she would have been 130 years old, and Phyllis doesn’t even remotely look that age!) Still the memory of Hanging Rock remains. I wonder if the Wurundjeri Tribe in their long forgotten Dreamtime held Hanging Rock in the same awe as I did today. Perhaps I was merely influenced by Peter Weir’s film. or was it as the Illustrated Melbourne Post had so succinctly put it in 1863:“…in the present keenness of our sensibilities there is infinite pleasure and relief in the contemplation of what if primeval.”