New Zealand has two islands, and the ferry that crosses between them goes from Wellington (reasonably famous) to Picton (not very famous). Picton’s a touristy sort of place with parking for $2 a day and lots of nice crinkly coastline nearby.

As a result of the coastline, there are a lot of winding roads about, with 50km/h speed limits. Some people liked to sit up my arse as I traversed them. A special place in hell is reserved for these people. Hopefully, they’re stuck behind people like me there, too. Driving presented another challenge when I discovered that New Zealanders give way to right-hand turners when turning left. This at first created many awkward “you go!” “no, you go!” moments. This is nothing though, when you consider the terrible peril we’re in if any New Zealanders come to Australia and assume they have right of way turning right. What? I’m being told New Zealanders can come and go to Australia as they please. What happened to deciding who would come and the manner in which they did it? Madness.

Back to Picton. It’s a big port. It’s also a big tourist destination. Disappointingly, this means the restaurants are often over-priced and not that good. When your main consumer base keeps shifting every year, you can get away with this. If you are in Picton, I hear that Spinnaker is nice. We meant to go there, but never found it, instead opting for a few not completely impressive places. In general though, I never had a steak I didn’t like, so you can be reasonably comfortable ordering them from anywhere. Be warned; some places won’t serve you coffee unless you’re getting food. Tremendously uncivilised. We did however stop in at Alan Scott Winemakers on our Wine Tour and found the food there to be pretty awesome.

Our place of residence was A Sea View B&B. I have no idea why they called it this.

If you like amazing scenery, cooked breakfast every morning, handy local knowledge, and chickens, then A Sea View is the place for you.

The best thing about Picton is the stuff nearby. You can go kayaking, you can drink yourself silly in the Marlborough wine region, you can hike along the Queen Charlotte Track.¹ Our kayaking was with the Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company, who took us around the Kenepuru Sound, which is rather pretty. The day started off relaxing and interesting, but got a little intense at the end when we needed to do a big open sea crossing to get back in time for our co-kayakers to check out of their hotel. Pah!

I’m already getting annoyed by rating towns out of ten, but I’ll do it once more; eight peaceful tourist towns out of ten.

1. There’s more, I’m sure, but we only had four full days.

“If you ever do want to kill yourself, back lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”

John Cleese had some unkind things to say about Palmerston North.¹ I can imagine thinking along similar lines if one had to spend a sustained period of time here. However, for a quick trip, it’s not too shabby. There are more lawyers than milk bars² and more flouro tops than you can shake a stick at. It also has power lines under the ground, and a few little oddities.

The main city is arranged in a square. I like neat cities. However, they also just dump their garbage by the road rather than putting it in bins, so this neatness is somewhat undermined.³ Four sheep jokes out of ten.

1. The residents did get some revenge later.
2. Or dairies, as they call them here. This unfortunately means they have to call actual dairies “those places where you squeeze the cow bits to make yummies.”
3. This happens across New Zealand apparently, aside from some of the really big cities.

Paris is a city I could grow fat in. After arriving on Cheapo Airlines, we quickly established a routine. Up at about 10, we ambled down to a nearby cafe for hot croissants, coffee and juice. Sated for the moment, we would head towards our destination for the morning, picking up a little something for sustenance from one of the backeries, maybe a pain au chocolate or a chocolate macaroon. These little chocolate morsels are to get us warmed up for Brugge and its multitude of chocolate shops. Then we look at something old until midday when we find a cafe for lunch, maybe a crepe, baguette or an omelette and some more coffee. Then perhaps another old thing and some beef bourginon, french onion soup or steak with garlic butter for dinner. It’s tough.

Pros – Delicious food. Cons – Ordering food in a foreign language can be hazardous.

7 /10

There’s a lot to like about London in the winter. First of all, when the sun is shining, it’s not horribly horribly cold. Secondly, if there are clouds, then you’ve got an excuse to a pub, which are everywhere, to have a beer and get out of the cold. Then you can try the excellent English fare, like pies with mushy peas, toad in the hole, black pudding. Matt managed not to say anything when I offered Hazel some spotted dick, either because he is becoming more mature, or because the family was present.

As a recent Doctor Who convert, I have taken this opportunity to visit some of the locations from the show. Alas, I could not find a blue police box, but I did however see Canary Wharf (which is looking very good after the recent battle there), the Globe Theatre (not the original one, which was burnt down, but a newly built one near where the original one was built), Big Ben (also repaired), the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. I also saw Torchwood on telly, which was an unusual experience.

Pros — Beer, pies, sausages. Cons — Far from Melbourne, prone to rain.

7/10

But as crazy as the souqs are by day, it was after dark that the square itself came to life in one of the most amazing spectacles I have witnessed. We emerge from our hotel to be met by a throng of people out for a Friday night (although later nights show that the crowd is almost as large regardless of the day of the week). From towardes the square we can here the voices of many more and the smoke and lights of their activities. In the square which earlier contained only a few juice stands, snake charmers and monkey owners trying to extract money from largely disinterested tourists, a whole small town has appeared. In the centre there are now about 30 restaurants each serving the staples of Morrocan cuisine such as cous cous and tajines, with many sheeps’ heads proudly on display. As we wandereed through there would be furious attempts to tempt us in to each restaurant. At the start of each aisle we would be asked our nationality or they would take a lucky guess that we were ‘espanol’ (apparently Rachelle and I look Spanish to the average Moroccan) but by the end of the aisle, via some magical game of Chinese whispers, it would already be known that we were Australian and we would be greeted by calls of ‘Skippy!’, ‘Crikey!’ or most memorably on one occassion by ‘ Kimmie, Kimmie, look at moi!’. To one side of the restaurants the juice stands of earlier have been joined by dozens more selling dried fruit and nuts, perfumes, spices and any ingredient you might need for your traditional medicine. On the other are scores of performers — acrobats, traditional musicians, slapstick comedians, story tellers, fortune telles and at least one or two whose act I couldn’t work out — each surrounded by a small circle of people enjoying their evening’s entertainment. Apparently this sight was once common across Morocco but the advent of modern life and TV has led to its slow disappearance. There were even plans to replace the Djeema el Fna with a car park but thankfully wiser heads prevailed.

Having explored we went for dinner at one of the many restaurants with roof top terraces around the square. Looking down at the chaos below was an unbelievable sight. The effect was only heightened when the call to evening prayer rang out from the half dozen minarets around and nearby the square. As became our habit, after dinner we headed back into the melting pot of sights sounds and smells and had a mint tea with the customary Moroccan seven teaspoons of sugar (by the third night and serious negotiations we were good enough friends with our waiter to get our hands on some with a mere three, albeit on the proviso that we tried a Moroccan dessert no doubt containing an additional 13).

Our first two full days in Marrakech were spent exploring its sights. Highlights included a medersa (Islamic school) set in a beautiful building. As in any Islamic religious building there are no paintings or drawings. The decoration in the central courtyard is therefore zellij — the patterned mosaics made with small colourful tiles that are seen everywhere in Morocco — and stone and wood exquisitely carved with Arabic and abstract symmetric patterns. Around this courtyard over two levels are the rooms where the students studying here would have lived. Some of the rooms have windows opening on to the courtyard below and were perhaps the size of a small study while others were windowless and barely had room for a mattress. Apparently the allocation was based on the quality of students’ work providing added incentive to work hard if Allah’s omniscience wasn’t enought.

We also visited the Palais el-Badi — an impressive palace built in the 16th century. Much of its more stunning features were plundered by later generations but the scale of its 100m+ long central court with pools of water and groves of oranges is still impressive. The palace is also home to one of the most beautifully designed Islamic minbars (a pulpit — and not a minibar as I initially read, a concept which seemed somewhat at odds with the forbidden status of alcohol in the religion).

From here we head to the Saadian Tombs, our arrival delayed somewhat by an enterprising storekeeper who had painted in the alleyway outside his shop “Les tombeaux Saadiennes <=”. Needless to say, les tombeaux Saadiennes were nowhere to be found within his shop, although much reasonably priced arts and crafts could be. When we finally made it, the tombs were well worth the detour, as they were decorated with the most beautiful and detailed examples of zellij and carving we had yet seen.

Even when not being led astray by devious shop owners, walking between the sights was as much an experience as the destinations themselves. Everywhere the smells were overpowering, be they pleasant or (more often) not. The pedestrianised streets were that in name only with bikes, mopeds, carts and donkeys weaving in and out of the crowds. Crossing the road was a game of Russian roulette without the luxury of knowing when exactly the trigger would be pulled. The technique was not dissimilar to any early computer game where a river must be crossed by jumping on successive logs before they fall over a water fall. Whether a log (gap) further across appears before the current one reaches the waterfall (gets filled by a rapidly moving bus) depends only on the random number generator inside the computer (vagaries of Marrakechian traffic). Initially we were rather hesitant to play the game but after a few days were playing it as brazenly as any local.

On our final day in Marrakech we decide to take a trip to Cascade d’Ouzoud, about 150km from the city. The drive was an experience in itself. Being in the car was a nerve racking experience — be it overtaking with rapidly oncoming traffic careening towards us, virtually forcing cyclists into roadside ditches or heading round mountain bends with only minimal use of the brakes. When I was able to remove my hands from in front of my eyes however, I got to see the barren country surrounding the city. While there were some areas of irrigated crops or olive trees, for the most part the rocky, hilly red earth is covered only with sparse shrubs.

Arriving in Ouzoud we (Rachelle, I and the two French in the car with us) are led down to the top of the waterfalls that are the reason for our visit by the first of our many prospective guides. As he shows us to the edge (no barrier of course), the 110m drop to the bottom is enough to make me take a step back. After leading us this far we tell our guide that his services are not required to take us down the gorge to the base of the falls, having been informed by the Lonely Planet that any simpleton can find their way down. Emboldened, we intrepidly set off but every route that we take down, while taking us a little further than the last, ends up at a point we cannot pass. The subsequent re-assent invariably leads to another potential guide appearing from the bushes offering to show us the way down but, encourged by the Lonely Planet’s words (and determined to show ourselves not sub-simpleton) we wave him away. After a while a couple of Aussies come along so we tack along with them. Again we make it further down than previously but are stuck when we hear someone calling to us that there is no way down the way we are headed and to follow him. His long goatee and scarf over hsi head mean he doesn’t look typically Moroccan and we are unsure whether he is a helpful fellow tourist or a guide after money but tentatively we follow him down. It turns out he — Sayeed — is neither but rather a Moroccan who lives in the valley and is happy to show us some of his favourite spots for free.

He is a quietly spoken man of about 30 and speaks well in English, French and German. He is clearly deeply in love with his surroundings and indeed shows us to some spectacular spots. The scenery is amazing — the walls of the gorge rising up to either side and the river flowing down the middle occasionally going over a small waterfall which below make perfect pools for a swim (although we elect not to). Battliong our way through reeds and clambering over rocks, we eventually reach a point where this river joins another. THere we find some caves which we explore. Standing outside them and looking down the gorge with its steeply rising walls of red rock, spars vegetation and families of goats precariously trying to find their way down is a stunning sight that prompts Rachelle to exclaim “This is crazy”, to which Sayeed calmly replies “No, this is reality”.

We head back stopping for lunch and a mint tea at a ‘cafe’ which is really just a couple of tables sitting outside the house of some of Sayeed’s friends, after which we rush back to ensure we don’t miss our lift back to the city, pausing only briefly to see the waterfalls which had been the reason for our trip but now seem somewhat less important after the other more hidden sights we have seen.

That evening we head out one last time to witness the sensory overload that is the Djeema el Fna. The following morning it is time to move on and I am very sad to be leaving.

After the ‘pleasantness’ of Castellon (despite the great music), both Rachelle and I were buzzing to be in a vibrant metropolis like Barcelona. After checking in at our hostel we set out to see what a Sunday night in Barcelona had to offer. We headed off down Nou de la Rambla, a fairly seedy street of small bars, immigrant cafes and restaurants (mainly Middle Eastern kebab and falafel joints) and 24 hour shops with well stocked liquor sections. It was an immediate revitalising shock to the system after the quiet peaceful streets of Castellon.

We emerged onto La Rambla, an equally beguilling but radically different street. It is the backbone of the old town, running from the port up to the city’s largest square Placa de Catalunya. On either side of the central boulevard cars run separated by a wide central walkway full of souvenir stands and restaurant seating. When we return tomorrow during the day, there will be more ‘human statues’ busking in more innovative outfits than I have ever seen. But now it is just a throng of tourists moving every which way with little discernable purpose in mind. After a few minutes barging our way along we take a right turn and disappear into the Barri Gotic and the face of Barcelona changes again. Now the streets are narrow and haphazard and looking up always a sense of the long history contained here and, as in Valencia, regularly opening out onto plazas (although they are now placas as Catalan is the official language of Barcelona and the region of Catalonia, though everyone also speaks Spanish).

The varying nature of the city we experienced in this first half hour is just one manifestation of its diversity. It is a world city, with the cosmopolitan feel to match. In many ways it doesn’t feel part of Spain due to Catalonians fierce independence, the more widespread use of English and the more varied range of food. Some things however don’t change with the first two veggie restaurants that we check out — both of which are supposedly ‘open daily’ being closed (this being a Sunday and therefore excluded from the Spanish definition of a day).

Whereas Castellon had been a feast for the ears, Barcelona is one primarily for the eyes. On our first full day we visit two of Gaudi’s most stunning construction. It has often seemed odd to me that unlike, say, the ancient Egyptians or medieval Europeans, we no longer build buildings that take many decades of even over a century to build. Of course modern technology speeds up the process and the lack of narcissistic leaders with absolute power and a direct link to God makes the costs involved harder to justify but it still seemed strange that there wasn’t the occasional exception. Well it turns out there is in the form of La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s crowning glory. Started in 1882 and still a decade or two at least from completion, it is the most unbelievable church I have ever seen. It currently has eight towers of around 100 metres in height, which will eventually number 12 with one for each apostle. In addition there will be taller towers for the four evangelists, one for the virgin Mary and a final one for Jesus himself which will be 170 metres high.

The stone of the spires is intricately carved and on two of the faces of the church elements of the story of Jesus are told. On one side is a quite traditionally but extremely detailed depiction of Jesus’ birth, while on the other his crucifixion is depicted in much starker, simpler modernist style, which is no less dramatic.

Inside there is a cavernous hall held up by many pillars and catenaric curves (the ideal construction for an arch, more difficult to build but stronger than a traditional arc, parabola or hyperbola). That a building based on the century old designs of Gaudi can still look so modern and cutting edge is a testament to his genius.

Awesome as it is, the church’s impact on me is inevitably somewhat muted by the choice of subject matter and I therefore found his Parc Guell an equally impressive and far more moving experience. Freed from the stricutures building a church necessarily imposed on him, he was able to let his imagination run wild. This was immediately evident entering the park through its main gates with a Hansel and Gretel-esque ‘gingerbread’ house either side. It is built on a hill, so climbing up some colourfully designed stairs we come first to a vast hall of pillars with a bulbous roof covered in small mosaic tiles, atop which sits an even more expansive square. To one side is a passageway made from the ground above, it seeming to be a crashing wave rolling down the mountain. The shapes are such that Gaudi’s constructions seem just as natural as the plants around them.

The feast continues the next day with a visit to the Picasso museum. Rather than for any particular work, this stood out as a demonstration of the true diversity of his work and his all-round technical brilliance. This talent was obvious in his early work, painted when he was as young as 15 and showing his mastery of the traditional techniques he was being taught and various paintings in the style of other masters who he very convincingly mimics. Slowly he begins to experiment, his lines become less rigid and his paintings more interpretations than straight depictions. There is more experimentation as he travels to Paris and is exposed to more styles. We move on through his blue and rose periods. Eventually we reach the cubist paintings for which he is most famous. Their ability to capture a moment so abstractly yet to still tell a story (perhaps even more of one) and connect emotionally is amazing. The highlights for me come at the end of the museum. First his experimentation in ceramic later in his life once again demonstrating his versatility as he adapts his cubist style to best suit this new medium. Then his interpretations of 17th century painter Velazquez’s masterpiece, Las Meninas. In the dozens of paintings here he depicts the scene from that painting both in parts and as a whole. In each, his abstract bold style completely differs from that of Valazquez but somehow he still manages to convey the emotion contained in that original work.

The final artistic experience of our time in Barcelona was a trip to Figures, two hours east of the city and birthplace of Dali. Designed by Dali over the last 20 years of his life, the museum itself is as much one of his works of art as anything hung in the galleries. While he did not have the technical mastery of Picasso, he certainly had an amazing imagination with his works overflowing with innovation, whimsy and the surreal. Highlights include his portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which could only be viewed as such from a great distance (or with modern technology, on the screen of a digital camera) — from any other perspective revealing only a naked women walking off into the sunset; his attempts at 3d art in the form of stereographic images and holograms; and his bizarre pieces of jewellery including a beating heart of rubies and diamonds.

So as to dispel any impressions that this was an art connoisseurs week, plenty of time was left for our usula interests of eating and drinking. On our first few days we visited a couple of great restaurants for veggies — an Indian and an organic buffet. Following the arrival of Hayko and his girlfriend Kathi the visits to veggie restaurants decreased but were adequately replaced by some heavy nights’ drinking (helped along by the 3 euro litres of beer at our hostel and the 3.50 euro bottles of vodka from the nearby supermarket). But after a sleepless final night in which we (ok, me and my new Rangers supporters friends) drank the hostel dry it was time to move on to Morocco.

“The outskirts of Castellón are drab, industrial and rambling, so the centre comes as a pleasant surprise to the few tourists who penetrate.”

Being one of those few tourists I can confirm it certainly is pleasant but that is about the strongest adjective you could use to describe the town. Castellon appears quintessential ‘Middle Spain’ — largely unoffensive and uninteresting. The wide pedestrianised streets are of a kind of which any town in England or Australia or any other Western country would be proud yet they are filled with exactly the same shop fronts found in any of those places — be they multinationals or the Spanish version of high street stores. Perhaps this is best summed up by the elegant guide to the city we found in our hotel room (adventurously titled ‘Vive Enjoy Castellón’) which, at the conclusion of its chapter on the incredible gastronomy the city has to offer, informs us that

“For fans of American food the range of restaurants in the city includes the possibility of enjoying a hamburger in any of of the large chain restaurants… (including) two McDonald’s.”

And yet, peeling away the onion another few layers beyond that described in the Lonely Planet, at least for a couple days in November one finds what must be one of the most remarkable music festivals I have come across anywhere in the world.

The opening night is a sumptuous appertiser of what is to come. Apparently advertised with little more than a poster at the entry to the ‘Centro Municipal de Cultural’ and with entry for free, it nonetheless presents two world class artists. The first who I know nothing of beforehand is Half Asleep. Walking in ten minutes into her set, by the time I find my seat I am already blown away. Her voice is immediately reminiscent of Nico’s with the same deep haunting tone (indeed she later covers one of Nico’s tracks) and her intricate and delicate piano playing provides the perfect accompaniment. However it is her final track which provides the highlight. Swapping her piano for an electric guitar, she plays a song not dissimilar in its beauty and fragility from those which have proceeded it until, reaching its end, she lays down a pretty loop of harmonics on her guitar. Over this sparse background she then sings a wordless tune. By the wonders of moddern technology she is then joined by singer after singer (all her), filling out the glorious choir of which she is the sole member.

The quality of the music is undoubtably enhanced by the wonderful surrounds in which it is played. Holding no more than 100 people, the room is an expansive auditorium clearly more used to staging classical performances. Outside is a simple courtyard in which people sit, chat and smoke between sets. At no point is there any sign of anyone in charge — no bouncer, ticket collector, bar staff, organiser, manager or sound guy. There are no introductions and no annoucements that the next act is about to begin. It seems that the audience’s presence is incidental to the whole event.

It is an impression not diminished when Third Eye Foundation hits the stage. In the course of his set, not once will he look up at the audience or pause to allow them to applaude. Indeed the fact that he is onstage at all comes as something of a surprise.

Many years ago I must have come across the name TEF in enough music reviews to make me decide to check him out. I found one of his albums (I’d actually always assumed it was a group rather than an individual) — You Guys Kill me, which blew me away. It was unlike anything I had heard before with its industrial electronic intensity contrasted with an almost classical feel in its overarching melody and repetative structure. But as of 2001, TEF stopped releasing new material and there I assumed went another great band I would never see live.

The unexpected reacquaintance was everything for which I could have hoped. He too played perfectly in the environs but whereas Half Asleep’s fragility complemented the building’s age, TEF’s industrial tones jarred with it just as his music always had in my head when listening to it at home. His unique mix of drum and bass, folk, classical, hip-hop and genres wide and varied of which I don’t know the name was at once danceable, cinematic and slightly uncomfortable. His final piece was a crackling looped piano sample. As it faded away, he skulled of stage to raptuous applause, doing his best to ensure eye contact was never made. As the lights came up, night one of the Tanned Tin music festival came to a close. I could only dream that the 39 acts to follow in the coming four days, hidden away here in drab, industrial Castellón could come anywhere matching the splendour of opening night.