Unexpected Glasgow

I knew nothing about Glasgow, except that it is Scotland's largest city; population 1.2 million, and it was built on heavy industry, ship building and poor living conditions. When we stepped out of the station it was indeed a bit grungy and rough. It looked and felt and sounded like Melbourne, and it was raining.

 At our hostel, all the tourist brochures seemed to recommend day trips out of the city. How would we fill in the next two days? So, we went for a walk, and just around the corner, we found Buchanan Street. This picture does not really do justice to the very impressive Victorian and early 20th century buildings that line this pedestrianized street, but it gives you an idea of how many people were there.

In the city square, called George III square, there is no statue of King George but there is another massive monument to Walter Scott with a more life sized statue of Robert Burns, and a very impressive city hall.

The architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh is celebrated all over the city. This is inside the old water tower (in case the printing press caught on fire)  of the Glasgow newspaper building designed by Mackintosh, and now a centre of architecture and design.

Sheryl contemplating the view from the observation deck.

Glasgow has the feeling of a city undergoing regeneration and transformation, restoring many old buildings, demolishing others, building very modern new buildings and large spaces where docks, warehouse and ship building yards once stood, but now wait for redevelopment.

Sports and concert arenas on former ship building sites.

 The University of Glasgow a very elaborate gothic building.

The Kelvin Grove Art Gallery is an over-the-top Spanish baroque building in red sandstone.

Here I met The McNab, a famous painting of the 16th chief of the McNab clan, who died in 1816, was 6 foot 3 inches tall, never married but fathered over 32 children, associated with the top of society but drank away the McNab fortune. Not sure how I feel about being descended from the McNabs with a chief like that! A real larger than life character with a larger than life portrait.

The daffodils are out in the Pollok Country Park, about 20 minutes south of the city centre.

I do like the Glaswegian sense of humour. Not only do they have buildings unofficially known as as the armadillo and the cheese grater because of their appearance, and Billy Connolly was born here, but there is a running joke with the Duke of Wellington statue that started in the early 1980s. Someone decided to put a traffic cone on the Duke's head. The council removed it. The cone reappeared. Every time the council removes the cone, it reappears within a few days. Sometimes it is also on the horse's head. It is now so iconic you can buy souvenirs based on the cone headed statue.

Tomorrow we begin what started this whole trip off in the first place. We begin walking from the edge of Glasgow through the highlands to Fort William - 156 kms along the West Highland Way.

Weather forecast - 9 to 12 degrees and a shower in the morning. Pretty good for Scotland!

The story begins

If words be magic, and ghosts still roam the houses in a city that celebrates its writers, Edinburgh has countless stories to tell.

Yes, I am taking photos in a toilet. This is the Elephant House Cafe where J K Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

We actually asked a librarian in the Central Library for directions to the cafe. That was his good old fashioned reference query for the day.

Can you see J K looking down on my head? I hope the magic rubs off. Hopefully she won't mind that I am one of the few people who has never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies. I just never got around to it.

There was an interesting exhibit on the life of Scottish author Muriel Spark, in the National Library across the street.

There are numerous quotes on the wall of the very post-modern parliament building. 

Celebrating history:

Celebrating wildness, and the weather:

Good advice for writers:

Not many capital cities have a wild wind swept mountain right in their centre. We hiked up Arthur's Seat to see 360 degree vews of Edinburgh. The walk literally begins beside Parliament House.

Can't help but love a city whose largest monument right in its centre is to a writer, Walter Scott.

Another literary encounter. Robert Ferguson, who was a very strong influence on the poetry of Scotland's most famous poet, Robert Burns. Outside the cemetery where he is buried.

We saw the homes of the rich and famous. Holyrood Palace. No photography allowed inside, but it was interesting. Lots of stories of kings, queens, intrigue and murder. The current queen holds a garden party for 8,000 guests every year. Mary Queen of Scots watched her secretary murdered by being stabbed over 50 times in a tiny dining room off her bedroom.

And the homes of the poor and middle class, built over top of in the 1700s. This is a model of the 10 stories of homes that are now part of the foundations of the Royal Exchange. No photography allowed in the maze of rooms now underground, or more accurately, under the buildings. We heard stories of over crowded poverty, 20 cows kept in a room, the bubonic plague, Mary Queen of Scots's house arrest here prior to being imprisioned in England and eventually beheaded and the ghost of a little girl, locked in her house and abandoned by her family when she caught the plague.

We were overwhelmed by the stories of Scotland's past in the National Museum. We went there twice but could not see it all. These are some of the famous Lewis chesssmen, 12th century Viking chess pieces, beautifully carved whale ivory found on the island of Lewis.

Gave Bobby a pat. He sits outside the Greyfriars church and cemetery where he sat on his master's grave for 14 years.

In the cemetery there were yet more literary encounters as there are quite a few writers buried here with Edinburgh Castle brooding over them.

The weather has been typically Scottish for our first 3 days, and very COLD, just 6 degrees with a wind chill factor of 1 degree. It is, apparently, spring.

It has been a very busy, and fascinating two days in Edinburgh. We are exhausted and probably still a bit jet-lagged.

Tomorrow, we catch the train to Glasgow, Scotland's largest city.

In search of Country

Two islands on opposite sides of the world are competing for me; fighting for my attention, for my loyalty and filialty, pulling at my heart. 

nu

I went a walking a week or two ago, near Sheffield, and found myself having lunch on a carpet of fallen leaves in a wood of European beech and pine trees. I searched in vain for a sighting of familiar eucalyptus or wattle trees. I really did feel like I was in a British wood. But the birds were wrong. The raucous conversation of the black cockatoos eating in the pine trees told me I was in Australia. The call of a black currawong, which is a sound that always clutches at my heart, seemed to say 'Remember Tasmania."

My family have been in Australia since the very beginning of white settlement. Some were on the first fleet to land in Botany Bay in 1788, and others came to Tasmania in 1808, just four years after Hobart was settled. A white person cannot get much more Australian, or Tasmanian, than that. For over 200 hundred years, my ancestors have been in this country, but in Britain - in England, Ireland and Scotland, my ancestors go back thousands of years. Is it possible that there something in my DNA that draws me powerfully back to the island of Britain? Is Britain more my 'Country' than Australia? 

I was listening to the radio in the car one day, to a sound bite from a new film called "Carriberrie VR" which is a virtual reality film exploring Aboriginal connection to their Country through dance, narrated by David Gulpilil. He said:

Through our ancestors we are connected to the Country. And through our Country, our body is connected to the ancestors.

To gain just a tiny understanding of that connection to Country that Australia's first people have, through being in the landscape my ancestors inhabited for thousands of years, would be something special. That indefinable but powerful sense of connection and belonging through being physically in a place where is a deep ancestral connection seems to be a possible explanation for the force that draws me back to Scotland and England.

One week until Sheryl and I land in Edinburgh to explore some of the landscapes of our Scottish ancestors.

A snippet from our last trip:

http://jillswanderment.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/landscapes-of-my-ancestors.html



Queenstown - not what you expect

Many Tasmanians think of Queenstown on our wild west coast, as a dismal cold town in a hole in the ground. It is not. While is does rain a lot down that way, when you get a good day it is stunning. This was my weekend:

The drive down

 Mt Owen from Iron Blow (There's walking and mountain biking trail gold up in them there hills)

 Can you see the new short walk clinging to the mountain side?

 Soon to be officially opened, it takes you closer to the top of Horsetail Falls for a better view.

 Much of the hills are still beautifully bare but the forest is returning. Wattle, pink and white heaths are flowering now.

 Main street - unique and historic

 The little blue house just up from the main street is for sale. There is a lot of my sweat in it as I helped my son to fully renovate it.

 The drive home

And then the weather changed and the showers came.

My first bushwalk - in my "happy place"

It has been nine months since the fall - my fall, on a mountain, the one that ruined my leg. But, yesterday I did my first 'real bushwalk' in nine months. I walked around Dove Lake at Cradle, in the snow, and it was magnificent! Normally, this is only a very short easy walk for me, but I was unsure how my hamstring deficient leg would cope, especially with the steps and hill on the western side of the lake.

 Our cabin, hidden in the bush was called "Pademelon" and there were paddies nibbling bark and lichen among the trees. We enjoyed a cosy evening, with a dancing fire while snow silently transformed the landscape outside.

 We woke to snow outlined leaves and trees, and about four inches of snow on the car.

 

 The Alfred Hitchock-ish, a la "The Birds", view at breakfast. The currawongs waited and watched our every move through the kitchen window.

This large fellow had a deformed beak - an extra, extra long top hook.

The Dove Lake circuit is one of the most popular walks at Cradle. It would be interesting to know how many thousands of people walk it each year, attired in every thing from solid walking boots and wet weather clothing (Sheryl and me), to pink slippers and a white overcoat. Yep, that is what we saw yesterday. No thongs though - at least there was no one stupid enough to think that thongs would be suitable walking attire in the snow, as they often do in summer at Cradle.

We waited over an hour for a shuttle bus as the road was closed to all but 4WD vehicles, but silly people in ordinary cars ignored the signs. Grrrrr. Amazingly there were no accidents. We had an interesting conversation with a ranger about the overwhelming visitor numbers, over stretched transport services, the congested road and how they are really hoping the new visitor centre which looks like it will finally start construction soon, might make life better for staff and visitors alike, as the current temporary buildings which were supposed to used for only two years, not ten; just cannot cope.

It was snowing when we arrived at Dove Lake. It snowed off and on, as we walked. The sun managed to briefly sneak through the clouds a few times.

 Snow crystals on yellow gum.

 A brief view of Little Horn.

 Snow sprinkled myrtle.

The elegant curves of Pandani

 Bird's eye view of the same pandani

  Curving gum with snow

Sheryl walking near the end of the lake. We only saw Cradle like this for a few minutes.

 The perfect picnic spot at the end of the lake. We did not make the snow people. If you look closely you will see the one on the left is a snow woman with a top hat! (Thanks to Sheryl for the photo)

Cascading icicles

 I made it to the top of the hill with only a little stiffness in my leg! And a few twinges later during the night, but I am very, very happy, and relieved, with my hamstring performance. Next time, I will try a bigger hill and/or a longer walk.

 It was snowing when we arrived back at the carpark and queued for another hour to get the bus back!

I hope the new developments solve this problem. Gustav Weindorfer may have called Cradle Mountain the place where "time does not matter", but when you have limited time to enjoy this special place, time does matter. Time spent standing in a queue, is time wasted.