Summery Newcastle on the Ground Floor

Early train from Sydney lands me in the city of my Alma Mater, Newcastle University.

I have come to see the changes as it is about sixteen years since I've been away.

I decide to alight at the Civic station, one before the final stop, so I can stroll the last kilometres to see if there are changes and I immediately see the foreshore has been totally resumed, renewed and a nice boardwalk all along the harbour is very nice and relaxing. Fishermen are there in the warm sun and I immediately recognise the superior climate that we had here in this Jewel of the North. 

Today is superb, with not a breath of wind but a mild 20 degree temperature enticing the most timid outside. At the Civic is now the Newcastle Museum so I enter for a quick browse. It is, of course, the origins of the Steel City in this Museum, memories of the grimy soot filled city I first arrived in post school in 1962. But they were two memorable and great years for me, if only to give me a taste for the wider world which I soon embraced after quitting this city in 1963 to go to Sydney. But it has certainly changed since then, and also my second visitation in the late nineties when I resumed my studies at the new university showed me that. But it has gone ahead even since then, and I am suitably impressed, at least from the exterior. The interior, its Soul, waits to be discovered. 

The cafe at the museum has nice sandwiches so I buy one to take away and eat on the harbour foreshore looking at  the ferries and tugboats lazily cruising up and down this glistening quiet waterway,  the entrance to the Hunter River where once the capital was meant to be at Morpeth and Maitland, a little higher upstream.

Crossing the railway line, which I have heard is soon to be demolished and replaced with Light Rail from Broadmeadow to the city, I reach Hunter Street, the lone main road of this handsome city. I see that the flagship department store of David Jones has given up the ghost  and it now houses some nondescript  store which looks nameless. That is a disappointing sign, but I wonder it it has relocated to the suburban shopping malls where everyone shops these days - I hope so. Newcastle city remains a holiday spot, being right on several beautiful beaches and now not relying on the BHP steelworks to pollute their skies it depends much more on a tourist trade as it is the gateway to the vineyards of the Hunter Valley as well.

There are many fine things to note about this town, but it remains to be seen if it has really raised itself   above the once country-town mentality it once had, and assumed its rightful position as a worthy second city to Sydney. It certainly deserves that mantle as it has everything going for it. 

So my first impressions are good and my coffee and croissant at this very busy and trendy 'Ground Flooor' cafe on Hunter and Newcomen Streets are proof of its progress. I want to see the Newcastle beach before I leave on the 2.15 train to Woy Woy, there to meet up with Malcolm and Dean. A busy and thought-provoking morning I have already had.

Jogging here too...

On the beautiful harbourside...

Also with the kids...

Coffee quite good,

Especially at this trendy cafe on Hunter St Mall

..even a nice croissant.

Old friends getting together...

Day 1, Sydney cyclone!

When Sydney does storms, it really knows how to do them. Last night at my bro's house in Matraville I felt the roof was to be lifted  off, and the rain came rumbling down. Incredibly nothing was uprooted as br feared it might given the sandy soil near his home. But all well and am out after a hot porridge, into a chilly wet morning, and no, I did not prepare myself for this eventuality, Sydney in October is always HOT!

A perfect coffee at the Coffee Club at Maroubra Junctuon, my first stop to post T's parcel to Melbourne. Then in to the car registry at Bondi and lunch with other bro at his monastery. A big day ahead of me with Seymour Centre and a Sondheim Musical tonight with good friend PK.

This Junction is always very busy

Excellent coffee!

Sydney trip

Early arrival as I like to do at Wellington airport where all is quiet but organised. Some good staff at Air NZ show me how to electronically get my boarding pass, and there are no problems with weighing my carry-on. I should never have worried. Now as I am two hours early I can relax with a coffee and read the GQ I extravagantly  bought at the airport shop. It is a big one with lots to read in the UK edition so I will be able to catch up with all the London gossip, still quite close to my heart strangely...lol!

Also found a new journal for my dreams, entitled, Aoteraroa, Land of the long whilte cloud, a suitable book for my dream-filled nights in Wellington.

So all is in order, and it seems it will be cool and wet in Sydney, merde, but so be it, at least I am used to it! I may as well have something solid to eat here as there will be no food on board worth eating and then I arrive in Sydney at six pm, their time.

Coffee....

...still rugged up....

New purchases to start my trip!

Quiet Monday

These are the quiet scenes at home as I spend my penultimate day relaxing, packing, planning, all for my five day trip to OZ!

But really, it is a trip overseas, passport and all, with all the associated trials and tribulations, however miniscule they may be. I have to make sure all is in order at home, bills are paid, phone numbers left and everything is also prepared for my five days, especially now that my plans are to include a funeral at a hitherto unknown crematorium near Chatswood somewhere. But with the miraculous aid of the internet I have my multiple bus trip planned to the minute and all is under control. The only thing I need to confirm is Hadrian's meeting at the Art Gallery of NSW on Thursday at 1pm. I may ring him now from the airport. Am still not completely au fait with my phone's ability to be used in Sydney, but I think I'll just wing it and see what bill I get next month. 

The Interfaith meeting at At Andrew's went well, four people only were there,  but more was achieved than before and we are now officially on their mailing list, having invited all interested people to our Spiritual New Year on October 22. It will be fascinating to see if anyone comes, but I doubt it.

Then on to my regular swim at Kilbirnie and it went well with the lovely men who join me there to try and keep fit. Home to a busy household of three young people all vying for talk-space in the kitchen where so much is going on I just retreat to my space and relax. I don't know what I have created here but it is organic, and it is growing!!

At Tom's for coffee and the Zoo

After a very big night of Scottish Dancing at Lower Hutt where I returned at the quite late hour of midnight, I slept in and woke to another beautiful sunny day with  the two boys sleeping in even later. Fir was already at her job, loving her work as she does. The Radio program is on today and then my dancing at night, this is the total of my today's activities. However a text from Tom allows me to change plans and have a nice home made coffee with him and Brent at his home, catching up on the news and stories of his country home in Hawkes Bay of which he shows me several photos. It was formerly the post office and still has the original red telephone box out front. He bought it for a song and has transformed it of course, also with a small rental property at the back. Tom is nothing if if not canny with  money.

I then decide to take a drive to the Zoo to see where it is and also have a quiet ginger cake with another coffee while I await the three o'clock  RV for the radio program this afternoon with G and D.  The zoo is easily accessible, as is everything here, and the day is sunny with a cool breeze blowing as I sit ouside with some young people and have a nice coffee. 

Tom has lent me a book by an Indian Sikh, called  'Chef', rather fitting for me as it is set in Kashmir and the young hero is actually a chef, exactly as is my young housemate Sonny. I'm sure I will learn a lot from reading it.

 The Wellington Zoo, btw, looks excellent, if a little small, but then it is fitting for a city the size of Wellington. I am back here in November to hear the Glamaphones sing their final concert for the year in the 'Wild' theatre. I look forward to it, but am now enjoying the Indian novel forgetting momentarily that in two days I will be in the hurley-burley that is Sydney.

Tom's coffee house...

...with Brent hard at work cleaning the door for painting.

The crowd at the Zoo Cafe in the sun...

In the smokers area, back of the Laundry...

Back for a quick hamburger at The Laundry, like the Library, a very popular venue, this time on a pretty balmy Sunday evening with some live music and even a life-model art session for those aspiring artists amongst us.

The radio program went well and I even dropped DH home to his house at Kilbirnie, he wanted a ride in Bella, he said, but it left me a bit tight for arriving at ballroom dancing at 7pm. I'll have to let him know next time of my tight schedule as I don't think anyone has such a tight a schedule as I do, especially on Sunday afternoon. Now on to the dance....

Bordeaux on Saturday

I am in Newtown to go to the market, but of course also for a coffee and French patisserie, this time a 'Royale', a choux pastry stuffed with custard and even chocolate, a bit of an indulgence I must say. But the weather is fantastic and I need to alleviate the sadness of hearing of the passing of my Sydney friend, a very sad end brought about by her condition of anoxeria nervosa. She died from not eating and her body rebelled, leaving her Mum, my good friend, distraught but in some way relieved as the long, long suffering was now over. Helen was not meant to be of this world and she let everyone know. 

She was a brilliant doctoral mathematician and she had just embarked on another degree in Law. Her plan would have hopefully to be able to save the starving nations of the world with whom she totally identified, to the point where she refused to eat any more than they would eat, resulting in the need to eat nothing, and her body eventually just shut down. My Sydney trip now will be one of a funereal nature, with my excursion north to Soldiers Point to see Jean no longer happening.  I will instead be at Jean's side at the crematorium at Chatswood.

Life steps in when one can only think about making plans. Vale Helen and may your next life be a more fulfilling one for you.

Looking out from the very French Bordeaux Cafe in boho Newtown

Frontal view with coffee

Waiting to cross..

Last night I had a Friday night film hit at the Cuba Lighthouse seeing a new English movie called 'Pride', a fictionalised true story about a group of gays and lesbians who helped the Welsh miners when they were on strike in 1985 during the Thatcher reign in England. The film culminated with the miners arriving in London a few years later to lead the Gay Pride March, thanking the gays and lesbians who helped them in their fight. 

It was a melodramatic, schmalzy movie made to make you feel good, with several stereotypical gays and lesbians throughout, and the showing of the awful ignorance and homophobia which still existed in parts of the UK in the mid-eighties. The law had changed in the mid-seventies about being gay, but society took a while to catch up, a bit the same way it is here in NZ at the moment. There is now a very progressive law but in many parts of the country an ignorant and homophobic atmosphere still  exists. Bill Nighy gave a great controlled performance as a Welshman who only at a very late age declared to his wife that he too was gay. A nice touch but one of the very few in an otherwise heavy handed and a tad patronising approach to the whole affair. The arrival of AIDS was touched upon, and one character (not very well drawn) was observed to be still alive at the ripe age of 65 years. Where does that put me, at seventy next year!

More local colour...

The Beach Babylon Cafe

It's a long time since I was ever here but I felt it a good day today to have another taste of the seventies in Wellington. For this is the epitome of all that is kitch in the that swinging era and it hasn't been forgotten but brought to life with a vengeance, at this rather chic retro-cafe on Oriental Bay, a place where the billionaires live, and others too, of course. After all this is the land of equality.  

Am sitting here patiently waiting. The waitess knows I am here as she has brought me a desultory flagon of tap water. I had brought my own glass. But this girl has  totally forgotten me. Such is the price of grey hair and old age, never so keenly felt as here in this hip young cafe, ironically eulogising and commemorating a bygone era, my era, to be exact. I call the waitress over and a coffee and cake soon arrive, the coffee smelling quite strong, something I may learn to regret tonight as it is nearly two o'clock already. Now back to finish my engrossing Korda book. It is quite  a saga this story of the three Korda brothers conquering the film industry in Great Britain, I can't put it down.

I

Young hipsters at this popular bayside caff.

Serving seventies smoothies and milkshakes

With a fabulous view....

The bleached, beached owner of 70's Beach Babylon Cafe

This cafe is called the Beach Babylon, and situated above it, is aptly named The White House. This is a famous haute cuisine restaurant, tres cher, which has recently been demobilised and relocated somewhere else. But the building, it appears, has quite a history, even in the short term. It is the closest cafe to Roseneath, and my home, that exists, so really, it is my local caff!