Tag Archives: fish

Australia 2011: Cairns

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We came to Cairns and to an enormous, well-appointed, established site on the edge of town. All was good, other than that a small bird, which I believed to be an Australian robin took a dislike to my sunhat and descended from its tree by the gate to attack it whenever I went that way.

The town is unremarkable and pleasant enough, with a variety of bars and restaurants. The seafront promenade is glorious, though, sparkling ocean combined with clusters of pelicans and other wildlife.

We were outside a bar having a beer when an uncomfortable incident occurred. There had been a group of indiginous Australians in the shade of the trees opposite the bar who’d been drinking. A woman approached the nearest table inside the barrier of the bar and accosted another woman sitting at the table, demanding to know what she was staring at. While it was unpleasant for the woman who was the target of this verbal attack,this was our first experience of the anger that native Australians clearly feel and I still reflect on it today, although I have no idea of the answer. Inequality exists in every country in the world, with some countries dealing better with it than others.

The main purpose of visiting Cairns was to visit the Great Barrier Reef and we soon got ourselves booked on a trip there, lunch included. I had no idea how I would cope with a sightseeing tour of an underwater wonder of the world, since I am barely a swimmer and have an innate horror of being underwater. The times when I’ve been submerged I’ve found to be unpleasant, painful [to the sinuses] and terrifying. I’ve written about my experiences with swimming in a previous post https://gracelessageing.com/2013/09/05/when-you-know-you-are-out-of-your-depth/. But now I knew that the only way I would see the Great Barrier Reef properly would be to overcome my horrors and get under the water.

Once underway on the boat we were given a comprehensive talk by an enthusiastic guide which came some way to allaying my fears. They were not only used to those of us who are not water-babies but evangelistic about everyone seeing the reef and its inhabitants, determining that nobody would return having not experienced the marvels of this phenomenon. We’d be coached, cajoled and cared for. I relaxed…a bit.

On arrival to the spot wwhere we were to explore we got changed and kitted out with snorkels, life vests and flippers. Husband, though not himself a water refusenik, is no more a fan of water leisure than I. Nevertheless he was perfectly confident to get down under, having been a regular body-boarder at home. We nerve-wracked, weedy ones went to get our tutorial on snorkelling and a short practice and I was heartened to not be alone in my paranoia.

In the event we got to cling on to a rubber ring and dip our heads in enough for a proper underwater experience. I’d like to say that from that point on I never looked back- that I became a virtual mermaid and devotee of wild swimming- but I’d be lying. I’m still not a fan of swimming and unless I’m too hot I’ll do nothing more than paddle. But I was thrilled to be able to see the colourful fish and corals at the reef and especially the enormous, tame, blue fish that joined us for some of the time, fed and groomed by the boat crews to be fearless among the spluttering tourists.

I didn’t stay in for hours. Twenty minutes or so was about my limit. I wasn’t so good at snorkelling and had ingested more salty seawater than was comfortable. Husband stayed in longer. We enjoyed a buffet lunch- much appreciated, and returned to Cairns, but while I’d only spent a very short period looking at the wondrous reef I felt a sense of triumph that I’d managed it!

Then it was time to move on to the next Australian adventure…

Grace is also known as the novelist, Jane Deans. Her new novel, The Conways at Earthsend is now out and available from Amazon, Waterstones, Goodreads, W H Smith, Pegasus Publishing and many more sites. Visit my website: janedeans.com or my author page on Facebook: (1) Jane Deans, Novellist, Short Fiction and Blog | Facebook.

Hot on the Tourist Trail

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While it is too hot to do much during the daytime, we feel obliged to take a few excursions, so an evening trip out to Bhoput, an alleged ‘fishing village’ seems manageable.

It is clear when we arrive that ‘fishing village’ is not such an accurate description for Bhoput, whose lanes are not only teeming with tourists but lined both sides of each and every street with stalls selling every kind of touristy object imaginable [plus many unimaginable items]. Amongst all of this rampant commerce there is little sign of the historic buildings and character we were promised, but we are not unhappy, since the broad sweep of bay is beautiful and the many restaurants offer a mouth-watering range of fish and seafood dishes, which is what we are after.

Towards the end of a food stall street, where stallholders are fanning their wares to ward off flies, an open air bar beckons. It’s flanked by a beautiful shrine adorned with shrubs and flowers.

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Shrines are everywhere-and sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Along one country lane many of them have ladders leading up to the platform and I’m curious as to why. Perhaps it’s ease of access? They are also decked with offerings-drinks, objects, flowers and food items

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Of course amongst the food stalls there are the customary deep-fried insects.

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While this may well be the future of protein for world nutrition we’re not tempted to snack on crunchy crustacea right this moment. Instead we peruse the plethora of fish and seafood restaurants that overlook the bay and I remember that it is, in fact Valentine’s Day. So as we settle into a table with a view over the sea, tables are filling up along the beach, too.

We choose a seafood starter to share, the calamari soft and not at all chewy [as it mostly is] then grilled fish with salad and corn. The sky grows dark as a boat with red sails glides out to sea, lit up, a Valentine’s party perhaps?

We decide we’ve probably done Bhoput and go to meet our taxi.

A walk around the backstreets of our area takes us through more market stalls and then we stumble upon a large Tesco department store. We’ve seen plenty of ‘Tesco Lotus Express’ outlets but this is the first large store we’ve spotted. Intrigued, we go inside [we’re still after coffee-making equipment after all]. In the entrance there are smaller shops with gifts and a lurid play area.

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The store is familiar and yet strange, but after an extensive search we find a coffee filter. It is disorientating to wander a supermarket that is so well-known to us at home and see the range of products so unfamiliar to us, like stepping into the bathtub and finding it full of Cherryade.

On the return we stop to look at the local temple, modestly situated on a corner at the top of town and a kind of oasis away from the teeming streets. We have yet to look at any more of Koh Samui but the weather feels too hot for traipsing around. There are, however a few days left before we return…

 

 

 

The Rain in Spain

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Comillas is a small, pretty town, a stone’s throw from the Northern Spanish coast and home to architect Antonio Gaudi’s ‘El Capricho’, a typically wacky house commissioned by a wealthy lawyer. It is one of Gaudi’s first works and one of only three buildings of his outside Catalonia.

On Good Friday of Semana Santa, Comillas is seething with day trippers and we are glad to have caught the bus here from our site. We join the queue for El Capricho and once we’ve bought tickets we have to run the gauntlet of hordes of visitors and guided tours throughout the rooms and on the balconies. But it is worth it. The villa is a joyous, colourful creation bedecked in sunflower glazed and vibrant green tiles, odd terraces and tiny windows giving on to views of the town’s terracotta roofs or of the surrounding parkland.

The rooms are beautiful, restful spaces with examples of quirky furniture and clever technology like slatted blinds that roll up sideways to open. This would be a wonderful home-and I hope it was enjoyed by the inhabitants!

Comillas is choc-a-bloc with market stalls, the cafes and restaurants full to bursting. We content ourselves with an ice cream in the square while we watch the stallholders pack up-then head to our bus stop for the ride back.

Next day we set off to Cudillero, an authentic fishing village akin to a Cornish coastal settlement. There is enough time for a walk down into the town, although it is a steep and treacherous one, the pavement horribly narrow and winding. En route the street is lined with buildings in various stages of decline and later exploration reveals a town of quaint charm but shocking decadence. Here and there are pockets of redevelopment-tricky given that the sides of the ravine are impossibly steep and homes are accessed by a tracery of stone steps, slopes and pathways in a higgledy-piggledy web.

Down at sea level the street is lined with bars and fish restaurants, everyone drinking until about 8.00pm, [by which time we are famished] and at last there are a few diners and we can sit down to peruse the menu. We choose a prawn salad and a seared octopus dish to share and a hake dish each. It is all delicious.

After lunch the next day we find an off-road footpath leading down to the town. We walk down-and up-and down-and up, by which time my knees are wobbly as jelly from steps and slopes.

Time to leave Cudillero. We make for Louro, just beyond Muras and rain sets in with a vengeance. The small town is nondescript but has a good beach along an attractive bay. It rains in a relentless deluge so that by next morning we feel it necessary to hunker down and ride it out.

Then we head off to Santiago de Compostelo, renowned for its rainfall, justified on this occasion as it rains en route, rains when we arrive, rains throughout the visit and continues to rain as we leave. But that, reader is another story…

Bajan Escape [part 2]

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[To continue…]

After a few days it’s clear why Tom and Francine have holidayed here in this hotel in Barbados for 45 years. It’s Tom’s kingdom, his empire. He knows everyone and everything. He spends his days wandering the grounds and pool, chatting to anyone he comes across and teasing the housekeeping staff. When she arrives to their room with a mop and bucket he tells Harriet, ‘Here-let me show you how to do it’. They all adore him. ‘I’m nearly 80!’ he says, grinning and rubbing his bare chest, ‘People think I dye my hair’.

One afternoon we go to Oistins, which boasts an extensive fish market, for a walk to the southern tip of the island. A parade of rocks has been eroded underneath by repeated waves so that they seem to hover above the foam, each wave producing a booming sound as it pounds in and back on itself in a tall plume of spray.

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On Friday nights Oistins Fish Market turns into a huge party with live music and nowhere to sit at the trestle tables that host diners every evening for freshly grilled fish-marlin, lobster tails, shrimp and a plethora of other sea produce. We choose a different night to sample the menu at ‘Uncle George’s’ [recommended by our neighbour, Mike] and we are not disappointed. We also get to chat to 2 young Canadians on a Caribbean tour away from their busy hospital jobs.

In the evenings we stroll to our local ‘KT’s’ bar or a little further into St Lawrence Gap-a magnet for revellers, cocktail seekers and diners, many who’ve hotfooted straight from the cricket ground where England has trounced the West Indies. The tiny bay is lined with bars and restaurants of any and every cuisine and all busy.

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The flight home draws closer. We conquer the mysteries of the public transport system and board a bus to ‘Sam Lord’s Castle’ on the Eastern coast. It is a bone-shaking ride up and across plains, through villages, past the airport; some homes are traditional, single-storey cottages in paint-box hues, others grand mansions in the making, ever more ambitious as we near our destination. There is some confusion when we alight as ‘Sam Lord’s Castle’ is neither a castle nor is it indicated in any way. This is because it is a bus stop, and the driver has not seen fit to tell us we have arrived, with the result that we must travel a few stops back.

Down a narrow road and through a passageway we access the sea at last, the Atlantic crashing against limestone outcrops in mountainous plumes, booming as it ploughs a relentless furrow under each knobbly spur. This is Shark Hole-mentioned in guide books but without a café, a bar, a gift shop or so much as a sign to advertise its thrilling allure, hence the complete absence of human life except for ourselves and a lone fisherman.

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There is little shade as we walk along the rugged coast, needing to cut in at intervals to avoid trespassing over manicured lawns. Fearful of the searing heat and of missing the bus back we return to the shade of ‘Sam Lord’s Castle’ [the bus shelter] where we wait 40 minutes to be rewarded by the appearance of one.

Our water supply was running low when we stepped off the bus outside KT’s bar, where cold beers and washrooms are both very welcome!

Later it’s down to Sharkey’s at St Lawrence Gap for the last supper-coconut prawns at a long table where we’ve been squeezed in between cricket fans and 2 ladies having an earnest conversation about relationships. We wait for our meals [Husband has opted for West Indian curry] and watch plates of wings and bottles of beer go past and I think there could hardly be a better place to holiday in February-unless you know better, Reader, perhaps?

 

A Restaurant Digest

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Once upon a time in a previous life I dreamed of luxuries. These luxuries included such things as unaccompanied expeditions to shoe shops and/or clothes shops, attending the cinema and the theatre, stopping for coffee in cafés, having holidays, spending nights in hotels, visiting salons and, above all, eating out. [This was a life in which any journey must be prepared for by making sandwiches to eat in a lay-by].

In subsequent lives of course I have done all of these luxurious things. The clothes shopping is commonplace as is the coffee stopping. A salon visit is a regular part of life. Hotel stays are occasionally taken.

Despite all this, dining in a good restaurant remains the Holy Grail of luxuries to me.

I’ve posted my feelings about the fare in fast food chains before [Muckdonalds and Yucky Fried Chicken]. Macdonalds does at the least provide free internet and their coffee is acceptable, but their dining experience has to be one of the most impoverished and unsatisfying that exists.

Restaurant meals are about more than the food. Plastic trays with pouches of nasty, salty, fatty little chip sticks and polystyrene boxes containing polystyrene buns sandwiching rubbery, chewy little circles of something grey and burger-ish, the remains of which are to be taken by the consumer and dumped in a bin themselves; to view this activity in a place designed for ‘eating’ presents a vision of Hell. And yet Macdonalds is crammed with customers every day-in Gothenburg, where we stopped to get internet and a coffee, the place was thrusting with hordes of punters of every nationality-those who prefer this ghastly encounter to eating a sandwich on a park bench.

Some of the most enjoyable meals you can have are in modest, unknown, unadvertised cafes, cooked by untrained heros of the culinary world; like the meals we’ve eaten in Portugal, where you are plied with gorgeous nibbly things like olives and dips to sustain you while you peruse the menu and then a big box of fish is brought to the table for you to select your fancy. It will be simply cooked and presented with home-made chips, a salad and some bread.

Or a beach café in Thailand which serves up Tempura vegetables as a starter and the freshest, most appetising vegetables and seafood you can imagine, besides producing an addictive mango smoothie from nothing more than mango and ice.

So don’t serve me anything in a poly-box, or on a shovel, or on a dirty piece of wood or in a tangle of barbed wire [all of these methods of serving meals are being used as I write-including pork loin chops in a urinal]. Give me a plain, clean china plate and simple, beautifully cooked food served in a friendly, un-smarmy, unobtrusive way. OK?

Eating Lessons

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We are approaching the end of another extended trip, meandering around the South of France but this time, with somewhat more sophisticated facilities we have taken advantage of what the French call ‘aires’. The French have taken to motor-homes more than any other nation. The vehicles are becoming larger, more equipped and more elaborate. One result is that an industry has sprung up to address the needs of ‘camping car’ owners with numerous, vast areas set aside for, and only for campervans. Tent campers and caravanners can eat their hearts out. They are not invited.
An ‘aire’ will typically have a services point consisting of clean water, electricity, waste water disposal and a ‘vidange’ [for emptying toilet cassettes]. These facilities are more than enough to satisfy the needs of your average motor-homer. Increasingly aires are unmanned, with entry via a machine like a parking meter. Some are little more than vast car parks with electric points and waste disposal. Others are beautiful, landscaped spaces with attractive planting.
Getting sandwiched in our modest van between two gargantuan motor-homes allows plenty of opportunity to study the dining habits of others. In fact, anyone who is thinking of swapping their regime of TV dinners for something a little more formal, sociologically developed and a more gratifying gastronomic experience should look no further than the French model of dining, which can, it seems take up almost all of each day.
Take the three elderly folk sharing an equally elderly motor-home in an aire at Hourtan Port [for 10€ per night-a lovely, spacious, shady, tree-lined area]. They ambled out together mid morning-two mature monsieurs and a madame-returning at midday laden with bulging plastic bags plus several, substantial ‘artisan’ loaves. The bags turned out to contain dozens of fat, glistening oysters. Lunch was sorted! Later in the afternoon they wandered off again and reappeared with more bags, this time containing kilos of mussels. The next day’s catch was a batch of enormous fish, one of which filled an entire plate. Each meal, of course was accompanied by a bottomless bottle of wine.
At an unashamedly seaside aire in Gruissan a couple nearby would take their breakfast [plucked from the nearest ‘artisan’ boulangerie] of croissants, orange juice and coffee, then cycle off together purposefully. By lunch time their bike baskets would be laden with all the goodies they’d acquired. Lunch was prepared together-a serious and painstaking task of cleaning, chopping, table laying and cooking [no quick sandwich job for them!] There would be three courses and of course, wine. Later they would disappear again to seek out the components of the evening meal, when the procedures would be repeated.
In the small town of Gruissan, market day clogs the streets as everyone turns out to fill their basket with cheeses, charcuterie, fruit and vegetables, olives and preserves. Everything can be sampled before purchase, making the shopping excursion a gastronomic pleasure in itself. We joined the crowds, queuing for tasty lunch items and bearing home the spoils in anticipatory glee.
In contrast, the weekly supermarket drudge seems an impoverished experience, as does the regular ‘what can we have tonight?’ conundrum. Ho hum!