Category: Travel

I Lion King

On By cjx07sterIn Dreaming, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

They laughing point in wonder, when the truck coming sunup and sun-downer.

Each day rolling and stumbling over the quick earth.  Man paths criss cross over my kingdom all over, all directions, like incessant searchlights, like the bright bright tracker light at night. His swinging arm fast left and right from the tracker seat.   It’s an old seabed of time covered in grass and acacia bush and other plants I don’t really know the names of.  I don’t bother  with the plants, more a meat eater myself, and it has to be fresh mind, no more than a couple of days lying in the sun.  Usually I don’t worry, if I don’t get to the kill in time, well there are others to finish things off. We’re all hungry and today has looked promising, but nothing…  Everything this morning was good and fast and clever, and I guess we just have run out of luck.  I am getting a bit old sure enough, but that is not the issue.  No.. It’s the leg really… bastard…. My fault really.  Getting a bit old, but then I tried to get in on the hunt for a small buffalo, and of course, messed it up.  Should have left it to the girls.  They would have had him.  Instead we all go hungry, and I am here sitting on a lame leg with hurt pride.

Still yesterday we finished off the young elephant.  Not much left of him now, since the young cubs and their mum finished off the remains.  Something strange about the trunk though.  Couldn’t eat it.  Perhaps the calf was sick.  Not sure.  Told the young fuzzies,” leave the trunk for the buzzards.”

They’ve arrived.  Took their time to find us.  My lioness’ were a bit clever for them, led them off the usual track for a bit.  But Sally with the spotlight is too good.  Sally has been around, and she watches the other animal kind, who of course if you know are a dead giveaway for a kill. Sitting back in the shadows of the game.  But there Sally was, sitting on the front of the truck in the tracker seat…  So sure of her self and her triumph in finding us all.  The newbies are sitting in the back seats, all eyes and cameras clicking.  Somewhat scared of the whole thing.  I sit there in the spotlight though.  I’ve had enough for the day really.  It’s the leg, a back one.  I can walk ok, but don’t ask me to spend a lot of energy all at once now.  The dust and cool earth is kinder at night.  I’ll wait here a bit.  Perhaps the females will get something soon.  I have an idea about the mountain, but then that is at least 5 miles away across the plain.  Still the spotlight shines.  The newbies are taking snaps with their cameras and phones.  The driver is explaining how life is out here.  He knows a lot really, too much, it’s more than a game to this guy.  He is a hunter, out to show he is smarter than any of us.  Which he is.  No question.  He know’s his place.  Never had to use the gun.  Never even taken it out of the case in anger.  But we become celebrities, the combination of Sally and Terestrius, the driver … it’s too much.

The girls of the pride had caught up, fantastic hunters, but getting lean and a bit mean after no real kills for a day or so.  Everything was quiet really, with a bit of a buzz in the truck with the newbies, glad to have got to see us all.  I looked over at them.  The girl teenager in the middle of the truck looked away.  A little frightened perhaps.  Seeing me up close and personal after all this anticipation. Sally was still grinning a bit in the tracker chair out front.

Sally flick’s off the searchlight, and the drive off looking for the others.

Yes tonight, there won’t be any rest for us.  We will be gone, and walking most of the night.  I really don’t feel like it.  It’s the leg really, but if I wait, what will happen ?  Won’t one of my brother’s sons younger and faster, take his chance ?  He will kill me for sure ?  Take his chance for the pride.  A good pride really but then again, only one can be king.  Still I am not done yet.  I will be miles away with the rest of them, up in the mountains before dawn and seeing what the light without the tourist trucks will bring.  The light of a new hungry day looking down on the criss crossed tracks across my kingdom.

Get off my Territory Boys – The Girls are mine

On By cjx07sterIn Strategy and Game Theory, TravelLeave a comment

Image

I’ve been on holiday as previously posted, in Paris, but just prior to going there, I had the fantastic opportunity to visit South Africa.  People say to me, so what happened, did you go on Safari.  Well as a matter of fact, I did do what is commonly called a game drive.  Game Drive’s are fairly structured experiences, where you go lodge at a game park, IMPODIMO was the one I stayed at with a group of associates as a kind of wind down from a pretty hectic promotional event at Sun City earlier in the week.

The Game Drive takes place either early morning or early evening, and in this particular case, we set out after a late lunch and decided to go looking for lions.  Our party was not there to shoot anything but photographs, and I have to admit my professional photographic equipment consisted of a flip camcorder and a black and white film camera.  I think I filled up the roll of 24 black and whites the day before on my olympus mu 35mm snap camera and so was down to using a hand held flip HD camera to record the experience.

We really had a fantastic guide and tracker on our truck.  The truck was a landrover and purpose built for the kind of bush bashing they do out on the game parks in South Africa…. but on with the story.

In our case we were looking for lions.  We really hadn’t seen any so far.  I had seen a bunch of jackals trying to climb a tree to get an eagle, which to my mind was the picture of futile endeavour.  Perhaps the jackals had a bet with each other, it was like that… but back to the story…

Yes lions were the go, our driver guide and tracker were pretty sure they knew roughly where the lions were… on the far side of the park.  To get there we had to drive for an hour i guess to the North East edge.  Our normally sedate type of driving was interrupted by a big bull elephant, who seemed intent on:-

a. Not letting us get to see his herd of 50 or so female elephants

b. Frustrated with not being able to get with any of them himself

c. Other elephant things I could not figure out

So after a game of cat and mouse with the elephant, it decided to chase us off the road and into the bush, where our intrepid driver and tracker carefully outsmarted said large black bull elephant by playing a decoy-waiting game.

So this is about how close the elephant got to the truck before we high tailed it out to the bush on the other side of the road, still in full sight of the elephant.

I could write more on this post about the strategy by which we were able to outsmart it, and the fact that eventually we did get to drive through or past the herd of 50 female elephants, but that is another story…

I could write about how we caught up with the lions and how we took sundown photos of them, and how just when we were all settled down, same said male elephant came trundling through the darkness and scared off all the lions at a frightening pace, as well as our mates in trucks..but that is another story..

A Bridge in the Fanfare for the Workers of Sydney

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Australia, Engineering, Music, TravelLeave a comment
The Sydney Harbour Bridge

It’s made of iron and rivets and paint. Tons of it.  It crosses the beauty of Sydney Harbour and spans two sides of the emerald city of Sydney, NSW.  It’s orientation catches the light of the sunrise to the east and frames the perfect sunsets in the west.  When you cross it at night the light zooms up from below to catch the strong arch, home to thousands of bats and insects which fly around up there.  The Australian flags fly at it’s zenith and seem to state something for the nation of Australia.  You see flags are a rarity in Australia, compared to the USA, where everyone has one.  In Australia only important buildings have a flag to fly.  Up on the bridge there are flags flying on the great creation of the workers 80 years ago today.  Dr John Bradfield’s original idea and masterpiece developed from around 1900,  it opened on 19th March 1932 amid much fanfare.  Notably in true Australian style, someone stole the show on a horse and cut the ribbon with his sword.

Today 80 years on the sun was shining in the morning, as I crossed the bridge on the train.  It is the feast day or St. Joseph patron saint of the worker. It took about 100,000 man years of work to create it. No computers calculating the odds, no adding machines, it was all done on slide rules and rooms of drawings and sketches all calculated down to the point where expectedly the two  sides of the bridge met.

Of course everyone has seen the bridge, it really gets a birthday every year on New Year’s Eve when it acts as the mounting bracket for thousands of fireworks to help celebrate the new year.  Yes, although originally set up to carry traffic linking the two sides of Sydney Harbour, the bridge has developed into a performance space for the common man.

As I was crossing, looking up into the arch this morning, musicians from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were scaling the bridge and getting ready to play.  It was their anniversary as well I understand.  A fitting choice of piece being Aaron Copland’s “A Fanfare for the Common Man”.  This piece was in fact originally commissioned by Eugene Goossens whilst he was conducting orchestras in the USA, who eventually became the first permanent conductor of the Sydney Symphony.  I like the piece, I wish I had heard it, but the wind and the rain probably carried the sound to where only the seagulls and St Joseph and maybe Dr John Bradfield, who conceived the design and who made it his own quest in the early part of the 20th century.  Happy Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge !!

— See report on the bridge fanfare – 

St Patrick’s Ireland

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

 

A fishing port in Ulster somewhere

Patrick recounts that he had a vision a few years after returning home:

I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish”. As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.

The Atlantic wind rushes up from the sea at the slieve league cliffs on the west coast of Ireland.

The special gravity of ANNORA - NARIN Donegal

I spent the night at the ANNORApub drinking Guinness with my friend John, his brother Aidan and sister Nora [who owned the pub].  It was raining and cold and we got there late.  It was dark and we were somewhere on the northwest coast of Ireland in Narin Donegal, a place and county I did not know.  I think the Irish gravity is strange.  I was fascinated by the settling of the Guinness in the glass.

C'est Finis

I could watch it rather than drink it.  The settling took some 5 minutes but it was magic to watch.  Very good for the blood pressure.  Pure Genius.

Still the genius of Patrick was to be able to bring the cross of Christ to the Druids of  the land, who brought him up apparently, and convince basically all of them to become Christian. Not only that, but do it without any bribes and such. The friendliness of the Irish when they get together, is what going to Ireland is all about.  The birthday party I went to, lasted 3 days, and the guiness watching event in Narin was the last of the 3 days.  The first having started in Ballycastle over to the east.

Not far from the Giant’s Causeway in county Antrim is Ballycastle,  a little town with a racecourse I remember, cause that is where the party was… not necessarily started.. but went on most of the freezing night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since going there, the Global Financial Crisis hit and I still marvel at the way Irish people can handle these things, and not get so bothered.  I tell you there is something strange about the gravity in Ireland which allows the people and the beer to be so poetic inclined, and to look on life in an unworried way, sensing when humour and craic is required to understand situations without logic.

The Irish world of tourist and locals were passing by in Dublin the day before I left.  It was October and everything on sale. I reflected on what a place was Ireland, since Patrick came, and was glad that I had attended a call, albeit a 3 day birthday party across the top end. One of the friendliest weekends ever spent.