Tag: Travel

Senses Tension Yesterday

On By cjx07sterIn Australia, TravelLeave a comment

Tersiiska Leaves with Water Drops

What kind of rain is this falling ? The sun shining under a grey morning sky with fine rainbow drops falling straight down.  The kind that sucks up perfume on the way and tastes of spring when you wipe it off your face as you walk along the route.

What kind of new perfume is this ? … comes out in spring with apple, jacaranda and azalea blossoms color along the route. The kind rinsed out of the air with the sunny light rain falling onto your hands and face as you walk along the route. The kind with no brand label.

What kind of music is that ? The kind that you hear with random backyard birds by nesting magpies vs territorial minors next conferencing cockatoos soon kookaburras laughing at and the your thoughts coming too.. as you walk along the route.  The kind that defies notation.

What kind of thought is that ? The kind you have when you hear things in your head in competition with the birds and the flowers and the rain and distractions as you walk along the route. The kind that makes ideas and dreams for the future.

What kind of touch was that ? The kind that feels like clinging to you as you walk by brushing the long leaves passed along the route. O If I were blind I’d probably feel it more.

But what kind of green is that ? The kind that corporations write in  power skyscrapers, the kind that the media think in pages of the frightening known or the kind that brushes by you in the soft rain and sunlight under a grey sky with a dozen different scents and sounds with seeming no beginning or end on the day that was yesterday.

 

Photo 365infocus-264 Tersiiska:Flickr  : Story and Text :Blogubarra Copyright 2014

Excuse me Sir – You have to Imagine it

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Engineering, Innovation, TravelLeave a comment

On entering the room, there it was, a submarine so it seemed, all big round and rusty as I recall, and really filling the space, standing tall close to the ceiling, and wall to wall, almost corner to corner.  It looked more like a massive piece of war junk, a bomb perhaps, long not exploded after being left behind.  A modern day artist had found it and installed it in this rather white room of the art gallery.  How long had it been there ? How did they get it in ? Not sure – it looked familiar, yet impossible to really comprehend as something of any use whatsoever. How heavy was it ? It kind of looked solid, but I should have been too heavy if it was solid all the way though maybe.

The room seemed too small for the object and you could not the whole thing from where I stood near the entry. I started over to the left side, and tried to crab my way down the side wall – trying to see behind the thing, to see if there was a nameplate or something.

“Excuse me Sir”, came the command of the supervisor.

-mm.. but there was no line on the floor indicating the viewing limits — I thought..

I tried a bit further in, just a peek behind it is all I wanted..

“Excuse me Sir” !!

I backed out, oh well – I would just have to imagine it, since I could not see behind it.

How will the egg remember it’s me

(who backed out with care in the gallery)

when it has to remember

a rusty old chicken

It’s laid there to be

Later I ventured into another small room, an alcove hidden from view and the only thing in it was a square hole in the wall. The hole in the wall was pitch dark.  I poked my head in. There was nothing in there.  Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark inside the hole in the wall.  I still could not see much. I closed my useless eyes.

It smelled rusty !

“Excuse me sir !” I yelled into the void.  A dark metallic echo came back !

Now I remember what I imagined.

A short recollection – written in response to a experiencing the sculpture MEMORY of  Anish Kapoor.

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..