Category Archives: Travel

#91 Migrate North for Winter

While Homo sapiens might think he’s the cleverest species on earth, I wonder sometimes if we still have a thing or two to learn from animals.

Think about it. No meerkat would dream of frolicking in the open knowing predators were lurking, and yet we’ve reached the stage in our evolution where we’re heard to boast—boast, no less—about not wearing a mask during a pandemic.

So this winter, I decided to take a leaf out of the playbook of our feathered friends and

#91 Migrate North for Winter

It was serendipity, really. There was an excellent reason to travel north to Sydney for a few weeks during the worsening pandemic down south, and I figured that migratory birds wouldn’t do this if it were dangerous, so why not give it a go?

Years ago, when I was young (not free, just young), retired people I met would mention they wouldn’t see me for three months because they were wintering in Queensland. When I was a child growing up in western Victoria, the older people in my life didn’t travel to exotic places like that. If they left bitterly cold Ballarat during winter, it was to go to their bitterly cold holiday home in Torquay or Lorne. The glamour of an ocean view was enough back then.

But time moves on, so now I’m free (not young, just free) and it’s my turn to experience the heady excitement of sun in winter. And let me tell you, being able to wander the streets of a city with the warm sun caressing your back in July is quite wonderful.

So I indulged in some psychogeography on my walks,marvelled at the clever logo on the tool box of a decorator that effortlessly demonstrated his skills—

and sipped ginger and liquorice tea on the deck—all the time noticing, with awe, that every single photograph includes sunshine and shadows!

I’m back home now, where even the tiniest sliver of sun couldn’t emerge through this morning’s fog—

leaving me with no more than a memory and a photograph of recent outings—

These migratory birds are really onto something.

And to think we use the term ‘bird-brain’ pejoratively!

#48 Mess About in Boats

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It wasn’t until Form One (as Year Seven was called back then) that I was introduced to the magical world of boating.

This was courtesy of Kenneth Grahame’s engaging tale of the adventures of Ratty and Mole, Badger and Toad in The Wind in the Willows.

Who wouldn’t be seduced by Ratty’s pronouncement in the very first chapter?

Alas, I was growing up in a bitterly cold, inland city without a beach or river to its name, nurtured by loving parents who… well… you couldn’t call them outdoor types. (This may explain why, on my first-ever camping trip at age 22, I had no idea that you didn’t pitch your tent in a cosy hollow under a gum tree. Especially without checking for the possibility of torrential rain during the night.) So my love of boating was entirely imaginary for many years.

What better time to change all that now though, and live the dream. A chance to…

#48 Mess About in Boats

Ratty was spot on – it’s so worth doing.

Boats, of course, come in all shapes and sizes. And degrees of safety.

There was that disastrous early experiment with three friends, when we were sent down a raging Murray River in two canoes, on our own, by the Dodgy Brothers’ Hire-a-Risky-Boat Adventures.

Thanks to life jackets and expert recreational kayakers who raced across to pluck us from the water as we parted ways with our canoes and careened towards South Australia, I lived to brave the river again one late afternoon as dusk was falling. But this time, it was in the back of a canoe with a World Champion/Murray River Marathon winner doing all the hard work in the front seat. Bliss!

Racing down the Murray and up Wodonga Creek taking curves at breakneck speed with an expert guide is truly exciting, even though he mistakenly thought he could further spook me with a diversion past a bat colony.

Amazing. Flying mammals! What’s not to like…?

If Scandi Noir is the mood you’re after though, then messing about in a boat at New Zealand’s Doubtful Sound is just the ticket. All dark and brooding and ominous. No wonder James Cook was doubtful it was navigable when he named it.

You could well be at the end of the earth. Oh, hang on a minute…

Even the silhouette of a travelling companion takes on a sinister hue in this part of the world.

Exploring in a boat means you can get up close and personal with all manner of wildlife.

Spot seals sunning themselves,

Or water birds doing a picturesque pose

…in splendid isolation

But you don’t have to travel miles away from home to find a relaxing boating experience.

The Sienna Daisy is a new cruise boat purpose built for the Murray River right here in Albury. No more worries of a river too low to support the mechanism of cumbersome paddle steamers, romantic though they may be.

Take a 60 or 90-minute scheduled river cruise or book a private function. Include the Captain’s Lunch of a BBQ and salads if you want and complement this with a glass of wine. All your worries will disappear into the water as you float along, caressed by the gentle movement and sense of escape.

And If you’ve ever wondered why Noreuil Park has such an unpronounceable name, you can find that out, too.

I could have boated all day…

and just a stone’s throw from home…

No doubt about it, messing about in boats is the bees knees.

I wonder if it’s too late to consider buying my own boat? Of course, I’d have to get a bigger car, too – with a tow bar – and a boat trailer. And learn how to reverse them all down a narrow driveway and a slippery ramp without jack-knifing. Is that do-able for a post-adult woman, I wonder?

Because I can’t help thinking that being the skipper of your own boat would make you feel like a Master of The Universe.

Wouldn’t you agree, Charlie…?

#38 Find your Favourite Museum

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Notice anything special about the picture below?

It looks like the entrance to a children’s adventure world, doesn’t it? A fun place to be if you’re young, but not really a site for adults.

I think they’ve got it all wrong. At this stage of life, I’ve finally realised how important it is to

#38 Find Your Favourite Museum

And I’ve now discovered that Science Museums are definitely my favourite museums, despite the implied suggestion from that banner at Scienceworks in Melbourne’s Spotswood that they’re not catering to my demographic.

But I’ll let you in on a secret: when we arrived there mid week – without any children in tow – we were welcomed warmly, albeit with surprise, and ushered in for free like some honoured older statespeople!

…and Science certainly works for me

I’ve visited several of the finest museums and galleries around the world:

The Louvre √
Uffizi √
The Guggenheim √
The Tate √
MONA √
MCA √

Yes, they’re all wonderful, but finding something clever to do and to experiment with rather than something clever to look at and admire is my kind of museum.

Even our own MAMA knows that if you want to get them in the doors, it helps to provide fun and activities for all ages.

Look what the clever folk of Albury recently constructed with nothing more than a big pile of white lego over a few weeks:

and this wasn’t just built by the littlies…

I’ve revelled in visits to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney’s Ultimo several times, but had never quite made it to Melbourne’s equivalent. Could it be because the name Scienceworks at Spotswood doesn’t have quite the same cutting-edge, futuristic sound as Powerhouse at Ultimo?

For starters, where is Spotswood? Is that the same Spotswood of Anthony Hopkins and Moccasin fame?

Turns out, it’s a mere six train stops on the Williamstown Line from Southern Cross station:

The first delight on entering – after finding out that it’s free for honoured older statespeople, of course – was discovering that the next time someone says to me, ‘You’re worth your weight in gold,’ I can put an exact figure on it:

3.03 million! Who’d have thought?

Then there was an opportunity to look into the future. By asking you to choose your interests, skills and preferred work sites, a computer attempts to predict where you’ll fit into society in years to come, and then provides you with your work ID.

My companion discovered she’ll be a teacher – but as a hologram rather than a flesh and blood one – whereas my future job sounded much more exotic:

…move over Homer Simpson

And we’ll all be conveyed in smart little electric concept cars like this GM Holden En-V. It has 2 wheels and self balancing gyroscopic control and drives itself:

if only they’d let us have a go in this little beauty…

Then there’s the fun experiment of using a cunningly designed room to create the optical illusion that a person can change size as they walk across it.

Alas, it didn’t translate as well in the photographs as it did in real life. Perhaps it’s true that the camera never lies…

You can be timed racing against a virtual Cathy Freeman for a few seconds, too, to see how your acceleration rate compares to hers.

The short answer is, it doesn’t.

Probably the biggest surprise was doing the ‘height to armspan’ test. This ratio is supposed to be about equal in adult humans, meaning you’re almost as tall as you are wide when your arms are fully outstretched. This seemed to be the case for all the people who tested themselves in the museum that day. Except for one.

With a height of 157 cm and an arm span of 171 cm, I can’t help feeling I’ve been cheated somehow.

But then, there’s always someone worse off. Consider this hungry seagull, who came to visit us as we sat in the outdoor cafe shortly before departure.

…not happy

So much to experience, so much to ponder. Where did the time go?

Now I’ve found Spotswood, there’s no doubt about it.

I’ll be back…

#20 Have an Outback Experience

#16 Attend a Major Sporting Event

#9 Take a Road Trip

#4 Buy a ‘Mystery Hotel’ Stay

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One of the big advantages of trying 101 Fun and Frivolous Things in Retirement is that it forces you to do stuff that’s perhaps a little out of character. Like:

#4: Buy a “Mystery Hotel” stay

When a friend invited me to his birthday lunch at a venue in Melbourne, I had to find accommodation, being from out-of-town and all. So I opened up Wotif and my next adventure jumped out – book and pay for a hotel in the city without knowing where it was.

Okay, this may not sound too adventurous to some, but I’m the sort of person who needs to start new adventures ex..tre..mely slowly, so for me, it was an outsidethesquare experience.

Just before you commit to paying for your accommodation, the site pops up the sort of question guaranteed to give you the shivers:

“Are you sure you want to book without knowing where you’ll be staying?”

Now normally, I’d have had cold feet at that and backed right out. But in the spirit of doing Fun and Frivolous Things, I took a deep breath and pressed the ‘Pay Now” button, which let me tell you, took some courage, even in the knowledge that I was saving oodles of money by doing this.

But miracle upon miracle, the hotel I scored was directly opposite the lunch venue!

So when the birthday lunch ended, several of us wandered over for a coffee in the hotel lounge – it being so close and so convenient – with me feeling mightily smug and proud of my excellent choice.

That was before I settled down for the night, turned off the television and realised that my room was directly behind a lift shaft.

Try sleeping on an airport runway. It’s probably more peaceful…

outsidethesquare101

101 fun and frivolous things to try in retirement: a single's guide