Vienna Christmas

Where my attitude to Freud changed and my phone ran out of space to take photos of the amazing Museum of Natural History.

Hallo Hamburg!

Next stop brought me to Germany's largest port city, Hamburg. My host Sina lives here with her boyfriend, Maltè. It's a city with pockets of extreme left political activists which holds protests often and is known for an annual riot each May. That night we headed to the nerve centre of this sub-culture to check it out. We found a massive historic building that has been proclaimed as their base. We had drinks in a snazzy bar nearby and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere.

The next day Sina and I explored the city, the markets, the warehouse area, the churches. I lit a candle and said a prayer for my granny. 

 

Town Hall.

Christmas markets.

Traditional Germany grub.

Above and below are piccys of the place Sina works-so grandiose.

Sina and I in Bismarks backyard.

The Elbephilharmica, the Hamburg big fancy new opera house, which took 5 years longer than planned to build, and way over budget.

Lower Saxony, Germany 2016

Today I'm sleeping in with a cold for companion. Lying in the warmth of the doona and typing about my trip so far is an ideal way to spend this cold winters morning in Berlin after more than a week of non stop travel and exploration.

I flew into Hanover last Tuesday evening into the welcoming arms of Cati, my friend of 14 years. A friendship started, and continued, on the written word of letters, sometimes extending to 30 pages or more in length. These days we continue writing but also email and call. We met last year and spent a week together then when I had Vaughan as my companion. This time we spent our time as just us 2 friends. We visited a total of 4 different Christmas markets, drinking heiße schokolade (hot chocolate), eating gruenkhol and sweet pastries and enjoying the specifically cold Christmas atmosphere that remains a somewhat foreign experience to the Australian traveller.

It took a couple of days for my luggage to catch up to me so Cati leant me some of her clothes in the meantime. It arrived Thursday so we socialised with her friends and family, spending the days walking around her city admiring the sights of Germany's largest business and trade city. During the day we visited farmers markets and paid her grandmother a visit. She's an artist and only speaks German and Italian so Cati had to translate for me but she was a wonderful woman to meet. An artist, the rooms in her flat contained pieces of furniture painted with landscape scenes or intricate patterns, set against a timeless classic composition of furniture. Here I am in appreciation of the flat and the woman and Cati is visiting her grandmother for a chat. We also had the opportunity to visit her dad and brother in the old flat I wrote to for so many years. It was great to meet her father, who I hadn't met yet and catch up with her brother who had recently visited Costa Rica and is studying Biology. We had a good conversation over tea and cake. Afterwards we went to her mums flat, a few blocks away, for a dinner of gnocchi. We shared some more good conversation about her childhood in Italy and by the end of the night I was all conversation-ed out. 

On Friday, armed with my fresh clothes, we caught a train to the Hartz, a mountainous region about an hour's train ride away. Here we caught a sky cable car to the top of the mountain, a previous medieval fortress and then went on a hike to a waterfall. It was fantastic to experience the true winter weather here in the mountains with the shifting cloud revealing a sharp ray of rich sunlight and then it disappears. The forest is completely different too, made up of almost entirely deciduous trees in this area. This results in skeletal mountains with soft padded ground, covered in leaves, making a lovely base for hiking.

We also stopped at Goslar, a typical German village with a brilliant little Christkindlmarkt, not huge crowds but busy enough. 

The next day it was time to move on and catch a train to Hamburg, with a stop at Lüneberg to visit a friend of Cati's for a cuppa. He is at uni there and told us all about it and it sounds like an innovative progressive uni for Germany, even considering it is such a traditional little town built on the trade of salt in the 1600-1700s.

Sad goodbyes were had at Hamburg hauptbahnhof with promises of meeting again soon, then I was into the gracious host Sina's hometown, Hamburg.

Dawn Fraser Baths, Balmain

Wagga Wagga quick roadtrip

I'm just on my way home from Wagga Wagga (Wagga to local's). The name of the town is derived from the local Wiradjuri language meaning place of many crows, Wagga meaning crow. I came down with my dad, a 4 and a half hour trip from home near Bathurst. We visited because my sister was graduating from her first 12 weeks of basic training with the defence force. That in itself was an interesting topic for another discussion. The driving through regional towns is my main interest. 

We left after I finished work, dad picked me up from my house and we drove into the night, stopping for a quick counter meal at a pub. As it got darker I relished the atmosphere, passing the odd car and dipping our high beams to tractors harvesting madly in the paddocks, driving through small villages looking like they'd lost the memo of the last 70 years passing, cars parked for the night out the front of hundred and something year old hotels.

The above picture is the lawn out the front of the historic Monte Christo homestead, reportedly the most haunted house in Australia. When I was in high school some friends and I were planning to visit for a night but never somehow made it. 

Some grain silos just outside Junee at the town of Illabo, beside the railway tracks.

The Cootamundra (Coota) Post Office with Rotary funded information sign and bench seats under the ancient, green Wisteria providing a perfect rest stop for morning tea...

The delicious chocolate mousse cake from the bakery next door the PO with my chauffeur, dad in the background.

An old horse trough on the side of the main drag, just in case your neddy's needs a drink

Medlow Bath trekking

Today a friend and I got out to the Blue Mountains and soaked up some sunshine in a search for Medlow Bath's namesake, the original pool. In doing so we traversed the hillside behind the recently refurbished Hydro Majestic. We dropped in to use the facilities and the place is pretty swish. I have to say though, above the glitz and glamour of the establishment, the best thing about the hotel is the view over the Megalong. We felt a bit out of place wearing our shorts and t shirts, me with my Akubra upon my noggin keeping the sun off my pale complexion, with guests walking around in smart/casual outfits, white 3/4 pants and handbags in tow. After a quick sneak peak at the view (and their heritage bathrooms with super tall ceilings) we headed off to find the Sunbath feature on the following map (provided by Tom Brennan on the Bushwalking NSW website)

Optimistically looking forward to finding a pool soaked in sunlight we founda cliff edge and an old round concrete reservoir of sorts. It seems the sun simply bathes this particular area of rock. We also ran into a few other people, some climbing up the sheer rock faces, others on their way to do the same. 

Despite the small disappointment we continued on through the slightly overgrown bush tracks to find the cave house, somewhat vandalised but with a resident stray, who looked remarkably well bred with a collar on, some beagle cross? He was hoeing into what was left of an unknown animals carcass, happy as a pig in mud. From here we proceeded to try and find a path down to the cliff and across to the remnants of the 'old pool site' as described in the above map. After the path we were following, steps and all, turned into a bit of bush bashing we turned back and took the route along the top of the hill. Once we descended back into the gully below we think we found the remainder of what was left of the pool site. I'm finding it difficult to even describe it as being silted up. It's an almost dry swamp with spiky bushes throughout, some extending up to 2 or 3 metres in height. 

The above picture shows the last remaining remnants of what was a dam. Until we can get a reliable time machine we will never know what the old pool looked like, back in the days when my great grand parents honeymooned at this very site. Back when it was a regional outpost that took weeks to travel to from some parts of the state (they were located in the Riverina at the time to my knowledge). 

(My legs after today-looking much better now than they did earlier)

This whole walk took us all up about 2 hours so we headed to Katoomba to assess our success and whether to head somewhere else. We were tossing up between Wentworth Falls (the pool at the bottom of the actual falls) or Hyde Park, a local choice waterhole half an hour west (my direction home). We decided on Hyde Park, due to the proximity from the car to the waterhole and the fact that you can in fact swim and not touch the bottom in places. Turns out, unless you've got a 4WD, it's probably easier to get to the Wentworth Falls one, despite the half hour or so walk. It was a sheer fluke that I made it through the first puddle in my Forester, it's a bit of a deep one. After it, which you can't get around or easily traverse, it's fairly smooth sailing til you get to the Crown land. Due to this, you can take your dogs but we didn't have any with us at this time anyway (poor Zali stayed home this time). It's amazing the change of country from the upper mountains to Hartley, from steep, thick scrubby, occasionally rainforest-like bush to rolling plains and parkland-like scattering of tall gums. Because the land is much drier and rocky I prepared Mel for a less beautiful atmosphere but it is beautiful in its own way. That and we could jump in and cool down before the storm came across. All in all it turned out to be quite a relaxing day, even with the bush bashing at the start. Goes to show its what you put into your days that matter, it's not always the goods delivered at the end. Some walks won't deliver insta-worthy photos but in the end you can't boil life down to a series of captured moments. Sometimes it is the hard kilometres pushed through the scrub with your legs slashed into submission by the native grasses, that make the day a success. A success that you made it. The swimming treat at the end was just an optional extra. 

End of my first nursing qualification

So I am now officially finished my Diploma of nursing. During my last placement I had the opportunity to do a clinic with one of the district nurses. Community nursing is an occupation I can really see myself leaning towards. I find the idea of keeping people comfortable in their own homes while getting quality care an ideal avenue to put my skills to. Unfortunately, due to the ideal (generally business) hours and skills, knowledge and experience required, the places in this field are generally quite coveted. Either way the opportunity to visit one of our districts community outputs was a valuable experience. I even found a classic (still in use) foetal stethoscope.

I found it fantastic, along with the great (true) stories the nurse I was with told me. Morning tea was spent halfway between two of the clinic locations, beside the river. It was the first place the nurse I was with saw a snake swim, adeptly at that. 

This opportunity I savoured because it's so rare in life to stop and appreciate a place like this for all that it's worth, especially with the fabulous season we're in at the moment. The rest of the week was full of consolidating my skills with injections, dressing technique and infusions. It was a brilliant opportunity and now all I need to do to get out there and get paid for similar opportunities is to hand my paperwork into the national accreditation board and hope for the best. Wish me luck!