Pilbara Dreaming

Rome, The Good, The Bad, And The Spanish Steps.

eryn_with_a_y — Mon, 8 Jun 2015 18:36:00 GMT

I have a lot of content hanging around from my 2007 trip to Europe. We’ve gone from London to Rome. There are plenty of awesome and historical places in Rome, I remember seeing them and being amazed, but my 24 year old self got stuck on the cultural differences. Here’s what you can expect.

I don't know what I was complaining about in Ireland. Here, the minute you walk out the door, you need to drink three litres of water to replace the sweat that jumps out of your pores. It's a case of the grass always being greener, be careful what you wish for. I resent my jacket now for all the space it takes up in my bag. I'm going to have to chuck out some stuff I think. I like my stuff, though…

Tim is still coughing from the flu. We have a springy bed, and every time he coughs I feel like I’m back in Disneyland. Note to self: when sick, spend up big for somewhere with a mattress that’s not ancient.

We saw some stuff, but we were hot and sweaty, and when we couldn't find a McDonalds, we settled for a cafe and the pasta was a little too al dente. It was supposed to be meaty pasta, too. There is more meat left at the bottom of the dogs bowl at the end of a meal.

Then, in time honoured tradition, we walked around the corner and straight into a McDonald's. It's not that I think Maccas is great or anything, I was just hoping for something that wasn't pizza or pasta, and well priced.

Something crap about Rome: the sit down drink price. There are two lists for drink prices in the menu. We thought it meant 'small' or 'large'. NO! WRONG! If you take away a drink of water, it costs you about a pound. If you sit down at a table and drink it, it will cost you six.

Something kinda cool about Rome: the mini vans. There are vans parked all around the city, all pretty much exactly the same, selling drinks, sandwiches and gelato. They all have awnings with 'sandwiches', 'bibite', 'gelato', written on them, and stuff stacked around the outside. The only difference is the colour schemes, and the names of the vans. And the degree of angry man you get standing in there.

I don't know why, they're standing in the middle of a row of freezers, so it can't be too hot. We got a slightly angry man give us cold water at the Colosseum, and an incredibly angry man hand over our gelato on the Spanish Steps. He was probably angry because the Spanish steps were so crap.

On the Spanish Steps: one of our guide books described them as 'impressive and overwhelming'. Yeah right. There were 136 steps, I counted. And they were... just steps. Swarming with tourists, hard to climb, and unrewarding at the top. There was no great view, and at no point can you see all of the steps at the same time. It is definitely a case of the picture doing the place justice.

You should see their little public buses! Like a mini- bus, but cuter. It's a scaled down version of an actual bus. They’re little fat things that can get around some of the tighter corners in the city. Beep beep!

They are still manned by crazy drivers though. As long as you don't look through the window into the crazed eyes of the driver as it bears down upon you, you can have a Playschool moment. Then make sure to come to you senses and leap away in time...

Who am I? I’m a craft and DIY blogger located in Perth, Western Australia. I want to share my 2007 travel posts with the world, but they don’t fit into my bog niche so I decided to post them here! A lot of the stuff is still relevant, and hopefully you’ll find it both amusing and helpful if you’re planning a trip to Europe. You can check out my blog, Eryn_With_A_Y here.

Cape Peron in Rockingham

eryn_with_a_y — Thu, 21 May 2015 21:48:00 GMT

I’ve started heading out on my lunch breaks, which wasn’t a great idea with it being the middle of winter, but we’re in Perth. There’s bound to be at least two sunny days in a week.

My first trip was to Cape Peron (locally known as Point Peron), on a cloudy yet strangely warm day. For once, the wind was down and the light made the water a polished- glass blue.

There was a busload of school kids swarming the rocks and taking their turns with a fishing rod, two Winnebago’s lined up in the boat parking zone, and a dude with a dog and a really big fish. It was a holiday scene in the middle of a working week.

That is quintessentially Rockingham.

Like most lookout points, Point Peron is out of the way and a little bit off the beaten track. Unlike most lookout points, there’s little to no litter and a feeling of welcome in the air.

I wandered up the beach and over the rocks, dodging complacent seagulls. I headed up the steps to the observation post build in World War 2. I only got mildly puffed as I took in the panorama from the mainland to Garden Island and back again. I observed two teenagers quietly working through their relationship issues in the car park. I hummed the theme to Ship to Shore as I trekked through the bush.

For those of you who are too young to remember, and for international readers, Ship to Shore was a children’s television show filmed on location in the 90’s. I remember watching it every afternoon when I came home from school, but there are no mentions of the show in the signage at the Point. Which is a pity, because it was a pretty good show. To my 12 year old self… who also loved teaming pink with purple and owned 27 scrunchies…

If you want some brisk fresh air and amazing panoramic views in a welcoming setting, take a trip to Cape Peron. You’ll need a car, and don’t worry when the road starts to look a bit unkempt- there’s a car park and some great scenery ahead.

Take in the serenity like I did, and quietly hum a long dead theme tune from a childhood television series. Have a little dance. Just make sure that busload of kids has left first…

Bewildered by Rome

eryn_with_a_y — Wed, 20 May 2015 15:20:00 GMT

In another internet café… Tim is currently having trouble finding an 'at' symbol on this keyboard. And the ' button is up next to the 0, not near the enter. If I wrote like usual, it would look like, 'This keyboard is giving me the shits, itÃ s crap.' See? And the question mark is right next to the ', and not near the shift. If you do that, you get _ , which is where the ? and the ' are. I get the feeling they switched stuff around just to be different.

They drink a lot of mineral water here, in the place of watery water. We picked it up a couple of times, due to the language barrier. Its water, but it TASTES. There's something inherently wrong with it. I don't feel like I’m being healthy and drinking water, I feel like I’m being bad and drinking soft drink. But we've paid for it, so we have to drink it. A little bit of gin and lemon, and I’d be grand, but seriously out of pocket.

Soft drink is just as expensive as beer here. It’s 5 euro for a bottle of Pepsi, 5 euro for twice as much beer. Somehow, I don't think they got the point.

I am also sick of bread based foods. I have had enough pizza. Don’t even let me look at a sandwich. The pizza here is really good, but when you go to restaurants you get two choices: pizza or pasta. I wouldn't complain, and get the pasta, but the serving sizes here are ridiculously small. I ate my risotto in about 10 bites the other day. We're going to a Chinese restaurant tonight, when we saw it in the street we wept.

There is a fridge in our room. It's only good for keeping things that are already cold, cold, though. It doesn't make warm things cold, just marginally cooler, and it warms up the room more than it cools things. Our milk lasted 2 days in there. We were trying to sava da money and eat breakfast in, but Tim got muesli and gloop this morning.

Update on the toilet situation: there are toilets here, but I really don't have to worry too much about using them. I sweat out my fluids before they have a chance to get down into my bladder.

We like to stay in our room in the morning, in the cool of the air conditioning, then go out when the heat breaks, or we get too hungry to stay in any longer. Then we eat, wait for it to get a little cooler, go see some things, get back to the room all sweaty and gross, and fall asleep! It's a 3 shower a day kind of thing.

London Natural History and Science Museum

eryn_with_a_y — Wed, 13 May 2015 16:45:00 GMT

I have a lot of content hanging around from my 2007 trip to Europe, and after finding the World Nomads site I got travel nostalgia and want to share my musing with you. We start in London, with 24 year old me and my (now) husband Tim.

First, a note on using internet cafes from someone who’s used a few in her time. Choose carefully, or like me, you’ll end up sitting in a sweat-box full of computer gas and people who have not yet discovered deodorant.

Choose a station near the doorway and in a cozy corner, otherwise you'll be at the mercy of every crazy that comes and sits down next to you smelling of bin.

We went to the theatre last night (pronounced the-ate-er by my old English literature teacher. He’s ruined me for that word forever). It was AWESOME. Apart from the swaying lady, who sat in front of me leaning forward in her seat, swaying every time the music came on. I spent most of my night anticipating the swaying and moving from side to side to maintain my view of the stage. Note to self: invest in the expensive tickets next time.

Yesterday was a trip back in time to primary school, with the Natural History museum. We saw some big ass dinosaur bones and some little ass ones. In some ways they were even scarier than the big ones.

The 'mammal' exhibit was half full of Australian mammals, but all of them were strangely washed out. Their fur has faded considerably since they were stuffed. I pointed at the Tasmanian Devil and said in my best Aust-ray-lyan accent, 'Where's it's stripes, cobber?’ Tim ignored me. Every animal in there was beige, even the lions. I suppose that comes with age and I should be happy they don’t kill and stuff more animals to make their exhibits exciting.

An unexpected plus of the museum was the Minerals Hall. I know, you're going 'What?!?” I rediscovered all the things that I thought were cool about primary school science, comets, meteors, and cool shiny rocks. There was a whole case of diamonds (reproductions, I checked).

From the Natural History Museum, it was a short trip to the Science Museum. This was slightly less cool. While Tim salivated over steam engines and rockets, I looked for places to sit. We saw missiles and the inside of a plane like the one we caught over here (not a good idea if you are not good with flights).

We went to the IMAX and saw a dinosaur film. It was narrated by Michael Douglas, and through the whole film, whenever he said a dinosaur name ('diplodocous' for example), I wondered how long it had taken him to get the pronunciation of the name right.

The palaeontologists were also a lot better looking than history has taught me they were. I remember films from my childhood with big hairy fat men holding bits of bones in their dirty paws. But these were 'Hollywood' style palaeontologists; they all had 'manageable' hair and thin limbs. Although, I think the thin part had a lot to do with the size of the IMAX screen. Ladies, if you want to look good on TV, make it a big one!

Photos: Profile Image

eryn_with_a_y — Fri, 8 May 2015 15:34:00 GMT

My face.

Search for the Secret Swimming Hole

eryn_with_a_y — Fri, 8 May 2015 15:29:34 GMT

The Pilbara is a land of red dirt and spinifex, where lizards sunbathe on the bitumen and narrowly avoid the wheels of a semi-trailer as it moves its load of flyblown sheep into the city limits. It’s a harsh land, with creek beds cracked and dry and the shimmer of a mirage ever present on the horizon.

Except for the short three months of the wet season. Then, the red dirt darkens with the patter of raindrops and the resulting deluge cascades down the rocks and forms a series of secret pools that only the initiated know how to access.

If you’re in the know, and you’re soon to be, you’ll anticipate the coming of the wet season eagerly because when the water comes, the usually stark granite cliffs and gullies around a place called Hearson’s Cove come to life.

The five of us, along with the dog, made the trip annually in a beat up old blue Holden Gemini. My parents, veterans of the State Emergency Service, had the knowledge to find that special spot where the cliff faces come together and form a secret swimming hole.

Armed with plenty of water, we would climb the cliffs made of a tumble of granite rock, stained red by sun and dirt. Although it’s the wet season, the sun still warms their surface to an uncomfortable heat and any resting must be done in the shade.

As a short child, I would jump from rock to rock with glee. Until the day I misjudged my leap and landed on my rear in a patch of spinifex. It was an uncomfortable ride back home that day.

It’s a 20 minute climb up the cliff to the pool. You can hear the fall of the water echoing along the towering red walls, before the full beauty is revealed between the rocks. Take off your shoes and cool your feet with the blue sky reflecting down upon you, for you are truly alone in the bush.

If you’re game, a skinny dip is on the cards. You’re almost guaranteed to be the only visitors, and the rock wallabies haven’t evolved opposable thumbs to take photos on their iPhones yet.

You’ll be stepping into an ecosystem on overdrive though, with tadpoles and frogs at every stage of their lifecycle, rushing to mature before their watery home dries up. The tadpoles will be the biggest you’ve seen in your life, like plump black olives wallowing through the water. They’re not afraid to take a nibble.

After you’ve finished with your dip, you can sit in the overhang of a large flat rock and contemplate the native rock drawings from the same vantage point as those who made them, and who swam in the pool before you.