The Flight from Frankfurt was unexceptional. Fortuitously, we managed to be upgraded to business class for the Singapore leg, which meant that we could stretch out and sleep on the first leg (thankyou Qantas!).
We arrived in Melbourne a couple of hours late due to the need to divert around the Merapi colcano plume. We managed to get through customs without any dramas, and after a short wait found ourtselves home in what seemed like very strange but familiar surroundings.
This morning, we were awake at four thirty am, and so took ourselves off ofr a walk up Mount AInslie's slopes - part of our regular routine. It is very very green, many birds (magpies, kookaburras on the wing), not so many kangaroos evident as their silver'grey fur is well camouflaged in the lush vegetation. Boronia was looking for orchids and found a few yelow donkey orchids without too much trouble. Yellow hibercia, dianella, and swards fo silver grass seeds covering the hillsides like a rolling mist reminded us, not that we needed it, that we were home. The air is fresh, filled with familiar birdsongs, the temperature crisp yet mild. We didnt climb too high, as we walked from Downer, but the views over black mountain and O'Connor were beautiful. All in all, wonderful to be here, clothed in the the familiarity and memories of home!
Am not sure if I will update this blog further. At best, it will be much less regular. I will try to get Boronia to upload some photos in due course.
Au revoir mike
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
heading home
Am posting this from the airport lounge in Frankfurt.
From Scarrif, we headed to Dublin, returned the hire car and readied ourselves for the trip home. I managed to fit in a seminar on some theoretical aspects of international relations at Trinity; much went over my head, but was worth the time just to remind myself what I have been missing (for those of you who dont know, one of my hobbies -neglected in the past few years - is attending seminars at the ANU mainly in the social sciences. We also took in a movie and a couple of enjoyable meals.
We flew to Frankfurt early Saturday morning, and have been pleasantly surprised at what is on offer. Today Sunday was spent in two of the major galleries, one focussed on photography, the other with a major exhibition on Courbet. Both exhibitions were very good, providing plenty of great works, and much to enjoy and think about.
I wont try to sum up our two months away just yet; suffice to say we have enjoyed ourselves immensely, we have probably regained the weight we lost walking, and we have certainly appreciated the terrific scenery in France and Ireland. Nevertheless, we will return to Australia with an increased respect for its many virtues. There is nothing like 'home'!
We will be back in Canberra on Tuesday.
mike
From Scarrif, we headed to Dublin, returned the hire car and readied ourselves for the trip home. I managed to fit in a seminar on some theoretical aspects of international relations at Trinity; much went over my head, but was worth the time just to remind myself what I have been missing (for those of you who dont know, one of my hobbies -neglected in the past few years - is attending seminars at the ANU mainly in the social sciences. We also took in a movie and a couple of enjoyable meals.
We flew to Frankfurt early Saturday morning, and have been pleasantly surprised at what is on offer. Today Sunday was spent in two of the major galleries, one focussed on photography, the other with a major exhibition on Courbet. Both exhibitions were very good, providing plenty of great works, and much to enjoy and think about.
I wont try to sum up our two months away just yet; suffice to say we have enjoyed ourselves immensely, we have probably regained the weight we lost walking, and we have certainly appreciated the terrific scenery in France and Ireland. Nevertheless, we will return to Australia with an increased respect for its many virtues. There is nothing like 'home'!
We will be back in Canberra on Tuesday.
mike
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Family history in Scarrif
By rights I shouldnt be writing this post as all the action concerns Boronia's side of the family.
On Tuesday (yesterday) we departed Killarney in pouring rain. The forecast for the week is essentially rain and more rain. We headed north towards Scarrif a small town where Boronia's great grandmother Anne Farrell was born. She and five of her siblings emigrated to Victoria in the last half of the 1800s, probably as a result of the Irish famine and the social consequences arising from changes in the inheritance of land. One of Anne's brothers, Michael, stayed on the small leased family farm; Anne and four other siblings all left. Boronia is yet to make contact with any of his descendants. The names Michael and Patrick recur down the family tree. Consequently it seems unsurprising and somehow rather appropriate that one of my sons should be named Patrick Michael.
We found the farm and its original stone cottage, three windows, three rooms and a slate roof. It is currently a cow shed on a road two kilometres out of Scarrif. Boronia's brother Tom had commissioned a report from the Clare Historical Society which laid out quite a lot of the family's basic history. We also found a number of graves in the local burial ground next to the church, with a sign telling us that it is Ireland's oldest catholic church still in regular use.
Boronia is out at the library here in Ennis doing some more basic research for her brother who is the keeper of the |Halstead family's geneaological records. Some of the papers she has already dug up on the history of the famine in the Scarrif region make scarifying reading, with tales of cemetries overflowing, workhouses full and overflowing, cholera and malaria rampant. That and the weather makes anyone's decision to emigrate understandable. The added prospect of actually owning land in Australia proved irresistable. It helps ot explain Australians focus on actually owning a quarter acre!
For my part, I have resisted the temptation to ring my sister Cathy and seek out what information she has on the origins of the Dillons in Ireland. It is enough for me to get a sense of the history, the geography, and the culture. I have come to realise how much Irish culture - accounts of Irish myths, Irish history, a bastardised version of the Irish sense of humour, and a scepticism for authority, particularly English authority was imparted by family and the very Irish De La Salle brothers who taught me in Armidale. While I dont feel Irish, I certainly feel an affinity. Of course, all of this is perhaps counteracted by my birth order (first) and perhaps more potently by the German genes on my father's mother's side. These reinforce my authoritarian tendencies and also scepticism of the English. Of course, the Halsteads are also a very English family....perhaps marriage to Boronia has forged me into the balanced individual I am today!
We have decided to spend another day here in Ennis some thirty kilometres from Scarrif, then we drive to Dublin on Thursday and essentially begin to wend our way home, via Frankfurt where we spend a couple of days in a classy hotel and living it up before the stringencies of unemployment take hold of me.
We havent managed to see much of Ennis itself. Its winding central streets have been full of cars, wind and rain. Its central square sports a monument some ten metres high of Daniel O'Connall, an Irish patriot, so high above us we can barely make him out. The people we have met and spoken with have been uniformly polite and friendly, but this has been not enough to make us prefer the delights of O'Connall's gaze here to those of the ACT. We have been away so long that the joys of the ACT are beginning to become a dim memory.....we are both looking forward to getting home!
mike
On Tuesday (yesterday) we departed Killarney in pouring rain. The forecast for the week is essentially rain and more rain. We headed north towards Scarrif a small town where Boronia's great grandmother Anne Farrell was born. She and five of her siblings emigrated to Victoria in the last half of the 1800s, probably as a result of the Irish famine and the social consequences arising from changes in the inheritance of land. One of Anne's brothers, Michael, stayed on the small leased family farm; Anne and four other siblings all left. Boronia is yet to make contact with any of his descendants. The names Michael and Patrick recur down the family tree. Consequently it seems unsurprising and somehow rather appropriate that one of my sons should be named Patrick Michael.
We found the farm and its original stone cottage, three windows, three rooms and a slate roof. It is currently a cow shed on a road two kilometres out of Scarrif. Boronia's brother Tom had commissioned a report from the Clare Historical Society which laid out quite a lot of the family's basic history. We also found a number of graves in the local burial ground next to the church, with a sign telling us that it is Ireland's oldest catholic church still in regular use.
Boronia is out at the library here in Ennis doing some more basic research for her brother who is the keeper of the |Halstead family's geneaological records. Some of the papers she has already dug up on the history of the famine in the Scarrif region make scarifying reading, with tales of cemetries overflowing, workhouses full and overflowing, cholera and malaria rampant. That and the weather makes anyone's decision to emigrate understandable. The added prospect of actually owning land in Australia proved irresistable. It helps ot explain Australians focus on actually owning a quarter acre!
For my part, I have resisted the temptation to ring my sister Cathy and seek out what information she has on the origins of the Dillons in Ireland. It is enough for me to get a sense of the history, the geography, and the culture. I have come to realise how much Irish culture - accounts of Irish myths, Irish history, a bastardised version of the Irish sense of humour, and a scepticism for authority, particularly English authority was imparted by family and the very Irish De La Salle brothers who taught me in Armidale. While I dont feel Irish, I certainly feel an affinity. Of course, all of this is perhaps counteracted by my birth order (first) and perhaps more potently by the German genes on my father's mother's side. These reinforce my authoritarian tendencies and also scepticism of the English. Of course, the Halsteads are also a very English family....perhaps marriage to Boronia has forged me into the balanced individual I am today!
We have decided to spend another day here in Ennis some thirty kilometres from Scarrif, then we drive to Dublin on Thursday and essentially begin to wend our way home, via Frankfurt where we spend a couple of days in a classy hotel and living it up before the stringencies of unemployment take hold of me.
We havent managed to see much of Ennis itself. Its winding central streets have been full of cars, wind and rain. Its central square sports a monument some ten metres high of Daniel O'Connall, an Irish patriot, so high above us we can barely make him out. The people we have met and spoken with have been uniformly polite and friendly, but this has been not enough to make us prefer the delights of O'Connall's gaze here to those of the ACT. We have been away so long that the joys of the ACT are beginning to become a dim memory.....we are both looking forward to getting home!
mike
Monday, November 1, 2010
Killarney
Just a quick update. We left Schull on Saturday bound for Dingle peninsula, but after passing through Killarney, with its fabulous scenery, oak forests, and potential walking we turned back and have holed up here instead.
Sunday saw us visit the national park's major drawcard, Muckross house and its gardens. As it was pretty wet, we decided to take a tour of the house, which was quite enlightening, particularly in terms of the class based nature of irish society right through the 19th century (and beyond?). Reminded me of the Robert Altman film Grafton House (I think that was the title?). Then for a walk around the estate, out onto a peninsula into the lakes, wonderful oak and yew forests (some of the last remaining in Ireland), moss covered forest glades, green swardes, lake and mountain views, all under a leaden grey sky, misty, damp and windy...we managed to enjoy ourselves immensely...
Today, we planned to climb a small mountain in the park, Mount Torc, and gave it a pretty good shot....it is only around a 300 metre climb and the path is largely made, but the wind and rain forced us back about two thirds of the way to the summit. Boronia managed to wear the chaps she had bought to keep her trousers dry, I stubbornly didnt put mine on as it would have meant removing my boots in the rain. As a result, we both ended up damp, me somewhat wetter than Boronia. Still, a bracing three hour walk through forest, along rivers, besides waterfalls, and onto hill sides in wind and sleet was just the thing to make us feel like we are confronting the elements and not allowing the weather to determine everything we do!
Not much more to report!
best wishes to all our readers
mike
Sunday saw us visit the national park's major drawcard, Muckross house and its gardens. As it was pretty wet, we decided to take a tour of the house, which was quite enlightening, particularly in terms of the class based nature of irish society right through the 19th century (and beyond?). Reminded me of the Robert Altman film Grafton House (I think that was the title?). Then for a walk around the estate, out onto a peninsula into the lakes, wonderful oak and yew forests (some of the last remaining in Ireland), moss covered forest glades, green swardes, lake and mountain views, all under a leaden grey sky, misty, damp and windy...we managed to enjoy ourselves immensely...
Today, we planned to climb a small mountain in the park, Mount Torc, and gave it a pretty good shot....it is only around a 300 metre climb and the path is largely made, but the wind and rain forced us back about two thirds of the way to the summit. Boronia managed to wear the chaps she had bought to keep her trousers dry, I stubbornly didnt put mine on as it would have meant removing my boots in the rain. As a result, we both ended up damp, me somewhat wetter than Boronia. Still, a bracing three hour walk through forest, along rivers, besides waterfalls, and onto hill sides in wind and sleet was just the thing to make us feel like we are confronting the elements and not allowing the weather to determine everything we do!
Not much more to report!
best wishes to all our readers
mike
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