My winter of discontent has come early

 

Suddenly, last Monday the weather changed and the temper-ature dropped and it has been cold and miserable ever since and, while Richard III's soliloquy suggests that his unhappi-ness is over now that wonderful summer is upon him, my own winter of discontent is about to start.

Although it's not all wine and roses for Dicky who declares, "Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them". He certainly got the short end of the stick, didn't he?

Maybe he should've got rid of those ridiculous dangling sleeves and not put on those voice-changing tights; after all, I managed to get rid of my ridiculous German accent (although I'm still battling with my dangling participles) and dropped my 'Lederhosen', but who am I to give advice.

Come to think of it, who am I?

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P.S. Almost forgot how my mate Ian handles trying times like these - click here.

 

The Lost City of Z

 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lost World" is believed to have been inspired by his good friend Percy Harrison Fawcett's expedition to Bolivia in search of the lost city of Z, said to be the remains of El Dorado.

Truth is stranger than fiction and this movie, based on David Grann's non-fiction bestseller, tells the incredible true story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who journeys into the Amazon at the dawn of the 20th century and discovers evidence of a previously unknown advanced civilization that may have once inhabited the region.

Despite being ridiculed by the scientific establishment who regard indigenous populations as “savages,” the determined Fawcett — supported by his devoted wife, son and aide-de-camp — returns time and again to his beloved jungle in an attempt to prove his case, culminating in his mysterious disappearance in 1925.

This is the full-length movie, albeit with Indonesian sub-titles. Enjoy!

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The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow

 

Now that reading has become my preferred form of travel, I was absolutely captivated by A. J. "Sandy" Mackinnon's book "The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow".

Equipped with little more than cheerful optimism and a pith helmet, Mackinnon sets out in an ancient Mirror dinghy in 1998, aged 35, to "see where I got to - Gloucester near the mouth of the Severn, I thought".

Instead, he travels from the borders of North Wales to the Black Sea - 4,900 kilometres under sail, at the oars, or at the end of a tow-rope.

I found "The Unlikely Voyage" in one of my favourite op-shops, book-plated by an ericdavies421@gmail.com whom I contacted. He replied, "I've been putting bookplates in books for the last six years and leave the books somewhere during my travels. So you may find some more."

I shall certainly look out for them as I will for Mackinnon's other book, "The Well at the World's End", but not today which turned out to be a gloomy and overcast morning after a wild and rainy night and gives me the perfect excuse not to go into town.

After all, I still have enough bread and milk and Swiss cheese and onions and lots of tinned stuff in the larder, not to mention the two portions of frozen lentil soup in the freezer, and enough tea to last me a lifetime. I even still have a whole unopened case of Coke. You're reading this, Des?

Peter the Skipper had anchored in the Bay for a few days before coming upriver, and had gone to see 'Swinging Safari' at the local cinema. He compared it to 'The Castle' and said I should see it. I checked the cine-ma's website which shows it runs until Wednesday, so Wednesday it is for my first trip into the Bay since Padma left for Melbourne on the 12th.

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The Book Thief

 

Forget about Markus Zusak, here's the real book thief: Peter Johnson, skipper of SY EKAZA, who's since caught the out-going tide and is on his way farther south, but not before I had fitted him out with a t-shirt emblazoned with a nauti-cal motif and 'Nelligen Yacht Club' across the chest.

I also forced a book-bag onto him, containing several yachting books, three books by James Michener, "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton (whom he should know from 'Goodbye Mr Chips", being a retired schoolteacher himself) and "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. I thought of adding some Joseph Conrad titles but, other than "Lord Jim" which everyone knows or at least ought to, his books are an acquired taste and so I left them out.

 

 

It must've whetted his appetite because he wondered what I'd eventu-ally do with all my yachting books. "Give them to Vinnies", I replied which prompted him to ask to be given first choice. Which I did and which resulted in two big armfuls of books going across to SY EKAZA.

 

 

As he did his final sail-by, I watched his Plimsoll line but all those extra books hadn't affected it at all. Perhaps he should've taken some more.

 

 

Anyway, I've probably made a friend for life which, given my age, won't commit him for long. "Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence." Good fellow, that Longfellow!

 

 

Fair winds, my friend, and safe passage!

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Better late than never

Just before reaching Shallow Crossing

 

In my twenty-five years at "Riverbend", I've been to Shallow Cross-ing countless times but never by boat as my old motor-sailer's mast was too high for Nelligen Bridge, so when Skipper Peter of SY EKAZA asked me this morning to go upriver with him in his inflatable dinghy, I dropped everything and into his dinghy.

We motored upriver with the incoming tide, from the red spot at the bottom of the map which is "Riverbend" to the red spot at the top which is Shallow Crossing, through the most magnificent scenery imaginable.

 

Some 16 km as the cockatoo flies but, with the twists and turns in the river,
probably a good 25 km from one red spot to the other, the same distance as
from Batemans Bay to Moruya

 

It was real Heart of Darkness stuff, right down to spotting a Harlequin or two. For a moment I even thought I was dreaming as we passed some-thing called 'Bonnie Doon' but there was no sign of the Kerrigan family.

 

 

We knew we were nearing the 'Inner Station' and running out of navi-gable river when we saw the 'glamping' tent tops of 'The Escape' and heard voices coming from the Shallow Crossing Camping Ground.

 

Aerial view of 'The Escape'. Shallow Crossing can be seen at the end of the navigable river

 

After several hours on the water during which we talked about books and Fibonacci and palindromic numbers, and made a refuelling stop ...

... and cooled down for a while at Shallow Crossing ...

... it was good to see SY EKAZA and "Riverbend" again.

 

So after twenty-five years, I finally made it to Shallow Crossing by boat. Better late than never!

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