Tag Archives: Attractions

Tasmania high and low (temperature)

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Australia, Tasmania

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I started to summarize our month in Tasmania and couldn’t remember anything but this week’s weather. One day the temperature is in the 90s, the next day the high 60s, changing more than 30° (F.) in twelve hours. Yesterday, I swam in the ocean, today’s forecast is 54° with smoke. Yo-yo temperatures and huge fires have distracted us. We check the internet often to make sure a fire alert hasn’t been issued for our area, only to find that we are miles from the nearest fire despite the smoke.

Forest fires have been been burning the entire month but the smoke has only become a statewide issue in the last few days. We are fortunate that it is just an inconvenience for us. More than 300 people in towns south of Hobart have been evacuated for several days, living in a local gymnasium. We are on our way to Melbourne shortly, where it will still be hot, though perhaps not as smoky.

In Tasmania we focused on nature, walking miles of beaches, admiring the changing landscape and marveling at the features that are similar to other places we’ve been. There are steep rocky hills, towering forests, dry rolling hills, and beaches one Australian we met called “Caribbean without palm trees.”

Though we stuck close to nature in Tasmania, we took in some entertaining and quirky places. Our evening of heavily revised Shakespeare at the Pooley Winery was one highlight,

The Spiky Bridge, outside Swansea, and the Tessellated Pavement, on the Tasman Peninsula are other interesting places we visited. Some of them come from the website Atlas Obscura. It’s a way to look up curiosities near where you happen to be. You can join and add sites you find, too.   https://www.atlasobscura.com/. The Tesselated Pavement is a geological feature, even though it looks like flooring or paving squares.

Fossil Cove held layers of fossil imprints.

Our month here was delightful. No wonder Tasmania is Australia’s favorite vacation spot.

MONA: The Museum of Old and New Art

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Australia

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MONA is a new phenomenon just outside Hobart, a huge museum meandering up and down over three floors built into the side of a hill. Visitors arrive via ferry from the city, getting a great view of the Derwent River and the MONA facade as they arrive. Drivers walk down a path beside a band shell and lawn, past a barbecue restaurant and bar, the entrance to the Moorilla winery that is part of the property, and if they’re not lost yet, descend a zig-zag set of stairs and ramps to arrive at the front door of the museum. Clad in mirror-finish brass, it’s a bit disorienting, but that seems to be the point.

I started our visit by sitting on a stool held up by a gloved “Mickey Mouse” hand.

We rambled along the suggested route, from the lowest level upward, then took a break to go off-site for a picnic lunch break. Tickets are good for multiple entries on a single day, and no one paid much attention to our in and out. Musicians were playing in the band shell from around noon until after we left. We didn’t like the music much, but it was entertainment, and people were sitting on the lawn listening.

I enjoyed the moments of participation. We arrived in one room during the period when visitors are allowed to add to a pile of broken glass piled against a section of white wall within the dark room. If you hit the wall with the bottle given to you, a bright light goes off.

Another installation is a recreated studio of Vermeer with a discussion of whether artists of his period used lenses to project images to enhance the accuracy of their painting. I sat before a blank page with an inverted image pasted on the wall and a lens angled in such a way that I could draw the image on the blank page as if I was tracing it. I did a pretty good job if I do say so.

An ingenious piece emits water droplets in patterns that create words out of the falling water. I listened to an interview with the artist who revealed that as soon as he presented his piece he was besieged with requests to use it for advertising. He refused, and someone promptly worked out how he did it, creating a similar device to be used for advertising. It is already in use, with the artist gaining neither credit or money for it.

There was one piece that impressed me as a work of art and a commentary on life and art. This machine was created by Jean Tinguely  (1925-1991) as a commentary on the machine age as it runs constantly and does nothing but wear down. The intent was that eventually it would destroy itself. It was created long before Steampunk–I consider Tinguely the grandfather of Steampunk. Watch a very short video of the contraption working:

Jean Tinguely metamechanics sculpture at MONA

Outdoors was a life-size sculpture of a semi trailer carrying a cement mixer. The strange difference was the fact the entire piece was created from gothic style arches cut into steel.

Whether or not visitors like the art is beside the point. MONA provides all visitors with an “O” device that works easily and well, providing text about all the pieces. Press the button and O reveals what is nearest to you, click on the photo to read a basic description, then on other icons for more extensive comments. Sometimes there is a music or video link, though these are underutilized. The device was an excellent way for the museum to avoid labels and allows them to move things around at any time. The device elicits a “love”, “hate” reaction to each piece, and allows viewers to comment. I liked it better than an audio guide.

With the O device in hand, a visitor could easily spend many hours viewing and commenting on the pieces. But why? The pieces are sometimes boring, like the white table filled with random bits, or the Porsche covered with fiberglass, aka, the “Fat Car.”

Later, I looked at the MONA web page that shows some of the items in the collection. Most of them were items that I did not see during our visit. It looks like they do rotate material frequently. The web page doesn’t exactly keep up. That is probably intentional. MONA intends to do everything differently, for good or bad. Museum staff are numerous, friendly, and helpful. For example, they ask you not to take in water bottles, and provide water at all the bars/restaurants. There are many opportunities to purchase food and drink, souvenirs or “enhanced visits.” I opted not pay extra to go inside the white sphere. For another opinion of MONA, here is Jonathan’s review of MONA from TripAdvisor:

MONA is a difficult institution to review.  Is it a museum, as implied by the name?  Not really.  It is mostly a money-making entertainment venue.  The next big question is: is it art?  Well, kind of.  It is a bizarre collection made by the wealthy owner with no real focus except “sex and death”.  Much of it seems deliberately designed to shock or stymy the visitor and it does succeed at both of those.  Does it inspire a greater understanding of anything?  Not that I can see.  We spent four hours wandering around the dark tunnels and “exhibit” spaces.  It’s hard to get really lost, but you do wind up backtracking a lot.  My wife and I were reminded of the Dali Theatre-Museum in Spain, where the visitor is invited to put aside traditional pathways and explore the Museum as you wish. The difference is that Dali was a creative genius and the curators of his museum do a stunning job of displaying Dali’s art (and related artists).  Mona on the other hand has depressingly little of creative genius and the curators do a particularly bad job of presenting mediocre fare.  Go, have a good time, but don’t expect to be enlightened.

 

Road Trip! Milford Sound and Queenstown

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in New Zealand

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Each of our New Zealand stops lasts two weeks, and we tend to go on one trip that takes us away from our base overnight. Our present spot on Shag Point is the farthest south we get in New Zealand and we were torn between getting to see more of the coast nearby and seeing other parts of the South Island. We decided on a whirl across the South Island to see Milford Sound and Queenstown, returning through the wine country of Central Otago.

On our loop south, we crossed miles of sheep pasture. This is the part of New Zealand where sheep outnumber people more than twenty to one. The yellow hillside in this photo is covered with gorse, an invasive species that sheep won’t eat. (Winnie-the-Pooh fell into gorse bushes and found them very prickly). Many plant and animal species thrive in New Zealand’s cool and rainy climate, which is part of the reason that invasive species are an ongoing menace.

Brush tailed Possum–note bushy tail
Opossum–note skinny tail, pointed head

As I’ve mentioned, every mammal is invasive. One of these, a brush-tailed possum came to our patio door to invade us! He stared through the glass and was only intimidated from trying to get in the house when he hit his nose hard on the glass.(Possums are not related to opossums found in the US). Possum eradication includes the development of a merino wool/possum fur fiber blend that is very soft. It has become popular for sweaters, scarves, and gloves.

As we drove west, the high mountains of the Fjordland National Park rose up in the distance. The huge park encompasses the southwest portion of the South Island of New Zealand and is about the size of Connecticut. We arrived in Te Anau, the closest jumping-off spot for Milford Sound, in the afternoon. The sun was bright and there was almost no wind, it was beautiful.  Lake Te Anau is a very long, narrow, deep lake bordered by snow-capped mountains. We watched a seaplane take off with groups of sightseers as we strolled to the local bird sanctuary from our hotel. It was great to stretch our legs after the long drive.

There are very few roads into the Fjordland National Park, the longest runs from Te Anau to Milford Sound. The drive is about 120 km and takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours depending on how many times you stop. From the open space along Lake Te Anau, the road rises around Mirror Lakes, where the reflections in the water were a bit blurred by the rain. The view of the mountains was impressive, with clouds encircling the mountains like smoke rings around Santa’s head in “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

Our next stop was Monkey Creek, to look for blue ducks. We saw no ducks, but were entertained by a Kea parrot, a largish, short tailed, mischievous, and endangered species. One flew to the top of a van full of tourists. Its goal was to chew anything that looked like it might come off–they particularly like rubber gaskets. It has a very long and pointed beak, so I kept my distance. We saw it ride off on top of the van rather than let go of whatever it was chewing. Similar antics were on display as we waited our turn to go through the Homer Tunnel on the approach to Milford Sound.

The hillsides along our route were dripping with water from recent rains. Parallel streams too small to be called waterfalls poured down the bare rocky faces. There was water everywhere.

Our last stop before Milford was at the Cataract, a rushing stream that thunders through its deeply entrenched bed in the surrounding rock. The twisting rock shapes are a reminder of the power of the rushing water. The plants growing around the cataract were brilliant green.

At the end of the trail is Milford Sound, a settlement consisting of a visitors center, gift shop, short walking trail, and embarkation pier. The Sound itself is a fjord, deep and narrow, running inland from the Tasman Sea to the Milford Sound settlement. The water is dark, dark green, backed by hillsides of dense forest, and sheer vertical cliffs of rock. Snow clings to the upper reaches of the mountains that stretch away from the boat landing. We strolled the trail, watching the birds and the boats coming and going. A small ship on a multi-day tour stood off the pier for a while as smaller ships arrived and departed.

This is a majestic landscape that makes you think about “big” things. The meaning of life, the tiny size of each of us, and our place within nature. It’s a moving place. The reality requires you to create a bit of space for contemplation around yourself as you think about all these interesting things while you stroll. Around you are people walking both ways on the trail speaking all kinds of languages, buses hurry to the pier and back trailing a thin wake of diesel smoke. Looking out over Milford Sound, though, the noise recedes into the background and the majesty of nature takes over.

We left Milford Sound with regret. Not that there was anything more to see, but with the melancholy that comes from turning away from a truly impressive view. We passed the keas at the tunnel entrance, stopped for one more look for the blue duck at Monkey Creek (and saw one!) and continued all the way to Queenstown, two and a half hours down the road. We strolled to the downtown area from our hotel and had fun window-shopping in the drizzle. We ate at the peculiarly-named Botswana Butchery. After dinner we stopped in a leather store and found the red vest I have been looking for (red, natural shearling inside, pockets, made in New Zealand).

On the way back to Shag Point we stopped at Bungy Bridge, something of a family historic site. This is where Lyra went bungee jumping on the spring break of her semester abroad. From the side of an old bridge just off the main highway we watched young people jump into the void and then bounce upside down for a while…

After the bridge, we focused on wineries, stopping at Amisville near Queenstown, and Weaver Estate near Alexandra. Weaver had particularly interesting offerings for people who like white wine, including a Pinot Noir Rose, a faintly orange-tinted pinotgris, as well as other whites, natural “orange” wine, and pinot noir. We enjoyed our visits and bought some wine, ending up back at home at Shag Point before long. We don’t have to worry about driving when it gets dark because the sun doesn’t set until 10:01 pm this week. (The sun rises at 5:15 am but I’m not awake to notice.)

 

On the Edge of a Cliff at Shag Point

04 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in New Zealand

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Pulling up at our new house on Shag Point there wasn’t much to see. A thick screen of trees and bushes separates the house from the road. Enter the gate and it all changes. The house overlooks the ocean, with lovely small gardens tucked in on either side. Bushes, potted plants and sculpture are combined with short paths and hidden table and chairs to create intriguing spaces for sitting and looking out across the waves. We face northeast with a view up the coast and out over the Pacific, called the Canterbury Bight. Looking over the edge of the cliff, we spotted a spherical boulder eroding out of the shore, part of the deposits extending over 15 km from here to the opposite side of the bay. There the Moeraki Boulders are one of the tourist sites of this region. We have a few in our yard, along with a limestone bathing beauty hiding in the bushes.

Inside, the house is open plan with glass surrounding all the living areas. It makes the most of the sun and doors slide open if it gets too warm. A tiny wood stove builds up enough heat to take the chill off when there’s a drizzle at night or early in the day.

The spectacular view and glass walls brings the outdoors inside. It’s a stunning location. Our only problem may be leaving home to go anywhere. I did find the somewhat hidden path to the shore below us yesterday. I was just getting comfortable walking around on the rocks when a big “Whuff!” scared the wind out of me. A sea lion was resting a few yards away, and wasn’t interested in my company. I gave him/her their space and decided to visit another day when my breathing returns to normal.

Salar de Uyuni

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by in Bolivia

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We drove from Sucre to Colchani, a settlement near the Uyuni salt flats/Salar de Uyuni. We stayed at the Palacio de Sal, a hotel made with a lot of salt mined nearby.The domed ceiling of our room was made of blocks of salt  We went on a day-long tour of the area around Colchani with a driver, Orlando, and guide, Edson. What started as a lark proved to be a rare experience. The Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flats (110 x 90 km), approximately 120 m deep. As you drive out into the salar, the surface turns from slushy gray to bright white. You lose all sense of perspective because there are no objects in the background–it’s all white. It’s a very weird environment, and the white all around you flattens perspective until you look like cutouts on a plain background. We had lunch all by ourselves in the middle of the salt flats, feeling akin to extras in a Fellini movie.

Like traveling in the desert, you need a driver who knows his way on invisible roads. Orlando claimed to use the hills and mountains in the distance to check his location. At one point we drove for more than an hour across the salt (no road) without reaching the edge of the salar.  The salt is mined for consumption within Bolivia but not exported. From a distance the salt looks like snow on the ground. It looks a bit like that up close, too. Where the salt has been scraped from the hard surface, you can see a network of hexagonal cracks. Underneath the salt, water bubbles up. The boiling water looks like it would be hot, but it is ice cold and very salty. Salt crystals form inside these bubbling holes (called ojos/eyes). Edson reached into one and pulled out a clump of crystalline salt. During the rainy season, runoff from rivers turns the salar into a shallow lake. The water can be up to a meter deep, and vehicles avoid the deep spots during those months (Dec.-Feb). We visited Isla Incahuasi in the middle of the salar, home to several species of birds and lots of cactus. It’s completely surrounded by salt.

We stopped at what looked like a ski lodge, the site of the first “Palacio de Sal” hotel that was almost completely made of salt. It was moved when the pollution from the hotel (water, trash, sewer) made it clear that building out on the salar itself wasn’t a good idea. The ruins of the hotel are now a lively way station on the largely featureless salar.

When there is shallow water over the salt, up to about 2 cm, it’s possible to see exact reflections in the water. The rainy season is over, but we found a patch that was still reflecting.

We ended the day watching the sun set over the salar with glasses of Bolivian wine (Campos de Solana). We’d never heard of Bolivian wine, so it was a pleasant surprise and capped a truly remarkable day.

There are tours that last 2-10 days and circle southwest Bolivia, visiting farflung corners of the salar, unusual stone formations, lakes of different colors, remnant volcanoes and archaeological sites. Our day trip was wonderful, but there is much more that can be seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Riding the Teleferico

08 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by in Bolivia

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Jonathan likes markets, and as Thursday is the El Alto market on Av. 16 de abril, we decided to go. When we went to the hotel desk to ask about getting a taxi, one of the bellmen suggested we take a taxi to the main aerial tramway station and ride the tram to El Alto. The ticket is three Bolivarianos a person, about fifty cents, and you get off in the middle of the market. He went on to say that we could make the return journey to the hotel completely by aerial tram, circling the city. It sounded like a bit of a headache, but he said we could buy all the tickets at the start of the journey so we didn’t have to stand in line at each station. We would ride the red line back from El Alto to the end at the central station, the take the orange line to where it ends and then the white line to where it ends just below our hotel. We’d save money on the taxi fare, too.

Road up the hillside below the teleferico.

The taxi ride to the main station convinced us. Traffic was heavy, inching along every street. It took almost a half hour to get to the station. The aerial tramway is a different world. It is new, uncrowded, and clearly marked, with lots of staff. There was almost no line and you get in your eight person gondola while it shuffles along at a snail’s pace. At the end of the runway you swing out and up and you’re over the city with a breathtaking view both down into people’s backyards and out across the valley. I looked up at the valley rim and thought, “We won’t go up there.” We touched down at a station and changed direction, but my smugness evaporated as we swung up and over the edge of the valley into the next valley that holds El Alto, Peru’s second largest city. By the time we arrived in El Alto we were sold on returning by air.

Shopping for polleras/skirts in El Alto

The market was huge, full of every imaginable household item. I bought a nailbrush. We would have bought one of the brooms they sell for sweeping sidewalks made of a bundle of reeds tied together, but neither of us thought we could get one through Peruvian customs.

We followed the suggested plan, paying for the six tickets we needed in order for both of us to get back to the hotel. The ride was spectacular. From El Alto you can see snowcapped mountains ringing the valley, while back in La Paz, Illimani is a single huge beacon over the city. We could see the whole bowl of the city with it’s patch of twenty story buildings right in the center. It was easy to change from one line to the next. There are elevators and elevated walkways that meant Jonathan could avoid stressing his knees. Those who’ve ridden subways know how rare it is to find a seamless system without stairs. Our swing around La Paz, literally, was a good way to get a sense of the city.

Note: The young man at the ticket booth in El Alto didn’t give us all the tickets we paid for. Whether it was an error or by design, count your tickets and your change and politely ask for what’s missing if necessary. To save face, most people will comply.

Life in Campania: Vacation Paradise, Daily Grind?

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Salerno

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Hurricanes have flattened more than one vacation paradise recently. There are many left, and we are just finishing our stay in Salerno, Italy, adjacent to, if not in, vacation paradise (as in Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri).

Castello di Arecchi

Our current home ground, the province of Campania, was the breadbasket of ancient Rome, and occupied both long before and after the Romans. Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site here, and there are countless others. Not just the other Vesuvians (Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis, Bosco Reale), but Samnite and Lucanian sites, Etruscans, and Greeks, too. Later came the Lombards, the Angevins, Aragonese and the Hapsburgs building castles and fortresses. Archaeologically, this area is fabulous.

  • As a vacation paradise, there’s a lot to recommend this area.Gardens and orchards. Lemon, pomegranate, quince, apple trees are all dropping fruit all over the place–olive trees, too. The markets have an excellent variety of fruits and vegetables including multiple varieties of tomatoes and eggplants. You can be a vegetarian without even noticing. All that mozzarella de bufala, so little time!
  • Food costs are lower than anywhere else we have been in Europe.
  • Food festivals. We visited Cusano Mutri for its annual mushroom festival, the Sagra di Funghi. We bought porcini and chanterelles, ate mushroom and cheese sandwiches, had coffee in the tiny plaza at the top of the town. (There were no tour buses.)
  • Archaeology is everywhere. There are ruined towers every 500 yards or so along the coast. Some of these have been transformed into houses and hotels. Others are ruins ready to be visited. The Castello di Arecchi outside Salerno is one of the largest and best-restored.
  • In Florence, I saw a woman with a nice haircut and asked her whether she was local. When she said no, I asked where she was from and when she told me Salerno, I insisted she write down the name of her hairdresser for me.. 2 1/2 months later, when we were nearby, I visited her hairdresser, who was flattered that I made the effort to track her down. It was fun and I got a good haircut.
  • We had wonderful hosts, and met some lovely people, both Italians and other visitors.

No one really lives in Paradise, we just vacation there. Everyday life has its struggles whether you live in Bali or Boston, and how would we live with nothing to grouse about? We may only be here for a month, but a few things had to get done that vacationers ignore until the party’s over. That’s where Italy is a challenge.

  • Repairing anything is complicated, in Italy as in the US. My Samsung phone broke and I took it to a repair place that said the reset I needed could only be done at the other Samsung repair place. I went to the second repair place, left my phone to be fixed and came back the next day to find that they were still unable to fix it.
  • To get an appointment with an English-speaking eye doctor, I had to call her non-English-speaking receptionist. Fortunately, I can muddle along in basic Italian and receptionists can muddle along in English.

General grousing about Italy:

  • I have rarely been in such heavy traffic caused by…..nothing. On our first try we missed the ferry to Capri because no cars moved for 40 minutes. When I explained our problem at the ferry office, the agent was sympathetic. “Yes, terrible traffic.” “Do you know why?” I asked. Rolled eyes, a shrug. “No. It just happens.”
  • People drive badly. Most people drive too fast for the conditions, straddle lane lines, pass too close, tailgate, park haphazardly. If you plan to drive, be warned. There are a lot of cars, and too little space for them.
  • Traffic cameras send you a ticket three months after you’ve left town–we’ve only gotten one so far. Every person you speak to says they have gotten innumerable tickets. (Shrug. No one has any suggestions for avoiding them.)
  • Crowds are part of life. I feel crowded on the bus, the subway, walking down the street, shopping, and at the beach. There may be tiny hill towns begging for population, but Greater Naples is bursting at the seams. Eight story apartment buildings surround single story houses from the last century. It looks like the big buildings just shouldered their way in and squatted down.

Woman gardening beside motorcycle repair shop.

Some of my grousing can be turned on its head.

  • There doesn’t seem to be a lot of zoning concerns in Campania the way there is in Tuscany where preserving views of the landscape is a paramount civic value.  In the Naples region there is a patchwork of apartments, cultivated fields and orchards. You could call it lack of zoning, but I like seeing see lemon trees along the highway and eggplants beside the car repair.
  • History is everywhere. We saw city walls from five different time periods in a two block section of Salerno. You can walk around any ruined structure that isn’t marked Do Not Enter.

I wouldn’t change what I am doing for a different way of life. I appreciate learning what you need to know to actually live in a place, and every different locality has its own charms and aggravations. While I stretch my brain muscles with crosswords, I also stretch myself by living in different environments.

 

 

 

Patterns of Nature

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in Ireland

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Here are some things I’ve seen that remind me that nature is amazing all on its own.

On the left are the vertical columns of basalt at the Giant’s Causeway. On the right are ridges in beach sand.

 

We visited Giant’s Causeway and the next day went to Dunluce Castle, not far away.

The Giant’s Causeway is made of basalt columns. The tops are visible here. On the right you see a wall at Dunluce Castle made with basalt quarried from Giant’s Causeway. They cut off the tops of the stone columns to use in the wall–the five and six-sided pieces. Notice that the man-made wall isn’t nearly as lovely as the natural formation.

Can you identify the source of these two patterns? They are from land and sea. See below for answer.

 

 

 

 

(Grazing sheep, fossil coral)

 

 

 

 

From the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren to Galway

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Ireland

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On our way north along the coast of Ireland, we stopped to see the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s staggering sights. People look tiny standing on the edge of the 390 ft. high escarpment. It was impressive (Look for the tiny, tiny people on the top of the cliff).Before you rush to book your trip, keep in mind that we were there with 20 bus loads and hundreds of cars full of other visitors. The Cliffs of Moher is one of the most popular sights in all of Ireland, with about 1 million visitors per year. That’s more than 2,000 people a day all year long. That’s a lot of people. From the cliffs we headed toward Galway, our overnight stop halfway to Bundoran. The road cuts through an unusual geologic formation called The Burren. From a distance you see gray, stony hillsides. These rocky places are home to unusual plant species of both alpine and mediterranean origin. We stopped to take a photo and when I got out of the car and looked over the nearest stone wall, I was face to face with The Burren. Plates of gray stone cover the ground, with plants growing up through the cracks. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would wall in an area like this. (From Wikipedia):The rolling hills of The Burren are composed of limestone pavements with criss-crossing cracks known as “grikes”, leaving isolated rocks called “clints”.

OK, whatever you say. Grikes and clints. It is a remarkably stony landscape. I have never seen anything like it.

Further on, we passed a castle and found out it is the Burren School of Art. It would be  a lovely place to study.

We ended the day with dinner in downtown Galway and a stroll through the pedestrian area. It was very lively as we happened to be in town on the first night of the Galway Races. The horse races were being broadcast on every TV. They ended around 8:30 pm and by the time we finished dinner women and men in their best Race Day clothes were pouring in for an evening on the town.

Summer came on Monday–at Great Blasket Island

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Ireland, Paula

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The boatman made the quip as we left, “Tell them this year summer came on Monday!” That’s because the weather is never forecast to be as fine as it was on our trip out to Great Blasket Island last Monday. The sun shone all day long. The boat ride from Dunquin to Great Blasket was smooth and the 35 passengers smiled and chatted all the way.Great Blasket Island was an independent community lived there from early in the 19th century until Nov. 17, 1953. They were completely Irish speaking, cut off from the mainland as they were. The distance is short, but the water can be rough, and boats were the traditional naomhog, or currach, rowboats framed of wood and covered with tarred cloth.

As the Irish language fell into disuse in the 19th century, linguists and writers discovered the community on Great Blasket and visited to study the language or expand their proficiency. Visitors such as the poet Robin Flower encouraged the islanders to write about their lives and several did just that. The strong tradition of storytelling among people who have to entertain themselves on long winter evenings seems to have eased the transition to writing stories in a book. Best known are: An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. The remains of each author’s house is marked on the visitors map.

Most houses lie in ruins today, though one was being renovated during our visit. That’s puzzling because there’s only seasonal ferry service, no central water source, no electricity, no store, all part of the reason the island was evacuated years ago. We looked at the ruined community and hiked up the spine of the island. At the peak of the island, I could see the faint outline of  the Skellig Islands on the horizon to the south.

Blasket harbor–tiny
At the harbor

We waited for our trip home just above the tiny boat landing on Blasket. Arriving at Dunquin we struggled up the steep incline from the beach.                                               (This is an internet photo–see the upturned naomhog boats in the lowest bend of the ramp.)