When I’m researching beautiful places to visit I’ll often do a google image search. The Mt Etna National Park in Sicily was no exception and I had in fact ruled it out based on the lacklustre results I’d found. Photo after photo of barren black lava landscapes left me less than enthused. Fortunately due to an unexpected prolonging of our stay on this small island we ended up doing a few things we wouldn’t have done otherwise. The problem with doing google image searches is that tourists, generally speaking, all go to the same place to see the same thing, and take the same photos. There’s much more to Mt Etna National Park than barren black lava flows but you wouldn’t know it looking at the travel photos on the net. Hopefully this blog post will go some way to re-dressing the balance.

In this photo I am hiking in deep volcanic ash (like very fine sand) on a nearly vertical incline (okay, not quite but it was steep damn it) – that was very very hard.

One of the things I love most about hiking up big steep things. The romantic in me will never tire of being able to touch the clouds.

Before we left Australia, one of the things I was really excited about was getting another autumn. Two autumns in one year, my favourite season! Images of shockingly colourful autumnal forests was a staple of mine whenever I would fantasise about travelling. This might sound strange to non-Australian peeps, but most of our trees are evergreen so a whole forrest full of deciduous trees makes the nature lover in me get all giddy with glee.

Until Mt Etna we hadn’t actually seen any autumn colours – a very discouraging state of affairs given that winter was just around the corner. I had no idea that we would find our autumn when we decided to give the Mt Etna national park a go. We were both astonished by the vivid colours. On our first leisurely walk in the national park I commented to Mike that just when I think I’ve seen a place so beautiful nothing could ever compare we go somewhere new and see something even more beautiful.

However, Sicily stole my heart not for it’s beautiful scenery but for it’s beautiful people. I honestly never knew that people could be so kind and open and genuinely friendly. We were treated like family by complete strangers. We were invited to stay at people’s homes, join their celebrations and were taken on personal guided tours that lasted all day and all night and then invited to do it all again. I think Mike has done those stories justice so do head over to his blog to read more.

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December 19 Car Ride

What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

Oh wow, the last 6 months have been one big car ride. Since we picked up our motorhome, “Nettle”, in the Cotswolds, England we’ve driven her through a bit of English countryside, across Wales, all around Ireland and Northern Ireland, back across the UK, from the top of France to the bottom, from the top of Italy to the bottom and then a little bit of Tunisia in Northern Africa. That’s a lot of driving. Of course, some legs have been better than others. I really can’t narrow it down to just one car ride so I’m gonna go ahead and say Ireland and Northern Ireland was one big awesome road trip. I could write a very lengthy blog article just on this one prompt! I’m going to be very restrained and just dot point a few highlights with 1 photo each. If you feel an uncontrollable desire to read about our journeys in elaborate detail check out my very diligent partner’s blog.

Highlights:

• Brightly coloured flowers growing wild along the sides of the roads and clinging to steep hill sides

• The in-between bits – they were just as beautiful as the destinations we were driving to

• A spontaneous detour that took us through the Wicklow Mountains and the first place that made me go “this is why I’ve been dying to travel all my life”

• The Giant’s Causeway Coastal Tour – A driving tour described in “The European Driver’s Handbook”

• Connemara national park – stark, breathtaking, rugged

• Dingle Peninsula -You could believe in faeries and magik and elves in this enchanting place.

• The Ring of Kerry (which was actually pretty disappointing to be honest, but the second half of the drive redeemed itself)

December 20 New Person

She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009.

My partner Mike, and I were befriended by a local Sicilian whilst hiking in the Mt Etna national park one day. He was on his way to a celebration of Sicily’s patron saint with his Alpine club and invited us to come along. There was much eating and singing and dancing. Our new friend and a friend of his then invited us to go see a few of the local natural sights with them another day. Of course, we couldn’t believe our luck and were more than happy to accept the generous invitation. As they showed us the sights they would point out which plants were poisonous, which were good for haemorrhoids, and which ones can crack lava with their roots. They picked various exotic fruits and berries for us to eat along the way. We were then invited to a road rally and then another road rally, dinner at a very special seafood restaurant, a trip to a food expo at Italy’s largest shopping centre with our friend’s mother and partner, and a road trip to a wetland park where flamingos were pitch stopped on their way to Africa for the winter. We’ve been invited back in the spring and summer for some special annual events and have been offered a house to stay in rent-free.

I’ve never met someone so friendly and open and generous. He has almost 700 friends in facebook and I’m not surprised. I’m so unused to such genuine kindness from strangers I frequently found myself entertaining uncharitable thoughts about what could possibly be in it for him and how this could all be a scam, an intricate long-con. I have trust issues. He certainly did come into my life and turn it upside down, as did all the other Sicilians we met who went out of their way to help us. My entire perception of human kind will be forever altered for the better for having met these uncommonly kind Sicilians.

December 21 Project

What did you start this year that you’re proud of?

I have big [for me, not world domination big] plans. I’m so excited. I’m working on them everyday and I’m loving every day. I’ve plunged myself into creating an online creative business. I’m learning how to use photoshop so I can create collage papers to sell as pdf’s on etsy. I love them so much that I look at them every now and then throughout the day. I’m painting every other day and I hope to sell my paintings on Red Bubble. When I decided I’d like to sell prints of my art work on Red Bubble I thought maybe I’d have something good enough in a couple of months. Two days later I had something I was super proud of and am more than happy to put out there in the ether to be looked at and judged and maybe rejected. I’m also learning how to digitally alter photos and am hoping to sell these on Red Bubble also. Just a month ago I hadn’t even entertained the notion of selling my art and now I have an action plan, baby! I feel so energised and things feel so right. I feel like for the first time in my life I’m doing something that I can excel at if I just give it my time and hard work.

December 22 Start-up

What’s a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

This is very biased of me and it’s also something that I’ve already blogged about so I’m sort of cheating.

December 23 Web Tool

It came into your work flow this year and now you couldn’t live without it. It has simplified or improved your online experience.

Since starting out on this crazy new slow travel lifestyle of ours, Mike and I have been keeping tabs on our expenses so we know how much we need to earn to feasibly do this indefinitely. We’ve been religiously using an iphone app called “iExpenseIt” – terrible name, I know, but it’s a good app. Thanks to this nifty app we know that slow travelling in expensive Italy cost us on average $48 (AUD) a day and since we’ve been in Thrifty Tunisia we’ve been making do on $27 a day. That’s cheaper than living and paying rent in Melbourne, Australia. Add a 30% buffer to cover savings and unforeseen expenses and we need to earn $62 a day (based on expenses in Italy) to continue living our dream. It feels so liberating to know how much we need to be earning and aim for that instead of aimlessly earning as much as we can. If you’re interested in this kind of lifestyle and philosophy, check out The Four Hour Work Week.

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December 9 Challenge

Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

See “New Food” entry below.

December 10 Album of the year.

What’s rocking your world?

I discovered “The Flight of the Concords” this year and I can’t get enough of their albums. They make me laugh out loud every time. A spin off from this is that I also discovered David Bowie, which I wrote about here.  

The old school Bowie songs that are rocking my world (for all those closet Bowie groupies out there) are “Boys Keep Swinging” , “Alabama Song”, and “Ashes to Ashes”.

I’m really going to geek out now and list the often cheeky sometimes torrid lyrics that make his music so deliciously freaky:

“Life’s a pop of the cherry when you’re a boy”… “When you’re a boy you can wear a uniform, when you’re a boy other boys check you out, when you’re a boy you can learn to drive and everything”.

~ Boys Keep Swinging

“We must find our way to the next whiskey bar or I tell you we must die”… “Oh show us the way to the next little girl. Oh don’t ask why, no don’t ask why. We must find the next little girl for if we don’t find the next little girl I tell you we must die”. [creepy, no?]

~ Alabama Song

“Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, we know Major Tom’s a junky”.

~ Ashes to Ashes

December 11 The best place.

A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?

It’s a tie:

Ireland

VS

Sicily

They’re so different they’re the proverbial apples and oranges so I can’t decide between the two. The photo of Ireland is of the Dingle Peninsula. It’s a place that could make you believe in faeries and magik. The photo of Sicily was taken on a hike in the Mt Etna national park. I remarked to my partner Mike on our hike that just when I think I’ve seen a place so beautiful nothing could ever compare we travel somewhere new and see something even more beautiful. However, Sicily stole my heart not for it’s beautiful scenery but for it’s beautiful people. I honestly never knew that people could be so kind and open and genuinely friendly. We were treated like family by complete strangers. We were invited to stay at people’s homes, join their celebrations and were taken on personal guided tours that lasted all day and all night and then invited to do it all again.

December 12 New food.

You’re now in love with Lebanese food and you didn’t even know what it was in January of this year.

I well and truly conquered my seafood phobia this year, which I wrote about here. I’m still not a seafood lover but I do salivate over a nice fresh piece of pesce spada (a Sicilian favourite – sword fish) and I know I can eat texture challenging jiblets like oysters and tentacles if I must.

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Best Trip

I just love that photo. To me, it makes me think “journey”. We took this photo at the very beginning of our adventure. We’d been in the UK a few weeks, had bought our motorhome and named her “Nettle” and driven her through the English country side very tentatively. We travelled through Ireland and Northern Ireland for a month, drove to Paris to catch up with friends then down to Italy and ended up spending three months there and finding our home away from home in Sicily and then onto Tunisia in North Africa where we are now. Yeah, it’s been pretty good. My partner has blogged about our trip so far in impressive detail on his blog.

Best Restaurant Moment

I’m going to take some creative license here and interpret “best” as “most memorable” – I’m not sure best can really be used to refer to a meal where tentacles are involved. Whilst in the Mt Etna region of Sicily a local by the name of Nucchio took us under his wing and spent seemingly every spare moment he had showing us the sights, taking us to car rallies and making us eat scary things. Neither Mike or I are big on seafood. I’ve only very recently been able to eat fish that’s not battered, deep fried, and served wrapped up in paper with chips.

Once at the restaurant we sat down and didn’t order a thing. Unlike every other restaurant in the world they bring you whatever was caught that day and you eat what you’re given. First course was approximately nine different dishes, including things I swear I never thought I would eat, namely tentacles, oysters, other gooey things in shells and unshelled prawns that smelt funky. It was all surprisingly palatable, except for the funky smelling prawns. Second course was another 9 dishes or so with pasta and risotto thrown in. Nucchio warned us to expect an obscene amount of food and we had fasted in preparation but the pasta pushed me over the edge. Third course was aborted due to the very real threat of exploding and making a mess. I later cursed my non-Sicilian sized stomach when I learned pesce spada was to be had – my new favourite seafood, sword fish. Our relief at not having to put anything else in our mouths was short lived when biscuits and nuts with a small glass of the best lemon slushy I’ve ever tasted was brought out. Seven different bottles of alcohol were placed on our table and I cracked Nucchio up with my baffled expression. Apparently we were in for a serious night of hard drinking. Each one was to be drunk in a particular order. There was pistachio liqueur, grappa (good for digestion and stripping paint), chocolate liqueur, limoncello, lemon cream (my favourite) and some yucky brown bitter tasting stuff made by monks. Seems like a very un-monkish thing to do to me. Naughty monks.

We finished off the night by walking around the lovely mediaeval town and being followed by a cat that sounded like a frog.

Fun Fact to know and tell: the restaurant was in the town where scenes from The Godfather were shot, including the church were he gets married.

Best Article

Gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes…

Here are my highlights for the time poor:

The intro:

“When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there… Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken…”

Lines that make my heart go thump:

“And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done… Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit… We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.”

The Clincher:

Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed… Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.”

- PAUL HAWKEN

Best Book

“Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” by Susanna Clarke

My favourite whimsies (no spoilers, just tasters):

“Upon other evenings the gilt lettering upon the drawers proclaimed the contents to be such things as: Mace (Blades), Mustard (Unhusked), Nutmeg, Ground Fennel, Bay Leaves, Pepper of Jamaica, Essence of Ginger, Caraway, Peppercorns and Vinegar and all the other stock of a fashionable and prosperous grocery business. But now the words appeared to read: Mercy (Deserved), Mercy (Undeserved), Nightmare, Good Fortune, Bad Fortune, Persecution by Families, Ingratitude of Children, Confusion, Perspicacity and Veracity. It was as well that none of them noticed this odd change. Mrs Brandy would have been most distressed by it had she known. She would not have had the least notion what to charge for these new commodities…”

“Oak trees can be befriended and will aid you against your enemies if they think your cause is just. Birch woods are well known for providing doors into Faerie. Ash trees will never cease to mourn until the Raven King comes”.

And I love her characterisation of faeries:

“In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane.”

Best Night Out

Taking in the sights of London at night with my man and my best girl pal who I hadn’t seen in over a year. Westminster bridge, Jubilee walkway, floodlit Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, #10 Downing Street for a spot of tea with Gordon, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Soho and Oxford Circus. We all wanted to amputate our feet by the end of the night. Good times…

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Driving through Southern Italy and especially Sicily it seems every other hill top has a village or remnants of one perched precariously on its summit. Given that Sicily was conquered by anyone who was anyone throughout human history I’m guessing building delightful villages on the most inconveniently high precipices they could find was not an endeavour in aesthetics and picturesque vistas. I am very glad they went to the trouble though coz it’s just so cool.

Erice’s castles and churches were home to all sorts of shenanigans, including sacred prostitution, animals to be sacrificed allegedly strolling up to the altar, and the goings on of a mysterious cult who claimed descent from Venus’ famous Trojan son, Aeneas. Mike and I ascended the tower’s spiral staircase that was evidently made for vertically challenged people and took in some lovely views of the village and visited the main church, Chiesa Matrice.

While we were strolling past ceramics stores in the town I pondered the tragedy of travelling the world and seeing beautiful things but not being able to buy any of them because we live in a motorhome. I came to the happy realisation in Erice that I can and should be buying (small) local hand-crafted items for our future cottage in the hills. So, I bought a small circular hand painted ceramic tile that I just can’t wait to hang on our cottage wall and smile every time I look at it.

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hiking up mountains with spectacular views…

and blissfully stumbling through bogs to get to places like this…

So understand that when I say Zingaro National Park is spectacular know that my bar has been set pretty high. There are several walking trails and we took the coastal route so of course there were the obligatory pebble beaches and spectacular coastal views with the clearest of waters that we have come to expect of Italy’s coast.

Curiously there were charming, sometimes dilapidated buildings throughout the park. Some were being used to display local crafts or house exhibits on the local fauna and flora but others just looked abandoned. Thankfully most of the human-made additions to the park were very much in keeping with the natural environment and only added to its beauty.

We were surprised by the lushness of the vegetation and the diversity of plants. Up until our visit to Zingaro, our experience of Italian flora has been of arid, desert like landscapes of cacti and dry scrub or agricultural fields of olive trees or vineyards. Zingaro had the expected cacti and spiky plants but it also had a ground-cover of thick lush clover that you’d expect to see in Ireland, wild fennel everywhere, and is apparently home to over 25 species of orchards. Basically, there was a lot of green stuff.

In conclusion, it was pretty.

P.S. Most photo credits go to my very talented partner Mike.

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As I wrote, ideas that have been marinating for some time became more fully formed and I managed to get them down on paper, despite my limited illustration skills, which often frustrate my attempts to portray what’s in my head. A lot of the inspiration came from words that have repeatedly popped into my head throughout my Europe adventure with my man over these past 3 months, namely “Together we are Courageous” and “None but you and me Little Bit” (actually a Buffy quote). Of course I also draw a lot of inspiration from other people’s artwork (too numerous to mention – see the BlogRoll!) and funky graphic design. I wanted to share a few of the pages of my sketchbook in which I was having so much fun and getting my list on (you can click to enlarge the individual pages):

I had a great time flipping through “Taking Flight” by Kelly Rae Roberts to re-visit projects and techniques I’ve been meaning to sink my teeth into as well as torn out pages from Somerset Studio magazines (I know, torn out pages! How could I?! It was a tortuous decision but half a dozen copies of Somerset Studio probably wouldn’t have fit into my backpack for Europe).

Really the time devoted to my neglected creative yearnings was the highlight of the day but a very close runner up is that I discovered Bowie.

Yes, David Bowie. How do you discover David Bowie in a motorhome in a little Sicilian village, do you ask? If you enjoy laughing and New Zealander accents, check this out, then watch the whole episode. I actually had an outrageous crush on the androgynous legging-clad bloke from the Labyrinth when I was a wee thing in the 80’s so it seems things have come full circle. I thought it was madness that Sarah didn’t join him in his goblin kingdom! It took me a couple of decades to be able to confess that to anyone but you know what, I’m pretty impressed with my 4-year-old taste in men. The man is a legend. I love his outrageous lyrics. I can’t believe Wade Robson hasn’t choreographed a piece to “Alabama Song” for “So you Think you can Dance” yet. If he ever does, I might just wet myself. Listening to songs from “The Labyrinth” gave me so much reminiscing-joy and inspiration! I must conjure up a painting based on these lyrics from “Magic Dance” : “What kind of magik spell to use? Slime and snails or puppy dogs tails? Thunder and lightening, something frightening”. Love it.

If that wasn’t enough joy for one day I should probably mention where we are right now. Nettle (our motorhome), Mike and I are currently in Casa de Franchis, Sicily, Italy.

We’ve been travelling for 3 months throughout Europe at a fairly prompt pace. It’s been brilliant but we’ve both been yearning for the slow travel lifestyle we had in mind when we packed up/sold/gave away all our worldly belongings and trundled over to Europe. Up until 3 weeks ago we’ve had people to meet and places to be, which have all kept us on a deadline. Since then we’ve been hoping to find a place to settle down for a while and get stuck into our respective projects and generally just chillaxing. Finally, after 3 weeks of driving through depressing, run-down, litter-strewn villages in the South of Italy we have found our diamond in the rough. Casa de Franchis has turquoise waters, a beach that does not look like a rubbish dump and a cute little field of olive trees over-looking the bay to park Nettle in. She likes it here, I can tell.

Luckily Mike and I managed to pull ourselves away from our respective obsessions long enough to enjoy the beautiful day and go for a walk. Our stroll turned into a photography expedition for me as I’ve taken to carrying my little camera everywhere and my arty nerves were a-tingle. Is it just me or are these plants really cute? Can a plant be cute?

I love the elegance of these droopy lines:

I just thought this shot was kinda cool:

It feels so serendipitous that we’ve found a “home” just when I’m feeling my most inspired and motivated and ready to get stuck into it. I’ve often agonised over feeling a need to create but not quite knowing What I want to create. Of course that question isn’t going anywhere any time soon but at least I’ve got a few doodles to go on with.

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