Take a Daycation and feel the holiday bliss

As I try to quell the 'is the date here yet' impatient vibes and get in training for the upcoming passport stamp (or three) injection - (details coming real soon) - I find that taking a Daycation is the perfect way to get that holiday bliss and rejuvenation feeling. 

What's a Daycation? I hear you ask... it's a day trip that feels like a vacation - without having to unpack luggage and re-stock the fridge with fresh food on arrival back home.   Some people call it a "Sunday drive" but if you leave super early in the morning and wander home late afternoon (or in the evening) it can feel like you've been away for a week.  I've become addicted to them - it helps settle my wanderlust affliction.

We've got a mountain or two coming up to train for and so each weekend M and I have been loading the bicycles into the Jazz - roomiest little voom voom ever (we once fitted a go-kart into it) - and heading off to drop-dead gorgeous villages that are about an hour or so from us.   I admit,  I'm pretty spoilt when it comes to picturesque idyllic villages with living on the far north coast of NSW,  we've got the most stunning beaches and glorious hinterland hideaways right on our doorstep, but for some reason we rarely visit them (too busy looking further afield) - well this past month that has all changed.  

Last week is was beautiful Brunswick Heads,  or Bruns as the locals like to call it (unfortunately I forgot to take the camera so have no pics to tease you with)  and this weekend M and I flipped the coin and Yamba - once voted "Best Town in Australia"- won the toss. 
 

In the ‘art of Hue

 

 

The return bus trip to Lao Cai was an event in itself. We pay a tidy sum for a seat in one of the mini-buses and with our gear (two massive backpacks – I’ve never learnt to pack light – and two daypacks) and along with ten other tourists and all their travelling paraphernalia, we pile into the van. The rear boot area is the size of a postage stamp, so most of the luggage is stashed inside between the door and seats and onto our laps. 

Then five locals - including a very disgruntled baby with extremely healthy vocal cords - cram themselves, and their market purchased goodies, bags and other bits and pieces, into the rear with us whilst three more plus the driver hop into the front seat. On the outside, the vehicle may look like a standard fourteen seater, but really it’s just a sardine can in disguise. We trundle down the mountain at a cracking pace, crushing each other at every tight corner and it soon doesn’t take long before the first sign of motion-sickness emerges….and doesn’t let up for the whole of the trip. I try to ignore the flinging of plastic bag after plastic bag of sick tossed out the window (and into oncoming traffic).

 

Part way down, we stop and pick up another passenger. There is absolutely no room for her, but she squeezes in, stands on the step of the van and off we go. We soon reach a small village where we stop and a local chap hops out. Two more take his place. I’m praying for an end. My legs have seized up and my nose is finding it hard to take in the scent of vomit. Two and half hours later we are delivered to Lao Cai.

Unfortunately the hell-trip is far from over. A few hours later we’re on the train, jolting down the line to Hanoi. I’m still scratching myself stupid with the bedbug bites from the previous night-train, and after searching every corner of the cabin, pulling the sheets and bedding apart, we then lie almost comatose with all the lights blazing for the whole of the trip. There will be no more feasting.

 

Dawn is just breaking over Hanoi when we arrive but we don’t find a sleeping city. Even at 4:30am Hanoi is whirling about. The streets are filled with runners – ‘they’re game’ I think, casting my mind back to the obstacles on footpaths – and cyclists in lycra (even here they have mamil’s!) Bikes and scooters filled with produce zip around and street markets are a hive of activity. Amongst it all however, plays out a choreographic scene that looks oddly out of place with the frantic pace. The graceful wave and bend of t’ai chi flows from parks, footpaths and on street corners. Hundreds of tranquil faces stare into space, some by themselves, others in long lines.

Embroidered into the swirl of vibrancy in Bac Ha.

 

 We’ve enter a world of bling. Where rows of chandeliered beading envelopes around vibrant kaleidoscopic hues of pink, blue, teal and purple and elaborate hair clips and brooches - entwined through lush volumes of thick black hair that cascades down the back – wink in the sunlight.

The Flower H’mong people radiate in their bejewelled colours, as beautiful as the Blue-throated Bee-eaters with their glorious tail streamers, their sparkles and dashes of colour blaze in the sunshine and their infectious laughter and smiles send an electric vibe into the atmosphere of sleepy little Bac Ha. 

It’s Sunday morning, seven am and the weekly market is already in full swing. There’s barely room to walk down the streets as we jostle for room with the locals and villagers from the surrounding hamlets who have all converge on the main market square to buy and sell their produce, essentials and special something's.

Covering numerous streets and a large market area it is a hive of activity with pigs being unceremoniously lifted from their plastic seed-bag holders and walked wheel-barrow style for the buyer, receive a prodding and eyeballed test, and are lifted squealing back into the bags.  Ducks sitting patiently with feet tied are haggled over, then draped across backs of scooters, and water-buffalo, shy eyed and squeaking, sounding more like mice then large bovines with lethal horns, are inspected with thorough intensity. 

Joining the stampede of footprints - Sapa

I read the slogan across the top of our mini van and shake my head. 'Come to Sapa and leave more than footprints' it reads. What bright spark of a marketing guru thought up that catchphrase!  It's in  stark contradiction to the motto 'take only memories, leave only footprints' and, as I look around I can see that the leaving more than footprints suggestion is well and truly being followed in the picturesque sounds of Sapa. 

We arrived by night train which was surprisingly comfortable (despite the horror stories I'd heard and later I will find myself adding to) to the border town of  Lao Cai and then quickly bundled into a mini-van-cum-moving cave (we could barely see a thing through the almost black-tinted caked with dust windows) to be driven for another hour to Sapa, a former French hill-station famous for its rice terraces and minority groups.

The sweet frangrance of life - Perfume Pagoda.

We are in Hanoi for five days, but by the dawn of the fourth I need to escape.  Hanoi is just too energetic for me.  Everywhere we turn there is a kaleidoscopic whirlwind of activity - be it dodging bride after bride in stunning outfits and serene smiles striking the pose -along with their grooms – as we attempt to stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake and try not to 'photo bomb' the happy couples (we stop counting couples when we hit the double digits), or ducking into the Vietnamese Women’s Museum only to find it is hosting a book fair in its courtyard and moving through the throng of excited bibliophiles is like trying to cross ‘beer corner’.  I couldn’t even dive in and join them as most of the books were in Vietnamese and the extent of my Vietnamese is ‘xin chow',. Or being brought to a sobering thud when we visit the Military Museum to try and make head and tail of the horrors this nation has endured for thousands of years, only to find the museum is hosting an event for the dignitaries of the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly conference which is happening in Hanoi right this moment.   

 

Booking a private driver for the day, we make an early morning start and zip out of the city away from the mayhem and buzz.  Away from the old quarter we soon discover there is a very modern side to Hanoi and we pass high-rise after high-rise and upmarket suburb after suburb.   Soon we come to the countryside and the pace begins to become gentler – rice fields and duck ponds flash past the widows and every now and then we spy a village.  An hour later we arrive to the small sleepy village of My Duc with ornate pagodas surrounded by ponds filled with scruffy yellow adolescent ducks and a backdrop of white limestone karst cliffs of the Huong Tich Mountains, or sweetly nicknamed – the Mountain of Fragrant Traces.  Next to where we stop is a waterway, filled to the brim of blue aluminium row boats, some seating ten, some only six, and a couple with beautiful dragon head bows.  Our driver – who introduced himself as Brian, but is actually named Tan – organises a small boat to take us to the delightfully named Perfume Pagoda complex, five kilometres up the Day River. I have visions of me tumbling into the waters as I try to keep my tourist paraphernalia of cameras, water bottles, daypacks and handbag up out of the water as we clamour over the bobbing vessels to reach our boat which sits practically in the middle of the ‘harbour’.  Why is it I always turn into a hoarder-cum-baglady whenever I go on holidays? I think to myself. 

 

Fifty cent beers and crossing the road in Hanoi.... what traffic?

My pulse is racing and the adrenaline pumping,  I'm in the thick of everything crazy. Frenetic and vibrant. Where just about anything goes and if it doesn't fit, it soon will.  I've dived into Hanoi and been hit with a tsunami of traffic - both people and vehicle.   I have never in my life seen so much chaos and movement on a street in my life.  Everything from scooters, cars, push carts, bicycles, rickshaws, strange little three-wheeled trucks and six seater golf-buggies to conical-hat hawkers with bamboo poles across their shoulders carrying the freshest of fruit, the heaviest of hazelnuts and the sweetest smelling flowers, spill across the street in a crashing of horns, bells, yelling and above all chattering and laughing.  The sights and sounds send my senses reeling as M and I alight from the taxi after an all nighter flight and along with our luggage, we carry our jetlag across a crowded footpath, dodging red, kindy-size stools, tangles of power lines that hang dangerously low and another sea of scooters -this time parked- to our hotel. 

We've jetted off to Vietnam to celebrate a milestone birthday and re-charge the batteries, and judging by the pulsating vibe of Hanoi, we are going to be well and truly energised and zapped to awake.  Our hotel is situated in the Old Quarter, up near the 121years old Hang Dau Water Tower that looks like an elegant but fading wedding cake.  After stowing our gear, showering and collecting a map from the front desk, we take life and limb and step out onto the road. And it is literally onto the road, because there is absolutely no way we can even contemplate walking along the footpath.  

It is chokablock full of parked scooters.  Or scooters driving onto it to park, or reversing off.  And where there is no (or little) scooter parking, there are thousands of tiny red plastic stools around tiny plastic red and blue tables in front of small makeshift kitchens cooking the most delectable smelling culinary delights. Tiny little stoves atop with bubbling pots and open fire flames lick across grills. Next to them sit plastic dishes filled with meat, vegetable and edibles I have absolutely no-idea of. 

Playing the 'Bow' into the New Year on Norfolk Island.

We’ve come to Norfolk to celebrate New Years Eve. And, as is to be expected for this time of the year,  the Island’s village and homes have decked the halls with a glow of lights and glitter, but it’s as if Mother Nature herself too is celebrating the season, with her own decorations of spangle.  The majestic pines that grace the island are draped in whispers of pale green ‘tinsel’ that flutters in the breeze. Lichen, or as I like to call it Poppy's Beard, coats the trees like an ethereal thread. In some areas it has even draped itself across the timber fences.  We take a walk through the Botanical Gardens and find gems of fungi lacing the forest floor and stepping along trunks and branches.  The enormous Figs lining the road near the Norfolk Blue Farm, glow in a peppering of moss and across the road in the Hundred Acre reserve, the glades are a carpet of soft wispy grass that feels like feathers. 

M and I spend hours exploring these beautiful forest areas.  At the Hundred Acre reserve we are enthralled to be ‘checked out’ by the nesting White-capped Noddy’s that swoop down and flapped around us.  At first I got such a fright and went into duck and cover mode, thinking I was about to experience a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, but then realise the Noddy's are just being either curious or were going about their business. collecting pine-needles and grass to stuff in their nests…. but then again,  they might also be trying to find some peace and quiet from the squawks of their chicks – the 'racket' coming from the nests in the trees was incredible!  Each branch seem to have three to four nests along it, all occupied by some very hungry mouths. 
We ramble through the reserve and soon find ourselves at Rocky Point where the Mutton Birds nested.   Great whopping holes pepper the cliff top, under shrubs, in the grass and further into the forest.  A honeycombed trap for the unwary or those who are be too busy oohing and arhing (like me) at the graceful glide of the mutton bird… graceful that is until they land, then it’s a messy fumble and tumble into the grass or onto the cliff rocks. 
The following day we make tracks for the botanical gardens, a small reserve of about a hectare, once a private garden until resumed by the crown in 1974 (as requested by the owners).  This place is magical, filled with the native plants of Norfolk, every corner and turn held a glorious surprise.  In parts, great swathes of Golden Orb Spider webs cluster across the trees and give the appearance of rising mist. Colonies of Golden Orbs spin thier spools and when their yellowish bodies catch the suns rays they glint and glow like precious gems. 

 

In another part of the forest we are treated to the display of a White Fairy Tern with fish in mouth feeding its young – the chick looking nothing more than a giant pompom.  As we walk further into the gardens we stop at a sun speckled glade and find ourselves once again the curiosity of feathered friends – this time, tiny little Grey Fantails flitter around us, trying to land on our hats and shoulders, hovering in mid-flight in front of our faces, and dancing along the branches as if posing for photos.  I hold out my hand and feel the gentle grasp of a  little ‘grey fantail of happiness’ as it pops onto my fingers and  sits there looking up, twittering and chirping.  I have transcended into a fairyland.

 

Of course, there is so much more to Norfolk Island than cute little birds and lichen dripping off trees, there’s also the swirling of words and stories flowing from the minds of writers who have the most delicious views to dream in. Norfolk is, and has been, home to some literary greats, of course the best known being Colleen McCullough (and yes I did go a-hunting for her driveway), also living here is the daring adventuress and 'hook you in' travel writer - Sorrel Wilby; but it's neither of these whose home of words I want to find. I go in search for a muddle headed wombat and the time-travelling Abigail who played with Beatie Bow. I wanted to see where Ruth Park had tapped away and created her stories. Park had lived on Norfolk from '74 to '81, during which time she wrote her Miles Franklin Award winning "Swords and Crowns and Rings", as well as "Playing Beatie Bow" and the third in what was my favourite series of hers (Harp of the South & Poor Mans Orange) "Missus". It had been many years since Ruth Park had lived on the island - having gone there after the death of her husband,author  D'Arcy Niland - and I was concerned maybe I'd have problems finding someone who might remember where she lived. But I shouldn't have even given it a thought, those who live on Norfolk have long memories and know thier community well - the very first person I ask knows exactly where I can find her previous home.

The tiny cottage on the hill where stories had spilled forth was quite nondescript with a tiny nameplate declaring it "Park House". It was also up for sale. Suddenly I have fantasies of 'what if I ...' and just had to go see the Real Estate and ask its price. Much to M's relief it was sold and settling that very week. (Althought it doesnt' stop him checking out the other houses displayed in the agents window and murmering a few 'fantisies' of his own)

Calling it a day on stalking literary celebrities it was time to celebrate new beginnings and New Years Eve on Norfolk Island was a smorgasbord of offerings. There were so many 'parties' and functions happening we're spoilt for choice. We decided to go to Governors Lodge, having heard Trent Christian will be playing there - we'd already heard Trent play twice on the Island, once at the markets and again at the Fish Fry - and with his amazing voice and infectious laugh we knew we'd be in for a great night.

Great night was an understatement! 

Glammed up, M and I made for the Lodge and had one of the best New Years Eve's ever! Also appearing with Trent was a vivacious dynamite of a fiddlerplayer - Marian Burns - who had the floor bouncing with so much dancing, laughter and rock 'n' rolling - I could barely move the next day. By night’s end, we were far for looking Glam anymore with shoes kicked off,hair flowing free and M morphing into "Running Bear" leading the Conga line into 2015.