stuff can hold us down - time to sell

nearly empty

It was 31^st December 2013 when I posted, ‘seasons inevitably end’. This was a reflection on how our season of yurting; living and working in our caravan, had come to an effective end. A year plus on, and after 2 weeks living in it back on the Sunshine Coast, we are cleaning up our memory laden yurt to sell.

We figured that unless we sell, it will be hard to discern what comes next. The best times we’ve had are when this tiny space is overflowing with family and friends, talking, laughing, eating, playing. In the future, if Maria and I continue to travel and live around the place, we wonder if some kind of motorhome will suit us better?

For now, it has been fun allocating paraphernalia to family and friends and setting up a little give away stall on the grass. Body boards, a trusty old Maddog foamy, dozens of tent poles & ropes. Fishing gear, pop up tents, fold up chairs, and one too many tarps - gone or going to happy homes. The final tub will be full of kitchen appliances and utensils for one of the cleaning staff who works at the caravan park.

‘Stuff’ holds us down. De-cluttering is a very liberating exercise. We will naturally be sad to see this house on wheels go, but it owes us nothing, and has so enriched our lives. I’ve said many times that deciding to buy it was one of the best lifestyle calls we ever made. Without knowing what comes next, maybe selling it will be too.

Maria also blogged a reflection here.

20 minutes of love: is this the best urban coast walk in the world?

I've walked the path from our place to Kings Beach 100s of times. At least once, typically twice and not unusually three times a day when I'm home. Every time it is wonderful. This entry is to record 20 minutes of love ...

1. The esplanade deck.

From our apartment balcony we look over the resort next door’s swimming pool to a wooden deck promenade that is designed for fishing, sitting, picnicking at covered tables, walking and chatting. We love waking up, wandering to the window and surveying the early morning goings on on the deck, and watch the constant stream of walkers and runners.

We pass idle daytime hours time sitting on the seats here and watching people walk past. We take food down to the covered tables and feel comforted by the calm blue water of The Passage.

Across the road is The Edge, our local-est café, where Johanna works and we know everyone by name.

I love that deck.

2, Bullcock Beach

The wooden deck winds past a small park where people sit on the grassy slopes, to the smallest surf life saving on the Coast. Past the weatherboard building, the rightside of the paths opens up to a European style bathing beach. Being on The Passage, there are no waves, only swift tidal currents. I think of it as European because at this beach people bathe rather than swim. Activity is usually limited to getting up from your towel and walking to the water. The soft white sand is welcoming.

It attracts holidayers from the resort across the road, but it is also a homely beach. After their daily morning dip, a familiar group of senior citizens sit in the morning sun and chat the morning away, uniformed in their faded green floppy hats.

This is where we go to sit in the late afternoon. The soft light of the setting sun washes over slow moving beachgoers as they eventually shake their towels and take themselves off the sand, often to one of the cafés or restaurants that overlook the beach.

For us there are two regular spots. Friday nights we often find ourselves at La Dolce Vita, always the same order including a vegan pizza for Johanna. Maria and I also frequent Drift where we perch for lunch on high outdoor tables and talk about life.

I love that beach.

3. Happy Valley

With Bullcock Beach behind us we zig zag to one of my favourite places, the aptly named Happy Valley. Families and groups gather here in happy activity. Playgrounds for happy kids. Larger shelters for happy outside functions. A permanent cricket pitch for happy family games. Loads of grass for picnic blankets. Lots of trees and shade. Seats on which to happily watch the passing parade. Wedding ceremonies, which also tend to be happy.

Happy Valley is also where kite surfers, windsurfers and long boarders gather. The grassy expanses between the single row carpark and beach invite people to lay their equipment down in the sun, to share stories as they prepare and pack up. The rocky drop from the park to the beach is via a couple of sets of wooden stairs. Depending on the time of year the beach might have 50 metres of sand, or none.

I love that park.

4. The boardwalk

At the end of Happy Valley, The Passage becomes the ocean. The set of stairs that punctuates the paved path from the elevated boardwalk ushers board carrying wave-riders who typically focus more on the surf than the steps below them, scanning for the spot most likely to offer a ride.

The boardwalk swings around the rocky outcrop and offers front row viewing to the broad sweep of breaks that attract long boarders and stand up paddlers alongside mobs of kids and others learning the craft.

I pause often along this stretch to watch. I share coaching analysis and commentary (to Maria) which is pretty laughable  given how poor I am at executing my own advice. Maria is gracious enough to listen without comment.

I love that boardwalk.

5. Kings Beach.

At the end of the boardwalk the wooden boards turn back into paving and on the right is a superbly designed area where people sit and watch the reef break beside a rock groin. The swell sits up off this reef to form incredible barrels. Groms live here, it is body boarding heaven.

There is a little viewing station, beside which a set of stairs go down to the southern end of Kings Beach.

Kings Beach is an iconic Australian Beach. The southern half (two thirds really) is designated for boardriders. Vans sit in the few car spots with their back doors open. Their owners and a mob of mates settle in for the day.

Half way along is a cluster of cafes which includes Coffee Cat, our Sunday morning breakfast place of choice. Sometimes we sit in the shade, more often than not on concrete steps designed for people to … sit and watch the goings on on the beach. On Sunday morning the beach is partly cordoned off and hundreds of kids in pink lifesaving tops go through their little nippers paces. Parents drink coffee and lay out picnic baskets.

At the northern end of the beach, the Surf Club sits regally above the sand. Pretty much every time we do the walk, I jump in the water and frolic in the surf for a while.

I love this beach.

Then we get to walk home again and do it all in reverse. And then later that day, we’ll probably do the walk again. Then again tomorrow.

Joy. Sand between our toes, salt air in our lungs, lapping water in our ears. Wellbeing.

the surprising value of nothingness

Axiom: you need two weeks holiday to unwind properly

The only people likely to challenge this are those who haven’t experienced it. For me the progress toward deep regeneration can be illustrated by the following well-worn sequence (in my life).

1. Turn phone to silent so I don't hear it.


2. Stop carrying it.


3. Checking for messages only a couple of times a day.


4. Not caring whether there are messages or not.

You’d think understanding this sequence would allow you to move through it more quickly, the reality for me is that it always takes a week and half to properly relax.

Over the last couple of days I feel myself:

• Walking more slowly.


• Not filling time with activity (even if that activity is ‘go for walk on beach’), rather basking in timelessness without expectations.


• Asking myself unhurried questions about life and what it means to live more fully.

The crystal clear waters off Cape Byron and in the bay have not pulsed with swell this last week, but that has invited alternative water play … snorkelling on top of reefs at high tide and being blown away by the wild sealife, and paddling my kayak through the glassy water, the sand ripples and rocks many metres below as visible as if they were just below the surface.

And yesterday, while out with some friends less than a kilometre from shore, we were visited by a pod of playful humpback whales. We overuse the word, but the 10-15 minutes we sat there were jaw dropping awesome.

Sometimes we make our own luck.

Most time we travel or take holidays it is ‘good’. But a two week break where we have time to ‘be’ without activity repays us many times over. There is surprising value in nothingness.

same but different

So far, two things have made our winter sojourn in Byron Bay different from at least the last two years.

1. My habit has been to rise early and work for a few hours most days. And for pretty much every year I can remember I’ve travelled to Melbourne at least once while we’ve been here. This year I decided to fence it off and have a holiday, only responding to a handful of emails each day. Switched off.


2. The last two years have been wet. I mean, digging-trenches-around-tents-in-the-middle-of-the-night wet. This year, the only clouds we have seen, literally, have been in the distance over the sea horizon. Clear blue skies. Everyday. All day. Brilliant starry skies and colder than typical evening and mornings. This year most of us have left the water-proofing tarps folded up. Happy.

And there are many good things that stay the same. Friends with whom to share cups of tea and waves. Happy hour drinks on the wooden deck overlooking The (iconic) Pass. Weary bodies and stiff shoulders from lots of “just one more wave” decisions. Treks to the light house, a kind of pilgrimage, or at least a ritual. Evenings in the caravan, where we retreat and cook comfort food (dhal tonight), reading, watching and writing stuff.

Today we got in the car, first time since we arrived on Monday, and went across to Brunswick Heads for lunch and, as it turned out, a slow and lazy afternoon. There is something about that place. It keeps drawing us back. We’ve been on some incredible beaches over the years, but I reckon the one at Brunswick Heads is my all time favourite. Its wide open white sand and powerful turquoise surf invite you to forget whatever else is happening in the world and take it all in. We’ve not been there in the height of summer when I’m sure there are more people, but the sand is so expansive that people tend to spread out, rather than cluster … I like that.

We loved our lunch at the Green Monkey (Vegie café) and we sat on the grass by the river and watched people canoe and SUP while we ate ice cream (chocolate and ginger.)

There is nothing meaningful to say. I just love living in our yurt (caravan) in this part of the world.

seasons inevitably end ...

The doors of our Caloundra apartment are wide open to the humidity of the evening. Outside revellers are celebrating the last evening of 2013, music and voices mingle in happy tones. I have just read, cover to cover, the latest Kinfolk Magazine - the theme of this issue is ageing, so lots of stuff about things that get better over time. I turned 50 in 2013, and for me, so much more than the famed 40, I am finding myself pondering life in the decades beyond physical prime. Maria is in Launceston with her mum, Gaylene who is in a bit of health dip at the moment. Phone conversations with her dad, Nick typically involve health updates, and my parents, Brian and Esme are also navigating the realities of living in their 8th decade, and I'm on the wait list for elective surgery.

This evening's read was good for my soul. While our bodies inevitably begin to slow down and function differently, so much about ageing is to be embraced with quiet vigour. So many things get better over time.

... which is all a prelude to what I sat down to write about. It feels like our years of yurting, at least as we have known them, have ended. But it is a happy ending! We set out to integrate the simple habits and rhythms of coastal caravan living into our lifestyle rather than making them a holiday routine. After 5 years of about 3 months a year in the yurt (caravan) we can confidently proclaim that buying our van and using it like we did was one of the best things we've done.

The taste (or was it a feast) of simple, seaside living  was undeniably formative in our decision to base ourselves here on the Sunshine Coast, where daily ocean swims and simple living rhythms are our privileged lot. But when you live somewhere like this, the incentive to hitch up and drive dissipates. The caravan sits 5 minutes away in storage. Last year, apart from a weekend down in Kingscliff, it only got lived in for two weeks in Byron Bay midyear.

Over the last few years, our circumstances have allowed us to do some international travel and we have used this site to chronicle some of that. But in 2014 we anticipate no international travel for pleasure and no yurting apart from our regular winter sojourn 'east of everything'. So, is this the end? And, dare I allow myself to even think it, is it time to sell the caravan!!!???

If the answer is 'yes', then I am sober but not sad. Like a sports person who has 'left nothing' on the field, we lived out our 'no regrets' approach and have stories and memories that are precious, precious, precious. The nearly 400 posts on this site are a glimpse of that. And we are doing the same while living here, sucking the marrow out of it, with no way to anticipate the circumstances of life we will be called on to navigate, the opportunities and challenges that will define the coming years. In the ups and downs, we hope for love, for peace, and for some joy.

The (kids) fireworks have just finished around at Kings Beach. Lots of thunderous noise, but they're done now. And so, for now, are the travel blogs from this site. And the new year is just about here for the living ...

last day

Maria's travel / photoblog #278 of 365

shadows

A new photoblog from Maria from the late afternoon in Takayama.

then and now in Nippon

When I lived here 30 years ago Japan was a global powerhouse. It led the world in electronic and motor vehicle manufacturing and there was a sense of it having succeeded in doing economically what it had failed to do militarily. A lot has happened in the decades since and while Japan retains some influence in the areas it once dominated, it now attracts international curiosity in some completely different areas.

The Japanese are masters at managing small spaces. Craftsmanship is also strong. Alongside the propensity to adopt cutting edge fashion, Japan has now become a recurring 'go to' place to showcase contemporary design and lifestyle. Two illustrations of this are Monocle's regular articles featuring aspects of Japan and Kinfolk's recent feature edition in celebration of the Japanese way. My hunch is that there has emerged a kind of humility in the Japanese way over recent decades that might have helped contribute to this, but others are better qualified to comment on this.

Coming here this year was more than recreation. I have long wanted to share a taste of this land and its people with Maria. It has been fabulous, and especially with having reconnected with the Kunitates, all my expectations have been met. I wanted to not only connect with aspects of my furusato,  but I wanted to see and feel the stuff that might define Japan's contribution into the future. Tokyo's endless surprises and the flourishing hipster vibe in the cities is perhaps a taste of this. 

We started the day yesterday in the quiet streets of Takayama and emerged at the end of the day in the lively and funky Akasaka (Tokyo). And now, (after catching up with my good mate Steve Hopkins at Omotesando Koffee, and visiting a couple of art museums in Roppongi- today's plans) we are ready to head home. Thoughtful, satisfied and with some more things ticked off our 'list'.

Started the day here, and finished ...

one last shrine

Late afternoon meandering around a Takayama shrine and some photos from Maria before we head for Tokyo and back home on Saturday night.

words in an attic

Using a language after 30 years was always going to be interesting. Some basic things were always there, but before long there came a muddle of there being some things I probably should recall and couldn't, and then using vocab I had forgotten I knew. I had one experience where I was racking my brains to remember the word for reverse or opposite, and couldn't (hantai). Then the next day, I found myself formulating a sentence that included the word. 

The image that has felt most fitting, is of rummaging around in an attic. There are somethings you know are there and eventually you find them. There are other items that you'd forgotten about but stumble across them. As time goes on you start to become more familiar with where things are are where to look to find them. It has been fun and rewarding blowing the dust of the attic which is my Japanese.

If you missed it, the last 5 blogs on colduthie.com are also about Japanese words, some new ones for me that go beyond everyday vocabulary.

natural beauty

A bunch more photos from Maria on her photo blog from the last couple of days in the Japanese mountains.

subdued enjoyment in the mountains

We are in Takayama, in the north of Gifu Prefecture surrounded by peaky Japanese mountains. Our minds have begun turning toward home and the new adventures / challenges / opportunities that await us.

One of the indicators of beginning to think of home is our culinary appetite ... we begin to look for more familiar food. We had cake and coffee in a great little cafe yesterday where I tried a ginger latte (OK, that really is thoroughly Japanese), but last night we lashed out and had a meal featuring Hida beef, one of the things this place is famous for. At the end of the day, expensive steak and vegies tackled with a knife and fork. Words fail me for how good it was. Spectacularly wonderful if you are into eating meet. Ironically and paradoxically, while wandering the streets on the way we were discussing the possibilities of steps toward ethical meet consumption / vegetarianism. hmmm.

We also came across a 1200 year old tree yesterday in the grounds of a Buddhist temple ... mind boggling really.

loving ordinary

Alongside mandatory tourist sites, we love just doing ordinary stuff while travelling. We've noted before that for us, the 3 day mark (in one place) is an important threshold. It seems that you get past the 'must do' visits, get oriented re public transport and can make time just to hang about.

Yesterday we took a train out of town to a lake. I had a swim, Maria took some photos, and we loved watching numerous groups of locals go about the beach BBQ, Japanese style. Lot's to love about the experience. We spent a couple of hours loitering in a nearby park where Maria ended up sharing a waterside rock with a little girl as they watched a duck paddle around.

...and more often than not we turn the other direction to the tourists when looking for something to eat. Not only does it save stacks of dollars, the food experience is almost always more interesting. (we ate way too much this night!)

misc snaps and comments: Kyoto

A quiet moment overlooking Kyoto

We've love eating iza kaya, small local eating houses where close proximity and banter with the chef makes for a great dining experience.

At 300+ km/h and with trains every 20 minutes or so across the network, the shinkansen remains an extraordinary transport experience.

If you look closely you can see a little dog hanging out the window over a busy street in Gion, Kyoto.

No trip to Kyoto would be complete without a visit to the Kinkaku Ji (Golden Pavillion).

As any traveller will tell you, interesting English abounds in Japan. Yesterday I saw a new style of jeans advertised as 'bottoms of happiness', and this sign at a restroom entrance left me wondering what the alternative might be; unfinely?

Side by side

Japan feels like a place of contrasts, where what seems incongruent appears to sit together comfortably.

You can stand in the middle of a huge metropolis and yet there is a lot of 'small' - spaces, houses/apartments, cars.

There are people everywhere, busy about their business, crowds converging on tourist attractions, masses pouring out of train stations and there are times when the streets are eerily quiet and devoid of human habitation.

You can be in the middle of a shopping strip with chic boutique stores and follow a little side path that promises some green and find yourself at a temple.

You can join locals sitting along a bench eating ramen noodles and gyoza while watching the skillful chef cook your meal and right next door is a fast food outlet and down the road is a cafe catering to the new coffee culture.

You can see a woman wearing a kimono and a few minutes later one wearing a mini skirt and impossibly high heeled shoes.

You can see and feel a conservatism in the culture and an undercurrent of youthful rebellion.

It is modern and western and yet still very Japanese.

Big and small, crowds and alone, commerce and religion, tradition and embracing the new, I have only begun to scratch the surface and Japan is so surprising and confusing. Perhaps it is an illusion but the incongruent appear to find a harmonious co-existence that is bizarre at times.

Kyoto

Maria has been taking some more great shots, now around Kyoto. The last two days' posts #270 & #271 of 365, have been series on temples and gardens.

some days are not the same

from left, Rumiko, Otoosan, Okaasan, Katsuhito. (Absent Kayoko and Shinji)[/caption]

It costs a few dollars to do an overseas holiday, but I would almost have paid the full amount just for yesterday. My life was shaped profoundly by the year I spent here in Japan as a 17 year old, and the biggest chunk of that year I lived with a wonderful family - the Kunitates. Not having had contact with them for most of the 30 years since I left, I was amazed to learn that the parents still live in the same house that held so many memories for me. The four teenage children are of course all in their 40s now with kids of their own.

Katsuhito (my host brother) and his wife collected us from our hotel and drove us to my old high school. We were greeted politely by a teacher in the foyer, and I produced a photo of myself with a number of my teachers from 32 years ago. To our bewilderment and surprise, we discovered that one was still there. 5 minutes later I stood opposite a clearly recognisable older version of a my engineering teacher. He was less convinced at first sighting I was the same boofy haired teenager he had known, but before long we were recalling shared memories from decades ago, wandering the corridors and him disappearing and returning with some art work I had done, and a framed piece of memorabilia that the school had made with some photos of yours truly. Weird, and surreal.

And then onto the family home. So much happens in 30 years. We grow bigger, we loose hair, we have families and all that accompanies the journey of life, yet we are the same people. But I wasn't sure what to expect on returning to such a familiar yet remote space, a space that only existed in memories and dreams. My host parents are nearing 80 now, and I was unsure of their health. Not having had contact with them for so long I didn't know if their offer to have us for lunch was simply being polite. Rumiko, one of my host sisters was to be there too. Rumiko was always full of energy and the life of the party.

I've never had an experience like this. You see it in movies. People who have loved each other, separated for decades; reunited. The embraces at the front door had me struggling to hold back tears.

Photos of families, stories, laughter. Food (okonomiyaki). Phone calls from the siblings not present, both living in Tokyo. I try to balance engaging and simply taking it in. In the evening we sit in the balmy warmth on boats (eating and drinking again, something the Kunitates do very well!!) watching the cormorant fishing, for which Gifu is renowned. (Maria's photoblog)

It is over all too quickly and the farewells late in the evening are another part of a curiously surreal yet intimate day. I will remember these beautiful people forever. 

fire

Maria's photoblog #268 of 365 captures the unusual practice for which the Japanese central city of Gifu is renowned.

Backstreets bikes

Maria has enjoyed taking photos of the bikes, that are everywhere in the backstreets of Gifu, photoblog #267 of 365

Gifu

When I think of Gifu I think of the colour brown. The view from the train window as we came into the station was one of brown, beige, cream or a variety thereof. The houses, roofs and buildings all seemed to reflect this colour scheme and to be honest it made for a boring looking kind of place. Gifu, in comparison to other large Japanese cities, is considered something of a country town, despite its 400,000 people. We also happened to arrive on a long weekend when most things were closed and the streets pretty deserted. My first impressions weren't great.

One of the first things Colin wanted to do was to wander some of the back streets (and the Main Street) near where he had lived, trying to orient himself and find the places of significance for him so many years ago.

Thirty years had seen a lot of changes and it was only with the help of some old photos he finally managed to find the place where he used to live. The absence of people in the streets and the usual lively commerce did not help.

The middle building titled TBC is where one of Colin's host families sold luggage from the shop front and  lived upstairs[/caption]

In our back street wanderings we came across a lively, trendy area, with people, action, eating places and intriguing boutique shops. Gifu's version of Brunswick Street. Gifu suddenly felt like a much nicer place and the proliferation of bicycles outside 'quaint' houses and shops really caught my eye.

We returned later in the evening to eat. Gifu is not really on the tourist route and therefore there are few westerners and little English. Colin could only vaguely make sense of the menu and we ended up asking the waitress what she liked and got her to choose for us, and it worked well. This area of Gifu was certainly frequented by the not so conservative Japanese with lots of trendy and hip looking youth where some kind of deal went down in front of our table while we ate and an altercation between a man and woman as we walked home had us wondering what to do. Despite these anomalies (I think) we liked the vibrancy of the place.

Hopefully tomorrow will see a return to a typical week day and we can see the streets and shopping precincts as they usually are and perhaps more as Colin remembered them.