A tiny, remote NSW village will host big names for the third annual St Albans Writers Festival in early September. Mad Max director George Miller, literary icon Tom Keneally and Pulitzer winner Sebastian Smee are among stars of the show.

Historic St Albans (population 300) is located deep in the Hawkesbury Heartland, on the banks of the MacDonald River, about 115km northwest of Sydney. It was largely known as a picturesque pit stop – or quaintly known as a “travellers’ rest”. More recently, it’s become a centre for writers, artists and people seeking a sea/tree change.

And get this.
This will also be the weekend (September 8-10) where the literati will unplug and get to know each other little better than usual because there’s NO INTERNET or MOBILE PHONE SERVICE.

St Albans is off the hyper-connected grid. No perusing your phone the moment your attention span wanders, no checking social media updates, no banal texting loved ones with daily trivia. Zero, zilch, zip, nada. Instead it will be you, your fellow writers and readers, and coffee, wine, more wine, great food and lots and lots of face-to-face (instead of phone-to-phone) conversation and books in a pretty country setting with blossom breaking out. Sounds awful?

The festival precinct includes historic buildings: St Albans Church, the Settlers Arms Inn, the School of the Arts Hall, and marquees corralled around a huge fire and hay bales in the St Albans Reserve festival hub. Every event is within walking distance. Ample parking on site.

Remember cash?
As mentioned, St Albans is in a time warp. Your environmental footprint will be minimal. No wi-fi or mobile phone coverage in St Albans village (it stops once you cross the Hawkesbury). No servos in the village so fill up with gas south at Wisemans Ferry, if you’re going up from Sydney. No ATMs in the village (the nearest is Wisemans Ferry), so cash up before you arrive! With no internet, the festival organisers can’t link to credit card or EFTPOS services either so cash is the way to go.

Who else will be there?
Inveterate traveller and writer Ailsa Piper, ABC luminary Tony Jones, writers Nicki Gemmell, Melina Marchetta, media personality and indigenous activist Stan Grant, and the list goes on. Workshops cover fiction, non fiction, emerging writers, the perils of populism and short story readings around a camp fire.

Important Stuff:
Save the dates for St Albans Writers Festival: September 8-10, 2017.
Tony Jones will deliver the Friday night opening address about his take on the festival’s theme Escape and Explore.
Col Lyons, Wiradguri man and digeridoo player, will present the welcome to country opening smoking ceremony.
Caterer Simmone Logue’s Dinner with the Writers is a chance to break bread, clink glasses with writers and fellow guests.
The Settlers Arms Inn will serve an authentic 1836 dinner, curated by resident gastronomer at Sydney Living Museums, Jacqui Newling.
Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller AO will introduce his blockbuster on Saturday’s Film Night, served with wine and picnic hampers.

Cost:
$120 for an All Day Pass (5 writers’ sessions)
$200 for a Weekend Pass (10 writers’ sessions)
Special Event tickets sold separately
For program events and tickets click HERE

The Guardian restaurant critic Jay Rayner is getting a larger dose of notoriety than usual, thanks to his witheringly funny review of Le Cinq in Paris. He went to the the flagship Michelin 3-star restaurant of the George V Hotel expecting the gastronomic experience of a lifetime. What he got was the foodie equivalent of a slo mo train wreck. The review has gone viral, unsurprisingly. Rayner’s website briefly crashed under the weight of extra traffic, and the review has made headlines around the world.

The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you. There’s a little gilt here and there, to remind us that this is a room designed for people for whom guilt is unfamiliar.

The house champagne was €35 a glass, which seemed to add more salt to the wound. The evening’s modest drinking comprised one glass of bubbles each for Rayner and his guest, followed by a glass of white wine and one of red.  The bill: €170. Ouch.

As for the food on this disastrous evening, there seemed to be little to like, although a tart with whipped chicken liver mousse received applause. The onion dish on its own has been causing international consternation, as what was presented to the food critic looked absolutely nothing like the PR shot supplied to The Guardian. It was a dark, globby, oozy thing on a plate, according to the iPhone shot taken by Rayner. Perhaps resembling an evil creature from Mariana Trench, containing a small, snarling alien ready to burst forth. Rayner says it better:

It is mostly black, like nightmares, and sticky, like the floor at a teenager’s party. There are textures of onions, but what sticks out are burnt tones, and spherified balls of onion purée that burst jarringly against the roof of the mouth.

This is what the onion dish should have looked like:

The head chef at this establishment is Christian Le Squer.  Le Cinq’s slightly quaint description of him is thus:

As far back as his souvenirs go, there are certain smells coming from the sea and filled with iodine, all linked to his native Brittany. They comprise the main thread that helps him to constantly explore flavors and to favor an encounter encompassing harmonious associations.

Today, as a pure product of « Parisian life», Christian Le Squer aims to perpetuate « the art of living à la française » at the heart of the Four Seasons Hotel George V, one of the most prestigious hotels of the capital and amongst the most luxurious in the world, by showcasing a French Haute Cuisine on the move and by bringing a lightness that is a far cry from the opulence traditionally associated with palaces.

Le Squer possibly encompasses fewer harmonious associations just for today. Joining Le Cinq in 2014, he was previously head chef at Ledoyen, one of the oldest restaurants in Paris, serving food since the French Revolution. It also has 3 Michelin stars.

Another image on Rayner’s site shows a dessert of cheesecake with frozen parsley. No, not a joke. He had it removed from the bill. And then there were the chocolate cigars, with a bit of milk skin draped over them. The pic below is Le Cinq’s PR shot. They pretty well match up. It may well have been a delicious pudding, but there is nothing enticing about the flaccid skin. A quick Google reveals some fabulous food shots from Le Cinq. How on earth the restaurant got it so spectacularly wrong on this particular night, I think will be the subject of an investigation.

The acidic Rayner says on Twitter he’s getting abusive emails from Parisians, telling him to go eat fish n chips because he’s British, and so on.  C‘est la vie. It was a biting, hilarious review that will be remembered for a long time. Undoubtedly it has turned up the heat in Le Cinq’s kitchens, as well. The entire bill of Rayner’s meal was €600. If you’re travelling to Paris, your hard-earned euros may be, probably, better spent elsewhere. Let me know where you decide to eat!

•  I suggest travelling with either a friend or a small escorted trip of no more than 4 – 6 people.
• If you are more adventurous and want to travel solo then choose edge of season or peak times of year.
• Select luxury camps that offer you the option to be more social and meet other people from other parts of the world.
• Fly-in packages especially in Tanzania, Kenya and Botswana are a great way for the mid to high end solo traveller to get around.
• South Africa, Botswana and Kenya are great first-time introductions into experiencing wildlife in Africa.
• As you become a more seasoned traveller, then you could look at walking adventures in wildlife destinations like South Luangwa National Park in Zambia.
• Travelling with escorted trips is the safest way for women. The reason for this is that everyone still has a personalised experience.
• Advantages include everyone fitting in one vehicle, which is like having your own private vehicle, but without the cost. You meet interesting people of similar ages and interests, and form strong friendships.

2. Where did you live when your children were small? 

 We lived in Arusha, Tanzania, the tourism gateway for the northern circuit of national parks. It was great time in my life and very different to Australia. Houses are secured by high fences or walls. We had a mix of friends from different nationalities. My son spoke Kiswahili rather than english when he first started to walk and talk. We worked with local Tanzanians within a safari operations background and had the opportunity to visit national parks such as Tarangire or Lake Manyara on weekends. Wildlife was on our doorstep.

Roads are full of potholes and only few of the main roads are tarmac. Vegie markets were noisy and colourful. “Matumba” – a clothes market was where the world’s donations would end up. There was nothing like finding a pair of jeans from Jeanswest in the piles! Kids would call out “mzungu mzungu” (means white person). Bartering at the local Masai curio market was always challenging and humorous. Tanzanians are very proud people and I wouldn’t swap my time there for anything in the world. Obviously security is always something that you have to be careful of, but if you are aware of what is around you and respect the country you are in then it is a safe place to be. Waking up every morning to the view of Mt Meru and Mt Kilimanjaro is something I miss every day.

3. What were the advantages and challenges for your children growing up there?
My two children were taught humility, seeing other children that are less fortunate than them. They are taught respect. Swahili culture is very polite. Consideration and respect are always given to elders. They made good friends from all nationalities, they ate the local food – “nyama choma na chipsy” meaning BBQ meat and chips. The biggest challenge is education and international schools are expensive. I didn’t want to send my kids to boarding school so the only option was to move back to Australia.

4. When I went to live in Greece I found animal cruelty and neglect, poverty, environmental carelessness and patriarchal attitudes towards women confronting. Other foreign women felt the same. Volunteering was a popular option to help out in these areas. Can you tell me about the Grand Circle Foundation you’ve been involved with? 

 Yes, and that is very much the case in Africa, though it’s getting a lot better compared to 10 years ago. Volunteering is more so in human and wildlife conflicts and education. Women are at the forefront of many of these causes.

The Grand Circle Foundation provides support for education in local schools mainly in Tanzania and Kenya. Clients on safari to Tanzania will enjoy a visit to a designated school to see what the foundation has either built or provided for children and teachers. An example recently is of bicycles being donated to one of the  schools in Karatu to provide a mode of transport to either children or teachers living a distance away. Projects enable water to be readily available and school materials for children. Farming projects help provide the school with necessary food supplies to feed children while they’re at school. Once the school has reached a level of sustainability through completion of projects the foundation will then source a new school to support in another surrounding area.

5. You said to me in an email that “group tours that fly through national parks to save money to protect their bottom line is wrong”.
Please note my definition of group tours is 12 + people. Most budget or selected group tours will fly through certain areas due to on ground expenses and to protect their own margins. They will make sure to push local operators for the lowest accommodation rates – based on a volume of passengers that is not always achieved – only stay in national parks for the minimal time possible. While I get that this sometimes is the only way for people to be able to afford visiting Africa, it isn’t giving back to the livelihood of the people or to conservation efforts that are trying to help preserve wildlife against poaching.

This is often a touchy issue. I think trying to educate clients about spending more time in the destination is a must.

I have a friend in Arusha who started the concept of the “slow safari”. They have a luxury camp called Chem Chem. It’s based on the edge of Lake Manyara and is on a wildlife corridor into Tarangire national park. At the start they struggled to get people to understand their concept. Today through education and sticking to their beliefs they are doing exceptional well. Nico has focused on conservation and reviving a wildlife population in an area that was nearly desolate.

6. What’s the demographic of your clients? 

My clients are passionate, have a love for luxury adventure travel and after something a little different.

Demographic from the ages of 46 – 64,  hard working professionals who love to travel or are well travelled. They will be either solo women travellers, couples and good friends traveller together. A majority are women, more than men and/or couples. They want the ultimate experience everywhere they go and value for money. Luxury adventure – the combination of 4 – 5 star accommodation and a choice of selected adventures such as walking, horse riding and traditional game viewing. They don’t want budget or the noisy lodges or group tours, they want to enjoy every experience available to them. Clients are into conservation and plight of the community including wildlife projects. They want to see the raw and remote parts of Africa and not skip through it.

 

7. Your top five favourite things about Africa? 

• Wildlife – walking and visiting the national parks. Photography – having time to take thousands of photos.
• People – the banter and speaking the language.
• Local projects – there is nothing better than visiting a local school or community project were the kids are constantly smiling throughout hardship. Giving back.
• Food – going down to and eating nyama choma at a local bar – having a Kilimanjaro beer to wash it down – is probably not the most ladylike thing but was our favourite thing to do on a Sunday.
• Horse riding – Horseback safaris are another great way to see wildlife.

On safari in Zambia. Or Kenya. Or Tanzania. Or Rwanda. Surely this is one of life’s greatest travel experiences for adventurous women. Justine Glen, the founder of Reis Voyage says travelling to Kenya on her own in 1995 was one of the best decisions she’s ever made. Spending the next 15 years travelling in Africa and living in Tanzania was full of life-changing moments. Inspired, she started her own travel company. 

Safaris can be group experiences or your own amazing adventure. 

In February, Justine and her client Teresa set off on safari in Zambia, to find out why the remote national park of South Luangwa is so special. 

In Justine’s words:

Landing on African soil again stirred the emotion of being back home after never actually being away. Walking off the plane and making our way through immigration the process was ever so quick. Our Proflight journey from Lusaka to Mufwe had been pleasant. Tiredness we felt from our long journey turned into excitement and anticipation.

On arrival in Mufwe we were greeted by the friendly face of our guide. The drive to the South Luangwa national park gate was full of lush green farms and a familiar smell of “nyama choma”, (grilled or roast meat) tickling our senses.

Baboons greeted us at the park entrance with their playful demeanour and unruly antics. Enroute to camp we came across many of the “puku” (medium-sized antelope). After a small boat transfer across the Luangwa river we arrived at Chinzombo, the newly renovated camp of Norman Carr luxury African safaris.

Walking up from the jetty we arrived to the welcoming smiles of Yaliwe and her team, instantly making us feel at home. The camp rooms were spacious, with stunning interior decor and our own plunge pool.

Our stay at Chinzombo was full of tasty cuisine, chatty and cheeky baboons and happy families of mongoose. Hippo pods dotted the river in front of camp entertaining us with their huge yawns and massive teeth. Daily morning and afternoon game viewing experiences brought a different highlight and fascinating birdlife. We soon became very familiar with the sounds of the ring-necked dove and its tune of “work harder” or “drink lager”.

This season brings a changing landscape of brilliant green lush vegetation and high flowing rivers, quite a contrast to the dry and harsh landscape of safari season, between the months of May to October. Elephants were abundant and loved wallowing in the mud or camouflaging themselves behind the trees. Young calves were full of character and noise. The never ending efforts of trying to control their trunks was mesmerising.

Night game drives were highlighted by a young hyena sniffing out a leopard kill high in a tree branch above. Sitting among circling lions preying on unsuspecting impala for their evening meal had us in absolute awe.

Venturing up the Luangwa River to our next camp Kakuli, the hour-long boat ride was comfortable. Our guide Jon was a wealth of knowledge. The small cozy bush camp offered us that remote and authentic adventure that we were looking for. Breakfast time we would be greeted by the smile of our camp chef “Mr Million” who would later tell us stories each night of “Why the hippo has no hair” and “Why the giraffe has a long neck”.

In Kakuli each day brought a new highlight and experience – we never had two days the same. We found the cookson’s wildebeest, crawshay’s zebra and thornicroft giraffe. The wildlife and photographic opportunities were endless. We finally took a ream of hippo yawning shots! Oh, and of the magnificent bull elephant who kindly came up to our vehicle to check us out.

Our camps were intimate and pure bush style luxury. We had all the amenities from home and more. The six rooms each had their own plunge pool so we were able to have a dip in the afternoon, cooling down from the midday heat. The camp staff couldn’t have been more hospitable. We enjoyed wonderful cuisine and the daily sundowners of gin and tonics.

Our professional guides and game scouts were knowledgeable and impressive. Every day we embarked on a learning and discovery mission. Showing us much more than we could have ever imagined, or expected. Our stay included accommodation, meals, standard drinks, laundry, two guided safari activities each day, park fees, airport transfers to and from Mfuwe, and inter-camp transfers.

ON SAFARI IN ZAMBIA BITE SIZE INFO

• South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia, the southernmost of three national parks in the valley of the Luangwa River, is a world-renowned wildlife haven
• Luangwa River is the most intact major river system in Africa and is the life-blood of this 9059 sq km park
• 60 different animal species and over 400 different bird species. The only notable exception is the rhino, sadly poached to extinction
• Justine Glen, the founder of Reis Voyage works with various companies and speaks the local language Kiswahili. It has given her a wealth of knowledge and expertise on how to experience an African safari
• Address: 3, 673 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Tel: 0459 308 888
• Images courtesy of Reis Voyage and Norman Carr Safaris.

Doesn’t Syria look warm and inviting in this vintage Middle East travel poster? It was an alluring destination. Now Syria is the most war-torn place on the planet. Syria used to be:

• Sophisticated
• Culturally and religiously diverse
• Had four international airports
• A popular destination for ancient monuments
• A revered place of learning Arabic, particularly
• Famous for delicious bakeries on every corner.

Stylised travel posters such as the one pictured above revealed more than the romance of journeys decades ago.  Posters also paint a picture of borders, state propaganda, culture, war and peace at the time. Culture in the Middle East remains a bedrock, but war and peace shift like sand.

Once upon a time the Islamic world’s riches and mysteries drew many travellers. Middle East travel was considered as exotic as deepest Africa. Incredibly complex conflicts including the rise and rise of religious extremism and terrorist attacks are reducing the number of countries to be explored. This is the most religiously and politically sensitive region in the world.

• Jordan is still considered a safe haven for travellers
• North Africa’s Tunisia, Algeria and Libya are off the menu
• About 1 million tourists visited Egypt in November and December, down 41 per cent from last year and the lowest number during these peak months since at least 2005, says Bloomberg
• Iran’s tourism is on the increase as other countries become unavailable. Iran had 4,769,000 arrivals in 2013, up from 3, 354,000 in 2011, says world bank.org stats
• Turkey’s tourism, which has seen exponential growth over the past 10 years, has been affected by the Syrian refugee crisis and recent bombings. The Australian government’s SmartTraveller advice: Exercise a high degree of caution.

Since 2011 an estimated 300,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war. Millions of Syrians have been displaced. Their exodus – largely to Jordan, Turkey and the perilous journey to Europe via Greece – is the biggest refugee crisis since WWII. The misery is still almost incomprehensible, even though we read about it daily in the headlines. Forced travel is trauma on a grand scale.

SmartTraveller on Syria: A No Go Zone. Get out or don’t go.

Travel and tourism have a way of adapting to circumstance. The West Bank is periodically wracked by violence but this Middle East travel destination carries on. The hideously deprived Gaza Strip remains a No Go Zone. Ironically, this poster was created by Austrian Jew Franz Krausz in 1936. He fled Hitler’s Germany and made a series of posters for Zionist groups to encourage Jewish immigration to the Holy Land. Vibrant Mediterranean colours, a low-rise city, and the Dome of the Rock captured the unique essence of the region. After the creation of Israel in 1948, the poster was forgotten for decades.

It was rediscovered in the 1990s during the Oslo peace process, and has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance ever since, according to news website Slate. Artist/photographer Amer Shomali tweaked the Krausz poster in 2009. The Palestineposterproject.org has other variations, illustrating the continuing conflict.

The Palestinian territories remain a biblical mecca for travellers to see the ancient wonders of East Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho. In 2010, 4.6 million people visited. Most were domestic travellers. They and international travellers were more likely to stay only for the day. International tourists – many of them Christian – usually did group tours. Since the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 after the six-day war, Israeli authorities have sought to expand the city’s Jewish population and reduce its Palestinian population.

Despite the Israelis running most tourism in East Jerusalem, there’s a Palestinian tourism site.

Round up the best of Palestine – the holy shrines, the historical treasures, the hospitality, the folklore, the hiking, the biking, the culture, the handicrafts, the food, the beer – and you have the building blocks for one of the most interesting journeys you’ll ever take.”

SmartTraveller on the region: Gaza – do not travel. West Bank – reconsider your need to travel. Israel – exercise a high degree of caution.

 

• Capital city Baghdad in the late 1950s had a population of 1.5 million
• It was an elegant city of wide avenues, with a well-developed cafe culture
• Red buses were still visible
• Women in hijab were the exception rather than the rule
• Education was a priority for men and women alike
• The souks were magnets for shoppers, selling precious metals, copper, silks, spices and carpets.

Chef Robert Lechowicz has left behind the Michelin-starred restaurants where he trained in Europe to headline at Blackwood Pantry in beachside Cronulla. The 28-year-old’s food is French in technique, and “fuss free” mod Oz  in its approach.

The Pantry is discreetly located down a laneway. The thrill of culinary discovery in an unexpected place is never to be underestimated in Sydney.

Robert joined forces with friends Daniel Sorridimi and Paul Pisani – all three are from the Sydney’s southern Sutherland Shire. The trio are giving day-trippers and travellers another reason to visit the coastal burb.

If you’re visiting Sydney, Bondi Beach is still the go-to place for hip food and hip attitude. But Cronulla, popular with surfers, 33km south of Bondi, is shrugging off its  controversial bogan past. It was only a matter of time before people started looking for the Next Big Thing. Quality bars, restaurants, cult cafes and artisan bakeries are shaking things up in the Nulla. Blackwood Pantry is the latest cool addition.

Robert worked as chef de partie at Chateau Cordeillan Bages, Pauillac-France; as sous chef at L’Abeille, Shangri-La Paris; and executive sous chef at the Greenhouse in London, which all share two-Michelin-star status.

Since opening up in January under the Breeze Apartments complex, Blackwood Pantry has been getting kudos on Instagram with dishes such as the fresh basil yoghurt dotted with fig, strawberry and candied pistachio or Turkish poached eggs.

“Blackwood Pantry is about staying true to my heart,” says Robert. “My vision is to create food that is light and seasonal and present it in a relaxed, informal space where people feel comfortable to dust the sand from their feet after a day at the beach and come in and enjoy food they want to eat at an affordable price.”

The new laneway eatery was named after nearby Blackwood’s Beach. “We were halfway through the build and it was a hot day, so we went down to Blackwood’s for a swim and I had an epiphany. ‘Blackwood’s is our favourite local beach. Let’s name it Blackwood Pantry.’ It is the perfect fit because just like Blackwood’s we are a bit of a local’s secret and hidden away from view,” says Daniel Sorridimi.

Sorry guys, but you’re clearly not a secret any more.

Sydney architecture and interior design firm Luchetti Krelle created the achingly beautiful interior, which includes key design features such as concrete floors with a custom inlay that references the hexagonal shape of the seawall at  nearby Elouera Beach, ceramic pendant lights, and a corrugated waiter’s station. Designer Patrick Laurence says as well as referencing the seawall, the interior picks up on softer colours that you see at the beach at different times of day.

Ex-Brewtown Newtown barista Sam Cornish has also joined the team.

SMALL BITES

• Blackwood Pantry is open from 6.30am – 4pm weekdays and 7am – 4pm weekends
• Plans to open for dinner
• 5/33 Surf Lane, Cronulla
• No Reservations (hear that, Tony Bourdain?)

The latest list of the world’s 10 best beaches doesn’t include one stretch of Australian sand. It makes me jump for joy. Lists like these will help our beautiful beaches remain unspoiled for longer on an increasingly crowded planet. Who wants to follow the crowds, anyway?

I’m thrilled millions of TripAdvisor reviewers went to swim somewhere else.

• The Coastal Studies Unit at the University of Sydney has counted 10,685 beaches in Australia.
• Australian mainland coastline stretches more than 30,000 km.
• No privately-owned beaches here – beaches are public places for all to enjoy.
• They won’t cost you an entry fee, like many European beaches (then there’s a fee for the umbrella, sunlounger, and tips for the guy bringing you a cold drink).

By comparison we’re spoiled for choice, and so are travellers to our country.

Sydney’s famous, golden, 1km-long Bondi Beach is an exception to our uncrowded rule. It’s been loved to death by tourists for decades. But there’s no denying our best-known aquatic playground is still a magnet for tourists and locals alike. Here’s 10 top beaches in Australia for today. With over 10,000 to choose from, it will be different by next week.

10 top beaches in Australia

TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Travellers’ Choice Beaches in the World:

1. Grace Bay — Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

2. Baia do Sancho — Fernando de Noronha, Brazil

3. Playa Paraiso — Cayo Largo, Cuba

4. Anse Lazio — Praslin Island, Seychelles

5. Cayo de Agua — Los Roques National Park, Venezuela

6. Flamenco Beach — Culebra, Puerto Rico

7. Playa de Ses Illetes — Formentera, Spain

8. Ngapali Beach — Ngapali, Myanmar

9. West Bay Beach — Bay Islands, Honduras

10. Nacpan Beach — El Nido, Philippines

]]> https://tastefortraveldotblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/travel-top-beaches-in-australia/feed/ 0 Beach Australia traveltaster Young couple jumping on the beach Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia Queensland beach Top beaches in Australia Bondi Beach in winter Top beaches in Australia Top beaches in Australia https://tastefortraveldotblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/summer-harvest-georgina-penney-novel/ https://tastefortraveldotblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/summer-harvest-georgina-penney-novel/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2016 01:18:22 +0000 http://www.tastefortravel.com.au/?p=25524 Continue reading "How to harvest your writing talent"]]> Put down the phone, live the moment,
then take notes.” – Georgina Penney

More on that in a minute. First I’ll spruik Georgina’s new novel, Summer Harvest. I have a copy to give away.

WHAT: Summer Harvest by Georgina Penney, published by Penguin, rrp $32.99, also available as an e-book. An Englishwoman deserted by her husband while she’s undergoing treatment for breast cancer is sent to Western Australia on holiday by a well-meaning granny so she can “get away from it all”. She ends up in the Margaret River wine region, tangles with the wildlife and eventually, the men. Georgina has a breezy style and a penchant for eccentric characters. She believes this is because she’s slightly left-of-field herself. In this book there’s also more serious themes. Summer Harvest illustrates the importance of cross-generational friendships, mature relationships and their sexuality in fiction, and explores the rollercoaster of breast cancer. Georgina’s lively, engaging novels are easily devoured on travel adventures or on holiday.

WHO: Georgina Penney … where do I start … writes from her cosy home surrounded by beautiful icy wastes in Scotland, where she lives with husband Tony. She’s travelled a lot, having lived all over Australia, in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Brunei Darussalam. She’s had several creative changes in career from learning to paint, the IT boom to becoming the registrar of a massage and naturopathy college. Georgina was introduced to romance novels at an impressionable age, and somehow, has never been able to escape them. So she started writing them. Her first book Fly In Fly Out was published in 2015.

Q&A with Georgina

• What advice would you give to writers looking to draw upon travel experiences for their fiction?

Truly experience the places you’re visiting. Put down the camera. Put down the phone. Talk to people and listen to their stories. You will never, ever know what you’re going to learn by just looking at someone and making assumptions. Smell the smells (however interesting they are sometimes), really see what you’re seeing, listen in to conversations around you, watch how people move, how they talk and then take a hell of a lot of notes, preferably in a notepad so you’re not taken away from the experience you’re in, by technology. And then allow yourself some quiet time to reflect on what you’ve learned and experienced. When you’ve done all that, get whatever feels right down on the page, whatever the genre, whatever voice comes out.

• Did you draw on life experiences for this new novel? Mature relationships don’t get much traction in commercial fiction. 

Summer Harvest was initially inspired by a dear friend of mine going through the aftermath of breast cancer, but since then, I’ve had all too many friends who have been diagnosed and who are now thankfully coming out the other side. Having the privilege of seeing how they tackled cancer’s effect on their sense of identity, their relationships and the people that love them has been a real eye-opener and was truly inspiring. I just hope I did my friends’ experiences justice!

On the topic of mature couples: the joy of being an expatriate woman is that I don’t quite live within the usual constraints that govern a 30-something-year-old woman in Australia. Because I’ve moved so much and travel a lot, I’m seen as a little eccentric and that’s allowed me to befriend people of all ages, including women who are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. When writing Summer Harvest, it didn’t make sense to me not to have mature people and couples when they’re such a lovely part of my life.

• Was it difficult to write about them? 

It was. Although, the hardest part was working up the bravery to show my finished manuscript to my friends who had gone through the things my character Beth had lived through. Thankfully they were honest and helped me shape Beth into a character I’m extremely proud of.

• Can you describe your surroundings and your writing routine?

I’m afraid I’m a little boring! I write in my study, a book lined room with the odd comfy couch, a very messy desk and an extremely belligerent cat. And my routine is well… pretty routine! I get up, have a cup of tea and get to it. I generally don’t let myself get up from my chair or do anything else until I have my daily word count. It sounds all very disciplined but if I’m honest, I’m an inveterate procrastinator and daydreamer and the strict routine is the only way I force myself to get anything done!

• I know lawyers and other professional women who write bodice rippers. I once attended a romance writers convention – to write a feature story on it – and was amazed at the diversity of the writers. I couldn’t find a Barbara Cartland among them. What’s the attraction?

Well, I do have a propensity for pink handbags and shoes with a bit of bling. I haven’t gotten a Pomeranian and dyed it pink yet, but you never know! On a serious note, life is pretty hard when you get down to it and intelligent, thoughtful people do enough reflecting on the difficulties they face, whether that be illness, family problems, work problems or just plain life, that they need something to feel good about.

Much like the way crime fiction identifies the source of a culture’s anxiety about safety in the form of the serial killer and then neutralizes it through the detective so that the reader can close their book and sleep easy at night, romance identifies those difficult bits of life we all go through at the most base level – love, sex, death, marriage and kids -and then gives the reader resolution so that whatever they’re going through in that moment feels just that little bit easier.

My first exposure to romance came when I was 10 years old. A friend of the family took me to see her 70-year-old neighbour who was dying of breast cancer. While she was there, the friend gave the lady a bag of romance novels and I asked what they were. The elderly lady explained they made the horrible things go away for a little while so she could feel a little bit better. And to this day, I still believe that’s 100% true.

I could still do with that pink Pomeranian though…

SUMMER HARVEST
GIVEAWAY
One lucky reader

All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, or on Taste for Travel’s Facebook page, chuck me a Tweet, or throw me a heart on Instagram. I’ll pick a winner at random in two weeks. Too easy.

Don’t use plastic bags. Simple, isn’t it? When we travel, all of us take strong, good-sized bags with us, in addition to luggage. Rucksacks, backpacks, decent-sized handbags with strong handles etc. Please use those! Or buy a cloth bag or a cute Provencal basket and look like a trendy local. The grim reality is: Every piece of plastic produced on our fragile planet since 1950 still exists. 

Scientists say a new type of rock cobbled together from plastic, volcanic rock, beach sand, seashells, and corals has begun forming on the shores of Hawaii. The mass of plastic produced since 1950 is close to 6 billion metric tonnes, enough to bundle the entire planet in plastic wrap. Combine plastic’s abundance with its persistence in the environment, and there’s a good chance it’ll get into the fossil record.” – Sciencemag.org

You could buy a Provencal markets bag from Culture Vulture, made from recycled cotton canvas, or a tote made from 100% recycled plastic bottles from Dupere Design.

I love the way these calisson (pictured below) at the Provencal market in Aix-en-Provence are packaged. OK, so there’s a little plastic, but not much. The clever stallholder has used lightweight cardboard to package the almond cookies. They’re made from a paste of ground almonds, candied melon and orange peel on a thin layer of wafer, all covered with royal icing. These cookies are a local specialty. The diamond-shaped cookies in the foreground are wrapped in cellophane, a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. As for the lavender-coloured twine – fingers crossed it’s cotton based and not plastic, polyester or nylon.

Eat ugly vege

Food that doesn’t have a perfect appearance is often ditched before reaching retailers big and small, creating a massive amount of waste in the Western world. Fortunately Provencal markets (as the picture above shows) don’t discriminate so much. Peppers and tomatoes at the Saturday market in Arles are delightfully imperfect. There’s also an emphasis on organic produce in Provence markets.

Nicolas Chabanne,  a Paris entrepreneur with ties to French fruit and vegetable farmers, runs a campaign called Gueules Cassées, which translates into Ugly Mugs, reports the New York Times.  Its logo is a smiling apple with a black eye and a single tooth, which Chabanne prints on labels that French farmers and retailers can fix to their imperfect produce and sell at reduced prices. He sells the labels for a few euro cents each, keeping part of the proceeds while donating the rest to consumer groups or activists fighting food waste. An estimated 800 farmers and food producers are participating in Ugly Mugs so far.

By the way, the new French law says:

Lonely Planet has launched Guides, a new, free, city guide mobile app – a pocket travel companion on the road, or when planning a trip.

Available now for iOS and Android, Lonely Planet says the app will get you straight to the heart of a destination on your phone.

There was time when many travellers tucked copies of Lonely Planet guides into their luggage. We scribbled notes into them, ripped out pages we urgently needed for loo paper in Third World shitholes, balanced our coffees on them,  sat on them rather than dirty railway station benches, and late at night curled up in bed in yet another strange, exciting new city we read and dreamed of what to do the next day. The more battered they looked, the further they had travelled and been loved and used to bits.

Can’t do that with apps. Although many of us are tucked up in bed with our phones at night, wherever we are.

We now take our phones with us when we trek, unless you’re one of those plucky off-the-grid types. Or die-hard book nerds. Guides offers Lonely Planet’s content, free of charge, curated and optimised to provide the best possible on-the-ground experience.  Guides enables travellers to:

• Navigate with easy-to-use offline maps;
• Save places with simple bookmarking;
• Find great activities with filtering;
• Travel with tips such as city highlights and details on where to eat and stay.

The Lonely Planet app launched with 38 cities across six continents: Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Chicago, Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Kyoto, Las Vegas, London, Madrid, Montreal, Moscow, New Orleans, New York City, Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro City, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, St Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, Vancouver, Venice, Vienna, and Washington, DC.

If there isn’t an in-app guide for that city, users can request to have it added within the app – and be notified once it’s available. I would like to see cities such as Bogota, Florence, Athens, Lisbon, Melbourne, Mexico City and Los Angeles quickly added to the list.

Guides includes an average of 1,000 points of interest per city and has “near-me” functionality, which shows you sights that are within easy reach of where you are, or sights that are close by to somewhere you plan on visiting.

Daniel Houghton, Lonely Planet’s CEO is pretty excited about the app.

We were one of the first travel publishers ever to have content available in the App Store and were a launch partner for the iPad.  We have taken the time to understand what travellers need and expect from a mobile product in 2016. Guides delivers Lonely Planet’s expertly-curated content in a format that is contextual and intuitive on mobile devices and which utilises the many great innovations of those platforms to deliver the best possible user experience.”

Got it.

But still not as much fun.