Great time at Charmaine Clancy's Rainforest Writing Retreat with fantastic presenters and great writers. Good to learn new things and brush up on others. Almost finished another story.

USA Voyage

The U.S. is a place like no other. A mix of the very good, the good and the bad. I first went to New Zealand and stayed a night with relatives in Auckland, then to San Francisco, then straight up to Minnesota, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and finally back to San Francisco. 

San Francisco was an interesting place full of interesting buildings, it was one of the first homes of the hippie movement, so people painted their houses in vibrant colours. It was interesting going on a hop on, hop off bus, seeing different aspects of the city such as the houses, the parks, the Golden Gate Bridge and the famous Pier 39 where you can board a ferry to visit Alcatraz which we didn't do, but certainly you can. The seafood was also very nice, with their famous chowders. So all in all, San Francisco was a very different place to other areas of the U.S. but in a good way.

Golden Gate Bridge

Town Hall

Typical house in San Fran

Minnesota was a great place. The people are the friendliest you'll ever meet, especially in the little township of Luverne. Luverne is a farming town, in fact, I stayed on a farm. I saw firefly's and bison, and went to their famous County Fair. There were people at the Fair with such pride in their animals. I went to an historic house known as the Hinkley House, and an art nouveau style theatre called the Palace. The people of Luverne are also very generous and shouted a great lunch at the Pizza Ranch.

Barn in Luverne

Bison

The Palace Theatre

Hinkley House

How hungry are you?

Washington D.C. is a very architecturally nice place, with various statues of Presidents, monuments and museums, and the Capitol building. The first thing I did was to visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It was very interesting to learn the stories of the various Presidents and see the film and television exhibits, all under the same roof. The next day I went to the Capitol building, and took a semi-private tour, jumping queues and all that, because I know someone who knows Keith Ellison (Congressman for Minnesota). It was interesting to see the history of such an impressive building, and the paintings and statues within. Then it was off to Mount Vernon, a well restored historical landmark, it was interesting to see how George Washington lived: Nice view over the river, old English style buildings and plants from all over the world.

Mount Vernon

Painting in the dome ceiling of the Capitol Building

Philadelphia is the real home of liberty and all it stands for, being the home of the Liberty Bell and museums such as Constitution Hall. I drove through Amish country, they are really nice people. The Amish really have the stereotypical Amish way of life, they don't use electricity, they look like they do on the television, with their style of dress, their buggies travelling through the town, and their various quilting designs. Ooh and don't forget their food. Philadelphia also had the biggest supermarket in America called Wagman's, it had everything in it including eateries, a community centre and the biggest cheese bar you've ever seen.
Valley Forge was an interesting place to visit, because the Americans had a battle with the English in this area in 1777, the Continental Army vs the British Army. The soldiers lived in log huts whereas George Washington's headquarters was quite a large stone construction. They were there for eight years.

Amish Farmer

Liberty Bell

Log Hut in Valley Forge

New York has vast amounts of food, and huge quantities of it. Two people could share one meal. Manhattan is a great and bustling busy city, very hot in the Summer. Broadway shows are always great to go to. I saw 'Ghost' in a beautifully restored old theatre called the Lunt/Fontane. It's great to go on a boat tour that take passengers around Manhattan and various other boroughs of New York. The MET (Metropolitan Museum of Arts) is absolutely amazing, you couldn't see it all in one day, and of course the Kenny Kramer Reality Tour, conducted by the real Kramer. For those of you who are fans of Seinfeld, you must look up this great tour.
The hop on, hop off bus was good, but you can just as easily walk and take taxis, they are cheap as chips.

Statue of Liberty

View over the Hudson River

Famous Soup Kitchen From Seinfeld

Then it was back to San Francisco, I had a day there to go to their Metro Arts Museum, which is worth a look.
Then back to Australia, via New Zealand. The journey back was long and arduous, but thanks to an unexpected Air New Zealand upgrade, we survived.

Some of the very good experiences I had were the Kenny Kramer Reality Tour, the entertainment, the grandeur of the buildings, the wide variety of food, mostly good service, helpful people and our friends were exceptional hosts.
Some of the bad experiences I had were with internal airlines which left a lot to be desired in terms of service and food availability, taxi mobility with a wheelchair in New York was not good, and the hotel maintenance and air conditioning in some hotels was not adequate.
We had fun educating the Americans on how to make tea properly.
Overall it was a fantastic experience and I hope to go again.

The Fisherman

There was once a fisherman who lived in a village by a long winding river. The river was lined with dense damp forest, which held many creatures of legend, some of which have never been caught. There was one creature, a fish in particular, that had the power to change the villager’s lives.

 The fisherman was very wrinkled with decades of experience out on the great river. He was commissioned every so often by the leaders of the village to try and catch large fish. The leaders needed fish for large feasts, which they had every so often. Early one day, one of the leaders of the village came to discuss with the fisherman about finding the Fish of Legends. The leader thought that this poor village could be much wealthier. So the fisherman, after consideration, said, ‘Yes, I will try to find this Fish of Legends.’

A few days later the fisherman decided to sit down and build himself a device to find a special fish that had powers. As he pondered on what device to build, the fisherman patted his black cat. The fisherman knew that the villagers were uneasy about him owning this cat, so he reassured the leader that it was just a cat.

The leader said ‘You will probably have to use your powers of metal work and magic to find this fish, because many have tried before but they were unsuccessful.’ So the leader left and the fisherman got to work. He decided to make something that was like a compass in design with a case that was locked with a key. When he was finished he sprayed it with a finding spell.

The next early morning the villagers all gathered to see him off. The fisherman brought his cat with him, as the cat was fearless. The villagers seemed a bit weary of the cat, because earlier in the villages’ history, someone bad owned the cat, and some of the villagers thought that the bad man put his essence into the cat and became the cat. Of course this was not true, but they were a very superstitious people.

The fisherman and his cat got into his fishing boat which was already packed with his star net and fish finding device. He untied the boat from the bank and they drifted off down the river. Every so often the needle on the finding device would quiver, but then, it stopped. He thought that maybe the fish was sleeping. 

He chucked the star net over the boat to catch some fish for dinner. When it became lunch time he had caught a few fish in his net and ate one hungrily. Then the needle on the finding device started to straighten out and pointed definitively in a north-east direction.  So he followed it until the day became twilight.

Suddenly the fisherman noticed a phoenix overhead. It was both a good and a bad omen for him because the fisherman knew that birds around rivers would dive down and try to get good sized fish. Because of the phoenix though, he knew he was in the right area, but as it was a fire bird he didn’t want it close to his wooden long boat. His cat stared at the bird, which got a little scared and flew back a few metres. Then the device started to glow and he knew that it was a good sign. So he charged his star net with a spell to increase his chances of catching the fish of legends. He ate another one of the fish from earlier that day for dinner, and slept a while as it was a long day.

At about midnight the fisherman woke up noticing that the net seemed to be full of various fish. As he picked through them trying to see if he finally got the fish of legends, he saw a large fish with hard golden scales on the bottom of the net. He said to his cat, ‘Could this be it?’

As the fisherman held his finding device close to the fish, the needle became quiet erratic and he knew there and then that he had caught it. The fisherman pulled the fish back into the boat and packed away his net, changing his course back to his village. The night wind did the rest and his cat warned off the phoenix. He went to sleep for the night quite content.

In the morning the fisherman arrived at the bank of his little village. He tied the boat to the wooden pole of the bank of the river, gathered up the fish of legends, and climbed out of the boat with his cat. He placed the fish in the building of leaders in the middle of the town and said to the fish, ‘I hope you work’.

Then to his delight he saw it glow for a second. After a while thinking about the future, he walked slowly back to his little house near the river with his cat by his side and the fisherman knowing that his fellow villagers would never be poor and hungry again. 

Robert Walmsley-Evans.

The Mystery of the Mysterious Object

There once was an Iron Age village surrounded by rolling hills and a stream of water. They had a surprising amount of political complexity for their era. Although it was still not a democracy it still worked. They had a system of assembly which was rather basic, similar to a jury. There was an assembly member named Merdden who was walking down the high street of the village one evening. He was heading down to the stream to gather more water for his family. Merdden knelt down, with a heavy clay jug, and filled it with water from the stream. When the jug was full he placed the jug beside him on the bank and just before he stood up, he saw a un-moon like light coming from the stream. He was curious as to what it was so he plunged his hand into the stream to investigate and pulled out a silver object. As he thought of dropping it and running back home, he found himself with the jug already back at his house.

The next day Merdden forgot about the silver object and went to the assembly, not realising that it was in his pocket. At the assembly building, they were all talking about the previous evening before the meeting started. Another assembly member said to Merddan, “What is that in your pocket?”Merddan responded saying, “Oh this? I found it in the stream, I am unsure as to what it is.”Another different member said, “Why don’t you put it where we keep the other treasured objects?” They soon began to fight over this magical object. 

Merddan was an advocate for throwing it back into the stream and forgetting about it but some of the other members were selfish and wanted to sell it off, as it resembled a crystal. A couple of days had passed and they divided into factions. The ones, who were for keeping the crystal and making them grow wealthy, suggested a war against the other faction and so it was. 

A couple of weeks passed and they were in a fully fledged war – magic verses non-magic. Plague swept the town and a counsel was called for the two factions to come together and work out their differences for the greater good. As they were in the meeting, with the mysterious object in the middle of the table, the object turned a red colour and the table burst into flames. The factions ran from the building and when the fire was extinguished the crystal was nowhere to be seen.

Super Moon

Mnt Nebo Jollys Lookout

The Mystery of the Photo Album

I was at the station one evening when I got a call of an unusual hit and run car accident on a quiet street. I came right away. The person in the car crash had only minor injuries except for their leg. I had to go with them to the hospital to interview them. I was interviewing him when a doctor came in abruptly and said that they may have to amputate. Seeing as this was big news I left the hospital. I went back to the station where all the reports and evidence had been collected. Unfortunately there was no CCTV footage due to their being no cameras on that corner. There were a few witnesses but all had told different stories. All we had was forensic evidence, so I went home because I thought that it would be good to sleep on it.

The next day, I had breakfast, said goodbye to my brother and went to work. My brother was living with me at the time and was trying to find a house of his own. He didn’t have many friends yet he tried. Nobody would talk to him so I helped him out. For most of the day I looked through some evidence and at lunch time I walked home. My brother and I talked as we had lunch. He asked me, “what was that photo album over there on the table?” so I examined the brown leather backed book and stated, “I don’t know where this might have come from.” I opened the photo album and it had various pictures of different things. I noticed the fact that there was a car with red paint in one of the pictures. I remembered back to the car that was hit having scratches on it with residue of red paint. On another page there was a picture of the car that had been hit. There was no name on the book but at least we had some leads. I thanked my brother and he smiled back at me and said, ‘You’re welcome and I hope this helps,’ and I went back to the station to hand the album in as evidence. 

As I walked to the station I thought what a mystery this was – a photo album arriving on my table that no one had seen before. I watched as the finger prints were examined and then watched the other minor detectives analyse the pages. They found that one of the pictures had the red car in front of a house with the street name, but obscuring the house number. At least we had something to go on. So we investigated every red sports car with detail on the door and a personalised plate as it was in the photo. There were surprisingly few that matched the description.

One week later we had caught the man. The amputee got his hospital bills paid in full and my brother got his recognition for the key piece of evidence. To this day, no one has collected their album and I am still at my job as a detective at the station.

The Cartographer

I had just started lecturing in Cartography at the Oxford University in the UK. This was my area of expertise as I enjoyed exploring and thought that this would be the right field to go into. In my youth, I regularly travelled the countryside of Europe. One day, as I was teaching my Monday morning class, the Dean of Cartography entered the lecture theatre and asked my class if he could borrow me for a while. I followed the Dean to his office and I asked what this was about. I thought it was a bit of a mystery as to why I was here. The Dean answered in a rather proper tone, saying, “You have been requested by the government to make a map of Africa’s west cost. You can take an assistant if you like, possibly one of your students. I’m sorry but you will have to let me know by this afternoon who your assistant is going to be.” I thanked the Dean and walked silently back to my class, where I taught until the end of their session.

I stopped one of my students before they left. He was one of my top students who was a rather ordinary fellow yet had an aptitude for the art of Cartography. I explained what the Dean had told me and said to my student, “This would be a trip of a lifetime and I would like it if you were able to come with me.” He responded excitedly with, “Yes! I would love to come with you. Thank you very much.”

That afternoon I gathered my compass, pen and writing parchment and packed up my trunk before collecting my student for the African adventure. We met our government associates at the train station and away we went to the next port. Our ship was a large three sail ship with a well travelled crew onboard. When we boarded I couldn’t help thinking it was going to be a fairly long time away from Europe.

I had already started to map the top of the west side of the continent, when the captain informed us that we may need to pick up some supplies in a few hours time. I was interested in what the continent had to offer and to explore it would be an interesting phenomenon. My student seemed to agree saying, “this should be exciting shouldn’t it sir.’’ We were 10 days into our journey when we had to disembark the ship to pick up the supplies.

The first officer said, “You may want to explore as we have to spend some time in the port.” So my student and I searched the various stalls of the market place which were near where we stopped at the port. My assistant, the student, picked up some souvenirs as he had never been south of the UK before. 

The student got a bit adventurous and started to walk into the jungle on his own. I decided to follow him so that nothing untoward happened. A few miles in we came up to a deep, fast flowing river. My assistant asked me, “Why don’t we travel across the river on one of these vines?” I responded with, “Since you probably won’t let this go, I will swing across first.” I was terrified but I was going to act brave. I had successfully done this once before, but in a slightly safer environment. So I grabbed the vine with both hands and started to push off from the bank. I was midway over the river when the vine snapped and I fell into the rushing water. I was strong enough to swim but never the less it was quite powerful and it carried me away. I grabbed onto a large stone that was cemented into the earth under the rapids. I could see my students worry in his eye as he thrust out a sturdy looking branch for me to grab. I knew that I would live. I wasn’t going to die.

By Robert Walmsley-Evans