A Place in my Heart Mini Series: Darwin, Australia

In June 2010, I was lost and not in a way which owning a Sat-Nav could cure. I was working 80 hours plus a week, obsessed with work and had zero energy, social life or real perspective. On a flight of whimsy and in need of a break, I booked a flight to Australia to visit a friend. She lives in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, a full eight hour flight away from Sydney and most other typical tourist destinations. Unlike the rest of Australia in winter, Darwin is dry and hot in the summer. So with guaranteed sunshine, and the freeing concept of being over 7000km away from work, I went.

I am thankful 1 million times over that I did.

Most people don't tend to visit Darwin for very long unless a seasonal worker, member of the military, an inhabitant or a freedom loving hippy (Yes they DO exist and in abundance here). There is not much 'to do' per se, but it is a beautiful, unique place.

On setting foot on Australian soil for the first time, however, it appeared to me to be the most terrifying location ever. I spent my whole time in the luggage hall, checking for Huntsman spiders loitering to jump me. The first evening we sat out in a garden, I didn't want to keep my feet on the floor for fear of creepie crawlies and in all honesty, the first time I saw the stunning ocean in front of the Mindl Beach Markets I thought: sharks! Everything was familiar, but altogether different at the same time. Even the chicken things that roamed the streets looked like prehistoric nasties....and don't get me started on the bizarre running-on-two-legs-like-a-human lizards. It was a bit like I had spent so many hours absorbed in work a whole sub-species of crazy creatures had taken over the planet, or everything had evolved in the space of a few years.

Once calmer, I spent a lot of time doing nothing. It's harder than it first appears for someone who is usually busy most minutes of the day. I walked along the beach, into town for a coffee, read books and waited for my friend and her family to return from work. As life became less hectic, and I realised there were no six-foot-tall spiders going to attack me, or crocodiles hiding in drains, I started to chill out. It is that pivotal moment when you walk into a foreign hairdressing salon and ask them to 'do what they think best' that you know a corner is being turned in terms of letting go. When a camp hairdresser called Randy gives you the most epic haircut of your life, then and ONLY then, does the transformation start.

 I also saw a whole family of teachers who were able to work 8 hours a day and then have a life. The concept was revolutionary. After two weeks of Darwin, I was ready to live again - so I did - I went to the outback.

Camping at Kakadu (a National Park the size of Wales people) was an experience I will never forget. It was sweaty, dirty, terrifying, and eye-opening. I saw my first wild croc, a bird that walks on water, swam in waterfalls (with an Iguana once), shared a toilet block with an actual poisonous spider, slept under the stars (with genuine risk of waking up sharing my sleeping bag with a snake or scorpion) and ate real Kangaroo on a campfire.

When I returned, gone was the girl who wouldn't sit on the grass two weeks ago. I was ready to take on the world.

The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind of concerts, dinners, and trips as I tried to devour as much of the life Darwin gave me a taster of. On my last night, dancing in a dodgy bar named Monsoons....I met Andi. And rather than running away from this gorgeous, tall specimen of Germaness, I had found the courage to talk back to him and what's more, I had a lot more to say than the person who had arrived just 5 weeks before. None of it was related to teaching, beyond explaining what I did for a job.

Darwin changed me in ways I could not have imagined, but it gave me courage to embrace the unknown; it reignited my passion for travel; it made me prioritise people over work and it made me change my lifestyle when I arrived home. I will always have a big Darwin-sized chunk of love in my heart for this city and everything it did to save me.....even if it still didn't help me to get a tan!

Be Kind in Blog Land - Blog Angels June Sign-Up is now OPEN

 

The sun is shining (some of the time), the blossom is on the trees and you're all hopefully full of the joys of Spring. It's amazing how light and flowers breed positivity in people. Doesn't it just suck though that it is still that tiny bit too cold to go outside and really ENJOY the Spring? (If you are reading from a temperate, gorgeously warm climate right now, then please don't tell me....) Maybe Blog Angels is just the kind of project you need to spread the loveliness in blog land - well at least until it's warm enough to properly leave the house...

 

Sign-up for June Blog Angels starts today. If you want to shower kindness on another blogger for one month without expecting any help in return then this is YOUR project. When you think about what you appreciate from your readers, you probably love nothing more than those wonderful people who stop by and comment often on your posts; respond to your emails with more than a few words; Pin your projects or feature your writing. If you were a Blog Angel you would perform some, if not all of these tasks for another blog, without them realising it is your project to brighten their day.

 

Maybe you want to build links with a new follower, deepen an existing relationship or just be more active in the community. Whatever the reason you might want to help, you are very welcome to join in (whatever your blog's size or experience level).

To be a Blog Angel you need to:

1) Find a blog you want to look after. You might browse the little 'supermarket' linky below for bloggers who have requested some help, but I would encourage you to think about engaging with one of your commenters or a new reader.

2) FILL IN THIS FORM

2) Be nice to the nominated blogger for a whole month, making a minimum of two comments on their posts per week. Remember not to tell them you are their Blog Angel.

3) Write a reveal post to be published on June 30th and linked up here at the big Craftbotic Blog Angel party.

 

I will confirm your Blog Angel choice by email right up to when sign-up closes on May 24th (earlier this month as I am on holiday!)

 

If you have signed up to BE a Blog Angel then you can also link your blog up below to advertise for help (if you want it). Please note this requirement has changed slightly. Anybody who links up for help, but is not signed up to BE a Blog Angel will be removed from the list. It really doesn't take much effort to help out another blogger and I like to think the purpose of this community is more about the giving, than the receiving anyhoo.

Any questions then please shoot me an email or check out the Blog Angels page for more information. If you joined in, I love you more than a little bit. :p

A Place in My Heart Mini Series: A Yorkshire Castle

It's been a long time since I feel I have properly written on my blog, without tips or tricks or tutorials that is. The last couple of months my brain has been occupied by work. Well, that's what I have been telling myself anyway. I think perhaps my brain has been buried in work, because I want to busy it. Over the next few months there are going to be some big life changes and it is tiring to think about them all of the time. I have a habit of 'over-thinking' (a polite euphemism for obsessing) and this leads to panic, as not everything I want to happen is within my control.

It's at times like this when everything is a bit too much that a trip to Yorkshire would be ideal. Through my family around North Yorkshire I have found some of the most peaceful places and a landscape to inspire clarity in my heart. This isn't so much a travel guide, but I would recommend you read on AND plan some time here in your England travel itinerary.

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Richmond, Yorkshire is the home to my Uncle and Auntie (and at one point my Nanna too). It is a market town on the River Swale; cobbled, hilly market place, old book shop, a covered market, some cute art shops and the obligatory cream teas. Perched on the top of the hill, is Richmond castle which majestically looks over the stunning countryside below, the mounds dropping away to form cliffs in front of which the crows nest in the surrounding trees.

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You can climb the keep of the castle and survey the lands beyond you. You might think that the summer would be a great time to do this, but give me this castle in the wind and rain and I am at my happiest, my calmest. Not many people want to stand at the top in this kind of weather; often there is nothing much to see but the moody clouds and rushing waters of the Swale. But when you're trying to think, achieve clarity, there is nothing like the buttress of the weather to knock you into shape. Some of my biggest decisions have happened here - when no amount of 'over-thinking' or chatting with friends would help me to see what it was I really wanted from my heart.

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Just five minutes from the castle (quite thankfully as I usually end up pretty cold, soaked and emotionally stunned from being in there) is the covered market and the sort of cake stall that you'd probably live in Richmond just to visit everyday. There are always between 10-15 different types of homemade cakes and unlike major coffee chains, a fat slice of it and a steaming hot cup of tea is waiting for you for less than £5. The old folk who run it too are proper Yorkshire folk - none of the southerner 'immigrants' that swathed the place in the nineties. This is normally where I meet up with my family who can't understand my obsession with the castle and have long since given up trying to visit it with me.

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Everything about Richmond, to me, screams family and peace. Trotting down to the parks by the River Swale, you will see people there at all times of the year (unless flooded). In the Spring and Summer, when the water is lower people paddle across the rocks, swing into the cool waters with their friends and skim stones. There is even a flag safety system like the beach. One year, the rain was so bad the Swale knocked out a stone bridge, such was the force of the water and not a small one either...either way the coppery colour of the rocks glimmers in the sunlight and the tree-lined banks brim with wild-life.



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The old railway station is a great place to wander to next. It's been converted into a café, cinema, artisan space. Just to sit in the airy hall enjoying another Yorkshire tea and scone, before visiting the brewer, cheese-maker, jam shop or artisan ice cream shop is a real treat. I recommend the 'Fire-eaters Chutney', the 'Strawberry & Champagne Jam' and 'Chilli Jam' too. It tops whatever is going on in the shops and then some. Emotionally testing times on castle tops require a significant amount of hearty food to feed the soul and this is the place to do it.

Except the pubs of course. Richmond is packed full with traditional drinking holes, many of which my uncle has taken us to over the years, full of local friends, gossip and music. After a good walk in the dales, where the only company you might have are rabbits, sheep and the odd other walker, a good catch-up in the pub is an excellent idea. Every time I have been on a walking holiday up north, it has been freezing, but a great experience. If the cake-shop is closed, you can guarantee the pub won't be and a good drop of ale, or in my case a glass of wine, will warm your cockles.

I haven't been to Yorkshire since Easter 2011, a short time after my Nanna died. It felt different; a bit emptier. My heart would give anything to go back - even if it's just for enough quiet to blow away the cobwebs and put me back on the right path. It's crazy to think there are places on earth that have this effect on anyone....or is it just me?