Herat

The first landing in Kabul is white-knuckled and spectacular. Beneath us, the azure blue of the Straights of Hormuz have given way to the wind-scoured deserts of Iran, then the frozen plains surrounding Kandahar, before the Hindu Kush erupts upward like a thrusting knife that threatens to cut us from the sky. I spend the flight with my face glued to the window. Images remain with me. The mountains outcrops of Oman’s Musandam Govenorate that jut from a sea of liquid silver like so many flooded peaks. Dust-storms racing below us across the cold brown plains inland of Bandar-e-Abbas. The spectacular faulting of the landscape, of Bazman’s rugged and striated peak, vast salt lakes along Afghanistan’s southern border, and the smattering of tiny muddy hamlets somehow eking survival from wildness. As we bypass Kandahar, subdued under a riming of frozen snow, I notice an object hovering a few thousand feet below us and see the dull, unmistakable silhouette of a military drone.

Kabul Valley seems to have just one way in and one way out. Nestled in a crook of the Hindu Kush, the peaks here have not forgotten that they are the tail end of the Himalaya. They are fierce and snow-capped, and for the first few minutes, while we are still twenty minutes out, I watch them, enthralled.

Then we drop down, and the cloud rolls in.

We’re still at twenty-some thousand feet as I catch sight, through a hole in the grey, that shows a finger of rock and ice jabbing up at us, not very far away at all. As the plane kicks in the shifting air currents, I begin to pray that the pilot has good GPS. We bank and circle, looking for our path through the rock-studded clouds. When visibility next opens up, we’re slipping through a pass into the valley, and there’s a peak perpendicular with the starboard wing, another straight off the port. The pilot’s found his way in, and there’s not much wriggle-room.

In late February, Kabul is still very much in the grip of the winter air that floods down the mountainsides and pools in its wide dun basin. The ground is hard with frost, desiccated with sheaves of windblown dust. The city itself has a squat profile, walled compounds and wide avenues punctuated by minarets and guard-towers. In the harsh afternoon sunlight, the mountains that peer down are crisp and severe.

The tension here is felt as soon as we disembark the aircraft. It’s an unspoken recognition that the context has changed. No longer Kansas. This is my first trip to Afghanistan, so if arriving here has always felt heavy, I have no idea. Multiple friends have reported that since last month’s deadly assault on the Taverna du Liban, a popular expatriate hangout, there has been a particularly sombre feel in the international community. Regardless, Afghanistan is heading for a choppy season- pending elections and an anticipated drawdown of foreign troops are likely to see an increase in destabilizing attacks. The place exhales a sullen anxiety.

It’s not helped by my immediate circumstances. My choice of reading on the plane in is Washington Post journalist and Pullitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick’s The Triple Agent, a gripping telling of the al Qaeda operative who blew himself and eight CIA officers up inside an FOB in eastern Afghanistan. As we stand in line to have our luggage collected, C. passes round his cell-phone. His team survived a suicide bombing here some years back, and he’s jokingly showing off images he’s snapped of the head of the hapless jihadi, neatly separated from its shoulders.

His subtext is clear. This is where we are, boys.

For all the callous joking, I like my team. C. is a gruff bear of a guy, ex-serviceman and a veteran of hard times and places both in the military and as an aid-worker, all but unapproachable any hour prior to noon, but knowledgeable, jovial and with a story for every occasion.

R. is newer to this line of work- like me this is his first trip to Afghanistan, and like me he’s a little edgy at first- but you wouldn’t know it to speak to him. He’s smart, sharp, a real pro, and good-natured to round it all off.

K. is from one of the ex-Soviet republics and a former special forces operator. He’s cool and switched on, with a sense of humour as dry as triple-distilled vodka, so that the only way you can tell he’s joking is the sharp little gleam in his eye and the suggestion of a curl at one corner of his mouth. I ask him if he’s ever been to Afghanistan before, and he looks at me a beat before replying,

“I don’t remember.”

Given that the country is about to celebrate a 25th anniversary commemorating getting rid of the Soviets, I remind myself not to stand too close to him.

Blackhawks are circling as we cross the concrete to the domestic terminal. Two of them to begin with, then joined by two more, then two more, and, finally, a pair of Mi-8s, all filling the city air with their thrumming, doing loops of the metropolitan area. I note the two observation blimps with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Their purpose is obvious, but it’s still a little odd to see them hanging in the blue, oddly out of place above this cold, dusty city.

We stop for a cigarette break. I’m the odd one out here, the token non-smoker. We stand on the flat expanse of the airport forecourt, the air cold but the sun strong. The threat of car-bombs means that no vehicles of any sort can approach the terminals, and there’s a straggling line of arriving passengers and their luggage picking their way across to the first of many checkpoints leading into the city.

K. smokes thin little cigarettes.

“0.01 percent nicotine, 0.01 percent tar,” he tells me happily, and smokes two for every one that C. and R. light up.

I’m reluctant to board a domestic Afghan airliner- I have heard only bad things about Ariana- or, as it’s less affectionately known, Scary-ana- but the MD-11 is in decent shape (on the outside at least), and after a while circling the valley, we clear the mountain pass.

But not the mountains.

I’ve flown over the Rockies, over the Alps (northern and Southern), flown in and out of the Himalaya. I love my mountains and make no secret of it. So when I say I’ve never seen mountains like these before, I’m not being dramatic.

We fly for an hour westward in a commercial jet. During that time, the mountains don’t stop. Peak after peak, gashed ravines and wild peaks. Winter seas them blanketed in white, so only the sharpest ridgelines stand out in rocky contrast. We fly at 25,000 feet, and the crests seem to break not that far beneath us. Habitation is all but nonexistent. There are no roads, no towns, no evidence at all that people live here, or ever have. This place defines rugged. I am awestruck and spend the flight peering from the porthole.

The sun has fallen when we land in Herat, and is nothing more than a crimson smudge backlighting an outcrop several hundred feet high. The mountains have given way at what feels like the last minute to a snowless plain. We disembark into cold night air. Helicopter gunships lurk like oversized wasps on the apron.

We’re met by J. and A., our local fixers. J. has a face round as a moon, with intelligent eyes and a warm, patient smile which he shares with us often. Clean-shaven with short dark hair, he looks less like the typical Afghans portrayed in the media (most often the Pashtun from the east of the nation), and more Iranian. Herat is a border-town, with solid road links to both Iran and Tajikistan, and this difference- both cultural and economic- has made all the difference to the relative stability of this western province.

J.’s offsider A. is a small, slender man who has a constant sense of doing about him. During the week we spend with him, he becomes our go-to guy to get things happening, and he is never off his cell-phone, to the point that I’m convinced he’s running a business- or three- on the side. Hopefully in the saffron trade. A. has two wives and eight kids, the youngest of which we learn was born just a day or two before we arrived. He later informs us with a sheepish smile that he’s done with having children now.

The four westerners cram into an unmarked SUV, while the Afghans chase ahead in a red sedan with sunken suspension. The airport is twenty clicks outside town, joined by a single straight stretch of highway.

We race into the darkness, swerving around trucks, or vehicles stalled at the roadside. The Kandahar Highway has all the hallmarks of a popular target. Passengers from every flight- including expat aid workers, contractors or government officials- have no choice but to take it. It hasn’t been bombed in about six months, when an IED went off next to the police checkpoint at the end of the bridge. As J. pointed out to us in his written briefing, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s a wrong-place wrong-time equation, but the odds are good these days. We don’t slow until we hit town.

Herat is Afghanistan, but not the Afghanistan portrayed in the media- of constant suicide bombings, complex insurgent attacks, and soldiers in body-armour patrolling dusty laneways. The city sits in the valley of the Hari River, where the Hindu Kush peters out into a series of serrated spurs and finally crumble to dust. From a good vantage in the city, you can see mountains on three sides. To the north, a low brown ridge like crushed velvet catches the morning light in folds in its flank. South and east, snowcapped ridges and peaks dominate the horizon, and only westward, towards Iran, is the landscape calm.

The Hindu Kush makes Afghanistan. It has carved a tough and resilient mountain people, at home in a harsh climate, and all the tougher for it. It has contributed to the rise of clans and tribes, separated by valleys and by winter snows that isolate them for months at a time and so make them fiercely independent and cohesive. And it has in effect created two nations- one to the south and east of the dividing range, and another to the north and west.

Security is tight in Herat. There are armed opposition groups in the surrounding countryside, hostile to government and to outsiders, and anybody perceived as helping them. Variations on the Taliban-allied militias have their reach even this far west, as well as local militias, disenfranchised tribal leaders and criminal gangs. The fragile government in Afghanistan is a breeding ground for this low-level anarchy, and Herat has had its share of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, the most recent of which occurred a fortnight before our arrival when two election workers were shot dead.

None the less, it has none of the obvious trappings of a war-zone. There are no soldiers in evidence on the street, no coalition convoys or overt military presence to be seen. Compounds are walled and wired, guards standing watch, but life goes on in the streets much like it would in any other south Asian city.

There is bustle and there is energy, and the economy is reportedly in a solid upswing. This bodes well for stability. The streets are full, traffic is congested, and about the roundabouts and streetsides, shops are full of household goods and thronged with pedestrians. Little red motorbike tri-shaws, the trailers oddly tipped back at an awkward thirty degrees, run about laden with passengers and boxed cargo, while battered Toyota Hi-Ace vans, tailgates open and innards stripped out to cram fares, are the workhorses of the city’s public transportation network. Off-street shopping malls house glass-fronted stalls loaded with consumer electronics, children’s clothing and kitchenwares. Life goes on.

We don’t meander and we don’t loiter. We move quickly from compound to compound, and our observations of the city itself are snatched during moments when our scanning for threats lapses. While the city might be stable, we know that there are still hostile elements here, and an SUV full of expats makes for a valuable target. We travel in unmarked, unarmoured vehicles without any form of protection other than anonimity- as it should be- but we’re not silly about it, and we know we have no real protection if something should go wrong. The atmosphere, however, is one of focus, not of fear, and the vibe we get off the city is generally good.

If there’s an exception, it’s at the Blue Mosque.

We’ve taken an hour off from work and A. has offered to show us a little of the city. We visit the spectacular Citadel, a grand sandstone-brick structure first laid down in the time of Alexander the Great and more recently restored to superb condition courtesy of the Aga Khan Foundation. We wander the footpaths and battlements, enjoying the sweeping curves of the architecture and the prominent views it allows from its higher towers. Frozen snow lurks in the shadows. We look out across flat-roofed houses pierced by minarets, and cooking smoke hangs with a dusty haze in the still air. The sky is an aching blue that leaves outlines so sharp they look as though they could cut.

On the northern edge of town we see the Martyr’s Museum, a monument to those who gave their lives fighting the Soviet invaders during the 1980s. In particular it commemorates the Herat uprising of 1979, when the people of Herat rose up against the Soviet-backed government, and were subsequently brutally repressed, with as many as 25,000 killed. Ismail Khan, now a local legend, rose to lead one of the most significant anti-Soviet Mujaheddin, and later allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance against the Taliban until fleeing to Iran. He returned to Herat to support US action against the Taliban, and in late 2001, Herat was liberated and Khan became provincial Governor.

(As an interesting aside- the liberation of Herat from the Taliban by US and coalition troops reportedly involved covert action by anti-Taliban factions within the area, but also Iranian operatives who crossed the border in support of US intervention. Amazing.)

The Museum is a large rotunda with Arabic calligraphy adorning the tiled outer walls. Captured Soviet-era weaponry- everything from small mortars and anti-aircraft guns, to an unmistakable Mi-24 gunship- are scattered about the grounds. Inside, the main hall has another display of weapons, from flintlock rifles of the 1800s, their stocks meticulously inlaid with mother-of-pearl, to real [deactivated] landmines, PPSh World War Two-era submachine-guns and modern PKM drum-fed machine-guns.

Upstairs, a circular diorama, a combination of fresco wall-paintings and scale models, depicts the Herat uprising in gruesome but startlingly powerful detail. Painted portraits of mujaheddin who gave their lives fighting the Soviets line the walls, each name prefaced by the title Shaheed– Martyr.

On a hill along from the Museum sits the US Consulate, notable for being the target of a complex attack in September. Ten assailants in suicide vests and driving VBIEDs attacked the compound with bombs and firearms, killing a number of local security forces and bystanders, but failing to gain entry to the compound itself.

The attack- otherwise unremarkable in a nation that has seen dozens like it over the last decade- is notable more for understanding the intelligence behind it. Media reported that all ten attackers were killed, while apparently in reality, two were seized alive but reported killed by local forces, and now languish at the pleasure of the Afghan Government in a facility somewhere.

Afghan and US intelligence forces both reportedly knew about the attack beforehand- right down to the number plates of the vehicles involved, and the names and profiles of the attackers. The decision was made to allow the attackers to converge on the Consulate and carry out their attack, knowing that adequate defenses would prevent them breaching their target. This was preferable to attempting to thwart the attack early and having the bombers detonate in a less controlled environment or, worse, risk them escaping into the city where they would be uncontrollable. The decision cost the lives of six local security guards working at the Consulate, but such is the harsh mathematics of counter-terrorism.

Four ancient minarets stand crumbling, outlined against the crisp sky. Vast and without structure to support them, they look almost like abandoned chimney-stacks, the remnants of some industrial complex relegated to history. We get out of the cars and observe them briefly, standing next to a man selling oranges from a bicycle stall. The British allegedly used the grand structures as targets for gunnery practice during their war with Persia in the mid-1800s. The pock-marks remain. It’s sad to see such treasures so degraded and disrespected.

When we finally make it to the Blue Mosque, the al-Asr prayer is finishing, and the devout are streaming out beneath the blue tiled minarets. The structure is grand and imposing. Delicate calligraphy patterns the walls as though a thousand small birds have dipped their feet in ink and run riot. In the deep shaded courtyard, snowdrifts have frozen like mounds of crystalized salt, treacherous underfoot.

It’s one of the few moments I feel more than just wary in Herat, but outright threatened. I’m no paranoiac- I have deep respect for Islam and its practitioners, and the years I’ve spent in Muslim countries and with Muslim friends and colleagues leave me with no doubt as to the peaceful heart of the vast majority. But in a nation where a fundamentalist insurgency preaches violence against foreign occupiers and their allies, I have no doubt there are people walking past us who would happily see harm come to us- a sensation I’ve never experienced walking into a mosque before.

We four westerners glance at each other and exchange a few words to the effect of, “This is a bad time to be here,” and promptly lead A. back out onto the street and to the vehicles.

The days are gentle, cloudless with bright sunshine that leaves the sky blue like an ink-pot and shadows black like ravines. Stone walls gleam until the eyes hurt. Everything tastes fresh. I sleep well, leaving my hotel window cracked to allow the freezing night air to trickle in as I tuck down.

The mornings are bitterly cold. I join C., R. and K. as they have their post-breakfast nicotine fix, and the sun isn’t above the blast-walls yet. White smoke billows upwards. K. loves his thin cigarettes, and has A. pick up two cartons specifically for K. to take home with him.

Our last night, we have dinner at the team house. The food has been delicious throughout- meat so tender that it drips from the bone under its own weight when you pick it up, aromatic rather than spicy, all accompanied by fresh naan and yoghurt. We start the evening sharing conversation around a shisha pipe, sitting in the courtyard under blankets against the bitter night breeze and blowing smoke-rings as the air stills. The local variant has a lemon twist to it, fresh and delicious. Exhausted as our mission comes to a close, I fall asleep early.

I have a restless dream in which a familiar, rhythmic sound won’t let me settle. I come to slowly with a sense that something is not right. I’ve not been asleep long, and as my mind focuses, I hear a sharp tok-tok-tok-tok-tok in the middle distance.

Bursts of automatic gunfire, unmistakenly Kalashnikovs, volley back and forth.

I listen long enough to know it’s not happy fire. The chatter is interspersed with throatier bangs. I raise myself up at the window. Maybe a mile west, straight up the main thoroughfare, I watch the flash of a grenade exploding. That deep pop follows, and then more shooting.

I don’t stay at the window, but move to where my clothes are already laid out and dress in the darkness. I put my shoes on, pocket my flashlight and two phones, grab my bug-out bag and lie back in bed, listening.

A major attack isn’t likely in Herat, but we’re staying in one of only a couple of expat-standard hotels in the city, so it’s obviously on the target list. I try to make sense of the action, but it’s at a distance. Certainly not a threat where we are. I’m listening to see if it’s coming any closer.

The bed is in the dead space against the corner, below the window. That way if the windows are blasted inwards, the glass will fly over the top of me and I won’t be lacerated. I’d already done that calculation when I first moved in at the start of the trip, and each night as I’ve bedded down, I’ve settled right into the very corner, just in case. The way my mind works. I lie there a while, and after some time, the shooting fades.

My local mobile buzzes. It’s J.. He tells us there’s an ongoing assault on a checkpoint in District 7, but we should still be able to make our flight in the morning as the airport is in a different direction.

Whether it’s a local feud, a deliberate attack on a government position by armed opposition, or part of a bigger operation isn’t clear right now. I keep listening. With no further shooting or blasts, I eventually remove my gear and fatigue takes me into a light sleep. Car tires crunch the gravel roundabout outside the hotel, and every crackle jolts me awake again, my nerves on edge. Come five a.m. when we have to get up to catch our flight, I’m not feeling very rested.

Seven of us squeeze into the SUV as we race back to the airport. I note the driver sticks stubbornly to the middle of the broad, empty avenues- standard practice in an environment notorious for roadside bombs, but we arrive without incident. The access road to the airport is a snaking maze of guards, boom-gates and 12-foot cement blast walls that make the approach feel like a level to Castle Wolfenstein.

A sign scrawled in front of the first checkpoint reads “Switch off ECMs”- the electronic counter-measures that block radio frequencies in an attempt to thwart phone-triggered booby-traps. Military convoys carry them. The envelope of supposed safety they create is called a ‘bubble’, although allegedly, insurgents are now setting up devices with long leads that run out to receivers planted outside the bubble’s perimeter, still allowing devices to be initiated remotely.

From 20,000 feet, the pre-dawn haze clears, and I watch the Hindu Kush slip by just underneath us. They keep my attention for the full hour. I find myself fantasizing about returning when there is more stability with my backcountry skis. Some of the lines look spectacular.

It’s dusty in Kabul. The mountains are lost behind a brown murk. We clear checkpoints and meet our driver in an unmarked pickup truck who slips us through the streets. It’s a Friday morning, so traffic is light.

We spend the hours before our flight out working at the team house. Blast-film covers the windows, to prevent them flying inwards in lacerating shards should a bomb go off nearby, as one did not too long ago.

During our brief passage through the city, Kabul looks to be one long stretch of blast wall. Grey cement fronts the avenues, topped with sandbags, concertina wire and guard-towers. Armed personnel stand watch at every gate and atop many of the walls. The thin weekend traffic gives the city a slightly abandoned feel, as though everybody is bunkered down.

The haze begins to clear. The morning air is cold and refreshing. We stretch our legs on the roof of the compound, from which we can see the old fortress, Bala Hissar, dominating the city skyline. Further round, and TV Hill bristles with antennae. Squat, one-storey flat-roofed dwellings crawl up the slopes like a moss. Everything is brown with just a frosting of rotten snow lining the shadows.

My folks lived here, back in the ‘70s. While the geology of Kabul might not have changed since their time here, I reflect that they probably wouldn’t recognize the city as it is today. With the changes brought about during the Soviet occupation, its widespread destruction during the civil wars of the 1990s, and now the reconstruction in an era of deep insecurity, both the vibe and appearance on its broad streets must be a world apart.

Getting back to the airport is a gauntlet of security checks. Vehicles are searched for explosives and magnetic limpet-mines. I receive the cosiest pat-downs I’ve had since a thorough fondling I was given by Ethiopian security back in 2003. K. counts of 12 separate security checkpoints, the first beginning a good mile or more out from the airport proper, and the last being as we stand on the tarmac at the foot of the stairs to the plane.

At one security checkpoint, the gruff guard calls out to him,

“Where are you from?”

K. tells him, a little reluctantly.

“This you bag?”

He nods.

The guard eyes him with suspicion for a few moments, and we all have a brief what now moment.

“You have smoking problem,” the guard says, referencing the two cartons in K.’s luggage, and we all break into guffaws.

Standing next to me as we board the plane is an Afghan family- father, mother, daughter and son. The girl is maybe five, the boy three, but what’s striking is the little girl’s blonde hair and blue eyes, compared to the rest of her family’s more typical dark colouring. She has their rosy cheeks, and she is chattering away in Dari, a cute little thing in pigtails that so clearly belongs and yet looks so thoroughly different. I presume that both parents have some Russian genes in their recent history- they are both young- but it also reminds me that the term ‘Aryan’ arose from this corner of the world, and that it’s not uncommon to find Afghans with green, grey or blue eyes. I wonder with amusement whether the bigots of the Aryan Nation ever realise that Afghanistan’s national airline- Ariana- draws its name from the same origin as theirs.

I get glimpses of the city as we fly out that afternoon, where breaks in the clouds let me peer past the towering pyramids of the Hindu Kush and into its dusty basin.

It’s been strange for me being here. I grew up on slideshows from my parents’ time here. A little faded with time, and 1970s imaging processes, I credit hearing tales of Afghanistan when I was a young boy with the start of my journey to becoming an aid worker. My parents adored the place, and they still talk about it with wistfulness, seasoned heavily with grief at what the place went through after they left.

It’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years, and in my brief visit this time, Afghanistan had a disproportional impact on me. The wildness, the ruggedness, the beauty, and the resilience of the people I met, all left a mark. I both hope and believe that this will not be my last trip to the place. I truly wish that when I next visit, its people will be in a securer, more stable environment than they are now. I’m no fool. I understand well many of the complex dynamics at play in this nation that undermine dreams and efforts towards a lasting peace. None the less, that’s my prayer, and one which left my soul earnestly as I watched the last of the mountains slip away beneath me, and I said au revoir to Afghanistan.

NB: Please forgive the over-processed images. I didn’t have my full camera gear with me, only the camera on my iPhone, and a little GoPro. Bored, I played with a new filters app called “Stackables” which has jazzed them up a little, at the expense of my usual style…

The Tasmania Tour, Gate 6: Bay of Fires

 

The sleepy port town of St. Helens was our jumping-off point to explore the highly-regarded but relatively-little-known (until recently) Bay of Fires. St. Helens itself is a sweet, inoffensive little place, with a a few nice cafes along the main strip selling local produce (mmm… local produce…) but not much to hold your attention for more than an hour or two. The waterfront is a little plain, and to hit the good stuff, you branch north along the coast, towards Birralong Bay.

Birralong Bay is the southernmost point of the stretch of coastline known as the Bay of Fires. A series of headlands of harder rock seperated by wide sandy beaches, the coastline was named by early explorers who saw smoke rising from the many campfires of the Aboriginal inhabitants- an indicator of how densely populated the island once was. Perhaps the darkest tranche of Tasmania’s history is the effective annihilation of its Aboriginal population in the early years of its settlement- a source of deep shame for Australia’s past, and one that gets little talked about. It has left a scar on the collective memory of the people and, dare I say it, the island itself.

The landscape, however, gives away little of this sadness. Birralong Bay is a delightful cove of crystal-clear seawater and gentle waves lapping onto a sandy beach perfect for a swim and a play. Accomodation options in the little village are limited, but would be my first choice for any future visits. It’s a delightful location.

 

From there the simple road follows the coastline north, with the beaches off to the right (and periodically out of sight), skirting saline lagoons set back from the waterfront. There are multiple access tracks down to the beaches themselves, and many locations for camping as well- another awesome accomodation option.

The bays are simply wonderful. Sandy, pristine, and largely devoid of people, they are a beach-lovers dream. The water is cold and the only drawback is that many of the bays have rip-tides that inhibit swimming. None the less, for gorgeous seaside views and a quiet time on the coastline, you’d be hard pressed to beat the Bay of Fires.  The aqua colour of the water there simply has to be seen to be believed- it is eye-popping.

The access road peters out at the sweet little hamlet of The Gardens. From there, it’s possible to scramble among the rocks and even explore further north on foot. The rocks, as in many parts of coastal Tasmania, are scored with a red algae that contrasts beautifully with the blue sky under a polarized lens, and could well be another source for the Bay’s name.  This next photo is one of my all-time favourites from this trip.

It’s worth noting that the Lonely Planet mentions the Bay of Fires at the top of its list of top 10 travel destinations for 2009.  While I’d hesitate to put it at the very top of my personal list of have-seens (and want-to-sees), it certainly ranks up there in the memories as a beautiful spot.  It has clear water, clean unspoilt beaches, is easy and cheap to access, and is not overrun by visitors.  Bay of Fires comes highly recommended from Yours Truly, and if you’re visiting Tasmania, do put it on your itinerary. As elsewhere in Tasmania, it’s natural beauty at its best.

Tasmania: The Taster Tour

Tasmania, for those who aren’t sure, is that little triangular-shaped island hanging off the south coast of Australia. I say little, but of course in true Australian fashion it’s actually a decent size- for our European followers, somewhere between the size of the nations of Switzerland and Austria, or about half the size of England. Or, for our American friends, a chunk smaller than the state of Maine. It has a population of about half a million people, roughly half of whom live in the capital, Hobart, on the south coast. Tassie is seperated from the Australian mainland by the heaving Bass Straits, a 9-hour ferry ride from Melbourne, and is plonked in the path of that belt of circum-polar winds known as the Roaring 40s, which belt both it and New Zealand (about 2,000km due east) with ferocious blasts of wintry air and drive a changeable and unpredictable climate consisting of large amounts of cloud, rain and, during the winter, snow.

(And yes, for those weaned on Warner Brothers cartoons, there is such a thing as a Tasmanian Devil- one of the ugliest marsupial-cum-rodents to ever scuff along the planet’s surface. No they are not cute and crazy like the cartoon. They are gruff, unpleasant things with little interest either in appearance or character (other than their endangered status), and in this Kiwi’s lexicon, sit only slightly higher than possums on the ‘animals I have no time for’ list.)

No, we didn’t see any.

We did, however, see a lot of Tasmania in our six-day tour. And, belying the climatic trends stated above, we also had fabulous weather. A day and a half of somewhat overcast weather with a few spots of drizzle divided what was otherwise largely sunny with clear afternoons and marvelous cloudscapes which made landscapery a joy.

I took a lot of photos.

I won’t be posting all of them here (although for those who are interested you can find a lot of them on the Morealtitude Photography Facebook page), but will put up a smattering of shots from the different places we went to for those who are interested, and give a bit more detail about some of the delights tucked away on this thoroughly under-rated little block of real-estate.

Arriving off the ferry from Melbourne, we docked in Davenport and drove straight down to Hobart. The trip from one end of the island to the other takes about 3 1/2 hours if you take the main highways, and is an easy run. The roads (for the most part) are in great condition (we drove through the Great Western Tiers in the Central Highlands, where sections of the road are unsealed). The best bit about driving in Tas is the utter scarcity of other road users. Seriously, the place is deserted.

(Which allows me to lie down on highways and take shots like this one)

From Hobart, we swung up the east coast, first hitting up the area around Swansea, and then up to Coles Bay and the Freycinet Peninsula. The Freycinet Peninsula is a spindly finger of mountains reaching out into the ocean, a rugged feature whose rocky abuttments are seperated by some of the most spectacular beach real-estate you’ll ever find. The water in the sunlight is clear as a spring and a turquoise so pure you want to set it into a ring and wear it away with you. Here we hiked into the spectacular Wineglass Bay before continuing northwards.

Reaching St. Helens, we then continued up to the Bay of Fires, a stretch of remote coastline on Tasmania’s north-eastern corner. Listed by the Lonely Planet as its top destination for 2009 (I didn’t know that until somebody mentioned it today), Bay of Fires is actually a series of white-sand beaches and rocky outcrops, where azure waves of the most outrageous colour crash themselves into oblivion beneath a warm sun. Not as unpopulated as it may once have been, it is none the less an amazing location, and would be right at the top of my list for future visits.

From the Bay of Fires, we stretched our last day in Tasmania into an epic marathon and swept in a single afternoon across to Cradle Mountain National Park. The heart of the highlands, the dramatic volcanic behemoth that is the park’s namesake stabbed upwards into a clear blue sky at sunset just as we reached the park, and the views were magnificent- and made the cross-country sprint completely worthwhile. A fitting finish to a beautiful little journey.

I’ll go into a little more detail about some of these locations and photoshoots in later posts. Hopefully for now, this will whet your appetite for a little more.

Images:

1. Pristine waves wash onto the pristine beach of Wineglass Bay.

2. Blue skies and puffs of cloud support a leaning gum tree in a field in Tasmania’s rural interior.

3. The Organ Pipes, geological rock formations, atop Hobart’s Mt. Wellington.

4. An empty rural highway in inland north-east Tasmania.

5. The dramatic Freycinet Peninsula (behind) as seen from Coles Bay.

6. Clear waters in Biralong Bay, at the start of the Bay of Fires.

7. Cradle Mountain at dusk.

8. Lichen-stained rocks and azure waters in Wineglass Bay.

Ao Nang Paddles

About a year ago now (how time flies) I spent three weeks vacation in South East Asia.  A few days I spent down on Railay Beach, in southern Thailand.  I love Thailand- the beautiful lushness of the landscape, the warmth and courtesy of its people, the intense balance of flavours in its cuisine, and the clashing diversity of life in its capital Bangkok.

The scenery around Ao Nang is spectacular.  Railay is a peninsula but inaccessible from the mainland except by powered longtail boat, courtesy of a series of steep karst limestone hills hundreds of feet high which plunge with dramatic certainty straight down into the warm lapping seas.  A mecca for climbers the world over, vast rockfaces hang above green-blue water, dripping with stalagtites.  Tiny outcropping islands- made famous by and subsequently epynomous with James Bond following the release of The Man With the Golden Gun– stand like abandoned collonades amidst the currents, pocked with caves and begging exploration.

This was my second trip to the south of Thailand, but my first to the western side of Thailand’s south.  My first trip, back in 2002, took me to Koh Samet, a little further off the farang cattle track and frequented by Thais on weekend trips from Bangkok.  Koh Samet was overall a pleasant experience, during which I lived in a tree-house for five dollars a night.  The island was laid back and relaxing, and the low point was being vomitted on by a kitten which had decided to share my mattress one night at four a.m.

Amazingly I showed enough self-control not to hurl said kitten from the tree-house.

I was less enchanted by Railay Beach and Ao Nang.  While the landscape was far more beautiful on the whole, the establishment of western tourism has left an ugly scar- not just in the hordes of blotchy white westerners who throng on the beaches, but in the attitudes of the Thais themselves.  In vast contrast to the courteous attitude you find in Bangkok, or the warmth and generosity you find in the north, I found the people I ran into around Ao Nang to be brusque, uninterested and generally lacking in any charm, typified by the bellboy who tried to sell me weed within two minutes of my arriving at our hotel.

However getting away from the crowds and onto the water (‘away’ assuming you could avoid being run down by a longtail), you could find some space to enjoy the landscape, so one morning Pam, Lori and I grabbed some kayaks and took ourselves for a paddle up the coast.  We weren’t by any stretch of the imagination the only ones doing so, but it was nice to get intimate with the cliffs and caves of the little islands, and enjoy a slightly different vibe.  The scenery was magnificent even if the light didn’t lend itself to photography (a little on the contrasty side with the reflections on the sea), and to see how Railay looks in more dramatic light, you’ll have to click here.

All up, I wouldn’t go back to the southern beaches unless I happened to be in-country for something else and some friends were going down for a few days.  While you’d be hard-pressed to find more exciting beachside scenery, the vibe and over-the-top tourist presence left me feeling a little flat.  Compared to the peaceful hill-country around Chiang Rai, the frenetic pace and colours of Bangkok or the chilled-out stylings of Mae Hong Son, Ao Nang was a damp squib, and I think Thailand- and indeed South East Asia- has far more to offer than this particular corner of the peninsula.

The Dance of the Cosmos

Chomrong sits at what could be described as the crux of the Annapurna Sanctuary trek.  It’s a small hillside town, much like many others in the Conservation Area, and is characteristically spread over a vertical kilometre of mountain, connected by a broad, steep and uneven staircase that has broken the heart of many a would-be trekker over the years I don’t doubt.  It’s a crux (quite literally) in that the road forks here, running back south towards Landruk and Dhampus one way, or west towards Ghorepani and Poon Hill another.  It’s also the last major permanent settlement on the route to the Annapurna Base Camp.  During the trekking season there are half a dozen more tea-house settlements along the trail, but come the snows, these will almost all empty save for one or two hardy little hamlets that manage to cling to life through the winter here.

We arrived at the hilltop overlooking Chomrong in the late afternoon, and it was clouding over.  It was one of the only afternoons it did this during the two weeks we were out in Nepal, and it was certainly disappointing as the view looked as though it had the potential to be spectacular.  As it was, Annapurna South, Huin Chuli and Macchapuchare were all swallowed by the cold, damp grey.  We explored the town, then tramped our way back up the hill to our guesthouse and settled into the little restaurant to enjoy some warmth, dhal bhat and gurung bread with honey.

Darn I miss those tea-houses.

I awoke at 4am.  I don’t remember whether I set my alarm or whether my body got me up.  I was sleeping in a funky little panorama room by myself, an unconvincing structure tagged onto the outside of our guesthouse which seemed to overhang the hillside.  But from it I could roll back the curtains and peer out into the night from deep within the confines of my sleeping bag.

The Milky Way glared back at me.

I arose.  I dressed quickly but thoroughly.  November in mountainous Nepal is a tad chilly.  Fleece pants, outer leggings, polyprop base-layer, fleece and Gore-Tex shell, boots, gloves, hat, and sleeping-bag to boot.  An iPod.  And my Canon EOS 350D, complete with 17-85mm lens, polarizing and ND400 filters, remote shutter release, and a tripod.  Good to go.

I ventured out onto the patio.

Pemba, our Sherpa, had done us proud.  He knew from day one that I was keen about my photography so he always booked us into guest-houses with a view, and for that I’ll always be grateful to him.  This one was a real winner.  Not ten paces from my room, the vista opened up before me.  Annapurna South, Annapurna I, Huin Chuli, Macchapuchare, all laid out in the still, breathless night.  And above them all the stars burned like tiny pinpricks poked into a sable canvas.

Stars are one of the great beauties of mountain nights, and few places as wonderful as the Himalaya.  Up at 2,000m (6,000 ft) and higher, the atmosphere is largely free of dust and smoke, and out here, many miles from heavy population centres, the light-pollution is minimal.  The cold air keeps the water-vapour at a minimum, and with the afternoon clouds having slunk away for the night and the moon bedded down for another cycle, I had what was undoubtedly one of the more beautiful nights I have ever seen.  And as someone who would much rather be sleeping at 4am, it has to be a pretty special night to get me excited about it.

(Incidentally, the moon, optically speaking, acts as a giant mirror to the light of the sun, so that when you’re shooting long-exposure night-shoots with a moon present, you are effectively catching reflected sunlight and therefore so long as you leave the shutter open long enough, you’ll end up with a shot that looks like it was taken in the daylight.  When the moon- among other light sources- is absent, however, you end up with a dark foreground no matter how long you leave the shutter open for).

There are two main approaches to starlight photography (at least in my lexicon).  One is to increase the sensitivity of the sensor to allow as much light as possible to get it in as short a time-period as possible, while the other is to leave the shutter open for as long as possible.  The two shots above demonstrate the two options (while the third shot, at the end of this post, shows a view of Annapurna I from exactly the same viewpoint the next morning when the sun had come up).

Stars move.  Well, relative to our position on earth, that is.  We know this if we stop and think about it.  And of course if we’re into stargazing at all, it’s always fun to watch Ursa Major, the mighty hunter Orion, or the Southern Cross, shift positions during the course of an evening.  What I never really realized until I started taking long-exposure night-shots, however, is just how much they move.  In fact, if you leave the shutter on the camera open for a minute or so, you’ll already start to see the stars blurring with their own motion.

The motion of the stars (as viewed by us on a nightly basis) is relative not so much to us, but to the rotation of earth, and therefore relative specifically to the axial poles of rotation (i.e. the North Pole and the South Pole).  In other words, the stars appear to turn about the poles, as you’d expect if you imagine the earth turning on its axis in the middle of space.  So when we take long exposure shots of stars at night, we see two phenomenon.  First, the stars appear to be moving (in the sky) around a fixed point notionaly above the pole (in the northern hemisphere marked by Polaris, the North Star).  Second, the stars nearest that pole appear to move slowest (shorter distance while the shutter is open) while those further away seem to be moving faster.  It’s all just an illusion created by our own movement through space, but it makes for dramatic spinning lines in the sky.

In this case, in the top shot I stacked my ND400 neutral density filter with my polarizer (in a procedure I’ve described elsewhere), closed my aperture right up tight, and basically let in as little light as possible.  Like this I could pretty much leave the shutter open for as long as I wanted to.  In this instance I left it open for about forty-five minutes- all the while bedded down in my sleeping bag on the stones of the cold patio in an effort not to freeze.  As luck would have it, relative to my position the North Star hovered directly above Annapurna I (the main focus of my shot), placing the focal point of the rotation right in the sweet-spot of the shot.  This was nothing shy of dumb luck, as I composed for the mountains, not the notional rotation of the stars (though next time I’ll be sure to factor this into my composition).

I was quite chuffed with the result.

The second shot (which was actually taken first) was simply taken at high sensitivity.  Maximum ISO, wide-open aperture and no filters meant as much light was coming in as quickly as possible, and I was able to expose for the stars in about 45 seconds or so.  If you look closely you’ll see there’s already a little bit of motion-blur going on, but there’s not a lot I can do about that.  That said, I may have to take out my 16-35mm lens with my EOS 5D and see what a lens the size of a baseball coupled with ISO 6400 can pull off…

Both shots (obviously) are vastly different but produce very pleasing results (in my humble opinion).  The first one in particular tends to get people saying “wow- how did you do that?” (followed by their eyes glazing over as I start to explain).  But at the end of the day, neither shot comes anywhere close to capturing just how wonderful it was to be out beneath that icy, star-studded sky, surrounded by the majestic peaks of the Annapurna Himal that night.