BOOK SIGNING

As a published author I must now undertake book signings at the shops stocking Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. As many of you know I had a life prior to moving to the Granite Belt with Eberhard almost seventeen years ago and the opportunity presented for me to visit the districts of Dalby and Bell again this past weekend.

BOOK CITY Dalby

I was amazed when a man I had known 50 years ago at a time that we were both members of a Rural Youth organization approached me, with an expression of delight, to renew the acquaintance. We chatted about old times for an hour or so before he bought the book.

An important reason why I had chosen to appear at BOOK CITY on Friday was that I wished to attend the Bell camp draft where my 94 year old father, John Mulcahy, was to be honoured. Read the rest of this entry »

ALL ABOARD!!

Eberhard and I purchased our property at Glen Aplin in the cool mountain district of southern Queensland known as the Granite Belt in 1992. At the time we established Das Helwig Haus B&B there were only 12 accommodation providers and 12 wineries. Now there are more than 60 wineries and hundreds of accommodation houses – B&Bs, motels, cottages, chalets and cabins. The latest addition to our competition takes the form of the Harrington Glen Rattler, a distinctive, refurbished 75ft Melbourne Train Carriage.

In my book- Wildflowers, wilderness and wine – I recount the arrival in the district of Harry and Glen Ireland and their establishment of the Harrington Glen Wines amongst the vineyards of the Glen Aplin valley.

Glen Aplin valley vineyards

Read the rest of this entry »

HONG KONG 7

The Nan Lian Garden is situated at Diamond Hill in Kowloon. This garden was created in the style of the Tang dynasty (618AD to 906AD) and features unique timber structures, water ponds, various odd shaped rocks and lots of old and valuable trees. Carol and I followed its one way circular route watching its splendor unfold with every step. In this garden we encountered other tourists from around the world, but again it was a garden that didn’t appear to be used by the local Hong Kong population.

Odd shaped rocks

This was a garden that lacked shady areas and I quickly began to sunburn in a new blue top I had bought – it had no collar. This was our hottest day in Hong Kong and we quickly felt parched. The garden was kept moist by irrigation systems spraying a constant mist into the foliage of the trees and shrubs.

A hot day

The Nan Lian Garden is situated in a bowl surrounded by high rise buildings. Many Asian gardens are developed within a depression thus allowing for the construction of ponds in the lower portion. This garden possessed two large ponds – The Lotus Pond surrounding the golden pagoda and the The Blue Pond.

Bougainvillea

These shaped trees were a labeled as Bougainvillea Glabra Variegata. Obviously they had been cultivated and pruned for the decorative foliage, not flowers. At the time that we visited the garden there were no flowers to be seen, other than water lilies in The Lotus Pond.

Golden structure

There were red arched bridges across The Lotus Pond to this golden pagoda but they were closed to tourists. The team of gardeners wore yellow jackets and straw hats, but did not appear to be doing any serious work on the day that we were there other than keeping the shrubbery moist.

Garden workers

The Blue Pond was stocked with fish and would have been a beautiful sight in the early spring when weeping wisteria and cherry trees, green in this view, were flowering.

The Blue Pond

On the opposite side of The Blue Pond was The Pine Tree teahouse overlooking this lovely green oasis. It would have been a perfect spot to relax in the cool shade of the deck fronting the water, but cameras were not allowed and entry onto the deck overlooking the pond was denied unless one was willing to partake in a tea drinking ceremony within the teahouse. We wandered on.

Blue Pond rocks

Cascading water and waterfalls are frequently a feature of Asian gardens and the site of so much water splashing down this wall on a hot day drew our attention to the Long Men Lou restaurant hidden behind the glass window over which the water washed.

The Long Men Lou restaurant

Once more cameras were forbidden but Carol and I were given a table on the other side of this screen of water, which provides privacy for the large dining room discreetly hidden in this section of the garden. Once more only vegetarian cuisine was offered and we again chose a set menu. We are both adventurous eaters with few food dislikes so being presented with an assortment of new dishes is an opportunity we relish.

Rather reluctantly we left the cool interior of the restaurant to proceed towards The Nunnery.

Bright sunlight

This parapet, as we climbed steps towards The Nunnery provided a great overview of the garden and Carol took the opportunity to video the scene.

Carol

We discovered a series of formal water lily ponds situated immediately in front of The Nunnery.

Water lilies

The Nunnery

We walked across this courtyard admiring the topiary and the water lily ponds to the shade of the overhanging roofs, from which we could look down over the ponds.

Water lily ponds

Our day ended on a comical note when we arrived back at our hotel to find a film crew in the driveway. They were filming men in a Chinese lion suit leaping about on tall poles.

The Chinese lion

Prancing lion

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for summer stone-fruit, autumn apples, winter  Christmas in July dinners and a spring Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies.

Fay has published a book called Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

It is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

HONG KONG 6

It will be no surprise to you that I spent a day in Hong Kong walking through two gardens. I’m going to write two separate posts to describe these gardens to allow me to use sufficient photographs to adequately illustrate their differences.

The first garden we walked through was the Kowloon Walled City Park. This was once a lawless, high-rise slum which was transformed into an award winning park in 1995. It features a Qing dynasty almshouse, the Old South Gate, pavilions, sculptures, flower gardens and a playground for children.

Old stone walls

Drs. Jean Stone Willans and Rick Willans brought the message of Charismatic renewal to Hong Kong in 1968 and started the Society of Stephen. This movement of the Holy Spirit united many – Chinese and Westerners, Catholics and Protestants, from all walks of life – in the fullness of the New Testament faith. In 1973, Miss Pullinger brought a heroin-addicted Triad leader to the Willianses; he withdrew in their home without sickness or pain (with no medication) through repenting from his crimes, believing in Jesus and praying in tongues given by the Holy Spirit. The news spread – even to the Walled City drug dens – and soon the Willanses were pastoring several “House of Stephen”, where scores of addicts likewise began new lives with the help of volunteer workers.

This paved the way for the law to enter into this once dangerous area and by 1995 the slum was cleared and the area established as an inner city park. Read the rest of this entry »

HONG KONG 1

This is the first of a series about my days in Hong Kong in May 2009. The business part of this trip was quickly finalized when I signed the contract with a Chinese firm to have copies of my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine printed and shipped to Brisbane for Australian distribution. It now appears that these books will be available for me to autograph by July. During my absence  our business Das Helwig Haus B&B was closed. My eldest daughter, Carol, accompanied me. Both of us had been to Hong Kong on previous trips and knew how to travel around the islands of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories using the efficient underground trains, ferries and buses, all of which are inexpensive forms of transport. Our hotel was centrally located in Kowloon near the Mong Kok entrance to the subway station and from our window on the 36th floor we were able to look across the buildings to the island of Hong Kong. Our window gave us a view towards the west with the morning light shining bright on the tall buildings over which we looked towards the island. Although the whole region is commonly known as Hong Kong and there are several islands within the area, this one hilly section ringed by sea is called either Hong Kong Island, or The Island.

Western view across to Hong Kong Island.

It was interesting on my first early morning start -  I was still functioning on Australian time which is two hours ahead of this region, to look out this window and see almost no movement in the streets below, but people practicing exercises in the park. Like all Asian countries Hong Kong is slow to swing into action in the mornings, but residents party or shop well into the night. Read the rest of this entry »

FOR CARMEN

Carmen was one of three Italian girls who came to WWOOF for me in August. Recently she wrote to ask:

Kookaburra by David Osburg.

A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

From the very beginning of writing this Travels in Life series my focus as been on my desire to read, write and speak eloquently.  I have written about my country childhood deprived of music and books. I’ve have written about my twenty-five year marriage when I was kept so busy that I found it almost impossible to read or study.

When my marriage ended I began a two year fight to avoid bankruptcy, selling my home, the factory and attempting to sell my farm in an endeavour to pay the debts which had been incurred in my name. Just as joint assets may be divided for a divorce settlement, the Family Law Court also considers such as debts as were in my name, joint debts of the marriage. In addition, my husband had signed a guarantee to meet any shortfall when purchasing the factory.  His wealth of more than a million dollars was tied up in family trusts within the transport company controlled by his father, uncle and brother. This meant that I wasn’t fighting for my rights against one runaway husband, but against four ruthless men determined to protect their family assets. Read the rest of this entry »

AN ABUNDANCE OF ZUCCHINIS 1

Every year when I was a child my father cleared a piece of scrub land on our farm at the foot of the Bunya Mountains and burnt off the felled scrub, before planting pumpkins, watermelons and other vegetables in the ashes. Years later he asked me if I knew why these crops flourished? By then I had become the gardening guru in the family. Dad said, that if he merely added ash to a vegetable garden he couldn’t get the same healthy result. I explained that not only was he using fertile soil for the first time, but the heat of the fire had killed all the nasty pathogens in the soil which might have inhibited the growth of his vegetables. This is a method of growing vegetable gardens in tropical countries like Papua New Guinea.

When I was a child we never ate baby vegetables like button squash and zucchini. The Acorn Squash and Marrow, as we called zucchini, were rather despised and tasteless vegetables, best hollowed out and stuffed with a savoury meat mixture. It was only after Eberhard and I moved to live on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland in 1992 that I came to have an appreciation of Mediterranean vegetables like zucchini, eggplant and capsicums. The Granite Belt has a cool mountain climate and many of the farmers here are descendants of earlier Italian immigrants. Each year this district supplies a huge volume of vegetables and fruit to the Brisbane and Sydney markets.

Disaster struck the Granite Belt community on Christmas Day with a huge hail storm that destroyed or damaged many of the vegetable crops as the farmers were about to commence the seasonal picking.

Hail storm over the Granite Belt on Christmas Day 2008

The farmers had two choices. They could slash their damaged plants to the ground, plough the soil and replant, or they could pay workers to strip from the plants and throw away all the damaged vegetables, in the expectation that the bushes and vines would recover and begin bearing produce again. Read the rest of this entry »

AN ABUNDANT SUMMER BEGINS.

Is it possible that our Queensland climate could be reverting to the type of summer weather this state hasn’t experienced for two decades? It is shaping up that way with excellent rain on the Granite Belt and a devastating storm hitting Brisbane a few days after my last Red November garden tour. Now my garden is growing like a jungle and the neigbour’s cattle are happily grazing our grass land. The Severn River is flowing and our dams are full.

I set out to take a walk with my camera on Saturday afternoon and met our flock of geese marching home to be penned for the night safe from foxes and other predators. They are always rewarded with a handful of cracked corn to encourage their return, although as a grazing bird their diet consists mainly of grasses and herbage.

Geese coming home.

I was heading down to photograph one of the dams when I began to see the occasional speckle of a white field mushrooms amongst the grass, so promptly returned for a basket and knife. Read the rest of this entry »

Self Portrait 1

I’m approaching seventy years of age, April 2010, and consider this something of a milestone. When people suggest retirement could be an option for me, I laugh and tell them of my grandmother, who at seventy years of age was still riding after her cattle. Grandma lived to the age of 94. My father and mother are still active at the respective ages of 93 and 92. So what does that tell me? It would appear that with such excellent genes for longevity I might live for another 25-30 years. In looking back over the years in which my hair has turned from black to silver, I recognise that it can be broken up into three clearly defined segments.

• The twenty years I was my father’s daughter.
• The twenty-five years I was wife to Stewart McIver and became the mother of five children.

These forty-five years I fulfilled the roles expected of me.

• The almost twenty-five years I have lived with my second husband, Eberhard Helwig, during which I have discovered a personal identity no longer totally reliant on fulfilling roles.

I firmly believe that life is what you make it. You will meet with good fortune and misfortune, but it is how you face the challenges that will determine the end result. I was blessed with loving,  healthy, hard working parents who set out to instill a positive attitude in all their children.

We were never allowed to cry over spilled milk – don’t look back.

If we fell off our ponies Dad told us to “Pick your self up, dust your self down, and get back on your horse before you become scared of it.”

Our mother said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

I was reared in the country with lots of fresh milk, beef and home grown vegetables but had few toys and no pets. Just as most children don’t recall when they learned to walk, I don’t recall when I learned to ride a horse, as my father began carrying me in his arms when I was aged three months, while riding to bring home the dairy cows for the afternoon milking.

Fay sitting on Peace, one of her father's horses, in 1943.

Eleven years later, I photographed my brother with my first camera, a Box Brownie, sitting on our father’s Australian Stock Horse stallion, Blue Boy. Read the rest of this entry »