Magic Roundabouts

Yesterday, before the rain came, we wandered in Civic, hoping to spend Miles' pocket-money. It's been a while since I walked through Garema Place or down City Walk and things have changed. Including the merry-go-round.

Canberra's carousel has been on City Walk since 1974, although it dates back to an earlier time, first appearing on St Kilda Pier in Melbourne in 1914. Yesterday, it was looking slightly grim and industrial, it's metal grates down on all but one side, it's paintwork looking faded. Perhaps it was just reflecting the gray of the sky. But it still has the power to take me back to my 16-year-old  self, experiencing the glory of increasing independence without the burden of adult responsibility. Summer evenings riding the carousel with friends, before going to a movie at the Electric Shadows Cinema. So sophisticated!

And now, it also takes me back to Paris - remember? Miles and I were going to find every merry-go-round in the city. If you google 'Paris carousels', you'll be offered a number of articles, many claiming Paris is the 'City of Carousels'. One of the best articles I've read is by Susan Hack, an American writer living in Paris who has discovered many of the city's carousels in the company of her daughter, Sophie.

I don't think Miles, Jim and I found all of them but we managed to find a few. Not surprisingly, our first Parisian merry-go-round was on the edge of the Seine, in the shadow of the Tour Eiffel. It was a dazzling two-storey carousel that Miles was excited to ride and I was excited to photograph.

Our first carousel, in the shadow of the Tour Eiffel

This was the first time in both our lives that we'd seen a two-storey carousel but they are, if not commonplace, then not unusual in Paris. At Christmas, one appeared with the ice-skating rink in front of Hotel de Ville.

The Christmas carousel at Hotel de Ville

We discovered others at the foot of the stairs to Sacre Couer, near the funicular that can save you climbing all those steps. And across the Iena Bridge, opposite the Tour Eiffel's carousel, is another two-storey beauty, not far from Trocadero.

The carousel near the funicular, Montmartre 

Ponte d'Iena's carousel dressed for Christmas

Not all the carousels of Paris are elaborately decorated fantasies. Some are simpler, 'flying horse' models, where the horses hang from the roof of the merry-go-round and spin out as the ride speeds up. On some of these, children sitting on the outer rim of horses are given sticks with which they try to collect hoops, harking back to medieval jousting. This was the kind of merry-go-round we discovered in Jardins du Luxembourg and near the Peripherique behind the old and secondhand book market at Porte de Vanves.

The merry-go-round at Jardins du Luxembourg

The most fantastical carousels we discovered, however, weren't in Paris. An hour from the city, almost in a world of it's own, is Paris Disneyland, with it's Disney perfect Carousel du Lancelot. The carousel, which sits before you as you walk out of Sleeping Beauty's castle, is a Disney cartoon come to life. And if you have to queue for your ride, that's a small inconvenience.

Disney's Carousel du Lancelot

But just when we were becoming blase about merry-go-rounds and perhaps a little tired of their saccharine sweetness, Brussels offered the perfect antidote. A carousel so bizarre, so grotesque, so post-apocalyptic, it looked like it had stepped out of the pages of a Jules Verne novel or Mad Max. A Steampunk Carousel full of flying horses, cockroaches, iguanas, and flying cars. A carousel that might terrify small children but was perfect for a slightly jaded 8-year-old on the first night of the new year.

The Steampunk Carousel, Brussels, New Year's Day  2013

Serendipities

Small discoveries - online, off the page, and elsewhere

Sunflowers

I can't resist a bouquet of sunflowers. These I found on a street garden near Gorman House Markets a couple of weeks ago. If I went back today, they would probably be a bit bedraggled, screwing up their lovely open faces and getting ready to drop their seeds - that's if the cockatoos hadn't eaten them for breakfast. On the day I took the photo, the bed was full of sunflowers, the promise of a crop of pumpkins and sage.

Louis IV, the Sun King

Sunflowers always, always remind me of France's Louis IV, known to history as the 'Sun King'. He built the Palace of Versailles, some say because he hated Paris, he didn't feel safe there. This is all the excuse I need to scroll through the photos of our travels and revisit our visit to Versailles. Here are the palace gates - looking very golden even on a gray winter's day.

The gates of Versailles, December 2012

You can find out all sorts of things about the Palace of Versailles here. But here is my traveller's tip: don't just visit for the day. The palace is incredible (and really needs more than a day to fully explore the grounds) but the town that has grown up around the palace is worth some time of it's own. With more time, you could, for example, visit the King's Kitchen Garden or the Antique Dealers' District.

The Dangers of Literary Lectures

Have you heard what Hilary Mantel said about the Duchess of Cambridge? Well, Twitter lead me to this terrific essay on the dangers of literary lectures and being reported out of context, which has been published in The New Yorker. Even if you're not interested in all the bookish examples, scroll to the end to read Mantel's comparison of the Royal family to pandas - it tells you a lot about the context in which her comments were originally delivered and it may make you smile.

Famous Resolutions

The fabulous Brain Pickings continues to bring me serendipitous moments of joy. I haven't made any new year's resolutions yet - the year is still young. But if you've ever wondered about the resolutions Marilyn Monroe and Jonathan Swift made, take a peak here. My favourites today come from Woody Guthrie:

Stay glad ... Dream good ... Dance better.

Top of the World

Before we returned to the everyday world of work, school and home, we attended a family wedding at Mount Buffalo. It was a hair-raising drive up the mountain and once we reached 'the spot', Lake Catani, we were CAMPING. For only the second time in my life, I was sleeping in a tent. Fortunately, our campsite had access to toilets and hot showers and even a laundry. Hardly camping at all.

Home sweet home - our tent

Now, those who know me know that I am not a camper. I'm not even a caravaner. So I was a little concerned about how I would go sleeping on an airbed in a national park. The beauty of the location, the company and the reason for being there all made it worthwhile. When I looked up at the sky through the eucalypts, it did feel like we were on top of the world.

The path to our campsite

Mount Buffalo is 200 kilometres north of Melbourne, not far from historic Beechworth. The little town of Bright is nestled in its shadow. The mountain is part of one of Australia's oldest national parks. According to Wikipedia, explorers Hume and Hovell named the mountain in 1824 and the national park was created in 1898. The chalet opened in 1910 (it's currently closed). I don't know how anyone got up the mountain to the chalet one hundred years ago - it's difficult enough today driving up the narrow windy road, trying not to look down the sheer drops into the gorge, and the road is closed during the winter.

The views, though, are incredible. I was too chicken to contemplate going to the Horn at the top of the mountain but here is the view from the lookout where the wedding took place (I've discovered that taking photos is a pretty good way of managing my vertigo - it almost worked for me on the Eiffel Tower and it almost worked again standing at the lookout).

The wedding breakfast (try explaining why an evening meal at a wedding is called a 'breakfast') was held back at camp, on the edge of Lake Catani, where we had swum and paddled along with the ducks the day before.

The jetty at Lake Catani

The family consensus was that we would camp again, even without the excuse of a lovely wedding to attend. So I've made a list of tips to help make the experience even better next time.

Tips for Novice Campers (Us)

• Take good torches. The little torch you read by at 3am in the morning isn't the torch you need to get you to the toilet block in the middle of the night.
• Test everything before you go. Put up the tent (check), make sure the gas bottle has gas in it (check) and that the gas bottle connects to the stove (check) and that the tube that connects them isn't blocked (oops!), test the air pump fits into your mattress (oops again!).
• Camp with a large group of people who can help you if you forget to do the above.
• Over cater. It's amazing how many snacks small people need when they are running around in the bush all day.
• Give up trying to be clean - but enjoy the hot showers anyway.
• Always take a lovely bottle of wine and a big block (or three) of chocolate with you.