It may be self-evident but building roads in Montenegro is both difficult and expensive.
There are not a lot of ways to get from Kotor to Cetinje (‘se-teen-yer’) by car — in fact just the one. As the local Spotted Crake flies it is about 12 kms; by car 54; and because of the serpentine quality of the road an hour or more was spent in the company of our driver Alex, one of the great entertainers we met in Montenegro.
Alex spends his winters in Belgrade and his summers by the sea. He was born in Kotor but did his law degree in Serbia. This was not an uncommon pattern among the Montenegrins we spoke to. The links between these two countries, and Russia, are strong. On discovering we were Australian, he proffered deep state information about the current and past lives of Paul Hogan and the source and etymology of the word ‘kangaroo’ roaring laughing as he did so. (On landing at Cooktown in 1770 Banks asked a local, presumably in his best Georgian English, what was that? ‘Gangurru’, Guugu Yimidhirr for ‘I don’t know’, was the reply. That’s how the story goes and how Alex’s story went. It’s good. But awkwardly ‘gangurru’ is the Guugu Yimidhirr word for what we would call the Eastern Grey Kangaroo. His stories about Paul Hogan were probably just as apocryphal but a lot funnier.)
He had a lot to say about the ancient and more recent Balkan wars, a very considered history lesson really, registering considerable disgust about what ‘they’ had done to ‘themselves’. When we got to Mary Durham’s assertion that ‘[Montenegrins were] the hardy mountain race which … successfully withstood the gory onslaught of the Turk for five hundred years’ he snorted as only Balkan men can snort — and they practice it daily from a very early age. (Snorting): They say the Ottomans [Mary’s ‘Turks’] didn’t conquer Montenegro. They did. Three times. Every time they could be bothered. Then they left. What was there? Stones. Nothing but stones. Who wants that!? (Snort.)
It was in fact a great drive, captivating for more reasons than Alex’s commentary. We went via Budva (above), Montenegro’s St Tropez where Russians and rich Serbs have their beach holidays to the extent that they had caused a massive shift in property values according to Alex, and Montenegrins can no longer afford to live there. And we went across the karst ridges, calcium grey with strips of green hanging on tight to gullies and cracks, to Cetinje, the old capital, at the foot of Lovcen National Park where we would have arrived on Vlatko’s schedule and at about the same time. But instead of spending five minutes (or two hours) passing through we were able to stay most of two days at what was once the world’s smallest national capital.
Cetinje became significant during the rule of Prince Nikola Petrovic in the mid-19th century. The Biljarda, the ‘billiard house’, the first ruler’s residence and a place of great national pride, was built there then along with a hospital and some other public buildings. But in the 1860 census Cetinje still had only 34 households.
And, with apologies to Mary Durham, it was after 14 years of Ottoman rule that it became the capital in 1878. All credit to the Montenegrins for driving them out, but the Ottomans had become a decadent shadow of their former selves by that time, and just a few decades later the Austrians stepped into the role as landlord.
After 20 years as an ‘independent principality’, Montenegro was proclaimed a kingdom in 1910. As a consequence the Government House and several other major buildings including a street of embassies were built in Cetinje. Quoting from a Montenegrin document: ‘The population census from the same year recorded a massive growth in the world’s smallest capital, registering 5,895 inhabitants.’ It may make sense at this stage to note that the country’s current total population is 631,000 (or two and bit Geelongs). Podgorica, the current capital, is the biggest city with 150,000. The third biggest city, Herceg-Novi, has less than 20,000 people.
You can fit a lot of contemporary Cetinjes into Geelong (15 if you’re counting), but that only makes it more attractive. Despite the palaces, the monasteries, the museums and galleries, the embassies, and despite the fact that it’s a picturesque ‘past glories’ sort of spot with a lot to say about itself and its surrounds, and despite the wonderful tree-lined avenues and green swards, foreign tourists don’t go there. These chaps would be more representative of the visiting class.
I assume that these two would be locals. Ah youth, glorious youth! You can warm your hands from that blush.
We were hungry and headed for the square with a massive rain cloud gathering over our heads.
Along with most others who were out and about, we sat down at the Caffe Bar ‘Dvor’ (‘palace’) in the main square. And then it rained.
Mountain rain. Orchestrated with massive claps of thunder and streaks of lightning, I have never seen, or heard, such rain. It pounded ferociously for ten minutes, then it stopped and it turned into a lovely day.
We visited King Nikola’s Palace, a modest affair with a faintly Ruritanian feel.
The accessible parts of the ground floor had displays of highly-decorated pearl-handled pistols, highly-decorated swords and highly-decorated uniforms complete with medals, sashes, ribbons, epaulettes and jazzy buttons.
Fully dressed, one would have been a sight to behold, and I guess that’s the point.
Upstairs, the modesty was more evident. It’s a small show. This is the main state room for the conduct of diplomacy.
The main bedroom, nicely matched ornate furniture but tiny.
Out in the street we moved on past all sorts of intriguing architecture. Like most of the big buildings, the Blue Palace had seen better days.
The Russian Embassy has been one of the really grand buildings of Cetinye.
But after a fire in 2002 when it was an art school, its interior is currently derelict. You can read an interesting story about it here. (Keep going with the ‘Comments’ if you want to know what the plaque on the wall says.)
And this was the French Embassy until 1914. There is a wonderful run of tiles under the bottom windows which is hard to see just here.
It was also incumbent on us to visit the monastery, ‘a spiritual centre for centuries’ but also for complex geopolitical reasons home to a fragment of the True Cross, the Right Hand of John the Baptist and the icon of the Madonna of Philermos. (See if you can work out the complex reasons. Clue: Jerusalem > Istanbul > Malta > St Petersburg > Belgrade > Ostrog > Cetinje **Answer far far below.)
I’m always keen to get a look at a good icon, particularly such auspicious ones. But despite the very high quality of the Orthodox decoration they weren’t to be found in the monastery. National Treasures, they were kept in the National Museum.
We found the National Museum. The third of it which was open turned out to be not where the icons were. However it was where they had THE great collection of Montenegrin art and, like many such things, it was terrific. There was the usual evidence of following larger movements (okay, let’s do Impressionist now …) but also of a great deal of originality ranging from St Genevieve who looks to be in big trouble (although the angel is on standby with a towel)
to a major collection of the very individual works of Vojo Stanic.
If you’re prepared to wander you just don’t know what you’ll find.
As recommended by our exemplary host we ate at the restaurant Kole. Tournedos Rossini: that night — not necessarily always — 6.8/10. We had already seen England beat Sweden convincingly and returned to watch a very tense game Russia versus Croatia. To my initial and unwarranted surprise all the locals were barracking emphatically for Russia, the home team and tournament host. One all after 90 minutes. Croatia scored late in extra time for certain victory. But then Russia tapped one in (Fernandez, brilliantly) just as the whistle blew for full-time. 2-2. The Croatian keeper Subasic had pulled his hamstring and was limping badly. Now defeat was looking closer to certain. But somehow he managed to stop the first penalty. Next up for Russia, Fernandez who had played so well, missed everything. And that was enough. 4-3 Croatia. My team. Ha!
Another drive, this time to Virpazar, along the two long sides of an isosceles triangle and through the outskirts of Podgorica which was a surprise, I wasn’t looking at a map at the time. Our driver assured us that Podgorica was a rubbish place, industrial, warehouses, run down, that sort of thing. We’d been told this several times, and that brief glance suggested it might be true. Myrna was becoming resigned to the idea that Montenegro might not be the place to plunder for wardrobe renewal.
‘Pazar’ attached to a name indicates a market or ‘bazaar’, something the Ottomans did leave behind. ‘Vir’ means ‘whirlpool’ and that’s what the locals called it. I might have this wrong but I believe Virpazar, today, is valued by Montenegrins as THE locals’ holiday resort — the one, the serious one, with its own iconic qualities. It is on the flood plain of the Morača which brings silt down from the endless mountains behind Podgorica and thus it is a remarkably fertile area in a country not renowned for its fertility. It is located within a national park. It is also the access point to a lacustrine boating paradise to the north of the bridge and to the south and east the rest of Lake Skadar, and although shared with Albania pretty much down the middle, a defining feature of Montenegrin life.
Huge and, yes, lovely …
Vir not so much.
My view was coloured by our accommodation. I don’t have a photo of our room but I have found this one of a luxury suite in our hotel. Our room was smaller, cases on the bed smaller, up six flights of stairs, no aircon, no TV, no hot water, no bath mat. ZalaZ accommodation in fact: of the people, living simply, learning about essentials, acquainting. No real reason for complaining which nonetheless my journal indicates I continued to do describing Bobo, our host, as ‘terrifyingly hospitable’. The hotel however did have a nice garden square in front of it.
And that’s Vir really … a boaty resort, and nothing much else going on.
We decided to complete our day there we’d go for a walk. Round the top of the lake to the hills behind the nearby town of Godinje seemed a suitable target, again where our walk with Zalaz would have taken us.
This walk had several noteworthy features. The first was the constant presence of the lake and, although its moods didn’t shift much — too big, too grand — in navigational terms it was reassuring.
The second was just how astonishingly lush the gardens were. Flowers, vegetables, fruit, vines, just burgeoning.
We looked high and low for somewhere to eat and even went well off our track chasing signs that suggested there was a resort at the top of the lake presumably on the coast. I can find it looking now and, as I write, it is open. But that’s not much help is it.
But the third bonus was walking up the track inland to a collection of houses which might or might not have been called Lekovici where we met this guy whose name I was told but can’t remember. Perhaps Lekovič.
As I look now this might be the Organic Paradise Restaurant with a preponderance of 5/5 digital ratings. But I’d be pretty sure it wasn’t when we there. It did look like somewhere you might get something to eat and drink if you asked, as long as you were willing to listen to someone keen for a chat.
He was back in his home town. There was a strong suggestion that his aged father, who he had returned to care for after five years away, was the local seigneurial figure. As a rule he and his family (wife and 10 year old son) wintered in Novi Sad, a biggish city in northern Serbia not so very far in fact from Vlatko’s newly-acquired farm, but had spent most of the last five years in the Canary Islands living in a tent. Five years, and apparently the Canary Islanders had not taken to them. It was very important for us to understand that when his son got sick no one helped or even showed any concern.
One reason for living in the Canaries was that he was sick of the way Serbs and Croats were at each other’s throats, while in the meantime failing to realise that Germany was manipulating Europe’s economies and turning people into slaves, especially in weak countries like the smaller parts of what used to be Yugoslavia, read Montenegro.
Smart, articulate, well-educated, good English, but just slightly off-putting. I think we did look at the cellar where his forebears had hidden from the Turks, the Austrians, the Nazis and whoever else was inclined to do damage, but we declined the trip through the tunnel to show how you could come out at the church of Sveti Nikola a kilometre away and escape.
We drank a glass of his entirely presentable wine, ate some of his wife’s bread and salad, paid him €10, avoided his tour of the town and, shifting the route a bit, walked home satisfied. We ate dinner at a restaurant with an overwhelmed kitchen in a thick cloud of mosquitoes which later joined us for bed.
Podgorica had had a bad rap so far among our Montenegrin contacts.
‘Flat’ appeared to be one problem and, yes, it is on the Zeta Plain, silt deposited by the Morača, Ribnica and other rivers which meet there. But ‘Podgorica’ means ‘the area below Gorica’, a hill which has now been absorbed into the city. And what does ‘gorica’ mean? Little hill. (Rather better than ‘Titograd’ which was its name from 1946-92, a celebration of the Marshall who stuck the Balkans together with his own particular type of glue. Originally Titovgrad, it was recorded incorrectly in the public annals and common usage turned it into the mistake.)
But being a bit flat and very fertile made it a popular place to live from the Iron Ages on. The Roman Emperor Diocletian was born in a village on the fringe of the city still called Duklja. (‘Doclea’ not ‘Dioclea’: another name incorrectly rendered, by the Romans this time.) A centre for trade, it became a major Ottoman fortification (ah Mary …) and several thousand Slavs and Albanians were imported to populate it. The Albanians seem to have maintained a major interest in it. The Bushati family from Shkodra ruled for 70 years from the mid 19th century.
‘Industrial’. That’s another slap. Before World War I, most of Podgorica’s economy was in trade and small-scale manufacture, an economic model established during the long rule of the Ottomans. After World War II, Podgorica became Montenegro’s capital and a focus of the rapid and somewhat oppressive urbanization and industrialization that was typical of Yugoslav communism; economically good, environmentally less so. Industries such as aluminium and tobacco processing, textiles, heavy engineering, and wine production were established in and around the city. The Plantaza vineyard forming one boundary of the city is claimed as the largest in Europe. But with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia the command economy collapsed, and the UN/ NATO sanctions of the late ’90s just added to the pain.
Boris was driving us from Vir to Podgorica and he had a lot to say about this. He himself had 17 cars, but he was unusual. Most people weren’t rich he said. As we went past he pointed to the massive aluminium plant on the outskirts of town, secured for Montenegro during the late 60s via a profoundly dodgy tender process. ‘7000 people used to work there. Now less than 1000. All propped up with Russian money.’
Another critique. ‘It was bombed flat in the war.’ And so it was. First by the Luftwaffe in 1941, then the British in 1943, then the Americans in 1944 — 76 recorded bombing raids. (Also by the NATO forces in 1999 despite Montenegrins having very little involvement in the Balkan wars of the time.) About one-tenth of the civilian population was killed by this process, yet another reminder that ‘collateral damage’ is a euphemism pasted over a much nastier reality. After the war Tito promised he’d rebuild it and he did his best in a post WWII Eastern bloc way.
‘Nothing interesting is left.’ That too. We visited The Old City and it doesn’t seem to have been worthy of a photo. This is someone else’s. No it’s not. Can’t find one. It seems like no one else has thought much of it either. A few disembodied stone walls treated with limited compassion.
‘Boring.’ Hmm that’s what they say …
As we drove through the tree-lined boulevards to be dropped at the door of our hotel, it didn’t look, prima facie, like ‘boring’ was exactly the right word. It looked rather lovely.
Our very comfortable hotel was in the middle of an active street beer/ coffee/ food culture with hundreds of people (invisible in this picture) sitting outside, chatting and having their lunch.
I was hungry and as is often the case on arrival picked the wrong place to eat, a very strange idea of a croque m’sieur, but what the hell.
We reconnoitered. We found the Old City such as it was. The Art Gallery/Museum was closed, but we followed the river along and the famous monument was there. This is worth visiting right here. I know. Weird. Did you notice the silver skull embedded into the platform? A memorial to Vladimir Vysotsky, ‘a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture’, and a regular thorn in the side of the administration, donated by the Russian government. Why? Who knows.
And the famous Millennium bridge.
As well as this sort of thing …
Did you notice this bloke? Might be a bit Montenegrin.
And while it might be a bit down at heel, it was NOT boring as we ambled along. There was always something to see.
Suddenly, out of nowhere so to speak, this magnificent creature appeared.
The Cathedral of the Resurrected Christ. What a building! and about 10 years old when we saw it with work still going on in its surrounds.
The lower orders are these massive blocks of limestone — most roughcast, some carved — which are just so impressive, a wonderful amalgam of construction and art.
And then you enter …
WHAM.
Everyone gets a go.
We walked home down Vasa Raickovica through the rather scungy high rise and shops of Novi Grad (yes ‘New Town’) and discovered an outstanding patisserie where we made up for all the food we hadn’t eaten. Podgorica was developing a whole new glow.
No soccer that night: the break for the semis, but after an excellent meal at Laterna we sat in a pub watching a street orchestra play sweet and sour Balkan music.
Next day we set ourselves to find a mosque, an Ottoman clocktower, a museum, a pool and succeeded with the lot. Several mosques really via an interesting and little used route through the backblocks.
The clocktower sat next to Pod Volat restaurant, a Podgorican icon, and it was an authentic Montenegrin experience. Lord Rowland would have been proud of us. Among the heavy duty masculine throng who looked formidably tough and their several glamorous female companions, I had beer and cevapci, Mernz an omelette and some remarkable cakes to ease off with, celebrating the end really. We’d been away for six weeks and that’s enough for anyone.
Then, after waiting a mysterious length of time for it to open, we found one of the great pools: clean clear water, happy swimmers, perfect temperature and immaculately maintained and supervised.
And that was pretty much that. Podgorica … ooooo, tonight 8.9.
In the evening France, looking inspired, beat Belgium. But I was more interested in England v. Croatia.
Kieran Trippier scored from a free kick in the first five minutes — ‘IT. IS. DELICIOUS!!! PICTURE PERFECT!!!!! THERE IS NOT A BETTER STRIKE THAN THAT!!’ — and a note of supreme confidence entered the English commentator’s voice. ‘We’ve got this, and almost certainly the Cup itself. In fact hold on. I’ll just put a call through to the PM about arranging the victory parade.’ An hour later Perisic pounded one in and (slightly deflated) ‘Croatia’s cravings are satisfied. … At least for now.’ A number of threatening shots on goal followed. ‘PICKFOOOORD (the English keeper)!!!!. PICKFORD IS AN IMPENETRABLE BRICK WALL!’ But then Mandzukic poked one through the bricks. (A sort of a death gurgle, as he announced) ‘England are hurting.’
Strangely, impossibly, both destiny and fate had been thwarted, or at least re-imaged as we might say these days. Croatia was playing in the final. The revenge of the Balkans. Hardy mountain races!! Mary was right all the time!
(Perhaps I do not need to add that of course Montenegrins are not Croats, not Serbs, not Albanians, they’re Montenegrins — Mary’s point precisely.)
Proof of hardiness: a Montenegrin dance.
** THE ANSWER: ‘Although Cetinje has been one of the most important spiritual centers of Montenegro for centuries, three highly esteemed and miraculous Christian relics (namely a fragment of the Crucifixion Cross, the Right Hand of St John the Baptist and the Icon of Madonna of Philermos) found their way by a combination of unusual circumstances. The relics, which had been stored in Constantinople (Istanbul) for centuries, belonged, after the Turkish conquest in the modern 15th century, to the Knights of the Order of St John. Thereafter they were taken to Malta [Home of that Order]. The Knights of the Order, forced to leave their seat, took the Holy Relics to Russia and bestowed them to Russian Czar Pavel. The Russian Emperor commissioned his best goldsmiths to make the golden chests for these precious relics and the golden frame for the Icon, both which were then decorated with jewels. After the decline of the Russian Monarchy, the Relics were handed to the Yugoslav Royal Family of Karadjordjevic. At the beginning of the Second World War, they in turn entrusted the Holy Relics to the Ostrog monastery in Montenegro [built into the side of a cliff in the Montenegrin hinterland], where they were enshrined until 1952. Nowadays they are kept in the National Museum in Cetinje.’
Yeah okay. A hard one.
No. Still work to be done. Fortitude still required.
this is now. It’s not over yet by any means.
What was it serving? And this is important. 
Ōtautahi: the place/home of (Te Potiki) Tautahi, the Maori name for the place where some of Christchurch is now, specifically near the fire station next to the river some distance from this building. But why this is so striking is that we are looking at a flat surface (with two obvious indents where the balconies are). It used to be a flat cream brick wall, and now it isn’t. L’oeil is certainly tromped. Just wonderful. And part of the new groovy area which was never far from here. Maybe that’s the Amundsen approach to recovery.
and Hagley Park, undamaged by the quake, was as glorious as ever. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to talk about a recovery from something that never happened, but this massive park in the middle of the city must be some sort of ‘recovery’ salve for the body politic.
So over its centuries of life what has this magnificent tree seen? 
From time to time in the past I have wondered how you might prepare Bogong moths. In my imaginings I haven’t got much beyond plucking one off the wall, popping it into your mouth and justcrunching it up. Wrong.
Then 600m to the road crossing at the hairpin bend. The trip by road to The Chalet is almost twice as far as the walk.
That is Feathertop in full snow, the Razorback Ridge to Mt Hotham to its right. As you climb, these views just keep getting more expansive, better and better. You cross the road three more times and come out at Mackey’s Lookout.
By my count, 31 corners 16 zigs and 15 zags, head out all the way, on a track that reminds me in places of the ‘road’ that the Austrians forced the Montenegrins to build so that they could haul their artillery up to the top of the cliffs above Kotor (at left).
And just as it looks, perfect weather. Marriott’s lookout. Who wouldn’t enjoy this?
This rock signals the the fourth section — the last of zig-zags and a long traverse west through quite dense alpine ash forest before turning sharply left back some distance across the lip of the face and around the inset of The Gorge. The track got wet,
then a bit snowy,
We got to the highest point (Bogong on the horizon above), still about 2 km from the Chalet. It would be one hour to get there through deep snow and one hour back to where we were, even before the hour back through the snow that we had already done. Four hours through snow, and we would be doing the final hour of the walk in the dark. So, sorry but no. Thwarted but not dismayed, we scuttled/ scurried/ stumbled (Myrna’s generous choice of terms for my gait) back to the car. What a walk. You could call it a Big Walk.
From his trip here in 1853 Baron Von Mueller added 78 previously uncategorised species (of the 480+ present on the mountain) to his plant collection. E.T. Dunn, who called the plateau ‘a garden of the gods’, thought it the most interesting place geologically in Victoria. Thomas Buckland (and many others) was pleased to use the plateau as a place to graze his cattle during summer. Henry Carlile thought it would be ideal for a hospice. Carlo Catani was interested in the technical problems of design and engineering associated with building and transport in an alpine environment (so comparatively rare in Australia). 
Hilda Samsing made a going concern and a living out of the need for hospitality as the number of visitors grew. Harold Clapp pursued his idea that the mountain would be the perfect destination for train travellers, Bert Keown and Ollie Polasek for skiers. Sir Russell Grimwade and Sir George Kerferd thought it might be an important place to preserve. Sir Rupert Clarke (and a long list of others) thought it would be a good place to develop and make some money out of. 
Early in the 20th century a vituperative war broke out between two transport companies vying for the right to transport passengers up the hill: initially horse carriage vs. motor charabanc, later bus vs. bus. Under the strain of cutting prices, both went broke. (At left, bent Sir Tommy Bent, Premier of the day (1908) opens the road.) Then there were the backdoor means (‘It wasn’t even discussed’, complained Jim Neville the distressed previous licensee) by which Victorian Railways acquired the rights to the Chalet in 1924. 
The family at leisure in The Chalet’s piano lounge. 
But until 1983, no bar. No licence, no bar. Which didn’t stop people bringing their own. Norman Banks was one of the people escorted off the mountain for alcohol-induced excessively rambunctious behaviour. 
It didn’t begin like that. At right is Henry Carlile’s hospice, a very early building at a site which, with its 650m sheer rock wall, was a magnet for many ambitions.
Who stayed at the Chalet? Well … in its day, the Who’s Who of Victoria: the Myers, the Brockhoffs, the Gadsdens, the MacRoberstons, the Grimwades, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, the Victorian Cabinet, the Prime Minister, various Governors. The German Ambassador and his staff were regulars for a time. Guests were required to dress for dinner, men in dinner suits, women in evening gowns. The photos above in the piano lounge and below in the ballroom are neither fake nor staged. That’s how it was.
In the 61 years VR had run The Chalet it had made an annual profit twice; in the last five years it cost the Government $2m. In the ’50s and ’60s the average occupancy rate was 70-75 percent which I would have thought was pretty good, but 85 percent was the break even point, and there was the conventional resort problem of feast (Christmas, Easter, school holidays) and famine (the rest). Staffing was always an issue because more than half had to live on the mountain and, until the 80s, staff accommodation and living conditions were quite primitive. 
And then there was upkeep on a wooden building, never well built in the first place, in an alpine environment. The degree to which it decayed in the five years from 2007 to 2012 was hard to believe. One would peer in through the picture windows down the panelled walls to the ballroom and the still vaguely glamorous front lounges, past the rotted weatherboards, destroyed guttering, termites in the piers of the foundations, fire escape staircases falling off the building, galvanised iron roofing flapping.
They wanted to climb, stand and sit on The Monolith.
They wanted to throw snow at each other, and go tobogganing
and skating on artificial Lake Catani, hectares of water a metre or two deep (which no longer freezes).
‘A Garden of the Gods’. Coming back from a walk to the South Wall, The Egg delicately balanced on the left horizon, The Hump in the background.
Elvis began his life as struggling white trash. Gladys kept things together. Vernon didn’t. Elvis was three when his father went to gaol for eight months for forging a cheque, part of a pattern. They lived in this two-room house in Tupelo that Vernon built before moving to one of three houses designated for whites in a Negro district of heavily segregated Memphis. America is just emerging from the Great Depression at this point.
This is happening over 18 months. The ‘overnight-ness’ figures only after appearances on national television, firstly on the Milton Berle Show which accorded him 
Elvis, who even before going into the Army had signed a deal with Paramount for seven pictures, was being managed. Elvis could have largely continued his career just wearing a uniform, but it appears that he and the Colonel agreed, if for differing reasons, that he should be in so far as it was possible a ‘normal’ soldier. The Colonel didn’t mind. On two weeks leave, Elvis recorded a stache of songs which the Colonel released strategically to keep the legend alive while Elvis was serving , among them ‘Wear a Ring around Your Neck’, Hard Headed Woman’, ‘One Night’, ‘(Now and Then there’s) A Fool such as I’, and ‘A Big Hunk of Love’, all monster hits.
31 of them, made between 1956 and 1969, often three a year: not a recipe for cinema of the highest quality. And I don’t know whether you will instantly recall Spinout or Easy come, easy go, or even Stay away Joe, tagline: ‘Elvis goes West, the West goes wild. And that’s no Sitting Bull’. In that film Elvis plays an ‘Indian’, a Native American, for the second time. But unlike in Flaming Star, the other one, a tenable film in which Elvis’s acting plunges more than millimetre deep, his Cherokee character is a combination of all available stereotypes of dodgy Injun shiftlessness.
Entry to the throne room can be from The [Latrobe] Valley of course, and there is nothing especially wrong with that, not per se. 
At the southern end of the Tarra Valley the ‘shack in the bush’ of past history is still in evidence. 
There are several sites of old homestead clearings
and for some distance the impact of the Black Saturday fires (7 Feb, 2009) is evident. The new stands of Mountain Ash saplings are about 25-30m high — three metres a year that would make the rate of growth — but there was also this unusual forest of acacias, straight, jammed together and, perhaps as a consequence, very very tall.
Some kilometres of plantations followed, all Nitens like these, with their typical cascades of bark.
After a fierce, concentrated and slippery climb up Duncan’s Track there is a section on the contour through lovely forest and fern trees, Butler’s Track (below). Great walking through little known history.
Rain forests have fungi, especially if it has been warm, and Tarra Bulga was no exception. Wonderful things appeared, some with caps 350-400mms across, monsters, although these were more to be filed under Beautiful.
A NASA image of Wilson’s Promontory taken during the fires of 2009 during which about one-third of the Park, the brown areas, was burnt. This particular image has been included not because of the fires, but because it provides an establishing shot, an outline of The Prom. You can even see the northern boundary of the National Park across the Yanakie isthmus from Shallow Inlet. And because it’s striking.
Here’s another: Tidal River looking up stream. Quite Japanese-y in the particulation, variety and harmony of its features: rock, wood and water.
I’d like to say these photos and better versions of them do the place justice. But they don’t.
It might be that the 30 kilometre drive from the park entrance to Tidal River is like an overture at the opera helping you to slow down and start looking, listening, tuning in, becoming more alert and sensitive to what will come. During that time you will have driven through six markedly different vegetation zones, some of them repeating, but each of them with their own diverting features. 
After a drive up to Telegraph Saddle you start reasonably high and walk along an undulating track through eucalyptus forest dryer than on the other side of the saddle. 
And they have, and its great, and no doubt they were tireless and in several spots brilliantly ingenious to be able to rebuild the track. Really. Salutations Parks Victoria.
often suspended above the froggy, mossy waters of Blackfish Creek, 
which, surrounded by melaleuca, opens out onto something more like a real creek very close to the beach.
Then you suddenly plunge out onto the Cove itself
which, after an hour or two of enclosure, offers a massive inhalation of space.
I went looking for the name of the tiny crabs that were everywhere, (I have just realised they are the dark dots behind the gull in the pic above) and failed. 
Returning to the crabs, they are about as big as your fingernail and toddle across the intertidal area in their thousands. But they are there one minute and gone the next. At a sign of danger, it takes them perhaps three seconds to bury themselves completely, although they do leave behind distinctive little balled mounds. 
They dig lying on their sides. Swivelling all the while, the bottom four legs chew out the sand; the top four ball it and pass it out onto the beach. It is a process which is something to behold.
although not as much there once was.
We arrived at Ilok, more specifically at Stari Podrumi (‘Old Basements’, probably Cellars really) a winery/ accommodation spot where the solid doors closed with a satisfying ‘climp’ and the windows were the complex European type which open in several directions if not necessarily at the same time. Suddenly Croatia rather than Serbia. Out our window I could see the Danube, 
Lunch was Paprika Fish Stew, followed by (
Her name was Maria. I think she stayed with us as our guide to the church, the fort and other highlights of the town. I hope we gave her a good tip.
It was just near here that our vehicle pulled over and we had an encounter with strawberries, the best strawberries I have ever eaten. They were startlingly good: plump, as big as a baby’s fist but not inflated artificially with hormones, crimson, with a strong inviting smell and irresistible flavour. Powerhouses of the genre.
‘Near the centre of the historic town of Ilok, on the landscape hill offering stunning views of Ilok, Srijem and Backa, lies the Principovac Castle and Estate that was built in 1864th as summer residence of the Odescalchi family – The Dukes of Ilok, who stayed here during hunting seasons and grape harvestings. Whether you are a true wine connoisseur or you’re on just your way to become one, when you taste the royal Traminer and Graševina from Principovac in different styles you’ll realize that wine is here much more than a profession – it is a lifestyle.
The border between Serbia and Croatia at this point is a long series of curlicues (the thin black line below), perhaps to share the best aspects of this highly fertile region. For reasons of convenience I’ve tipped this map over, North is on the left hand side. It’s just to illustrate what I mean, and you’ll get the point.
Don said it was even more special because it had been caught from the bottom of Danube in the muddy waters, and er hem I must confess that was how it tasted. (Look, you can’t go ooh ahh about everything. You’ve got to call it how you see it. The spuds were nice and the visuals outstanding. We were also entertained by some nesting and very familiar martins.)
that you could trip over an offering like this in the footpath,
and that you actually could eat at the local pub. 
Paprika soup was the dish du jour, the highlight special and it was delicious.
He knew what he was looking for.
