Craggy Range perfection on plate and glass followed by sunset on Waimarama Beach.

It’s a long time since I been called “Dear” as I was twice in Waimarama – once by the older Maori guy selling fruit by the side of the road; and then by the guy who served me coffee at Jark’s Café over the road… it was such a friendly gesture that I concentrated on not negatively reacting.

Waimarama had lived in my memory as having one of the most beautiful beaches in New Zealand – although there’s certainly plenty of competition in “God’s Own Country.” The province of Hawke’s Bay is one of the warmest parts of the country on the East Coast and the little town about four hours driving from the capital New Zealand city of Wellington.

Walking on the long deserted Waimarama beach at sunrise and sunset is one of the joys of life, but during the day watch out for the modern intrusion of quad bikes on the beach and tractors pulling boats. Walking round this growing-in-popularity spot, I found that almost every holiday house boasted a tractor in their yard and a massive motorboat. Such is the growth of affluence, recession or not.

Early one evening I was passed on the beach by a quad bike driven by a boy teenager pulling a small trailer of friends. He was hooning around, circling and turning to look at his friends, when a Police Van purred up behind him – a pertinent wake-up call.

I had stayed the night before at Mangapapa Petit Hotel in Havelock North – the former home of the late Tinned and Frozen Food Magnate, Sir James Wattle. Set in 50 acres of laden fruit trees, surrounded by well-kept lawns and magnificent old English trees, the property is now Japanese-owned and sports a sauna and gym, tennis court, petanque and croquet ground, plus a golf course – a charming little self-contained resort. It also boasts a Picasso in the dining room, Renoir in one of the suites and two Chagalls. A Magic Carpet lift takes you down to an impressively stocked cellar of Burgundies and local wines. The owner also has a vineyard nearby by the name of Chateau Waimarama.

My only problem in this major wine region of New Zealand was my lack of time to check them all out. However lunch on the terrace of the Terroir restaurant at Craggy Range - one of my favourites the next day, under rocky Te Mata Peak was such a magnificent experience, that I’ll be back shortly. Venison and beetroot, The Quarry Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, the attention of Sommelier Stuart and gorgeous black-aproned wait staff – Hawke’s Bay – you are a destination for hedonists and nature lovers alike.

Mao's Last Melbourne Dancer

It might be Australian Football League Grand Final Week with all the mob hysteria that involves, but you would never have known it last night in Melbourne (and Sydney a couple of days before).

China Town came to the Regent Theatre and the Sofitel Hotel for the glittering premiere of Mao’s Last Dancer the much-awaited film directed by Bruce Beresford of Chinese dancer/turned stockbroker Li Cunxin’s autobiography.

The black tie and frocked up crowd milling round the pavement in Melbourne’s main Collins Street in the CBDs flowed into the theatre for champagne and a packaged bite to watch The Australian Ballet School taking class on stage, before a rollup of the producers, writers and stars introduced the film. That included two Chinese dancers cast as the teenage and adult Li – or Cunxin, to be correct.
Former Pin-up Principal and dancing darling of the Australian public, Steven Heathcote plays a Principal of the Houston Ballet in the film, alongside Madeline Eastoe and Camilla Vergotis of The Australian Ballet, who portray other main characters – the latter is Li’s wife, Mary McKendry.

The big stars of the film are Chi Cao (Australian Ballet) and Chengwu Guo (Birmingham Royal Ballet), who blew the audiences away with his dancing and his portrayal of Li Cunxin, in general.

This film is a knockout. The story has been adapted with sensitivity and the filming of the dancing, handled with expertise – a rare occurrence in the filming of dance.

Genius choreographer (and former Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company) Graeme Murphy has made a brilliant job of choreographing the film. You could feel the audience wanting to clap each performance, as they did, the film. The dancers were from Australian Ballet & Sydney Dance Company.

We descended the steps of the Regent still transported – to be jolted back to the present with explosion of Chinese crackers, a Chinese Dragon and Masked performers. They escorted us up the street to the Sofitel, which was transformed for the night into an opium parlour style space.
Steven Heathcote was the host of the reception, which was still buzzing as this writer left.
Mao’s Last Dancer is headed for international box office success (or I’ll dance through China Town).

Sydney Helpmanns

Sydney on a sunny day sings of why people immigrate to Australia… blue skies, sun on your face, sparkling harbour and buzz of the in crowd.
Physical City, physical people, running, striding round Circular Quay, through The Domain, Botanical Gardens to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, Woolloomooloo, up steep steps to Potts Point and cooling down over a Darlinghurst coffee.
At this time of year the contrast with Melbourne is 3 degrees more obvious than the summer months.

The Sydney Opera House on the night of the Helpmann Awards pulsates with the same energy. The Who’s Who of the Performing Arts in Sydney and beyond have gathered to celebrate and promote their industry and themselves.

The event is being held in the SOH for the first time and the papapparazi are gathering. As we walk up the red-carpeted steps, there’s no flashing of light bulbs, despite the fact that my companion Neill Gladwin, is well known in the theatre world. He is the Creative Producer of the Australian Dance Awards, we, the Board of Ausdance, present in Melbourne and we are here to observe and network.

Everyone is waiting for Cate – Blanchett, that is. She slips in last with husband Andrew Upton.
The Helpmanns cover every conceivable category in the performing arts. We sit in the theatre from 6.30pm – until almost 11pm. There’s no chance of dozing off in the dark of the theatre. The lights are bright and a roving camera swings across the audience and tracks the performers on stage. This is marketing night and the second half of the event is going out live to the paying watchers of the BIO channel.

We take the easy option and board a bus to the party round The Rocks in the cavernous Argyle tavern. I give up screeching at people I know and retreat upstairs for conversation.
The next morning I wonder if any of those determined partygoers are still lurking as I stride past on my way to Potts Point for coffee. It’s Sydney, bright and sunny on another new day.

Sydney Helpmanns

Sydney on a sunny day sings of why people immigrate to Australia… blue skies, sun on your face, sparkling harbour and buzz of the in crowd.
Physical City, physical people, running, striding round Circular Quay, through The Domain, Botanical Gardens to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, Woolloomooloo, up steep steps to Potts Point and cooling down over a Darlinghurst coffee.
At this time of year the contrast with Melbourne is 3 degrees more obvious than the summer months.

The Sydney Opera House on the night of the Helpmann Awards pulsates with the same energy. The Who’s Who of the Performing Arts in Sydney and beyond have gathered to celebrate and promote their industry and themselves.

The event is being held in the SOH for the first time and the papaparazi are gathering. As we walk up the red-carpeted steps, there’s no flashing of light bulbs, despite the fact that my companion Neill Gladwin, is well known in the theatre world. He is the Creative Producer of the Australian Dance Awards, we, the Board of Ausdance, present in Melbourne and we are here to observe and network.
Everyone is waiting for Cate – Blanchett, that is. She slips in last with husband Andrew Upton.
The Helpmanns cover every conceivable category in the performing arts. We sit in the theatre from 6.30pm – until almost 11pm. There’s no chance of dozing off in the dark of the theatre. The lights are bright and a roving camera swings across the audience and tracks the performers on stage. This is marketing night and the second half of the event is going out live to the paying watchers of the BIO channel.
We take the easy option and board a bus to the party round The Rocks in the cavernous Argyle tavern. I give up screeching at people I know and retreat upstairs for conversation.
The next morning I wonder if any of those determined partygoers are still lurking as I stride past on my way to Potts Point for coffee. It’s Sydney, bright and sunny on another new day.

The Primeval Thrill of Those Snow Capped NZ Mountains

New Zealand does it to me every time – the first sight of those snow-capped mountains and primeval, dark craggy, body of the North Island has me in An Emotional State!

The thrill of flying over the theatre of the New Zealand landscape, over the Canterbury plains to the mountains and beside the coastline towards the jutting curves of the Wellington Harbour on a clear winter day. Emerging into the bright wintry sun, pure air and energy of the Capital City of this enterprising small country, triggers my own creativity on overdrive – or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m away.

Waiting for the flight from the southern city of Christchurch, I am carried away by the casual chic of the New Zealand corporate woman. Before I know it, I’ve approached a black and white leopard-style dressed fellow traveller to tell her how good she looks. As it happens she works in the fashion industry for Trelise Cooper -one of New Zealand’s top designers.
She immediately invites me to lunch at their superstore, which incorporates a French restaurant and I vow to go.

However disparaging Australians are about New Zealanders there’s no disputing that this is Style City – Wellington, that is, but so is Auckland – and Christchurch where I’ve just inspected the top end of High Street and groovy designers, specially my personal favourite, Ricochet. Luckily for my wallet, I only had time for a cursory whirl.

Queenstown, my soul’s home, is about to host its Winter Festival from June 26 – 5 July. Fireworks, Night Skiing, races, street parties and other revelries in the town of a continuous jolly parties. It’s all snow and go – how about it?

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda...

“Keep in time with the town hall clock, “ the serviceman said at my spontaneous decision to join the march down the main street of my little country town. Why not? I hadn’t remembered to polish the medals won posthumously by my father and had trouble matching them with the right ribbons in the box on my dressing table, but had proudly donned them on this one day of the year.
Anzac Day is part of my heritage – of every Australian and New Zealander and becoming acknowledged by younger generations every year.
Since my early childhood I had worn them to the Dawn Service in Christchurch, New Zealand, more recently, Melbourne, Australia and the year before last in China - Shanghai. That was special as the service was held jointly by the Australian and New Zealand Consulates – with the Turkish Consul as a progressively invited guest. In a rare occurrence, I got to sing both National Anthems and realize both sides of my identity.
I was made to feel special as a young child baring those medals. I hadn’t known my father – he was killed in a freak accident after 17 missions flying a Wellington over Europe with the RAF’s Bomber Command, four months after I was born.
Nor had he known me – his only child and wife of only a short time back home on the other side of the world. Like so many others, his life was cut off before it had really begun – at the age of 25.
Much as I tried, I could never conjure him up, although I wrote a film script of his story a few years ago in that vein, but Anzac Day was Dad day to me – the day I honoured him.
There were three or four of us marching behind the eight or nine so diggers and straggle of scouts behind the Kyneton Band. The years walking of boarding school “crocodiles” made it natural to keep in step. The rain had stopped as we marched down the short stretch of street to the town hall. My cheeks were wet with the unexpected poignancy of the occasion.
The service was short and the least formal I’ve attended. School children gave readings, a local singer guitarist performed “I was only 19,“ and a country and western singer sang “And the Band played Waltzing Matilda, “ flat and checking the words.
All over the country, in New Zealand and many parts of the world – particularly Gallipoli where it began 94 years ago, similar commemorations are happening. It has become more than a day of remembrance – a day of reckoning, of identity, an audit of life purpose. As I age, this solemn day affects me more each year.
This is our culture – formed by war as throughout history, rather than peace. Australians and New Zealanders are never more conscious of their national identity, than on this day.
The little local service in my new life in the country is as significant as any of the massed ceremonies – and the bugle player’s Last Post was far superior to the Oriental rendition in Shanghai!

Living with Victorian Bushfire Alerts

Words truly can’t describe the emotions a crisis like this engenders.
Since that fateful February day when the sky turned dark and the wind swept the streets with a sense of foreboding, country Victorians have been in a suspended state of nervous tension.
In the words of Victorian M.P. Fran Bailey, whose constituency covers most of the ravaged areas: what can you say when a man comes up to you and says he found the bodies of 17 of his friends?

I really can’t go through many more days like Friday. For 99% of the year your home is your sanctuary and there is nothing to fear. But in the current circumstances, it’s the pot at the end of the rainbow – the place you want to be when you’re anywhere else, but where you can’t relax when you are.

Friday was predicted by all to be a dangerous day and the warnings were so intense that I received messages and calls from friends and family far and wide. “Get out of there,” they said, “Now, tonight or at least before 10am tomorrow.”

One of my email messages was telling me that there would be Relief Centres open all Friday – including the local Town Hall at Kyneton. I had no intention of resorting to that. But on Thursday night, I was strongly urged to do so by a member of the Macedon Ranges council staff at the local Malmsbury Planning meeting.
Back home, the calls and SMS kept coming until midnight. When I settled down to sleep, I found I couldn’t and started planning to pack my car.
By 6am the sense of urgency had escalated, at the same time as the day dawned without sign of the heat and wind expected. Nevertheless, I packed 3 of my favourite paintings in the car beside my grandmother’s chair and took off with a loaded car to spend the day in Kyneton.

At the town hall, the staff were not particularly welcoming and gave an outright “No” to my request for the internet encouraged by the staff member the night before. I turned away dispiritedly, still desperately wanting to be quietly working at home and headed for the friendly faces at the local cafes. The supportive owners of Slow Living invited me to spend the day. I plugged my computer in and alternated between my comfortable proximity to the healthy food and Little Swallow Café over the road. All of this was intercepted by hourly sessions sitting in my car listening to fire updates on the radio.
A friend at the café offered to plug me into the internet at his house, so I eventually took advantage of the offer and continued working in pleasant circumstances in the dining room of his charming bluestone cottage a few streets away. So the day dragged on…. and the reports, with thankfully no serious fires.
I had a meal at a Kyneton restaurant, with a weather eye on the anticipated South East Change – this was the biggest threat to my property. It was surreal – the filling in of time before I could safely return to my home in the country with my lack of outside water. The pump to my bore is currently in pieces at the fixer’s place, while he recuperates from a back problem.

The next day I thankfully unpacked my grandmother’s chair and the paintings and my bag of clothes. The box of other treasures remains there. I was wrung out by the end of the day, limp and drained, yet there had been no serious fires and no further losses.
I have just received an SMS from the Victorian police. They have sent messages to 5 Million Victorians. Extreme weather is expected tonight and tomorrow, high wind and fire risk. We are instructed to listen to local ABC radio for emergency updates. It’s on again.. . How much longer are we country people to be subjected to this tension? Don’t even mention Global Warning.