Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette
Kathleen – German in both accent and addiction to ‘making photos’ – pointed her camera toward the fleeing mandarin light. My companions waited for that mystical green flash that signaled the end of the day…
Kathleen – German in both accent and addiction to ‘making photos’ – pointed her camera toward the fleeing mandarin light. My companions waited for that mystical green flash that signaled the end of the day…
Until then, I’ll placate myself through songs. For if there’s one thing every road trip needs, it’s a proper travel playlist. And an exploding Aussie music scene means the only thing more vast than the cross-country kilometers are the local musicians who sing about them.
With his usual ability to turn small details into entertaining anecdotes, Troost faces devious gold smugglers, starving sharks and the ghosts of old islanders. A bit more candid than in his previous South Pacific narratives (read: The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Getting Stone With Savages), the author returns to familiar settings in order to compare how they – and he – have changed over the decades.
Flying into Queenstown airport – ZQN – gives new solemnity to the invention of arm rests. Wobbling through cloud-hatted peaks, the plane searches for that tell-tale paved strip at the base of the Remarkables, while rows of pale fingers clench the sides of plastic seats.
Two heads. Webbed feet. Snaggle teeth. An assortment of unflattering body parts that supposedly separate inbred Tasmanians from the rest of Australia. However mercilessly the Mainlanders may laugh at the island, locals shrug it off with a stoic pioneer spirit. During my six months here, I’ve realized that they’ll gladly trade a little laughter in order to keep secret the paradise that is their home.
Like the pigeons, we looked – we were – homeless. Ever on the move, wherever a whim might take us. Sometimes we circled back upon ourselves, other times we chased down sudden directions.
So this is what good luck tastes like. A clod of dirt caught between my front teeth, earthly particles burying my taste buds under the distinctive flavor of ground soil.