legends of freo

as a diehard claremont man i'm naturally in awe of the blokes who've worn the old gold and blue but regardless of how one-eyed one may be, it can't be denied that some amazing players have come out of the two freo sides. i'm naturally a bit biased towards souths as my father and grandfather are both staunch bulldogs but the old easts have also produced some legends too. having read that a combined team is going to be announced from the champions of the past has got my mouth watering with anticipation and the talk that even the great john gerovich may miss out on a guernsey shows the depth of talent available. it'll be fascinating to see how the selectors make their decisions.

dave the brit

yep, after living in the uk for three and a half years i've finally taken the big step of swearing allegiance to lizzy and becoming a british citizen. it's not such a huge step for me as she's already australia's monarch but still, to now have dual citizenship is a rather strange feeling. but fear not, perth is still my home and i'll still be barracking for australia in all sporting events!!

the most overrated artist ever?

ok.. having read opinion polls in the uk that list oasis as one of the greatest bands of all time and their first two albums in the top 5 albums of all time got me thinking... who is the most overrated artist of all time? i find it hard to get past oasis for this dubious honour. don't get me wrong, i thought 'definitely maybe' and '(what's the story) morning glory' were pretty decent albums but as far as i'm concerned there's no way they are amongst the best ever recorded. i've been trying to think of a band more overrated than oasis and i really can't at the moment.

the only artist i can think of as being on a par with oasis is richard ashcroft. he wrote a few average songs and people talk of him like he grew up on mount olympus as the forgotten son of zeus. to misquote monty python.. "he's not the messiah, he's a very overrated boy".

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now i've kicked off proceedings, i'd like to hear feedback about who others consider to be the most overrated artists of all time.

new blog added

in what has to be one of the biggest coincidences i've experienced over here, i found out today that megan, an old friend from perth, and her daughter vera were at the same national park in czech as me on the weekend. unbelieveable!! anyhoo.. i found her blog quite interesting as they detail their trek around europe together so i've added it to my links.

have a look at it here.

dirty mongrel eagle

i've never been too comfortable with the efforts of some to make the relationship between freo and wet toast all cosy and harmonious... they are the enemy for pete's sake and we should never forget it! we owe them for the merciless beltings they gave us in the early days. we owe them for the crap/hobbled players they offloaded onto us (fewster, godden, hynes, metropolis). we owe them just for being a bunch of arrogant, drug addled knobs.

but a healthy rivalry is one thing; selwood's comments to DJ on the weekend are something else - completely uncalled for and below the belt. it's one thing to insult a bloke; we can all take that on the chin and play on. but to insult his six year old daughter says a lot about the bloke making the comment and he deserves to have the book thrown at him by the afl. i just hope DJ managed to plant a cupla good ones on his moosh before being dragged off. let's hope the payback in the next derby is worth the wait.

click here for the herald sun story

derby disaster

it's often said that there are only two games each year that freo supporters consider unacceptable to lose (when we make the finals that number increases but as we've only made the finals twice the rule is usually in place) and yesterday was one of those games. there was so much riding on this derby that it really stings to lose it. being in poland i'm pretty far removed from the afl scene and am limited to reading news accounts but it sounds pretty dire for us at the moment. fortunately we're only three rounds into the season and there's still plenty of time to recover. i've no doubt we'll be in the eight by the halfway point of the season and, injuries and suspensions permitting, will be a force in the finals. it's times like this that separate the true supporters from those who like to hop on and off bandwagons. as for me, i'm with them for the long haul!!

bohemian switzerland national park

no.. it's not in switzerland. it's in the north of the czech republic and is named after two 19th century swiss artists. it's also the place i headed for this weekend. sometimes it's easy to forget that less than 20 years ago this country sat behind the iron curtain and was portrayed in the west as being the generic grey, drab place that all soviet countries were portrayed as. of course, as with most propaganda, the truth is very far removed from the stereotype.

the walk i took starts from the eastern end of a town called hrensko which is a few hundred metres from the german border. it would be quite a picturesque town if it hadn't been invaded by hordes of people from south-east asia who have set up endless stalls selling tacky crap. i don't know how so many of them ended up in the czech republic but it's a scene quite common along the border with germany. the walk itself is 16km and took me about 6 hours (including a stop for a cold czech beer). the scenery is simply spectacular. the initial part of the walk is alongside a river which has been dammed in parts. to continue along the dammed areas, one pays for a ride in a punt which takes you up the river. the cliffs along each side are covered in moss and pine trees and the water is cold and fresh. i was in the company of a number of germans in the boat and after we alighted from the second punt we found the pathway blocked with a sign in german telling us that entry was verbotten. being a horror movie fan i should know better than to ignore a sign like that as usually people who do so end up being picked off by inbred mountain mutants. nevertheless, i'd come that far and wasn't about to turn back... besides i'd paid for a day's parking and couldn't waste that! so i followed the germans under the warning sign and we continued walking. the scenery gradually changed into pine forest which gave off the most beautiful fragrance with the heat (yep, it was warm enough for me to be sweating!). it was different to the fragrance of the pines back home in nanga and was quite sweet.

the aim of the hike was to reach pravcicka brana which is the largest natural rock arch in europe (like nature's window in kalbarri but much, much bigger). the views of the rock were extraordinary but as often happens, my fear of heights limited where i could go.

after a few pics i headed off back towards hrensko and a nice meal at a restaurant in town.

today was spent driving back to kraków using as many back roads as possible. the motorway is so mind-numbingly boring that i'd rather spend an extra hour or so driving than to suffer it again. besides, driving through towns on the way back is always interesting.

i'm back at the apartment now and looking forward to a good night's sleep.

pics of the hike will be posted soon.

0-2

ok.. i think it's time for a little perspective now. both my teams are 0-2 but the reality is it's only early april and the finals are still a long time away. freo's only lost by 16 and 10 points respectively and have a lot of players out that will be automatic selections when fit/not suspended. my mighty tigers got flogged by subi but a lot of teams will suffer a similar fate this season. we were unlucky against west perth and just got pipped at the post but i'm sure this week we'll commit some regicide against the royals. along with a good derby win to freo next weekend things are looking up for all my boys!!

bialowieza national park & vilnius

another weekend of driving, this time just over 1800 km. fortunately it's the easter looong weekend so it hasn't been so manic getting from one place to another. thursday night and friday morning i headed to bialowieza national park in the north east of poland just a few kilometres from the border with belarus. it is rare in that it is both a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. in the national park are found elk, wild boars, wolves and the only wild european bison left. they were previously extinct in the wild but have been reintroduced and now number about 800. access to much of the park is prohibited but a small part can be accessed only with a licensed guide (at a rather hefty price of course). still, i'd come all that way so i wasn't gonna let the price of (quite a) few zloty put me off. the guide took me on a 3 hour, 8 km walk through forest that has minimal human intervention. it was pretty awesome and i'm glad i did it although i didn't see any of the animals that live there. apparently they tend to hide deep in the parts of the forest that are only visited on odd occasions by scientists with special governmental permission. i did visit a small zoo, however, that had the bison, a rare polish breed of horse, wolves and some other animals. not quite the same as seeing them in the wild be still better than nothing.

on sunday morning i headed north and crossed the border into lithuania. to be honest, i wasn't all that impressed as the land was mostly flat and non-descript. still, i'd heard that vilnius was a city to behold and i continued on my way until i found it. how would i describe vilnius? well, as homer said when tasting the 'flaming homer' for the first time - it's not without its charm. perhaps it had been built up a bit much for me as it wasn't nearly as awe inspiring as i'd been led to believe. yep, there were plenty of huge, grand churches (how many churches can one small city need???) in the old town and a castle on the hill but certainly nothing that made it stand out from many of the other places i've been. the things i found most interesting were the more unusual such as the frank zappa memorial and the arty district of uzipis. also interesting was the former KGB building which has the names of those killed inside by the communists carved into the outside wall. amazingly the vast majority of those killed were in their early 20's!

as i headed out of vilnius the snow that had fallen lightly on and off through the afternoon really started to come down which thrilled me somewhat. i crossed the border back into poland and found a motel in which to spend the night. when i awoke this morning it was to find a blanket of snow covering everything. there's something really special about opening the blinds to find that it's been snowing; everything seems so clean and bright and fresh... and cold. my drive home was pretty uneventful except that it was nigh on impossible to find any bars, grills, restaurants etc open as it's easter sunday. as a last resort i ended up stopping at macdonald's which was as horrid as i'd feared. still, it stopped the hunger pangs. my usual taxi driver met me at the airport where i dropped off the car and his driving was as terrifying as ever.. he loves to point at the speed sign that says 40 and then laugh as he points at his speedo which is hovering around the 100 mark. the speed combined with overtaking on blind corners makes for a rather exciting/ hair-raising ride. still, it gets me home quickly.

after having driven several thousand kilometres in the past three weekends i'm feeling a bit travelled out so i'm planning on staying in kraków next weekend with perhaps a visit to auschwitz or the salt mines.

last weekend in czech & germany

wow, it's getting hard to find the time to keep this up to date with all the travels i can do now. also i still have no internet connection in my apartment and i'm flat tack at work but here goes!! last weekend (my second since moving to poland) i used to do a 1500km round trip through the czech republic and germany. what a great experience it was! on friday evening after work i set off from krakow to kutna hora. kutna hora is a small town outside of prague which is most famous for its Kostnice Ossuary. this is a small church found in the district of sedlec which has used the bones of approx. 40,000 people to make works of art. there's a chandelier that is constructed using every type of bone found in the human body. there's four candelabras that are taller than me. there are four huge pyramids and the coat of arms of the family who used to rule the area. the most interesting part of the coat of arms is the depiction of a rook pecking out the eye of a turkish soldier. although this all sounds gruesome and macabre it is actually quite engaging and beautiful. i only wish my remains could be put to such a creative use someday.

from kutna hora i headed off to cheb which is a town close to the german border. of course it has the obligatory grand church and old castle. one problem (if you can call it that) with travelling around eastern europe is that one gets rather blasé about all the ancient buildings as there's just so many of them. still, it was a lovely town and a good place to visit.

i only hung out in cheb for few hours before hitting the road again as it got dark. i crossed the border into germany and parked the car in a field and slept the night in it, turning on the heater occasionally when it got a bit cold. the view in the morning as the sun rose over the fields was stunning and reminded me that i must get up early enough to see the sunrise more often. i hit the road fairly early with the intention to head straight back to kraków but as i came towards the dresden exit on the motorway decided to make a detour. it was a spur of the moment decision and one that i'm very glad i made. i'd heard of dresden but never how lovely it is. the buildings are what you expect from a european city but what i found surprising is that none of them are very old. dresden was decimated during WWII and only in recent years has its buildings been recreated. it was certainly worth the visit if only for the wonderful apfel strudel i had whilst sitting looking at the opera house and horse drawn stagecoaches.

finally i departed dresden, crossed the border back into poland and spent a few mind numbing hours speeding along the motorway back to kraków with only two accidents along the way to break the monotony. lesson learned: avoid the motorways if at all possible!!

pics are here