Don Arnold
+ The places that wowed Tracey Moffatt
+ Michael Robotham’s excellent adventure
+ Tripping with... rocker Mark Seymour
Airplane mode
How model Jessica Gomes finds
her inflight comfort zone.
QSpirit.
QSpirit.
Places of the Heart
As the world was discovering
her, this acclaimed Australian
artist and cinema-history buff
was discovering the world.
2004
The traveller
I love the dryness
of Rajasthan, the
colour of the fabrics,
the spices and the
people. I took a
tourist camel ride
and as we passed
a field, a slender girl
with dark-brown
skin, light-green eyes
and nose piercings
smiled at me. She
was carrying a ton
of cloth on her
head but she had
incredible posture.
She could have been
a catwalk model.
We arrived
in Agra at dusk;
seeing the outline
of the Taj Mahal
was deeply moving.
Walking towards
it the next morning,
the perfection
and symmetry and
shimmer of its pale
marble made me
wish the rest of the
world looked this
way. Up close, you
see that it’s inlaid
with semiprecious
stones.
I have to see all of
India in my lifetime;
I won’t feel complete
unless I do.
RAJASTHAN
A N D U T TA R
PRADESH,
INDIA
Tracey Moffatt
On the radar
She’s currently representing Australia
at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
2001
Photography: Kate Ballis. Illustrations: Liz Kay
PUERTO
VA L L A R TA ,
MEXICO
With its beaches,
gay bars and
inexpensive places
to eat, this town is
so much fun. A gang
of us marked the
40th birthday of an
artist friend with a
wild party at Casa
Kimberly, the villa
– now a hotel – that
Richard Burton
bought for Elizabeth
Taylor in the ’60s.
We jumped into
the pool where the
actor Peter O’Toole
reportedly broke his
leg during a drinking
episode. And, in
a closet, we saw a
bathing suit that
apparently belonged
to Liz. We stared
at it as if it were
a sacred shroud.
On a cliff by
Mismaloya Beach
where Burton shot
The Night of the
Iguana, remnants
of the set still exist.
The hotel we were
staying in there
had creaky ceiling
fans, rickety
verandahs and
signed pictures of
the film’s brilliant
director, John
Huston, on the
walls. Fabulous.
2008
C O S TA R I C A
I went to Central
America with
someone special
and we stayed in
a chic jungle house
near a beachside
town. At night, the
howler monkeys in
the trees sounded
like monsters.
At a ramshackle
zoo run by locals,
a baby jaguar called
Maya gnawed on
my fingers.
Our favourite
bar had sand for a
floor and we laid in
hammocks drinking
fruit Daiquiris. Then
we staggered to
the open-air cafés
and ate fried fish
with rice and beans.
It was heaven.
During the day,
we sat on the beach
under thatched-roof
palapas and bought
cooked lunch from
vendors.
I wish Australian
beaches would
dirty up. Why must
they be pristine?
Why can’t there be
thatched-roof huts
with vendors serving
you corn tortillas
and Margaritas
in a plastic cup?
Can you imagine
the happiness?
travelinsider.qantas.com.au
41
QSpirit.
Flight Plan
think I might wear. Sometimes I under-pack
but that’s a reason to go shopping.
Can you pack quickly?
I can pack within 20 minutes. But I do like
to pack light; I prefer to have one suitcase
rather than two.
Do you have a go-to outfit for flying?
I usually wear jeans, a James Perse T-shirt,
some sort of cool jacket and my Gucci
loafers, because they’re furry and cosy.
I’m quite uniform in the way I dress.
How do you kill time at the airport?
I get there two hours ahead, check in,
go to the Qantas lounge and enjoy some
dinner, get on my late flight then sleep
the whole way.
So you sleep easily on the plane...
I do. The flight leaves at about 10.30pm so
by the time I get on, I’m exhausted. I usually
have to work when I land so I need to sleep.
Do you have any inflight rituals?
I love getting into the pyjamas and I wear
the socks because they make me feel
comfortable. I also take a good book.
Sometimes I get really reflective when
I fly. It’s quiet, nothing is disturbing me
and I start thinking – so I take my journal
to write in, too.
What sort of things do you write?
I write about my trip or what I want
to achieve in the next two weeks or
maybe a little poem that I’ve thought of.
It helps clear my head. There’s something
comforting about knowing that you have
pen and paper and can create whatever
you want.
What’s the last book you read on a plane?
The passenger
Jessica Gomes
Where she’s
travelling
What she’s
doing there
From her base
in Los Angeles to
Singapore then
on to Sydney
Working on a
“special project”
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How often do you fly between Los Angeles
and Sydney?
What do you enjoy about flying?
Do you enjoy the flight back to Australia?
Any tips for making flying stress free?
Every second month. It would be amazing
to know how many hours that is a year.
I love it. It’s a good distance and you’re
going overseas so it feels different.
I’m originally from Perth and, for some
reason, flying to Sydney from Perth
feels way longer and more exhausting.
What’s your system for packing?
When I buy something, I wear it until I’m
sick of it so I just pack all of my current stuff.
I always take a swimsuit and my training
gear. I don’t like to pack anything that I only
I’m going on another adventure; I’m going
to see more of the world. Flying gives me
a sense of accomplishment.
Take a good book, get cosy and relax.
I find those little head pillows are great as
well – they’re really good for your neck.
How do you get over jet lag?
I might go to a Korean spa or sit in the sauna
to help my body adjust but usually I come
home, watch movies and veg out on the
couch to get back into the swing of things.
It’s always a relief to be home with my
creature comforts.
Inter view: Kate Barracosa. Photography: Don Arnold
The model and founder of skincare
range Equal Beauty needs little
more than PJs, socks and a journal
to find her inflight comfort zone.
Patti Smith’s Just Kids. But I haven’t quite
finished it.
QSpirit.
View from Above
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40°44’31”N / 73°59’22”W
In a city of
apartment-dwellers,
Central Park is New
York’s backyard.
It’s a powerful
equaliser; a vast
green space that
belongs to everyone,
from frisbee-wielding
Wall Street brokers
to picnicking families.
But the land that now
makes up Central
Park once belonged
to a different set of
New Yorkers – a rural
farming community
of immigrants and
freed slaves who
raised pigs and goats.
By 1857, though,
1600 residents had
been evicted to make
way for what would
become the mostvisited urban park in
the United States.
Now, at the first sign
of sunshine, the city’s
denizens flock to this
oasis, shrugging off
shirts and shoes to
sunbathe at Sheep
Meadow (where
sheep grazed until
1934). Spanning 341
hectares and 51 city
blocks, present-day
Central Park shows
that it’s earnt the
title of People’s Park.
travelinsider.qantas.com.au
45
QSpirit.
The author’s psychological thrillers
have been translated into more than
20 languages. He could have done
with a few on his first epic adventure.
The traveller
Michael
Robotham
The journey
On the radar
London to
Kathmandu, Nepal
He won the British
Crime Writers’
Association Gold
Dagger award in
2015 for Life or
Death. His latest
novel, The Secrets
She Keeps, is out
next month.
The year
1988
Michael Robotham’s
trip “wasn’t all high
drama”; in Turkey, he
shared a moment of
lightness with young
locals (above)
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MY adventure began above a London travel
shop in May 1988. Sixteen of us gathered
for a meeting, eyeing one another with a mix
of hope and trepidation. Would this holiday
bond us for a lifetime or make us want to
strangle one another in our sleeping bags?
The next day, we climbed into a soft-top
Bedford truck with seats down either side,
to start a four-month journey across two
continents, from London to Kathmandu.
As with many adventures, the moments of
adversity are the most memorable. We entered
Iran the day after an American missile shot
down a passenger plane and immediately
sensed paranoia and hostility. When our truck
was waved down at a military checkpoint,
teenagers brandishing Kalashnikovs
confiscated our beach photos, magazines,
playing cards and chess sets, shouting and
waving their guns with each new discovery.
In Isfahan, the hotel pools were drained
and the bars closed but most Iranians we
met were friendly and grateful that tourists
had come to see their beautiful country.
In the months that followed, we were
tear-gassed in Pakistan, placed under
houseboat arrest in Kashmir and
stranded by an earthquake in
Nepal. But it wasn’t all high
drama. We camped on a beach
at Gallipoli and sat around a fire,
singing Eric Bogle’s And the Band
Played Waltzing Matilda, feeling
the spirit of the Anzacs all around us.
Waking early for a swim, I dug my toes into
the sand and found spent rifle shells.
In Jordan, we rode on horseback into
Petra, the “rose-red city half as old as time”,
and I pictured myself as Indiana Jones
discovering a lost world. We crossed the
desert of Wadi Rum, following in the footsteps
of Lawrence of Arabia. I drank sweet tea with
a Bedouin tribesman, who offered me three
camels for my wife. He seemed hurt when
I turned him down.
In Syria, we visited the waterwheels of
Hama and the Souk al-Madina in Aleppo and
beheld the crumbling majesty of Palmyra
– all now off limits or destroyed. In remotest
Pakistan and India, children wanted to touch
our white skin and perhaps receive a pen or
a pencil for school.
Our leader was Ian Stevenson from
Brisbane. Barely 26, he had a calm authority
that got us across borders and out of trouble
without ever paying bribes. He’s one of my
oldest friends and my youngest daughter’s
godfather. Today, he runs Conservation
Lower Zambezi, protecting the wildlife
and natural beauty of Zambia.
Every few years, he calls and says,
“It’s about time we had another adventure.”
“Where do you have in mind?”
“How about Namibia... or Mozambique...
or Colombia... or Peru?”
The trip from London to Kathmandu
sparked a wanderlust in me that has never
left. Since that adventure, I’ve been like
Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, always
desperate for another escapade or quest.
Great journeys are like great novels: they
answer questions you never thought to ask.
Tony Mott
The Journey
ney
QSpirit.
It has hosted Hollywood’s
finest but on its 90th
birthday, Honolulu’s
Pink Palace is the star.
By Larissa Dubecki.
The Royal
Hawaiian
Hotel
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travelinsider.qantas.com.au
THE WORLD’S biggest (yet smallest) movie
star was at the height of her fame when she
alighted from the steamship Mariposa onto
a Honolulu pier to the cheers of thousands
of fans. It was July 29, 1935. Shirley Temple,
just seven years old, was riding on the crest
of her breakthrough performances in Stand
Up and Cheer! and Bright Eyes. In the space
of 12 months, the girl with the signature
ringlets had become Hollywood’s most
bankable actor.
Accompanied by her parents, George
and Gertrude Temple, the starlet was taking
a well-deserved 18-day holiday at The Royal
Hawaiian Hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/royal
hawaiian) on Oahu island. The so-called
Pink Palace of the Pacific, which opened
in 1927, was designed in Spanish-Moorish
style with cupolas and striking belltowers
(allegedly influenced by the films of Rudolph
Valentino). It was catnip to the Hollywood
glitterati, who first arrived by sea then by
air when Pan American Airways began its
weekly service in 1936.
Keen to please their popular young guest,
bartenders served a new drink (ginger ale and
a dash of vibrant pink grenadine, garnished
with a maraschino cherry) to Temple while
she dined in the hotel’s opulent Persian Room.
Another famous visitor drawn to the Pink
Palace’s charms was American president
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was such a fan
of the hotel that it was dubbed the Western
White House. And you could chart the tides
of popular culture via the stream of celebrity
guests, from Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe
and Joe DiMaggio to Natalie Wood, Robert
Wagner, Frank Sinatra and The Beatles.
Today, you can stay in the historic original
wing, where the rooms are decorated with
brocade wallpaper and plush carpets, much
like they were in young Temple’s
day. The Persian Room, where
the 14-piece Royal Hawaiian
Orchestra once played beneath
crystal chandeliers, is now the
Monarch Room, which hosts
banquets, balls and celebrations
– few more important than the
90th birthday of this local icon.
A Shirley Temple, anyone?
(From top) The hotel is
still pretty in pink; starlet
Shirley Temple received
a warm aloha in 1935
Matson Navigation Company Archives
Then & Now
QSpirit.
Tripping with...
MARK SEYMOUR
“The world is
divided into
campers and
non-campers
and my wife
is definitely
not a camper.”
Caravan holidays as a child and bleak
motel rooms on tour with Hunters &
Collectors would be enough to turn
any rock star five-star. Not this one.
Where did you go on your last trip?
I went to Kilcunda, about 1.5 hours southeast of Melbourne on the edge of Woolamai.
I always do it alone. It’s a beachside town,
very small, but back up behind it are these
little dairy farms and winding roads. I go up
there on my pushbike and absolutely smash
the hills and destroy myself. You get these
views of Wonthaggi and the coast stretching
all the way around to Phillip Island.
What was your typical childhood holiday?
My parents were teachers so we grew up
in country towns around Victoria, moving
between schools. We had caravan holidays
when I was a kid, at Port Fairy, Point
Lonsdale and Wye River. As we became
teenagers, the novelty started to wear off
but early on I loved them. On the Wye River,
the hillside was festooned with tiny holiday
cottages, the river wound between a narrow
gorge that led down to the beach and the
caravan park was kind of perched on a
bend in the river.
Where would you most like to take your kids?
They’re too old now [Eva, 23, and Hannah,
20] but we do go to Arrowtown, an old
INTERVIEW BY
ALISON BOLEYN
travelinsider.qantas.com.au
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QSpirit.
Tripping with...
goldmining town in New Zealand. My
wife [artist Jo Vautier] and Eva were born in
New Zealand so there’s a family connection.
My brother-in-law lives on a farm in Arrow
Junction, north-east of Queenstown.
It’s in a valley with big open pasture and
glacial lakes... We usually camp out on his
property for a couple of weeks and the
whole family gathers. I often do a gig there
at Christmastime, fairly homespun, in a
tiny little bar. The locals just show up – we
don’t promote it or anything – and the girls
get up and sing as well.
Do you wander the streets or check maps?
I’m very GPS. I enjoy driving and reflecting
and the GPS is a kind of compulsive thing.
Turning it on and just following instructions
connects something in my subconscious
– but let’s not go there. For a while I had
a TomTom and I downloaded the voice of
Ireland. She used to say [in an Irish accent],
“No! You’re not listening to me! You’re not
turning left!” That amused me but now
I stick to Google Maps.
Have you ever been on a road trip?
My career is built on travelling between
towns so I’ve never made the conscious
decision to drive as a specific way of
holidaying. I’ve done the Nullarbor Plain,
east to west, from Melbourne to Perth in
one go – which probably isn’t legal. Lots
of sleeping in wayside stops and takeaway
food. I wouldn’t do it again.
Do you prefer luxury or rustic travel?
The world is divided into campers and
non-campers and my wife is definitely not
Mark Seymour
loves the beautiful
old streetscapes of
Stockholm, Sweden
a camper. When we travel, she does all the
booking and has really good taste. But if I’m
alone, I sleep a little rougher. I like camping.
Is there a place that was a culture shock?
The United States is always challenging.
I used to jog a lot; I’d point myself in
a direction and find myself in places that
were quite confronting. I remember jogging
through the south of Dallas... and seeing all
that poverty.
When you walk into a hotel room, what’s
the first thing you do?
I have a set routine. First, I populate the
bathroom. Then I get out all my notebooks,
which I carry wherever I go, and put them
on the table. I just throw things everywhere
like I’m living there. Motel rooms can be
bleak and I’m moving in and out of them
a lot. I’ve stayed in some absolute fleapits.
What do you like to find in the minibar?
Just beer, really. I like Coopers Pale Ale.
Is there a city you could have given a miss?
Dare I say London? I know it’s probably
changed but I lived there for almost a year
in the early ’80s, when England’s economy
was on the bones of its arse and the IRA was
active. The band [Hunters & Collectors]
went through this dreadful period, a crisis
of identity, and we didn’t have a lot of
money. I remember doing these labouring
jobs in London, working illegally essentially.
Which destination was a surprise to you?
At my first gig in Cairns, I wasn’t expecting
much – I toured Queensland a hell of a lot
and thought it was just another town on the
coast – but those gigs are always interesting.
They’re a dynamic, diverse crowd... and an
attentive audience.
If you could be anywhere else in the world
right now, where would you be?
Stockholm, probably; I love Sweden.
Hunters & Collectors toured and had some
pretty decent chart action there for a while.
Stockholm is beautiful and old and has an
enormous amount of style. The Swedes are
intelligent and respectful and don’t think
twice about breaking into your language,
which I find incredibly humbling.
Are you over the constant travelling?
Mark Seymour performs Hunters & Collectors
classics and solo hits nationally from June 24
with The Undertow (frontiertouring.com). Their
album, Roll Back the Stone 1985-2016, is out now.
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travelinsider.qantas.com.au
Massimo Pizzotti
No, I enjoy travelling; I grew up doing it.
I like moving around and I love driving.
Otherwise I’d have stopped doing what
I’m doing. Travel is such a big part of
the job.