I thought I’d share some rad things I have seen this week whilst reacquainting myself with Australia.

The first was at Burragorang lookout. I climbed down some boulders and went off pathing. I noticed a bouquet of beetles and bent down to look at them, when I suddenly realised they were raining down on me from above. I looked up and there were thousands upon thousands on the cliff above me, a rippling wall of metallic green. It was then that I noticed they were carpeting the ground and trees around me. I got so many in my hair and I didn’t care. It was awesome!

The second rad thing was in Homebush Bay, Sydney. A shipwreck I went searching for because I love the idea of nature reclaiming abandoned, man-made things. It seemed like so much more of a triumph when the surrounding environment is being engulfed by ugly, high-rise apartments. A tranquil, floating forest.

Lekker knowing you Netherlands. I really enjoyed that -10 degree wind chill you threw for us as a farewell.

Maaaan, that’s a loooong flight. I was going so crazy by the end of it. I almost lost it when we had to keep circling Sydney for 20 minutes because of the massive storm. Lightning is crazy bright and much more unnerving when you are in a plane next to it.

How I’ve missed decent Australian storms! Saturday’s was pretty epic! It was so windy that the neighbour’s folded up beach umbrella shot like an arrow at mum’s colourbond fence and made it buckle. I was so excited that I stood on the barbeque yelling happily into the wind with my crazy little cat doing the same at my feet. She loves storms more than I do.

I forgot how much I love the smell here. Wet eucalypts, solar radiation and ants.  I’ve missed the constant sound of birds and cicadas with their loud promises of dry summer heat. I’m planning so many bushwalks, cliff top walks and mountain climbings. I’ve going to collect alllll the seedpods.

One big difference I’ve noticed though, is that Groningen didn’t have bogans. Have they multiplied greatly while I was gone or do they just stick out more to me?

So I guess this is Netherlaura over and out.

I’ve been doing a lot of serious thinking lately, and I’ve finally come to a conclusion.

If I could have any superpower, it’d be the ability to shapeshift into any animal I liked.

I’d spend a day as a Hoatzin, flapping about Guyana being stinky. Then I’d become a penguin, use an elephant seal as a trampoline, slide down hills on my belly and make a replica of Jackson Pollock’s blue Poles with my projectile poo. Then I’d become a shark and eat a politician or two. Or perhaps a shiny, black cannibal horse in Mt Kosciusko.

I had a class last year and I gave them the task of designing their own super heroes/villains. We were brainstorming super powers as a whole class to give each other ideas. There was the usual flying, super strength, invisibility etc, and then one boy said “the power of bees”. I got SOOO excited. It was such an awesome, outside the box, creative idea. I even got other kids into the idea by excitedly describing scenarios where I would shoot a swarm of bees out of my hands and they would attack and sting my enemies. Or they would vomit up honey to make my pursuers slip and get stuck in the sticky mess. Then they could form this buzzing, hovering mat and I would fly away on the swarm. At the height of my excitement, just after I’d put on my best, ominous superhero voice and yelled at the class “don’t mess with the POWER OF BEES!”, the boy put up his hand again and uttered…

“Sorry Mrs H, but I actually said the power to freeze”.

I was sooo disappointed.

But I just laughed and said “well that”s cool too. You can freeze my bees in mid flight when I throw them at you”.

Secretly though, I was thinking “AS IF!. Nothing could stop the power of bees!”

I still think it is an awesome idea. A very close second to animal shape shifting.

I am happy, sad and in between right now.

I am ecstatic to be returning to a place with warmth, topography, decent storms, friends, family and my crazy little cat. But I’m also pretty scared about how lost I will be when I get back. I think I need a different career and I don’t know what. I’d like to get back into an environmental based job, but I’d also like to use my art. We’re flat out broke, which is never a good time to have a not quite midlife crisis. We think we’ll have to share house with uni students or something for while in Wollongong. Knowing my luck, we’ll end up with someone who farts like a tractor and leaves narky post it notes complaining about all my paint and pencil shavings everywhere. God, I hate them already.

I’m also going to miss lots of things from here like…

– The canals and the old, Dutch architecture. Except maybe not the extremely steep staircases of doom. Nothing like having several drinks and being faced with one of those almost vertical Dutch staircases to and from the toilets. Flynn fell down the last few steps of one once, straightened up, faced the room and announced to the whole pub that he’d just taken the short cut.

– When the council can’t be bothered to mow the grass and gets farmers to bring flocks of sheep to wander the edges of the bike paths and the park and eat it instead.

– The sudden and insane transformation that is European Spring. Big, brightly coloured flowers pop up everywhere and plants grow as if they’re on steroids.

– Watching all the things the Dutch can do while they ride a bike. They’re texting and drinking a litre of milk with flowers under one arm and a ladder under another. It’s amazing.

– Being able to walk everywhere easily and thus, notice more things. Like that one of Captain Planet’s Planeteers has died…

or that this city defensive wall has a water gate that looks like the medieval version of Luna Park…

The town with this watergate also had an awesome crest.

– The ENORMOUS Herring gulls. Man I want one. I love their haughty, intimidating stare and the way they tapdance for worms.

– Tasting interesting beer that we can’t get in Australia. Except that sour beer I had recently. It tasted exactly like a big glass of malt vinegar. Don’t go there. This one was good for obvious reasons…

– The funny Dutch words like knuffel for hug, urinemonster for urine sample, slagroom for cream, handschoenen for gloves, honkbalhandschoenen for base ball gloves, snotterfilm for sad romance movie… the list is endless. Oh and this…

Alsjeblieft means please…

We are leaving soon. Only 2 weeks or so to go. It’s close enough and cold enough that I am getting unbearably itchy for home. I am spending my last days wandering the city and visiting my favourite spots.

Yesterday I wandered to the giant, rambly stadspark to take photos of animals and mushrooms.

I desperately wanted photos of the Great Spotted Woodpeckers that live there. I saw a documentary where David Attenborough knocked stones on a tree to mimic and attract woodpeckers, and decided to try it. I saw a whole family of 4 Woodpeckers and banged a tree with stones, exactly as Attenborough had done, to get them to come nearer.

Aaaand scared the f@#$%s off. Damn you Attenborough!

I pulled out a jar of peanut butter from my bag and started spreading it on nearby trees to coax them back. Unfortunately, all I ended up with were wide eyed, oh-my-god-look-at-the-crazy-person looks from an old man cycling passed. I later looked back on that moment and thought wistfully, how great it would’ve been had he been crazy too, and suddenly run over and vigorously licked up all my peanut butter from the mossy trunks. Sigh.

I did have a good 30 mins of watching an elusive red squirrel (so much cuter than the invasive American grey squirrel you see everywhere else) but he couldn’t be tricked with peanut butter either and I lost him when I got distracted by mushrooms. I think I unnerved a jogger who thought I was squatting in the bushes having a wee as well.

See him? He was so agile this is as good as I got.

So then I tried to get a duck to take a selfie.  I would’ve succeeded too had my phone not died.

Come to think of it, it was a complete and utter failure of a mission. Unless my aim had been to look like a nutter and weird out Dutch people. Then I did an awesome job
Gold star, Laura, gold star.

There are lots of things I will miss about the Netherlands. But let’s just focus on the fungus.

The mushrooms here are fabulous! They have such confidence. They seem to grow anywhere and everywhere without a care. It’s as if they are screaming “we’re mushrooms, baby, so suck spores!”

Here are a few from my mushroom diaries. I’m sure if you ate any of them you’d hallucinate like crazy and then have your insides liquidize and ooze out your eyes, but that makes me love them even more. Such a delicate organism not to be messed with or underestimated.

The first ones I found yesterday growing from the planks of this old jetty. I  squealed like a little girl.

My final Netherlands seed pod sculpture. As soon as I get back to Australia, I’m going to start collecting for my Australian seed pod series.

Oh God, please let customs allow me to bring them into the country.

This is my latest sculpture made entirely from sticks, seeds, seed pods and leaves.

Not entirely sure I’ll be able to bring them back to Australia through customs, but I’m going to try.

I really like this little guy. He is a fruit bat.

I made a friend!!! The first openly friendly Dutch person I’ve come across in this province who seemed happy to just stop and talk to me. I met him among the flowers. He is in his mid-fifties, made me coffee, pointed out some good orchids to photograph and showed me his poisonous frogs. We talked about animals and he gave me orchid seed pods for my art. He has a friend in Amsterdam who keeps wallabies in his 3rd floor apartment.

It was nice. For a brief while I felt like I existed here.

 

I went back to Arnhem because I like the undulating ground beneath my feet. I spent the day exploring traditional old Dutch houses and wandering about with windmills.

Then I spent a few hours tramping up and down the forested hills of the Sonsbeek park with just the birds for company. Oh and that man I said hello to as I accidently crashed through the bushes, destroying his serene wee.