Masseys More than just another village Shop

For those who couldn’t make the event – here’s the report on Chris Gibson’s latest talk in Whittlesford – on gardening to conserve wildlife.

Posted under Quite Interesting, Whittlesford

A short while ago, this suspicious looking character was seen lurking in the telephone booth at Great Shelford.

A closer look revealed a shady character in old fashioned attire with a dodgy moustache. He appeared to be trying to make an urgent call.

It turns out that Great Shelford Parish Council has purchased their red telephone booth from BT and has found a novel use for it.  School children are placing interesting characters in the phone booth, then writing about who they are and what they might be discussing on their call. In this instance, Guy Fawkes was taking advantage of modern technology – presumably to plot with his co-conspirators.

Many thanks to Amanda Chamberlain for letting us share her photos.

If anyone else has interesting local photos to share, do please let us have them. We’d love to share them here.

Posted under Quite Interesting

Renault Formula 1

This is a reminder that the Renault Formula 1 team will be testing their engine at the Imperial War Museum Duxford on Wednesday 29th July.

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We had the best intentions of posting more news as we progressed along our trip, but patchy access to the internet and a busy schedule got in the way – so the second part of our travel diary in being posted after we’ve got back. Many of you may already have seen Marc in the shop and chatted about the trip – but here’s the rest…

Lennox Head is delightful. Its small surfing community which is just about a perfect size. Its famous amongst surfers for its right hand break – something which we were told only occurs there and at Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa. One of the delights of Lennox is its gorgeous seven mile beach – perfect for good long walks.

The place is so unspoiled that we had an up-close encounter with 3 pelicans, and came across this little creature on the beach – wierd looking, but quite attractive in its own colourful way.  And not as camera-shy as you might expect.

Our next stop was the Dorrigo National Park to spend some time in the rainforest.  This section of our journey didn’t go quite to plan. Dorrigo’s catch phrase is ,”Where the Mountains Touch the Sky” – which is roughly where our car broke down. About 85% of the way up the mountain, in the middle of the rainforest, by our estimation. Although the scenery was gorgeous, civilisation was pretty thin on the ground at that point.

With the help of some very down-to-earth local characters, we limped into Dorrigo. This place is serene and very beautiful, possibly because its rather remote and very small. So small in fact that the parts required to repair the car had to be ordered in which meant we stayed an extra day. Di and Paul, who run Tallawalla were fantastically accomodating and we were able to extend our stay with them for one more night and have a relaxing day in front of their fireplace while we waited for the car to be repaired. We spent an afternoon exploring the rainforest, and found time to spend some time with Juan at ‘The World’s Smallest Motorcycle Museum’.

And then on to Sydney for 5 days. A bit of time for markets and IMAX, catching up with friends, a visit to Sydney’s famous fish market for lunch, and the Darwin exhibition at the Maritime Museum. Having seen the exhibitions at London’s Natural History Museum, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, it was interesting to get an Australian perspective on his work. Sadly, we were a bit too late to explore the replica of HMS Endeavour, but we did have a good close up look at her from the outside. When you consider that she carried 96 men, sailing across the world was an amazing feat!

We took a drive out to the Blue Mountains and spent a day in the area around Katoomba. To reach the old coal mine near the famous Three Sisters, the first part of the journey entails a roller-coaster-like descent on ‘The World’s Steepest Railway’. And steep it most certainly is. Safely enclosed in caged seats, passengers have the experience of their carriage quite literally going over the cliff edge. Once at the bottom, the forest floor reveals some sobering clues about the life of the coal miners. The bleak setting of a miner’s cottage is stark contrast to our modern lifestyle. This kitchen area is a graphic example.

Given the fact that the shop’s wine range includes some Australian vintages, a visit to Hunter Valley was definitely on the agenda. Although we were told that Hunter Valley has been less renowned than some of the other wine producing areas in Australia, there is a regeneration taking place.

Hunter Valley is filled with small boutique wineries, many of which are owned by large producers who export the wines from their other vineyards. The wines produced in Hunter Valley are almost exclusively for local sale only. We thought this a great pity as we had some very pleasing samples there and bought our fair share of bottles to take back to Sydney with us.

Our last few days were spent back in Sydney with old friends before we started the very long journey home.  A great trip and if anyone would like details of the places we’ve visited – if we’ve tempted you to go and experience it yourself – just drop us a line or ask Marc when you see him in the shop.

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Two days of travelling took its toll initially, but now that we’ve had 3 days on the ground here in Australia, the Masseys are starting to feel more human again.

We stopped over for a couple of hours in Malaysia on the way over. Kuala Lumpur is definitely a city of extremes. At one end of the scale, the Petronus Towers dominate the landscape of air-conditioned glass and marble shopping malls interspersed with perfectly manicured tropical gardens. Here, globally recognised brand names demonstrate their ubiquity – Harrods makes two appearances along with the usual suspects, Calvin Klein, Armani, et al. Much of the rest of the city is the real urban Malaysia with small local shops, marketplaces and bustling, noisy crowds.

Naturally, we tend to keep an eye out for interesting ideas for the shop – one that struck us as charming (although not necessarily for Masseys) was this fish tank stand we found when we went out for breakfast after landing in Sydney. The old television casing is the genuine article, once proudly owned by the proprietor’s parents, and now effectively recycled as unusual restaurant décor.

One night in Sydney to refresh and get some sorely needed sleep, and we were on the road up to our first stop, South West Rocks. This is a charming seaside community, which we could imagine would be steaming with holiday-makers in peak season. As it was, being low season, we had the pleasure of an early morning walk in this tranquil place with very few other people around. The estuary was magically still with flocks of egrets nesting in groups in the distance.

And then it was off on the second leg of our journey. But before we left South West Rocks, we took a drive up to Smoky Cape lighthouse. This is the highest lighthouse in New South Wales, a fact we could endorse having hiked up the steep hill to reach it. Here we saw, in the distance, our first whale breaching. Unfortunately, it was too far off to be able to tell whether it was a Southern Right whale or a Humpback. (Smoky Cape lighthouse trivia – in 1964, the lighthouse had to be manually operated when the assistant lighthouse keeper blew the power by plugging in his electric frying pan. Bet he was popular!)

We’ve now reached Lennox Head where we’re actually staying still for a few days. The whales are still travelling down the coast so with luck we’ll have another opportunity to see if we can identify one of these glorious beasties from its flume. We learned that the humpback produces a single spout, and the Southern Right creates two branches. More in a few days…

Posted under Quite Interesting