28/04/2012 by Julie Mundy
50. Australia
There is an ease about being in Australia:
It is Country knowing I belong regardless of my skin.
And the inexplicable sense of rightness I have
when I step off that plane from journeys far
and smell the air that is Australia,
and walk the very earth that is me.
jpm
Thank you to all of you who have followed me on my 50 words travels over the last year, for your encouragement and enthusiasm. I hope you have had some laughs, wondered a little, and maybe had some tears as well, remembering your own journeys through the lens of my words. I feel that by recording this little autobiography, I am all ready for Chapter 2. How exciting to look forward to adventures new and places unknown. I can’t wait.
Travel well,
Julie
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Australia, home, home country, journeys, poem, Poetry, Travel, words, writing | 13 Comments »
22/04/2012 by Julie Mundy
49. SCOTLAND (Knoydart Peninsula, November 2001)
The official certificate says our place of marriage was
Latitude 57°02’27N, Longitude 5°43’52W.
Simple numbers telling the story of a rugged Knoydart hillside,
overlooking Skye,
twixt Heaven and Hell,
surrounded with joy.
On a late autumn morning, colours saturated from weeks of rain.
And a shaft of startling sunlight pierced the clouds.
jpm
The Knoydart Peninsula juts out into the sea between Loch Hourn (meaning hell) to the north, and Loch Nevis (heaven) to the south.
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Inverie, Isle of Skye, Knoydart, marriage, outdoors, poem, Poetry, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, walking, wedding, Western Highiands | 5 Comments »
14/04/2012 by Julie Mundy
48. Denmark
In Copenhagen, homely Rosenberg Castle sits modestly in the King’s Gardens.
Surprising then, the magnificence of the three silver lions guarding the Thrones.
Staring down tourists through all-seeing eyes, challenging still across the Ages.
And in the Harbour, the Little Mermaid sits modestly, too, and waits for her Prince.
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Copenhagen, Denmark, Poetry, Rosenberg Castle, The King's Gardens, the Little Mermaid, Travel | 1 Comment »
07/04/2012 by Julie Mundy
47. SINGAPORE (Isetan Palace, 1st Sunday of the Month @ 610pm)
They’re changing the guards at Isetan Palace, and somehow, Glen Miller is playing with Alice.
Pomp and circumstance with a stirring of showbiz glitz.
Curiouser and curiouser …..
Singapore’s tightly coralled residents ooh! and ahh! to the Westpoint-style gun throwing and foot stamping show,
Singapore’s ‘new tradition’.
Jazz hands and all!
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged changing the guard, Isetan Palace, miltary, poem, Poetry, Singapore, Travel, Travel writing | 4 Comments »
31/03/2012 by Julie Mundy
46. Poland
There’s an uneasy gloom in the late autumn afternoon.
My solitary footsteps clatter on cement paths between rows of silent, brooding barracks.
I throw the power switch, step inside
and the lights clack on like dominoes falling.
Auschwitz deserted but for me and the tears of millions of mortal souls.
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Auschwitz, concentration camps, genocide, poem, Poetry, Poland, prose, Travel, WWII | 1 Comment »
24/03/2012 by Julie Mundy
45. Wales
My god it’s cold out here.
Seeping, insidious, creeping cold.
Stealing up from the ground underneath my tent, pitched in the lee of Offa’s Dyke –
Idiot I am to have forgotten my camp mat in the middle of winter.
Thermals irrelevant: might as well be naked.
How long till dawn?
jpm
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Posted in camping, Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged camping, Offa's Dyke, poem, Poetry, Travel, Travel writing, Wales, weather | 3 Comments »
14/03/2012 by Julie Mundy
The train, along with the entire country, grinds to a halt.
For three days.
Goat innards, strung out to dry with the washing,
mark the start of Eid
in baking El Jem.
Dusty streets are strangely silent
as families break fast together
beneath the ancient gaze of Rome’s crumbling colosseum.
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Eid, Eid al Fitr, El Jem, El Jem Amphitheatre, poem, Poetry, Roman Ruins, Travel, Travel writing, Tunisia | Leave a Comment »
09/03/2012 by Julie Mundy
Peering into Vermeer,
I saw the light of a soft human face peering back at me: fresh, real.
Singing with life.
350 years old.
If I reached out and poked her delicate features, would she say ’ouch’?
More likely, the unsmiling guards would poke the ‘ouch’ out of me instead.
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged art, Art Exhibitions, Mauritshuis Museum, poem, Poetry, THe Hague, Travel writing, Vermeer | Leave a Comment »
24/02/2012 by Julie Mundy
42. South Africa
At Table Mountain, the cable car floats us serenely above the hunkering Flats of Capetown.
The air is scorched by the sunset, but clear of the fetid undercurrent of bravado and fear
that lurks beneath the city’s civilian clothing.
In the far distance, Robben Island: brittle birthplace of a nation.
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Cape Flats, Capetown, Nelson Mandela, poem, Poetry, Robben Island, South Africa, Table Mountain, The Flats, Travel, Travel writing | 1 Comment »
16/02/2012 by Julie Mundy
OK, so this week, you have a choice of two ’50 words’ – sometimes I write more than one, because of course there are many indelible ‘moments’ when travelling, and this week I couldn’t decide what mood I was in, so you have a bit of both – light and dark:
41. New Zealand
41.a
So there I am – girly heaven:
wallowing in an outdoor cast iron bath,
hot water swirling,
(bubbles of course)
champagne glass to hand.
Head lolling on the edge of the tub.
Admiring the endless mountainscape of the aptly named ‘Remarkables’.
Nothing but steam and immodesty between me and the view.
jpm
41.b.
On the Franz Josef Glacier, it’s all so unexpected.
The ice is not white, but an unearthly blue,
and it’s not cold and silent, but alive with unexpectedly human sounds
groaning, creaking, squealing, grinding.
I hold my breath,
step tentatively.
Somehow to still the lumbering giant:
Unstoppable author of landscapes
jpm
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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing | Tagged Arrowtown, backpacking, glacier, New Zealand, poem, The Remarkables, Travel | 4 Comments »
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50 words for 50 countries 