A demure woman prepares for a cooking demonstration at the Rundle Street Mall in Adelaide, Australia.

Her modest, long-sleeved brown and blue checked dress and her center-parted and feathered hair are picture-perfect late 1970s housewife — which makes sense, since it is 1981. She’s got a microphone to help raise her voice over the cheery mall music, and soon she’s ready to begin the creation of Murray River Punch.

“One of the most wonderful things about this beverage is you don’t have to buy anything much,” she says, as she busies herself over a portable gas burner.  She starts with deoxidized water, and then, using the exact cooking show patois and intonation that recalls Julia Child, calls for the next ingredient.

“A quarter cup of human urine,” she says.

“Just collect a bit of human urine and set it aside. To complement that, you should have some human feces. Here we are. Collect it in the morning…wrap it up to keep it fresh. So in that goes. Right. Now, chop it up…like so. As you know, sewage goes straight into the water so this is really quite an important ingredient to get the full effect, the taste of the punch. Mix it up with the hand blender. You can use an electric blender for doing this, too of course. But for public demonstrations I’ve found it much too noisy.”

And so it goes on, with the woman — actually, the experimental artist Bonita Ely — adding toilet paper  (“you don’t have to shred it or anything like that, as you know, toilet paper is very absorbent”),  fertilizer (“two tablespoons of fertilizer should do it, I should think. It’s an important addition of flavors to the drink”), European carp which were introduced into the river and became invasive, lots of salt, chemicals and insecticide. (“If you want to make this drink even more interesting, add a defoliant, like Agent Orange for instance. But I think we’ll just stick to the insecticide today.”)  And then she’s done.

“Oh, my mouth is just absolutely watering,” she says. “It looks absolutely wonderful.”

I saw stills of this performance in Melbourne last month at the Ian Potter Centre at the National Gallery of Victoria, part of the museum’s permanent collection of contemporary work, much of which had a strong political theme. (If you’re not getting to Melbourne any time soon,  watch and listen to the work here.)  Ely’s been following this troubled  South Australian river since 1977, and released a series of photographs in 2008 and from a time of drought in 2009.

You can talk about river pollution in terms of sediment, run-off, invasive foreign species and other abstractions for hours and hours, but nothing makes you understand the issue quite as well as watching how a particular river got that way — and contemplating the results in a decorative punch bowl, elegantly garnished with rabbit dung.

On Earth Day 2010, this Thursday, have a drink (of something else) to that.

For many New Zealanders, summertime means just one thing – time to pack up the tent and the kids and head for the great outdoors. It’s a popular pastime which had some people, due to the sale and subsequent closure of some iconic coastal campgrounds a few years ago, speculating on ‘the death of the campground’.

But fear not. It appears, even though the weather has been a little grey, wet, and cool,  camping in New Zealand is alive and well. In fact, rather than a decline, there has been a resurgence in the quintessential Kiwi camping holiday. Some say this is due to the recession while others think it’s due to nostalgia for the good old days. But whatever the cause, camping in New Zealand is definitely in vogue.

From the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island, New Zealand is a camper’s paradise, with over 800 auto-accessible campsites to be found at some the most spectacular locations around. Some of privately run, while others are maintained by the New Zealand government’s Department of Conservation.

A new book, Let’s Go Camping, by travel writers Sarah Bennett and Lee Slater in conjunction with the New Zealand Automobile Association, highlights just 66 of these sites. Enthusiastic campers, Bennett and Slater spent months travelling around New Zealand, testing out the campsites, and documenting their favourites.

With plenty of stunning photographs,  Let’s Go Camping might look more like a coffee table book than a campground guide. But start reading and you’ll soon discover it is jammed back with information, covering everything from how to camp to protecting the environment.

The book is laid out geographically, with two or three campgrounds highlighted in each region, followed by a more extensive AA listing of other campsites in the region.

For each of the hand-picked campgrounds, there is an in-depth review focusing not only on their special features but also the necessary practical and background information to help campers make an informed decision. There is also information on what to do in that selected area, covering everything from quirky cafes to hiking trails.

Bennett and Slater, who also wrote the definitive tramping book Don’t Forget Your Scroggin, have put in the miles and done their homework. Not only have they found the best campgrounds in the most stunning locations, they have also discovered (and reported) on those featuring exceptional facilities and ambience. As a result, those using Let’s Go Camping to plan their camping holiday are all but guaranteed to experience a quintessential New Zealand experience.

Adelaide, located on Australia’s southern coastline a mere 124 miles (200 kilometres) northwest of Melbourne, is one of Australia’s hidden gems. It might have a population of over 1 million, but Adelaide is, as Bill Bryson wrote in his book In a Sunburnt Country, “…the most overlooked of Australia’s principal cities …” It seldom gets a mention in the national media. And it’s often bypassed by tourists who flock instead to Sydney, Melbourne, and the Gold Coast.

In short, it’s a city seldom thought of. And that’s a shame really because, as I discovered on a recent four day visit, Adelaide has a lot going for it.

Wanting to find out as much about Adelaide as possible in the short time we were here, I had organized to be shown around by a tour guide from Our Explorer.com. The plan was to take a walking tour around the central city, learning not only about it’s history but also about it’s green sustainability practices. But an unexpected heatwave, with temperatures in the high 30’s and low 40’s Celcius put paid to that idea.

Instead,  we hopped onto Tindo, the free Solar Bus which offered not only air conditioning but a great overview of Adelaide. Gary Locke from Our Explorer provided a running commentary, pointing out various landmarks around the city, including the new green Convention Center on the banks of the River Torrens.

Along the way, I learned that unlike most of Australia’s large cities, Adelaide had been built by immigrants instead of convicts. And build they did, as is evident by the number of  Victorian buildings scattered around the city and  historic churches on every other street corner. But it wasn’t all about building.  More than  45% of the city was designated as green space, ensuring plenty of gardens, parks, and sports fields for residents to enjoy.

 I also discovered that the Adelaide Zoo was being upgraded to accommodate two Pandas due to arrive from China later this year (Note to self – return to Adelaide next year to visit with Pandas).

An hour later, we were back where we had started from and I had a much clearer understanding of not only what makes Adelaide special (beautiful buildings and wide open green spaces) but also the best places for food (the Central Market), drink (The National Wine Center of Australia), and, more importantly, where to find shade (any large tree in the Botanic Gardens). 

(Disclaimer: The OurExplorer tour guide was provided by the company free of charge)

On October 3rd, 6000 people turned out to commemorate the opening of a multi-million-dollar civic project the scope of which probably hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression. Of course, it’s hardly the Hoover Dam, or the Interstate Highway System, but it’s been decades since any federal or state government in the U.S. put serious money and backbreaking labor into a construction that exists purely to benefit the public at large. In a time when commuter bridges are falling apart or simply being shut down for safety purposes, it is astounding to see public funds poured into a pedestrian bridge crossing the Hudson River.

Much like the Hudson River it straddles, this bridge has been called “muscular.” Unlike the river, it is a solid, soaring relic of the Industrial Revolution. The Walkway over the Hudson is a project and organization that has attempted to achieve its goal in fits and starts for almost 20 years. Finally pushed through by state funding — in a year of recession, no less, when word was the entire project would be scrapped — to coincide with the Hudson Valley’s 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage, the bridge’s renovation was completed to almost everyone’s astonishment.

The railway bridge was originally built in the late 1800s to funnel coal from the mines of Pennsylvania across to New York and New England, and to service the industrial upstate New York city of Poughkeepsie, sitting on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. It was abandoned in the 1970s and left, basically, to rot.

Some say the renovation only went through because, while the Walkway project cost $38 million, it would have cost $60 million to dismantle the bridge, but who ever accused a politician of common sense, much less common fiscal sense? The acceptance and completion of the project seems to be a complete fluke, especially as two weeks later the only commuter bridge linking New York to Vermont across Lake Champlain was suddenly closed indefinitely due to fears of its safety, leaving commuters with a 100-mile detour.

Whatever its reasons, the fluke that allowed the Walkway over the Hudson to reach completion is to the benefit of anyone residing in or visiting the Hudson Valley. In a time when travel is too expensive for many and a need for community is growing, the pedestrian bridge seems to be feeding people’s need for something new, something local, something to be proud of, and yes, something free.

Witness last weekend, when we finally drove up to walk the bridge with some friends. We expected crowds, but we certainly didn’t expect the nearly 3000 people who soared with us at an unbelievable height across the river, pushing strollers, walking dogs, dodging bicycles and runners, and taking hundreds of photographs.

The bridge walk is 1.28 miles from end to end, and a loop slightly over 3 miles links the pedestrian bridge to a pedestrian path on the Mid-Hudson Bridge, which was built and is still used for cars. Eventually the Walkway will also link to abandoned railbeds that crisscross the Hudson Valley. Its eastern shore, consisting of post-industrial Poughkeepsie, ends relatively close to the train station, making the Walkway accessible for visitors taking the scenic Hudson train line up from Grand Central in New York City.

Its construction is impressively solid, and sports Historic Hudson and Environmental Hudson informational posters at various intervals. There is also a Talking Walkway, a number you can dial to receive an audio tour of the Walkway through your cell phone.

The project, of course, is not all roses. While it gives people like me hope out of all proportion for a future in which the public good is more important than private profits, the Walkway has had its issues. As we finished our walk, I spoke with two State Park employees who were changing the trash. The organization that’s been pushing the project, they told me, had been enthusiastic for 20 years but in the end had little idea of how to manage it. So they turned it into a State Park, “and now we’re stuck with figuring it out.”

I asked about the parking. We had expected, and found, parking problems on a beautiful autumn Sunday, but laughed aloud when we finally reached the parking lot itself. There were 10 spaces. “They were expecting about 100 people a day at best,” said the Park employees. “Nothing like this. They’re completely unprepared.” They waved at the Clovis toilets that I hadn’t noticed before. “We can’t even open the composting toilets because they can’t handle the volume. We’re too green!” That’s why the Port-a-Potties were still heavily in use, and, I might add, getting awfully full.

Winter is undecided. The bridge sits high above the Hudson River, and while the views are awe-inspiring, the winds can be strong and biting. No one has worked out how to remove built-up snow, and, said the Park employee, “You can’t just let people on if there’s snowdrifts because then the guardrails will be at an unsafe height.” Well, I wouldn’t have thought of that, either.

Still, the whole shebang seems better organized than the highway construction that’s in constant flux near our New York State Thruway entrance. And, judging by the sheer volume of visitors who repeated the phrase “Oh,yeah, it’s definitely worth the walk,” I’m not the only one who’s moved and inspired by a project designed simply to share the beauty and wonder of the Hudson Valley with anyone who cares to make the trek.

Green reports…

A new report from sustainability think tank Forum for the Future is warning that the tourism industry is likely to be hit hard in the coming decade as climate change and shifting demographics increase pressure on many resorts. 

Another report released this month, this time from the Natural Resources Defense Council,  identifies 25 national parks most at risk for impacts of climate change and offers 32 recommendations of specific actions the U.S. National Park Service can take to protect national parks and their resources.

Green flying…

Responsibletravel.com, a travel agent that specialises in responsible holidays, has been a long time champion of flyers offsetting their carbon emissions. But it’s now had a change of heart, stating that the travel industry needs to be focusing on reducing carbon emissions rather than offsetting them. Here’s why…

Meanwhile, All Nippon Airways (ANA), in an effort to go green, is asking all passengers to pee before boarding  . Apparently this simple act of relieving themselves prior to boarding could help the airline reduce it’s carbon footprint by 4.2 tons a month

Green hotels….

Most hotel guest throw away around two pounds of trash every day. And most it is trash that, if they were at home, they would probably recycle. Having in-room recycling bins would reduce this but according to hotels, the issue of trash recycling in hotels is a complicated issue.

Green Travel Gear…

In this day and age, no one travels without a re-charge or two or three. Mostly, it’s the type that you plug into a wall socket. But with more and more solar powered chargers, such as thepowermonkey-eXplorer, becoming available, maybe now is the time to make a change.

Green Food…

Love food. Love Travel. Want to be green? Why not become a culinary eco-tourist,  gathering foods from the wild and then learning how to prepare them in the kitchen.

Green Destinations….

If you are heading to Brisbane, Australia, be sure to check out the city’s brand new solar powered footbridge. Opened earlier this month, the bridge links Brisbane’s Central Business District and the South Bank art precinct. Featuring a complicated sun-powered LED lighting system that can produce a number of different lighting effects. Spanning 470 meters, the footbridge is considered one of the longest in the world.

And finally, this month’s green destinations include the U.S. Virgin Islands, Chicago, and Hawaii

Happy green travels…

(image source)