From Kongwak to Vanuatu via Hawaii: Volcanoes and other eruptions

There are things in the universe that are rumbling tonight in 'I heart post' headquarters; ominous 'things' are occurring... the tectonic plates of my little world are creaking just a little. The volcanoes are not exactly erupting, but I think the hot springs are beginning to boil.

The feeling of things being afoot came this afternoon when Ferret (my sister) told me a bushfire was dangerously close to my hometown. Turns out that things on that front should be just fine for my parents (touch wood), but the fire is dancing around other little hamlets in the bush near my parent's place. I hope that everyone is okay.

The other major thing that happened tonight (on a much less dramatic, and more insular Helen-scale) is that it looks like I  need to find a new housemate. My sister Elspeth has gotten an amazing opportunity to work in Vanuatu! Wow! Congratulations Elspeth. But oh no... what am I to do? No sister to go jogging with :( No sister to have coffee with in the morning. This is bad for Helen. Great for Elspeth though, so I will try not to be too selfish about the whole thing. And besides, now I get to plan a holiday to Vanuatu! Hooray! Everyone's a winner!

Now these postcards I am sharing with you are not of Vanuatu. They are from Hawaii... but Vanuatu has volcanoes too - and Elspeth is going to be living right near one. Scary! But exciting. I love climbing volcanoes - I have climbed one in Indonesia (Kawah Ijen, with an amazing sulfur lake in its crater) and one in New Zealand (Mount Tongariro... it erupted last year!). But I am yet to see lava. Although the thought of molten lava makes me a tremble a little - I totally want to see some! (But no bushfires. I definitely do not want to see bushfires).

Anyhow, my volcano postcards come from an album that contains not only postcards from Hawaii, but postcards from Hollywood and Disneyland too. They are a collection of postcards that I bought from the Kongwak market, that are in an old-school photo album collated lovingly by someone after a trip to the US in the 70s. It is possibly my favourite market buy of all time.

I love how 70s the images are, and the colours. I mean - doesn't the picture above look like a villan's lair from a classic Bond film? I love it. I have been meaning to share this wicked collection of postcards ever since I started this blog, so please savour all the retro-goodness:

So as I wind up this post, just before I head off to bed, it seems that a quick check of the Country Fire Authority website indicates that the status of the bushfire warnings have all been downgraded, and things are under control. Now for me to stay under control while I come to grips with the prospect of no Elspie for 12 months. Thoughts of visiting Vanuatuan volcanoes are helping.

Geology and gemstones: Sunday Stamps

The challenge this week on Viridian's Sunday Stamps was to share a stamp featuring something related to geology. I get pretty excited about rocks these days, so I thought this was quite a wonderful, broad topic. Australia has issued several stamps featuring Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), which is arguably the country's most famous geological marvel. A sandstone monolith, that turns red at dawn and dusk, Uluru is magnificent.

However, given the scope and possibilities for the theme 'geology' I was hoping that I could come up with something a little bit more exciting than the standard Uluru stamps. (That said, there is nothing 'standard' about Uluru itself. It is an awe-inspiring and magical place, and it deserves its iconic status.)

Anyhow, it turns out we don't celebrate rocks (or geology) enough in our stamps issues. I wanted to find a cool stamp with some sort of graphic representation of tectonic plates or volcanic eruptions, or something. But no. What I did find was opals and gemstones. Sort of cool, but not earth-moving, geological-time encapsulating, rock strata-depicting, mind-blowing cool. Just 'reasonably-pretty' kind of cool.

These stamps featuring the opals were issued in 1995 and were the first 'holographic' stamps issued by Australia Post. I was worried that opals wouldn't fit with the geological theme if they are minerals and not strictly speaking rocks, but it turns out they are actually classified as 'mineraloids.' And according to that most reliable source, Wikipedia, they can be found in the fissures of almost any rock.

My scientific education is sorely lacking, but from what I gather minerals are not rocks. Rocks are composed of minerals. So therefore it is fine to include opals in a post about geology, which in part is about rocks (but is not the study of rocks, because that is petrology).

Anyhow, moving right along. Opals are also Australia's national gemstone. The first time opals featured on a stamp was in 1973 when the 8c opal stamp was part of a definitive issue, which combined the bizarrely unrelated topics of 'gemstones and marine life'.

I haven't heard of chrysoprase before, but it looks a hell of a lot like Kryptonite, don't you think? Gemstones are basically pretty minerals. The earth is composed of rocks, which are composed of minerals; and whilst petrologists study rocks, and mineralogists study minerals, geologists study the earth. Minerals are cool, but volcanoes and tectonic plates are cooler. The end.

Island Airmail: Sunday Stamps

This Sunday I heart post comes to you direct from my Dad's study. I am home visiting  my parents, and also my sister who has just flown back to Australia after living in Sweden for the past couple of years. (Welcome home Elspeth!). So for this week's Sunday Stamps, I decided to flick through my Dad's collection of First Day Covers from when he was a boy, to find something suitable for the theme of 'the post'. Any regular readers of this blog would know that I am particularly fond of 'post' and choose to define it broadly.

Although I did not find any stamps with post boxes or stamps on them - I did find two covers celebrating airmail. The one above is from Western Samoa (which has now dropped the 'Western' from its name and is officially the Independent State of Samoa).

Also within Dad's collection I found another contemporaneous cover celebrating airmail from Papua and New Guinea, also issued in July 1970.

The stamps are very nice, with the planes flying over volcanoes (after my recent trip to Indonesia I am most definitely into volcanoes: almost to the point of starting a second blog called "I heart volcanoes"). But the other thing I like about the PNG cover is the stylised image of Australia and Papua and New Guinea linked by the plane. Pretty cool. 

I am seriously starting to wonder why I loved just plain old stamps all these years, when I could have been loving first day covers, which are stamps with the added bonus of designs on envelopes and fancy postmarks. Who knows why I was so slow to catch on, but the important thing is now my passion for post has enlarged to definitely include FDCs. And when airmail and volcanoes are involved, it is just the icing on top!

For other post related blogs this weekend, check out Viridian's Sunday Stamps through the button above. Happy Sunday!

Adventures in Indonesia

Hello friends, followers and strangers in cyberspace! Lovely to be back online and touching base with the blogosphere. I have just returned to Melbourne after a very fun, jam-packed and delicious two-week sojourn to Indonesia. I was hanging out in Java mostly, but I also managed to spend a couple of days on Bali, embracing my inner bogan.

And whilst I indulged in a LOT of lounging by poolsides, I also managed to climb a couple of volcanoes, hit some hot springs and visit many exquisite temples. I jumped aboard an overnight train, a couple of ferries, hitched rides in minibuses, and I even once caught an ojek - a motorcycle taxi. It was a very grand adventure.

Yep, I had fun.

And I of course found some time for post. First off, in my hunt for post, I went to the Bandung post office. When I buy stamps overseas for my postcards, I always get a few extra for my stamp album. However, I was a very lazy tourist who didn't have much (ok, any) Indonesian (I learnt how to say 'thank-you': terima kasih)- so I walked up to the counter with a smile and asked in English for some stamps to go on postcards to send to Australia, and if it wasn't too much trouble, it would be great if they could be beautiful, because I collect stamps. Terima kasih! (insert big smile here).

The post office lady  looked at me somewhat blankly, but then retreated out the back, and came back with her supervisor, and a whole bunch of these stamps:

She apologised and said that she was sorry, they only had this one design for stamp collectors! I was thrilled! What a great stamp! So I bought several for my postcards, and kept one as a souvenir. Perfecto. Thankyou wonderful post office lady.

But later that day, I hit the post jackpot, when I stumbled upon this little store:

Inside, there was all sorts of trash and treasure... and amongst everything, there were all these vintage first day covers pinned up for sale. Oh yeah: pay dirt!

So, in this little store in Bandung, which I had just stumbled upon while wandering around the city by myself for the day, I managed to find some great post souvenirs to take home and add to my collection. 

The one above is my favourite because it ticks all the right boxes. It:

             a) includes maps with stamps on them,

             b) is postmarked Bandung, the city where I was staying, and

             c) is commemorating a solar eclipse, which makes it just generally COOL. 

And this one not only  includes a map stamp... it is a map stamp with an airmail envelope. Double cool. I actually really like the designs of all these stamps. Here is a closer look:

And again with the Bandung postmark. 

I was pretty thrilled with my haul of FDC postal goodies. But then, once I started asking the guys behind the counter about the covers, they then bought out all these stamp albums for me to look at. Unfortunately I couldn't just buy the stamps I wanted, I had to buy the whole album. So I did. Anyhow, these are a couple of the best stamps from the album I bought:

Yep - stamps celebrating Homo erectus. Wicked.

As you might be able to tell from the scans, some of the stamps were individually wrapped in plastic. That too made me happy (such a careful action, to wrap a stamp so delicately!).

The album is pretty cool... so watch this space. It warrants a blog post all to itself, so at some stage I will scan the album and share it.

Anyhow, in short, my Indonesian holiday was wonderful. And I am excited to have some post to remind me of such a fun trip. And just to be a bit self-indulgent and rub it in, I will sign off with a few little holiday snaps: