Concert Etc

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Tuesday continued to be cloudy and humid, with some light showers during the afternoon – not good washing drying weather!

After lunch we decided to take a drive to Yarrabah, on the opposite site of Trinity Inlet – we have never been that way before. It was necessary to go nearly all the way to Gordonvale before turning east and drove through sugar fields, as well as taro and banana plantations, before meeting the sea. This was a rather beautiful section of road as we wound along the coast line, with views across the mangrove swamps towards the city of Cairns. There were some lovely little coves; archetypical tropical living for some lucky locals (not forgetting the crocodile inhabitants!). The road into Yarrabah was very steep (20% gradient) with, again, some spectacular views over the Aboriginal community towards the Coral Sea and Green Island on the horizon.

Tuesday evening we attended a concert by Avan Yu, the winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition. The 24 year old, Hong Kong born Canadian, treated us to a varied programme included Barcarolle Op 60 in F Sharp Major (by Chopin), Fantasy Op 17 in C Major (Schumann), the first six studies of Debussy’s Etudes Premier Livre (and some absolutely fantastic finger work!!!) and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 12. Numerous curtain calls resulted in two encores – Debussy and Chopin. Avan could certainly play the piano – he was nearly up to Shan Deng’s standard (unbiased opinion, of course) – and was definitely appreciated by the audience.

Yesterday’s humidity was fairly mild compared to today – very, very sticky. Of course, when it gets hot, the hot go shopping! Grocery shopping isn’t all that exciting, but at least the shopping centre was air conditioned.  Our new awning has arrived again (third time lucky, hopefully), so all the neighbours will get excited and think we are leaving again as we start to take down our screens ready for a very early start tomorrow morning.