Gl50 sample

WIN A $19,000 NORTHERN LIGHTS ADVENTURE

see PAGe 44 for detAils

issue 50//$9.95 GsT included

getlostmagazine.com

F ol low ing t he inc a t r a il

w e s t c oa s t wonde rl a nd

a V ine t ime

c a n a da’s w il d side

Discover ancient Peru

Walk Germany’s wine country

The other side of Bali

Whales, bears and waves

ISSN 1449-3543

AUSTRALIA | chInA | IReLAnd | mAcAU | nAmIbIA | ScoTLAnd | USA

94 From a glass cube in the Italian Alps to an overwater bungalow offering barefoot luxury, these are the world’s most incredible places to lay your head

48

pERU

58

cAnADA

living the high life while exploring the Andean Mountains

InDonESIA

Vancouver Island shows off a nature-lover’s smorgasbord

74

GERMAny Hike a land of crumbling castles and fine wine in the Rhine Valley 8 get lost ISSUE 50

66

There’s still a little-explored side to Bali, and we know where to find it

82

AUSTRAlIA Swim with filter-feeding giants on ningaloo Reef

88

nAMIBIA A photographer’s connection to the Himba people

get in the know Due to tectonic movement, Australia is travelling seven centimetres north every year.

WIN

contents

mera, 10 Olympus cares tours, 17 tu Urban Adven bag, 19 Paklite hts Northern lig 4 4 trip,

38 74

58

128

66

48

n w

88

82

e s

38

Festival Rock MUSIc HEAVEn In Bon ScoTT’S HoMEToWn

128

like a local no onE knoWS BEIJInG BETTER THAn A locAl GUIDE

24 HoT FIVE

132 FooD

Travel happenings around the globe

Experiences beneath the ground

Honest fare in northern Ireland

19 HAppy SnApS

28 yoU WISH

134 pHoToGRApHy

14 on THE RADAR

Send us your photos and win!

20 plAcES To STAy The weird and wonderful

22 Top TRIpS

Get going in a group

Husky rides and hot tubs in snowy USA

30 GET pAckInG

Four days of adventure in Macau

32 AFTER DARk

138 TRAVEl JoB

Facing big cats and biting bugs is all in a day’s work

140 BARS

How to make your landscape shots pop

Drink it down

137 MUSIc

142 REVIEWS

The north American festival that confounded promoters

There’s a lot more to nashville than country music

get in the know Researchers at the University of Ghent have converted urine into water. They now plan to turn it into beer.

All the gadgets you’ll need

144 conFESSIonS

crossing the Atacama by bike

ISSUE 50 get lost 9

Frame your view winner

D

uring a beautiful three-Day trek in the remote Shan state of Myanmar, we were warmly welcomed into a family home for lunch. three generations lived here and were going about their simple daily lives as we waited for our much needed refuelling. the mother was nursing a newborn, the father made sure we were resting comfortably, the grandmother busily prepared our lunch, the grandfather methodically weaved his rope, and the young child pictured played an innocent game of ‘hide from the photographer’ under a dusty doormat. luckily, his eyes met my lens at just the right moment.

• Olympus OM-D e-M1 • Olympus M. Zuiko Pro 12–40mm f/2.8 Pro • iSO 1000, f/2.8, 1/80 sec Congratulations to Adam Grinpukel, who’s won an Olympus camera for entering this shot.

Think you’ve got a winner?

Send us your best travel photos for a chance to win an Olympus OM-D e-M10 Mark ii, valued at au$999, plus a double-page spread in the magazine! this stylish, compact, interchangeable-lens camera is perfect for travel. it has five-axis image stabilisation, built-in flash and a range of creative in-camera functions. olympus.com.au

to enter, send your photos to competitions@getlostmagazine.com. t&Cs at getlostmagazine.com.

The neon lights are bright on Nashville’s Lower Broadway.

32 get lost ISSUE 50

It’s a big city with a small town vibe, and a musical heritage that dates back a century. Carrie Hutchinson heads to Tennessee to discover another side to the home of country music.

Photography by Carrie Hutchinson

ISSUE 50 get lost 33

Image: Emily B Hall

W

Alk AlOng lOWER BROAdWAy, downtown nashville’s main strip, and you’ll hear the songs of country legends spilling out the doors of honkytonks. you’ll also stumble across the Ryman Auditorium, known as the mother church of country music and the original home of the grand Ole Opry. But it is possible to have fun here even if your appreciation for the likes of Johnny Cash, dolly Parton or george Jones is somewhat limited. Be warned though: music is hard to avoid on a night out. Everyone you meet seems to be a writer or a musician (or both) looking for their big break. The arrival in the city of Jack White, the kings of leon and the Black keys, other indie bands like JEFF the Brotherhood, and even bands that cross the rock–country divide – the Cadillac Three and Old Crow Medicine Show, for example – means there’s now a lot more to the scene than songs about pretty girls, pick-up trucks and whiskey.

The other staple of a night out in nashville is booze, so pull on your best boots, download the Uber app (it’s the only way to get around) and prepare to meet some interesting characters.

Eat your fill of southern classics at Acme Feed & Seed.

4.45pm

8pm

There’s no better way to get your bearings than on a tour. Unless it’s on a tour complete with beverages. The Nashville Pedal Tavern takes off several times a day on a number of different rolling pub crawls. Pedal away on the Midtown tour and you’ll see Music Row – home of record labels, publishing houses and recording studios – and stop at bars where the locals drink, including neighbours, Winners Bar & Grill and Losers Bar. It’s not all necking shots and skolling beers though, because you’re powering the tavern through the streets. Getting it going is the hardest part, and there are plenty of traffic lights, stop signs and hills with which to contend.

Drinks can be downed on the pedal tavern too, but you have to bring your own (no glass).

A couple of cans of beer will work, although boozy iced tea, a Southern staple, poured into gallon milk jugs isn’t unheard of. nashville Pedal Tavern nashvillepedaltavern.com

There’s just one way to kick a Nashville night into high gear and that’s with a bushwacker.

“This is the best place to do it, and Wednesday is the best day to do it,” says the barkeep at Edley’s Bar-B-Que. (If you’re wondering about Wednesdays, it’s because prices drop from US$8 to $5.) A bushwacker, which is thought to have originated somewhere in the Caribbean, has somehow now become something of a Nashville tradition. It is basically a frozen milkshake made with two types of rum, including Bacardi 151, “which is what gives it so much kick”, and two liqueurs in coffee and chocolate variations. A squirt of Hershey’s chocolate syrup decorates the glass, which is then filled from a slushie-style machine. It doesn’t taste too boozy, but there are actually almost four shots of alcohol in each serve. One bushwacker will give you a quiet buzz; a second might just put you on your arse.

Edley’s Bar-B-Que 2706 12th Avenue S edleysbbq.com

7pm

The Pedal Tavern.

34 get lost ISSUE 50

After two hours cranking that moveable bar around, you’ll need to refuel. Right at the bottom of Broadway is one of the city’s coolest venues. Acme Feed & Seed is spread across three floors in what was Nashville’s first reinforced concrete building – it has housed all sorts of businesses, from a flour mill to the Acme Feed and Hatchery, which operated here for more than five decades, before the whole lot was closed up and left to sit vacant. Now, the ground floor has good food, beer on tap and live music, a lounge area on the second floor is home to regular events like the Geeks Who Drink Wednesday trivia night, and there’s an event-slash-music space up top. There’s also a rooftop bar, with views right up Broadway and over the Cumberland River. Watch the sun set with an Acme Rooster Brew (created by local Fat Bottom Brewery) then grab some pulled pork tacos, a beef brisket sandwich or slowroasted short ribs downstairs.

Acme Feed & Seed 101 Broadway theacmenashville.com

Edley’s bushwacker.

get in the know When the Musica statue, featuring a number of nude dancers, was unveiled on the Music Row roundabout in 2003 it drew the ire of religious and parenting groups.

after dark NASHVILLE 9pm If you were to say to us “bar with bowling lanes” we’d want to permanently reserve a spot. But that’s just one of the reasons to love Pinewood Social. It’s all a bit industrial-hip and represents a newer Nashville where acoustic guitars are far from everyone’s minds. The Social has plenty to recommend it, including a pool and bocce court outside, a restaurant, cocktails and coffee bar inside and some outstanding people watching (yes, Jack White has been seen here). Our tip, at this time of night, is to grab a jug of Tennessee Brew Works Southern Wit Belgian white ale and lace up your shoes. There are six vintage lanes reclaimed from an old Bowl-O-Rama in Indiana, and each can host up to six players for just US$40 an hour. That’s what we call a strike.

(And tomorrow morning, if you’re feeling under the weather, drop back for a dip and breakfast of chicken and biscuits.)

Pinewood Social 33 Peabody Street pinewoodsocial.com

The lanes at Pinewood Social.

10pm Not surprisingly there are music venues everywhere in this town, representing every genre from straight up-and-down country to jazz. The High Watt sits beside two larger sister venues (Mercy Lounge and the Cannery Ballroom) in an old industrial site that once ground coffee, then was a factory making jams, mustard and mayo.

There’s no pinpointing a definitive style for this intimate venue. You might see an alt-country duo like the Contenders playing a warm-up gig for a national tour, a local soul band or an aboutto-break trio pumping out rock tunes. Grab one of the tables in an elevated section to the left of the stage, sink a couple of PBRs and simply enjoy being in what one Uber driver described as “a drinking town with a music problem”.

The High Watt One Cannery Row thehighwatt.com Jay Nash at the High Watt.

Dave Cox on stage at Robert’s Western World. get in the know The Blue Room at Jack White’s Third Man Records is the only venue in the world to record live shows direct to acetate to produce a vinyl master in real time.

ISSUE 50 get lost 35

In the town of his birth , rock ’n’ roll fans gather each year to ce lebrate the life of AC/DC’s Bon Scott. Ca rrie Hutchinson discovers Kirriemuir ain’ t a bad place to be.

Photography by Craig Ca

ntwell and Carrie Hutch ins

38 get lost ISSUE 50

on

SCOTLAND

Switzerland’s Back:N:Black light up the Bonfest big top.

ISSUE 50 get lost 39

M

other Nature sure can be a bitch. Here we are, in a village in the midst of the Scottish countryside, preparing to honour one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll singers of all time, and she’s decided to dump a load on us. Of unseasonable spring snow, that is. Drums are removed from the back of a flatbed truck, pipers are sent packing and there’s a general scurrying towards the pub.

The Thrums is a cosy public house that takes its name from the works of one of Kirriemuir’s famous former residents, JM Barrie. You can imagine that, for most of the year, locals sit at the bar and chat about the Scottish premier league or whatever’s made the news. Today, however, the place is heaving. People are four deep waiting for their pint and crammed into the pub’s every corner. Bizarrely, the television is tuned to the game between North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs.

I strike up a small-talk conversation with an Australian couple also watching. It isn’t until they’re ushered away that I make the connection – the man is Mark Evans, former bass player with AC/DC. We’re in Kirrie, as everyone calls it, for the tenth annual Bonfest, a celebration of the village’s favourite son, Ronald Belford Scott. The threeday party offers free music in the town’s pubs and nightly gigs by rock bands and AC/DC tribute shows, as well as talks, signings and a market day. It was all due to kick off at 1.45 on this Friday afternoon with a re-creation of the famous film clip for ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’ – well, as closely as you can re-create something shot on Melbourne’s Swanston Street in a tiny town in the Highlands. The fully loaded vintage lorry was all ready to go when the storm came. Stupid storm.

Still, you can’t keep a good rocker down, and the equipment has been hastily moved into the Thrums where the atmosphere is building. There are folks here dressed in kilts, denim jackets covered in AC/DC cloth patches and Bonfest ‘Crew’ t-shirts; then there are others who just look like your average beer drinker out searching for a quiet shandy.

Are those guys going to be surprised. Finally, the band hits the stage and the weekend is officially on like Donkey Kong. If anyone was in any doubt they merely needed to check the number of empty glasses rapidly accumulating on the tables edging the room.

This year Bonfest is an especially big deal for organisers John Crawford and Graham Galloway. Not only is it the tenth year they’ve run the gathering, but this is also going to be the biggest one ever.

The nighttime activities have moved from Kirriemuir Town Hall to a big top on a field at the bottom of the hill. They’ve assembled a huge cast of Bon’s band mates and friends – along with Mark Evans, there’s the rocker’s longtime confidante and sometime girlfriend Mary Renshaw, Tony Currenti, who drummed on AC/DC’s debut High Voltage, and Bob

Richards, who filled in for drummer Phil Rudd when he was having some trouble with the law. Then there’s Saturday’s big event, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves because today things are just getting warmed up.

There’s not so much a stage at the Thrums as a part of the floor marked out by foldback wedges, speakers and equipment. The first band due to appear, a local trio called Ganked, has been bumped to accommodate the changing situation. Two fully decked-out pipers stand at either edge of the room, the members of Bon The AC/DC Show file in, Mark Evans grabs the bass, and they finally get to let rip with ‘Long Way to the Top’. ‘The Jack’, ‘TNT’ and lots of back-slapping and cheersing later, and we’re back on schedule.

The guys from Ganked finally get to take their spot. It soon becomes obvious Bonfest isn’t all about AC/DC, as much as the crowd would, perhaps, prefer it. This is more acoustic than metal, and Ganked plays a fistful of hits from the likes of the Police, Feargal Sharkey and Dexys Midnight Runners.

“When are you going to play some real fookin’ rock,” yells a redcheeked bloke wearing a patched vest. Not to be intimidated, the band launches into ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. Eventually, they give the crowd what they’ve been waiting for and play a lesser-known AC/DC track, ‘Big Balls’.

It could never have been the organisers’ intention, but AC/DC is definitely in the news this weekend. Long-time singer Brian Johnson had announced he’d be leaving the band due to hearing issues, and in the days before the gathering in Kirriemuir the group’s tour dates had been rescheduled with Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose as the replacement front man. No one, it seems, is happy.

“I’d rather do this than go and see AC/DC with Axl Rose,” a man in a kilt says to his mate in another of the local pubs, the Roods. “It’s all over now,” his friend replies, mournfully. “The drummer’s in prison, the singer’s deaf and the guitarist is gone.” He takes a long swig of his pint.

It’s a common conversation over the weekend. People who have tickets to see the band in Portugal, London and other cities in the weeks to come are trying to offload them to no avail. No one is sure how Rose, who is known to have a precarious relationship with time management, would go playing with the hardest working band in show business. There is talk that Angus, the only remaining original member, should simply call it quits. (Everyone’s fears were for nothing: Rose won acclaim for his gigs with the band. Johnson, meanwhile, has been testing a new in-ear monitor that should allow him to get back out on the road.)

As the afternoon draws on, fans begin slipping out of the pubs to form a tiny procession down the Kirriemuir hill to the field where the evening’s entertainment will begin. There’s the huge big top, where the bands will play, two smaller ones selling merch and drinks, and a burger van. A small huddle of tents with a backdrop of hills doused in snow is pitched a small distance away. This is the sanctuary of the crazy-brave types who have booked the £20 weekend camping tickets.

Each evening, three bands are going to strut their stuff in the big top in front of about a thousand fans, some of whom have strung up AC/DC signs announcing their own home towns. There are a lot of Germans in attendance, but also guys (they’re invariably guys) who’ve travelled in from Spain and other parts of Europe. Mainly, though, there are a lot of Scots, many of them from Kirriemuir – every shop in the town has a Bonfest display in its window and the local sweet shop has Let There Be Rock candy canes for sale – and nearby villages, as well as cities further afield. Despite the huge number of people who’ve filled Kirrie to almost

“When are you going to play some real fookin’ rock,” yells a red-cheeked bloke wearing a patched vest. Not to be intimidated, the band launches into ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’.

40 get lost ISSUE 50

get in the know In 1964, Bon Scott formed his first band, the Spektors. He played drums and occasionally sang lead vocals.

SCOTLAND UK

Watching Chaman.

Mark Evans on stage with Jason Woodman from Pure/DC.

Appropriately dressed for the Bonfest market day.

The crowds at the big top.

ISSUE 50 get lost 41

High in the clouds in the Andean mountains, Roberto Serrini gets a taste of two worlds: one where ancient cultures still thrive and another that values a touch of luxury after a long day exploring.

Photography by Roberto Serrini

Looking over the city of Cusco.

Caption 48 get lost ISSUE 50

Peru

Y

ou won’t find Choquecancha in a guidebook or reviewed on TripAdvisor. It hasn’t got a listing on Wikipedia and it’s almost impossible to locate on a map.

This ancient Inca town is the home of Quechua people, who live within the walls their ancestors built.

“Quickly, this way.” Our guide Alvaro waves us though a wooden door.

Inside three women sit on the floor weaving. “Look here, see this pattern?

What do you see?” Alvaro picks up the end of an almost complete piece of fabric. It looks like a little man with his arms raised. “That is Túpac Amaru, the last Inca. If you look closely you will see he is being stretched. Here, he is attached to four horses. The Spanish forbade the Inca to record their history, so they developed a way to weave it into their fabrics. Each stitch tells a story, passed on through generations.”

This is day three of a week-long Lares Adventure hosted by Mountain Lodges of Peru. Early this morning we’d left Lamay Lodge and jumped on mountain bikes to race along dirt paths, over streams and through fields.

Now we’re learning about ancient traditions still relevant in the twentyfirst century. That’s the point of Mountain Lodges’ trips – they blend cultural exploration with outdoor activity where snow-capped peaks and herds of llamas are the backdrop. Each day, guests are able to choose their own adventure. Some days we get to travel in a comfortable airconditioned van; others we’ll walk or, like today, ride a bike. It all comes to a head with one of Peru’s iconic rail journeys.

I’d arrived in Cusco, the Peruvian city sitting 3400 metres above sea level, just 72 hours previously, armed with a number of suggested remedies to counteract the effects of altitude sickness, ranging from Diamox to coca tea. Instead I decided an all-night session of drinking and dancing might cure what ailed me. It seemed to work. The next evening, having spent the day climbing to Cristo Blanco on Pukamoqo Hill, tasting the local delicacy cuy (that’s guinea pig to you and me, roasted whole until its skin is burned to a crisp) and exploring the rest of the city, I met the seven other people with whom I’m to spend the next week exploring the land of the Inca.

The Inca who settled the rugged, beautiful Sacred Valley were extremely productive in creating a culture that would withstand the ravages of time.

They were so successful, in fact, parts of it survived the brutal conquest by the Spanish, who tried to erase them from the planet.

We visit well-known sights, like the market town of Pisac, which sits beneath ruins, and the thriving salt mines of Maras. As you approach ISSUE 50 get lost 49

One minute you can be surfing, the next hiking through a forest thousands of years old. Carrie Hutchinson takes a tour of Vancouver Island, a nature lover’s paradise.

Photography by Carrie Hutchinson

A mother black bear and cub searching for their supper.

Caption 58 get lost ISSUE 50

CANADA

ISSUE 50 get lost 59

It’s a favourite destination for seekers of days in the sun and nights on the tiles, but the Indo island lost its allure for many travellers long ago.

There’s another side to Bali, though. Resident Mark Eveleigh takes a slow road trip through its wild west in search of that old-school vibe.

Photography by Mark Eveleigh

66 get lost ISSUE 50

INDONESIA

Rice paddies at dawn.

ISSUE 50 get lost 67

On a week-long hike through the Rhine Valley, Nikola Sarbinowski finds the region’s rich returns more than make up for the hard work.

Photography by Lachie McKenzie and Nikola Sarbinowski

Wine is never far away in the Rhine Valley.

74 get lost ISSUE 50

GERMANY

ISSUE 50 get lost 75

Your online inspiration destination