Walking in the fog one morning near Lizard.

When I was growing up in Southern California, I’d sometimes see a scruffy-looking guy walking along the highway carrying a bag and a bedroll. My mom said, “Oh, they’re hobos who walk up the coast for the summer, then back down the coast for the winter. ” (She was a kind of pundit to me–told me a lot of things as fact that could have been merely her assumptions.) 

I immediately envied their freedom, those hobos. They just wandered where they pleased: no school, no job, just walk and see new things every day! I thought, “Wow, that is the coolest thing. I’d like to do that someday…”  In fact, I was doing it already, sort-of. I’d take walks after school and on Saturdays just to look around places that seemed interesting. Sometimes I’d pack a lunch and go out all day, maybe all the way to the other end of Long Beach by following one long street, or into the nearby oil fields, the Navy base, or other places that were off-limits. I did this instead of after-school electives, sports, or the Boy Scouts. I liked my time alone. 

On New Island, where I’m a “travel wanderer”, I have been walking around on the island’s Path System for several years now. The paths are all Commonwealth-maintained, with campgrounds, rustic stores, inns, supply centers, hot springs spas, spiritual retreats, and all manner of facilities and services catering to walkers, cyclers, horseback riders, and even wheelchair-bound wanderers. I’ve met some interesting characters out there, as you will see.   

 And I’ve never outgrown the desire to wander.

Wandering is about the joy of climbing over a hill (or a dune) and seeing the next new thing ahead, in this case Newtonabbey and Blind Point, along the South Bight shore.

Maps have always fascinated me, and they can be very helpful to a wanderer. Here’s a little map of the Indian Ocean that shows an island that isn’t shown on most other maps of the region. 

New Island's location in the world

The official guidebook to this island, The New Island Wandering Guide, explains at length as to why the island doesn’t appear on most maps of the area. It seems that the old Soviet Union (now Russia) and the American military conspired to have the island removed from all maps in the late 1940’s. They simply requested publishers and lesser governments to delete the island “for national-security purposes” and since nobody really cared that much about this obscure island, they did! 

Yet the guidebook is full of detailed and specific maps of the island, including the historical “first map” made by some early settlers, a chart by the Russian explorer Fabian von Bellingshausen and regional and city maps. It’s also full of pictures of places on the island that are traceable on the maps. 

So who you gonna believe?  Well, probably the atlases, especially if you decide to fly out there in your Cessna! This island is whole-cloth fiction. But many “real” maps tell fictional stories too, such as when someone wants to show their country in a favorable light, or, more commonly, hide something they don’t want you to see…

I just read an article on AOL news about Google Maps, about the places that Google is asked to intentionally obscure. Some govenments don’t allow maps of parts of their territories, and Google has been asked to “obscure” certain air bases, research facilities, and parts of the city of Utrecht!  A book I discovered a few years ago called The Power of Maps talks a lot about this mischief with maps. 

So New Island might be there after all. Your call!

Hi,

I want to share a quote that tells a little of how people live, or try to live, on New Island, at least from the stories I’ve heard.

I found it while reading my July 2008 issue of The Sun, a pithy literary magazine that allows no advertising. It’s full of short fiction, in-depth articles about many things people don’t want to deal with, and it’s usually good, sometimes great!  (An interview with Eckhart Tolle a few months ago helped me in the basics-of-life department.) The quote, from the Sunbeams page, is by Paul Shepard:

Beneath the veneer of civilization…lies not the barbarian and the animal, but the human in us who knows what is right and necessary for becoming fully human: birth in gentle surroundings, a rich nonhuman environment, juvenile tasks with simple tools,…play at being animals,…clan membership and small-group life, and the profound claims and liberation of ritual initiation and subsequent stages of adult mentorship. There is a secret person undamaged in each of us, aware of the validity of these conditions, sensitive to their right moments in our lives. 

The sun’s gone down, I’m low on kerosene, so I’m going to bed. 

Hello out there!  This is my first post on WordPress.

I’m a wanderer, a kind of know-it-all pundit, especially regarding this island I live on. I’ll talk about my homeland, The Commonwealth of New Island, the people here, anything newsy that I hear about, and throw in a bit of history and cultural background from time to time. 

I’ve lived here on New Island since about 1995. I grew up in California, USA; watched it get pretty much destroyed by overpopulation and greed, then moved to Pacific City on the Oregon coast, but the winters there were too wet and cold. (I know, my About information differs a bit, but ignore that for now.) I found New Island in my copy of the National Geographic Atlas of theWorld and had to pull a lot of strings to travel here! I finally booked passage on  The New Ireland, an old one-time Polish passenger-freighter that sails weekly form Fremantle, Western Australia, to Putney, New Island. I took the train around much of the island’s coastal lowlands, and found a spot overlooking Putney Bay that felt like home! I built a house there and have enjoyed it ever since. 

Here is the island, taken from A NASA Space-shuttle flight around 1985. Putney Bay is the big bay on the left or west side of the island.

Google Earth  has not yet recorded New Island’s Indian Ocean location at about 100 degrees E Longitude by about 35 degrees S latitude, but that could be from some old agreements by one-time superpowers to keep it off the maps.

Until I discovered this wonderful tool, WordPress, I haven’t been able to really talk to anyone beyond the shores of our island-nation.  We don’t have cellphones; and calling long-distance, even to Western Australia, is slow and expensive. However, we have just been hooked-up to the internet via satellite!  Our nation’s Ministry of Tourism has put up a website about the island. It’s very basic, but take a look. I also set up a website called Oceans and Dreams that shows off my artwork. I’m a painter as well as a pundit. 

See ya later.