Away with Alison Lester: ‘I always ask a flight attendant if I can shift and sometimes they let me’
Alison Lester has published more than 25 children’s books but the most famous among them is Magic Beach. That illustrated tale of the perfect beach has sold more than 150,000 copies since it was published in 1990 and is about to reach a new generation when a movie adaptation hits cinemas.
It’s not just Australia’s sandy strips that have inspired Lester. The author and illustrator’s latest book is visual reflections on Antarctica, somewhere she has travelled to five times by boat, either as an arts fellow or hopping on board as an artist or photographer on expedition voyages. But she has been offered more trips to the icy continent than she has been able to take, having turned others down when they clashed with a certain festive time of year.
Here Lester tells us about the trips she wishes she’d taken, the holidays she’ll never forget and the meals – good and bad – she has eaten along the way.
Who makes an excellent travel companion?
A relaxed, happy, inquisitive, playful, patient, adventurous, generous, sharing and kind person. Luckily my husband, Eddy, has most of these qualities.
My earliest childhood holiday memory is …
Staying in a caravan at Waratah Bay, Victoria. It was only a few miles from home but it felt like another world. I loved being squeezed together in that tiny space.
Describe your most memorable travel meal – good, bad or just surprising.
Related: Alison Lester: ‘This is what I want to do. I want to be in charge of the whole thing’
While camping in Chile, a lovely family insisted on sharing their jellied blood with us. Ugh! A hotpot of chillied offal in Chengdu was pretty bad. And once I had a stopover at Dallas Fort Worth airport and there was no real food anywhere. Everything looked and tasted like rubber.
And the best meal?
We were staying with my friend Chiharu at her parent’s holiday house in a little coastal town called Izukogen in Japan. That night she took us to a private restaurant –just somebody’s house, really – where we sat in the cook’s kitchen and she served up course after course of the most incredible food. I still have a hand-sewed string of chillies that she gave me at the end of the night. After dinner Chiharu drove us down the hill to an onsen set in the rocks and we broiled ourselves in the steaming pools as waves crashed around us.
What’s the most relaxing place you’ve ever visited?
Eddy and I travelled through South America in 1977 and, although it was wild and hairy, our state of mind as young travellers with no plans or responsibilities meant that every day was a cool adventure. Our plans were very loose. Once when we were hitchhiking on a lonely road with no traffic we saw a car coming towards us so we quickly hopped over the road and got a ride the other way.
And the most stressful?
Getting caught in terrible weather crossing the Ironbound Range on the South Coast track in Tasmania. Being hassled by plainclothes police when I was doing a stencilling workshop with preschoolers (stressful enough without the police!) in rural China. Missing a flight in Dubai that meant it took 36 hours to fly from Beijing to Bologna.
What is your holiday ritual?
I go for a walk and find a park. I always try to get a room with a view, then I cover any bad art with a scarf or sarong and shift the furniture to my liking.
What’s your strategy for enduring long-haul flights?
If I can lie down, I’m OK. So if I can’t fly business I try to get a row of seats. I book the best seat I can – always a window so I can look down at the beautiful Earth – then I get on last so I can see if there are any empty rows. I always ask an attendant if I can shift and sometimes they let me.
My biggest travel regret is …
There are many places I will never see but I don’t like being away from home or family for too long. I’ve missed a few great trips to Antarctica working as an artist or photographer because I wanted to be home for Christmas.
Alison Lester’s latest book is Into the Ice: Reflections on Antarctica, written with Coral Tulloch ($35, Allen & Unwin). Magic Beach is in Australian cinemas from 16 January
