Sara's birthday yesterday. We'd decided to do something Australian that we hadn't done before so we went kayaking in the Bongil Bongil National Park.
The park is just outside Coffs Harbour and covers more than 4,000 hectares of various kinds of forest, swamp and beaches, and some fine creeks. We'd arranged the outing with local firm called Liquid Assets and just after 8am we were picked by a cheerful bloke called Michael driving a ramshackle mini-bus. He happily admitted he'd done no canoeing at all until a mate of his father's offered him the job some months ago.
There's a boat ramp just off the road on which I was attacked by that malevolent magpie and pretty soon we were standing in steady rain - yes, rain - in shorts, thermal vests and spray tops with our kayaks bobbing up and down beside us. Ours was a double and Sara opted for the back seat, presumably so she could supervise the paddling. Much as the time we went swimming with dolphins in a leviathan-infested trench off the coast of New Zealand, Michael didn't ask if we could swim. But we needn't have worried as the creek, in most places, was only a few feet deep or less.
It was a fine trip. First we went toward the sea and beached near a tern colony and then visited an old fishing hole, where we could see oysters on the rock walls. We went back to the launching site for a hot drink and some breakfast and then headed inland to some mangrove swamps past flocks of pelicans, a splendid sea eagle, and a couple of cormorants. The terns plummeted into the water around us - whatever they were catching was too small for us to see. A pelican struggling to get airborne when you're at water level and possibly in the way, is an interesting sight.
There was only one other person on the water, a fisherman sitting solemnly under the awning on his tin boat who waved as we paddled past. Apart from the noise of the surf, drifting over the dunes, it was perfectly quiet.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
Drowning, not Waving
I‘ve been reading the annual report of Coffs Harbour’s council’s chief lifeguard, Greg Hackfath - you can always tell when he’s in the office because there’s a ute parked outside with some surfboards on the back.
Lifeguarding is a serious business round here. Greg, his three temporary lifeguards and a host of volunteers cover seven beaches, spread over 56 kilometres of coastline. They spend a fair bit of time in schools, educating children in sun safety, surf safety and first aid relating to bluebottle bites, bluebottles being small, blue, virulent jellyfish that deliver a nasty sting. They also tell them how to cope with rips and “the onset of panic.” I‘m sure we could all do with lessons in that, one way or another.
Last year, they dealt with three serious incidents, all, strangely enough at Diggers Beach, at the bottom of our road. I say strangely because, at first glance, it’s the most innocuous of the local beaches. The most serious was the rescue of a man who’d drifted round from Charlesworth Bay, to the north, and had been in the water for some hours before they got him out. All three casualties survived.
You might think being a lifeguard on our beaches is quite a cushy number. If so, be prepared for The Mission, a twice-yearly test to be completed in under 28 minutes consisting of a 600m ocean swim, a 500m beach run, a 600m board paddle and another 500m beach run. Once a year, they have another test, consisting of a 800m pool swim, a 1,600m run, The Mission, and then a simulated rescue. All the lifeguards have their results printed in the report.
And yes, there were sharks, with sightings at five of the beaches, including Sawtell, which was closed when three were seen there. Of course, there were also the times when they weren’t sighted…..
No one was bitten, however. But 70 people were stung by bluebottles. As a few hundred thousand people used the beaches in the last twelve months, I’d say it was safe to go in the water.
Lifeguarding is a serious business round here. Greg, his three temporary lifeguards and a host of volunteers cover seven beaches, spread over 56 kilometres of coastline. They spend a fair bit of time in schools, educating children in sun safety, surf safety and first aid relating to bluebottle bites, bluebottles being small, blue, virulent jellyfish that deliver a nasty sting. They also tell them how to cope with rips and “the onset of panic.” I‘m sure we could all do with lessons in that, one way or another.
Last year, they dealt with three serious incidents, all, strangely enough at Diggers Beach, at the bottom of our road. I say strangely because, at first glance, it’s the most innocuous of the local beaches. The most serious was the rescue of a man who’d drifted round from Charlesworth Bay, to the north, and had been in the water for some hours before they got him out. All three casualties survived.
You might think being a lifeguard on our beaches is quite a cushy number. If so, be prepared for The Mission, a twice-yearly test to be completed in under 28 minutes consisting of a 600m ocean swim, a 500m beach run, a 600m board paddle and another 500m beach run. Once a year, they have another test, consisting of a 800m pool swim, a 1,600m run, The Mission, and then a simulated rescue. All the lifeguards have their results printed in the report.
And yes, there were sharks, with sightings at five of the beaches, including Sawtell, which was closed when three were seen there. Of course, there were also the times when they weren’t sighted…..
No one was bitten, however. But 70 people were stung by bluebottles. As a few hundred thousand people used the beaches in the last twelve months, I’d say it was safe to go in the water.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Virgin Shock
In our local paper, the Coffs Coast Advocate, I came across the headline "Virgin Struck By Lightning". I read on, expecting a tragic tale along the lines of "I saved myself all those years and then it was all over in a flash". But no, it was about one of Richard Branson's small planes that ply up and down the coast.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Never Mind the Lounge, Look at the Chook Shed
We’ve been doing some house-hunting. Not with any great energy or enthusiasm because we’ll wait until my job situation is clearer, but enough to get a feel for the market.
For one thing, the houses look and feel different. The assumption is that you’ll spend as much time as possible out of doors, so most places have a deck or a verandah or an eating area in the garden. Inside, many houses are open-plan, to keep cool air circulating. This is fine, apart from when one of you wants to watch The O.C. and the other wants to listen to Tom Waits and you can’t find a solid wall and a door to put between you. En suite bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes are popular and so are DLUGS - double lock-up garages.
Forget about double glazing and, although many houses are built of brick, you’re more likely to find a kind of plaster board or even wood. When you’re used to something more solid, this can be disconcerting.
Venture outside Coffs, and the first thing you’ll be checking out is the water tank, because you probably won’t have piped water. So you’ll be relying on rain water or having the stuff brought in in a tanker. After all, most of New South Wales is still afflicted by drought. I spent an invaluable ten minutes poking around under a house in Bonville while the estate agent (an admirable woman who was building her own house, yes, with her own hands) tried to work out the system of pumps that the vendor had installed. “This needs spraying,” she said when she emerged, casting a wary glance at the spiders’ webs.
Which, inevitably brings me to the wildlife. We’ve inspected one house with a herd of kangaroos happily living in the field next door. Unhappily for the kangaroos, the field is to become a retirement village. More interesting was the carpet snake hanging from the rafters of the shed of a house not far from here. Unfortunately, it showed no interest in the rapidly-retreating estate agent (a different one) who informed me from the safety of the door that the snake was harmless, which I knew. She then carried on trying to pull the wool over my eyes about plans for a new road at the bottom of the garden. So there are some similarities with the UK.
Also, does one look for somewhere near a beach or go inland where one can buy somewhere “on acreage”? We need to sort out a few things before we decide and, frankly, one acre would do. However, we’ve found that the rural agents are much straighter and say things like “this is a great place but the highway’s coming through here” and “that land’s no good for cattle”. I also liked “that chook shed’s nearly new” and ”this place is a mess - you’d need new carpets - but you’d get it cheap.” And he wasn’t only referring to the pattern of the carpets.
For one thing, the houses look and feel different. The assumption is that you’ll spend as much time as possible out of doors, so most places have a deck or a verandah or an eating area in the garden. Inside, many houses are open-plan, to keep cool air circulating. This is fine, apart from when one of you wants to watch The O.C. and the other wants to listen to Tom Waits and you can’t find a solid wall and a door to put between you. En suite bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes are popular and so are DLUGS - double lock-up garages.
Forget about double glazing and, although many houses are built of brick, you’re more likely to find a kind of plaster board or even wood. When you’re used to something more solid, this can be disconcerting.
Venture outside Coffs, and the first thing you’ll be checking out is the water tank, because you probably won’t have piped water. So you’ll be relying on rain water or having the stuff brought in in a tanker. After all, most of New South Wales is still afflicted by drought. I spent an invaluable ten minutes poking around under a house in Bonville while the estate agent (an admirable woman who was building her own house, yes, with her own hands) tried to work out the system of pumps that the vendor had installed. “This needs spraying,” she said when she emerged, casting a wary glance at the spiders’ webs.
Which, inevitably brings me to the wildlife. We’ve inspected one house with a herd of kangaroos happily living in the field next door. Unhappily for the kangaroos, the field is to become a retirement village. More interesting was the carpet snake hanging from the rafters of the shed of a house not far from here. Unfortunately, it showed no interest in the rapidly-retreating estate agent (a different one) who informed me from the safety of the door that the snake was harmless, which I knew. She then carried on trying to pull the wool over my eyes about plans for a new road at the bottom of the garden. So there are some similarities with the UK.
Also, does one look for somewhere near a beach or go inland where one can buy somewhere “on acreage”? We need to sort out a few things before we decide and, frankly, one acre would do. However, we’ve found that the rural agents are much straighter and say things like “this is a great place but the highway’s coming through here” and “that land’s no good for cattle”. I also liked “that chook shed’s nearly new” and ”this place is a mess - you’d need new carpets - but you’d get it cheap.” And he wasn’t only referring to the pattern of the carpets.
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