Two significant developments. First, we have bought a barbecue. Homes here seem incomplete without one in the back garden and summer's setting in so we picked up a modest little number in the hardware shop in the nearby plaza ie a vast shopping centre with a car park so big that you can wander in it for days if you've forgotten which aisle you parked in.
An earlier visit to Barbecues R Us proved overwhelming - I stood mesmerised before the top-of-the-range Beefmaster. With its four burners and two serving tables it stood almost two metres wide and was big enough to roast a cow. We eventually bought a modest two-burner Bondi - named after the famous Sydney beach, it has a wave logo on its wheels - filled our new gas bottle, and used it last night without acquiring burns or food poisoning. Cooking on a barbie is man's work here and you have to drink beer while doing it, straight from the bottle, of course. So I did.
I have also become a member of the Coffs Ex-Services Club. Forget those dingy, backstreet dens we have in the UK. This is huge, white, gleaming edifice in the centre of town with more than 22,000 members. (See Coffs Ex-Services Club) For a mere $11 a year, you get cheap drinks - a round of schooners for myself and my de facto father and brother-in-law comes to less than $10 - cheap food, and free snooker. It's got restaurants, bistros, a number of bars and two halls for gigs. Most towns have something similar. We've started playing snooker once a fortnight, and very badly, too. It's true to say that there's not a great deal of ambiance, but it's clean, smart and well-run. (And if anyone invites you to a bowls club here, there's no need to be surprised. You're not being taken to some wooden hut in the local park where elderly ladies brew tea and cut sandwiches; again, we're talking well-appointed buildings, restaurants and bars and, if you do play bowls, floodlit greens).
How do they do it? The posters extolling "responsible gambling" in the toilets give a clue. In the room next to the four snooker tables, stretching as far as the eye can see, making calamitous electronic noises and flashing fitfully, are the ranks of poker machines, or pokies, reputed to be one of the least successful ways of hanging on to your stake money known to man or woman. But I like the place. It feels unpretentious, and foreign and comfortable at the same time.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Saturday, September 18, 2004
The Birds
Somehow, when I first fell foul of Australian wildlife, I expected that it would be a spider or a snake and not a bird. It was something of a surprise.
The first hint of trouble came when I was cycling happily along the Orara Valley, which is the neck of the woods where Russell Crowe lives and I think I saw his security lodge from the road. He's popular around here - I passed the club house and pitch of the Orara Valley Axemen, the local rugby league club that he's helped, and he's contributed to many other community projects. And he and his band, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts - Thirty Odd Foot - play in local hotels.
Anyway, I was just thinking about how pleasant it was to cycle 42k without having to negotiate a road junction, when I noticed a bird-shaped shadow on the road beside me and then heard a swish of air just above and behind my head. This was repeated, together with some caw-ing, and then I was left in peace.
I thought no more of it until yesterday - rural doesn't even begin to describe the Orara Valley so you might expect wildlife that didn't know its place - when I was riding in the seaside suburb of Sawtell, heard another swish of air and then felt a resounding blow on the top of my helmet. Again, the attack came from behind so I couldn't see the bird. I was wondering whether I should get off, so I could get a swing at the thing, when it had another go. Obviously a bright bird, this time it came in from the side and clouted me behind my ear. Luckily, there's a uncoloured bit of helmet there, which the bird hadn't noticed. Then it cleared off.
Research showed one of these was the likely culprit.....
Australian magpie
It looks very pointy to me, which explains the gouge marks I discovered in my helmet when I got home. Around this time of year, they mate, nest and turn nasty, according to the Queensland Environment Protection Agency - Queensland EPA - which advises bike riders to wear a helmet (you're telling me - I would have had gouge marks in my head otherwise) and to fit an orange traffic flag (I'm not at all sure about this).
Pedestrians are advised to wear a hat or carry an umbrella, and you can even try painting a large eye on the top. Someone suggested I paint an eye on my helmet but they clearly don't appreciate the aesthetics of serious bike-riding. Oh yes, and according to the QEPA "learning to live with magpies can be rewarding." I suppose we should be grateful that the local pelicans don't turn stroppy in September.
The first hint of trouble came when I was cycling happily along the Orara Valley, which is the neck of the woods where Russell Crowe lives and I think I saw his security lodge from the road. He's popular around here - I passed the club house and pitch of the Orara Valley Axemen, the local rugby league club that he's helped, and he's contributed to many other community projects. And he and his band, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts - Thirty Odd Foot - play in local hotels.
Anyway, I was just thinking about how pleasant it was to cycle 42k without having to negotiate a road junction, when I noticed a bird-shaped shadow on the road beside me and then heard a swish of air just above and behind my head. This was repeated, together with some caw-ing, and then I was left in peace.
I thought no more of it until yesterday - rural doesn't even begin to describe the Orara Valley so you might expect wildlife that didn't know its place - when I was riding in the seaside suburb of Sawtell, heard another swish of air and then felt a resounding blow on the top of my helmet. Again, the attack came from behind so I couldn't see the bird. I was wondering whether I should get off, so I could get a swing at the thing, when it had another go. Obviously a bright bird, this time it came in from the side and clouted me behind my ear. Luckily, there's a uncoloured bit of helmet there, which the bird hadn't noticed. Then it cleared off.
Research showed one of these was the likely culprit.....
Australian magpie
It looks very pointy to me, which explains the gouge marks I discovered in my helmet when I got home. Around this time of year, they mate, nest and turn nasty, according to the Queensland Environment Protection Agency - Queensland EPA - which advises bike riders to wear a helmet (you're telling me - I would have had gouge marks in my head otherwise) and to fit an orange traffic flag (I'm not at all sure about this).
Pedestrians are advised to wear a hat or carry an umbrella, and you can even try painting a large eye on the top. Someone suggested I paint an eye on my helmet but they clearly don't appreciate the aesthetics of serious bike-riding. Oh yes, and according to the QEPA "learning to live with magpies can be rewarding." I suppose we should be grateful that the local pelicans don't turn stroppy in September.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Waving, not drowning
Wandered over the headland to McCauley’s Beach the other afternoon, where the New South Wales junior surfing championship was taking place.
We’d had a few days of storms so the surf was pretty big, so much so that many of the competitors decided against wasting their energy battling out through the waves to the break. Instead they scampered, barefoot of course, round the bottom of the headland and out on to the rocks, where they waited for an incoming wave to break around them before flinging themselves and their boards into the sea and doing their stuff in front of the judges, who were comfortably set up on the beach, under a sunshade with a pair of binoculars and in sniffing distance of the barbecue.
Waiting to compete...
Apparently, it’s normal practice. It’s certainly something you wouldn’t see at home - 13 and 14-year-olds in an official competition being allowed to jump into the foaming waters without any supervision, life-jackets or lifeguards - at least not without howls of outrage and calls for the prosecution of all involved.
There’s also a tradition of fishing off such rocks and of fishermen entering the water involuntarily, courtesy of large waves, and being swept to a salty grave.
We’d had a few days of storms so the surf was pretty big, so much so that many of the competitors decided against wasting their energy battling out through the waves to the break. Instead they scampered, barefoot of course, round the bottom of the headland and out on to the rocks, where they waited for an incoming wave to break around them before flinging themselves and their boards into the sea and doing their stuff in front of the judges, who were comfortably set up on the beach, under a sunshade with a pair of binoculars and in sniffing distance of the barbecue.
Waiting to compete...
Apparently, it’s normal practice. It’s certainly something you wouldn’t see at home - 13 and 14-year-olds in an official competition being allowed to jump into the foaming waters without any supervision, life-jackets or lifeguards - at least not without howls of outrage and calls for the prosecution of all involved.
There’s also a tradition of fishing off such rocks and of fishermen entering the water involuntarily, courtesy of large waves, and being swept to a salty grave.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Welcome Rain
We’ve just had 12 hours of steady rain. I realise that may not move or entertain those of you who have just come through what I gather to be the UK’s wettest August since dinosaurs roamed the earth but it’s a welcome event here.
Most of the country is in the grip of drought and has been for some years. Much of New South Wales and the neighbouring states is in deep trouble with no water for cattle or crops and the Government has announced a range of measures to help stricken farmers. All the signs are that everyone had better get used to it. Earlier this year, a group of climate scientists warned that Australia faced higher temperatures, more severe droughts and bushfires, and if that weren’t bad enough, more tropical diseases as well. And you all thought we lived in a veritable paradise, didn’t you?
Well, if you live in a town or a city, you could go on believing that. Unlike the farmers, you don’t see your waterholes and rivers shrinking and your stock dying. Everything looks pretty much as normal unless you take a trip to one of the reservoirs serving your city. In Sydney, for example, they’re down to just over 40 per cent of capacity. They waited until the reservoirs were half-empty before stepping up the water restrictions and now you must not hose your lawn or garden except with a hand-hose and that before 10am and after 4pm on Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays. You can’t use a sprinkler or hose down your car at all and, if your swimming pool holds more than 10,000 litres, you can’t fill it.
Hardly draconian and yet, apparently, half of Sydney’s water is used on gardens. And, according to the Green Industries Group, 5,900 jobs were lost in gardening and related industries before the tighter restrictions above were introduced in June. There are some hard issues here for local politicians.
Here, if you take a drive over Red Hill and down the other side to Karangi, you can inspect Coffs’ own water supply at the Karangi Dam. It’s currently three-quarters full, so looking much healthier than the Sydney reservoirs and we still have the bulk of our annual rainfall to come. Nevertheless, you can keep track of water levels on the net http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/www/html/356-overview.asp and the restrictions in force here are at least as severe as those in Sydney.
Non-native plant - future limited?
I find this tougher approach rather comforting, though it seems we’re just as keen on watering our gardens as the Sydney-siders; after a period of rain, consumption drops because people aren’t out with hose pipes. Part of the problem is that people want lawns, which aren’t really a good idea in this climate, and that they’ve planted European and other non-native plants which need the water. The gardens between this house and the beach are incredibly verdant, but it’s not natural; a lot of watering goes on. On the other hand, I haven’t been near the native plants in our garden, planted by the landlord, since we moved in and they’re looking fine.
It all goes to show, I suppose, how much this country has been changed since Europeans arrived here. Can those changes be sustained in the face of global warming? Should they? Already there are signs that the population is tending to move toward the coast, giving up the unequal struggle in the interior. The number of people living in Coffs is predicted to rise from 62,000 to 90,000 by 2021. That’ll be quite a challenge for the people who manage the Karangi Dam.
Most of the country is in the grip of drought and has been for some years. Much of New South Wales and the neighbouring states is in deep trouble with no water for cattle or crops and the Government has announced a range of measures to help stricken farmers. All the signs are that everyone had better get used to it. Earlier this year, a group of climate scientists warned that Australia faced higher temperatures, more severe droughts and bushfires, and if that weren’t bad enough, more tropical diseases as well. And you all thought we lived in a veritable paradise, didn’t you?
Well, if you live in a town or a city, you could go on believing that. Unlike the farmers, you don’t see your waterholes and rivers shrinking and your stock dying. Everything looks pretty much as normal unless you take a trip to one of the reservoirs serving your city. In Sydney, for example, they’re down to just over 40 per cent of capacity. They waited until the reservoirs were half-empty before stepping up the water restrictions and now you must not hose your lawn or garden except with a hand-hose and that before 10am and after 4pm on Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays. You can’t use a sprinkler or hose down your car at all and, if your swimming pool holds more than 10,000 litres, you can’t fill it.
Hardly draconian and yet, apparently, half of Sydney’s water is used on gardens. And, according to the Green Industries Group, 5,900 jobs were lost in gardening and related industries before the tighter restrictions above were introduced in June. There are some hard issues here for local politicians.
Here, if you take a drive over Red Hill and down the other side to Karangi, you can inspect Coffs’ own water supply at the Karangi Dam. It’s currently three-quarters full, so looking much healthier than the Sydney reservoirs and we still have the bulk of our annual rainfall to come. Nevertheless, you can keep track of water levels on the net http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/www/html/356-overview.asp and the restrictions in force here are at least as severe as those in Sydney.
Non-native plant - future limited?
I find this tougher approach rather comforting, though it seems we’re just as keen on watering our gardens as the Sydney-siders; after a period of rain, consumption drops because people aren’t out with hose pipes. Part of the problem is that people want lawns, which aren’t really a good idea in this climate, and that they’ve planted European and other non-native plants which need the water. The gardens between this house and the beach are incredibly verdant, but it’s not natural; a lot of watering goes on. On the other hand, I haven’t been near the native plants in our garden, planted by the landlord, since we moved in and they’re looking fine.
It all goes to show, I suppose, how much this country has been changed since Europeans arrived here. Can those changes be sustained in the face of global warming? Should they? Already there are signs that the population is tending to move toward the coast, giving up the unequal struggle in the interior. The number of people living in Coffs is predicted to rise from 62,000 to 90,000 by 2021. That’ll be quite a challenge for the people who manage the Karangi Dam.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
They Don't Give Up....Sometimes
More on the rowing fiasco (see Row, Row, Row Your Boat). This is worth reading: The Bladder At least it's funny.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
My First Snake
Wandering down to Diggers Beach this afternoon, I was stopped by an elderly neighbour on his way home from his daily stroll. "Want to see a beautiful bit of local wildlife?" he asked. I said I did, reasoning that it was bound to be something exotic or deadly, or possibly both. He directed me to the rubbish bins at the far end of the car park where he told me I'd find a carpet snake. "Don't hurt him," he called after me. "He won't hurt you."
And there he was, elegantly draped over the stainless steel post between the two bins, about five feet long and brown, with yellow and black markings. His tail was hidden under several coils on top of the post, most of his body hanging down before making a sharp u-turn so his neck and slender head were pointing upward. He was completely motionless, perhaps because the afternoon had turned cool. They're a kind of python and therefore harmless unless you happen to be a small rodent or bird, I suppose.
And there he was, elegantly draped over the stainless steel post between the two bins, about five feet long and brown, with yellow and black markings. His tail was hidden under several coils on top of the post, most of his body hanging down before making a sharp u-turn so his neck and slender head were pointing upward. He was completely motionless, perhaps because the afternoon had turned cool. They're a kind of python and therefore harmless unless you happen to be a small rodent or bird, I suppose.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Row, Row, Row Your Boat.....
You’ll not be surprised to hear that the Australian media is in the grip of Olympic fever. I assume it’s the same back in the UK but, since long before the Sydney games, the Australians have been plotting how to turn themselves into the world’s greatest sporting nation, despite the fact that there’s only 20 million of them (see previous posting - Sink or Swim).
Sport in general, and the Olympics in particular, offers a great opportunity for celebrating two much-prized qualities, toughness and mate-ship, the latter embracing women as well as men, at least in sport. So you can perhaps imagine the horror when one of the members of the women’s rowing eight, well, just stopped rowing. And that when they were in contention for gold. Sally Robbins says she was overcome by exhaustion, translated by the media into losing her bottle, giving up, and betraying her team-mates. Yes, her team-mates were apparently angry. According to Sally, some of them immediately suggested that she might be more comfortable in the water, rather than in the boat, and offered to help her move, though this morning‘s bulletins merely said that her team-mates “expressed disappointment“ with her. I bet they did.
Luckily for Sally, she’s not the only one. There was some scathing coverage of Paula Radcliffe’s withdrawal from the marathon. Not only was she the race favourite, but she’s also British, which is added cause for schadenfreude. There’s a big debate about whether Australia should align itself, culturally and politically, with south-east Asia, New Zealand or America but they seem to have decided they’ve finished with Britain. As one Australian academic pointed out in another context, this country was founded on rejection by Britain. So this morning’s Daily Telegraph (no resemblance to the British one) pointed out that the women all ran the same course, in the same heat, including the same hills, and lots of them managed to finish. But not Paula.
I don’t think anyone but the athletes themselves understand the pressure of preparing for, and competing in, something like the Olympics. Amateur athletes who have run or cycled themselves to a pain-racked standstill will have some inkling but at least they can humiliate themselves more or less in private. But if there’s one group that’s not qualified to castigate Sally and Paula (and thank goodness it wasn’t a bloke who packed) surely it’s journalists. Newsrooms are inhabited by some of the least fit and healthy people on earth and while you can, I think, comment fairly on something like politics by observing and associating with politicians, I don’t think you can begin to accuse athletes of moral failure unless you’ve felt some of their pain personally. And perhaps not even then.
This is not confined to the Australian media, of course. I once tried to commission some coverage for one of my programmes about the Snowdonia Marathon , only to be rejected by the sports department on the grounds that “it wasn’t a proper race.” This verdict was delivered by someone so over-weight and out of condition that I suspected him of using a golf-buggy to move between his office and the newsroom. I consoled myself with a personal vision of the agonies this person would suffer if, by some miracle, he ever managed to drag his bulk around the course. I’d run the race myself so came up with some very vivid and satisfying pictures and organised my own coverage.
PS On a happier note, the rainbow lorikeets have returned to the garden after the winter. They’re as rowdy and acrobatic as ever and they’re very welcome.
Sport in general, and the Olympics in particular, offers a great opportunity for celebrating two much-prized qualities, toughness and mate-ship, the latter embracing women as well as men, at least in sport. So you can perhaps imagine the horror when one of the members of the women’s rowing eight, well, just stopped rowing. And that when they were in contention for gold. Sally Robbins says she was overcome by exhaustion, translated by the media into losing her bottle, giving up, and betraying her team-mates. Yes, her team-mates were apparently angry. According to Sally, some of them immediately suggested that she might be more comfortable in the water, rather than in the boat, and offered to help her move, though this morning‘s bulletins merely said that her team-mates “expressed disappointment“ with her. I bet they did.
Luckily for Sally, she’s not the only one. There was some scathing coverage of Paula Radcliffe’s withdrawal from the marathon. Not only was she the race favourite, but she’s also British, which is added cause for schadenfreude. There’s a big debate about whether Australia should align itself, culturally and politically, with south-east Asia, New Zealand or America but they seem to have decided they’ve finished with Britain. As one Australian academic pointed out in another context, this country was founded on rejection by Britain. So this morning’s Daily Telegraph (no resemblance to the British one) pointed out that the women all ran the same course, in the same heat, including the same hills, and lots of them managed to finish. But not Paula.
I don’t think anyone but the athletes themselves understand the pressure of preparing for, and competing in, something like the Olympics. Amateur athletes who have run or cycled themselves to a pain-racked standstill will have some inkling but at least they can humiliate themselves more or less in private. But if there’s one group that’s not qualified to castigate Sally and Paula (and thank goodness it wasn’t a bloke who packed) surely it’s journalists. Newsrooms are inhabited by some of the least fit and healthy people on earth and while you can, I think, comment fairly on something like politics by observing and associating with politicians, I don’t think you can begin to accuse athletes of moral failure unless you’ve felt some of their pain personally. And perhaps not even then.
This is not confined to the Australian media, of course. I once tried to commission some coverage for one of my programmes about the Snowdonia Marathon , only to be rejected by the sports department on the grounds that “it wasn’t a proper race.” This verdict was delivered by someone so over-weight and out of condition that I suspected him of using a golf-buggy to move between his office and the newsroom. I consoled myself with a personal vision of the agonies this person would suffer if, by some miracle, he ever managed to drag his bulk around the course. I’d run the race myself so came up with some very vivid and satisfying pictures and organised my own coverage.
PS On a happier note, the rainbow lorikeets have returned to the garden after the winter. They’re as rowdy and acrobatic as ever and they’re very welcome.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Spiders Not That Bad Either - Official
Hope you're all coming to terms with sharks after the posting below and I can now tell you that one of the other great lurking threats in Australian life, spiders, are not all they're cracked up to be either.
"Experts" ie two doctors, one from Australia and one from California, say most pose no threat to humans and are scapegoats for flesh-eating lesions. "Diagnosis of a spider bite continues to be based on mainly on suspicion and fear of spiders, and diagnosis of a chronic ulcer in stories of suspected spider bites causing devastating necrotic fasciitis (flesh eating disease)", they say.
Apparently, the wolf spider and the white-tail spider are the main species unjustly blamed, usually becuase they just happened to be hanging around when some poor person's flesh started eating itself. And in an extension of the sharks versus very big lorries analogy, they point out there have been only 26 deaths from spiders here in Australia in the past century whereas 1,183 people died in motor accidents in 2001.
Thought you should know. But my visiting son, Iwan, still refuses to share the small downstairs toilet with the burly Huntsman that crept in the other day.
More shark news - The Coffs Harbour Advocate reports today that a spearfisherman from Byron Bay was the centre of a media bidding war after being attacked by a grey nurse shark. The Advocate obviously didn't bid high enough so I can't tell you what happened but it have a jolly picture of the fisherman on his hospital bed with what seems to be one-and-a-half legs.
"Experts" ie two doctors, one from Australia and one from California, say most pose no threat to humans and are scapegoats for flesh-eating lesions. "Diagnosis of a spider bite continues to be based on mainly on suspicion and fear of spiders, and diagnosis of a chronic ulcer in stories of suspected spider bites causing devastating necrotic fasciitis (flesh eating disease)", they say.
Apparently, the wolf spider and the white-tail spider are the main species unjustly blamed, usually becuase they just happened to be hanging around when some poor person's flesh started eating itself. And in an extension of the sharks versus very big lorries analogy, they point out there have been only 26 deaths from spiders here in Australia in the past century whereas 1,183 people died in motor accidents in 2001.
Thought you should know. But my visiting son, Iwan, still refuses to share the small downstairs toilet with the burly Huntsman that crept in the other day.
More shark news - The Coffs Harbour Advocate reports today that a spearfisherman from Byron Bay was the centre of a media bidding war after being attacked by a grey nurse shark. The Advocate obviously didn't bid high enough so I can't tell you what happened but it have a jolly picture of the fisherman on his hospital bed with what seems to be one-and-a-half legs.
Friday, August 06, 2004
Shark tales
Just back from a trip to Sydney, this time to show Iwan the sights, which have to include the wonderful Aquarium. There you not only get to see everything from seadragons to the massive Murray cod, but also a group of large sharks.
Visitors can walk through glass tubes in the huge tank they share with sting rays, turtles and presumably nervous fish and it’s probably the only chance you’ll get to appreciate their muscularity, the malevolence of their eyes and the horror of their rows of inward-pointing teeth and emerge with all your flesh.
Even though they spend so much time in the water, people here are pretty relaxed about sharks. As one surfer with all his limbs said to me: “Yes, there are sharks out there but there are also very large trucks on the highway which can do an equally good job of spoiling your day.” In fact, many of these road trains end up on their sides after mysteriously failing to take bends which have been bends on that bit of road for a very long time and therefore shouldn’t come as a surprise to any driver but that’s another matter.
Anyway, here are two sharks tales which say a lot about the Australian attitude to what David Attenborough would no doubt describe as “these complex and fascinating predators.”
Matt, a vet who lives near Coffs was pleased one morning to find only one other surfer in the water on his favourite beach so quickly made his way out to the break. After a while he noticed the other surfer leave the water and limp slowly up the path to the car park. A small crowd then gathered on the path, apparently watching Matt. Watching surfers is a pleasant and common pastime so he didn’t think anything of it.
When he’d had his fill, Matt left the water and made his way up the path toward the crowd. As he approached, one man came toward him and asked: “So you didn’t see the shark, then?”
“What shark?” Matt inquired.
“The one that bit that other guy.”
And, no, Matt tells me he didn’t feel particularly aggrieved that they hadn’t warned him. It’s all about perception of risk, apparently, and also quite amusing.
The other story was in several newspapers and therefore must be true. On a beach to the south of here, a surfer suddenly found a small shark firmly attached to his leg. Remaining calm, he left the water and tried to encourage the shark to let go but it wouldn’t. So he walked (rather awkwardly, no doubt) to his car and drove himself to the nearest surf life saving club. I’m assuming that all his mates were too busy surfing to take the wheel.
When he arrived, he told the lifeguards of his predicament (“excuse me, mate, I’ve got a shark stuck on my leg”) and, when they stopped laughing, they put him and the shark in a freshwater shower and the shark finally let go. The papers were silent on the fate of the shark but I’m also assuming that they then cooked and ate it. That would seem about right.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Mail boxes
I saw this group of mail boxes on a trip out into the country. You see lots them by the side of the road, sometimes in groups, like these, or sometimes standing solitary. Some of them are bought, ready-made, from a hardware store but mostly they‘re just made from junk - old metal drums, plastic containers, anything that can be cut open at one end and nailed to some kind of support.
Occasionally, you see some that are real works of art, complex metalwork creations, weatherproofed sculptures of birds, animals or strange machines, and you can almost picture their creators in their workshops down the end of the farm track, designing yet another mail box as a way of relaxing after a hard day on the land.
Mostly, though, they’re just bits of recycling left to stand out in all weathers, mostly blazing sun and wind-blown dust but some torrential rain, by the side of the road, just about affording some protection for the mail left inside. They seem rather frail and vulnerable, and not really up to the job of protecting what’s inside. After all, in spite of the web, lots of important stuff still comes by mail - from banks, the utility companies, solicitors - so why leave it in the care of half an old seed drum?
You can stand by many of them and scour the surrounding landscape for the house they serve without seeing a sign of habitation. The owners clearly don’t take a casual stroll down to pick up their mail and would more likely drive or check it when they were getting into the ute to go into the nearest town. The boxes are really out on a limb, almost abandoned. And yet no one worries about their mail being stolen, which says a lot for rural communities.
The one below seems to have a definite identity - 287 Irvines Road. If you were in a town, you’d look at an A to Z and find Irvines Road but here there’s just the tarmac road from Macksville to Bowraville and then the two dirt tracks heading off who knows where, both unmarked. And there’s no sight of number 287, or 285, or 289. Just the mail boxes.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Sink or swim
One of the things I like about Australia is that there’s always someone exercising and there’s always someone sitting in a café, often after they’ve been exercising. I’m glad to say that that I’m doing my bit to maintain this admirable state of affairs but I’ve had to withstand some cultural intimidation along the way. Exercise, and sport, is taken very seriously.
Fired by my enthusiasm to stay afloat and alive on the local beach - Diggers has a mysteriously mobile and treacherous rip that has been known to draw away unsuspecting holidaymakers - I decided to take myself off to the proudly named Coffs Harbour War Memorial Olympic Pool (I should say that “Olympic” refers to its size and, apparently, the aspirations of its regular users; the Games have never been held here).
It took me a few visits before I made it across the threshold, even at 9am, because for weeks the pool was booked for school competitions right through to lunchtime. Before 9am, the pool was used for “squads”, as one of the attendants told me. I didn’t bother asking which squads because I took it for granted that in every town, in every sport, every morning across Australia, “squads” are at work, striving for sporting domination, and possibly even enjoying it. They then go to the nearest café.
When I finally made my way in, it was very different to the siege-like atmosphere in many British public pools. I asked the jolly woman on the gate if they had lockers. “We do,” she replied. “But they’re not worth the trouble so if you‘ve got any valuables, you’d better give them to me.” She put my wallet and keys next to someone’s sandwiches on a shelf. No one bothers with the changing rooms, either. You arrive wearing your swimmers, shorts and a t-shirt so it’s straight to the pool, which is open-air and so vast, you can barely see the other end. In March, the air was pleasantly warm and the unheated water pleasantly cool and I started working on the only stroke available to me, the breast stroke, which, with practice, becomes reasonably efficient, despite my habit of lying in the water at an angle, like a surfacing submarine with a surfeit of ballast in the stern.
I flogged up and down, feeling glad the pool was empty as I was going so slowly (oh yes, there were no lifeguards; they seem to have no need for them). A couple more swimmers drifted in - there were never more than a three of us at that time of the morning - and then something like a torpedo went by in the next lane, trailing a stream of bubbles. Of course, I didn’t catch it and humiliation was complete when the torpedo was revealed to be a slim woman in an elegant swimsuit who, though clearly extremely fit and youthful in spirit, was even older than me. I’m fifty, for the record, and it would not be polite to hazard a guess at Ann’s age. We started chatting each morning, before, as she puts it “we’d better get down to business” and she powers off to the distant, far end of the pool while I flounder along in my lane. She also does more lengths than I do.
I’m impressed by Ann and, believe me, there are many more like her, all out there unintentionally humiliating passing Poms. I was even more impressed (yes, ok, even more humiliated) when, after a couple of weeks, she revealed that the pool is her second exercise session of the day and, that before 9am. “I usually go for a walk over Mutton Bird Island with some friends and then we have a long swim off Jetty Beach,” she told me casually. “But I like to do a few lengths here as well.”
Behind the bench where we leave our clothes, a new generation is prepared for the stern business of being Australian. In the teaching pool, protected from the sun by a wooden roof, children who can yet barely walk are having swimming lessons. “Long arms, Monty, long arms,” shouts the instructor. Inside, two small boys are made to race for a ball flung to the far side of the pool. Monty wins by a head, possibly because he has long arms for his age, or he uses his arms in some secret, Aussie-domination-of-sport way that makes his arms seem longer. I notice that they both have floats strapped to their backs, clearly to correct the tilting submarine tendency. If only I’d had their advantages.
Anyway, I’m having a break from all this because the pool has shut for what passes here for winter. I asked the pool’s owner, who works there full-time, how he passed the close season. “Grouting,” he replied. “It’s a big job.” They really are indomitable, these Australians.
Fired by my enthusiasm to stay afloat and alive on the local beach - Diggers has a mysteriously mobile and treacherous rip that has been known to draw away unsuspecting holidaymakers - I decided to take myself off to the proudly named Coffs Harbour War Memorial Olympic Pool (I should say that “Olympic” refers to its size and, apparently, the aspirations of its regular users; the Games have never been held here).
It took me a few visits before I made it across the threshold, even at 9am, because for weeks the pool was booked for school competitions right through to lunchtime. Before 9am, the pool was used for “squads”, as one of the attendants told me. I didn’t bother asking which squads because I took it for granted that in every town, in every sport, every morning across Australia, “squads” are at work, striving for sporting domination, and possibly even enjoying it. They then go to the nearest café.
When I finally made my way in, it was very different to the siege-like atmosphere in many British public pools. I asked the jolly woman on the gate if they had lockers. “We do,” she replied. “But they’re not worth the trouble so if you‘ve got any valuables, you’d better give them to me.” She put my wallet and keys next to someone’s sandwiches on a shelf. No one bothers with the changing rooms, either. You arrive wearing your swimmers, shorts and a t-shirt so it’s straight to the pool, which is open-air and so vast, you can barely see the other end. In March, the air was pleasantly warm and the unheated water pleasantly cool and I started working on the only stroke available to me, the breast stroke, which, with practice, becomes reasonably efficient, despite my habit of lying in the water at an angle, like a surfacing submarine with a surfeit of ballast in the stern.
I flogged up and down, feeling glad the pool was empty as I was going so slowly (oh yes, there were no lifeguards; they seem to have no need for them). A couple more swimmers drifted in - there were never more than a three of us at that time of the morning - and then something like a torpedo went by in the next lane, trailing a stream of bubbles. Of course, I didn’t catch it and humiliation was complete when the torpedo was revealed to be a slim woman in an elegant swimsuit who, though clearly extremely fit and youthful in spirit, was even older than me. I’m fifty, for the record, and it would not be polite to hazard a guess at Ann’s age. We started chatting each morning, before, as she puts it “we’d better get down to business” and she powers off to the distant, far end of the pool while I flounder along in my lane. She also does more lengths than I do.
I’m impressed by Ann and, believe me, there are many more like her, all out there unintentionally humiliating passing Poms. I was even more impressed (yes, ok, even more humiliated) when, after a couple of weeks, she revealed that the pool is her second exercise session of the day and, that before 9am. “I usually go for a walk over Mutton Bird Island with some friends and then we have a long swim off Jetty Beach,” she told me casually. “But I like to do a few lengths here as well.”
Behind the bench where we leave our clothes, a new generation is prepared for the stern business of being Australian. In the teaching pool, protected from the sun by a wooden roof, children who can yet barely walk are having swimming lessons. “Long arms, Monty, long arms,” shouts the instructor. Inside, two small boys are made to race for a ball flung to the far side of the pool. Monty wins by a head, possibly because he has long arms for his age, or he uses his arms in some secret, Aussie-domination-of-sport way that makes his arms seem longer. I notice that they both have floats strapped to their backs, clearly to correct the tilting submarine tendency. If only I’d had their advantages.
Anyway, I’m having a break from all this because the pool has shut for what passes here for winter. I asked the pool’s owner, who works there full-time, how he passed the close season. “Grouting,” he replied. “It’s a big job.” They really are indomitable, these Australians.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Bowraville
We went to Bowraville the other day, a small town inland and to the south of here. It’s easy to find. You just drive down the Pacific Highway for about an hour, turn left and keep driving for another twenty minutes or so. And you’re there. Similarly, you can reduce the directions for getting to us from Brisbane to “drive south on the highway for six hours, turn left at the Big Banana and we’re the fifth house on the right.” If you’re coming from Sydney, then you just drive north for eight hours and turn right at the Big Banana. That’s the sort of country it is.
It’s a small town and very quiet, the kind of place where, although thriving, you’d expect tumbleweed to greet you on the main street but it is just quiet and not abandoned at all. It was founded by cedar getters in 1850 though, of course, indigenous people were living there and still do. Cedar was known as “red gold” but real gold played a part in the town as well. In 1881, two brothers looking for stray bullock found traces of gold in a stone in the remains of a still-warm campfire and staked a claim. This was then promptly disputed by the men who had built the campfire as soon as they heard about it. But there was still mining in the area until the 1960s.
Bowraville Theatre
The buildings are old, for this country, and well-preserved. It has most things - a town clock, a hotel, a couple of lodging houses, a butcher, food store, a couple of cafes, and a race course. It also has a theatre, recently restored and re-opened by the town’s arts council, after more than 40 years. In its previous existence as the Raymond Theatre, the audience was segregated, the indigenous Gumbaynggir people sitting on inferior seats nearest the stage. The practice was highlighted in the sixties by a group of student civil rights campaigners known as the Freedom Riders and, eventually, the owner closed the theatre rather than face de-segregation. Now it’s been fully restored and, following a cleansing ceremony to mark the break with the past, there’s a programme of films, bush poetry readings and music.
The chair of the arts council is Dorothy James. Now in her seventies and not shy about it at all, she comes originally from Mumbles (and turned out to have gone to the same school as Sara’s father; and Sara’s mum knew Dorothy’s brother). After we’d all seen the theatre, she took us back to her home outside the town, a bungalow perched on the side of a valley with views from a wide verandah down to a creek and up the other side of the valley over fields and hillsides. In Britain, you’d call it isolated. She has a lively cattle dog, Ruby, and an old horse for immediate company, and has family living on a farm nearby. They were away for a weekend when we visited and Dorothy was happily looking after their ponies, dogs and chooks ie chickens. You got the impression this was all in a day’s work and more than welcome.
It’s a small town and very quiet, the kind of place where, although thriving, you’d expect tumbleweed to greet you on the main street but it is just quiet and not abandoned at all. It was founded by cedar getters in 1850 though, of course, indigenous people were living there and still do. Cedar was known as “red gold” but real gold played a part in the town as well. In 1881, two brothers looking for stray bullock found traces of gold in a stone in the remains of a still-warm campfire and staked a claim. This was then promptly disputed by the men who had built the campfire as soon as they heard about it. But there was still mining in the area until the 1960s.
Bowraville Theatre
The buildings are old, for this country, and well-preserved. It has most things - a town clock, a hotel, a couple of lodging houses, a butcher, food store, a couple of cafes, and a race course. It also has a theatre, recently restored and re-opened by the town’s arts council, after more than 40 years. In its previous existence as the Raymond Theatre, the audience was segregated, the indigenous Gumbaynggir people sitting on inferior seats nearest the stage. The practice was highlighted in the sixties by a group of student civil rights campaigners known as the Freedom Riders and, eventually, the owner closed the theatre rather than face de-segregation. Now it’s been fully restored and, following a cleansing ceremony to mark the break with the past, there’s a programme of films, bush poetry readings and music.
The chair of the arts council is Dorothy James. Now in her seventies and not shy about it at all, she comes originally from Mumbles (and turned out to have gone to the same school as Sara’s father; and Sara’s mum knew Dorothy’s brother). After we’d all seen the theatre, she took us back to her home outside the town, a bungalow perched on the side of a valley with views from a wide verandah down to a creek and up the other side of the valley over fields and hillsides. In Britain, you’d call it isolated. She has a lively cattle dog, Ruby, and an old horse for immediate company, and has family living on a farm nearby. They were away for a weekend when we visited and Dorothy was happily looking after their ponies, dogs and chooks ie chickens. You got the impression this was all in a day’s work and more than welcome.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Warning: Vortex looming
Feeling as though I'm being stalked by those ads at the top of the page. No sooner had I finished yesterday's posting, than they seized on the word "morning" and produced an offer for a video of film called "Joy in the Morning", starring Richard Chamberlain, for heaven's sake. I thought he'd gone to soap opera hell with his alter ego, Dr Kildare. Now they've changed and they seem to have been thinking about the word "breakfast." No doubt this posting will initiate some digital head-scratching and brow-furrowing. It's relentless. Should I stop now before I'm sucked into a post-modern vortex of self-reference, swirling around in hyper-space with cockroaches, Mortein, wallabies and humpbacked whales? Where will it all end?
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Beach
A little under the weather this morning, owing to unwooded chardonnay. Would wooded have been better? Who knows? Anyway, after taking Sara to work (she was, as usual, completely unaffected), I realised that all the tasks I’d planned for the day could be easily postponed until I was feeling better and, remembering all those mornings when I was feeling rough and dragged myself into the newsroom for a mammoth shift, I went for a walk on Diggers Beach, at the end of our road.
It’s never crowded, but, as this is Australia, there’s always someone exercising and at 8.45am I joined two runners, two walkers, looking determined but relaxed, and three surfers, bobbing gently up and down on a practically flat sea. I don’t think they had an hope of catching a wave; they were just glad to be there. Even though this is winter, the sun was blazing, the temperature was just topping twenty degrees, with a fresh breeze to remind me that the seasons change here as well.
In fact, the nearest the beach ever comes to being crowded is early on summer mornings, and I mean early, before six o’clock, when people like to get their exercise in before the heat of the day and, if they’re sharp, can also fit in a well-earned café breakfast before work. In fact, if you’re running, you can get quite out of breath exchanging greetings both with people you know and people you don’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re not just saying “hi”. We’re actually saying: “Hello. Isn’t this wonderful? I feel so lucky to be here under this blue sky, my bare feet in the sand, and the warm sun just loitering above the horizon. I’m so glad to be here and I can see you are too. There‘s no place I‘d rather be, not even in bed.”
So there’s a cast of regulars, though not all appear first thing in the morning. Sara’s brother-in-law, Colin, strides along the beach and over the headland before and after work most days, recently listening to his French lessons on his MP3 player in preparation for the family holiday. As I discovered, he can’t always hear you and he concentrates very hard, so greetings are sometimes apparently met with muttered phrases in French. Lucky I know him. Fisherman trawl the water’s edge with bits of fish on a string trying to tempt worms to the surface for bait. The mysterious Asian woman wanders back and fore, so shrouded against the sun by her huge hat and scarf that I have only had a glimpse of her face. Brazen men stride toward the rocks that lead to Little Diggers, which has become something of a nudist beach, even at 6am as I discovered on one of my first early-morning runs.
The surfers are always there, even if only standing on the boardwalk that leads from the car park, contemplating whether it’s worth getting wet and usually deciding it is, however calm the sea, if only for the pleasure of chatting with the others while waiting, optimistically, for a wave. Some days, though, they get very good surf. And there’s the East Coast Surf School which holds daily lessons, sometimes for entire classes of school children, marking out its classroom on the sand with a couple of flags. I suspect surfing is on the curriculum.
Sara has a colleague, Sally, who periodically throws open the doors of their office and tells the world outside: “We live in paradise,” thus disturbing the travelling gentlemen trying to sleep amid the parrot droppings in the park outside. And it was on one of those sunny, big-surf days during the school holidays when the sea, the sand, the bush and the sky were all sparkling, that I fully realised she was right. There were more people than usual on the beach, the numbers swelled by seasonal visitors to the local resort. I was making my way out through the surf when a very large, blue, slowly-curving wave rushed up. I was at the bottom and, many, many feet above me, was another swimmer. I dived, he plummeted and we met somewhere in the middle, both at the mercy of the wave. We emerged spitting water and smiling and ascertained we were both unhurt. Then he flung his arms wide, as if he were going to embrace me. I thought this was bit too friendly, even for Diggers, but what he wanted to do was to embrace the entire scene. Still breathless from our dunking by the wave, he stood there in the water and shouted: “This is just so good, so good.” He was on holiday, it turned out, and having the time of his life. And reminding me that I shouldn’t take it for granted.
It’s never crowded, but, as this is Australia, there’s always someone exercising and at 8.45am I joined two runners, two walkers, looking determined but relaxed, and three surfers, bobbing gently up and down on a practically flat sea. I don’t think they had an hope of catching a wave; they were just glad to be there. Even though this is winter, the sun was blazing, the temperature was just topping twenty degrees, with a fresh breeze to remind me that the seasons change here as well.
In fact, the nearest the beach ever comes to being crowded is early on summer mornings, and I mean early, before six o’clock, when people like to get their exercise in before the heat of the day and, if they’re sharp, can also fit in a well-earned café breakfast before work. In fact, if you’re running, you can get quite out of breath exchanging greetings both with people you know and people you don’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re not just saying “hi”. We’re actually saying: “Hello. Isn’t this wonderful? I feel so lucky to be here under this blue sky, my bare feet in the sand, and the warm sun just loitering above the horizon. I’m so glad to be here and I can see you are too. There‘s no place I‘d rather be, not even in bed.”
So there’s a cast of regulars, though not all appear first thing in the morning. Sara’s brother-in-law, Colin, strides along the beach and over the headland before and after work most days, recently listening to his French lessons on his MP3 player in preparation for the family holiday. As I discovered, he can’t always hear you and he concentrates very hard, so greetings are sometimes apparently met with muttered phrases in French. Lucky I know him. Fisherman trawl the water’s edge with bits of fish on a string trying to tempt worms to the surface for bait. The mysterious Asian woman wanders back and fore, so shrouded against the sun by her huge hat and scarf that I have only had a glimpse of her face. Brazen men stride toward the rocks that lead to Little Diggers, which has become something of a nudist beach, even at 6am as I discovered on one of my first early-morning runs.
The surfers are always there, even if only standing on the boardwalk that leads from the car park, contemplating whether it’s worth getting wet and usually deciding it is, however calm the sea, if only for the pleasure of chatting with the others while waiting, optimistically, for a wave. Some days, though, they get very good surf. And there’s the East Coast Surf School which holds daily lessons, sometimes for entire classes of school children, marking out its classroom on the sand with a couple of flags. I suspect surfing is on the curriculum.
Sara has a colleague, Sally, who periodically throws open the doors of their office and tells the world outside: “We live in paradise,” thus disturbing the travelling gentlemen trying to sleep amid the parrot droppings in the park outside. And it was on one of those sunny, big-surf days during the school holidays when the sea, the sand, the bush and the sky were all sparkling, that I fully realised she was right. There were more people than usual on the beach, the numbers swelled by seasonal visitors to the local resort. I was making my way out through the surf when a very large, blue, slowly-curving wave rushed up. I was at the bottom and, many, many feet above me, was another swimmer. I dived, he plummeted and we met somewhere in the middle, both at the mercy of the wave. We emerged spitting water and smiling and ascertained we were both unhurt. Then he flung his arms wide, as if he were going to embrace me. I thought this was bit too friendly, even for Diggers, but what he wanted to do was to embrace the entire scene. Still breathless from our dunking by the wave, he stood there in the water and shouted: “This is just so good, so good.” He was on holiday, it turned out, and having the time of his life. And reminding me that I shouldn’t take it for granted.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Whales and wallabies
Call me slow or naïve, but I was surprised to find that the adverts at the top of this page seem to be tracking what I write. Otherwise why else would they be plugging various forms of cockroach extinction and an insight into the disgusting secrets of roach life. (OK, so they've changed now and they're offering hotel deals here in Coffs). And can there really be someone offering roaches for sale on eBay? Live? Or stuffed? And for what? I found a couple of dead ones the other morning so if anyone wants to make me an offer..
We'll see what they make of this posting, which is also wildlife based. Llyw and I went out whale-watching and had a very successful trip. First we cruised down the coast with fine views of the Great Dividing Range just behind Coffs and it brought home just how narrow the coastal strip is here. It's rather sobering to think that the first settlers can have had no idea what was on the other side of that range, or if they'd ever find a way through it. The crew were scouring the sea with binoculars and, after an hour, announced that they'd sighted a humpback whale and we headed away from the coast.
It was a real spectacle when we reached the first pod, starting very quietly and building to a crescendo. First all we saw was the familiar water spouts but I'd never heard the enormous sighs that the whales make as they exhale and I wasn't prepared for the length of their backs as they curve through the water. After several deep breaths, the fluked tail makes an appearance as they dive and the whole affair seemed calmly impressive as they dived and reappeared several times.
Then the captain announced that his sonar had picked up two under the boat and they surfaced close to us, so close you could almost make out the texture of their barnacled backs. This was a real delight but then two adolescents (according to the captain) appeared on the other side of the boat and started beating their tails on the water, sending up showers of spray, and apparently trying to tell us to keep our distance. As the whales were somewhat bigger than the boat, that's pretty much what the captain did. It was a fine display.
Humpback whale saying "go away" to a small boat
Meanwhile, back at Diggers Beach, we had a visit from the Wallabies (rugby team). They have a training camp just up the road and came down for some surfing. Apart from the team jerseys, they were instantly recognisable by their size and the amount of surgical strapping apparently needed to keep their limbs together.
Right, let's see if anyone's offering whales or wallabies for sale on eBay...
We'll see what they make of this posting, which is also wildlife based. Llyw and I went out whale-watching and had a very successful trip. First we cruised down the coast with fine views of the Great Dividing Range just behind Coffs and it brought home just how narrow the coastal strip is here. It's rather sobering to think that the first settlers can have had no idea what was on the other side of that range, or if they'd ever find a way through it. The crew were scouring the sea with binoculars and, after an hour, announced that they'd sighted a humpback whale and we headed away from the coast.
It was a real spectacle when we reached the first pod, starting very quietly and building to a crescendo. First all we saw was the familiar water spouts but I'd never heard the enormous sighs that the whales make as they exhale and I wasn't prepared for the length of their backs as they curve through the water. After several deep breaths, the fluked tail makes an appearance as they dive and the whole affair seemed calmly impressive as they dived and reappeared several times.
Then the captain announced that his sonar had picked up two under the boat and they surfaced close to us, so close you could almost make out the texture of their barnacled backs. This was a real delight but then two adolescents (according to the captain) appeared on the other side of the boat and started beating their tails on the water, sending up showers of spray, and apparently trying to tell us to keep our distance. As the whales were somewhat bigger than the boat, that's pretty much what the captain did. It was a fine display.
Humpback whale saying "go away" to a small boat
Meanwhile, back at Diggers Beach, we had a visit from the Wallabies (rugby team). They have a training camp just up the road and came down for some surfing. Apart from the team jerseys, they were instantly recognisable by their size and the amount of surgical strapping apparently needed to keep their limbs together.
Right, let's see if anyone's offering whales or wallabies for sale on eBay...
Friday, June 18, 2004
Big Lights, Small Bells
Just back from a trip to Sydney to show Llywelyn the city and, after more than four months in little old Coffs Harbour, it was something of an eye-opener. There were crowds of people everywhere, none of whom Sara and I recognised, and some of them were wearing suits. Imagine! And at night there were many lights in the sky which apparently came from something called office blocks, which is where people in suits go to work, I’m told. Anyway, what with all that, and the shocking price of a short black (espresso to you), we were quite worn out and some of us woke rather later than others this morning.
I was breakfasting alone, after a run on the beach, surveying the banksias and the locust-ravaged yuccas in our terraced garden, when I heard the tinkling of a small bell. We’ve heard this before, on warm summer nights when we’ve been sitting on the patio, but never managed to discover what the bell was attached to. This morning revealed the owner to be a grey and black striped cat, looking extremely grumpy, possibly about being attached to the bell.
He may also have been grumpy about being a member of a persecuted species. Australia has its fair proportion of cat lovers but it also has a refreshingly large number of people who think, as one phone-in caller had it, that the only good cat is a dead cat. This is not because of the way cats torment vegetable gardens, which has always been my objection to the little sods, but because cats have brought Australia’s indigenous wildlife, particularly birds, to the point of extinction.
Now this may come as surprise to anyone woken here by the dawn chorus, which is deafening and varied, and less of a chorus and more of a heavy metal gig, but these people believe that every cat comes home in the morning covered in blood, fur and feathers after a night of slaughter. Point out that, birds aside, this fair isle has some of the most vicious and deadly indigenous wildlife in the world, and you’ll be told that cats are very clever.
Just how clever? Well, according to a leaflet published to encourage people to be “responsible” cat owners (there‘s a whole debate there, I know, but we‘ll leave it for the moment), every cat should have a collar with three bells on it. Baffled, I read on to learn that some cats were capable of muffling two bells, yes, two, with a paw, so having three ensured that the cat could move nowhere without alerting its prey.
Even I feel this may be going a bit far but I do look forward to my first sighting of a hunting cat, stumbling round the garden, desperately trying to cover its bells with a paw, and snorting soil out of its nostrils after yet another lurch into the ground as efforts to be a lean and hungry killing machine on three legs come to naught. And, after all the crapping in my vegetable gardens over the years, I’ll sit back in my patio chair, open another stubby, and have a good laugh.
I was breakfasting alone, after a run on the beach, surveying the banksias and the locust-ravaged yuccas in our terraced garden, when I heard the tinkling of a small bell. We’ve heard this before, on warm summer nights when we’ve been sitting on the patio, but never managed to discover what the bell was attached to. This morning revealed the owner to be a grey and black striped cat, looking extremely grumpy, possibly about being attached to the bell.
He may also have been grumpy about being a member of a persecuted species. Australia has its fair proportion of cat lovers but it also has a refreshingly large number of people who think, as one phone-in caller had it, that the only good cat is a dead cat. This is not because of the way cats torment vegetable gardens, which has always been my objection to the little sods, but because cats have brought Australia’s indigenous wildlife, particularly birds, to the point of extinction.
Now this may come as surprise to anyone woken here by the dawn chorus, which is deafening and varied, and less of a chorus and more of a heavy metal gig, but these people believe that every cat comes home in the morning covered in blood, fur and feathers after a night of slaughter. Point out that, birds aside, this fair isle has some of the most vicious and deadly indigenous wildlife in the world, and you’ll be told that cats are very clever.
Just how clever? Well, according to a leaflet published to encourage people to be “responsible” cat owners (there‘s a whole debate there, I know, but we‘ll leave it for the moment), every cat should have a collar with three bells on it. Baffled, I read on to learn that some cats were capable of muffling two bells, yes, two, with a paw, so having three ensured that the cat could move nowhere without alerting its prey.
Even I feel this may be going a bit far but I do look forward to my first sighting of a hunting cat, stumbling round the garden, desperately trying to cover its bells with a paw, and snorting soil out of its nostrils after yet another lurch into the ground as efforts to be a lean and hungry killing machine on three legs come to naught. And, after all the crapping in my vegetable gardens over the years, I’ll sit back in my patio chair, open another stubby, and have a good laugh.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
The smell of Mortein in the morning....
We’ve been lucky with the wildlife outdoors so far - there’s plenty of weird and wonderful stuff in the garden (see below) but we’ve not come across anything deadly. This is something of a relief because if you listen to some people every bush is laden with creatures dripping venom. However, some of the indigenous species are apparently only happy when they’re sharing your house.
Llywelyn arrived from the UK a couple of days ago to find me traumatised after an incident in the utility room. I had donned a pair of rubber gloves to wash some cycling kit (the water is very hot; it’s not that the kit was particularly unpleasant) and, after a while, felt something moving against my forefinger. I thought I’d touched a zip or something so carried on but then felt it again. I pulled off the glove to find a brown, barbed leg stuck to my finger, together with some brown scales. Turning the glove inside out revealed a mangled, rather soggy, cockroach, minus one leg. I’d obviously given it a good poke because it was, thankfully, dead.
They’re pretty common here and Sara has long adopted a regime of unwavering vigilance and powerful chemicals. I used to find a rolled-up newspaper took care of most things back home, especially the Daily Mail, because the sheer weight of prejudice contained within squashed most things flat. But I arrived here to find that Sara had become a great fan of Mortein, which seems to be a descendant of Agent Orange and DDT.
Death in a can
It works like this. You find a cockroach and you spray it with Mortein. The roach then flies straight at you and hangs on. If Sara’s wielding the can, she then sprays both you and the roach and tells you to stop complaining. The roach falls to the floor and lies on its back (I know how they feel) but it’s just teasing you. Try to sweep it into the dust pan and it’ll flip over and scurry off. Sara applies more chemicals at this stage; I tend to hit it with the can. If you can lop something off, it helps. They take a long time to die and the garden ants eat them alive, once immobilized. And they call this the lucky country.
We’ve also had Huntsman spiders in the lounge. They’re three to four inches across, hairy and muscular, and they can, and do, bite but they’re not poisonous. You wouldn’t want to squash them as the mess on your furnishings would be dreadful. Curiously, they react to Mortein (any port in a storm) in much the same way initially, as they leap off the wall towards you looking irritated. Further applications cause then to rear up on the hind legs and wave the front ones aggressively but they do slow down a bit. This is your chance to drop a glass over them and slide some paper underneath, giving you an opportunity to study your prey, if you wish. Deposit them in the garden and they stagger off into the undergrowth, spitting Mortein, and presumably working out how they can get back into the house.
Much as I abhor the use of powerful chemicals, I do find it satisfying to open the garage to find three or four recumbent roaches, victims of the surface spray version of Sara’s insecticide of choice. And I do love the smell of Mortein in the morning.
Llywelyn arrived from the UK a couple of days ago to find me traumatised after an incident in the utility room. I had donned a pair of rubber gloves to wash some cycling kit (the water is very hot; it’s not that the kit was particularly unpleasant) and, after a while, felt something moving against my forefinger. I thought I’d touched a zip or something so carried on but then felt it again. I pulled off the glove to find a brown, barbed leg stuck to my finger, together with some brown scales. Turning the glove inside out revealed a mangled, rather soggy, cockroach, minus one leg. I’d obviously given it a good poke because it was, thankfully, dead.
They’re pretty common here and Sara has long adopted a regime of unwavering vigilance and powerful chemicals. I used to find a rolled-up newspaper took care of most things back home, especially the Daily Mail, because the sheer weight of prejudice contained within squashed most things flat. But I arrived here to find that Sara had become a great fan of Mortein, which seems to be a descendant of Agent Orange and DDT.
Death in a can
It works like this. You find a cockroach and you spray it with Mortein. The roach then flies straight at you and hangs on. If Sara’s wielding the can, she then sprays both you and the roach and tells you to stop complaining. The roach falls to the floor and lies on its back (I know how they feel) but it’s just teasing you. Try to sweep it into the dust pan and it’ll flip over and scurry off. Sara applies more chemicals at this stage; I tend to hit it with the can. If you can lop something off, it helps. They take a long time to die and the garden ants eat them alive, once immobilized. And they call this the lucky country.
We’ve also had Huntsman spiders in the lounge. They’re three to four inches across, hairy and muscular, and they can, and do, bite but they’re not poisonous. You wouldn’t want to squash them as the mess on your furnishings would be dreadful. Curiously, they react to Mortein (any port in a storm) in much the same way initially, as they leap off the wall towards you looking irritated. Further applications cause then to rear up on the hind legs and wave the front ones aggressively but they do slow down a bit. This is your chance to drop a glass over them and slide some paper underneath, giving you an opportunity to study your prey, if you wish. Deposit them in the garden and they stagger off into the undergrowth, spitting Mortein, and presumably working out how they can get back into the house.
Much as I abhor the use of powerful chemicals, I do find it satisfying to open the garage to find three or four recumbent roaches, victims of the surface spray version of Sara’s insecticide of choice. And I do love the smell of Mortein in the morning.
Friday, June 04, 2004
Am I abroad?
Much as I dislike quoting Bill Bryson, he had a point about Australia and it was something like this: if you arrived from another English-speaking country, it didn’t feel as though you were in a foreign country. The language was the same, give or take the odd bit of jakka and spruiking, the buildings were much the same and so was the culture. He seems to have missed the crystal-clear blue sky and the sun beating down on his head but then he probably didn’t come here from the depths of a Welsh winter like I did. Even so, I knew what he was getting at. All that way, and yet it seems, well, familiar, the risk of sun-stroke aside.
You could almost feel disappointed, depending on why you came here. But you only need to go as far as your garden and things become very foreign indeed. We rent a house here in Coffs Harbour and the garden has been left in our care, including the fine stand of palm trees at the front, which keep off the worst of the sun (see, I’m talking like a foreigner already - the worst of the sun). But we get a sea breeze at night and the palm leaves brush against the outside wall of our bedroom, making a noise like a witch scratching to get in, or so my partner, Sara, tells me. She is, after all, still troubled by the dwarf in Bonanza (younger readers can go to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Bonanza) So a particularly vicious saw was purchased, the offending branch lassoed and pruned. It was not what I was used to as a gardener. That aside, the palms don’t need much care, apart from picking up the fronds and stems when they die and fall off and then trying to get six foot of intractable plant into the special wheelie bin for garden waste. Best not to be standing underneath the frond when it falls. I never had that problem on my allotment in Cardiff.
Out the back, where we have a patio and a steep terrace with banksias and other, as yet unidentified shrubs, it gets more foreign. Sitting, or rather sweating, out the heat wave that arrived shortly after I did, I watched pairs of rainbow lorikeets cavorting, usually upside down, as the banksia branches bend under their weight as they waddle to the ends to nibble the flowers. Occasionally, black cockatoos flew over head and I looked up one day to see two herons on the roof of the house behind. Black and white butterflies fluttered by on with wings like soup-plates.
At ground level, I found what appeared to be the only four-legged spider in the world. This I discovered was the St Andrew’s Cross spider (what it’s cross about, I don’t know) which appears to have four legs because it keeps its back legs firmly together, if you see what I mean. Again, I don’t know why but one could speculate. Penny lizards which, as their name suggests, are very small, scurry round in sunny bits and I’ve seen a proper, three-foot lizard sunning himself on the top of the wall, just at head height. You need to be prepared for something like that and I wasn’t. Rather more appealing is the blue-tongued skink (yes, it does have a blue tongue) that periodically scuttles round the patio. But I’m a bit worried about him as I haven’t seen him for weeks. He would have been useful when the locusts arrived and started eating their way through the landlord’s yuccas. You can hear them munching on the leaves, they leave huge droppings and they’re very hard to squash - the locusts that is.
The previous tenants left the back garden in a mess of weeds so a gardener was summoned by the letting agents to put it to rights. I mentioned that might plant some tomatoes. “I laugh at people who grow tomatoes“ was the forthright response. Prone to diseases, apparently, and they cost only $1 a kilo in season. Which is all true but doesn’t take into account the need to make a patch of foreign soil one’s own, to make it less foreign. So I have three herb plants, all flourishing, and mounted a piece of metal-work by a friend from Wales on an old tree stump. It makes wonderful razor-sharp shadows on the garden wall as the Australian sun wheels across the sky. It looks like it's found its place.
Richard Sewell's metalwork in the garden. For more of his life and work, see http://www.jarkman.co.uk
You could almost feel disappointed, depending on why you came here. But you only need to go as far as your garden and things become very foreign indeed. We rent a house here in Coffs Harbour and the garden has been left in our care, including the fine stand of palm trees at the front, which keep off the worst of the sun (see, I’m talking like a foreigner already - the worst of the sun). But we get a sea breeze at night and the palm leaves brush against the outside wall of our bedroom, making a noise like a witch scratching to get in, or so my partner, Sara, tells me. She is, after all, still troubled by the dwarf in Bonanza (younger readers can go to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Bonanza) So a particularly vicious saw was purchased, the offending branch lassoed and pruned. It was not what I was used to as a gardener. That aside, the palms don’t need much care, apart from picking up the fronds and stems when they die and fall off and then trying to get six foot of intractable plant into the special wheelie bin for garden waste. Best not to be standing underneath the frond when it falls. I never had that problem on my allotment in Cardiff.
Out the back, where we have a patio and a steep terrace with banksias and other, as yet unidentified shrubs, it gets more foreign. Sitting, or rather sweating, out the heat wave that arrived shortly after I did, I watched pairs of rainbow lorikeets cavorting, usually upside down, as the banksia branches bend under their weight as they waddle to the ends to nibble the flowers. Occasionally, black cockatoos flew over head and I looked up one day to see two herons on the roof of the house behind. Black and white butterflies fluttered by on with wings like soup-plates.
At ground level, I found what appeared to be the only four-legged spider in the world. This I discovered was the St Andrew’s Cross spider (what it’s cross about, I don’t know) which appears to have four legs because it keeps its back legs firmly together, if you see what I mean. Again, I don’t know why but one could speculate. Penny lizards which, as their name suggests, are very small, scurry round in sunny bits and I’ve seen a proper, three-foot lizard sunning himself on the top of the wall, just at head height. You need to be prepared for something like that and I wasn’t. Rather more appealing is the blue-tongued skink (yes, it does have a blue tongue) that periodically scuttles round the patio. But I’m a bit worried about him as I haven’t seen him for weeks. He would have been useful when the locusts arrived and started eating their way through the landlord’s yuccas. You can hear them munching on the leaves, they leave huge droppings and they’re very hard to squash - the locusts that is.
The previous tenants left the back garden in a mess of weeds so a gardener was summoned by the letting agents to put it to rights. I mentioned that might plant some tomatoes. “I laugh at people who grow tomatoes“ was the forthright response. Prone to diseases, apparently, and they cost only $1 a kilo in season. Which is all true but doesn’t take into account the need to make a patch of foreign soil one’s own, to make it less foreign. So I have three herb plants, all flourishing, and mounted a piece of metal-work by a friend from Wales on an old tree stump. It makes wonderful razor-sharp shadows on the garden wall as the Australian sun wheels across the sky. It looks like it's found its place.
Richard Sewell's metalwork in the garden. For more of his life and work, see http://www.jarkman.co.uk
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